Body Museum questions the degree to which personal choice is involved in the way we shape our bodies while sitting. In this performance, ‘the relationships between the public display of the bodily motion and the articulation of social categories of identity’ (Desmond, 1997: 3) are being explored, particularly those that are gender oriented.

It is designed to be performed in a museum, gallery, or other public space where the audience become active participants and creators themselves by simply positioning their bodies in the space. While increasing focus on the bodies among the attendants, thereby stripping other layers of communication, we are reminded that the body is ‘an ever-present part of all interactions and indeed it is perhaps all that we can be sure of when there is no interaction and we are completely on our own’ (Thomas & Ahmed, 2004: 1).



Setup

There are chairs with colorful cushions in the room. Some of the cushions are on the floor. Chairs are positioned in the space - some next to each other, others facing each other. There is an instruction on the wall: “Please, take a seat”.




Act 1
Performance & Response

‘Memory exists in ongoing process of performance and response’.
(Smith, 2002: 3)

The performance then evolves as visitors choose to sit… or not. Performers who are dressed casually, so as to blend in with the visitors, join them and take seats next to, or in front, of the others. They play with how much space they occupy and the degree to which they get into another person’s space. The actors’ actions provoke responses in the bodies resulting in adjustments to seating positions.


Act 2
Shaped Body

‘Our bodies have always been an expression of a specific period, geography, sexual, religious and cultural places’.
(Orbach, 2009: 7)

The performers take off their jackets, revealing black shirts identifying them as the performers. For this part, they are allowed to touch the participants but they have to be careful and thoughtful. The visitors, those who chose to sit down can now be shaped into a certain position by the performers, thus making them experience a different way of sitting.


Act 3
Body and Gaze

‘Bodies in our time have become sites of display’.
(Orbach, 2009: 73)

For this part, the audience will experience an intense gaze from the performers. Performers choose a seated person and stare at their way of sitting so that it causes discomfort for the watched person to the point where they are highly conscious of their position.





Reference List


Marina Abramović (2010) The Artist Is Present. Performance. MoMA.
Desmond, J.C. (1997) Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies of Dance. Durham: Duke University Press.
Orbach, S. (2009) Bodies. London : Profile.
Smith, R.C. (2002) Introduction: Performing the Archive. In: Smith, R.C. (ed.) Art and the Performance of Memory: Sounds and Gestures of Recollection. London: Routledge. pp. 1-12.
Thomas, H. & Ahmed, J. (2004) Cultural Bodies: Ethnography and Theory. Oxford: Blackwell.