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Bizarre Newborn Universe
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
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Inside Jim Self’s improvisation at MoMing: Friday evening, and people are gathering in the lounge of the four-story ex-church. Jim goes upstairs to turn on the tape and his two sets of instructions are passed out to the spectator/participants, half receive instructions No. 1, half get No. 2. They’re dancers and students and neighborhood people, a greyhaired man, someone from the church up the street, someone’s friends from out of town, a dog. My instructions request that I try not to talk or comment during the session; they explain that “there are no impossible feats; most things we do every day. Nevertheless, you may find some things challenging and unfamiliar. Don’t let this bother you, just try to do each step . . . watch out and be aware.” The first thing I have to do is go upstairs to the performance space, take a seat, and watch for fifteen minutes. “Red Sails in the Sunset,” and then a Joplin rag . . . and meanwhile people (all silent now) file into the room. Some take seats, some start to walk around the edge of the huge 17 k Bizarre Newborn Universe : The Reader, November 22, 1974 dance floor in the middle of the auditorium. The grey-haired man is pacing back and forth across the little proscenium stage at the other end of the room. Some people have walked onto the dance floor, executing strange turns with one arm in the air, slowly or quickly, but all with the same quiet task-fulfilling concentration. Sets of instructions are folded and clutched in a mouth or hand; from time to time the papers are consulted and then replaced. More people walk into the room, sitting down to watch or starting their course around the floor. Even the balconies do not escape this gradual ant-like activity: figures pace above purposively while an overalled , braided woman rushes, muttering, from side to side of the little stage. And now a whole muttering chorus crosses the stage in various tempi, but others are lining up facing the bleachers, humming and inching backwards randomly. The dog is doing this and that, investigating the floor, the movers, the sitters. It is all part of someone’s master plan. So, itching to move I decided fifteen minutes must be up, and (as instructed) I walk up to the edge of the floor, touch my toes, enter the space, and start crawling slowly among the people who are now boogying gently. Some rush away, and back, and away. The floor is getting rather swarmy, and presently I run into the eastern balcony, taking my place facing west against the railing, becoming one in a whole line of sentry-like figures. I’m humming and swaying, hearing faintly—above the music—a generalized low hum emanating from my neighbors, watching various quirky movements going on above and below. Check the directions: go to the stage and perform a repetitive action that you do not usually do in public. I take off my glasses and then a sock and start to crack my toes; someone else is walking around buttoning up his fly; someone else is beating his head against the wall; someone else is slowly traversing the stage with a rocking step; someone else is flicking her head around, flicking her arm around. Focusing my eyes on one spot while moving “in an appropriate way to the music that is playing”—some dreamy romantic song—I can see everything else only peripherally. I know that weird things are happening to my body as I keep shifting directions while my head stays still, my eyes fastened to the radiator. I see equally weird things going on all around me, out of the corners of my eyes. “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” . . . finally walking to the stage to sit as myself, but myself as the opposite sex. Looking at people quietly sitting down near me: everyone looking not so different, just some kind 18 of heightened awareness, a certain tension wrapped curiously around each crossing of a leg, each lifting and placing of an arm. Across the huge room from us, most of those who were moving at first are now watching. On the floor, a woman is walking backwards slowly, slowly, her face to the ceiling, her long hair swinging behind her. Someone is turning with her arm in the air. Another woman rushes around and around the edges of the room. Spurts of activity, while...