The Future is Fallible
by Kat J. Sullivan
Note: The format of this review mirrors text that was written and recited in the performance. Lines below in quotation marks are taken directly from BodyMeld’s text. A copy of the original is available on their website.
My body sits here
Cold on concrete
Bone and stone.
The future is behind me.
Zornitsa* descends
Are you there?
She could be me
She is me before.
Swathed in gold
Billowing.
On either side
Projections onto pillars
A woman’s body engulfs
Is engulfed—
Metallic Mylar membranes.
At the base of the Great Stair Hall
Rhonda* breathes, enigmatic;
She is not human
She is looking back.
I am alone.
A golden triad
Rhonda, Elba*, Megan*
Meld their gaze to greet
Zornitsa bows.
Andromeda lives
Android Media
Do you believe in the future?
Their faces tic.
What’s the difference
Between human and cyborg
Facial recognition?
Their wrists softer
Circling
Atop jagged elbows.
Behind them,
A massive Mylar organ
Rises, inflates, engulfs
Each in turn.
They disappear
I am here.
“Recycled bodies in other bodies
Recycled bodies in other bodies.”
On a screen above
Their faces split
Envelop themselves;
A voice
Automaton ghost
“I live inside you.”
The future is not young
It’s so close
Don’t be afraid.
Inside the Mylar womb
A whisper of a hand
Shadows with flashlights move inside.
How did we get here?
On the screen Zornitsa
Melds herself
Disrupts her data.
The voice now urgent—
“Do you believe in love?”
The humanity disarms me.
The bodies puncture the Mylar
It thrashes.
Tears fall from my sockets.
It convulses.
What is the emoticon for crying?
Will we code our deaths?
Delete
Abort
Bodies emerging.
Do you want to restart after shutting down?
Reborn
Remade in my recycled image
Birth is inevitable.
They lift the Mylar skin above their heads
Carry it up the steps.
It sweeps over my head
So close
Yet I only graze it
With fingertips.
AndroMeda, BodyMeld, Friday Remix at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, January 31.
*The full names of the performers are Zornitsa Stoyanova, Rhonda Moore, Elba Hevia y Vaca, and Megan Bridge. Stoyanova, Moore, and Bridge contribute to thINKingDANCE.
By Kat J. Sullivan
February 8, 2020
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