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A review of Petitmal at PAC/edge 2004 written by Anna Mayer for Panel- House.
Kevin Bacon has become, like, this thing in our culture. There's the six degrees game, Bacon's cameo in the stalker episode
of Will and Grace, and his frequent good natured appearances discussing his reputation for being in so many right places at
all the right times. Bacon's name is now shorthand for the claustrophobic machinations of celebrity culture and how small
the world becomes when you seriously want it to. He is a symbol of a process.
When I received Cupola Bobber's card for their April performance, "Petitmal," I noticed its reference to Kevin
Bacon and hoped I wouldn't have to endure another deconstruction of the actor's special status within pop culture. I trust
this collaboration between Stephen Fiehn and Tyler B. Myers, though, so I knew my trepidation was probably unnecessary. Indeed,
Cupola Bobber's Kevin Bacon is post-six degrees; their Kevin is a working symbol for systems of masculinity, athleticism,
and hope, specifically as he embodies them in the film Footloose. Cupola Bobber is performing "Petitmal" again this
September, giving viewers a rare second opportunity to see work of a genre in which the highly prized moment comes and goes
quickly, often forever.
"Petitmal" combines old school technology--including shadow projections, overhead projectors, analog treadmills,
and a tin can phone--with premeditated ruminations from both Fiehn and Myers. The most intense part of the performance has
each of them on a treadmill, their figures backlit into shadow on screens between them and the audience. They run for their
lives as they take turns delivering monologues incorporating recitations of Kevin Bacon's "there is a time for dancing"
speech from Footloose. It is part two of the film's lesson of how indoctrination gets bound up in the body. The artists know
this lesson well, apparently, but demonstrate how hard it is to resist. The running is an attempt to wear themselves out,
so that they might speak a truth of exhaustion. The dialogue between the two performers seems derived from the process and
consequences of their collaboration, as well as designed to keep them sane. But eventually the talking becomes suspect. It's
as if the beautifully-wrought sincerity is not for sanity's sake but so they may stay awake. Resistance and love are experienced
best in those extreme moments we create for ourselves.
I can't imagine a medium that would allow artists to work on these issues the way that a one-time performance does, as
the audience needs to be breathless, bored, and impressed alongside the performers. I think about the issue of accessibility
frequently, and I also frequently question the merits of live performance. Its ephemerality is limiting, and video documentation
usually falls so short. But I am willing to make exceptions, especially when the subject matter of a performance takes into
consideration its medium. Nevertheless, due to my particular orientation towards objects and installation, I view Cupola Bobber's
previous collaborations and this newest one in relation to artists like Bruce Nauman and Matthew Barney. The Nauman legacy
is in the team's repetitive, task-obsessed movement and its oblique but accommodating attitude towards its audience. I find
the Matthew Barney reference most interesting, if only because Barney is such a contested artist and contextualizing him art
historically and in relation to his peers is a way to reframe the genius debate that, for some reason, swirls around him,
into a calmer and less hyperbolic discussion.
The connections between "Petitmal" and the films of Matthew Barney are common themes of searching and exerting,
and a weird accumulation of the different masculinities made available to men in their twenties and early thirties. Barney's
work is so fixed in its process and heroic in its aspirations; Cupola Bobber manages to intelligently remain of the everyday
realm all the while risking something---I guess it's ego---in a way that Barney's characters never do. Both projects are overtly
theatrical, certainly. In the end, though, Cupola Bobber's self-consciously direct treatment of the same issues is most successful.
I always knew there was something missing from Barney's epic (besides thrift), but I didn't know until now what it was or,
at least, HOW that thing was absent.
In Footloose, Bacon plays a fresh-faced utopian who convinces an oppressive society to loosen up and be free by dancing.
He is handsome and smart and convincing. His character convinces and Bacon as an actor convinces. Reaching back to this moment
in Bacon's career is a utopian gesture in itself, apart from his character's idealism; Kevin Bacon the movie star once was
good, and even though that kind of good is forever lit by irony now, he was good and Cupola Bobber remembers him then, before
he became a marker by the side of the road, a series of boxes to be checked. In the feeble wake of rave culture and a general
disappointment with the possibilities of the club scene (once a utopian project to be sure), to still have faith in dancing
of any kind is remarkable. If this is the kind of faith we got, says Cupola Bobber, then this is the kind of faith we'll have.
It doesn't matter that it is Kevin Bacon, of all people, who delivers this message from on high from the now-inauspicious
80s Hollywood: inspiration derived from sweet beats, sincere moves, and strong words is to be cherished and passed on. The
men of Cupola Bobber are good sports who aren't afraid of new religion.
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