January 17th, 2002

Several performing artists recently received commissions for the opening night of the new Jewish Community Center, (JCC), The event took place in Manhattan, January 24th, 2002. Within the wider context of my continuing Lunar Performance project, I was asked to create an installation/performance within a 7000 square foot pool area. The idea was to address the theme of 'The Beginning". The pool therefore with its many elements, lifeguard chairs, physical pool surroundings, pool objects, etc., became an integral part of the event.

The turn against language

Central to my work is manipulation of the spoken word. I started with the biblical text of Genesis 'in the beginning", and explored its relationship to time. I actively take 6,000 year old narratives, fragment them and then re-structure them on a horizon of contemporary words, phrases (feminist theory, fairy-tales, as well as articles from the New York Times) to create an intertextual identity. I strive, through actually performing the spoken/fragmented word, to turn against language. In the Artaudian sense (1938), I create a new form of "incantation", working "against the hierarchy of compulsory repetition as a founding act of signification"(Judith Butler, 1990).

[The photographs below by Thomas Simpfendoerfer]