Activate

The Story on Activate.

 A performance art quest for collective Activation @ the Eldorado Springs Center for the Arts, June 2, 2011.

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• Rachel Z making lawn art with her body.

Activate was inspired partially by making an artistic marriage between two of my long term muses: Jane Fonda and Linda Montano.  There is just something activating about watching one of Jane Fonda’s workout tapes.  And maybe I am so called to her aesthetic because one of the earliest memories I have is busting a move with my mother and memorizing the movement of Jane’s stripes on her leotard.  I found Linda Montano first through Annie Sprinkle.  As I was reading everything I could find about pornstar turned perf-art star, Annie, I soon realized that she attributes practically everything she knows to Linda Montano.  Linda is kind of like a legend.  She committed to wearing only one color for a whole year for 7 years.  Each year a different chakra.  She passed on all of her other clothes and only wore red for the root chakra year.  She is a badass and Rachel actually got to hang out with her this year.

Our goal was to put on a Performance Art show at the Eldorado Springs Arts Center that would surprise and seduce the audience into a collective activation process of our chakras.  Our methods were to call upon the power of the aerobics class and merge it with the power of projected color and the live dying of our jumpsuits.

We began the piece by creating images with our body while a borage of media clips straight from the subconscious mind of a child from the 80′s (Jane Fonda, My Buddy doll commercials, Hurricane footage, Beyonce) were projected on our bodies.

This is what I taste like.

Here we have Rachel working it out.

From 2D to 3D and back again to 2D.

This is how I birthed Rachel Znerold.

The screen went static.  It was as though we were being unplugged.

Women on the verge.

Here’s Rachel, preactivation and in the moments before her liberation.

The lights changed.  We were standing in rainbows.  Let the Activation process begin.

We’re in a rainbow.

There’s my sister looking hot with the short hair. And to the right with the long brown hair is Rachel Moen who made a point to intervene on our asses at one point in the show.

The show really took off once we played Eli the Man Maness’ custom made tracks.  Rachel and I described to Eli how we imagined each chakra would sound.  First of all, they would have to inspire people to shake their asses.  The root chakra should sound grounded with tons of booty bass… Eli rose to the challenge and rocked our worlds with his musical stylings.  He even added the most beautiful Michael Jackson sample to Crown Chakra track.  Feel free to play them through as you peruse the chakratic documentation.

The Root Chakra.

Let us Activate the Activation Station.

Chakra-Kons, Bring forth the Activation Potion.

Here we are, getting seriously activated in the root chakra with beet juice.

Do you all even know where the root chakra is located? Yeah, we were going deep.

Nothing makes it look like performance art more than fake blood splattered on the walls.

The Sexy Second Chakra

 

L:  And now, we must Activate the Sexy Chakra.

R:  It’s not just about sex, Lula.

L:  It’s not?

R:  No.  It’s about emotions, creativity and movement.

L:  I love the Sexy Chakra.  Let’s all love the Sexy Chakra and move our hips.

Sexy chakra gets activated with hip circles. All together now. Close your eyes. Touch yourself.

The Solar Plexus Chakra

This Chakra all about being in your power source, walking your path and knowing yourself.  At different points, audience members demonstrated their own personal power pose and as a reward for this act of bravery, they were allowed to Activate  our Solar Plexus Chakra.

To Activate the Solar Plexus Chakra, we start off with a power pose for the whole family.

Yep, that’s my mom. Striking a fierce power pose.

And that’s Rachel’s sister Sarah, assisting me in fulling activating my Solar Plexus chakra with a dandelion dipped in special 3rd chakra activating potion made from tumeric.

The Heart Chakra is all about the love.

 At this point, Rachel embarks on a interpretive dance journey with ribbon.  We dipped the ribbon in spirulina juice and bound our chests with it.

I heart the heart chakra.

The beautiful Rachel, fully enraptured in her interpretive dance.

The Throat Chakra

We activated the throat chakra by making some collective eeeeeeeeeeee sounds.  Rachel also led us through an amazing sound orchestra.  The audience was split into 4 groups.  Each group picked a sound.  There was mmmmming.  There was screeching.  Gargling.  Yodeling.

Here is one of our lovely Chakra-Kons, Katie, in a moment of activated bliss.

 The Third Eye Chakra.

I hypnotized the audience into seeing there third eye chakra as a window that they all visualized squeegying.  And then Rachel and I dyed our the third eye of our jumpsuits with eyedroppers filled with purple cabbage juice.

I am taking the audience on a journey into 3rd eye activation land.

The Seventh Chakra

We used lace enveloped headlamps to Activate the Crown Chakra.  The last chakra is all about spirituality, connection and unity.  Therefore, we felt it was appropriate to end with a congo line that snaked through the entire activation space, by me where I fed them organic marshmallows by hand (one lady was disgusted and disappointed because she thought it was a mint) and out the door into the sculpture garden.

Fully Activated

This is the final image of the show.  We felt it was more ‘next level’ to ask for a contribution of $11-$111 after they activation.  This last picture shows our beautiful Chakra-Kons with baskets ready and willing to receive.

Special thanks to Eli Maness, Talbott Walker, Joy Chapman, Chloe the Extraordinary, Joseph Palumbo, Rachel Moen, Tiffany Goodyear, Lovely.