Multiplying Score for 3 performers and 3 audience members

This is the score I created for our last assignment- addressing 2 guiding questions, and inspired by Cynthia's score.

1. how are we asking the audience to participate in desire? 
 -can we ask the audience to participate in desire?

2. what can we do with pearls?

Score

• 3 performers with trays with pearls, maybe refreshing spray with cold mist (or ice cubes) and essential oil, and cards with text
• texts : homophobic targeting or super exotifying promotion language, or (current?) critiques of exoticism/orientalism)
• -> go interact with and “decorate” one audience member each; interaction can include the pearls, cold scented mist, ice cubes,  essential oils
• Ask the “decorated” audience member to take one card and read the text on the chosen card
• Take Selfie with decorated audience member if they want?

• Give audience member the tray and ask them to repeat the score with another audience member
• Repeat with new tray (depending on how big the audience maybe up to 12 trays?)

This is the feedback from the Skype meeting on August 13, 2018.

I appreciate:

MM: that the audience member repeats the score with another audience member

CL:  I like the inclusion of the critical text

SM: I love the selfies. It makes it very contemporary. Makes it very past present. Old text with this contemporary thing that we all do.

I wonder:

I wonder what they do with ice cubes?

CL: I’m curious why the cold?

SM: I’m curious how the audience member will feel with the decorations and the different texts?

CL: how we want the audience members to feel?

CL:  if the audience member has the freedom to change the score in a way they might feel more comfortable with?

SM: I wonder what it will feel like done to me, I want to try it.

CL:  I wonder how it will it feel to be decorated in this way if they don’t identify as femme?

SM: I wonder how the permissiveness of performance and play allows people to play with how they normally present themselves in a safe way?

SM: I wonder what it would be like if the score was adjusted so that the audience member can decorate themselves?

CL:  how much does the audience member get to choose?

Salomé: a score for one performer and one audience member

Here is a score I came up with in response to the question: "How are we asking the audience to participate in desire?" I decided to compose an interactive audience-performer score that was based on the five senses.

Salomé: a score of sensuality for one performer and one audience member
Ask the audience member, preferably a femme, to close their eyes.
Explore how the audience member smells.
Pass a flower or small container of essential oil under their nose (preferably whichever flowers the honey-bees feed on). If using a flower, tuck it behind their ear.
Ask them to open their mouth. Feed them a spoonful of honey, or if you’re feeling up for it, dip your finger in honey and have them suck on it.
Whisper the first line of the Salome publicity to the audience member, starting with one ear and finishing with the other: “The pink pearls slip amorously about her bosom and throat as she moves, while the long strand of pearls that floats from the belt about her waist floats languorously apart from her smooth hips.”
Ask the audience member to open their hand, palm up. Place a strand of pearls in their hand, holding the end. Then slowly drag it up their arm, throat, and place it around their neck.
Ask the audience member to open their eyes. Perform Sandra’s abhinaya study, addressing the audience member as if they are Maud Allan.

Here is the feedback that I received about the score during our Post Natyam meeting (MM = Meena, SC = Sandra, SM = Shyamala, CL = me):

I appreciate:
MM: Full sensory experience: taste, eyes, nose, touch.
Shy: I love the way the whispering moves from one ear to the other ear. And I also was appreciating that it first grounds the performer to appreciate how the audience member smells. Makes it more mutual.
MM: whispering like an old school panning of sound from one ear to the ear.
SM: The whispering could mimic the movement of a string of pearls around a neck

I wonder:
MM: I wonder where this can happen?
CL: I wonder how I choose the audience member
MM: I wonder about gender pronouns?
SC: I wonder where other audience members are at the same time
MM: I wonder about intimacy and where the boundaries are
CL: I wonder about consent
SM: I wonder about privacy and viewing. I was curious if the other audience members are privy to this experience or if it is totally private? (is it seen from outside, or on projection, or totally private?)
SM: I wonder how many people get to experience the one on one experience?
CL: I wonder how much discomfort vs comfort is desired? Is the goal to keep it a comfortable, consensual interaction of queer intimacy, or is it to make them feel objectified and uncomfortable, or something in between?
MM: I wonder about the racial dynamics
SC: There’s something racialized about eliciting a sensual experience that I’m wondering about (Asian woman as seductress, or as a helper/liberator who helps someone else discover their own sensuality/sexuality)
CL: I wonder if all of us do the score at the same time to different audience members?