Monkey
2009, 5 min 40 sec from 60 min performance
writing and video by Deke Weaver
performed by Jennifer Allen and Deke Weaver
camera by Roy Alvarez, Bill Fulara, and Chris Hampson
After buying their tickets from a monkey-masked stage manager, audience members entered the theater where a monkey-man was filling two black boards with the names of primates. Endangered species are erased. The performance began with a series of loosely related stories. The audience begins to connect the dots through a final character’s realizations. This edited clip includes moments from a powerpoint lecture, a monolog and a power-lady dance by Jennifer Allen.
Monkey
2009, 4 min from 60 min performance
writing and video by Deke Weaver
camera by Roy Alvarez, Bill Fulara, and Chris Hampson
In the full performance, the monkey-man talks about monkey traps – real and metaphoric. This four-minute excerpt is part of the immersive video/sound environment that builds out of the monkey-man’s monolog. On an old TV, Wild Kingdom’s Marlin Perkins introduces the chimpanzee Mr. Mokes. As Perkins tickles the chimp, the images are projected on the larger screens/black-boards, launching into a haunting montage of pop culture apes and monkeys.
Monkey
2009, 3 min 20 sec from 60 min performance
writing and video by Deke Weaver
performed by Jennifer Allen and Deke Weaver
camera by Roy Alvarez, Bill Fulara, and Chris Hampson
A woman of boundless curiosity travels to Borneo to see orangutans in the wild. The experience transforms her in ways that she couldn’t possibly have foreseen. This clip shows the bridge from her story into the first part of the video-projection about Hanuman – the monkey god whose story is one of strength, sacrifice, scale, service and confidence.
Polar Bear
God
2008, 3 min excerpt from 14 min monolog
written, performed, edited by Deke Weaver
camera by Daniel Goscha, sound by Roy Alvarez
The full 14-minute piece includes a bear lying in wait for a whale, the size of a polar bear’s natural home range, the size of his cage in a zoo, and the comparable spaces for a Western urban human being illustrating the behavior shared by a caged polar bear, an autistic child and an office worker. The piece ends with a new pantheon – an oddly reassuring rag-tag collection of tiny gods. In addition to performing the monolog as a stand-alone piece, Weaver has included the piece in his evening-length performances The Ghosts of Prague and Other Animals.
The
Performance Artist From St Petersburg
2004, 5 min
video by Deke Weaver
Originally used in the live performance The Ghosts of Prague, this projected video dovetailed with a hedonistic pilot’s monolog about get-rich-quick real estate schemes. He cuts off his lecture when he sees a news report on circus-elephant rampages in Hawaii. This video is about searching for a famous performance artist in the fog of Prague.
The
Bunnies*
2008, 4 min 30 sec
video by Deke Weaver
sound by Chris Peck
A surreal, humorous short ritual calling the evil bunny gods from their evil bunny underworld. The piece seems benign until shifting into a hypnotic audio assault, ending with bunnies and the realization that we’l l never really know what truly evil stuff they’re thinking. It was originally used in the live video-performance The Land of Plenty. *Please note: the video is in white for a while (there’s nothing wrong with the file) before an image slowly dissolves in.