Doing Performance while Doing Some Art

The following piece of writing will be a brief report on the form of both performance and artistry that our drama class has done. Even though I am not sure how to call such combination, it involves controlling our body not only to perform our own plays while putting our attention into other activities; spreading the canvas within the floor, painting whatever comes to our mind, and so on. What then becomes the difficult part of the whole routine is to still be able in gathering people’s attention to our own plays when they are clearly have something to do too; that is painting and, for some, performing their own performances as well.

It starts with our breath, as in settling our breathing rhythm through the usual exercise of inhaling with our nose and exhaling with our mouth thoroughly. The air is filled with not only our breath but the sound of our breathing as it gradually turns into various vowels, consonant, or syllables of our own choosing. As the cue is signaled, we came into a brief pause and seemed to be filled with floating uncertainty. The pause seems to be broken when some of us start to spreading the humble canvas across the stage’s floor. Yet it comes back when it is the time for us to start performing.

Eyes are starting to wander—either it was mine or others’—as we don’t seem to be sure on how we are supposed to start our performances. The paper canvas under my feet seems to be already neat enough for me to start performing yet it took me more than a second to gather the courage to do so. Yet after uttering, performing and shouting the first sentence of my performance, it becomes easier for me to continuously and thoroughly perform my scene. Sounds from others are starting to emerge as well. What was a performance is now a competition in terms of who is the one whose voice and performance will be heard and be paid attention to compared to the others. As soon as I realize that my voice is losing, I gather extra amount of air and courage to shout the next sentence. It keeps going and going. The sounds come in a form of not only syllables or various noises (as not all of us have an actual performance to act out) but also words, phrases and sentences (especially from the one who is performing his or her or their scene, like me). From one end I can hear various “Aaaa…”, or “Ooo…” that are trying to overlap my own voice. From the other end I can hear Niluh and Rizky who are performing their own act and trying to be heard as well.

However, all of the aforementioned chaos is added by the fact that we are all painting random images upon the paper canvas while making the noises and competing in terms of our volume. As soon as I start my own performance, the thick stench from my yellow acrylic paint creeps inside my nose even though it seems to be nullified by the overflowing breath of air that comes as I start to thread my performance. Smell is not only the sense that is important. I have to also mind my movement so that every step which I make will not cause me to step on other’s paint and images or even my own images as well. Yet, as I seem to be overwhelmed and distracted by the idea that I have to make my voice that loud and significant so my performance could be noticed as well, my feet has become another layer of canvas as well. Then it becomes even more difficult for me to concentrate in performing my scene while I am struggling to not rip the paper as I try to move my sticky feet glued by the paint which I stepped on.

As the performances receded and the images are abruptly finished, the sounds transform into jovial chatter and laughter as we try to fold and collage the paper canvas into a more compact painting. Some are trying their best to tidy up the images. Some are playing with the paint, forcing others’ body part to become their own canvases. The stickiness of the paint is added not only on my feet but on some part of my arms, or even face. Balance of color doesn’t seem to be a problem as the pile of our paintings has become nothing more than pile of paper with random images on it. Yet the pile looks entertaining, at least for me, in a way that the actual result doesn’t seem to matter that much compared to the chaos, effort and joy that I experience when I was able to actually perform my scene while painting random smile faces and the words “alone” or “fake” upon the canvas.

To see the pile of our works being crumpled and dumped into the trash bin is not that much of a scenery. The cleaning up process, in terms of putting the rolled up paper canvas into the garbage bin, seems to contradict all of the effort that we and I have put when we were performing our plays and painting our own images upon the paper canvas. Yet the struggle of cleaning the stain of paints all over the stage seems to be more tedious. It doesn’t seem to be much of a team effort any longer as the number of participant for the cleaning process is way lower than the actual process of performing and painting. Some stain can be removed. Some cannot. We didn’t force it out in a sense that we only cleaned the stains which we could clean. It was good enough. At least we did clean our mess and be at least responsible for it.

Even though it is indeed difficult to make ourselves doing more than one challenging action in conjunction with other tasks, it has become clear to me that there is a lot of effort which we have to put in doing a performance.

We have to keep our concentration in actually performing our act as it requires us to not only memorize the script (or actually and thoroughly reading the script for my case) but also to put an effort in actually acting out or expressing the scene which we are trying to perform. In addition, we also have to keep our attention towards our surrounding so that we are able to not only keep our significance (especially when we are performing something, for example) but also to not put ourselves into a problematic situation (ripping the paper because we moved too rough and fast, stepping on paints, bumping with each other, and so on). It is more than actually creating the art through performing a scene or painting some random images. It is the way with which we perform such act of performing a scene or painting some images that has become more important as it will affect not only the process of creating the art but also the result of the art itself.

Last but not least, the post-production, post-performance, and post-art process of actually cleaning up the mess which we have caused is also another important part of the whole process. It is not that much related to the actual process of doing the performance and the art but it does signify the humanness of our selves. We have put abundant amount of effort in doing the routine, so it wouldn’t hurt that much if say we also put similar amount of effort in cleaning up after the routine. We have learned through the routine about having to be aware with our surroundings, so might as well put it in practice right away.