counting ps watching qs 1994

16 Mar 1994 : The Performance Space Gallery, 199 Cleveland Street, Redfern, Sydney

Live sets on Stage was an evening of Dance Installations in the Performance Space Gallery, one of the series of evenings under the umbrella Eventspace. Six continuous and distinct two-hour performances took place simultaneously across the evening. Each performance had been designed for the gallery and its particular spaces and architecture. The event featured works by : Eleanor Brickhill, Rosalind Crisp, Sue-Ellen Kohler, William McClure, Alan Schacher, Yuji Sone

My group work counting p’s, watching q’s, addressed space, transformation and utterance by several means, proposing obstruction, hinderance or restraint to the many bodies in question as a stages in and “on stage” process. I curated the performance under Gravity Feed’s nomenclature. At that time almost everything I did was defined as a Gravity Feed work.
It included a shelf of chick peas (the p’s (peas) to be counted) on which I stood suspended by my long hair. The q’s were of course the audience queues traipsing up the narrow stairs to the gallery. I had also installed an interventional installation in the gallery in the form of a huge revolving wall. This wall, I imagined, would slow down the flow of audience, creating queues. However, in fact the wall remained open and static, no one realised that it could revolve !

“Watch your p’s and q’s” is an English term referring to how to speak politely and correctly.

Denis Beaubois was suspended durational through a ceiling manhole (a concept of his own devising). Maureen Phelan fell continuously from a chair onto gravel in the courtyard lightwell. Ari Ehrlich stood transfixed in a corner. Beyond the format of the exploration of Dance as Installation, my own investigation was more a questioning of Installation as Dance and of Space as Body.