Little story time - 1979 - Background/Setting- I had left Huntsville to pursue my passion at North Carolina School of the Arts as a Senior in High School. In that one year, 79-80, I experienced so many extremes; a first true love, getting kicked out and immediately re admitted as a College Freshman, a fire that destroyed all of my material possessions plus most of my art work (friends have heard me speak of Kofi Burpridge with the Tedeschi-Trucks Band - he was by my side that entire night), an expansion of cultural and spiritual boundaries that exist to this day, a car wreck that took my life for 12 minutes and broke my body, including my jaw in 7 places, and exposure to more different forms of art ( from visual to musical to dance and dramatic) than I thought possible - and changed my life forever. During that year, I was also pushed to a creative freedom that I didnt know existed within me - an appreciation of so many things that I wasnt even aware of previously. While there I first dated a girl named Nicole Fosse, a dancer (or Baby-Bal as they were known); whose father was a man named Bob Fosse (who I had never heard of, just another girlfriends Dad), she told me she needed to go home to a movie event and did I want to go. Home was New York City and the movie event was the premiere of All That Jazz which Bob wrote and produced and was semi-autobiographical. I found myself in my first limo ride with Nicole, Bob, Roy Schieder and Jessica Lang ( and was introduced to blow for the first time). But I digress - whats this have to do with Fire & Rain you ask (if youre still reading)? While at NCSA we had Visiting Artists for 1 or 2 week sessions. One of these in the Spring was Theadora Skipatarus, a famous Performance Artist, and we had to produce a piece of Performance Art (this all came to mind from a post last week of Yoko Ono cat-screeching into a mic and someone defending it as performance art - Not!). So being the literal kind of guy I am I attempted to translate my experiences of the previous 8 months into a piece (dancer I am not). I made a mask of my face with the Symbolic Tragedy/Comedy split down the middle (which I still have and Ben likes to wear). I had a small table in front of me on the stage with a cutout of a car taped to a glass on its side (the glass not visible to the audience). The performance was tied and timed to this song. I had lathered the chin of the mask in rubber cement - again invisible to the audience. At a specific point in the song, my girlfriend who was in the front row leaned forward and lit my chin on fire with a bic lighter (we had not rehearsed this part, or much of any of it beyond the layout phase); the chin of the mask erupted into flame (temporarily blinding me and burning off the front of my hairline) and at another point (where James sings flying machines in pieces on the ground - sidebar trivia Flying Machine was James first band). I violently backhanded the car on the table, sending it flying across the stage, hitting the side wall and breaking into untold many pieces of glass. There were other aspects, but those were the two that left the greatest impression, both on the school administration (got in a bit of trouble) and Theodora Skipatarus - who gave me an A and led a standing ovation from the audience. Years later I went back to NCSA to see an old professor that have left a huge impression on my creative world. Sitting in his office I noticed among the myriad off tidbits he had on his wall was a picture of me and Claudia (a whole other story) and the crude cut-out picture of the car from that piece. The only piece of performance art I ever attempted - and like so many things in my life, was inspired by the words and music of James Taylor. If youre still reading Thanks - havent thought of that day in many years.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 05:47:24 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015