Today I began the Memoir project with my performance of Body/Object at Middle Tennessee State University. I chose this instruction as the beginning because it is derived from my first official performance action. Twelve years ago as a graduate student at Towson University, I took a performance class under the direction of Gagik Aroutiunian. I had been interested in performance, but was intimidated by the idea of engaging in a public spectacle. For our first assignment, Gagik instructed the class to create a body/object ritual; we were asked to interact with an object in an unexpected way. I was utterly unnerved on performance day as I made my way to the front of the classroom to quietly sew threads onto the palm of a glove I was wearing. The action was intimately tied to repetitive actions I was using in the privacy of my studio, and it was a revelation to realize that I could make a performance work which was silent and introspective.
My work grew dramatically over the course of the performance class, and I was profoundly impacted by the sheer power of live art. It is rare in our daily lives to sit and watch another person enacting a ritual. Both as a student, and later as a teacher of performance, I have been moved by the evidence of the human spirit embedded in the live performance action.
I dedicate this instruction work to Gagik in thanks for his introduction to the vast and deep world of performance art.
