the guys were the chefs. the girl served. sushi.

this is an aside but i think it kinda fits with the performance. with the notion of privilege and power. most nights the organizers and artists who present at viva! are invited to eat for free. not tonight. but i wasn’t aware of this fact. so there i was, down on the floor watching the performance, executing my exquisitely refined drawings, and hoping to be served sushi. about three quarters through the performance janice informed me i needed to have an « s » on my hand to prove i had paid for the sushi. i’m thinking, « huh, but i don’t have to pay …i’m an Organiser « (i.e., above all the common riff raff who have to pay.) so i went over to catherine and asked her what was up…and sure enough tonight was a special night and even the artists and organizers had to pay. fine, no problem. i went back to the bar to pay. no luck. the sushi had been sold out! so instead of sushi i ate peanut butter on rye bread.

that’s what you get for assuming you have privileges and take those privileges for granted. served me right.

so what does this have to do with the performance you ask? well, i think there was something going on with east dominates west, cold science falls to warm sensuality. and i am white anglo so i get to be west and cold science falling to east and warm sensuality. my privileges revoked, my dominance usurped. (not as simple and didactic as that, but i did feel a kind of relation between the two events.)

marx was dressed in a lab coat, he had goggles on over his eyes, he wore purple rubber gloves, he used a brush to put colouring on the food, he had prongs to pick up the ginger. he was like bill nye the science guy making sushi. not getting his hands dirty, measuring things with beakers and picking up things with prongs.

chang was dressed in a white scarf with a black ink inscription on it that could have been caligraphy. he grabbed and squished the rice into a ball with his bare hands, and with his bare hands he picked up the fish and held it in place as he cut slices with his knife. he was the master chef, not needing the protective apparatus of science to create his beautiful food.

and it is beautiful to watch food being prepared. there is something inherently sensual and gratifying in watching another person preparing food.

they could have stopped there. watching food being prepared for oneself (even if i didn’t get to enjoy any) is enough.

however, one last « act » was performed after the food and utensils had been taken off the table. one filet of white fish on a plate remained. alone now marx began to draw lines with red dye on the fish, lines as if they were bones. then he took yellow dye and filled in the spaces between the lines, and finally with green dye he drew one last line down the length of the filet. marx left the « stage. » chang entered, went up to the plate, bent his head over the filet and began to lick the fish filet with his tongue.

a beautifully sensual and sexual image.