H St NE Festival 2013
Aether Art Projects will show some projects at the H Street Festival this Saturday, September 21, presented by FLEX!
Rachel Hynes will be performing throughout the day, and Renée Regan performs at 4pm. Joint launches of Aether Art's newest project PERI0D, and the launch of a peer organization getsmART.
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 21, noon-7
FLEX will be located at 5th St NE and H St NE
Rachel Hynes will be performing throughout the day, and Renée Regan performs at 4pm. Joint launches of Aether Art's newest project PERI0D, and the launch of a peer organization getsmART.
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 21, noon-7
FLEX will be located at 5th St NE and H St NE
Doing it in the rain: Renée Regan, “Adult Actions”
09/24/2013
by Eames Armstrong
Renée Regan waited out the first burst of afternoon rain during the H Street Festival at Khepra’s Raw Food, just down the block from the Flex tent and Camper Contemporary. She wanted to eat something healthy before her performance, a responsible decision.
On the corner of 5th and H St NE she set up her yoga mat, a stool, and a little table on which she put a small mirror leaned up against an electrical box. She unpacked exercise accessories, toiletries, and left a few bags besides and below the table. Just as soon as she began the performance with stretches, the drizzles returned. And the drizzles increased. And soon, a total downpour- scattering the roving crowds towards bars and under awnings. She continued.
Even through the driving rain, which dampened the grease and gasoline odor of the street fair, the sharp smell of acetone drifted over to the shelter of my umbrella as Renée cleaned the chipped polish off her toe nails. She performed Adult Actions, all those things that you know that you should do, those things that adults do, but you don’t. With her face close to the wet and clouded mirror, she flossed to make up for lost flossing, to set the grounds for now becoming an adult. Because adults floss, and they don’t forget or simply neglect to.
Quite the opposite of the captive audience of theatre- most of the witnesses ran by, heads rotating towards her- as she did sit-ups, brushed her hair, moisturized her skin- a fleeting sight as they hurried to escape the rain. I heard some people say to their companions in the clenched teeth way of the cold, wet, and out of breath, “oh she’s doing a performance.” Most neither stopped nor said a word. From one of her bags she pulled a Washington Post, still in its narrow tube of plastic. This gesture resonated with me the strongest. She unfolded the paper on her soaking lap, held it up in front of her, and it began to wilt and disintegrate almost as soon as she could read past a headline. She struggled to turn the page, the pale newsprint now dark and wet. My heart broke with compassion. Renée reading the newspaper, thoroughly soaked and cold, trying to turn the pages, was the pinnacle of all the sadness and comedy of this work.
With a turn of the weather- a work can either be foiled or transformed. Jeffry Cudlin’s Rosslyn Redpoint at Supernova earlier this year was made all the more tragic/heroic by the miserable downpour. His quest to scale Rosslyn horizontally with a team of two might have been witnessed by more people if it were a bright and beautiful Friday, by happy pedestrians strolling the Key Bridge or the casual performance enthusiasts who were deterred by the rain. The weather amplified what was already a seriously taxing endurance work, and more so amplified the absurdity.
In performance, our metaphors are real actions. Adult Actions was at once self-critical- examining her personal habits, and social-critical- examining popular ideas of personal responsibility. The dark humor of her deceptively commonplace actions told a story of absurdity and futility. We work to change ourselves. Self-improvement in order to move forward in life. I’m not an adult, I want to be an adult. And the newspaper falls apart in our hands in the rain.
09/24/2013
by Eames Armstrong
Renée Regan waited out the first burst of afternoon rain during the H Street Festival at Khepra’s Raw Food, just down the block from the Flex tent and Camper Contemporary. She wanted to eat something healthy before her performance, a responsible decision.
On the corner of 5th and H St NE she set up her yoga mat, a stool, and a little table on which she put a small mirror leaned up against an electrical box. She unpacked exercise accessories, toiletries, and left a few bags besides and below the table. Just as soon as she began the performance with stretches, the drizzles returned. And the drizzles increased. And soon, a total downpour- scattering the roving crowds towards bars and under awnings. She continued.
Even through the driving rain, which dampened the grease and gasoline odor of the street fair, the sharp smell of acetone drifted over to the shelter of my umbrella as Renée cleaned the chipped polish off her toe nails. She performed Adult Actions, all those things that you know that you should do, those things that adults do, but you don’t. With her face close to the wet and clouded mirror, she flossed to make up for lost flossing, to set the grounds for now becoming an adult. Because adults floss, and they don’t forget or simply neglect to.
Quite the opposite of the captive audience of theatre- most of the witnesses ran by, heads rotating towards her- as she did sit-ups, brushed her hair, moisturized her skin- a fleeting sight as they hurried to escape the rain. I heard some people say to their companions in the clenched teeth way of the cold, wet, and out of breath, “oh she’s doing a performance.” Most neither stopped nor said a word. From one of her bags she pulled a Washington Post, still in its narrow tube of plastic. This gesture resonated with me the strongest. She unfolded the paper on her soaking lap, held it up in front of her, and it began to wilt and disintegrate almost as soon as she could read past a headline. She struggled to turn the page, the pale newsprint now dark and wet. My heart broke with compassion. Renée reading the newspaper, thoroughly soaked and cold, trying to turn the pages, was the pinnacle of all the sadness and comedy of this work.
With a turn of the weather- a work can either be foiled or transformed. Jeffry Cudlin’s Rosslyn Redpoint at Supernova earlier this year was made all the more tragic/heroic by the miserable downpour. His quest to scale Rosslyn horizontally with a team of two might have been witnessed by more people if it were a bright and beautiful Friday, by happy pedestrians strolling the Key Bridge or the casual performance enthusiasts who were deterred by the rain. The weather amplified what was already a seriously taxing endurance work, and more so amplified the absurdity.
In performance, our metaphors are real actions. Adult Actions was at once self-critical- examining her personal habits, and social-critical- examining popular ideas of personal responsibility. The dark humor of her deceptively commonplace actions told a story of absurdity and futility. We work to change ourselves. Self-improvement in order to move forward in life. I’m not an adult, I want to be an adult. And the newspaper falls apart in our hands in the rain.
