Origami Paper Dress Exchange
September 20, 2014
Half the Sky–a book object
October 13, 2014The Paper Dresses opening at PRESS proved to be a magical evening.
If you were unable to make it, one of the highlights of the night was the “happening/performance” starring two dresses by Diane Sullivan and my Let Go dress.
Big thanks to my MCLA colleague in theatre Laura Standley and three of her students, Courtney McLaren, Crysta Cheverie, and Kelsey McGonigle. They created an evening to remember. Please enjoy this slide show of the performance. Imagine the first few songs of the Amelie soundtrack and you might just be able to picture how the happening happened. Another big thanks to summer BHIP intern Nicole LeClair for taking these pictures!
The performance began with all three young women walking into the gallery at various speeds and intensities, moving backward and forward and in and around people and artwork. After about 5-10 minutes of this, Courtney, who was wearing the Let Go dress stopped. Crysta and Kelsey then began inviting people to come and tear off the part of the let go strips written with various statements. Sometimes it was very easy to tear off the strips, at other times quite difficult. Once torn, they were to be left to the floor. Gone, having been let go. This went on for a few minutes then the young women returned to the starting movement before taking up positions in the window where they moved slowly for a little while until they were released.
This dress evolved out my interest in what other people hold onto. Over 250 people contributed statements over the course of the summer. The top “thing” that people hold onto, according to this very informal poll, is fear. I shared this with my father and he reminded me of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s words: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. I wonder what our world would be like if we all let go of fear.
During the opening, the various “let go” statements were torn off the dress and left to the world, as a reminder of how sometimes we need someone to help us let go, as well as that it is sometimes just really hard to let go…
2 Comments
[…] Laura Standley, Assistant Professor in Theatre at MCLA directed the performance which featured Courtney McLaren, Kelsey McGonigle and Crysta Reverie. They were amazing. We can’t thank them enough. Learn more about the performance here. […]
What an excellent project…start to finish. There is something about all those people’s voices in the skirt and then the audience taking them that I really love. Maybe the Let Go dress and the Permission Slip could take all the other dresses on tour….we’d have massive trains of release and permission by the time it came back to PRESS. xoxo S