VENEZIA, ITALY
SPEAK TO ME ONLY WITH THINE EYES
Opening night was at Palazzo Z'anardi
The palace was beautiful, the coolness of the marble was welcome as the day was hot and wearing all black on a hot night can be stifling if I'm wanting to have my attention fully on all the people I'm to interact with.
Attention to details are important. Last minute preparation required making a new headdress for the show. Fortunately this version was even better than my last. I had taken some precautions by bringing extra materials with me and taken "just in case items" in the even of a mishap. Extra tape, Gaff tape, sewing materials, glue, cardboard to cut on top of, etc... I could not foresee however that an overzealous application of Gorilla glue I brought along would bubble out of the seams as it cured. Two hours of cutting bevels and careful measuring were saved by shaving the frothy thick glue off by shaving with a razor and painting the pasty yellow residue with a last minute application of Mascara which was the only black paint to be found. I felt like I was in an art Survivor Episode and so glad for my field improvising capabilities developed over the years and also by observing how others learn to make do in other countries.
This is such an old and beautiful city I can not but help feel spirits still hanging around their beloved Venice. The other night I would have sworn I felt one above me when I went to bed. They are welcome to me. I feel very at home here, I know I've lived here before. I felt it the instant we got off the train and looked at the buildings across the Grand Canal. My skin at the back of my neck tingled and I could feel myself thinking "you are home". You wouldn't think it by the way I get lost walking around here. GPS is nice but there's nothing like stopping to ask a hundred times for directions and interacting with people. I think that's nice and it develops a very fine sense of knowing when someone doesn't know what they are talking about yet they still offer you directions which would take you not only on a thirty minute detour but in the exact opposite direction of where you need to go. This is another side effect of SPEAK TO ME ONLY WITH THINE EYES.
At this point in my work I know there's very little I need to do to prepare for performing other than clear my head and be open to anyone. I don't really want to call what I wear a costume as it's much more than that. In some way it's a metaphor for body or nothing or furniture as some people treat it that way. I have a profound appreciation for the Burqa now. I can sense that now in these robes and head dress, to some I don't exist. I have in common what the homeless feel and women and the unseen or not looked at. Being a "normal" human is really no different, We are all active inside our heads and the level of interaction we have with others can be some what determined by others and mostly by ourselves, it is our responsibility as always if we wish to be and interact with the world.
Although people will come up to me most of the night or me to them and they have what ever what they have on and their hair and makeup looks however, what I remember through the night and for days and months after is their eyes. Yet something more than that remains with me. I am connected now.
They have communicated their things to me and I have listened and communicated back in the thought world and whether I have understood or duplicated exactly what has come across or not it stays there. I feel blessed to have seen so many shiny eyes in a night. they are so beautiful. As my Italian language skills are abysmal even with 4 years of Latin under my belt, wordless communication is beautiful, all I need is the eyes.
In the course of the evening I interacted with some children. There was a little girl there with my friend Andrea. He told me at the end of the night that she said "I looked at him and communicated to him with my brain." I loved that.
When I think of what I want to communicate to others, I suppose I could communicate things like, "I'm here for you" or "Thank you for visiting" or "You have incredible eyes" but most often I'm thinking "We are stardust and the galaxy or universe is so big and You are it with me and perhaps if we all see that the world would be better.".
Most often what I'm getting from others is that words are not necessary in the totality of things. If I were to position myself out in space someplace and see how big the universe really is and how small our planet really is , there is nothing but awe and we are connected by that with our eyes.
Really it is amazing, if you look at a rock or a building and you think of how small that is in comparison to the sun or Ceres or Orion's Belt. It shows to me how small and insignificant daily words are, though we need them or think we do. So here we are with this small insignificant rock yet someone picks it up to throw at a building or another human.
I could say that Venice for all its history is the most incredible place in the world, the city of Masks, to do this piece but in truth I feel the same when looking into someone's eyes here as I do in some abandoned building in a run down part of St Louis. The eyes and people I interact with there and here leave me the same, blessed to have had the experience and resolved to continue this piece as it is important and I can see it has impacted others there and here and anywhere I perform it.
Tomorrow I start street performance.
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