James King, Eamonn and Friends

Performance for OFFSIDE LIVE at Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane

Friday 16th July 2005

Performance for OFFSIDE LIVE at Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane in collaboration with Pallas Heights and Fergus Byrne. I was one of more than a dozen artists, musicians, and dancers presenting performances on this evening which was part of the summer long Offside show. It was agreed that a solo Action Theatre performance would be suitable. The theme hinted at by Fergus was "Contravening the Normal Parameters of Spaces." He also sent me photographs of the foyer area available for my use. This included a large bust of Michael Collins. The following week I re-viewed a video of the Michael Collins film, starring Liam Neeson.

PRECURSERS.

A few weeks prior to the performance a former Universty colleague, historian Emmett O' Connor, in the course of an informal chat following a chance meeting outside the library in Foyle Street, informed me of the interesting history to the Hugh Lane gallery. Several (to avoid repeating "a few") days later looking for a present for my son, Gavin I spotted a book titled "The Irish Art of Controversy". To my surprise and delight the first chapter dealt with the Hugh Lane municipal gallery saga.

On 7th July, the day of the terrible tube and bus bombings I was in my son Guy's London flat, along with another son Jamie. On 8th July Rachel Zerihan and I performed a subdued street walkabout depicting two people from contrasting backgrounds progressing together in harmony. Upon returning home a few days later, on 12th July, the traditional North of Ireland concerns prevailed. It was the climax of the Protestant marching season.

Shortly before 16th July I travelled to Dublin to check out the space. What struck me was the extent to which the Michael Collins bust seemed to dominate the half of the entrance hall designated for the performance. I also admired the fireplace and mantlepiece. The pillars at the perimeter were much as I had expected from the photographs, although the overall space appeared smaller. The space had shrunk and Collins had grown. In the subsequent days I read T. Ryle Dwer's biography, "The MAn Who Won the War", and the second half of Tim Pat Coogan's biography - beginning where Dwyer's left off, at the start of the civil war.

ON THE DAY

On the day itself the space looked quite different. The presence of people, chairs and tables contributed to that . The Collin's bust was less imposing than I had remembered - there was so much else competing for attention eg. A band's drum-kit left to one side of the plinth. The spaces between the pillars had accumulated spectators and canvas stools like litter around the lamposts of Derry. Nevertheless I was still able to thread string between the posts like washing lines. This I did. When the strings were in place, using clothes-pegs I hung thereon newspaper articles about the London bombings and the North's marching season problems. The clothes-pegs were bright coloured plastic in red white blue, green white and yellow (gold). Following a spectator's suggestion I also hung up my socks. Sir Hugh Lane had been an aesthete of impeccable taste and style. And probably would have hated the previous sentence and this one too. Upon visiting a friend's house he would often re-arrange the ornaments on the mantlepiece into a more tasteful arrangement. The generous man would also leave presents of household items in friends' houses, carefully placing them in their absence.

I have a tendency not to travel light and regularly bring along with me excess baggage. In order to make me more conscious of it and make full use of it I decided to display my possessions on and around the mantlepiece. This would also enable me to share something of myself with the audience. I would also be paying an ironic tribute to Hugh Lane.

I thus adorned the various levels and crevices of the mantlepiuece with the contents of my bags and pockets. The adornements included shoes, books, wash-bag, towel, wallet, spare belt, nitrate spray, handkerchief and excess clothes-pegs. All these I placed neatly. In the fire-place itself I carelessly dumped my empty bags and scattered unused news-papers. This was a tribute to Francis Bacon, whose untidy studio has been installed as a permanent feature of the Hugh Lane.

The general theme of my performance was the Oneness of Existence. I was wearing black trousers, and over a blue T- shirt a long-sleeved sweat-shirt with horizontal stripes of pale blue, dark blue, dull gold and dark green. The colours were subdued, and represented the gold and green of nationalism and blue of unionism. After I had " set out my stall", Fergus announced that the performance was commencing.

MOVING IN RESPONSE TO ENVIRONMENTAL SOUNDS.

I stood silently and listened to the sounds around me. The immediate circumfrence of spectators was quiet and attentive. Behind them was a muted hub-bub of bustling people and in the distance the occasional clatter from the bar. Selecting a noise at random I moved my body in harmony with it and began to develop and transform the movement - enlarging it and and letting my body take it it new , spontaneous directions. When a different sound caught my interest I paused and repeated the process in response to the new stimulus. I was not REACTING to or against the sound , but responding TO or WITH the sound - embodying it in movement and then transforming that movement. The reality of here and now sounds was the source of my performance at this point.

SOUNDING THE NOISES

In this phase I stood still , continuing to listen carefully. I chose a sound from the environment and reflected it with my voice. I then developed and transformed my voice sound - as I had previously done with movement. Eventually I would switch to a different, usually contrasting sound source. There were various ways of responding to the original stimulus: eg.
- make a percussive series of vocal sounds in the same rhythm as the chance sound.
- make a sound with the same emotional resonance as the original.
- approximate to the pitch of the original.
- copy the sound as accurately as possible and change gradually until a word emerges.

I was holding a distorted, moving mirror up to reality . Distorting and transforming the original - like a reflecting river swirling beneath clouds or overhanging branches.

SOUND and MOVEMENT.

This activity simply combined the above two forms. In response to an environmental noise I would move appropriately with a sound approximately echoing the original, before transforming and developing from that starting point.

PERFORMING PHRASES

Making it obvious that I was doing so I read some of the headlines from the newspapers which I had displayed and performed a version of what Ruth Zaporah calls "Accumulations." Beginning with one only I spoke the sentence or phrase aloud and created an expressive movement to accompany it. Moving through the space I repeated the voice and movement phrase with varying intensity. Then I spoke another headline to a new movement phrase; alternating this with the first one. Then I intended to add a third and fourth until interlacing four contrasting movement and voice phrases. That was the intention. In practice my memory failure led me to perform a cou-le more headlines individually. The headlines were a mixture of London and "Northeireland". eg.
"WE CANNOT LIVE IN FEAR BECAUSE WE ARE SURROUNDED BY HATRED."
"FAMILIES FEEL PAIN OF NAME DELAY"
"ARRESTS TO BE MADE AFTER RIOT AT PARADE".
I introduced some contrasting light relief with the headline "THE (financial) MARKET BOUNCES BACK", accompanying the words with a jolly bouncing movement and happy smiling face.

NON-STOP MONOLOGUE SOUND POEM

Beginning with another headline I free- associated, talking spontaneously, whilst focusing upon the sound of my words rather than content. I focused upon the detail of syllables within words and letters within syllables. Sometimes I would extend a vowel repeatedly, exploring its potential. Contracting and expanding the sound like an elastic band. Eventually I would return to the original line before bouncing or crawling off again. Another development was to move off at an angle into an improvised straight momnologue , or harangue on a theme arising from some of the words. This was a mixture of Kurt Schwitters sound poems and Ruth Zaporah's "Copy, Add On or Shift.". eg. starting with: "Mother's Fury at 'Slaughter of the Innocents'". " Mother's fury at "slaughter of the innocents",

Having finished the free- associating monologue I then stood in front of Michael Collins' enormous bust. I began another monologue along the following lines: "We are all one. For the Treaty, against the Treaty we are all one. Muslim, Christian, we are all one. We are all one flesh. For the Treaty , against the Treaty, we are all one flesh. Protestant , Catholic, we are all one. Negotiating that Treaty tore me apart; war or civil war, what would be worst. To sign or not. And then it tore the country apart. For the Treaty, against the treaty we are all opne flesh. Black or white, we are all one . Gay or straight we are all one flesh. Protestant , Catholic, Unionist, nationalist, we are all one."

I paused and pulled my striped sweat-shirt over my head and holding it at arms length, bending slightly forward, I looked through the head-hole at the spectators. "We are all one," I called, "What you see in me is also in you." Having removed the sweat-shirt I then took off my T-shirt, and stood, barre-chested looking at the audience. I took off my leather belt and produced a swiss-army style pen-knife. "We are all one flesh", I reiterated. A woman in the front row turned away with a shudder. I imagine that she thought I was going to cut myself. I momentarily imagined this action but let the idea drop. I folded the belt, sliced it in two and put away the pen-knife.

Standing with half a belt in each hand , the cut ends hanging down, I continued my mantra and began to flagellate my back, one belt at a time:

Turning, and displaying the weals from the whipping, I chalked on the plinth, "RECONCILE". (Afficianados of this form might be interested to note that the welts were much less severe than on the previous two occasions. Perhaps my underlying personal needs for this part of the performance are waning.) I then climbed on a chair, stepped on the plinth and holding Collins by the nose (hoping it wouldn't come off), stood on the edge of the base. Leaning forward I embraced the bust with my arms and enfolded it with my thighs. The spectators watched in silence. The performance had ended, but no-one was sure. How would I indicate that it was finished? I was in no hurry. I, from a Northern, protestant, background hugging this icon of Irish republicanism.

Finally, leaning forward, I put my lips to his and finished with a stony kiss.