For Dudley
7A*11D Performance Festival
Symptom Hall,
August 8, 1997
A long table waits for the performer, with two unconnected strands of rope hanging overhead. Rebecca Belmore enters wearing a blood-red summer dress over a white slip. She is carrying a branch with green leaves on it. She proceeds to systematically shear the leaves from the branch. The table is unsteady and the performance feels like a dangerous one. The audio component adds to this tension a Latino-inflected version of BANG BANG (MY BABY SHOT ME) and Belmore has arranged that the verse and chorus do not conform to predictable mathematical intervals. When the performer completes the shearing ritual she then hangs the branch between the strands of rope. She removes her dress and places the garment on the table alongside her teapot and water. The cotton slip is then transformed into a projection screen and the face of Dudley George is projected in memorial. The performer cleans the table and resumes her own immediate life. Her life goes on. Performances as concentrated and satisfying as this one go on too infrequently.
originally published in Lola #1 1997 (ISSN 1480-252X) pp. 74-75 (under SHOTGUNS)