Recall: Evening of Performances (2008–2019)
Interview with Stacy Makishi

Recall: Evening of Performances (2008–2019) is a year-long programme of interviews, podcasts and contributions from some of the artists who participated in the twelve editions of the celebrated Evening of Performances. Highlighting the evenings’ extraordinary legacies, we will be exploring what the next wave of contemporary performance can become with the artists who have shaped it so far.

Stacy Makishi interview

the Roberts Institute of Art: What was a highlight for you in your performance at the Evening of Performances 2018?

Stacy Makishi: I was excited (and freaked out) by the SIZE of the venue. The O2 Forum is huge. I’m barely 5ft tall and could be upstaged by a mic stand. I felt FEAR.

Then remembered what the Rabbi said, about two kinds of fear: Pachad and Yirah.

Pachad: a projected, overreactive, irrational, imagined type of fear.
Pachad said: ‘This venue is big...big rejection will kill me’.
But even a drama queen like me could see that there was nothing dangerous about the O2 Forum. 2000 people rejecting me, could not kill me.

Yirah: the fear we encounter when we're called to inhabit a space that’s larger than usual. Fear takes our breath away, life force kicks in and gives us more energy. We’re scared because we’re out of our comfort zone. But do you move towards or away from this authentic dream? It’s scary, but there’s magic with this fear.

Anais Nin said, ‘lives shrink or expand in proportion to one’s courage’.

If courage is too far to reach, reach for curiosity… it’s impossible to experience fear and curiosity at the same time.

RIA: Is there one detail or anecdote that particularly stands out if you think back to that night? 

SM: The 'stand out moment' happened because I was trying to do an “extra” dance move. I accidentally thrust my radio-mic-pack out of my underpants… it was dangling like a tampon between my legs. Luckily, my performance was about shame. I was the Shame Shaman dressed up in a mound of pubic hair. But just because the show was about shame, didn’t mean I wanted to experience shame. If there’s going to be an accident, it needs to be a PLANNED accident.

But people actually want me to mess up. They want ‘shit’ to happen. They want ‘the trickster’ to appear. And looking back on the performance that night, I wish there were MORE trickster moments. The Trickster can kill a live piece. But in my performance, it might have brought something dead, back to life?

RIA: Tell us about your first experience performing?

SM: When I was 4, I saw a dead lizard being eaten by ants. I felt an overwhelming strong feeling that I couldn’t find words for. It wasn’t only horror, curiosity or fear. it was something else, something mysterious. The feeling compelled me to move, to perform. I put on my red skirt and placed the bathroom stool over the lizard and ants. With my skirt raised above my head, I hollered, ‘Everybody! Come, look!’ And then I chanted, ‘chim-chimeney is happening!’

I can feel it even now… a deep calling to make people gather to bear witness to mystery.

I’ve always felt an intimacy with mystery, an indescribable 'it', When I asked a grown up, they told me ‘it’ was called ‘God’ and that I was a ‘seeker’. It felt great to be given an answer and even a job description. Years later, I went ‘seeking’ at Sacramento Bible Institute, but couldn't find God. My world crashed. But I found God again in Art. I suppose I'm searching for Mystery. Francis Bacon said that, ‘the function of art is to deepen the mystery’. I think you could say the same about spirituality.

RIA: Why are you drawn to performance as an art form?

SM: I’m drawn to all kinds of art — performance, painting, writing… what I call ‘image making’ — as expressions of human feeling.

Susanne Langer wrote a book called Feeling and Form — she defined art as ‘the creation of forms symbolic of human feeling’. Not mirrors to the world, not entertainment, not sermons, instructions, not even beauty, but the creation of forms symbolic of human feeling. Humans are symbol-making creatures. When we encounter mystery, (a lizard being eaten by ants), we try to get close to it, to have an intimate dialogue with it, by making something in response to it. I call this ‘a creative response’.

When I get that ‘image making urge’, my whole body tries to wrap itself around a form; to express this breathing, dying chaos of experience. A story, painting, performance is trying to express to you: ‘this is how it is for me’. I do this because I don’t want to be all alone in this chaos. In a perfect world, you make a creative response back. And in that exchange, the world is less lonely and more creative and alive.

RIA: Theatre, gallery, festival, public installation, participatory workshop, comedy club; your work has been shown in many different contexts. Do you have a preference and how does it change your relationship to the audience(s)? 

SM: Whatever the context, venue, commission, I ask myself: What’s alive here? What wants to be expressed through you?

RIA: Can you tell us more about how you utilise humour in your work?

SM: I don’t know who said this but: ‘Comedians become comedians so they can control why people laugh at them’.

I wore glasses since the age of 7 and got into fights every day. I learned the best defence against bullies was to beat them to the punch with better punchlines.

Humour is power. It puts me in control. But being funny isn’t the same as having real connection. I actually began my professional career as a comic at the Comedy Store. It was by accident. It wasn’t because I was funny. Mostly I’d cry… but people thought that was funny.

Before comedy, I graduated in storytelling. I guess my work is a short story, told by a short human. Frank O’Connor said, ‘always in the short story there is this sense of outlawed figures wandering about the fringes of society. And there is in the short story at its most characteristic, something we do not often find in the novel — an intense awareness of human loneliness’. That really resonates for me. This awareness of wanting to be in control alongside a deep longing for real connection. Comedy is a controlled routine, and much of my performances too. Even if the show is live and about me, it’s rehearsed. It’s not really me… it’s me, performing being me.

RIA: You resisted doing the interview live … can you tell me why?

SM: Whenever I’m invited to do an interview I’m excited. I love attention.

But then a part of me says: ‘Oh, shit. I’m not going to say anything ‘good enough’. I don’t deserve this attention’.

Another part chimes: ‘Well, if you can’t be good enough, be shocking. Hopefully, it will distract how boring and inadequate you are’.

Whenever I hit an awkward ‘inadequate’ moment… I’d expose myself… and then feel shame. And sometimes, in an attempt to distract from that shameful moment, I upstage it with something even more shameful. Sucks, right?

My mom (who also suffered the same affliction), would say something equally weird like, ‘Stacy, you just want belonging, and in your desperation, your mind’s fly gets unzipped and something weird, shocking, vulnerable plops out. Yes, you feel out of control but Stace, you can’t be in control and in love at the same time. Next time, unzip your heart’.

RIA: You have been active in the Live Art community for many years, for example speaking of LADA as a key site when first coming to London and running the Live Art Social (distance) Club in 2020. What has this term meant for you and do you view ‘live art’ as distinctly different to other forms of contemporary performance art? 

SM: I’ve worked in Live Art for over 25 years and can’t tell you what it is. It’s alive and anything living, is changing. Live Art’s a feral, interdisciplinary mongrel that begs, borrows or steals from existing forms, to adapt to any context.

My favourite way to experience live art is in my workshops. Watching a person responding to what’s alive is exhilarating. Questions like ‘Is this good? What will people think? Are they better than me?’ don’t get attention because everyone’s too curious collaborating with aliveness. They’re playing and something is ‘playing back’! Magic!

RIA: What are you currently researching or developing?

SM: I received an award by the Live Art Development Agency, called The Arthole Award. I know, it sounds like The Asshole Award. Call it what you like, it was a £10,000 butt-plug. I would happily bend over and take it again.

The award was used to explore the intersection where art and spirituality meet: Mystery.

My current work explores transformational rituals in different kinds of contexts: disco-ball in a forest; firepit in a supermarket car park; séance in a beauty salon. I’m brainstorming and believe ideas approach us when we look available… they pick us up, like in a bar. If I fancy an idea, I’ll give it the ‘sexy eyebrows signal’.

I’m also working on a book, that hopes to feel like you and me, hanging out. It includes stories, comics, visual images, interviews, top tips and creative provocations.

RIA: What are props or themes that make recurring appearances in your performances?

SM: Suitcases feature a lot in my shows. I suppose, I’m from Hawaii… which is the most remote place in the world. I currently live in London. Placing my finger on the globe, I couldn’t get further away from home, without getting closer.

Another recurring theme is referencing pop culture.

Even in my earliest performance, Lizard eaten by Ants – I referenced the Mary Poppins Chim Chimeney song. I suppose pop culture opens a door to everyone. It’s democratic. It offers ‘easy-listening-access’ into complicated, uncomfortable, mysterious terrain. If you’re queuing at the Post Office, and hear Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car, you might not like it, but that catchy-pop-hook line might pull you into my show.

RIA: Now you also teach and mentor others. What wisdom about the creative process do you like to impart to others, picked up from your 30 year’ experience of making art? 

SM: Here are some questions:

What’s worse, making bad art or not making any art? Someone likened making bad art to eating a shit sandwich. I acquired a taste for it. Throughout the years I’ve made terrible shows. I still do. But it doesn’t stop me. Because the pain of not making is worse than failure, worse than eating a shit sandwich.

Here’s another one: Are you willing to be out of control? Making art is chancy and uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance to uncertainty is the prerequisite to succeeding.

How not to quit: Find a bunch of friends who like to make art and commit to sharing in-progress work with each other frequently.

Don’t wait till you’re ready.

You'll never feel ready enough. Not even after the MA, or PhD. Why not find tricky ways to force yourself to show up before you’re ready? Get a gig. A deadline. Sign a contract. Set a timer. Make something. Whatever it takes. Make something now.

My favourite advice:

Lower your standards (and expectations) and keep on making.

Put quantity above quality:

There was a ceramics class that gave students the choice to be graded by the quality of a single pinch pot or the quantity (weight) of many pinch pots. It was discovered that the students who chose to make more (quantity) also made the best quality pinch pots. Here’s why: the students who were trying to achieve the perfect pinch pot, grew anxious and paralyzed. Students going for quantity, had a lot of practice, and made better work. Conclusion: practice might not make perfect, but practice is how we don't quit.