Post 2 - The Rope Performance LINDA MONTANO& TEHCHING HSIEH

PROFILE VOL 4 VIDEO DATA BANK # 6 DECEMBER 84. LYN BLUMENTHAL & KATE HORSFIELD PUBLISHERS ART/LIFE: ONE YEAR PERFORMANCE LINDA MONTANO/TEHCHING HSIEH Journal Writing: Linda Montano BEGINNINGS: I was living in a Zen center in upstate NY having moved from 10 yrs. in Ca., specifically San Diego. The life there was dis-ciplined, country-like, 4:30 a.m. wake up and a monthly week of 8-hour days of meditation. My favorite kind of thing. Plus close to my family (45 min. away) for the first time in 17 yrs. But things fell apart personally, an 8 yr. relationship was no longer. I felt free to do an extended event and also needed to change residence and mode so completely that I was out of the range of my own mourning which I had already spent 6 months doing. I had read about TEHCHING Hsieh's work in High Performance and was esp. struck by the Cage piece and the similarity of gesture that we supposedly shared, sight unseen. I also considered interviewing him for a series that I was doing with performance artists and felt that he fit perfectly into the money section since he had lived outside in NYC for a yr. Where DID he get $ to support that piece?? His publicity was a media dream come true; every time I went to the city from my country mountain-- no water, a wood stove mountain retreat-- I would see images of T.H. all over Soho buildings. He was hard to forget. So on one trip, I literally heard a voice that said, "do a one year piece with him." I was free, ready to be public, and so sure that working with him would be a continuation of my interest in mind training that I accepted the message. Martha Wilson gave me his telephone number so I called and we met in Printed Matter, talked and found that we liked each other and the possibility. He was looking for someone and, while living outside, had already designed this piece.... to be tied with a woman for a yr. I felt like a veteran of the form for in 1973 I had asked Tom Marioni to handcuff himself to me for 3 days in MOCA, San Francis- co, and had also done Living Art experiments since 1975. (1 spent 11 days in the desert with Pauline Oliveros; 3 days with P.O., Nina Wise and myself; wrote a Living Art manifesto; lived in a sealed room for 5 days as 5 different people, etc.) We seemed interested in the same things, breaking down the separa- tion between art and life, but I had a lot more conceptual bent or motivation.... I saw my mind as my material and was interested in work that refined and trained attention. His take on it all seemed more philosophical and literary...man is alienated; life is about survival; we are all in our own cages and art is important. Maybe we could work together. It would be an anniver- sary piece for me. I like his time frame of one yr. and so felt that we could live and work in art/life. 
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We talked almost daily. I dealt with issues of danger.... It felt so physically dangerous-- buses, elevators, subways, sickness, cars, Claustrophobia.... all physical dangers. I felt that I could handle the physiological ones having been "married" 13 yrs., spent 2 yrs. in a convent, 2 yrs. in a Zen center, 5 yrs. of karate, 5 yrs. in daily associa- tion with a yoga ashram. Disci- pline was my forte, easy, my way, but it was not mindless suffering for no reason.... I liked the body/mind training that I was getting and felt was essential to my process. So, of course, this piece would be a continuation of that. But the discussions were hot and heavy. He had spent 3 yrs. and more (his whole life) doing dangerous, risky work. I was joining his already thought-out frame. Once I got over the ini- tial shock of the piece and the thought that it might be danger- ous (after awhile that was not an issue), then I had to face bar- rier 2.... it was HIS PIECE. I was the woman joining the man, the man's piece, in the man's place, using the man's track record. That's never been easy for me, or for any woman.... (because we are expected to do that).... I had to face the ego struggle. I saw that he would not bend, not change, that I would be joining him. I had to be willing to bend to do that.... Did I want the experience enough to give up that kind of primitive control of my own way? I looked at my past work and also at my interest and my motivation. 
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I would have to be aware of not touching, which would train my mind in a new "set." One yr. was not enough time to become habitu- ated to not touching; therefore I could practice intensely). So I said yes to that too. I would gravitate between actively saying yes to his notions and actively fighting them. 1 pursued the idea of monitoring us with sound so that whenever one of us was outside an 8 ft. space, an electronic beeper would go off. After calling technicians to arrange for a sonic device to be made and then trying a few days with a rope, I realized that the rope was a better deterrent to exiting and more of a physical guide in the piece. The other way would be mental, a decision each time one wanted to venture out- side the 8 ft. space. Given that we are basically human and find it difficult to follow rules, I found that the rope kept us together better than a sound device would. I liked the sound alternative even though it was not as viable as a physical leash.... and deterrent. So we agreed on time, place, techniques, documentation. | finished up at the Zen center, doing a big piece the 2nd of July, having my head shaved as part of the event and then coming to NYC that night to be tied on the 4th. Previously, we rehearsed for a week that summer, trying for 3 days then for 4.... finding out how close to be, how far away, what thickness rope to use, learning how to braid it together so that it would be permanent. We showered and found that the rope shrunk and had to cut ourselves out at a Chinese restaurant. We both found that at the end of 4 days, we were euphoric, hitting the ceiling when we cut the rope.... that we had held our energy down to accommodate the limitation, and that now we were free. I made many phone calls, ran around, saw people, went running, etc. I said good-bye to everyone upstate. My father refused to see me for a year. My mother sat through my hair cutting/shaving session, aghast and torn. She has seen me through many permuta- tions. JULY 4: The tying was to happen at 6:00. 1 felt my own nervousness! It was serious business. Our heads were shaved. Mine seemed small, too small for my body. P.O. was to be a witness, putting on the band that was to seal us. Paul Grass- field was my witness. P.O. arrived, tanned and in shorts. T.H. and I entered the space and took about 15 minutes to tie the rope. My hands shook, | was more nervous than I knew. It was a formal art marriage. I was not going to have sex with him or anyone else for a yr. That was easy for me. Esp. for a reason.... art. 
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The minute we were tied, | felt public, too special, an object of respect, derision, an art bur- den.... some eyes were saying, “Why are you getting in my vision with that image?" I could feel it. We worked almost at once and the struggle began immediately. Learning how to wait while he "worked" at a male job, learning how to teach him to wait while I worked, learning how to help by not helping, learning how to give up my way.... I couldn't go where I wanted when I wanted. I was tied. RHYTHM The first 4 months were adjusting to the limitation. I couldn't do certain things. No more going here, seeing teachers, doing kinesthesiology workshops, no friends. I was stressed.... couldn't touch anyone because they might be ones I couldn't touch. I had not yet adjusted to the parameters, and my body was stiff. Going to bed was the big pleasure. Dreams were vivid and were how we adjusted. Winter was totally interior. We did a lot of work.... carpentry. I taught for 7 weeks in Phila. But together we were negative, withdrawn, hibernating but sullenly. We stayed inside the whole time, limiting each other, taking away each other's plea- sures and permissions. Everything was done by consensus; and so, if one didn't agree, then we wouldn't do it. If we fought, then we would look ahead to what the other might want, and then take away that privilege. The solution was to do nothing, so that was not only appropriate for the piece but appropriate for the season. As spring came closer, our energy changed and we became physically violent with each other.... All of our weaknesses were exposed and so it took a big effort to change what was be- coming a pattern, EXPECTATIONS: T came into the piece expecting a tantric merge (we would sit across from each other for hours, looking into eyes or auras, blending?) But the reality was just that.... reality. The real- ity of walking the dog, eating, shopping, done in a very real, no-nonsense way. There were few rituals, (we raised our bowls before eating as a private ges- ture), and I felt released from a lot of old needs for bowing. Now, because I was tied, I was finding that I was just myself and a lot more honest with my feelings because I was forced to be. More realistic, less romantic. Getting older? The danger was that I would become too rough, go in the opposite direction. Lose my poetry in the need to survive the danger. WHY AM I DOING IT? Discipline is my style. Finding a way to blend art/life/mind is my goal. No separation, no product, no skill except living and trans- forming. My aim is mind training and emptiness, mental technology. 
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If that takes art to produce, then I will do something that looks like art; if life, then IT will do life. STOPPING: On 2 occasions I have wanted to stop. The arguments had reached a level where I felt that it was unbearable to go on. Once on the street I started yelling uncon- trollably and wanted to attract the attention of police. The thought of paying for therapy stopped me. In some ways I've become quarrelsome, a New Yorker, a madwoman. 1 shout in public, complain. I have no thought of how my behavior looks.... The piece has driven me to respond and not edit my response. PACE: Life is slower. We don't do much. Can't. That's good. In the past I've done too much, want too much. Cocaine society. This is somewhat precious, because | savor more, because | do less. To cross the street I have to be careful. The mind can't remain in dream state but must be alert. A chosen focusing device. year of no privacy. The phone is one way of communicating with friends but he speaks Chinese with friends and has privacy. I can't talk on the phone and be private, so I've begun to write letters. I've also said no to seeing friends. It's impossible. Most have felt this and have given a year reprise. I've lost some. My parents are my main source. I call them weekly but don't confide in them. DAILY LIFE We sleep a lot. I try to meditate in the a.m. Also at night. We get up at 10 a.m. or 11 if we are not working. Walk Betty, have tea. Then go to desks and work for many hours. I am doing phone interviews with 
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performance artists on food, sex, $, death.... also just sit for hours, doing nothing. Eat in Chinatown. Diet is mostly brown rice and vegetables verging on Chinese. It's difficult to take showers so that is a luxury. We had only one near accident, © getting in an elevator one in, one out and finding the "Door open" button just in time. Also a woman ran between us and almost tripped over the rope. In public, we walk close to each other. PUBLICITY: The piece is popular. It appeals to the masses. Believe It or Not called, Entertainment Tonight, CBS, Associated Press. We said no to most but it was hard for me to do that.... (to do something so public and to say no when someone responds and wants to publicize it.) The publicity has been interesting for me. It's changed my father's mind.... he saw my name in the Wall Street Journal and now feels that I am a respectable person because | am in his paper. 1 am tempted to want to continue the momentum and do more popular work, but | have to monitor my reaction and rea- lize that it's not what | am after; name and fame are danger- ous. OVERALL: The piece is a test... a test of emotions and response. I find 31 that emotions are highly over- rated because they get worn out. I am less romantic and that feels good. Someone once said, death is highly overrated. I see that everything is highly over- rated.... I'm driven to a level of attention that feels valuable; a fear is gone from many old things. I came into the piece with a somewhat catholic defini- tion of morality and good/bad and leave with an experience of my own rage. I've gotten to the end of my rope and have not been able to run; in that sense the piece functions for me as a no exit, a to stay when it is good and bad; in staying, in enduring. 1 have a chance to go beyond judg- ment to a place where everything, whatever it is, just is. It's the same thing that happens when doing serious sitting, a cultivation of the witness and non-judgmental attitude. | am experiencing a balance that is new. Also, danger is an effective way to get out of or even into ordinary mind. Often there is no reason to stay awake or alert; or the inner voices drown out the outside world. This piece defies habituation because there is enough work to do to stay pre- sent, so that the mind cannot slip into old responses. The time frame of one year allows for interesting rhythms; I find that I'm more willing to try new attitudes to old questions because I know that [ have only a yr. to deal with him, with the situation, with the limitation. In many ways my Life has been easy, protected, my challenges subtle and somewhat temporary. Most women have children to focus them, change them. I choose my work to function that way. We also function as different archetypes for each other and for the public.... we are mother/son, father/daughter; master/slave; spiritual community; s&m; prison- ers; animals. Mothers respond, police, etc. and say they are also tied. My mother never really showed that she was pregnant with me. I was born in Jan. and she was too thin to show or look pregnant. Somehow | feel as if the “umbilical cord" is visible for me and I am showing my baby, TH, or am being shown or dis- played in utero.... myself.... to make up for that experience 42 yrs. ago. We have bonded. I can't imagine not doing this and some days am eager not to do it. So one test of the piece is facing the end and new beginning. The limelight has been intensely bright, publi- city constant and visual street response an everyday reality. The next danger is to wean myself from being public to continuing to do work which trains body/mind and aims for emptiness, and not for bigger and better art. Anger and tenderness: my selves And now I can believe they breathe in me as angels, not polarities. Adrienne Rich “Integrity” 
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THE END: July 4 came quickly. In fact after doing the piece for 9 months, we emerged from the submarine quality of the experi- ence and went into normalcy very automatically, seeing people, talking without stress, acting openly as if the end was truly near. Publicity began again as more and more media asked for telephone, radio, tv, mag, book interviews.... we edited down to the bare minimum.... T.H. de- ciding that only our own inter- view would suffice and I agreed with him. We began going to romantic places, Coney Island, beach, parks, and got nostalgic with our last meals, singing good-bye songs to each other.... prepar- ing.... buying gifts and testing whether or not we should stay together forever.... A large- scale movie was being made and I noticed that we became testy at the end.... Someone who saw us described it as sexual tension. I saw it as tension of splitting, getting out, fear of being alone.... plus I had to go home to my mother who had cancer.... She got it in June and I had spent all of June and July with that tension in myself and be- tween us... THE CLOSING: They came a few days early to set up lights, and generally brought an atmosphere of finality. We were packing to leave the space, packing to get ready for the opening, had bought wine, cheese, sent out posters, etc. All of it very intricate and detailed.... I was getting thinner.... he was pale. On July 4 crowds appeared.... Pauline Oliveros and Paul Grass- field were the witnesses and were standing on a wood platform waiting for us to enter the space. The room was packed with maybe 180 to 200 people. It was very hot. We came out at 6 p.m. and stood on the platform. Pauline read her statement, the rope had not been touched or tampered with.... Paul looked at mine and said similar things. Then they got knives from their pockets and cut us out, each on the s of the rope.... around our waists. I remember the feel- ing, standing there, facing the crowd, immersed in the energy, light, heat. It was transcendent. I was expanded and enthralled and enlarged and totally open and giving no contractions, just celebration and exchange. We stepped down from the platform and the crowd divided us. I went my way, t.v. interviewed us both. He said nothing and I said prob- ably too much. I reached for him astrally, ethereally, psychologi- cally and we both were gone.... to the others, to the crowd, to our respective new lives. That night I went upstate and as he put me in the car and helped me pack, I noticed that a woman friend made a sexual advance toward him. I was livid, upset. I took off to see my mother and did so that night.... trying to process cancer and career??? You can't soar and think about cancer at the same time.... so I took a few days in upstate and then came 
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back to NY, saw T.H. and we started to relate in new ways. The struggles were different. Now I felt such a strong emotional bond and physical pull to him that it was painful.... we had been Siamese twins and now had to separate and it seemed surgical. The knife was cruel and I began hurting so much when | finally went upstate to live that it was almost unbearable. Images of Siamese twins being surgically cut apart from each other kept coming into my view in news- Papers. One was of the now sepa- rate twins, each in oxygen tents, stretching out their hands to each other from a 6 ft. distance. 1 saw that one on a plane from Canada and almost fainted with pain. A stewardess came by and wanted to help but I assured her that I was ok. I was somewhat in shock, nonverbal whenever | saw him.... walking close, feeling the rope. He immersed himself in his loft and had no space. I was doing my upstate nesting, buying a car, dealing with my mother and getting ready for my next piece. So I had very little space but the pain was clouding every- thing.... Time.... Time.... Time.... I went back once a month.... It has been 6 months now. | still have large doubts. Maybe I should be with him in his new work???? Live in Kingston and Brooklyn??? Should he move upstate??? | wrestle with what could be and watch what is. The love is very deep and yet somewhat different; it is like family, lovers, friends, old married couple.... but it feels like it will be forever and forever and forever. 
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Selected Bibliography: LINDA MONTANO Burnham, Linda. "Tehching Hsieh and Linda Montano, Art/Life: One Year Performance, 1983-1984," Artforum, October, 1983. (Review.) Grey, Alex and Grey, Allyson, "Linda Montano & Tehching Hsieh's One Year Art/Life Performance," High Performance (Los Angeles), Vol. 7, no. 3, 1984. (Essay and interview with Montano and Hsieh.) Johnston, Jill. "Hardship Art," Art in America, (New York), September 1984. Kleb, William, "Art Performance: San Francisco," Performing Arts Journal, Vol 1, no. 3, Winter 1977. MacAdams, Lewis. "National Video Festival—Montano: Linking Separate Worlds," High Performance, (Los Angeles), Vol. 7, no. 3, 1984. (Review of Mitchell's Death.) Montano, Linda. Art in Everyday Life. Los Angeles: Astro Artz in association with Station Hill Press, New York, 1981. "Make Art of Your Daily Life," Heresies #17, (New York), 1984. "Mitchell's Death," High Performance, (Los Angeles), December 1978. "The New Wilderness: A Conversation with My Father, Henry Montano, on November 19, 1978." The New Wilderness Letter, (New York), Vol. 2, no. 7, Summer 1979. Ross, Janice, "Extracts of a Decade," ARTweek, (Oakland), Vol. 11, no. 3, 1980. Roth, Moira, "Autobiography, Theatre, Mysticism and Politics: Women's Performance Art in Southern California," in Performance Anthology: Source Book for a Decade of California Performance Art, ed. Carl Loeffler and Darlene Tong, 1980. "Matters of Life and Death: Linda Montano interviewed by " High Performance, (Los Angeles), December 1978. “Mitchell's Death," New Performance, (San Francisco), December 1978. (Essay and interview with Montano.) "Toward a History of California Performance,” Arts Magazine, February 1978. Shank, Theodore, "Mitchell's Death," The Drama Review, (New York), March 1979. 
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Selected Videography: LINDA _MONTANO Anorexia Nervosa, 60 min. color 1981 Mitchell's Death, 22 min. bw 1978 Characters - Learning to Talk, 45 min. color 1978 Montano's video works are distributed by the Video Data Bank, Chicago. 36