All my worlds, personal, professional, and volunteer, conspired this weekend to support one theme: communal intimacy. Seems an oxymoron, right? Or at least some relationship type that keeps showing up on Tinder, despite you always swiping left? But alas, it was the work of the brilliant Fusebox Festival, an annual festival of ideas, thought-provoking performances, and experiences best consumed live, with other humans. It happens in Austin but is global by design.
Fusebox Eve, with performances by and Graham Reynolds and Erin Markey, kick-started the week. But the next evening’s performance –In Many Hands– is what really set the tone for my week. Kate McIntosh, the Brussels-based artist, exuded a calm energy as she welcomed us. As encouraged, we washed our hands in a communal bowl before entering a darkened black box theater, taking our place at a long table, side-by-side, with a stranger. By intuition, everyone is quiet, and a companionable silence settles in. The artist, sitting at one end of a table, demonstrates a gesture that ripples down the table–imagine a physical game of telephone. We nestle our hands in our neighbor’s palm, and objects are passed along the table for us to explore, smell, touch. Jiggly milk in a bag, breakable pink goo, petrified feces, hardened sea horses, human hair… it was hard to be patient and not look to what surprising item was next. After we reach the end of this scene, we take a new seat, by a new person. They soon become a friend, as we feel their pulse, tickle their palm, and then hold the hand of a person one seat over, causing us to touch our immediate neighbors more. The lights fully go out. Intentionally, all of our senses are heightened. I don’t deign to ruin all the surprises… but know that the second act was no less magical than the first. At the end, as fluttering white noise alerted us back to the present, my mind was transported to waves and palm fronds of my favorite Hawaiian beach. You ended the evening refreshed, centered, and with a outlook of empathy for your fellow audience members.
The theme continued the next night for All The Sex I’ve Ever Had, a year by year (scripted) telling of five people’s (sex) lives. The performers are senior citizens, defined as 65+ here. Orchestrated by the Toronto-based Mammalian Diving Reflex performance company, All The Sex is wonderfully intimate, as you learn about the sexual experiences, loves, and heartbreaks of the folks on stage–and fellow audience members. The performance gives you insight into the lives of strangers: a rare opportunity that is often only offered by literature. Based on many hours of interviews with each participant, the distilled script precisely delivers the right amount of humor and heft–with a very limited character count. We, as an audience, are on the journey alongside the performers, and together, we all are more vulnerable.
Friday brought the most intimate experience of the festival: a 1:1 interaction with an artist who is also a refugee. You are escorted into the gallery, a white one-sleeved jacket is placed around your shoulders, and headphones cover your ears. Music filters in… along with instructions. Basel, the artist and narrator, asks you to insert your left arm through the hole in the wall, resting it on the table. His hand awaits: cool, welcoming. You listen to his story and his music, tracing the journey of him and his family out of Damascus. Concurrently, you feel the sensation of pressure and touch on your fingertips, palm, and forearm. Then breath, water, and a final hand clasp before you extract your arm and come back into the present. Turning the corner, Basel greets you with a smile and in-person ‘hello.” You view the art on your arm: a boat on open water, individuals in line with luggage, with their destination ending in a straight line barrier. It was another stranger’s hands on me, and it was intimate, moving, and sobering.
Abby Z’s performance abandoned playground, places you inches from the performers whose physicality was the show-stopper. A riff on sports motion and gestures, the endurance and power of the performer’s bodies left us in awe. You felt as if you were in the gymnasium with athletes, hearing their cheers for each other, and even splashed with sweat at times. To finish out the weekend, we took in Johnnie Cruise Mercer’s Plunge in/to 534. The audience was on the same plane as the dancers, and wide rows allowed dancers to roam amongst the audience. The performance included a seemingly-impromptu conversation about race between one of the performers, while catching his breath, and an audience member. The finale, a communal performer/audience dance party, broke any remaining boundaries between audience and dancer.
The world is peopled with good humans. We should remember this throughout the year and lend support and care, even a physical touch, when necessary. And most immediately, let’s thank Fusebox for its ever-impressive artistic leadership and curatorial skills, as we anticipate, but fail, to guess what feelings and experiences the festival will bring us next year.
