290 Collowuium

Karola Luttringhaus

Reflections about a performance

by Kevin Dockery

Giving up/giving it up felt very personal to me. It seemed that Kevin was

enacting himself, or at least some parts of him.

I saw moments of childish awe, of fascination, of pain, of surrender, of

violence by others and by self, I saw play and happiness, hope and utter

devastation. The play is real. Kevin becomes. He inhabits moments, relives

moments. He ages and he grows younger.

He offers us a space that is arranged to gently border the outline of the

big multi colored play parachute that he later invited us to engage with as

we please. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The piece had a clear progression. It begins and it ends.

We soak up the opportunity to let go, to laugh, lay there and watch the

parachute membrane float up and down, touch us. It is nice to be invited to

play a role, to be more than a spectator, to become a partner in a play and

playing. The energy changes entirely when everyone gets up and begins to

move together, collaborate on the movement of a large parachute. It's

movement creates a good bit of wind, unusual amounts of wind for an indoor

space and so I feel surreal.

The piece is fun whenever Kevin takes us into imagination and carefree

moments of play, and I am associating innocence, permeability, gentleness,

impressionability. Only to be covered with a slap in the face, a violence

experienced, a freedom taken. Innocence takes turns with disillusioned

realizations of a reality that has forgotten dreams and play.

At one point Kevin ends up raising a white flag from behind a wooden school

desk. The moment takes time and comes as a surprise. The flag is made from

his shirt which no longer protects him, which no longer provides an

additional barrier between us and his skin.

The piece is even among all the happy moments, tremendously sad.

It feels devastating to watch things get lost, sqooshed. Dreams deflated.

Innocence lost. Vulnerability destroyed.

The space changes over time. At one point the stage assistants are brought

in to assist with the disconnecting of the parachute, at another point in

time the lights go out and the door to the outside is opened. A reminder of

our presence here and now, of reality, of choice. The choice to be in here

and listen to Kevin.

The large prime color parachute is the centerpiece. It undergoes several

metamorphoses and becomes different things over time.

He begins by bringing in into the space in a ceremonial manner, similar to

a military flag raising. White gloved hands carry a carefully folded

parachute all the way around the room, at two feet distance to the

audience. He makes sure to inscribe the space with the essence and aura of
the carried object. He moves clockwise. His gaze is directed up over the

heads of the people and sightly outside of the circle.

The parachute becomes a flag which is being brought in, laid out

meticulously, and then raised. Raised above our heads, larger than, more

important than us. Kevin's adult self raises the flag for hos younger self

to slowly become an executive of its ideologies, power structures and

social regimes.

As he folds out the flag toward the center of the room, he steps on it. He

could have unrolled it from the other side and kept up the idea of a sacred

item, but he chose to feel the material under his bare feet, to walk on it,

walk with it as it grows. The flag becomes a path, a bridge to the center

of the room.

He unfolds it 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, then full.

The parachute path becomes a surface that covers the entire floor between

audience members.

The flag becomes many things that accompany a person through life.

The surface becomes a roof, under which we all have fun. He then raises the

roof up by means of carabiners and a pulley system. He choreographs a

sequence of up and down movements of the center point and the other 4

points. The roof becomes a living creature, a ray, a jellyfish... Something

that starts to act on it's own, seemingly. The impression is that it comes

to life, but the truth is that it is being moved by means of strings that

we all are able to manipulate. We see the manipulation but we prefer the
version where it comes alive. So is society a construct we live and die

for, knowingly ignoring the very obvious strings that lead to us and that

are needed to make it hold power over us.

Kevin engages us in a conversation around identity, authority, autonomy

and social violence. Do we have to give up in the face of insurmountable

violence or do we give that up, give up the violencing. Can we give it

up? What is to be gained from giving up abuse, oppression, discipline and

punishment? Why are we so afraid of freedom?

How far are we going to go in our beliefs about violence being a necessary

evil, a tool, a means to an end? How long will be aggressive under the

cloak of some sort of self defense.

We destroy others and ourselves.

Kevin wears the parachute, as a dress, winding up inside it, until it no

longer allows for any progress. We seek love, we seek approval, we contort

until we can no longer move, ..... and society wants this, reinforces

this, ... He asks for applause, he thanks for it. He smiles. He sweats. He

can no longer keep this up.

I just remembered that Kevin invited us to intervene in any way we wanted

to. I never did. I should have. Should have rescued him, helped him out of

that silly dress, off the chair, out from behind the desk, etc. But I

didn't. I was busy watching a body in pain. Glad it wasn't mine. Glad that

he was putting himself through these pains, proving that he is a good,

worthy, valuable member of society and it's unimportant, capitalist,

mysoginist, ableist goals. To quote Kevin. Justifying my own ill-advised

struggles to win over my body, to outwill, to overcome, to conquer and to

suffer for and in the name of society. Validating myself. Proving my

worthiness by the amount of suffering I am willing to withstand for the

cause.

With each nervous smile and thank you, his fate became more sealed, the

barrier between us and him larger, thicker, being us, each one of us, he

also became an 'other'. The other, singled out, up on the stool. He put

himself up there, didn't he? It was all good fun, wasn't it!? He chose to

do that.

Too bad that several times that night we failed to come through, for the

individual, for the environment, for the fish and jellyfish and turtles in

Slater's performance, for Kevin, for ourselves.