RON ATHEY

Suicide obsession/tatto dream - Lubjana 1996- foto Miha Fras

Performer, scrittore e critico, americano, Ron Athey pensa che niente é troppo estremo nella ricerca della verità: "Il mio lavoro é difficile da descrivere, io sono un performance artista da coltello. Non faccio rappresentazioni che mostrano piercing, né rituali spirituali. Io lavoro sul dolore, sulla sofferenza,..." Si dichiara omosessuale e sieropositivo, e con il suo gruppo, realizza spettacoli apocalittici e scioccanti, in cui automutilazioni, tagli, incisioni, e perdita di sangue, tracciano i contorni di una alterità dinamica del corpo e della fisicità. Ancora un'anteprima in Italia, su Virus, di uno dei più estremi performer del mondo. Abbiamo incontrato Ron Athey a Lubjana, in occasione del suo spettacolo al Kapelica.

My first question is related to your religious experience. Every time you talk about your work, you start with the religious experiences from your youth. What I'm interesting in are the most powerful and disturbing matters considered in this religious fanaticism? The iconography in churches you were visiting, rituals or mental ecstasy of participants. Every time you mention this is like this past is an equal part of your artistic work. How is this reflected in certain details in your performances?

Where do I begin? I could - and will - write a book on the influence fanatical religion has had on my life. I was raised Pentecostal, a church that became known as The Charismatic Movement. Most of the people involved in these type of churchs are working class to dirt poor. Poor blacks and poor whites, not necessarily intermingled, though lately Latin Americans make up the bulk of Pentecostals. We were poor, and lived near the Mojavedesert, less than an
hour's drive outside of Los Angeles. What's interesting is that this way of worship is based on evangelism - traveling churches - rather than having a stable homebase. This means I went to church in circus tents, closed down movie theatres, and derelict buildings no sturdier than a wood shack. The minister and his entourage were usually from Texas or Oklahoma, and appropriately preached by screaming and yelling. He also practiced the gifts of the spirit, if you couldn't at least promise a faith healing, your church would be empty.
This religion, though it followed some sort of a Protestant outline, was basically free of ordinary constraints. It was freestyle, the congregation listened to prophesies and re-interpreted the Bible. For instance, not only could God speak through the prophets, but also dead relatives. The absence of rules also left room for personal attacks masked as the voice of God, so often, and after a few months of having a powerful revival, the meetings ended in unholy dissension. Then it was time for the minister to move on to another town.
The iconography in the usual sense was bleak since it was Protestant-based and in temporary settings, but there was no shortage of visuals: a woman with a
beehive hairdo playing the accordian; an old man with dyed black hair (and toupee) playing electric guitar; a woman with fabric draped over her arm, waiting to cover another women's panties with if they "went out in
the spirit." One church we went to occasionally, which was in L.A., was a cult to the Apocalypse, and they had a massive altar which contained almost every detail from the Book of Revelations. I recently went back to make sure it was real, and it was. I wrote a extensive story about it for the L.A. Weekly, and talked about it in artist Mike Kelly's graduate class at Art Center. He said that many artist's, including Laurie Anderson, were very influenced by late 70's broadcasts the minister, Miss Velma, would air. These churches were NEVER boring. As the night went on, most of the room would start speaking in tongues. This was usually preceded by an anointing - for a physical healing, or a particular blessing. There was always an excuse to line up and have a scented oil rubbed all over your forehead. Most people, including myself, would begin speaking in tongues and fall to the floor, stricken with the spirit. The spirit dancing looked exactly like any tribal dance based on using exhaustion to trance out: African, American Indian, it's universal. So a room full of people would be
screaming made up language, jumping up and down, falling, getting back up, covered in oil; very primitive if you ask me. There was something real and powerful going on in those churches, that was timeless, instinctive. Perhaps it took the simplicity of these snaggle-toothed hillbillies to channel it. They never asked why or for what reason or noticed they were different, it was just,
"Thank you, Jesus," for filling me up with your spirit. What an amazing way to interpret the spirit of Christ; frothing at the mouth, convulsing, arms flailing, speaking in a new language.
Even though I left this upbringing with a very bad taste in my mouth, I came to admire it years later. The sense of high drama and frantic ritual affected my life and my art. I couldn't just be ordinary or content, I was always looking for something, looking to make things mean something more.The reality of life made me suicidal. In history, theatre, ritual, and religion have origins that are intertwined; in my history, it's the same. There is a ridiculous American slant on this, that goes from kitsch to tragic. My Aunt who raised me, she was
a self-proclaimed prophet, believed the Virgin Mary had told her that she would bare the second coming of Christ via immaculate conception. I would be born first, my role would be to become a powerful minister and tell that this Christ was on earth. Then after this messiah was born, she would marry Elvis Presley, and together they would have twin sons, and raise the three boys together. So that's me, Ron Athey as John the Baptist; my aunt Vena Mae as the Virgin Mary; and Elvis Presley as St. Joseph. Of course she was crushed when Elvis died, she couldn't get out of bed for weeks. Even as a child, even though I believed lots of this insanity, I could see the much of the fantasy was just poor people, dreaming through the word of God. In life I've seen it with fabulous drag queens, usually they have poor backgrounds, but find escape in a world of wigs
and rhinestones. Of course living in Hollywood, the cliches of people who come here to be a star, is funny but depressing.
In my work I find the need to keep playing out this drama through characters: I play The Holy Woman, the text is about my obsession with stigmata. In the scene,
"Reinterpretation of False Prophecies," I play a frightening male minister, and give a sermon called "There's So Many Ways to Say Hallelujah." And with technique I create a form of surgical stigmata, usings 25 thick needles in a crown of thorn formation, I also reinact the martyrdom of St. Sebastian with a similar technique.

second question:
I'm curious about that Valium treatment and how you faded into a long term drug addiction. Was your - before defined - fanatical aproach to everything responsible to all that transcendent contra-indication while unveiling world of pain, overdoses, suicide attempts, prostitutions. .... in short terms, to everything that your religeus education (if that is true) considered manifestations of evil?

I am a fanatic, with an obsessive personality. This is mine, and it runs through every area of my life. I very possibly had neurological disorders as a child, and the climate of mental illness, the lack of a supportive family structure - my mother was in a institution and no father - was very condusive to making a nervous wreck of a me as a child. I had a neurologist from Brazil, who prescribed me 2 mg. Valiums four times a day, when I was nine or ten years old. A few years later they became 5mg x 4/day. My Auntwho lived in the house
had a prescription. My mother who didn't live in the house had a prescription. These were all filled for me. I was encouraged to take two if I was extra nervous. My grandfather died when I was 14 years old, he was the only sane person in my house, and I took nine at once, and felt almost no emotional pain. I rather enjoyed the funeral, I remember being concentrated on how tight my 70s suit fit me, I was proud that I had to lay on the floor and wiggle into the trousers. I must have sashayed in slow motion to the pew. Everyone took pills in my house. Here was the contradiction: if I had been caught drinking an alcoholic
beverage, I would have been kicked out of the house, or seriusly reformed. Marijuana, probably kicked out or hospitalized. But prescription drugs, even with someone else's name on it, were easy to deny the reasons for using. The doctor prescribed these. I think my grandmother was addicted to Seconal. Sometimes they would catch me taking a couple Seconal, drinking it down with codein cough syrup. I would look sheepish, and reply that I had a little cough. Yes, my family started me on Valium, but it was my personality that couldn't get enough, and started opened other bottles. It was strange to already be addicted to Valium, and have much experience with barbituates, before ever trying lesser drugs. There was almost no party there for me, except I mixed everything until I was sick. I was destined to be a junky, I learned much too young how to shut my feelings off with chemicals. It was about "partying," it was about changing to picture. And I was young and fashionable and had good instinct, I pulled it
off for years. I have a strange experience the week I started using intravenous drugs, my grandmother looked at me and asked, "Where's your typewriter? Did you sell it for a fix?" A few days later I had a needle in my arm, injected MDA. Of course it was really later when crystal metha-amphetamine and heroin entered the scene that I lost my edge. Why was I hellbent on destroying myself? I still don't know what puts someone on that track, at such a young age. Part of it was my rejection of the world: I was so unprepared for my reality away from the church. There was no magic, no hope for me. I had a very bleak perspective when I left home, I didn't know how to live. I still believe my rebellion was heartfelt and done for myself, I never went back to my family or allowed them to know what had become of me; this is a much different dynamic than making a messy display for specific people. It took a decade for me to find that life could be worth living without a God. Maybe that's at the bottom of it, I didn't have God, and after my glorious spiritual upbringig, it left a huge hole in me. I was furious, I hated my family for lying to me. I hated them even more because in their truth they didn't lie to me, they took there belief system with them to the grave. Of course this doesn't explain everything, but I see in way, that I'm doing the same thing with my performances that my family did with their whole lives, I make an alternative reality that's one-half based in creating utopia, the other half facing unspeakable horrors. Luckily, I try to leave this world on stage, and let my hostages go free after the show.

Third question:
I'm fascinated with your sex life. I read in Honcho magazine about you having a bisexual life, but in reality you're gay. And there's all that SM insinuation, hard-core sex, over-all tattoo and piercing that makes your presence liken to that of an erotic totem who is representing the god of sex on earth. Of course this is not something you can leave on stage and put it in an alternative reality. Can I rather say that this is a paralel reality considering origins you came from and considering the world that so called "normal" people are living?
And please satisfied my curiosity. Are there are any taboos you are not dealing with but you would like to?

Yes, I have bisexuality lurking in my past. I consider myself homosexual, though I still find women to be very appealing and sexy. About ten years ago, I became
strictly homosexual because of my desire for men was much stronger than women. Also, in the relations I had with women, they tended to have deeper feelings for
me, and I felt it wasn't fair to them that I preferred men. I never had a dilemna in this, it was a natural evolution. I have politicized my body in a strange way. It's mapped out, there's rebellious markings, sad commemorations, scars, vanities, comraderies. To adorn inherently objectifies and exaggerates. And when you're talking in terms of "unnatural sexuality," it pushes boundaries: my nipples are pierced and enlarged to extreme proportions, the tattooed spirals emphasize the roundness of my fat ass, the name "Christ" above my cock is vulgar and nonsensical. It didn't happen overnight. Images of S/M in my stage shows aren't about the technicality of the act, but about harnessing the transformative power of the act. In this, the meaning is subverted, has nothing to do with the erotic, unless its in a garish way. Some of my early image comes from Mexican prisoners: the teardrops. Some from working class despair: neck and face tattoos, the whole skinhead appropriation I did on and off since 18 years old. And then the tribal tattoos, were really about forging a new image, making a new identity. Anything but being a average white person. I call it my exotiphelia. Again, I was raised to be different from the masses, I think this
was my own way of staying different. It blows my mind how mainstream tattooing and piercing have become. I still love them, but the specialness is watered down. There are no sexual tabboos for me, I've have tried many things, both give and take. Within reason, if I want to try something, I do. I measure the price: am I risking injury or disease? Can I handle it emotionally? Do I trust the person? If you publicly cross a line, it's hard to come back. The world thinks I'm insane, that in order to have a relationship with me, you have to be cut and
pierced and fistfucked. That you will seroconvert to HIV positive. That every day will become frightening. In all honesty, I oftentimes just need some sweetness from a man. My life is hard, I work hard, I bleed enough on stage. I desire intimacy, something that's not usually spontaneous with strangers. I start off sweet, but it's in a long-term relationship where I get real kinky. For me, it usually takes a certain amount of trust to really take an intense journey somewhere new. I have not had a real relationship for a few years, though I have a few fuck buddies, and enjoy meeting new men when I travel. Intimacy seems to be an issue for many people, I'm not sure how or when I'm going to deal with it. It's second on my list. Art is the most important thing
to me.

4#
Just after your performance in Ljubljana, I asked you about the fact of your being HIV positive, and how this is reflected in your work. What you said about casting (about performers who can understand you better) and syntax in your show
seemed crucial to me. Would You please repeat this for our new audience?

I think my being HIV positive makes me see the world in a meladramatic way, or at least more meladramatic. Everything around me I see as being apocalyptic, HIV
enhances. Sickness, degradation, and death. I believe it's forced me to make intensive work, at a steady pace. Currently all three boys playing the sick men in Deliverance are HIV positive. This is invaluable to me. My performances are not about acting. Of course we follow a script, we are choreographed, we have
memorized words to say, but to know suffering resonates deeper than pretending ever will, at least in live art. I see the signature part of my work being controlled life experiences; they are set in the framework of a script, but they happen in real time. In my work if a scene calls for blood, you must really bleed, artifice is not powerful enough. If you are really HIV positive as we three boys are, carrying the weight of the crutch pile, walking bent over, we walk the endless walk on the psychic plane of uncertainty. If you are really HIV positive, your relationship with the woman draining your blood in the morgue scene becomes immediate. I think a certain amount of honesty comes through, even though the boys are completely passive, playing at being dead. I can't copy an existing format because I hate most theater work. I feel the format of performance gives me the freedom to mix any existing technique from anywhere,
and try to make things really happen. In this aspect, I see where my work could be seen as a ritual.

5#
The structure of your art expression is a mixture of harsh facts, metaphors and allegories. This is the theather of pain. You are doing and showing things which are dificult even to pronounce but at the consequence everybody can understand. If not by reason then by strong, almost "contact" emotions.Since I believe that writing about what or how you are showing in your performances is something unfair and may harm the intensity o your Art expression, I can only hazard the
definition of it: confession. It's a form of expression everybody can identified himself. So please Ron, finish this interview with the text from
"The Eunuch Confesses" ( I can admit that that excerption left some "stigmata on my conciousness") from your recent performance "Deliverance". This is probably the only text I have borrowed from an existing source. I found a prayer from a Yom Kippur service where the congregation takes on the sin of the world. I changed it to I, and substituted a few words I couldn't say without laughing, like "stiff-neckedness." It seemed like a flawless text for a freshly castrated
eunuch to recite, a confession filled with both humility and defiance, it's really quite grandiose to claim such a roster of crimes, then ponce about immediately afterwards.

I have trespassed
I have dealt treacherously
I have robbed
I have spoken slander
I have acted perversely
and I have wrought wickedness
I have been presumptuous
I have done violence
I have framed lies
I have counseled evil
and I have spoken falsely I have scoffed
I have revolted
I have provoked
I have rebelled
I have committed iniquity
and I have transgressed
I have oppressed
I have been obstinate
I have done wickedly
I have corrupted
I have committed abomination
I have gone astray
and I have led others .... astray.

stampa

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