Dear Performance Art

Dear Performance Art,

This one is likely to be a short letter, but I felt that it was important to write you.

See - there are two types of people in the world. The first type watches a piece of you that makes no sense and just seems downright ridiculous and decides that the confusion is a result of their own inability to "understand" said art. They assume that - if they didn't get it, because they are such intelligent, discriminating art patrons - that that must mean that the you was over their head and just so damn genius. They then tell their friends about how brilliant it was.

The other type of human being watches a piece of you that makes no sense and just seems downright ridiculous and says, "Okay - now what the f- was that!?" These people demand metaphors and symbols that are actually decipherable outside of the creator's mind. They don't accept random silliness as art. These are the kinds of people who have complain-y blogs.

So what kind of person am I? Right.

I saw this show this evening. I'm not really going to get into a description because I don't have that kind of time (nor the inclination), but let's just say that it was you. It was more or less a play, but there were definite instances of you happening throughout that caused it to make little sense. When it was over, I could only look around at the surrounding audience to see if they were as dumbfounded as I was.

And I'm not saying it was terrible. It wasn't. It was worth the price of admission, for sure. Of course, I got my ticket for free . . . But had I paid money for it (like $5 or $10), I would have been okay with it. Because it wasn't terrible.

Aspects of it were pretty okay. I even liked some of it. But there was just a little bit too much capital "T" "Theatre" going on, and I couldn't really handle it. And the thing is - it was part of this larger art festival going on in Portland called TBA ("Time-Based-Art"). To be honest, I don't really know what "Time-Based-Art" is really supposed to mean. I guess it's non-permanent art. Like you and stuff. Whatever it means, it's a relatively large festival, and it brings in a lot of money (or so it seems).

And that just made me wonder how the acts/shows get chosen for this. My theory is mostly that it's based on somebody reading critiques written by the first kind of human being. Because the description of the show I saw didn't really match up to the nonsense that I ended up witnessing. I suppose it did to a certain degree, but only a bit. It seems more like one of those situations where the creator told the critic what the play was SUPPOSED to be, and the critic didn't have enough self-confidence to refute that claim when the piece made no sense to him/her. That's my theory.

And so the show made it into this festival because nobody had the guts to challenge it. Why is that? Partly, because most of the more influential art patrons of the world are the first type of person. The second reason is that this is Portland, and the show was about another culture, and Portlanders automatically think anything about other cultures is amazing because that's what they do here. Mostly because Portlanders are a version of the first type of human being - just substitute the confusion about you to other things not understood, and there you have it. Not that they'd ever admit that they don't understand it, but that's a letter for another day (probably after the sun has gone away) . . .

And it's not that I have anything against you, in general, Performance Art. Music is a you, and I most definitely enjoy that. There is a sketch comedy group that I quite enjoy out here. I even have some appreciation of spoken word these days (a certain kind, but spoken word nonetheless). So I'm not trying to hate against you. I'm just not about that kind of you that gives you such a bad name. That kind that appeals to the first type of human being.

It's like pop music vs. good music. Pop is for those who don't want to have to think about it - which I get (and sometimes enjoy, to be honest). And this is the same as the first type of you - it appeals to those who don't want to actually think but are afraid to admit that. In another TBA piece of you I saw, the performer described some you he had seen in Paris where a woman spent half an hour climbing in and out of a plastic bag and then kissing random audience members through cling wrap. Although that description sounds funny enough that I actually would be willing to pay to see it, that can't be good for the world, in general. But who knows?

Now that I think about it, maybe I'm just not getting it. Or maybe that's the whole point. If some of these pieces were created simply as a joke on the audience - a big laugh because they all paid to watch intentionally ridiculous nonsense - I would love it. That's pretty much my life goal - to perform in front of large crowds, doing things and making jokes that nobody understands at all except for me. So maybe I shouldn't bash the first type of you, after all.

A joke. I see it now. I take it all back. The first type of you really IS genius, but in an entirely different way than perceived. How could I not have seen that earlier? Wow. My goal in life is now to become a famous creator of the first type of you - done on as large of a scale as possible. My Reader can be proud that they were there when I first consciously formed this goal.

Thank you, Performance Art, for giving me a dream. And thanks to Young Lee for creating the you that inspired the letter that inspired the dream.

Thinking Big (and Confusing),
CVT