the re-coronation
The Re-Coronation
Art Live Fair Performance
Fundraiser for Lotus House Women's Shelter
Coconut Grove Convention Center
"Art Live 2012 is an interactive, performance based, contemporary "art happening" and fair in which artists and exhibitors are invited to share the creative process unfolding spontaneously in every form of artistic medium and to the extent possible, engage the fairgoers in the creative process. " -www.artlivefair.org
My Concept:
Marie Antoinette is infamous as a woman of total luxury, a licentious, carefree, frivolous, empty-headed spendthrift. A perfect symbol of superficiality and shallowness. I long to save her from her terrible past. What if I could rewrite history? Go back to that first year in France, when she was a mere fourteen, and lure her curiosity with literature instead of cake. Remove the extravagant dresses and pomade, and replace it with a typewriter or a book. Let me resurrect her in a different light, a better light, full of promise and possibility. Better yet, let me resurrect her in multiples, show the audience an apparition of possibilities, return her humanity to her, her introspection. Let me transform one symbol into another, right before one's eyes.
Performance
Duration: 1 Hour
Scene:
14 typewriters lie on the floor, as well as accouterments associated with leisure among women. 14 girls dressed as variations of Marie Antoinette, most marked by her infamous white wig, and in various stages of dress and undress.
At first they appear sprawling and careless, lazily engaging in the types of activities Marie would have enjoyed around the palace- card playing, picking at frosted desserts, applying makeup and nail polish, or humming along to music. The whisper and giggle, talk behind fans. They appear to have all the time in the world to luxuriate. After a few minutes, however, one of them begins to play with the typewriter by her, and then seriously begins to type. One by one they all turn from their leisure activities to the typewriters. By the end of the hour, all one sees and hears is typing, a "collective oneness" once again, a thoughtful, introspective woman.
Watch Video: www.artisabout.com
