November 9 to
December 1, 1996

Toronto, Ontario
Canada

A month of
performance
actions by
Paul Couillard
Radical Faerie Player

Photo:
Jules International

This commentary by
Paul Couillard
is an edited version of material excerpted from e-mail postings and previously published in a special 1997 print edition of CUMPOST

'Life as performance/performance as life' is a double-sided coin. Some performers I know act out every moment of their life as if they were on stage, trying to add the ring of a script and a twist of melodrama to every event. Then there's Annie Sprinkle doing the first act of her post-porn modernist performance, talking to the audience in a very casual, 'natural' manner as if they were all friends she was telling some often-repeated anecdote from her life,not fussing too much if a slide gets out of order or a word gets changed in the script, as long as the essence of the story is there. There was something in the feel of that part of her show - as if the stage set and the costuming had suddenly dropped away and the audience were just there in her 'salon' having tea with her, sitting on her couch while she showed us slides from her vacation.

It's not just that theatricality is a trapping that has to be overcome. Trying to figure out what it was about being in the ASKANCE space, I think it's that both the 'theatrical' ('illusionary'? 'magickal'?) and the 'everyday' could exist simultaneously -- we didn't have to enter some stilted, rigid structure to make the images live. Instead, we were all living within the images, being a part of them, creating them, transforming them, letting them go -- fluidly, comfortably, sometimes intensely, sometimes in a more laid back manner, but in a way where we were present at the same time as all of the invisible stuff that we usually deny in our everyday existence (having 'put away childish things'?).

As the month wore on, we became more comfortable with what we were creating. Things became more and more interesting. The last five days were designated as 'an urban radical faerie gathering' with its own title, PRETTY VAGUE IDEA. PRETTY VAGUE IDEA never quite took on the form of a rural gathering with everyone staying in the same space and building a powerful group energy, but it did develop and transform, imbued with magic nonetheless. With Jules (who was living in the space) and Ed (who helped create the 'set') and I acting as the core, and then a series of different circles of people who had involved themselves in the project to varying degrees, we performed magic act after magic act -- a series of miraculous events that seemed to coalesce out of the ether. I remember saying to Jules on Friday afternoon, 'We have two more magic tricks to pull out of our hat [the Friday night ritual and the Saturday extravaganza], and I'm not sure I've got it in me.' I needn't have feared; the God(ess)[es] approved, and everything unfolded beyond any expectations I might have had.