Thoughts on "Yoko Ono's Cut Piece"
A conservatively dressed Asian woman sits on stage, as various people come on to the stage one-by-one, and cut off pieces of her clothing, eventually leaving her in her underwear. Throughout this, the woman remains motionless and impassive, except when her bra straps are cut through and she moves her arm to cover her breasts. She does show some emotion (eyes rolling) when one man takes quite a long time to make a very revealing cut.
The whole process has been filmed in black & white, using a handheld camera. Audience sounds & reactions are heard (mostly uncomfortable laughter), but the audience is almost never seen, except when onstage.
The piece works well in a number of ways:
- The progressive exposure of the performer gives an obvious sequence to the piece: it is apparent from the beginning that she is going to end up exposed.
- She is dressed just like the audience: there is no clear separation between them and her, especially since they all come on the stage as well.
- Her immobility and impassiveness represent a dramatic contrast to traditional notions of performance, where it is the performers that are moving and showing emotion. Here it is the audience that moves and emotes.
From what I can see, the stated intention of the piece is to draw attention to power and gender dynamics. A woman is presented as an object, gradually stripped by bare the actions and attention of an audience. It brings this into focus by taking a passive observation/objectification, and turning it into an active expression.
A number of other interesting areas are explored:
- Questioning the nature of performance, and relationship between performer and audience. Here the performer is passive, the audience is active.
- Questioning the role of the space - this piece was put on at Carnegie Hall, traditionally a venue for music, yet the piece is silent!
- Exploring stereotypes of Asian women, not just gender roles in general.
- Exploring the nature of transgressive vs. permitted acts. In most other contexts, cutting clothes off of a conservatively dressed woman would be met with violent emotion and resistance. Providing a space where this is *allowed* and then examining the audience response yields some interesting observations. At first, the audience is conservative, shying away from really exposing the perfomer; as the piece goes on, she is increasingly exposed, the audience participants cut away larger pieces, and this elicits an increasingly uncomfortable response from audience members.
- Harnessing almost universal prurient curiosity - "what does this woman look like naked?" - to make an artistic statement.
I ended up liking this piece - in particular, I liked the subversion of the concept of performance and venue.