Closing P.S. 122
Comments made by Mark Russell on the occasion of the final show at Performance Space 122, in the 2nd Floor Auditorium on June 25, 2011 at approximately 11pm.
I have known this space for a long time. This room.
I first walked into this room in 1979. I was invited to Open Movement by Stephanie Doba, my lover at the time, and Peter Rose, my best friend.
I remember walking into the room, darkened and quiet with people moving all around, the first person I saw was Yves Musard, a bald French alien who could have been from Mars. I just thought “Momma told me not to come….”
I found a spot – over there in the corner and sat on the floor and did my warm up. And I tentatively began exploring the space, slowly edging into the center, eventually I was dancing with the room, the people in it, moving through its channels of energy, the flow of the space, swirling around the columns, the little stage, the windows with their street light shadows. And I knew somehow that I was home.
I did a performance here in an early Avant-Garde-Arama where I danced with a young woman and threw a chair that almost hit an audience member. There is a reason I am not a performer.
I volunteered at a benefit, Space Heat, and I noticed that no one was handling the door and a few other things. I had a feeling I could fill a need here.
So I took on the job in March of 1983. Most of you were barely being born.
And I kept this room open. My Sen Sei, John Bernd, would sweep the floor and take care of the space each morning, and then sit down and lecture me on how things should go. I listened.
Listening was my job. I listened to Tim and Charles and Charlie, I listened at the interminable Community Center meetings, and I listened to the artists. I listened to this space late at night. It told me who should be here and who should not, what could happen and what could not. It has lots of limitations, but those limits, those columns and windows and soffits, put structure on a lot of pieces that would have been a mess otherwise.
“You need a big open space with a black marly floor? I guess you should talk to DTW, or the Kitchen or Danspace or maybe you should think about your need for a black marly floor…”
The floor of this room always made it self apparent, it was blond wood for a long time, bouncing light off the walls, David Ferri could light a whole dance with four instruments and some clip lights. There was a path down the middle here where the little shoes of countless immigrant children had dripped puddles. You could always feel their presence, their tracks before us. The boards were well used, but they gave, they gave and cushioned the falls of many of us as we danced and fell and danced and fell.
People used this room in amazing ways. Dan Froot ran a gas line from the stove in the back to the middle of the space and cooked a whole meal for the audience. Someone built a suspension bridge between these columns in the course of a dance. Anne Bogart used it as a waiting room in her piece “Women and Men a Big Dance”. The audience sat against the back wall. Nina Martin added a whole extra column to her piece. For a long time we could change the space to look any direction, be any size. In fact we were always sold out at P.S. 122 because we only put out that many chairs.
I have my own personal memories, dancing with Gayle Tufts the day one of the big Bruce Springsteen albums came out. We put it on and just rocked out in the afternoon the two of us, Bruce booming out redemption in this empty space.
Staying here late into the night working on a grant or a budget or a show, the space was always ready, expectant, waiting. When I closed it up at night I always gave it a moment to breathe before locking the door and pulling down the gate.
Of course things changed. We got more sophisticated lighting, we blocked the windows, we stained the floor black. We got air conditioning, we cut holes in the soffits, we locked in the seats.
But it always was a room. This room.
Over time it took on the weight of a community’s dreams and history. As all good theaters take on the resonance of the acts that happen in their space, and the people, the audience, who claim that room as theirs for just a moment.
The columns became a marker in countless video tapes: “Yep, that was shot at P.S. 122”. Dona Ann McAdams made sure the columns were in the shots she sent to the Times. They were a signifier of a history of a moment and a space. This room was the vessel, this room was the secret star, the ultimate supporting player.
I left this room in 2004, packed my box and left. But I have kept coming back to see work here, because it keeps giving a platform, however so humble, to amazing work. Thank you Vallejo.
I will miss P.S. 122 being a part of this room, they were so inseparable for so long, my time is certainly contained in these walls.
This is where Ron Athey bled, this is where Karen Finley anointed her self with glitter, honey and dirt, This is where Tim Miller burnt the floor, Yvonne Meir splashed in buckets of water. This is where Ishmael danced with a dead goat. This is where Dancenoise were drenched with fake blood. Where Mark Morris held class with a morning six pack. Where Eric swaggered, and Spalding read, and Ethel said farewell. Where Paul Newman watched hip hop. Where Annie Sprinkle held an orgy. Reno spewed diet coke and tried to beat up Michael Portnoy. Penny chopped onions while Jack Smith lay at her feet, Quentin Crisp watched Bette Bourne do the rumba, Eddie Izzard mumbled, Blue Man Group crunched, The Ghettoriginal crew claimed turf, John Zorn wailed on his duck whistle. The Spaghetti dinners infused everything with garlic and puppet politics. Dumbtype methodically washed the floor, The Universes brought the word, Sarah Skaggs stood balanced perfectly absolutely still to the shrill sound of Callas, and John Kelly pulled himself across the ceiling and went over the Berlin wall. And we came together to honor Barry Lane, and Jack and John and Kirk, and Billy and so many others, memorial services for a memory too quickly erased. This is where Philip played our stolen piano, Ginsburg read for the boys, Abby Hoffman monopolized the mic. Meredith sang and Min Tanaka waltzed with his mother’s kimono. This is where hundreds of artists sweat and danced and talked and did drugs and made love, spilled beer, and screamed and sang and played and sweat more and jumped in the air and came down hard and laughed and laughed with rage and laughed with joy, crying for justice, crying for peace, trying to have their voices heard, their actions given respect, this is where that happened and that happened and that happened.
And this is where we listened, and learned and waited and watched, gave our time listening for the future. Listening to this room as it creaks in the cold and warm, waiting for the next surprising moment to occur.
As I listen to this room now, it’s saying its okay.
As I listen to this room now, it’s saying goodbye.
Thank you.
© Mark Russell
Mark Russell
The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival
425 Lafayette Street
NYC, NY 10003
O: 212-539-8761
M: 917-862-1947