Shua Group Event – Public Moves: My Perspective
Public Moves: From My Perspective
I attended the Public Moves event this past weekend on Sunday, October 26, 2008. The date arrived quickly. It felt like it was just last week that we, as a class, were informed about this event and that we rehearsed for it. Before the actual performaces took place, we all met in the third floor of the Visionary Arts Museum. My sister accompanied me for the event as well. It is always a good experience being able to share this kind of interactive art with someone else. This is why I think it would be interesting to also incorporate another blog entry with her perspective of the performance. She actually rehearsed with the rest of the group and for the performance, she was a spectator. Also, she would document the rehearsal or performance when I couldn’t.
Back to the day of the performance. After receiving instructions from Laura and Josh, we exited the third floor of the museum and immediately began to hear sounds from the megaphones. Some were located on the roof of the building and others who were handling sound were scattered around. The rest of the group walked around the hill, to the right side of it. Then we made our way up. The performance started minutes later with everyone beginning to intersect after hearing five megaphone whistles. This lasted for a while. As I was intersecting, I saw three people dancing and doing “The Macarena.” Other people were doing their own things as well. I saw one girl give another girl a piggy back ride. Some other people were waving their arms up and down and around. It’s amazing how much the movements changed from rehearsal.
Later, we heard sounds from the megaphones, which prompted us to freeze on the spot we were standing on. There were some people who had to freeze with one arm or one leg in the air. That must have been a little tiring considering the fact that we were frozen for quite a while. Then we heard sounds from the megaphones again, which meant that we could unfreeze and start “meeting.” This time, meeting with other people was different. One two separate occasions, two people grabbed my hand, and instead of letting go and moving onto the next person, they held on and made me spin around so that I’d start walking the opposite direction that I was originally going. It was very unexpected but fun. I sensed their enthusiasm just from that as well as from the laughter that I kept hearing from everyone else as they were meeting. This also lasted for quite a while. I was able to make at least three trips from left to right of the performance space.
Later, we did something that we did not rehearse on the day that I went to the rehearsal. We were told that when we heard the word “line,” we would all have to line up at the top of the hill, shoulder to shoulder. We also had to pass it along to other people in case they didn’t hear the word. Along with the sounds from the megaphones, there were sounds of people saying, “Line,” then again, “Line, line.” And we all lined up and waited for our cue to slowly descend the hill simultaneously. As we began to descend, our next move was to crab walk down the rest of the hill. Once we got to the bottom of the hill, we sat on the edge of the sidewalk. We waited for a short time and then we all got up and began circling and tangents. I basically circled on most of the left side of the hill and soon I heard the word “disappear” from someone. This meant that one of the leaders said, “Disappear” and those who heard it would pass it on to someone else. Then who ever was closest to either side of the hill would disappear by turning the corner respectively on each side. I disappeared on the left side of the hill.
We slowly crawled back onto the hill and each person had to lie on their backs on the hill. This was called “rest.” Then some people would move closer to others and then more people joined then, which was a movement called “couch.” We would join each other’s “couches” until everyone was sitting on the hill as one big group, which was a “portrait.” Soon afterwards, someone would yell, “GO!” This was meant for us to pose with who ever was near us or just pose in general and then they would yell, “Relax,” which indicated for us to just sit and relax on the hill. This repeated a few times. When we heard “Go,” we also had the option of leaving the group and walking uphill to get to the very top. Less and less people were on the hill until everyone was at the top. Then we lined up again one last time at the top of the hill. The end of the performance was everyone backing up slowly until they were no longer in sight from those facing the hill. That was the performance!
From rehearsal to the event, some things changed but it did go smoothly. Usually, when there are that many people, sometimes chaos is unavoidable just because there are so many people involved. However, this particular event went on without a hitch! It was amazing. Check out the pictures below!
