The Caravan Project: When Nights Were Dark
Performers on occasion try to make critics irrelevant. At worst they’re trying to protect their work from attack. But at best they’re trying to change the relationship with their audience. Some performers are populists who want to bring art to the people, unmediated by concert halls, ticket purchases, and critics–all the mechanisms of elitism in the arts.
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The visual image they present is quite startling. The inside of the trailer is molded and womblike, with strips of yellow and orange gauze hanging from the ceiling and draped across steps on the floor. Concealed lights (operated by a nearby technician) ensure the even distribution of light throughout the two-and-a-half-hour performance. Eiko & Koma–a slender middle-aged Japanese-American couple–are dressed in orange-and-yellow-gauze costumes; white makeup covers all of their exposed skin. You can hardly see them at first, since they blend in with the set and because they move so slowly. Overall the effect is rather morbid; one girl about eight whispered to her mother that it looked like a Halloween graveyard.
There were lots of different reactions. A two-year-old in her father’s arms called out, “What’s that?” Her father, who kept walking, commented, “That’s what everyone is asking.” Others also glanced at the performance and kept going. One older couple came to the edge of the crowd. He said, “What’s that?” She answered, “It’s performance art.” He said, “I saw that in Pilsen.” After about ten seconds of watching, she said, “The funny thing is…” He took it as a cue to move on.
She: Wait two seconds.
Man One: It’s pretty impressive.
Man Three: Hey, let’s go.
