Confessional

A Live Performance

Confessional was a performance based on love, regret and carrying it with you throughout life. Before the concept for this performance came to be, my long term partner and I broke up. It was the hardest decision I have ever had to make. I was depressed for weeks and turned to painting to help me cope. During this time I remembered that when I was a child I used invisible ink to write my fears on paper. The fears became physical item in the world even though they were invisible. This idea was the impetus for the performance.

Audience members wrote their fears, worries, or confessions on strips of shredded cloth from a nearby pile. After they wrote their thoughts, each person brought their cloth to me, one by one, I washed each with water. The writing disappeared and the cloth was pristine again. I held the cloth in my hands until it was damp dry and then returned the cloth to each person. I gave the cloth back to show that though the fears, worries, or confessions on the cloth had disappeared the cloth was still there. The weight of the persons’s writing may still affect his or hers life, but some of the negativity had been released.

^ Short excerpt and ending from the 20 minute performance