Sunday Times Combined Metros 4 - 22/01/2014 04:24:01 PM - Plate:

4I

PERFORMANCE

26 JANUARY 2014

ART 3, FEAR 2
Performance artist Anthea Moys took on Grahamstown in 2013. Now shes tackling Geneva. Next up? The world. By Oliver Roberts

NTHEA Moys goes after she moved her bed to Joubert Park her dreams even and spent the night there, when she dreams that accompanied by guards and two she is a rugby ball. In opera singers, who performed 2009, Moys took part in a game Puccinis Nessun Dorma (None Shall at the Pirates Rugby Club, Sleep Tonight). It was a statement standing in for the ball. about the fear South Africans Dressed in a red cotton dress, experience sleeping in their homes. she was tossed around, thrown Her zenith came at last years into a line-out and touched Grahamstown Arts Festival: over a down on the try line. The display number of days, she competed solo, was just another in a long line and very publicly, against masters of of bizarre, amusing and perilous several disciplines such as karate, acts devised by Moys, who was choir singing, soccer, chess and awarded the Standard Bank WAX ON: Moys takes ballroom dancing. Young Artist Award for She even took on the British on the karate okes Performance Art in 2013. Picture: PAUL GREENWAY Army, alone. Admittedly, that battle Moys, who was a lecturer at was against the South African Battle the time, explains: I was working a lot with Re-Enactment society. But still mad girl. my students on the Yves Klein image, Leap Moys did not plunge into any of these into the Void. I was also watching a lot of performances untrained: putting herself rugby because I wanted to do something with through intense physical and mental it. One morning I woke up with this image of conditioning is central to her work. me as the ball, and that was it. Plus, if she hadnt had at least a little basic But her jaunt as a rugby ball is quite training, she might have got seriously hurt normal, even tame, compared to some of the as she almost did during her karate match-up. other routines she has devised. At one point she was winded by a punch to She once spent the entire 94.7 Cycle her chest and staggered about the mat Challenge pedalling madly on a stationary gasping for oxygen. After a quick rest and a gym bicycle along the route. Another time drink of water, she bounced back onto the

SWAY TO GO: Moys in ballroom mode

Picture: DEAN HUTTON

mat and faced up to the black belts again. Moys is currently in Geneva, Switzerland, where she is preparing for a new performance called Anthea Moys contre les Communes Genevoises, which will be staged at the Antigel Festival in February. Her new challenges include ice hockey, velodrome cycling, wrestling and playing the Alpine horn. Moys hopes this is the beginning of a larger project, entitled Anthea Moys vs The World. At the moment, I am feeling quite strong and optimistic about the challenges, Moys says. It has taken me a while to get to this point it has been extremely challenging and I have been in contact with real fear and real pain on a daily basis. But the training is going well. I can play two melodies on the alphorn; I have learnt three main moves in wrestling; and Ive hit a speed of 40km/h on my bike, but still have to master getting on and off the bike without falling. And the skating is great. I feel like a Transformer every time I put on my kit and I am starting to love gliding really quickly over the ice. The thing with performance art is that its not only difficult to define there is no static and repetitive message, such as with a painting it is also impossible to contain. Although recorded footage of her performances can forever be viewed, the live experience, the one that is the truest form of the art, cannot. Moys isnt particularly perturbed by either of these nuances. I really am doing what I love to do and thats whats important to me, she says on the line from Geneva. What Im doing doesnt really fit into any other category; you cant really call it anything else except art or performance practice, so for me its more about the joy of the actual doing. And as I get older, I am becoming less and less interested in the object or the photograph or the video. I think its lovely to share with others and thats the main reason why I do it, but whats more important for me is to be engaged with the questions of what it really means to be a human being. At first glance, her performances may appear to amount to playing the fool, or creating weird scenes just for the sake of it.

But a more thorough inspection of her body of work uncovers significant statements about the nature of context, our connections with each other and, in the case of her Grahamstown performances, the meanings of winning and losing and being good at something. For Moys, who studied fine art at Wits University, her art is also inclusive of her own fear. Taking on experts in their physically demanding fields or sleeping in Joubert Park are risky pursuits, but thrill-seeking forms a meaningful part of her medium. I do enjoy a bit of risk. And I think its important to get out of ones comfort zone and to go to new places and meet new people, but it also has a price to pay. In

Her new challenges include ice hockey, velodrome cycling, wrestling and playing the Alpine horn
Grahamstown, I was quite alone out there; I was engaging with all these different activities and people but I was still very alone. With some of the more physical challenges, there is this heightened sense of feeling alive; it brings a lot of joy, but theres also a lot of fear involved as well. I wonder, though, if the life of a performance artist, like the lifespan of a professional athlete, is a limited one. Moys says she would like to explore more choreography, while still engaging with all those seemingly impossible corporeal dares. She is 33 now, so there is the question of how many more years she can be a rugby ball, or box in Hillbrow, or prance about in places and contexts where she is dauntingly out of her depth. Another 20 years perhaps? 25? No, I want to be rocking when Im 80, I want to be on roller blades, she says. I love new experiences and engaging with new experiences. I am constantly curious. I dont think that will ever die. Moyss work can be viewed at www.antheamoys.com and on Facebook