I was only able to squeeze in one performance at Fusebox Festival this year, and lucky for me, it was Joan Jonas' The Shape, the Scent, the Feel of Things. In this performance she tells a story of anxiety, culture and ritual, layered with the perspectives of the patient, the analyst, the intellectual, and the artist. It is a reflection on her study of and fascination with Aby Warburg (1866-1929), the German art historian, and their common experience of witnessing Hopi ceremonies as visitors to the American Southwest.
The performance both opens and closes with what I believe is a quote from Warburg's writings. But, I didn't write it down in the moment because I wanted to soak it all in, so I'm unsure of the exact wording. But, this is pretty close: "Even the weakest member has the duty/possibility(?) to strengthen the will to/for(?) cosmic order." For me, this is the key that unlocks the mystery of the work.
Soaking it all in was the only way to go, because there was so much happening simultaneously. A backdrop of video played while the performers moved through and around the space: sometimes dancing, sometimes drawing, sometimes in monologue, sometimes performing a ritual, sometimes pulling a taxidermied coyote on wheels, and often all at once. And, it was lovingly layered with Jason Moran's piano, composed especially for this piece.
Jonas' work is both difficult, in that there is no way to accurately convey what was really going on, short of saying you had to see it, and completely natural, in that it makes so much sense! I stayed on after the performance for a conversation between Jonas and Lynne Cooke, the curator who originally commissioned the piece for Dia:Beacon. And, in her closing statement Jonas said that "work has the power to heal." Amen.
Joey on an Orange Field, for Joan
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