This week, time was not found, people were invited, jackets were loved, many people were awkwardly told "f@#$ you", and the teapot boiled on and strong.
Monday April 24th
Title: "Find Time"
Instructions: Sing freely. Be in the moment with people. Cut some flowers.
Why? About two weeks ago, I made a track for someone about finding time to get together. It was a minute or two long improvisation with the repeated words "find the time to find the time to find the time...." I had this tune in my head this morning. I suppose any phrase we all hear often enough, if put to song, triggers the song nearly as frequently as the phrase is heard.
Rehearsal Discoveries: A morning jog and some light vocal meditations prepared my body more so than days without.
Performance Write Up: I was originally going to cut the flowers, but as I was stepping through the curtain, I decided to put the scissors down because I didn't like them as an additional part of the picture. I wanted the subjects to just be me and the flowers, and the scissors took up presence as their own tool, lime green and prominent. Maybe it was just the umph of the color. If they were metal scissors I might've used them.
I didn't do a full warm up, and I wanted to make sure I was using my voice well. So, I used the "hm" sound for grounding into technique. I stuck with this simple meditation until. I was able to open up into to the melody. Pairs of movement and sound became apparent. Pulling the flowers out became long tones of "hm," while destruction of the flowers was more rhythmic and timed with whatever the action was.
I accidentally dropped flowers. Whenever I would drop a flower, I would pause singing to pick it up. I figured that was good because being in the moment and finding the time means being with what you're doing and not ignoring anything. "Oops" creates a pause, and the big metaphor is as such. Accidents force us to pause. Carelessness and the mistakes that come from carelessness force us to pause out of necessity with which to be dealt. In this way, we lose the moment to dealing with the past. However, this is obviously a moment. (lol) Pick up the flower. Deal with it. Process it. Witness.
There was a nice moment in the middle. It was a semi-atonal, exploration bit about 3/4 the way through. There are moments of exploration, play, and not knowing what to do while we try and find what to do. Bouncing around, reaching.
View on youtube here-->> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nHFyV7Gy_4
Tuesday April 25th
Title: "Invitation" Feat Lauren Reed
I, Lexi had a Dr's appt, so I invited Laurent to sub for me! (invitation)
Lauren then invited (INVITATIONNN) audience members to follow the prompts given to them as written on sheets of paper such as.
"Tell me one of your most compulsive thoughts"
"Tickle Lauren for 2 min, but she can't laugh"
"Tell me anything you missed from childhood"
"throw three grapes into my mouth"
This was so cute to watch. Everyone is together sharing parts of themselves, engaging in intimacy of physical touch, goofiness, and personal stories. Lauren, as a passive receiver to the words and actions of the audience is a brilliant role reversal style performance transferring some of the performance responsibility and power over to the audience. Thank you, Lauren!
View on youtube here-->> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW3EethEqAs
Wednesday April 26th
Title: "I Love Jackets" Feat Sergey Kolivayko and Lexi Pulido
Instructions: Be cold. Outstretched hand offers a jacket. You love jackets. Outstretched hand wants jacket back. You are cold. Repeat with many jackets.
Why? I love jackets. Sergey has many jackets.
Rehearsal Discoveries: I don't remember much about this day. I am currently writing this blog post in July 2023.
Performance Write Up: I would argue this is a pretty simple clowning scenario. Juxtaposing extreme, warm joy with melancholic, cold sadness is like level 1 expression. Because of this, it was a really fun rollercoaster to be on. Recently, I described performance like a fun rollercoaster that people should all hop onto. That's the big sentiment in bringing the world into "Everything is Art."
View on youtube here-->> https://youtu.be/3aT4MYU1F04
Thursday April 27th
Title: "For all the we are" Feat. June Grato
Listen to the post performance audio here!
View on youtube here-->> https://youtu.be/GKSDKGw77Kk
Friday April 28th
Title: "Kettle On Kettle Off" Feat Leslie Fisher and Emiko of ROBYKO
Instructions: Lexi is a teapot. Leslie and Emiko have very important matters to discuss. So important, as a matter of fact, they leave the teapot on the stove to boil into a piercing, tea kettle scream. They enjoy their tea and continue to discuss highly sophisticated information.
Why? Absurdist scenarios are worth creating. Everyone loves tea.
Rehearsal Discoveries: Emiko had the brilliant idea to fashion me with scarves to be most in the image of a teapot. I brought the stretchy dress from "Optimistic Momentum."
Emiko and/or Leslie did a fair amount of planning between themselves which I am unaware of, but it resulted in the two of them showing up with a vocabulary like none other. I was wary of the volume levels when setting up and nervous about my screaming event to unfold.
I had just found a balancing board at a thrift store which I thought to use for my vocal students to increase their postural awareness of balance. This became a perfect lazy susan for my heavy, teapot ass.
Performance Write Up: Leslie imagined using the fog machine to fill the room, which I forgot to set up, so it did not occur. Oops.
View on youtube here-->> https://youtu.be/sRp3H--x6cU
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