The end
It is the end of Performa, the end of Writing Live, the end of Writers Hub and the end of our time in New York.
The last Writer’s Hub meeting was yesterday, at the School of Visual Arts. We had a good discussion about each other’s texts, and RoseLee Goldberg, Performa’s Director, joined us for some of the session. Yesterday was also the day of Performa’s Grand Finale, an evening of music and drinking at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway. The glitzy surroundings (the Hudson theatre is off Times Square, that temple to hi-tech advertising) echoed the glitz and glamour of Performa’s opening night at the Guggenheim.
So how was it? Hard work, for a start. Even RoseLee Goldberg admitted that Performa’s schedule has been punishing, and getting to everything is even harder when you don’t know your way around New York. Far too much of my time has been spent walking in the wrong direction, and I have also spent too long at the back of the room, jumping to get a view.
But although it’s been tiring at times, it’s also been a fantastic opportunity to see work from all over the world that is being shown all over the city. Unlike shorter festivals which cram everything in over a weekend, or take place in just one venue, Perfroma slipped into the busy atmosphere of New York as a living city. It’s almost as if the presence of New York has also been curated into the programme; one of its recurring themes has been to reconstruct or revive the New York arts scene of the past (Yvonne Rainer, Carolee Schneeman, Alan Kaprow, Wow and Now spring immediately to mind). As Writing Live Fellows, involved with Performa, Writers Hub and SVA, we have also been ushered into the busy-ness of the Big Apple.
Writers Hub has been even more successful than I dared imagine. There has been lots of writing for the Performa blog, and all of a high standard. The writers’ meetings were all productive, and I hope that the other writers weren’t just being kind when they came to thank us (unprompted!) after each session. With any luck, they’ll be just as positive on their feedback forms. Leading these sessions and getting such great feedback has boosted all of our confidence, and now we have a model we can use for similar programmes in the future.
What could we have done better? It was a shame that not all the writers who contributed to the blog could attend the workshop sessions, because they were held during the day. If I could do this again, I would have arranged one compulsory early evening session near the beginning of Performa, so that we could all have had a chance to meet early on. Personally, I also regret not getting more interviews with the artists involved. And of course, there’s the part of me that regrets all the things I missed – the Alan Kaprow re-enactments at Deitch Studios, Sanford Biggers, Xavier Le Roi. But you can never make it to everything. I was heartened at one of the ‘Not for Sale’ panel discussions, in which Yvonne Rainer asked Adam Pendleton when his show would be on. ‘You missed it!’ came the reply. So missing things is a fact of life, and it even happens to world-famous, impossibly influential artists like Yvonne Rainer.
In any case, missing out on things just gives you a hunger to see more. And as Performa 07 draws to a close, I am hungry to see more performance art on my return home.
mary
