Last Night on the 04/02/2016, I ventured into what I can only describe as a insightful free-love fest. The mood was set, the audience were engaged and the content was fantastic. In all honesty I think this solo-performance will be one of the most influential pieces of performance that I have felt truly touched by, however this raises the question will I still feel the same way when creating my own, individual concept.
(Jamie Wood’s, 2015, Google Images.).
This performance did several things well, to start with the audience were very passive and mostly curious about the performance they would be witness to (ignore that.) would become a part of, this performance in particular was crucial for the audience to feel partof the open-spirited world that Jamie Wood’s had created as throughout they would be called onstage to elevate the performance to new slightly seedy heights. I feel overall the performance was a joy to watch, yes there were questions, namely what am I about to witness and what have I let myself in for this evening? I would not change a thing. It allowed me to see how playfulness was an effective medium in which to work, it also allowed me to gain mental/visuals on how I would like my performance to come across on stage.
(Smilesfilms, Yoko Ono, 2015).
Other areas I noted was the actual context of the performance, based around the real-life setting on John Lennon and Yoko Ono, a multimedia performance artist who would be the second wife of John Lennon, and could be argued to say deeply influenced his own work. The performance was part ritual, part love-story, part celebration, and it also addressed the death of John Lennon several times that at first glance could be missed or contrived.
It also added the horrible reminder of the mass killings of the american free-love protesters, as each gunshot echoed through an immersed audience each deeper then the next. If there was moment I would have to say affected me it would have to be the ultimate test for any audience was the free-love movement of “Bag-ism” and the idea that two people are asked to completely undress themselves underneath for mere moments so that they are completely naked, this for me was a moment I would like to remember for the rest of my life as in its basic essence it was a moment of pure innocence and often in life we pass moments life this by, it could be argued that if we took more moments for complete thoughts to occur there might be less senseless anger and instead all we all could relate to John Lennon lyrics of imagine as he famously sang;
“Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…”
John Lennon- Imagine.