The Felt Room initially filled me with a profound sense of discomfort and confusion. There was, of course, the uneasiness of a piece communicated primarily through touch and sound in the absence of natural lighting, but perhaps what put me more on edge was the confusion over where I stood as an audience member in relationship to the performers. Immediately upon entering the gallery, I was faced with the conscious task of placing myself in the performance space itself – where would I position myself in the room? Would I stand, sit, or lie down? I knew I had to move away from the entrance to allow other audience members in without bumping into me, so I began by moving towards what I thought was the center of the room where I stood for a while.
Throughout this orientation, I heard the breath-based soundtrack of the performers, seemingly at ease and knowledgeable on the pitch-black room. They began to move across the floor with ease, fearlessly brushing against the audience members. My ankle was caressed as a woman laid at my feet – I saw her only when the lights flashed – which plunged my slowly-adjusting eyes back into darkness. I had absolutely no idea how much time past, and when the lights slowly turned on and the dancers leaned against each other I savored it as a familiar sight in the type of performances I am conditioned towards.
As soon as I was made comfortable by the choreography, the dancers in light, the light went off again. I moved towards sitting against the wall to prepare for the next chapter of the performance, which came much later than I was expecting to. The bodies clad in white fabric, writhing against each other in the corner, could only be described as disturbing. A lack of faces and words throughout this performance disconnected me with the dance vocabulary I know – body parts – and replaced it with unknown forms.
Soon, the dancers began pushing the boundaries further. One dancer grabbed my hand, playing with the joints and muscles in it. I closed my eyes to experience this as feeling, rather than make eye contact. This touch began to crescendo into a frantic movement by all the dancers, seemingly more active than they had been all night. As the room fully lit up at the end, I felt an unpleasant return to reality, but also a sense of community as all audience members looked around the room and at each other to acknowledge our shared experience in the space.
In all, The Felt Room was an incredible perversion of the typical performance experience, challenging audience members to embrace new forms of movement and sensation.
Madeline Geitz
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- The Felt Room Review - February 26, 2017