"Too shy to stare"
Davis Freeman
2012 COIL Festival, PS 122
The Old School
New York, NY
January 5, 2012
By Martha Sherman
Copyright © 2012 by Martha Sherman
“Too shy to stare” was all about Me. Davis Freeman’s mind-twisting performance installation, opening PS 122’s COIL Festival at the Old School this year, put me front and center in each of seven scenes. Dancers wearing my photograph on their faces did private performances in rooms lining two eerie corridors. Each scene evoked different states – loneliness, sensuality, the animal natures of being human. Although the dancers’ bodies provided a medium for approaching each state, in every performance, the lens – for me -- was my own face.
The performance required pre-work. Each of only ten audience members per show was required to have a set of photographs taken so the performers could assume our identities. Before we entered, the performers in each room put on full-sized face masks made from those photos to play the scene. Two of the rooms were auditory. In one, a live musician scored the evening’s performance (at this show, the reliably intriguing Hahn Rowe.) In another, we listened on headphones to a tape of mumbled conversations (“I love you,” “you’re truly amazing,” “you’re so selfish”) and looked at posted photos of other audience members. The other five rooms housed dance performances by an individual, a pair, or a trio – each dancer staring at us through our own eyes, our own faces. It was funny and sobering by turns, and unnerving throughout.
In most scenes, there was a single comfortable audience armchair. In one room, a shapely woman (Megan Harrold) sat on a green settee, her legs provocatively crossed, her face -- mine. She was joined by a man (Paul Singh) also wearing my face. They stared at me through my own eyes, then cuddled, Singh fondling Harrold’s breast and sliding his hand up her thigh. They did a languorous sofa dance, eyes never leaving mine. Then they moved to the floor and became a pair of barking dogs (so odd, with my face,) and cavorted toward me. Singh took off his mask, and sat back on the sofa. Now he was just an unknown man, and when he again began to fondle Harrold (who still wore my face,) a shiver went down my spine. It was distinctly creepy.
In a scene with a tattooed man (Matthew Morris in this performance, in a role that Freeman has also played,) we were mimicked and mocked, our mirror self slithering around the room. In another scene, at the end of a long corridor, Laura Hicks was my vulnerable self. Sashaying toward me, she dropped her demure gown to stand in black lingerie, as video footage of child beauty pageants played behind and on the curtains of the corridor, and a chilling dialogue played about loneliness (in a great scene from “Boston Legal.”)
Part of the performance’s intrigue was connecting with others of the tiny audience, as we waited for the light outside a chamber to signal the availability of that scene and performer. We were each given a deck of seven cards identifying us. Our opening instructions, from choreographer Freeman, were to hand a card through the curtain when the light turned green, then entered when the light again turned red to signal that the performer was ready, the correct face affixed. As we loitered between performances, settling ourselves from one scene, wondering with some anxiety about the ones to come, but not wanting to say too much to others about rooms they hadn’t seen, the experiences of our fellow travelers were part of the performance. It mattered where you started, and where you progressed – but you didn’t know why or how to make those choices. It mattered who you were -- gender, race, sexual orientation; it mattered what your personal history was and which of these ideas most resonated. To each participant, some scenes were more evocative or powerful; some worked as mirrors to the soul, some merely entertained.
Because I had started in Hahn Rowe’s music room, my opening was soothing. Instead of the musician wearing my face, he had placed the photo (eyes closed) in a frame along with the laptop synthesizing the sound. I watched Rowe, listened to the lush sound mix of bowed guitar and violin and penny whistle, and was fascinated to see him simultaneously play and mix the tracks. Like the self in the photo, I closed my eyes to enjoy it. In contrast, a companion had started in the Ape Room, where three tall, exposed dancers loomed over the watcher, scratching, screeching, stomping. Our experiences of the evening, from these contrasting starts, were entirely different.
Humans are endlessly interested in ourselves. Freeman, in a wicked twist on that psychological verity, has created a dance theater funhouse that is ever changing. At its best -- we faced not only our own faces at each turn, but our own interior truths.
copyright © 2012 by Martha Sherman
Photos by Ryan Jensen
Top: In this photo, Davis Freeman as the tattoo man in “Too shy to stare”
Middle: In this photo, Megan Harrold and Matthew Morris as the couple in “Too shy to stare”
Bottom: Laura Hicks in “Too shy to stare”
In a scene with a tattooed man (Matthew Morris in this performance, in a role that Freeman has also played,) we were mimicked and mocked, our mirror self slithering around the room. In another scene, at the end of a long corridor, Laura Hicks was my vulnerable self. Sashaying toward me, she dropped her demure gown to stand in black lingerie, as video footage of child beauty pageants played behind and on the curtains of the corridor, and a chilling dialogue played about loneliness (in a great scene from “Boston Legal.”)
Because I had started in Hahn Rowe’s music room, my opening was soothing. Instead of the musician wearing my face, he had placed the photo (eyes closed) in a frame along with the laptop synthesizing the sound. I watched Rowe, listened to the lush sound mix of bowed guitar and violin and penny whistle, and was fascinated to see him simultaneously play and mix the tracks. Like the self in the photo, I closed my eyes to enjoy it. In contrast, a companion had started in the Ape Room, where three tall, exposed dancers loomed over the watcher, scratching, screeching, stomping. Our experiences of the evening, from these contrasting starts, were entirely different.
Humans are endlessly interested in ourselves. Freeman, in a wicked twist on that psychological verity, has created a dance theater funhouse that is ever changing. At its best -- we faced not only our own faces at each turn, but our own interior truths.
copyright © 2012 by Martha Sherman
Photos by Ryan Jensen
Top: In this photo, Davis Freeman as the tattoo man in “Too shy to stare”
Middle: In this photo, Megan Harrold and Matthew Morris as the couple in “Too shy to stare”
Bottom: Laura Hicks in “Too shy to stare”
