Exercise performance

The second and last module of my second year Fine art degree was a 'Venue Specific' one. The students of M.A.P were required to attain a venue to showcase their work for this module. This module was very beneficial for me and the other students, working together to form groups to them find and curate a venue for newly made work of ours. From my position in the M.A.P corridor as it is known by us, I group together with a group of peers. The M.A.P corridor is a corridor where myself and eight other students work. It may sound like a desperate situation to be working at a desk in a corridor but none of us would want to change it, we have grown to love it there. At this time many of the students in M.A.P where only acquaintances until this project brought us together in small groups picked and developed by the students themselves. The group I became involved in was made up of myself, Owen Lawrence, Shane Davis, Lucy Wright, Lucy Thompson, Andrew Hill, Glenn Muggleton, Ellie Hooi and Alice Tori. Together we produced a show entitled 'In Space' named after Lucy Wright and Lucy Thompson's collaborative video work which was shown in the show.

For this show I had written and performed a piece again without a real title, but as a title of reference was labeled 'Exercise performance' or as some call it 'Dancing Garuda'. The work's main action was based upon an exercise called 'Dancing Garuda' which is one exercise of one hundred and eleven which make up a practice of physical Yoga entitled sKu-mNye. The Dancing Garuda was taught to me by Performance artist Kira O'Reilly whom tutored my Class for this year.

The performance was one based upon personal themes of performance, humiliation, romance and sex. The performance was performed in the M.A.P instillation room, a small White cube room, during a 'Tuesday show'. A 'Tuesday Show' is a show every tuesday where students volunteer to exhibit work to other students and their lecturers who critique the work after it is shown or finished. My performance was of a physical exercise in a small room, I undressed fully so that I exercised naked as is traditional for those practicing Sku-mNye. As I exercised I sweated and my body oder filled the small room, this had started before the audience arrived. The audience came into the room to be confronted by the full frontal male nudity of a man panting, sweating and jumping in close proximity with them, creating an uncomfortable scenario from which some students left. By the end of the performance almost all had left, either not wanting to experience any more or too see other work which was being exhibited in the Tuesday show, two remained. The two audience members stayed I felt through concern for my condition, or I hope through some connection with the work. The reduced presence of the audience made me comfortable enough to respond to the presence of those who where there, I felt it right to make eye contact with them both and in those moments I felt a connection and attachment to them. The performance left me feeling liberated from embarrassment and self consciousness.

Unfortunately whilst performing this work to my class I broke a bone in my left foot, the third metatarsal and I was not able to perform that work for the show as I was still at that time in a cast and on crutches. I had a film of the performance, done alone one evening in University, this film was ran through a monitor on a plinth in a room for the show and stayed there running on a loop for the duration of the exhibition.