Tenam Studio was asked by the Adams Ave. Business Association to put on performance art for the street Fair. We presented ten unique performances featuring some of San Diego’s most riveting and liberated performance artists. Read on!
Saturday Sept 24th
12pm - Ritual #16: release blanket from shelter
Release blanket from shelter was distinct and intense, entrancing the audience with potent mysticism and a profound execution of patience, suspense, and particularity by the artist duo, Robyko. Ritual #16, its context described in their artist bio HERE, is one of a larger project comprised of 19 rituals unfolding and taking place over the course of years involving events they categorize as “research” happenings and the rituals themselves. The titling of the ritual events were formed together, and they unveil and are created in an undetermined order based on fateful luck in the lives of the duo.
The performance began with Robert and Emiko symmetrically positioned in chairs on opposite sides of the stage, holding a pole with a white sheet attached used to hide and gradually unveil a scene of two dolls with wings nestled and facing one another in bed-like harmony. The progression of the performance was comprised of the duo rotating the pole to wrap the sheet around it at intervallic points cued by the sound track. Their chosen soundtrack of experimental Indian classical music likely evoked taboo spiritualism to the majority of San Diego/American/Western ears present and helped to create an experience of playful anticipation.
Once the sheet was fully wound, with dolls on display, Robyko faced one another to then exit the stage area. The most striking, masterful moments of their performance involved how they executed with their eyes and hands. I distinctly recall looking at the eyes of Emiko and being struck with the piercing sensation of light beams. Contrastingly, there was warmth and power in the hands of Robert as he and Emiko turned the pole to wrap the sheet boldly, like servants in reverence. As a whole, the introspection of the ritual performance taking place behind the sliding glass doors of Tenam brought curiosity and a mood of precious containment, like doll figurines in a box.
As a host, my experience working with them was made of trust and excitement for their multi-layered vision. The detail with which ROBKYO conceptualized, rehearsed, and executed ritual #16 created an easeful, yet complex environment in which their performance could take place. They were perhaps the most logistically prepared group to perform for the Tenam series at the fair. From the moment they gaffa taped two feathers to the ceiling of the studio, the space was honored and blessed by their spirits of creativity.
View on Youtube ----> https://youtu.be/YukFN4R04JA
Saturday Sept 24th
1pm - Onward to Heredom
"Onward to Heredom" was the first session to take place in the Nomadic Academy for Creative Consciousness, taught by Professor Ynot, the super/alter/actual ego of Tony Allard. Prof Ynot lit up the streets of Adams Ave., welcoming all in attendance. There was great curiosity and confusion in the air, as the performance began with the professor biking away from the stage area in order to speak through a broken, crunchy signal, testing the limits of the wireless headset microphone. He rode up to the front of Tenam, shouting many delicious statements of absurdity such as "one plus two, go away," "sip the poison, and spill the water of life," and "here has always been there." Following his explanation of the academy, which can be further explored here, the professor went on to invite everyone to join through a process of scanning his "third eye" QR code while he shakes an xyz axis made of seed pods from a local tree. Other gems by the professor:
"Rational thought is a failed experiment and should be phased out!"
"Common opinion is the ruin of our souls. something borrowed which we mistake as our own"
"We got to NACC"
"Clutch at madness instead."
View on Youtube ---->https://youtu.be/D8vTkOxKsv8
Saturday Sept 24th
2pm - Tony at the Carwash
Nancy Ross as Tony as Prof Ynot as Heckety
Lucy “Loop” Forton and Severin Stevenson as Carwash performers
Leslie Fisher and Lexi Pulido as furniture and car washers
Lexi’s audio reflection ——> https://www.patreon.com/posts/audio-from-fair-73602344?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator
This piece was conceptualized to celebrate the history of performance art taking place at the Adams Ave. Carwash. I got the chance to hear tales of these events from when Tony Allard was involved in the early 2000's as a curator and performer and his discovery of the character Heckety after being gifted a fox mask.
Heckety was a trickster persona embodied by Prof. Ynot, Tony’s alter ego. The inception present in performing this skit with Tony in the audience was extremely exciting to create. Nancy as Tony as Professor Ynot as Heckety had the opportunity to act out as a trickster to real life Tony. Following this up with Cane Stealer was the ultimate inception of the weekend.
View on Youtube ----> https://youtu.be/dEcEuPRjpzE
Saturday Sept 24th
3pm - Cane Stealer
Lucy “Loop” Forton as the Cane Stealer
Nancy Ross as Tony as Prof Ynot as Heckety
Lexi Pulido, Tony Allard, Leslie Fisher, Sasha Syeed, and Severin Stevenson as Cane people
To me, Lexi, creating and performing this was the most glorious of moments all weekend. I am utterly devastated to explain that the performance is not viewable except the last few minutes of it on video. I had a weekend of uploading 25 videos, and in the mess of it all, exported and uploaded this to youtube, thought the upload was successful, then discovered my initial export was missing the first 12 minutes of the performance entirely. I was so confident I had successfully uploaded all the videos before double checking, and I wanted to remove the videos from the memory disk before leaving to travel abroad, I rushed to delete the original files for all the uploaded performances. It was the following night where I realized my horrific error, and I will never regret anything so much as this in the year two thousand twenty-two.
Before I deleted it, I got to skim the performance myself. I watched it. It was absolutely astounding. Lucy was made for the role of Cane Stealer and stepped into it with masterful execution. Lucy as Cane Stealer crept behind trees, poles, audience members, and in the most hilariously menacing way, tricked and fought every last one of the Cane People into victimhood. In one scene, Leslie, cane person with scout vest on, gets tricked by Lucy gesturing a “hey what’s that over there?” style finger point. The way in which Leslie, so perfectly aloof, turns away with her smiling face as Lucy snags the cane from her hands is a priceless moment in history. In another scene, Sasha Syeed, dressed in a lavender robe and plush flower hat, get his cane stolen and shakily falls to the ground, quivering so ridiculously with the capacity to induce much laughter. Picture all 5 of us cane persons, flailing, shaking, upside-down dog paddling, crab hand clenching, and faces contorted with absurdist expression, all fallen to the ground and lying with our backs on the street and sidewalk scattered outside Tenam. It was the moment I had been wanting and laughing to curate for months.
It really happened. Not to mention the glory of getting to be the first cane person to enter after directing everyone with my vision. It was only 20 minutes before the performance I explained to everyone involved how cane people were “born with a cane in their hands” and “couldn’t possible imagine reality without their canes.” They are “completely helpless” without their canes and enter a relentless “void of longing” when their cane is taken away from them. I wanted to live that moment to its fullest, and I gave it my all, kicking my legs up and out with every step and joyously parading myself and my cane throughout the street.
The great, Tony Allard himself was second cane person to enter, and we created a moment of collaborative cane dancing that can never be replicated in the history of the universe. To all the performers and to those who will never get to witness this, I am so sorry I deleted this video. I can’t imagine performing this again, either. Maybe we will. I don’t know. I will compile whatever videos might be out there and offer as much of the remnants as possible.
View the end remnant on Youtube ----> https://youtu.be/uYOjbD9srig
Saturday Sept 24th
4pm - Mayor Tacoghost
Bob Pierzak - composition, lead vox, director
Phil Bowden - keys
Lexi Pulido - backup vox and hype
Golly, the socio-cultural debate surrounding this performance was sticky with push and pull and majorly exhaustive. We concluded announcing “PG-13” as a rating would suffice as a barrier of defense from stark ostracizing. Nonetheless, there’s not much you can do to receive wholesome support from your community when you begin with a song like “Shits like a horse,” featuring me, Lexi, emptying out a fanny pack of brown, fuzzy balls onto the collapsed, horizontal body of Dr. Bob Pierzak.
Surprisingly, it was not me who left that performance with the most shame. Bob heard the news of a disheartened street fair roamer who questioned and sorrowfully sighed at the sight of doll babies scattered across the streets of Adams Ave, and Bob genuinely felt bad to offend and make painful the life of this random man. I was so confused and had already done so much inner dialogue to conceptualize a logical defense for the performance that took place in and representative of my latest business establishment, Tenam Studio.
Okay, so maybe I should talk about the performance. It was truly phenomenal. I could defend the hell out of it’s melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, lyrical, conceptual, original, penetrative, and immeasurably radical complexities. Pretty much, on all ends, Mayor Tacoghost smashes. If only the great truth of “offense” as a trait of the warring ego was well known enough to allow for logical conversation. Unfortunately, we live in a world of defense and war. For those not actively practicing dissolution of the norm, I can only imagine the types of chemical neurology feeding into cancellation culture within and outside or other norms made larger than the potential look under the microscope.
I think you should probably just watch.
View on Youtube ----> https://youtu.be/eAEQFhHnbVQ
Sunday Sept 25th
12pm - Thrown into the Sea
Katie Berns - The Fallen and Anointed
Lexi Pulido, Leslie Fisher, Michelle Arneson - Bestowers
Listen to the audio reflection here ——> https://www.patreon.com/posts/audio-from-fair-73602344?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator
View on Youtube ----> https://youtu.be/58XaAg_Vclg
Sunday Sept 25th
1pm - Yoga at a Dive Bar
Lexi Pulido - Yogi
Michelle Arneson - Hot Chick at Bar
Christian Drugan - Bar Patron
Phil Bowden - Bartender
Listen to the audio reflection here ——> https://www.patreon.com/posts/audio-from-fair-73602344?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator
View on Youtube ----> https://youtu.be/pN0lzB_Fo34
Sunday Sept 25th
2pm - Discipline Enables Freedom
Listen to the audio reflection here ——> https://www.patreon.com/posts/audio-from-fair-73602344?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator
View on Youtube ----> https://youtu.be/WwZR_0KNZY0
Sunday Sept 25th
3pm - thank you, sorry
This performance, similar to “Yoga at a dive bar,” was still being conceptualized in the 45min prior to it taking place. I knew I wanted to create a tornado trap and had decided upon that the day prior. I made the track the morning of, including meditative breath, the sound bowl, snippets of songs about lovers, and the sound of mumbled, under the breath pleas of the actual statement, “thank you, sorry.”
There was a moment where I told Nancy the whole thing reminded me of being a tornado, and she bestowed her party ribbons (and rainbow paint) upon me to utilize. She figured I could enact tornado energy with them, and she was right. I did create a short repetitive motion plan with the ribbons a stick to recite a poem I had written. Didn’t want to look contrived or without talent with the ribbons, so I bailed on that idea. On this note, I must tell the story of the poem.
The story goes like this. Lexi is at Nancy’s house in a bit of a personal pickle with an introspective, struggling mind, and finds an empty notebook on which to write an impromptu poem. There was a short, loving letter written at the front of the notebook from whomever was gifting it to who I assumed to be Nancy because it was in her room. However, confusingly and in the back of my brain, I already was aware the handwriting was an uncanny match of hers. I convinced myself the note was for her, but it was actually written by her.
THE POEM
Abuse - when you have a cop out
Demasiado - when you do not establish a line
Not quite comfortable - when the peak is exceeded
Organized - a savior of lost souls
Later, after writing this poem, I found out she bought the notebook for me and had written the short, loving letter at the start for me. She was planning on gifting me the notebook, and, through a magnetism of time and destiny, I reached for it before it was bestowed, unaware of its intended destination.
The poem energetically pairs with the headspace from which I utilized the phrase “thank you, sorry” in my actual relationships. I do believe “Thank you, sorry,” is a phrase with which many tornado people can identify. Once you state the “tornado people” concept, I think most people understand what I mean. If you don’t know, you will eventually receive it, or you’ve needed to say it for a while now. Essentially, I decided the performance was supposed to be a gesture made to open a portal into that energetic space. In combining tornado-like movement, poetry, painting, spinning, tape spirals of coercion, and expressions of despair and anxiety, I pulled out layers of introspection, unintentional manipulation, well-intentioned confusion of love, and the overall mood of the statement “thank you, sorry.” I imagine it was uncomfortable yet playful for the audience, and that’s precisely what I was going for.
Following the performance, I touched base with Sean in prep of SUPER NORMAL while still dressed in my rainbow black outfit. Sean said to a child present, “Look, it’s that weird lady.” Seeing the child, I knew there was great hilarity and confusion built into that moment, and I didn’t really do much to acknowledge or refute the concept of me as a weird lady. I know I am, but when you say it to a child, you have to scan the vast variable of influence taking place in that concept. I believe him saying this however did play a role in how I felt about the performance. I didn’t mean to scare anyone, and I hope I didn’t. Overall, the performance execution also felt a little unrefined, but conceptually impactful.
Listen to the audio reflection ----->https://www.patreon.com/posts/audio-from-fair-73602344?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator
View on Youtube ----> https://youtu.be/q5E7PlwOdMQ
Sunday Sept 25th
4pm - SUPER NORMAL
Listen to the audio reflection ----->https://www.patreon.com/posts/audio-from-fair-73602344?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator
View on Youtube ----> https://youtu.be/qn1txsVb5Is
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