Back in July, I had the opportunity to take a workshop led by Marilyn Arsen, a performance artist that has been creating live performance work since 1975. Marilyn’s work focuses on minimal durational work. Her work seems simple when her actions are summarized, but Marilyn is able to find depth and nuances in the tasks she brings to the audience. Marilyn also understands the audience is intelligent enough and empathetic enough to search for mystery themselves. My personal goal going to Marilyn’s workshop was to combat that urge. I wanted to feel like I was bringing genuine creativity, and stay compelling to my audience. I wasn’t alone in my worries, and Marilyn had a way for us to challenge those thoughts by creating mystery.
During this workshop, Marilyn had the participants be prepared with daily tasks, props to complete those tasks, and unconnected unwritten stories. She first had us tell our stories in a short duration. After we told it once, we had to tell them again in a shorter form. Then the workshop switched agendas, and we explored how much detail it takes to complete our daily tasks. Marilyn would have us tear that task apart and slow down our movement just to see how much nuance is actually in there. Once we were able to explore as much as we needed, the workshop was prompted with combining the tasks with the unconnected stories. We did this twice, once with a familiar narration of storytelling and once with broken sentences that lacked action. As we were watching each other perform these prompts, mystery was already there. These were simple actions that we were doing, there wasn’t an exaggerated movement or forced attitude to our actions. Plus, the words and sentences that came from the artist help guide the mystery without elaborating. We were not performing, but we were entertaining. Now, more than a month later, I think back to the workshop and I know I have more to offer than just shocking the audience. As an artist, I feel like we forget the impact we have on our audience just creating. Watching all of us in the workshop create from this mystery allowed me to recognize that artists have that impact. I learned to not only trust myself, my technique, my practice, but to trust the audience. That trust also extends to me, the artist. As the artist it’s up to me to place the boundary for the audience. Using this trust allows for simplicity to be entertaining.
Trust. Trust is a necessity in many aspects of life and various relationships. As an artist, bringing trust into our own art should be a no brainer. That thought should be natural when an artist is curating work, right? One would think, however I find myself working against this natural thought. As stated earlier, I noticed myself focused on what would keep my audience entertained. I felt compelled to wow the audience with athletic dance tricks, or shocking moments. On the other hand, I felt myself thinking about how the audience would read these moments. Does this make sense or have I pushed my audience to a jarring uncomfortable state that we can’t come back from? These anxieties would come into my movements and I would be so focused on the impact my work has on the observers. The anxieties would cloud my intentions and decisions, and my art would show my distrust. Trust. It’s the key element when addressing these anxieties. Trusting myself, my work, my skills is an ongoing process I’m going to have to deal with as an artist. But what if I tricked my brain to make this process easier? I trust my audience is capable of watching my work without my need to hold their hand through it. My responsibility as an artist is to create, not take away the mystery of my work. I trust the mystery of my work will keep the audience focused and curious. I trust the mystery to help my work so I don’t have to use athletic dance tricks and shocking moments. Trust with mystery is a tool I can use to benefit my art.
Edison Corvera (they/them) is a queer Filipinx performer currently based around the SLC area. They attended Southern Utah University and studied theater arts and dance performance. Since moving to the Salt Lake area, Edison has worked with Myriad Dance, Ogden Movement Collective, and SONDERimmersive. Whether through dance, acting, or modeling, Edison hopes to continue to find ways to implement their art with the community around them.