StoryHut Interviews

My intention in bringing StoryHut to Performance is Alive at the Satellite Art Show in December 2017 was to create space for listening, conversation and reflection within the ebullient chaos of commerce and display that is Art Week in Miami. To create this space, I knew that darkness would be crucial. Dimming of the visual sense would help participants in my interview performance look inward in the midst of the the art fair setting, which is predominantly about looking outward at art objects and the aestheticized spaces and people who surround them. In contrast, I wanted the StoryHut Campsite to be a quiet space, an interior within an interior.

The StoryHut itself is a modified camping tent. The interior is lined with glow-in-the-dark paintings of animals, stars and Star Thistles. Viewers are invited to enter the tent, lie on the mats and listen to a fairytale about how Coyote convinced Rattlesnake to go inside the house. The story takes us from the outdoor landscape to the indoors as we follow Rattlesnake into the domestic space and enter its thoughts as it contemplates a sleeping child.

To augment the themes of sleep, fantasy, fear and the unconscious that are present in StoryHut, I wanted to take on a specific role as the host of the StoryHut campsite. This role would be that of the Ethnographer, a receptive female character who would interview visitors to the site before or after they experienced the StoryHut.

I set up a small circle of folding camp stools near the tent and put a small flashlight on the floor to approximate a campfire. I modeled my outfit and appearance after practical field researchers of previous generations such as Jane Goodall and Margaret Mead. I altered the pitch and cadence of my voice to assume the manner of a receptive host and interviewer.

In retrospect, I realize that the purpose of taking on the voice of new characters in my performances is to practice new modes of operating in the world, to literally be and converse as someone else for a brief period. This practice is activated when viewer/participants (visitors) agree to join the conversation. My intention is that the performance becomes an opportunity for visitor to exercise a variety of subject positions. Some visitors relate earnestly, while others joke around. Some speak in abstract terms, others reveal specifics of their private lives. Most switch between these codes over the course of conversation.

Below are excerpts from transcribed interviews that took place between 7 and 10pm at Performance is Alive at the Satellite Art Show in Miami Beach on Thursday, December 7, 2017. The transcript has been modified for easier reading, but the intention is to keep the spirit of each visitor's voice. I recorded the interviews, but the names of interviewees were not recorded.

In response to the question, “What keeps you up at night?”, certain themes emerged. Most broadly, an articulation of the fact that the night and sleep represent the liminal time and activity between one day and the next. Other themes included God, coffee, lists, death, money, ambition, failure, dreams, conversations, the past and the future. Notably absent from the conversations was mention of sex. It was rare that a visitor articulated current fears and anxieties in a specific way. Most alluded to “not being where they want to be” or “worrying” in general.

Text as published in Performance is Alive