Gesture Jam
Happening
1995-1997 (my involvement)
In 1995 I was working as an artists model.� While on break one day I met Robert Treat, who had been modeling for the past fifteen years up and down the Pacific Northwest Coast.� He had an infinite supply of enthusiasm and imagination and a unique approach to the body. Creatively we clicked.� We both saw modeling as an art form itself and became partners.
Robert started a weekly drawing session called "Gesture Jam: Theatre for Artists." For the next two years Robert and I collaborated. We choreographed and improvised performances infused with poetry, music, dance, costumes, and lighting.� We combined live tableaux with slow motion.� Our vignettes created for the Gesture Jam were presented at local colleges and artist studios, anywhere artists gathered as a community to draw.� Each space was transformed; we celebrated the body as a living sculpture and lived in the in the space where art was made.
One night an actress braided her long red hair, recited monologues and invoked the muses of Christina Rosetti� and Wyeth's Helga.� In the summer models bathed in a large porcelain bathtub and scrubbed their bodies under a running shower surrounded by large plants, transporting everyone to the scenes of impressionist bathers.
The moment was celebrated, captured by the hands of artists.� It wasn't until later that we considered documentation.� Few photographs exist.�Perhaps it is fitting that it lives on in the stories of those who attended and their drawings.
The Gesture Jam was my introduction to performance art.� It changed my approach to art from then on.
Press
Article on Gesture Jam published by University of Washington Press.
Related works
Performance
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