When were you last taken out of your comfort zone? Life since retirement poodles along at a gentle pace, punctuated by the occasional medical appointment or a coffee-and-catchup with a friend – plus monthly meetings of the local Womens’ Institute and Contemporary Elders. Predictable and safe. This morning when I joined my fellow Contemporary Elders I was not the only one feeling trepidatious about our new project. We had been invited to collaborate with Rafal Zajko and a group of other artists on a project to create a performance piece for Rafal’s exhibition, launching in March 2025. This is an experimental project that will be full of surprises and joy, and, apparently, Contemporary Elders will be fundamental to how this comes together.
As we gathered for today’s session, fortifying ourselves from the tea trolley, Rafal swept in with today’s leader, performance artist Florence Peake. Introductions over, Florence gave us each a piece of of paper. Then she instructed us to close our eyes and work with the paper. “Feel it with your hands. . . smooth it against your face . . . crumple it . . . listen to the sound . . .” Florence’s words guided our actions. “Open your eyes. Look at your piece of paper. Now write a letter from that piece of paper to you.”
Now came the bit I’d been apprehensive about. Time to push back the tables and MOVE. To the sonorous sound of a gentle repetitive gong and Florence’s voice we slowly allowed ourselves to relax and flow with the music. Then Florence asked us to work with a partner, one to stand while the other closed her eyes and smoothed her hands along and around her partner’s body. If any of us felt uncomfortable at any point we should just remove our partner’s hand to replace it on our head. I had forgotten the sensation of gentle touch. It goes so deep, right to my core. Now Florence asked us to use our heads to touch our partner. So much for having my hair done the previous day! My hair was mussy! Before finally working with a second pair we swapped positions. “Your hair is so soft!” exclaimed my partner.

Back to our tables we made marks on paper with pastels to express the feelings generated by the tactile touching. I kept my eyes closed as I used pink and teal to trace our movements.

Up on our feet again, Florence asked us to select three movements from our activity that we could work into a sequence. Finally we had to work in a group, slowly performing that sequence then moving to a new space to repeat it three times before freezing. Florence’s choreography worked. The movement looked good. So this is “performance art”?
Working with Florence was both therapeutic and relaxing. I went home with my spirits lightened. It was so reassuring that I could do it! No need to panic. Performance art is going to not only be do-able, it is going to be enjoyable.

Follow