The Reception
|
A
PERFORMANCE
At Selected Embassies in Tokyo |
 |
|
The
Reception for
An Embassy without a Country A Performance and Installation |
On
this voyage of representation, Ambassador Solo performs a long amble paced
ritual of writing the borderline between frontiers. This attenuated ritual
includes elements reminiscent of the "Kow Tow" ceremonies in
ancient China and the nine Prostrations designed to humiliate the visitor
as performed before the Chinese Emperor's Court. The ritual becomes a
dance performance enacted by the ambassador for the supposed purpose of
proprietal verification and ranking. A somber ceremony challenging the
fragile borders between humor, sarcasm and the pathetically tragic. The
ambassador is followed by an entourage of protocol scribes, themselves
followed by a group of laborers and the ubiquitous woman. The Ambassador
himself leads the mission with a charrete-like apparatus designed to scribe
the path taken. This apparatus, a machine commissioned by the Embassy
for the writing of borders, has never in fact performed the ascribed function
for which it was made. As a failed prototype, its work remains strictly
symbolic to all but the Ambassador. Unable to appreciate the merits of
a consummate borderline writing apparatus, the ambassador perseveres in
his mission in spite of the humiliation of not being recognized by most
officials in his ceremonious role. To rectify this, an assiduous compilation
of protocol books, ported by the laborers, are bundled into haystack-like
packages by the apparatus and are deposited on its path, forming a perpetually
growing wall of protocol books. The apparatus itself, not unlike an ambulant
vendor or a homeless person's cart, at times resembling a plow if not
at times a harvester, is carried by the ambassador himself in ceremonial
stride. The ceremony itself is paced by the sounds and hootings of a breathing
machine that is mounted on the apparatus, all of which is underlined by
the industriously automated waving of flags that balance themselves from
right to left in a deliberately funereal yet unquestionably military march.
When in full gala uniform, Ambassador Solo is at least recognized as an
official. This in spite of a paranoiac allure. When the ambassador presents
himself out of the formal gala uniform, a disturbingly schizophrenic appearance
inhibits even the most tolerant bureaucrats. Ambassador Solo is a person,
indeed any person in search of "Identity" who in the process
of finding himself from "within", inadvertently catches a glimpse
of the same person "without" and can't help but laugh at the
site. Indeed the gist of humor.
Embassy Productions
Performance:
At Selected Embassies in Tokyo
May 8th, 9th, 15th & 16th, 1998
Exhibit:
May 1st to May 29th 1998
Space Untitled 137 Green Street (SOHO)
New York, NY (212) 674-1524
