Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Spotlight!

Hi Karen, As a homework assignment, could you please check out a book from the library on the artist Agnes Martin. Make sure the book has a lot of images, though, you may also like her writing. Please bring the book to class on Tuesday, August 25th.


Spotlight!

The hot lights record every detail as I walk across a wall--not just any wall, but a huge white wall in the Whitney Museum of Art. Pulleys, straps, harnesses, winches, ropes and strings keep my body from crashing to the floor. I feel light, but lopsided. My moon feet plod tentatively; my arms straight out for balance at first, soon relax into swaying vertiginous stems. The spotlights force abundant shadows below me into an unsuspecting dance of their own. I am free! Yet, I am not free.


Suspended!

I am no longer alone. Trisha Brown, our choreographer, releases another dancer, then another, then another, until all six of us are on the wall. We meet and pass each other, wiping our feet on the holy white wall where sanctified art transmogrifies into history. This will be history too. Who has ever walked on a wall? Who has ever surrendered their gravity for art?


Shine!

The heat from the spotlights fries my left side, all my internal bodily organs shift obediently to my right side; my long brown hair--a rebel freedom flag--falls sideways, too. My shadow is dark and crisp near my shoes and oozes out over the wall as it reaches for the floor. I lift one leg and watch as a flat, gawky bird appears, then disappears when I put my foot down. I meet up with Carmen and relish watching our combined shadows evoke clucking fowl, reluctant donkeys, or sea creatures. The shadows eventually disappear into the dull grayness at the bottom of the wall. The light blinds me and binds me to the wall. Like my God, there could be tourists here! I mean, they could be watching as Elaine films us.


Swing! Sway! Storm the Light!

I want to be free of this dance, its constraints. Why not push OUT from the wall, twirl the puppet strings round and round like I did as a kid on a swing and then let them unwind likety-split, OR do a high-kicking can-can, a somersault (are these waist belts made to go 360 degrees)? How about a crawl on my hands and knees? Could I stand on my head? Oh, the shapes of my shadow then! I am free. I am NOT free!

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