action movie is a one-on –one performance that shows the body at once as tool and a vessel that makes present the feeling and corporeal understandng of how space can be relearned. Sneakers squeak on slick waxed floors in what feels like a strange game of basketball. As I listen to the performer walk intently from one side of the room towards me, I stand with my eyes closed, I come to know that there are ten paces between one painting and another with the room. The body says, ‘Listen to me: walk. Now lets do this together.” Heel first, tow second. Repeat this as your body swings in line, hesitation leaving you. You know because of unknowing. Despite closed eyes you see. You trust despite knowing nothing more than the name of the person who leads you. Her body is beside yours. In an age where we check and uncheck a never ending sea of boxes, there are no boxes to check, there are only boxes to step outside of as you open and close your eyes, moving from one gallery to the next, feeling light filter through shuttered eyes. As you peer at the inside of your eyelids you think to yourself that this is also what a jackrabbits ear looks like when light filters through it in the desert sun.
Panting behind the nape of your next is a reminder that a person cannot only be in front of you, but behind, this act is one of pushing through. It makes you feel that there is an animal that lives in you both. The action is constantly happening and despite being thrown into the unknown we are suspended in the throws of a knowledge that we suppress in order to socialize. You realize again that running is a heel toe affair just as breathing is an inhale and exhale. Sweating is a beading on the skin but is triggered by a chemical reaction in the body.
This is relearning, regaining and redoing in a process of togetherness through acknowledging a thread that binds. Our bodies are bounding toward each other, moving into and out from each other in experience and resistance. With resistance comes release. The boundaries and territories we create within and around our bodies exist because we allow them to present themselves as such.
Stevie Ada Klaark
