Colour Melos. Interactive Painting Performance

Colour Melos is an interactive performance piece that follows an extensive artistic exploration of the sense of touch and the role this sense plays in our everyday interaction.  The title came from a phrase in Bruce Chatwin’s book The Songlines: “Melos: Greek for ‘limb’ hence ‘melody’ ”, which got me thinking about how when we touch someone it’s almost like a choreography which can flow beautifully or be a little awkward. 

In this performance, the idea was to offer my body as a white canvas (covered by white stockings) for the audience to creat their own work of art, the trick being they can only paint with their hands, no brushes or other tools. It comes as an experiment with the aim of observing how people react to the possibility of having free access to touch someone's body with the excuse of painting.

The idea is to perform this in different locations, and the first and most perfect space was Easter Renaissance Village Festival 2011. I knew the type of audience is very particular and being a family-friendly event I felt very secure to try this idea for the first time.

Arriving on stage: the 'dress' made out of latex gloves tied together comes from the tactile installation works that I have previously done, as a leit-motif that gives continuity throught my work.

     

 

My entrance was announced only by the start of a song, so just a few people knew what was going on and most of the spectators around were surprised and expectant so see what this was about.

Natasha and Ramón started the action painting my feet. I reacted to their touch moving the part of my body they were painting on.

            

People around were watching and when Ramón and Natasha started offering the colours for them to paint on me, the initial reaction was to say no. At that point, I got worried that no one would want to participate. But that feeling didn't last long, people started approaching and little by little getting more into it...

     

  

         

    

     

...until there was not much room to paint on. Everyone took a step back, left the paints on the ground. I looked around as to inquire if that was it, and it was. 

       

            

After the performance, the real challenge was getting out of the tights... and getting the paint off my body and everyone's hands! Thanks dear friends for that extra help! (yes, I also took a shower afterwards!).

THANK YOU

Ramón Martínez and Natasha Friedrich, my performance collaborators and Dani Comito a great help all along. Janusz Matisse for having me at Renaissance again! Sebastián Ávila, Kathleen González and Dani for photos and video. Thanks all the friends around and those who participated in the creation of this artwork (even just watching)!

*As a support for my studies in Arts Management in Australia, I received an economic stimulus from the Mexican National Fund for Arts and Culture (Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes) and the National Council of Science and Technology (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología) through the Scholarships for Studies Abroad Program  FONCA-CONACYT for Artistic and Cultural Studies.