Students' questions

Frank,

Here are also the questions students sent me by email.

SWL

* * * * *

Communication Studies 160: Introduction to Performance Studies
With Shannon Wong Lerner
Questions from Students

Frank Moore questions

1. What are you currently working on performance weise and how do you see your work
transforming and transitioning in the years to come?
2.Who do you look to for inspiration and what other performance artists currently
working, do you see as changing how people view art?
3. How does your work as a painter factor into your performances and do you often gain
inspiration from painting for performances or vice-versa?
4. Our group for performance art wants to express societies ideals about the perfect
woman. Do you have any advice about how to push the limit during a performance and go the
extra mile?
5. In 1990 you were attacked by Jesse Helms and investigated. How do you as an artist
cope with such allegations and what advice do you give young artists who are pushing the
limit and experiencing the same type of reaction?
6. Describe a performance that you have done that has meant the most to you and why?

Questions:
1. What do you consider to be your first performance art piece that was truly healing or
transforming?
2. Has your affiliation with the NEA 4 changed your life dramatically at all?
3. What has been your toughest experience as a performance artist?
4. In your opinion, what did your Rage of Passion Tour symbolize and how did it relate
to trance performing or shamanism?
5. In your performance at the Sixth Sense Gallery (5/19/87)- Wrapping Rocking, what did
the saran wrap symbolize, or was it just to emulate being wrapped together?

katherine johnson

Here are the questions that I had written for Frank:

1. The question about being controlled, which I asked in class
2. What do you think of the pornography industry?
3. Can you elaborate on a really meaningful and moving connection that you had with
someone during one of your performances? What was that process like?
4. Are there any "climaxes" in your performances (orgasms or otherwise)?
5. How do you best recommend to become and survive as a "misfit?"

thanks,
Larissa

1) What preparation routine/ritual (if any) do you undergo before each of your
performances?
2) Do you think there is a difference between being professional performance art training
(via academia) and non-professional performance art training? Do you think one is better
or worse than the other?
3) What is your relationship with your family? How do they feel about your career as a
performance artist?
4) What performance artists do you look to for inspiration?
5) What do you think about the role that technology is playing in performance art today?

Olubunmi Fashusi

Hello, here are my questions for Frank Moore.

1) What made you choose the specific type of performances that you do, as opposed to the
many other forms of performance art?
2) What do you say to people who attack your choices or who feel uncomfortable with what
you do? Is there anything you say to make others more comfortable?
3) What is the most important thing you think about when you start to create a
performance? After the initial idea, what is the first step you take?
4) How are you able to convey the meaning of your pieces within such an abstract form
like performance art?
5) You say in Eroplay that you would go up to people and ask them to be a part of your
performances. How did you decide which people to confront, since many people find the
art you do so extreme?

Victoria Jones

Q1: Are you familiar w/ the film "short bus"? There seems to be a popular brand of LGBTIQ
films that display the "real sex" as simulation. What do you think that nudity and "real
sex" simulations add to movies/performances?

Q2: Do you feel as though pornography is a positive or negative field? Why? Would you
call it art? Why?

Q3: Have you ever had to cry during a performance? If so, what motivated you to do so?

Q4: How would you define art?

Those are the four that weren't answered in class.

--Brian

1. In "Eroplay" you say that "performance is being ruined by trying to package it as
entertainment," you also identify yourself as a shaman. So, do you disagree with
Schechner when he states in his book "Performance Studies" that "in shamanic performance,
entertainment is integral - the efficacy of the cure or exorcism depends on the
excellence of the performance...the spectacle of performing validates the shaman's
journey, struggle, and triumph"?

2. Why do you think people get jealous or possessive when sex is involved, as opposed to
eroplay? (already asked in class)

3. Can someone participate in performance art without knowing it?

4. Have you ever encountered violent reactions to your performance art? If so, did you
learn from that experience by altering your performance, or did you acknowledge it as
something to be expected and moved on from?

5. Have you ever been disappointed, either because of the way it was performed or
because of the responses it got, by one of your pieces?
Claire Gros

* * * * *

Shannon, what deep and complex questions. I wish the press and the art world ask such meaningful questions! In them there is rich meat for a three hour class /performance! If any of your students want me to answer their questions, they can email me.

In Freedom,
Frank Moore