Friday, November 9, 2012

plotting ana mendieta's plot

The plot is the body, the Russian body, the Slavic body marked with the unlack, and the note written from A.M. before I was scratched before I was crowned, this is my plot, this is my body, unable to take on her ghosts, unable to represent her, unwilling to try, unwilling to try to represent the one who created her own representations, on the ground in Iowa, on the ground in NYC.  I can only represent my longing for her, for that body that is now gone, that is not here, that I never knew in the flesh, this is a song about my longing for her body, the love affairs between the living and the dead.

begin with a short lecture, then, a talk about her, her life, the basic facts, the birth date and the death date, and the passages and exiles in between, and the iles she created when she made things on the earth. a lecture without coded signs talking about coded signs, and then the lecturer removes the clothes and starts to speak in code, the naked body writing a code on the ground, and sprinkling it with omi tutu, ona tutu, tutu ile, tutu eggun, tutu espiritu de ana mendieta, this is a party for you.

create signs and marks on the ground, and in the center, draw the chalk outline of her body, the silhueta, the first one, the one that opens the ceremony.
stand at the feet of the body, cover self with white chalk, candles at the five points of the body, cover self with chalk, then lay in the center of the drawing, cover self with cloth, and then attempt to eat the body of the dead in a ritual communion with the dead, by inhabiting her space for a period of time.  over this is read the words written in the first paragraph above.

while in the space of ana mendieta, over this the voice of the lecturer says the words from the last post about the ceremony, the post about the longing for the body of the living, so that this rite is the lecturing body becoming the dead, speaking from the dead about longing for the living.  the love affair between the dead and the living.

a love affair across time and in time, moving in to sacred space of the dead and speaking the desire of the living, mixing this life with this life's own mortality.  under the cloth, the body grows very still, and then, toward the end of the words, starts to whisper the words with the recording, speaking himself back to life, ending above the cloth, standing above the body, back to life, eyes closed, speaking the words above the cloth, then opening the eyes, and spilling the water and wiping the other marks but leaving her body marked on the floor, and end performance.  

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