Ralph Lemon’s production, Scaffold Room, had me leaving the theatre in a terrible mood with a splitting headache. This avant-garde performance art piece was not what I had expected it to be. After hearing it was”sexually explicit” and “not what Lemon used to do”, I googled the piece and read a little bit about the piece. Many pages used the term “lecture-performance-musical” to describe Scaffold Room. The performance, in my opinion, accurately represented the phrase.
The show began with the squeaking of a mattress atop the scaffold room. The first performer jumped on the mattress as videos were projected on screens in the set. As the performance continued, the woman in the room spoke, sang, moved around the space and proceeded to change your clothing as well as put on a wig. As she spoke and sang I felt as if not only I but everyone one around me was uncomfortable with the vulgar and explicit language. The projection panels were moved around the performance to create different defined spaces. It is difficult for me to discuss this piece because while watching the performance I tried hard to forget what was going on around me. As the second woman took the stage and began her section of the piece, I became annoyed the performance. The length and vulgarity of the piece seemed unbearable to me. At the moment which the high-pitched screaming blasted through the performance space, my exhaustion intensified. After what seemed like five minutes, the painful screaming finally stopped. This piece concluded with the men dancing to an electronic remix of a song. This was the only section of the performance that I enjoyed, however with a splitting headache, it was difficult to fully appreciate it. Because of the lack of within the piece, it is difficult to call Scaffold Room a dance performance. Like Jeanine Durning’s -inging, Scaffold Room would be considered a performance art piece instead. Just because they have been created by choreographers does not mean that they have to be dance performances. While it is understandable that we saw Jeanine Durning’s piece for your theatre aspect of the class, I am unsure as to why Ralph Lemon’s piece was incorporated into our curriculum when we could have seen another type of dance being performed.
Eli McClain
I completely understand your annoyance and exhaustion while watching this performance–I was also exhausted and frustrated as I tried, and failed (completely) to process this piece, or at least understand how each part even related to the next. How, or why did the lady in the blond wig go from speaking calmly at the audience to lying on the floor while a device played an extremely grating record of someone screaming for five minutes? I know Donna mentioned how we shouldn’t be too focused on finding the meaning behind these performances, but it’s hard, especially if none of it makes sense. I feel like I was missing out on an important message
I also agree with the term you found to describe this performance; “lecture-performance-musical” perfectly describes the aspects used in this piece. I wish I had read that before going into the performance, since I was expecting maybe a more avant-garde dance piece, much like the ones I saw at Judson Church.
Looking back at the explicit and vulgar language that was used, there was definitely an air of discomfort, as you mentioned. But I wasn’t particularly bothered by it after the first few instances that such language was used–I think it actually livened up the performance of the second woman a little more because the words were so startling when compared to the rest of her monologue. It was actually a nice break from most of her performance, since I felt that some of the parts went on for way too long. For example, the bad singing in the beginning, when the performer had her legs spread in front of her, went on for what seemed like forever. Her monologues were lengthy as well, and I found myself having difficulty following her words until she broke out of the monologue by changing her voice and imitating another person (like a white boy or a man from the South).
On a more positive note, I did like the first performer’s part a bit more, only because I feel like it didn’t drag on for too long. What stood out to me most was when she put on a wig and started singing, then jumping wildly across the stage, and then lying on the floor. I think I preferred her part better because there was a lot more movement involved, which kept me mostly engaged. But the highlight of the show for me was the three men dancing as well. It really livened up the room (I saw many people sleeping during the performance) and left me in a better mood.
However, overall, I have to agree that I am confused about why this performance was included in the class. What category does it fall in? Or did Donna show us this solely because she wanted us to see a performance we would never be interested to go see on our own?