Tuesday Night Post #2-17

Awaken,

In birth we find a void to fill.  We are mass. Thought is light. Will is might. We drag across the floor to soon reach higher and in this want we walk on two.  What we want we seek it out. What we learn we spit it out.  Our excrement's sent away to forget what has made this thought go away.  In a path to life of change, do your will to know the game. 

Happy Birth Day.

-DBL

*     *     *     *     *

Can I tell you of a feeling

that I once sought to see?

A liquid sight of shimmer and fluid light

This primal element

we once held tight

Clear and lively it did flow

On our scaly form

we once knew

Much was the same with the carnal

but renewed

In this fluid we found rite

With this knowledge we turned it up right

Dry and fair

just we stand

With this Pisces in one hand

With mistakes we correct the fire

This replaces emotions in stark

shared

and ripped desire

In the way we structure land

changes forms that can’t be planned

Face the front and leave it square

In the truth we hold it bare

Trying to straighten a rope that’s loose

Lost control

Broke the tooth

"a Sentient Approach, a Cybernetic Reproach" (night two)

D.B.R.P. Performing in Solo Dolo #2

@ Highways Performance Space,

Santa Monica, Ca. 

(First Night of Solo Dolo #2)

Tuesday Night Post #2-16

Aspiring Artists,

Let it rain let it pour, is that gorgeous girl on the corner a whore? Will it wash the stain away? Doubt it can cleanse what permeates from Laurel Canyon to Ed Ruscha.  My lovely town what a hound, now downtown smells like canine drown.   Much better than the human waste that once could levitate.  Just some hometown lovin.

-DBL

*     *     *     *     *

Disconnecting

I have recently have had this want to disconnect.  It’s not really a new feeling but a feeling that I have been actively acting on.  Let me be more specific, disconnection from the art world, the “fine art “ world.  Granted one main reason is the hollowness that is the LA art world.  I am not being harsh or bias, I have come to terms with this.  Hollywood permeates though out LA.  I call this permeation “Hollywood” for lack of a better description.  Some might call it LA or superficial but to me, the LA I grew up with was not superficial.  It was not even Hollywood.  Only until I was old enough to get around on my own did I start to go to the “Hollywood” scene, you know punk rock, Hollywood blvd, clubs, Goth what ever you want to call that dope show.  That was a different world.  I am from LA not Pasadena, Santa Monica or any of the out skirts that we call LA county or sub division.  Born and raised and seen the many sides of LA and recently have started to fall in love with it again, but that’s another story.

Let me get back to the art world I speak of.  There is another reason for this want and action.  Like in every scene I have witness or been part of, it only satisfies one facet of my interest at a time.  The art scene is way to “Scene”, and way to pretentious and full of isms that by its own accord disconnects itself from the viewer (specifically the viewer but the artist to, but I know most artist are fluent in isms, at least enough to get by).  I am interested more in the viewer.  When I go to a show and the only creative phenomenon I see is the artist finding new ways to stroke themselves, their peers or worse their predecessors. I find no transcendence of concept into light. 

In the last few years I have been around a lot of performers (and in the past have always surrounded myself with more musicians than artist) I have noticed a comfort there for myself.  Not to say I feel at home, far from that.  Being backstage at an event has been something I have taken with a casual stride, but if I stop and think about it, its terribly artificial and would make me incredibly anxious…so I don’t.  I’m just there for the snacks.

 I think it’s the value the performer gives the audience that I find honorable.  Without them there could not exist any dialogue or reason.  An audience is just an extension of an experience.  They will laugh, cry, set the energy levels of the event or just tell you something after the experience.  They are not just going to show up for the wine and cheese or show up just to been seen (hey I am guilty of that too, been going to art openings since I was in Jr. high), and if they do it’s a big price to pay, sitting or experiencing something they have absolutely no interest in. 

Let me clarify what I mean when I say audience, an audience is not a static sitting mass.  For example I know of a Butoh performance in a cave in which only dancers were at attendance, but no “audience”.  There was no need for audience, but the dialogue that must have occurred between performers must have been intensely profound.  Each dancer was part of the “audience” essential part of the experience.  We can have an argument about if any audience is needed to make art, but that argument is none sense unless we are talking about self-exploration.   Have at it if it is, does not include anyone else so why even argue that with someone if you don’t care who knows.  Why would anyone engage in a discussion like that for any other reason than a thought exercise is something I am not sure I really understand, with my reasoning Self. 

Yes you can argue that in a very arty dogmatic sort of way, but I am losing interest in that forum.  Its like having a argument with a significant other and forgetting why you even started that argument but for what ever reason neither side wants to subside…maybe just for the simple reason to have a reason to have a reason.  It’s sorta a hollow profound venture.  Feels like something epic is being conjured, but is it really? Again I am not opposed to pushing the limit or opposed to the Avant-Garde.  What I speak of is masturbatory incest that CAN be institutional investigation in art.  Its like if every one sat around bored because every one of life’s questions had been resolved and some one just needed something to do (and from experience few higher level art is really like this.  It just seems like that when you peel the first layer of the onion, it validates it as a intellectual investigation, the true meaning is much more coded and far removed from the uninitiated… but again that’s a different story).  Don’t think we are quite there just yet.

The Nor Cal art scene is the only scene that I have seen, as of now, that was more focused on the artist to artist to audience dialogue.    Everyone was really about the making.  Every one for the most part was willing to get down and dirty and collaborate or experiment.  And it was good art!  Who would of thought?  Of course this required you as an artist to step up to the plate.  Make! 

I think a lot of LA artist talk about making or wish they were making.  Hey its not a put down its hard to make in LA or anywhere.  After all there is a nightlife for every one of you out here.  God knows how hard it would be to make in NYC.  Not really interested in knowing really.  And again I am talking in broad terms I know folks that are making in NYC and folks that are not making much in Nor Cal and folks that are making for themselves and no body else. Everything is what you bring to it.  Plus or minus what you have at your disposal. 

Even when we disconnect we hopefully connect with something else.  I think that is what I am trying to say.  Mostly now I am connecting with corporal transformation and the many ways that can manifest.  The art scene at times is not cerebral enough for me.  I get that in science, spirituality, yes religion, tech and in people that are being creative and are profoundly investigating truly fascinating things but are not part of the art world.  I know there are groups and artist that do not fall into the pit that I am describing, but those artists might have some similar thoughts or they might be dead or extremely stoned. Unplug to re-plug.

This is not really a put down to LA.  Mostly to the established art world.  As of this moment LA is one of the centers of it…

Oh, lets not forget there is…A SHIT LOAD of moneys in this establishment (I’m not even going to touch on how this discolors it all). 

And yes performers in LA are a horrible breed they should all be made to wait on us, bring us delicious food, drinks…oh yeah, right…

Honestly sarcastic and profoundly foolish,

-Ass-piraling Farce-rest

Tuesday Night Post #2-15

Viewers,

Some refections on this past performance.

-DBL

*     *     *     *    *

Reflections on Performance Art as Self-Transformation

            I want to keep this thought brief because of other deadlines and because any further thought will require the need for isms and ists, which I at times don’t have the stomach for.  Yes these things are required to be properly descriptive, but like I hope to express, sometimes definitions restrict thought, which restricts understanding and action. 

            I do hope to be clear as much as I hope to release these thoughts that I have been experiencing at this moment.

            If I would allow my definition of what I do be said with my own thoughts I would say I don’t consider myself a Performer or a Dancer.  I may perform and I may dance but titles such as these, in my minds eye, present a certain definition and restrict understanding. We all dance and to some extent we all perform, this I do believe.

            My approach to my performance work is much like the approach one might take with a ritual to cause change, i.e. an Initiation Ritual, or moving slightly away from the sacred, a traumatic episode in ones life that enables a change of course.  I see now that this is one of the reasons I try to stay away from a fully choreographed movement piece.  Within every performance work I have done there have always been variables that are known and variables that will be known once the work has been completed.  These problems could only be solved within the piece.  These variables are technical variables and also personal restructuring variables.  I have been criticized before for not having all my answers ready at will, but this is my art, myself, my growth.  That is not to say I am not structured in my approach.  If the viewer sees the beauty in the answers I am delight.  My hope is that they find beauty in my voyage.   I mustn’t ask for much from my viewer though.  We all have our bias and our limits.  I say this in human terms not in fabricated IQ terms.  You cant see what I am thinking just as I cant feel what you are feeling, but that is where the delight lies, in the quest to understand. 

            Some of these concepts I am speaking of ironically are hard to speak of.  I feel that there are something’s in this world that are unspeakable.  Just like we can try to describe a flavor but the only real way to know is to taste it.  This I think occurs with understanding and creating.  At times I feel things can only occur with in a piece with the right variables that can not be explain, but do have a profound effect on me and my understanding. 

            This last performance piece, “a Sentient Approach, a Cybernetic Reproach” I do feel changed me profoundly.  It is strange to see a concept develop a tangent to reemerge years later thinking it had long been forgotten seeing that it was still developing subdermally.  This is one of those things I have trouble explaining.  I think the human mind has the capacity to process information in ways that are not as linear as we wish it would be, that’s not to say it can’t be as helpful in the same regards. 

            There seems to be a checklist somewhere stored in my mind.  Periodically I realize something that I have just accomplished has been on that checklist and has now been fulfilled.  Sometimes without knowing I had put it there long ago.  This is how I feel about this piece. 

            One thing I would like to note.  For a few years now I have started to factor in a variable in the performances that would physically linger after.  I have chosen henna.  I enjoy the aesthetical addition to the bodywork and the lasting reminder of the transformation, be it permanently or a temporary transformation.  It is for me only but depending on where it is located it becomes something I have to deal with outside of myself, which further propels the transformation. 

            There is one more thing I would like to divulge; the performance high I get after the piece is completed and the coming down I have after.  The high is very interesting, I feel more present but at the same time apart.  The following day I feel very irritable and moody.  It’s a strange occurrence that I know I have to be ready for.  Especially now that the work becomes more charged emotionally and conceptually. 

            Well I should leave it at that. 

We all use belief to stand on, be careful what you might be standing on.

Tuesday Night Post # 2-14

Digital Hoarders,

I have just spent most of my night purging my hard drive of unnecessary files and pre organized my external…wild night.  So what now?  Argh… a very fried brain.

-DBL

PS: I know not what I write til I do, then I might agree or I might be wrong.

*     *     *     *     *

on the surface of this mound

on the layer that you see

on the surface that you smell

this is where we are

proximity is everything

only time is the distance

fear the savior

love the barer

this fluid calls a little sense of evil

attributions recalled by the hands

it sticks to the mound to cause a change

unruly this shift

revolve