By Kristen Vernon
A man lies naked on the floor of a gallery surrounded by 11 sealed jars filled with urine. Another man walks down the street talking on his cellular phone. They seem unrelated, but these two situations were both part of the same event.
Blast, a September performance art festival, featured six days of performance, a gallery exhibit and a national conference on performance. SAW Gallery and Gallery 101, organized the festival.
“Performance art is an action that an artist would do that lasts a specific period of time and then finishes,” says Laura Margita, administrative co-ordinator at SAW Gallery. While performance artists draw on theatre techniques, “the difference between performance art and theatre is that there are no lines and scripts (in performance art),” Margita says.
While walking around Centretown, Thomas Grondin wore a suit and a tie for his performance as chairman and president of his company, signs of the times. He asked people he met on the streets and those who called him on his cellular phone about the meaning of life.
Grondin says he wants to know what ideals people hold and how they link to choices people make in their lives.
Grondin spent a year preparing for his performance, but says he wanted “to remain flexible” and open. It’s important, he says, because performance is as much about presentation as it is about research.
Grondin says he performs to interact with the public and to help them possibly see things differently.
“It’s way for me to get involved in the real world,” Grondin says.
Stefan St-Laurent, who performed with his identical twin brother, says, “You have to improvise because you never know what the outcome of the performance will be. There’s an element of surprise that I really like.”
Without looking at one another, Stefan and Jason St-Laurent transformed their faces with special effects make-up before an audience.
Paul Couillard, who also performed in Blast, says, “The object (of performance art) is to create a situation that involves interaction with people. It’s not entertainment, but a way to get people to think.”
Couillard laid on the floor of the gallery in a yoga position known as the corpse. His feet were flexed, his palms faced upward and his fingers touched the ground. He was naked and molasses trickled out of his mouth.
Visitors listened to a tape-recorded message and then recorded a personal question into another tape recorder. Visitors then went and looked into Couillard’s eyes. He didn’t want to know anyone’s question, but he gave each person an action to perform or contemplate.
After the performance, Couillard noticed people talking about how the action he suggested related to their question. “That people were thinking about things in a different way, that made the piece a success,” says Couillard.
To prepare for his performance, Couillard says he spent 24 hours in the gallery — without sleep or food — practicing the position he would take during the performance as a way “to get into a place beyond ego consciousness.” Couillard says he had 11 jars filled with water, which he drank from and then urinated in.
Couillard says his art binds human beings and says he wants to create other kinds of connections, like compassion.
“We live in a capitalist culture, and many interactions start with money. This is not a recipe for lasting success. I’m looking for other ways to connect us as humans,” he says.