For You, April 1st, 2017

YBCA + Headlands Center for the Arts

          [9:30am] On April 1st, our twelve audience members arrived at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for a round of one-to-one performances. Devised by the YBCA Young Artists At Work fellows during a series of workshops, these twelve performances took place throughout the Yerba Buena Gardens. They included the presentation of a comic book featuring two of our audience members as superheroes, a flash fashion-shoot at Forever 21, a series of sidewalk games devised by a skateboarder, and a faux protest. Three cars driven by performers transported the audience to the Headlands Center for the Arts. The hour-long car ride included a curated playlist of the audience’s favorite songs, snacks, car games, and scripted talking points. 

          [2:45pm] Upon arrival at the Headlands Center for the Arts, performers guided the audience to a circle of chairs at the edge of a cliff overlooking the Bay. There, twelve performers danced twelve, individualized, audience specific scores. These scores were pre-recorded onto cassette tapes and included tightly scripted instructions for both solo and ensemble movements, a narration of the event, and audio sourced from our initial interviews. The audience watched in silence.

          [3:15pm] Afterwards, the audience were provided a map to several sites throughout the Headlands: three abandoned military bunkers, a makeshift bar in a barn, a bench overlooking the Nike Missile site, a remote picnic spot near the beach, and a lush velvet couch behind a barn. At each site, audience members received a one-to-one intimate performance: two seasoned drag queens had a kiki with two queer boys, a young Turkish immigrant gets her Tarot cards read and receives creative guidance from beyond, and a theater critic has her head rubbed by Naomi Newman of the Traveling Jewish Theater while listening to Heart. 

          [4:30pm] The audience then gathered at the bar and were instructed by emcee Erika Chong Shuch on how to order performances from our Shit Show Menu. Options that day included Amelie, Stay; Beast in Me; Le Cynge; Buried Child; Kick-the-Can; Tactical Trivia; Cafe Muller; Wine Sweater; Telekinesis; Flight; Phantom Planet; Durational Humping; You Don’t Own Me; Swan Rehearsal; Scherezade; Breastplate; Princess Nokia; Medea; Mayari: Silent Scream; and Blanca’s Hands. 

          [5:45pm] The audience then made their way to a historic military officer’s house for a twelve course dinner. Each course reflected an audience member and the epicurean stories they shared (or recipes borrowed): a plate of left over pizza crusts, “Self-care” Fried Chicken, McDonalds’ Cheeseburgers, Bulleit Bourbon, a giant bar of chocolate; caviar, Larry’s Mom’s Meat Sauce, and a cheese plate. 

          [7:00pm] After dinner, the audience made their way to the beach where they encountered the same circle of chairs from earlier in the day. Using cassette players, the audience listened to their individualized tracks and performed their scores for the first time. In the last seconds of their tracks, the audience was instructed to “bow to the sun,” which bowed back as it set into the bay.