Performed August 2008
Summerworks Performance Gallery
Gladstone Hotel – Toronto Ontario

I am always fascinated by the layers and various circumstances that can result in shared intimacy between two or more people. Especially unexpected relationships that occur out of a shared witnessing or inclusion within an environment. This piece begins with the illusion of beauty to find the seed of this study.

“You are invited” is a solo performance piece inspired by intimacy, vulnerability and trust.

The audience enters the room in the dark. I stand blindfolded under a dim chandelier. I start by leaning forward and inviting individual audience members up one by one to engage in an intimate act with me. Each one progressing in the level of trust from the previous invitation. A few examples included, asking someone to whisper the truth in my ear, feeding each other a quail’s egg, and kissing me on the neck.

I remain blindfolded the entire time.

As the piece develops, the lights became brighter further exposing the audience members to each other’s choices while I, the catalyst, remain in the dark.

In the lights the beauty built in the darkness starts to distort as more is exposed in the environment, other audience members and also a replica of a large heart full with tubes appears at my feet.
What interests me most about the aftermath of this work is the bond that develops between the audience members for each performance, I prefer a small group in the room for each performance, and the strange intimacy that suddenly exists between myself and the individual who anonymously (to me) offers me their moment. I have strangers telling me that they kissed me, or fed me, or felt my pulse from my prior performance.