Page 20 - AC-1-2

Arts & Communication A mean, the body. A mean body

my body. As if I were one of the dancers left to improvise un limón, medio limón, dos limones
most of the time, I would return to Rainer’s “crush” dos limones, medio limón, tres limones
[2]
occasionally, make a plaster sculpture, and catch a glimpse tres limones, medio limón, cuatro limones
of Henri Rousseau’s The Sleeping Gypsy as I read the news cuatro limones, medio limón, cinco limones
that made me numb (Rousseau’s painting, dating from 1897, cinco limones, medio limón, seis limones,
passes once by the background of the performance, and it seis limones, medio limón, siete limones
has special significance for Rainer, since it was the painting siete limones, medio limón, ocho limones
she liked the most when she first moved to New York; she ocho limones, medio limón, nueve limones
also once performed — slept — under the painting). Rainer’s nueve limones, medio limón, diez limones
piece at MoMA, together with five other performers, lasted diez limones, medio limón, once limones
for about 45 min. The bodies would move around in a sort once limones, medio limón, doce limones
of dance, sometimes colliding softly with each other, or doce limones, medio limón, trece limones
separating into the corners of the rectangular white flooring trece limones, medio limón, catorce limones
mat. In the conversation with the curator Ana Janevski, catorce limones, medio limón, quince limones
Rainer and a couple of performers shared that there was not a quince limones, medio limón, dieciséis limones
strict choreography to follow and that most of the time, they dieciséis limones, medio limón, diecisiete limones
were left to improvise on already rehearsed movements . diecisiete limones, medio limón,
[3]
They would hold one another, never in the exact same way, un limón.
or in the exact same place. The only movement that would be El juego de los limones, transcribed above, can be
repeated more than once by all of them was the “crush”: “The used to keep count of the pack, play it with a group on a
dancers close in on and around each other, pushing up or school road trip, and even turn it into a drinking game.
against the other, creating a tightly compressed configuration, Each participant is assigned a number that represents a
a scrimmage that buckles a step or two” . Meanwhile, from quantity of lemons. They have to call each other by their
[4]
the beginning of the performance until almost 10 min before number and the word “lemon(s)” to play. You lose when
it finished, two people would push Rousseau’s painting on your tongue gets twisted, or if you call out a player who
a dolly, facing the audience, behind the performers, until has already lost. As the saying goes, “When life gives you
it left the scene through the openings in the walls. Rainer lemons, make lemonade.” It is a sort of optimism, a positive
rarely joined the “crush” or the improvised dancing of the
performers; instead, she kept herself walking around the can-do attitude, toward making something “productive”
from what you are given. The more lemons you have, the
space with a microphone in hand, reading aloud from some more lemonade you can make. However, once you make
printed text in letter-sized white paper.
the lemonade, the counting must change.
Rainer reads about the Iraqi and Israeli-Palestinian
Twenty-four was the number of bodies present when
conflict, religion, masturbation, her experiences in her the performance took place: Three performers， including
early days in New York City, and “an excerpt from the myself; three faculty members; one other classmate;
diary of a Nazi SS doctor,” among other topics . As she
[4]
passes on the microphone to the performers to read bits and seventeen sandbags (Figure 1). The prompt for the
of it, it is as if, in a way, nothing really mattered. “Have I performers was to pick up and move each of the sandbags
achieved my goal of nothingness yet?” Rainer asks about at least once. And so we did, while I counted lemons out
her own performance of the piece in the Performing loud. Saying it and not playing it is a kind of ritual — to
keep count without really counting — much like singing a
Arts Journal. She describes how she tried to do nothing song in your head when you wash your hands or counting
by wandering around the space, looking at the dancers, sheep to fall asleep. “Hum the ‘Happy Birthday’ song from
sitting, standing up, hanging out, and even crawling on all
fours. But that is not nothingness, in Rainer’s opinion; that beginning to end twice,” as recommended by the Centers
is just doing nothing. Not the same. “Contrary to all the for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for an optimal
[6]
admonishments from my short-lived acting studies to ‘stay hand washing time . Oh yes, COVID, the hands.
alive’ onstage, MY MIND GOES BLANK” . My mind also Counting things, like lemons, sheep, and seconds,
[5]
went blank when watching the performance, I would tell is all determined by the grouping one decides to
Yvonne if I could. And whatever was being said out loud, acknowledge — setting the boundaries of what qualifies as
I did not catch a phrase, just words, like a disorganized a countable thing. Technically, you could include oxygen
counting of the time that the piece was being performed. particles in the count, and I would not judge. Seventeen
The lack of a continuous dance, and yet the discontinuity, lemons took 8 min and 24 s to perform. “In my dream,
was the whole dance. I was having dinner with John Cage; he was laughing, I

Volume 1 Issue 2 (2023) 2 https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.1137