Performance Night

Yesterday evening there was a performance night at my uni for students and teachers to view and participate in. It was very, very intense. One chick in my class did this performance where she stood in a small circle in a doorway and wrote on a notebook with a thick black texter, and then handed the notes to people eg "touch", "close", "hurt". When this guy wouldn't hurt her, she got more and more intense, "hurt me", "I want you to hurt me". It was a little bit freaky. I was really worried she was getting heaps into it and would have trouble calming down but by the end she was ok just very cold. Another girl did a performance where she sat naked in a room with tribal music (percussion) playing as she painted her body and the space on the ground around her. A guy did a performance about communism in China which involved him cutting into his arm.

One of the other students, who I suspect had drunk a bit too much, got very vocal about her opposition to the intense atmosphere of the night. Which I found annoying, firstly because the atmosphere was amazing and secondly because she interrupted someone elses performance. Normally talking is ok but screaming during a performance is pretty rude. And the performer was, from what I heard, pretty upset by it. Not to mention the lecturers apparently thought it was the best performance night they'd been to for some time.

The most amazing thing I saw all night was a friend of mine doing a hand stand on a table with his head inside an oversized fish bowl facing a television which was showing static with a word on the screen "watch". The guy was breathing through a tube and his hair was swaying in the water and it was just incredible to see.

I participated in the last performance night but not so much in this one. I did help out a friend with her performance, but I'd much rather do something myself next year. The only problem with performing is it often means you miss seeing other peoples performances.