12.20.03--Aaaahhh yes... the magic of Christmas... or something...

I feel like I've totally disappeared from my own life recently. I haven't been making the art really, just cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. Usually I have really smart ass things to say about the world. Ok, so we caught Saddam... we caught their evil tyrant. So... can someone please now catch our evil tyrant? That would be real Christmas magic.

This time of the year is supposedly magic for everyone, but for artists like me, or other actors in LA, we are all like, "Uh... we need work..." It's unbelievably slow out here. Everyone's gone home, the industry slows down. Not many auditions. School is out, so I can't do guest lectures. December is one of those months I can't do much else but clean.

It's a good time to clean out my house. My goal for 2004 is tell sell everything in this apartment that I am not using. And I was able to do fairly well with my ebay auctions these last few weeks. That kimono I had up, only went for $36, which is cool considering my friend gave it to me because she was going to throw it out and probably only spent $5 on it. This Banana Republic skirt that I bought years ago for $15, ended up selling for $41. That's Christmas magic-- the magic of capitalism.

I did a show this past week. Two people showed up. Freaking sad. I feel like I get so many people who say they are interested in seeing me perform, but when the numbers reveal themselves, it's really sad. Actually, I can't be so hard on myself because I sent an email about the show the day before, and it was on a Wednesday in December... in LA... one of the worst times to perform. It actually turned out quite nice. We had a bottle of wine that we passed around, some crackers and cheese. My friend Double G, conductor of the Dakah hip-hop orchestra bought a ticket for his girlfriend Alma to come see my show as a Christmas present. That's so sweet. It was actually really nice to have a small beautiful show.

The show was a mixed bill at the Split Id space in Hollywood and I thought it would be a good way to try out a new performance. I had found an old calendar for this year, 2003, that I bought earlier in January to get organized. And of course I had never used it. It's always a profound experience for me when I find old calendars I never used. There's not much you can do with an old calendar. Except maybe stare at the pictures. Or try to remember what happened in all those days. And it is kinda of overwhelming and sad to mentally fill in a blank calendar you can't go back and use.

And this calendar had no pictures. So it was just going to get dumped. So I had this idea to tell the story what it was like for me to find this blank calendar, trying to remember what happened in each of the months of 2003.

Then I filled in the calendar with the audience.

I gave them surveys before the show to tell me about their 2003--best months, worst months, wins and losses each month and finally lessons learned to take into 2004. Five surveys came back (from all the artists in the show and the audience members). And I read each answer out to the audience, honoring their wins and losses. Then I went to filling in the calendar with the collective memory of the audience-- the births, deaths, loves, and losses.

After I filled out the calendar, we went through the filled-out calendar together. Looking at all the filled-in months, reflecting on our year. Then I shred the calendar and the surveys onstage with a paper shredder.

I ended the piece by distributing handfuls of strips to the audience, finally laying the rest of the strips on the stage like a mass grave.

I think it went over really well because everyone participated and was forced to reflect on their year. The memories were so beautiful and sad. And someone even started crying. It was one of those only do once performance pieces that I really needed to do.

That's all for now. If I don't update this site before the year ends, I wish you a good new year.

I am so over 2003 already!

Love,

Kristina