Wednesday night I went to the University of Michigan Museum of Art for the Fluxus event. The performance was interesting, funny, weird and like nothing I’d ever been to.
The evening began with the “Well-Healed Miscreants” distributing the programs that had been folded into paper airplanes. They were flying all over the Helmut Stern Auditorium. On the program were 28 pieces. Some lasted under a minute, others several minutes.
Ben Patterson started off the evening with “A Dozen for Carmen”. Each of the Well-Healed Miscreants walked from the back of the auditorium with a rose in their teeth, depositing them one by one in a blender that was half full of water. Patterson blended the water and roses, poured a wine glass full, and then, in one feel swoop, drank the whole thing.
Apparently the Fluxus movement began in the 1960’s and this performance art came out of the music world. Many of the pieces incorporated sound. “Nivea Cream Piece” consisted of four people approaching the a table with a jar of Nivea Cream, putting it on their hands, massaging it into their hands and each others’ in front of the microphone.
“Apples” was a piece with four people eating apples in front of the micorphone. “Lottery Ticket” was a piece with a single man sitting at a table with a microphone attached underneath using a nickel to scratch off lottery ticket after lottery ticket. “Wall Piece for Yoko Ono” included audience participation. A couple of the performers placing Post-It notes with targets drawn on them all over the auditorium walls. Then they asked us to all get out of our seats, find a target and, on the count of three, tap our heads to the target. The collective sound was quite a bit louder than I expected. Striking!!
My favorite piece was “Cow Pong” where all the Well-Healed Miscreants lined the stage, each holding a cow bell and ping pong ball. They each bounced the ping pong balls on the side of the cow bell until it fell off. Seven of them dropped out quite quickly. The three hung in there for a while longer. Finally it was just two players making an interesting combined rythym until one fell out and the other finished the piece by letting the ping pong ball come to rest on his bell.