Gentle Threat
(2012)

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Gentle Threat
(April 2012)

A live performance by Takahiro Yamamoto
Featuring Stacey Clampitt, Ron Rutter, Dave Neeson

You may conclude that we live in an accelerated time.
Sometimes time itself seems to threaten to disappear.
-Matthew Goulish

One day as I was driving on a road, an image of strawberries flew by outside the window. I couldn't contemplate on the image, but a flashing image of the strawberries was stuck in my mind even after I get out of the car. I went back into the car, trying to visualize the detail of the strawberries. I was alomost late for a meeting.

As I recall my past memories, it seems that they are collections of fragmented images, sounds, feelings, emotions, thoughts and physical sensations. I wonder which fragment of the present will survive as past memories in the future.

Sometimes, I need a goggle to prevent me from crying.
Sometimes, I think that even highly crafted bubble needs to be burst open eventually.
Sometimes, I ought to be aware of what kind of sunglasses I am wearing.
Sometimes, I need to be mindful of what kind of sunglasses I am imposing others to wear.
Sometimes, I realize that I cannot ever exist without any sunglasses on.
Sometimes, I come to term that those sunglasses are what makes me unique from others.

Occassionally, time gently threatens me with a slap. Sometimes it is violent and alarming. Other times, it lifts me up to a state of being that allows me to be ready to move forward with slight nervousness and a great deal of awarenss. In a way, in order to perform in front of the audience, it requires me to surrender to this gentle threat.

Gentle Threat is constructed with a perspective that this state with slight nervousness and heightened awareness is what distinguishes performing body from viewing body. Taking advantage of a public site, this performance plays with a traditional role of audience and that of performers. While the audience is situated to view performative actions, they experience being watched by the performers and other general public roaming in the space. The condition of being watched evokes a threatened state especially when it was unexpected. To enhance the idea of unconscious performance for the audience, I employed three other performers to join. They are performers as well as the conscious and active audience members. My intention is to evoke a sense of threat for the audience in the subtle manner: through gradual revelation of other performers and dispersed sense of space. My hope is that this physical experimentation of the gentle threat will echo with that of nature of time, lingering effect of visual images and invisible sunglasses we own.