SONIC CIRCUS

Over the weekend of August 21- 23 I was at a campground festival south of Wilmington Delaware. The majority of the performances at the festival were staged with specific set times with bands playing pre determined music. I am a musician who regularly engages in that activity, but for this festival, which was already booked solid, I still wished to participate, as a number of my peers and artists whom I admired were also performing and it would be a nice way to end the summer.

A friend was organizing the 'performance art' that would happen during the festival. I had recently purchased a pair of rollerblades for the first time since high school, and also have been playing a keyboard which is strapped on like a guitar; aka a 'keytar.' 

Having rollerbladed and played keytar during my friends performance at the Knockdown Center this past June, I asked the curator of the performance art if there was a basketball court on the campground. He replied there was, and I said I would like to play keytar and rollerblade at certain points of the festival. He gave me the OK to do so!

When I arrived at the festival, the program listed a certain time slot for my performance; saturday 5-7pm. Since my performance was durational, it was not necessary for audience to be present the entire time. The inspiration I drew for this performance was Erik Satie's 'Furniture Music'

In Satie's piece, the music is background and the setting is foreground. That was similar to my setup on the basketball court. I invited both audience and other musicians to bring instruments and one friend made the trip from New York  and a saxophonist who was there as a musician already. Audience members of the festival who made their way past the basketball court either stopped to watch the performance for a period of time either in fixed position on the side of the court, or just enjoyed the atmosphere as they went on their way.

I was attempting to create a performance that would not be judged on 'style' of music/aesthetic content, but rather one that would be so relaxed that the only judgement would be to say, 'oh look, that's nice to see/listen to' instead of walking by and only seeing people playing basketball, or nothing at all.

The majority of Performance is based on the ego of the performer. In this performance the ego is 

forgotten and the 'spectacle' of seeing a rollerblading keytar player is most important.