Breathe in. Breath out.

How Far Do Your Arms Reach? is a collaboration between performance artist Tobias Allen and Footnote New Zealand Dance, commissioned by City Gallery Wellington in response to exhibition Derek Jarman: Delphinium Day (on now at The Dowse Art Museum). A one night performance filling the vacant City Gallery Building.

I enter through the main doors and the performance has already started. We’re invited to engage in the vast space, consume the low fidelity sounds and confident, glowing lights. I tune out the mass amount of people and their chatter and begin to explore upstairs.

It’s suddenly so quiet. I feel internally cold. A lily (flower) searches for something, anything, in the depth of sound. Creator and performer, Allen, stands strong with purpose and immense vulnerability. I shift perspective in the room and the shadows of both performer and audience, morph and play together, altogether enlisting a new work whilst simultaneously complimenting the existing moment. The continuous building of deep airy sounds makes me feel both claustrophobic and empty. The lily becomes more powerful as the strength of Allen holding the lunging position demands strength. A quivering lily represents our state of peace. The quivering lily continues on…

Holes in the wall, acting as doorways, acting as death beds, coffins, are non-negotiable pathways into new spaces. Performers move in and out of them with ease. It’s raw, lyrical and relevant. It makes me wince. A performer laughs and whilst it echoes throughout the gallery, I can’t help but feel sad. There’s a profound sense of escapism that floats around and it welcomes death with open arms. But how far will those arms truly reach? A blue delphinium gets carried around the space with dignity and grace. Jarman apparently saw blue before passing. Blue like the delphiniums in his garden. Like cleansing the space before the inevitable end, the performers grapple with the reality of the Jarmen’s circumstances and translate this respectfully through their heavy movements. 

A performer’s shaky knee replicates the quivering lily as arms are stretched out wide. One by one, performers drop to the floor. They’re dying. Or transforming. Not giving up but perhaps just giving in? The struggle is real and painful but the suggestion of leaving one’s body and moving into the void brings some peace. Allen’s core taste commissions leather pants and black mesh garments to adorn the weak bodies glowing in the warm hues of the yellowing lights. It’s confronting and elegant. Welcome to the void.

Audience behaviour mimics our current world’s climate. We like to follow and observe but don’t often act on the violent scenes we overlook. I attended a funeral tonight. A mourning of the once vibrant City Gallery, death to Civic Square. Now we enter into a global apocalypse. It’s like watching a cult folk horror film except the horror is real and we can’t escape it. Turns out we never really left. How Far Do Your Arms Reach? is a consensual canvas exploring improvisational freedom and experimentation that refuses fixed form or meaning. Allen is the nail. Footnote is the coffin. City Gallery is the canvas. The audience watches on as we have always done. Breath in. Breath out.

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