July 2017.  I happen upon the Floating Pieta, a small pub on 6th ave close to where Cafe Ino used to be.   It’s hot and I’d like nothing better than a glass of white wine with ice.  Entering I see there aren’t many tables.  All occupied.  Ah, there is a woman in a long red dress and I approach asking if I might sit down.  She looks up and nods, her moist eyes holding me.  I sit, politely submitting to the dynamic she has imposed and return her gaze.  After what seems an interminable length of time I break away.  Signalling the waiter I order and offer to buy her a drink thinking she could use something cold, clearly sweating in that thick gown of hers.  Water with a squeeze of lemon.  Introducing myself I say you look familiar.  Marina Abramovic, she replies.  Of course.  So odd though, here in her red gown and doing a kind of repeat performance of what she’s already done so many times, in fact 700 hours worth.  I suppose it’s automatic by now.

I glance around the room.  It’s well lit.  Doesn’t seem like a pub at all.  Maybe it isn’t, the religious imagery more suited to a church.  A version of the pieta dominates, takes up an entire wall.  Come to think of it, Abramovic has also done a version of the pieta, dressed as she is today and cradling Ulay, her creative partner from long ago.  By now I’m curious.  I gesture toward the image but Marina is somewhere else, eyes rolled upward in some kind of ecstasy or devotion.  What about that pieta, eh?    You must identify with Mary.  Feel yourself to be her.  Do you?  Even a little?  And your name..it’s so similar.

I’m becoming the interrogator.  I feel it.  She does too and wanting nothing of it prepares to leave.  Watch my TED Talk.  Buy my book.  Come to my institute.  And she’s out the door.  Turns left.  I don’t buy the book but watch the talk later in the privacy of my room.  A long gown, green this time.  Moist eyes.  Face made up.  And very calmly and matter of factly summarizing what performance is.  An energy dialogue between the performer and audience in real time, with real actions and real consequences i.e. real knives, real blood.  As she speaks her arms occasionally move slightly out from her sides, palms opening to the audience.  I am watching for this, ready to pounce and pronounce.

She tells the audience all human beings are afraid of the same things.  Of suffering.  Pain.  Mortality.  I am staging these kinds of fears in front of an audience.  I‘m using your energy and with this energy I can push my body as far as I can.  Then I liberate myself from these fears.   I‘m your mirror.  If I can do this for myself, you can also do it.

All this sounds too extreme and admittedly I don’t like people setting themselves up to be my mirror or example.   I quit watching TED just as she begins talking about the institute.   Wanting some air before heading for bed I take a walk through the streets, returning to the Floating Pieta once more just to check, unreasonably hoping to see Marina, long black braid, red gown presiding at her table.  The place is closed for the night.