INTERMISSION, LAYOVER

TAVIA NYONG’O ON BRIAN FUATA’S PERFORMANCE, INTERMISSION (SEINI_TRANSMIT), AT SUMER
TAVIA NYONG, Art News Aotearoa

There is a certain cheek to titling your performance Intermission, by custom the period when the audience is released from the intensity of the performance, relieved of their job, and can temporarily dissolve back into the couples, groups and singletons they were before the event started. During the intermission, you can go to the bathroom, get a drink, step outside for a smoke. You might even start a provisional conversation about what you are seeing, talk about how it is going, perhaps even arrive at some snap judgement about whether you want to skip out on the second act and grab an early dinner instead. Intermission, in sum, is a gift performance that gives back to the audience in exchange for signing up for the ride. To name the performance itself Intermission (seini_transmit), then, is to invert the expected social contract, to suggest that the performance has begun before it has officially started, and will resume once this ephemeral transmission—this pirate radio broadcast—is over and out.

 

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