IN ME THERE ARE FOUR WOLVES
On The Table Off The Table, September 30, 2022
FADO Performance Art Centre, Toronto, ON.
Curators : Shannon Cochrane and Francesco Gagliardi

Live performance-installation

Materials in/and action
Back and forth rolling with a glitter filled fabric, gentely unrolled. 15 pound industrial looking office table, vintage. Mirror, hidden. Rolling from one end of the gallery to the other end of the gallery with 15 pound industrial looking office table. Rolling while mirroring. Cell phone. Reading out-loud, from a picture of a poem taken with a cell phone. Reading aloud, while holding the table top from under, trying to roll and recite. Reciting from under, recording. Audio looping of poem read. Poem I See Me See Myself, written by artist (as readable bellow). Unfolding a giant paper fan. Hiding behind a giant paper fan while mimicking images of postures (postures of images of iconic images of Carolee Schneemann’s Interior Scroll performance). Scratching onto the wall a photographed drawing scratched by the artist. The artist scratching around her navel on a carpet of self-portraits carpeted to the floor. A picture of the artist (at 2 ½ years old) spinning on it/herself.

Duration: Variable

In me there are four wolves
On a table
I see me see myself
I speak to myself in languages I do not understand
Howling
Grunting
Something dark and pointy
Nasty
On a table
Images of myself
Myself dressed as a wolf
Fangs
Tongues
Nails
Pawing the table top
The top of tables
Clawed
Clawing myself
In me there are four wolves
They speak to me in languages I do not like to understand
I see me see myself
I see me see myself
I see me see myself

Curatorial statement
On the Table Off the Table is a series of commissioned performance works engaging with the table as context, stage, and trope. Aspiring to aesthetic neutrality or demanding attention as a chosen object, the table reappears throughout the history of performance, at times taking center stage, at other times hiding in plain sight.

For this series, artists working at the confluence of performance art and a range of diverse practices—from writing to dance, from sound to magic—will create live work in conversation with performance traditions about, around, and on tables.

FADO Performance Art Centre’s first post(?)-pandemic live series, On the Table Off the Table also intends to provide artists and audiences with an opportunity to re-learn together how to inhabit the space of public presentation, rediscovering the solitary workstation as a place of gathering and play.

Invited artists
Joe Culpepper (USA), Claudia Edwards (Toronto), Vanessa Dion Fletcher (Toronto), Nadège Grebmeier Forget (Montréal), Marcin Kedzior (Toronto), Mathieu Lacroix (Montréal), Mani Mazinani (Toronto), Sue Murad (USA), Jehan Roberson (USA), Cara Spooner (Toronto)

PLUS limited-edition placemats designed by Lisa Kiss, with drawings by Hazel Meyer.

Images : Paulina Teif /FADO + Francesco Gagliardi