15/9/2017 0 Comments Wake Festival 20178 – 10 September, 2017 ]performance space[ It was early summer when ]performance space[ in Folkestone came into my life. I knew Ben and Bean and was interested in the work they were doing, seeing it as something which I might want to learn about. I attended a few events and my responses varied from ‘I’m in love with this!’ to ‘That left me totally cold.’ And then there was the evening when I shed thirty years and bounced about like a demented adolescent to a female punk band from L.A.. So what was next? Last weekend I was drawn again to what was going on there. This time it was the Wake Festival. I’d received a personal invitation, so assumed that Ben and Bean must think I’m making some sense in the reviews I write for them, and they are suggesting that my interpretations are acceptable, not wrong, simply alternative. Such freedom that gives! Performance art is clearly something of its own world, something that those involved understand, while us novices just have to struggle to follow. I’m just a few months along that journey but enjoying it, despite the numerous potholes and trippings over! I may be intelligent but nobody would ever suggest I’m an intellectual, so I spend much of this struggle metaphorically on my knees.
And I need an emotional response or I cannot relate beyond the banal...concern for shivering bodies, bruising on hard floors, flames close to the audience, fingers being cut on glass, someone slipping on seaweed, effects of substances consumed or touched. So what did I learn from this Wake Festival? That some kind of contact for me is essential, whether it is eye, voice or touch. I would never pretend that I understand the purpose of what many of the artists were offering. But when they did get through to me, it was powerful. At one point I was thinking that it was a shame that some of the work was way above my head but then I changed my mind. The effect of those performances that did make contact with me felt special, even though there were fewer of them. I was horrified by some elements such as the leeches, and terrified by others such as the fish heads and drippings. As someone who is hyper allergic to fish, I knew I could end up in hospital if there was any contact. I squirmed and trembled but the artists respected my fears and generally avoided me. Were the performers hiding from us or themselves? Few made eye contact. One even sandpapered the glass between himself and us; another used a mirror reflecting the sun onto observers to deflect our view of her perhaps; others were hidden under piles of coal, with cloths over their faces. Then, as I got out of his way for the nth time as he moved around the room, one performer smiled at me and I felt contact with him. Another performer spoke directly to us and again I felt connection. One needed us to chant with him, which was fun and inclusive. Otherwise it was difficult to feel involved when the artist made no effort to make contact…or is that just me? And is there a compulsion to shock? I am not taken aback by artists moving around the room partly or completely in the nude, even though I can’t always explain why it is part of the act. So, is the nudity a challenge or a celebration? And how should we react to squares of chocolate being inserted into the vagina then later pulled out and eaten? I leave you to your own musings! I was pleased with myself when I got it ‘right’. For example, when thinking that one performer was creating a scene which reminded me of an old Dutch interior painting, and then I moved to where I could see what she had attached to the wall…a picture from a Dutch interior painting! Then one beautiful performance involved a woman appearing to emerge from the Earth through turfs. I saw it as birth. I asked another artist and he said I had echoed his interpretation of the act. Unfortunately, I missed the discussion with representatives from the Folkestone Triennial and Fringe over brunch on the third day. It was interesting, however, to see how animated the artists were afterwards. They were integrating, talking easily together. There were easy connections. They were relating, making eye contact. They were so different from their personae during performance. Bean, Ben and Andre have created a real ‘hub’ where there is not only interesting art, but also care, support and welcome. The final session will never leave me. The inclusion of leeches in one performance certainly separated the wimps from the brave as some leeches escaped from their glass on the table, fell onto the floor and wriggled towards audience members. Some people squirmed and moved, others just glanced casually as the leeches approached. I was of the brave! Mind you, none of the leeches came my way. Occasionally, the performer scooped up the escapees…all but one which was last seen wriggling out of the door into Tontine Street! But the part of the act which made me grimace was when the performer sat next to the table with the leeches and a glass of blood, dipped a comb into it and repeatedly combed her hair. I had been watching from behind her but when she faced me and I saw the blood streaming down her face and body, that’s when I nearly exited! Had she thus achieved what she wanted to achieve? Shock, horror, even disgust? Then came the woman who actually addressed us. She explained points of her act and she gave us instructions. It was interesting that nobody had previously followed a performer out of the room but, possibly because she had engaged with us, we all followed her when she went up the stairs, through the flat and into the garden. There she completed her act but by this time it was raining so most of us tried to go back inside. But we couldn’t. We stood outside and watched as the window was covered in thick, black plastic in preparation for the final act. Eventually we were allowed in for the final performance. Inside it was quite dark not just because of the covered windows but because curtains inside were closed. There were just a couple of dim lights. We stood and waited. There was no sign of an artist. Then the remaining lights suddenly went off so we were left in complete dark. Then the performer spread bags of pebbles on the floor. This sounded like waves on the shore and we were on a beach. I was instantly transported to a moonless night, lying with a friend on a beach in Falmouth in 1969, heart-broken because this was to be the last night ever with this friend and I knew it. I experienced the noise of the waves and pebbles, the smell of seaweed, the lack of any other noise, the sense of being the only people in the world, and I felt the sadness and the reluctance to ever leave that beach. When the lights suddenly came on, most members of the audience looked shocked and the two near me said they had been taken through time and felt themselves in a different place, just like me. But then we could see the pebbles strewn over the floor and that was all they were! Pebbles on a floor in Folkestone in 2017, not the rhythm of the sea on a Cornish beach, decades ago. Magical! Rightly or wrongly, what I take away from this Wake Festival is the importance of connection. That is how I can engage. Many people will dive into meanings, interpretations, into symbols or into detailed descriptions of these performances. But how we relate to the festival is individual. Ultimately, the important matter is in the relationship within which our several and different meanings are made and that we have gained from being together. JP September 2017 Find also on http://statesofwake.tumblr.com
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