intimate encounters – a journey in good faith
A Dialogue with Julie Vulcan and Melanie Jame Walsh
Julie Vulcan (Syd) and Melanie Jame Walsh (triage live art collective -Melb) met during the recent 3 week Underbelly Arts Lab and Festival on Cockatoo Island, Sydney (www.underbellyarts.com.au). Both were engaged in developing and presenting new work that played to a limited audience and offered a close personal experience. They soon realised certain similarities and resonances between their practice. A conversation was started around the nature of intimate audience participatory work, site specificity and the journey for the audience as well as the artist. The conversation has continued and this is a summary of their exchange and dialogue.
What drives you to make intimate small scale and/or one to one work?
Melanie Jame: As a performer, I love that one to one works demand that I be absolutely present and willing to play and improvise; to be really responsive to the moment and really listen to the other – it’s rigorous. I love how confronting, as a performer, this can be. I love that it provides the space for the co-creation of a secret world of two, again and again. I love the awkward moments as much as I love the moments of incredible connection; the slippage between the performed and the non-performed.
One to one works allow you to interrogate or explore any given concept in a very live and heightened way; what you discover always surprises you.
Julie: Yes, I agree. For me, it is also about creating an experience in which the general public, suddenly realize they have been a part of something unique and very special. The key words for me here are: “a part of” and “suddenly”. When someone undergoes a sudden change, it is without warning or transition. It is unexpected and I think this resonates with your idea of the surprising discoveries. I think there is a huge element of this within making intimate work where there is this interplay between the expectations of an unwitting audience member and their actual experience.
What I love is that a participant cannot fully comprehend, before hand, the ramifications of their engagement with a work. In 2011, the audience generally understand participatory work, it is not new. However, what drives me to persistently explore this area is this “sudden” moment – the moment where something shifts for the participant and myself. It is also important for me that my place in this is something akin to a conduit, whereby I devise the framework, which ultimately guides a participant to open up or confront a part of themselves. They have a choice as to how they sit in that. My desire is to instigate these experiential moments where there is a mutual and generous exchange. I want my audience to walk away feeling like their perception of the world and their place within that has shifted.
Melanie Jame: for triage live art collective, of which I am a part, we are really interested in the idea of strangers encountering one another in disarming, playful and sometimes confronting ways – small scale and one to one works make a lot of sense as a way of exploring this primary interest of ours. I like the way these works endow the other – the audience member/participant – with a sense of agency and a sense of being valued and heard. Similarly, it’s all about them; what interests them and what challenges and confronts them.
What are some of the most satisfying moments?
Melanie Jame: In relation to our latest one to one piece, An Appointment with J Dark, the most satisfying moments were the ones in which people clearly pushed beyond their established thresholds of intimacy with a stranger. By intimacy, I don’t just mean physical proximity or the fact that we were alone together, rather the affect or feeling of intimacy; a closeness or a bond usually created through a revelation of self. It’s satisfying when people allow their vulnerability to show and we get to share the very stuff of being. In An Appointment with J Dark it was particularly satisfying to sing with people who at first were very reticent to make even a little peep of sound, and to see them move into a moment of tiny, gorgeous liberation from their own self-consciousness.
Julie: In my work Trawl (2007/8) I asked public to anonymously text me their response to the question ‘What do they regret they never said?’ For four hours I transcribed these messages onto silver paper and placed them in the belly of a plastic fish, like messages in a bottle, before attaching each one to a long net. I was blown away by the general willingness and honesty of participants and after one performance an audience member genuinely thanked me for allowing them to say something that they had been holding onto for 13 years! To mediate a shift like that is so rewarding.
There is also the satisfaction of a work coming together and being realised as you imagined it and much more. For example, more recently, in March this year, I performed the durational work I Stand In. The opportunity to present this work came unexpectedly and required me to rally 35 volunteers within a week. The work relied on a lot of tight scheduling and preparation to install and perform. It was amazing how all the elements came together so quickly and easily. The moment I stood in the space waiting for my first participant was incredible. For the next eight hours I went on such an amazing journey with my 32 volunteer bodies. Standing in for the dead, they, by proxy, became the faces of everyday people, not a cold collective body count. All the while I attended each of their bodies in a stylized and poetic ‘corpse washing’ ritual. It was incredibly humbling and I finished that performance speechless! I still have people coming up to me and talking about their experience both as audience and participant. This continual resonance and rippling affirms my belief in this form of live art practice.
How important is the body in relation to the journey of the audience/participant and yourself, in your work?
Melanie Jame: Gender and gender representation has a through-line of enquiry in An Appointment with J Dark, and I think in that respect it is important and integral to the piece.
Because people often understand intimacy as being principally about physical proximity it feels necessary to play with what the body says and means, and I do, in many different ways. I’m really interested in finding a moment in each individual journey of the one to one where the body ceases to matter so much, where touch ceases to be so loaded and the true affective nature of intimacy can be revealed…it’s more a heart space rather than a basal space.
Julie: I totally get that and this was very present in I Stand In where it is all about the journey of the body and what it means to inhabit a body and to let it go. The participants in this work were very brave. They placed themselves in a very intimate and vulnerable situation all the while giving me their implicit trust. In this work they were required to lie naked on a table while I oiled and prepared their body in a faux last rite. I, for one, was so moved by the grace each participant brought to the work and how they embraced their part in it with utmost respect. It made my heart jump each time a new person came into the space. I know for those that witnessed the work it was an incredible journey for them also. It was a space where they could meditate on what it means to touch with an open heart.
I think also for me, the body is the connection point. Whether I am performing in close proximity to someone or whether their body is part of the performance. It is the one thing that connects us. When I explore making new works around significant or tragic events that have transpired I continuously come back to the one thing we all share and can relate to and that is our visceral and emotive body.
What strategies and tools do you engage to deal with the more challenging responses?
Julie: I think that whenever I create work that is open to many possibilities and responses, then I have to be prepared for anything to happen. The main thing is to not be too precious and proscriptive and trust that I will be able to handle any situation. Trust is a big one! I think because I am demanding trust from my audience just as much as I am placing trust in them. I have to stay in a balanced space and can’t afford to be reactive. If there is confrontation or discomfort or someone just wanting to act up then I can only be there for them and act as their mirror or support. I think that the main thing is reaching an understanding with people that this is not a competition and that I am here to see them through. If they are being difficult, well, it only reflects back on them.
I try not to censor, either. Especially in works like Trawl and Wend (similar works which are part of a trilogy), where there is opportunity for people to make completely rude or ridiculous responses. It all gets transcribed and those responses sit there alongside the heartfelt, the devastating and the joyous. Then it is for that person to deal with, the ball is back in their court and maybe they will reflect on that.
Melanie Jame: For me, the most challenging responses are when people refuse every offer made to them, or they resist the invitation to join me in the immersive possibility of the work by asking dramaturgical questions or constantly referring to my ‘performance’. I am pretty much prepared to go as far as they are so when they refuse to go anywhere I have to be very careful not to shift gears into a coercive or negative approach to try and make something happen – it would be unethical and erode integrity. In An Appointment with J Dark, the strategy that I engaged in these cases was to hold on to the arc of the transformation of my character from J Dark into Joan of Arc and simply receive them with the patience of a saint. Also, if it’s awkwardness that they want to create, then that’s what we’ll sit in.
Julie: I love that! Lets just sit in the awkwardness! I think this is where the strength of the work comes into play in the sense of trusting the dramaturgical ‘arc’ that you establish for yourself.
How do you look after yourself? Preparation and afterwards
Melanie Jame: One to one performance is exhausting. It’s really important to strike the balance between wanting to explore duration in terms of looping performances and avoiding fatigue, which will compromise your presence and the liveness of the work.
I’ve created a bit of a checklist for myself that just deals with me actually staying hydrated and fed but also grounded – completely letting go of the previous experience before the next begins, being really embodied. J Dark likes to dance to Bruce Springsteen’s I’m on Fire between appointments.
Julie: Oh yes, dance is a great, especially daggy dancing accompanied by singing really silly songs!
Melanie Jame: People share their frailty, their fears, their desire with you – it’s confronting and you have to be very careful with how much you absorb as opposed to observe. I write a lot and I make sure that I have my own support people in place. Katerina (my triage live art collective collaborator and director & dramaturge of An Appointment with J Dark) is on call during the runs so that I can just process as needed. It’s important not to feel isolated in the work because you are witnessing the whole spectrum of the ways of humanity.
The question of how I look after myself as a performer of one to one works once a season has finished has become particularly pertinent to me since the July Melbourne run of An Appointment with J Dark. I’ve run into others on the street and it’s been a really interesting experience. People aren’t sure who you are, whether you are a character or real, they want to tell you everything they experienced and that makes sense because you are the only person in the world who was there with them. It’s gratifying to hear people’s responses but it’s important to know where the line is…it’s important, but I’m still unpacking exactly where it should be.
Julie: I prepare myself, during the lead in to a work, in the sense that I am already inhabiting it, in a sort of sub conscious way. It’s like laying down the blueprint. If the work is durational, then there are the basic things, like making sure I get sleep and am eating healthily.
I try to be in as calm a state as possible. I am also much better now at rallying my support networks and asking for help if I need it. Afterwards, I make sure I have a day off or have time for reflection, depending on the nature of the work. This is crucial because the next day is often the first time I step outside of the work, up to that point I have been right inside of it. I am usually still quite a buzz and I use this energy, similarly, to write a lot and document how I feel. I think the support person is crucial. That they know and understand the intricacies of the work you have just completed is essential. It just means that when you debrief you do not have to explain the context and you can just talk and cry or be hysterical and they’re not freaking out, they’re just allowing the process.
The day after I performed I Stand in, the enormity of the project really hit me. This was compounded by the fact that I woke up to the tragic news of the tsunami and earthquakes in Japan. The coincidence was overwhelming as I came to realise I had been in the middle of tending to my ‘bodies’ at the same time many were being lost. I was on an emotional roller coaster all day as I processed the last 24 hours. However, when you choose to do this work, you have to understand the process for yourself and see it through without holding back. I think ultimately my training in bodywork and therapy helps lay good ground for my ability to devise deliver and ride out the works I invoke.
Melanie Jame: I think two hot tips I would finish with are: don’t use your own phone number and be prepared to see your others en masse at live art events in your home town.
Julie: Definitely. I always use a different sim card for my mobile. Just helps separate things.
Julie Vulcan is a Sydney-based artist and performer. She will be presenting the durational work Breach at Oxford Arts Factory, in September as part of the curated Free Fall season. In October she will present Spotlight Bunny at the Qubit contemporary performance art event in Dunedin, New Zealand, supported by Arts NSW. www.julievulcan.net
Melanie Jame Walsh is a Melbourne-based artist and performer with triage live art collective. With triage, Melanie Jame will present their new work, Strange Passions, at the Exchange Radical Moments! Live Art Festival on 11:11:11 in Berlin. Melanie Jame will also perform triage’s site-specific one to one work An Appointment with J Dark in both Berlin & London. www.triageliveartcollective.com
Image title and credits:
Melanie Jame
Title: An Appointment with J Dark
Credit: Max Milne
Julie Vulcan
Title: I Stand In
Credit: copyright Michael Myers 2011
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