Rigor Mortis: Equilibrio Inestable (Rigor Mortis II: Unstable Balance)

Performance
Caracas, Venezuela
2014




Presented in the context of several months of protests in the street, this performance from the Rigor Mortis series, addresses the paradoxes within the instability-balance relations. I contrast how spinning over its own axis generates balance in the spinning tops while in humans it does opposite effect. The chair, element related to stability and rest, is instead used as weight to energize the spinning, in addition of providing sensation of tension and danger to the performance, particularly before the expectation that stimulates in the audience the illusory possibility of it to slip of the artists hand. I take my tongue out, I dry it out with my t-shirt, I seal my mouth with adhesive tape, I put on a tourniquet in my arm, I show it to the audience, I ask them to dance three red spinning tops while I spin over my own axis, I repeat this last step three times. 

In the context of the protests, the red of the spinning tops and the tape in my mouth were easily understood by the audience as references to the Chavista governments and censorship.