Having interviewed Keith on the first day of class, I immediately knew what her self-portrait was going to be about as I helped her with setting up. Throughout her life – every time she goes to a new school or meets someone new – most people have gotten her name wrong, and Keith showed that in her performance by repeatedly spelling her name wrong and by using question marks to take the place of some of the parts of her name.
What I did not expect was Keith’s linking of her self-identity to her name. The question of “What is your name?” became a question of “Who am I?” for Keith in her performance – and in her life. As you could see during the performance, Keith looked both confused and frustrated, especially when she sat down and looked at the incorrect spellings of her name and when she tore them down, respectively. She turned her canvas, with the question mark on it, over, revealing a mirror into which she looked and determined who she was. With confidence and determination, Keith tore down the papers covering her name – each name having a design relevant to its origins.
Although Keith and I both used the blackboard, I did it to symbolically show that I want to teach languages sometime in my life. I tried to show this, also, through my use of audience participation by literally sharing my love of languages with the class. I believe that the one major difference between the two performances was that Keith’s showed a more confused and frustrated person – until the end, that is – while mine showed someone who was confident in himself for the performance’s entirety.
There were some similarities in both performances, however. Both performances contained a sense of suspense as the audience tried to determine what was the point of our performances, what Keith’s full name was, and what I was writing on the board. And finally, during our performances, Keith and I turned our backs to the audience for the most of the entirety of the performances, showing that our self-portraits were personal to us and isolated.
-John Wetmore, Blog A
