Oliver Lehne on his untitled performance project

Flying Solo: Reflection on Solo Performance Project

What was your Inspiration?
Initially I was inspired by a desire to explore duality, the extremes that we encounter in our lives and in ourselves. How can so many things be housed in a human body; how can one person be capable of great acts of compassion and senseless violence, and what possibilities are bubbling beneath the surface of people we presume to understand? I’ve also been grappling with my body and my voice and my creative instinct as powerful, remarkably independent forces; I wanted to understand why these forces sometimes flair up in sparks of passionate insight, communicating clear, confident truth, and why they are sometimes deadened or frightened. I set out eager to explore how I could manipulate these forces and access my own power. In short, I was inspired by questions that kept coming up from a deep place inside me that only communicated with my consciousness intermittently. How can any us access the power that lies within us, and how deeply do we have to delve into our subconscious to find the answers?

What was your Process?
In keeping with the structure of the class, I tried as much as possible to isolate the different elements of my piece, (i.e. the movement, text and visual components) before combining them into a unified whole. I quickly realized that what I was exploring depended heavily on the audience’s response; that the work resisted being pinned into a specific shape and always changed in exciting ways in front of an audience. I had to allow for a degree of improvisation, indeed this was essential in order to explore the unexpected behavioral and emotional impulses of my body. I struggled to find a form and a text in which this improvisation could live freely, as a large part of my process has been about reacting to things rather than bringing things into being. In that spirit, and in keeping with my questions about the unconscious vs. the conscious mind I chose to incorporate my dream journal, an entirely separate form of creative expression. This really worked, as the style of the journal was uninhibited, fresh, lively and entirely appropriate; my work since then has been about bringing that innocent, dreamlike but also bluntly confrontational feel to the whole piece.

What artist inspired you?
One performance artist who truly influenced me was Kristen Kosmas. She communicates with a direct simplicity both in her text and performance style that I find very compelling. This really speaks to the authenticity without embellishment, and connection without exertion that I hope to achieve in my piece. Kosmas’ work is accessible precisely because it is so unadorned; some of the utterances of the narrator in The Frieda Story are incredibly blunt and even awkward, but all the more resonant and profound because they aren’t dressed up in a lot of big words and complicated sentence structure. Kosmas also helped me see that I don’t need elaborate visual or aural effects, or even a lot of physical movement to create something that buzzes with energy. A minute gesture or a deliberate look or change in vocal register can be enormously effective if the performer is truly present and breathing. Finally Kosmas encouraged me to listen to myself and to the work; to see where I was confused or disinterested, where I was engaged and confident, what occasioned these shifts, and what interrupted the flow and why.