Devised and performed for the American Living Room festival, and Best of the Living Room Festival at HERE Arts Centre, New York, 2002.
The Day Parade – Synopsis
The Day Parade is a movement piece in four events. The structure – a parade – is sequential rather than narrative, though each event is composed of spurts of narrative. The events are connected in theme – physical renderings of the relations of individuals to groups – but the cause and effect relationships contained in each event don’t lead the whole piece. It is up to the imposed structure to keep the play going.
* Rules: All parade members wear hoodies and jeans. During an event, the hood is up. In between events, the hood is down. When an event has crossed the finish line, the parade member must run back to the beginning. Before they can run, each parade member must look at every other parade member. Whatever a parade member is doing is the most important thing she could be doing.
I. Introduction.
All seven parade members meet in the middle, carrying their things, then separate, to set up their things. They set up all the props at one end, a police tape barricade on the sides, and a line of bottle caps at the other end. The bottle cap end is the finish line and when everything is ready all the parade members cross the finish line to introduce the parade with a banner. Then, for the parade to start, they must go back to the beginning point for
II. Translation. The Marching Band event.
The band enjoys its marching – all the way up to the finish line, then pivot, two steps, pivot and back to the beginning. The band enjoys its chanting – in its rows of two each row has two phrases and each member gets one. Back and forth, back and forth, marching and chanting. But with seven members, one of the rows of two is a row of three. There is an odd one out in the last row. The last row hates its odd one out, who bumps into them on the pivot and can’t keep up in the straightaway. They push the odd one out out of the row. The odd one out can see the parade. The odd one out watches the parade until the front row pulls her back in. The odd one out tries to find her place again, but can’t and runs back and forth and causes a mess and the front row stops to see what’s going on and the second row stops to see what’s going on and the third row stops and knows what’s going on and everybody puts their hands on their hips and stares at the odd one out. The odd one out stares back. The odd one out makes a decision. She steps up to the second row and learns the second row’s phrase. One member of the second row is pleased. The front row is pleased. The back row is pleased. The marching starts again. The member of the second row who got her phrase stolen and her place stolen is not pleased. They all cross the finish line. Then back to the beginning for…
III. Witnessing. The Beauty Queen event.
The graceful lady moves along her path, undeterred by the two parade members escaping disaster right across the finish line. They urge her to stop but she can’t stop the inevitable motion. They watch as she crosses the line and their gestures go from frantic to hysterical. She crosses the line. They continue to gesture in shock or disbelief and finally grief. They continue to gesture in grief. The grief eventually loses its meaning. They continue to gesture in meaninglessness and finally mechanically. There is a moment when each tries to leave, but the presence of the other compels the continuance of the gesture. They have children. The children learn to gesture. The children play with the gesture. The gesture becomes the children’s and before they learn what the gesture is for, the parents drift off over the finish line. The children are left with the gesture as they cross the finish line, too. Then back to the beginning for…
IV. Implication. The Drill Team event.
Three drill team members, doing their routine, enter, marching. Another drill team member, doing her routine, enters behind them, marching as well. She kills one of the three drill team members. She kills another one. She kills the last one. Three more drill team members doing their routines, arrive and question the guilty party. She answers them. (See attached monologues.) The guilty party, doing her routine, asks for absolution. Asks forgiveness. Asks what can be done. No answer. The guilty party lies down with her victims. The three surviving drill team members, doing their routine, cross the finish line. Back to the beginning for
V. Production. The Float event.
All the members have their thing and it’s the wrong thing. They know it’s the wrong thing, but they don’t know what to do, so they start anyway. They move a little bit, and a little bit more, and they know it’s wrong but they don’t know what to do. The front parade member finally throws her thing from the float. Then, left without anything, she takes the thing from the person behind her. It is a bag of candy. Perfect! The person behind her take the thing from the person behind her who takes the thing from the person behind her and so on until everyone has a new thing. They are all the right things! The wheels have wheels, the front and back have banners telling everyone what this float is, the candy thrower has candy and the axle even has little bows for decoration. Happy, the float moves slow but steady, singing a song. It doesn’t last, though. Soon, the candy thrower runs out of candy. Not knowing what to do, she throws the empty candy bag off the float. It lands past the police tape barrier. She grabs the thing behind her. All the things get grabbed and everyone has the wrong thing except the ex-banner holder in front of the candy thrower. Since the empty candy bag went over the police tape barrier, she doesn’t have anything at all. She looks at the parade members who guard their items. She looks at the candy bag beyond the police tape. She looks back at the parade members who are staring at her, mouths agape. She leaves the float and steps over the police tape. One parade member gasps. She gets the candy bag then she looks back at the parade members. Then she looks at the exit of the theater. She looks back at the parade members one last time, then throws the candy bag inside the police tape and exits out the exit. The rest of the float trudges across the finish line.
VI. Finale.
The parade member who exited at the end of the last event returns and from the back pocket of her jeans, she produces a sign the reads “The End.” All the parade members clean up and exit as they entered, with hoods up.