The Night we Danced with Yoko
The Night we Danced with Yoko: Reflections of Performances by Yoko Ono
Smith, Peter1 and Smith, Laura2 1Emeritus Professor, University of Sunderland, UK; 2researcher, writer & busy mum, Newcastle, UK.
As a musician, artist, filmmaker and activist, Yoko Ono has, throughout her 50 year career, blurred the boundaries of perception and explored the ways fundamental human truths and values can be communicated. For over half a century, there has been much discussion surrounding her artistic and musical output, with Madeline Bocaro's (2021) comprehensive treatise being one of the more recent works to critique the impact of Ono's work and its wide-ranging influence. Bocaro's discussion of Ono and her vast body of art details much of her personal history, explores the depth and breadth of her expansive career and, for the authors, allows space for the reader to reflect upon, and situate their own experiences and connection to Ono.
Upon reading In your Mind: The Infinite Universe of Yoko Ono (Bocaro, 2021) the primary author, Peter, was transported back, re-visiting the times he had witnessed Yoko Ono perform and was moved to examine what these experiences have come to mean for him. Peter had a deep fascination with the work of Ono and believed strongly that she had been a major influence upon the work of Lennon and the Beatles, a view shared by several others including Cott (2013).
Peter first saw Yoko Ono speaking at the In The Time Of Shaking event at The Irish Museum of Modern Art on May 7th, 2004. Peter had been a fan of Yoko Ono for some time and had long held the view that her influence on the music of John Lennon, the Beatles, and art, is often underplayed and, at worst, completely overlooked, a view also echoed within Bocaro's work. Peter noticed that Ono had been invited by Amnesty, along with The Edge from U2, to open the exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Ono is a long time Amnesty supporter and in 2002 she gave them the rights to use the Lennon song "Imagine", which was heavily influenced by Ono (Bannister, 2021; Jullien. 2017; Lennon, Ono & Sheff, 2021). in a campaign for human rights. At the time Peter was visiting Dublin once a month through work, so he fixed his next visit to coincide with the event. The event was a private view with entry by invitation only. Peter emailed the Museum, asking for an invitation, and to his delight, a couple of days later he received a reply, inviting him to the event In The Time Of Shaking(2004) was an exhibition and book involving over 100 of Ireland's leading artists in support of human rights and the work of Amnesty International. The Museum of Modern Art. is set in beautiful gardens (see Fig.1) and the opening of the exhibition was attended by 1,000 people.
Bill Shipsey, chairman of Art for Amnesty, introduced The Edge. U2 have supported Amnesty for more than 20 years, and the Edge recalled attending the opening of the first Amnesty Irish offices in Dublin in 1984. "I'm proud of the way Ireland and Irish people have supported Amnesty ever since then." he said, "I'm also particularly pleased that this Irish initiative is spearheading what will hopefully become a series of similar art exhibitions around the world that will raise money for Amnesty." Edge then gave a synopsis of Yoko Ono's life, closing with "Yoko comes to Dublin. Yoko likes Dublin and Dublin likes Yoko". He then asked Ono to officially open the exhibition. Wearing a black trouser suit, she emerged smiling.
Ono said "I am proud, pleased and happy to be here in Dublin today to open this wonderful exhibition which not only helps generate the support Amnesty needs but is providing a fund-raising model which we can use around the world. "John was very conscious of his Irish background. He was extremely proud of being Liverpool Irish, which gave him a sense of rebellion and inspired his poetry. I really think that his poetry definitely came from his Liverpool Irish heritage - tradition, beauty, sense of humour and word play all being strong Irish qualities."(Benson, 2004).The crowd was a mix of those from the Irish art community, journalists and a sprinkling of fans of Ono. One guy was right at the front of the crowd with his copy of Grapefruit(1970), no doubt hoping for a signature. But there was no opportunity for autographs; as soon as Ono had finished speaking, she was ushered away, apparently to take a tour of U2's studio.
According to Bocaro (2021), one of Ono's goals is to alert us to our own inner power and make us question our own miss-placed beliefs. Whilst Peters first encounter with Ono had not been long enough to present an opportunity to fully engage with her work, simply being in her presence had a profound and lasting impact upon him. Bocaro (2021) focuses on how Ono's artistic endeavours, whilst performative in nature, are, in essence, conceptually pure, simple and authentic. She highlights the beauty, simplicity and power in nature and the self as well as deconstructing false beliefs such as "gold is not more valuable than water". (Bocaro, 2021).
In 2012 Beram & Boriss-Krimsky produced a retrospective analysis of the career of Ono to mark her 70th birthday, Yoko Ono: Collector of Skies, which in a colourful, illustrated coffee table style book, providing a chronological critique of her contribution throughout her career. "No one can take you anywhere; it is your footsteps that take you to places." (Ono, 1972 in Beram & Boriss-Krimsky, 2012). In that simple statement Ono is telling us that our destiny lies within the self. Like many of Ono's works over the years the power of her art lies in the simplicity of the messages.
Although firstly setting out to establish a music career, "in the 1960s, Ono became increasingly involved in conceptual art, especially in performance as an occasional member of Fluxus, an art group inspired by neo-dadaism and the avant-garde." (Rowland, 2017) After moving to London, Ono gave her first paid performance at the Bluecoat in 1967. (Biggs and Belchem, 2020) When the Bluecoat was refurbished in 2008, Ono returned to the new performance space to celebrate the reopening of the venue. Tickets for the one-hour live event sold out in minutes and Ono agreed to a live feed from the Bluecoat hub onto a large screen in the city centre. Peter and his late wife, Marie, were lucky enough to be present at the performance.
Peter and Marie arrived in plenty of time for the event, and joined the queue to enter the performance space, which has a capacity of 116. It was clear from discussions in the queue that Ono fans had travelled from all over the world for the chance to attend. We were each handed an "Imagine Peace" badge and a small Onochord torch as we entered. The white torch was marked "Onochord Liverpool y.o. 2008". Marie and Peter sat in the front row and waited for Ono to arrive.
Soon Ono entered the room and stood in front of a large screen showing footage of her 1967 Bluecoat performance where she requested the audience wrap her from head to foot in bandages. "I'm 75 and I'm alive and very thankful to be here every day, and to still be in love with life, and with you" she told us. Ono then left the room for a short period and returned wrapped in bandages, picking up from where she left off in 1967. She sat in a chair and invited the audience to unwrap her. A small number of the audience, including Peter and Marie, did so; Peter still has the bandages that Marie and he removed from her legs (see Fig. 2).
In Ono's mind, the art of wrapping represents protection and healing and Over the years Ono has wrapped up many objects, a full orchestra and invited audiences up on stage to wrap, and indeed, unwrap her own body (Bocaro, 2021). Marie and Peter found this to be a very moving experience, one which left both of them with a sense of connection to Ono. The intimate act of unwrapping another human's body both placed them in what felt like a caring capacity, whilst also evoking feelings of being cared for. This duality was often at the heart of much of Ono's work (Bocaro, 2021) and taps into the intricate paradox of life and death. The removal of clothing through Cut Piece (Bryan-Wilson, 2003) and the act of Bandaging (Pinnington, 2017) are central and recurring themes within Ono's work. They form an important connection between Ono, the audience, the performance and bringing these three entities together as one.
At one point during the performance Ono sat at the chair and silently crocheted. Footage of John and Yoko from the "bed-in" days followed; she later danced and rolled on the floor omitting her characteristic screaming vocalisations to the video for her song "Walking on Thin Ice", and showed a short documentary on her 2004 work Onochord. At that point the audience were asked to utilise the small torches, that they had been given when entering the performance based. Everyone was instructed to flash the torch towards Ono three times to signify the three words "I LOVE YOU".
Although much has been written about Ono's contribution to experimental and conceptual art, her musical output is often seen as a separate part of her work. However, after experiencing this performance, the interwoven nature of Ono's music and art became much clearer to Peter. Her extreme, sometimes unnerving vocals as well as her purposefully provocative musical arrangements transcend accepted musical conventions and occupy an artistic space of their own (Smith and Smith, 2022). Brown (2012) considers Ono's vocals to be "politically charged instances of abject sonic art" in which "the scream functions as an act of sonic abjection, and brings to the fore a marginalised body, negotiating and defying its own liminal borders.". This message was not only expressed musically, it was also present within Ono's physical movements. This, along with the audience participation directly and the performance as a whole, all came together to create a unique artistic experience.
Ono had one of her famous white chess sets beside her throughout the performance. This anti-war statement features white chess pieces on a totally white board; it was originally made for Ono's exhibition at Indica Gallery, London, in 1966. To close the performance, she threw the board to the ground, scattering the pieces all over the floor. Ono then put on a top hat and asked us all to come down to the front and dance with her to a remix of "Give Peace a Chance." At one point Marie was holding hands with Ono, dancing and twirling round. The intimacy of dancing with such an iconic figure, and the way which Ono opened herself up with us, displaying complete vulnerability, was an astonishing element of the performance to participate in.
During the dance, Ono gave Marie the chess board. Peter and Marie also managed to pick up a few of the pieces (see Fig. 3). A piece of art given to two participants in the performance by the artist, which they will treasure forever. In this way the performance becomes a piece of constructivism, the performance being co-constructed by the artist/performer and the audience themselves.
On our way out, we were handed a booklet entitled 13 days do-it-yourself dance festival (Ono,1967) which is a series of instructions and pictures as to how we might perform our own personal dance in our "mind" and that "each member of the dance, thus, will communicate with the other members by mental telepathy". An incredible, amazing performance, which we will remember for ever.
References
Amnesty international (2004). In the Time of Shaking, Irish Museum of Modern Art.
Bannister, M. (2021). And the world will be as one - John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Nutopia. Transformations (35).
Benson, C. (2004). Moving and shaking: Many Irish artists are contributing works to an exhibition in aid of Amnesty International, Irish Times, April 13 2004.
Beram, N., & Boriss-Krimsky, C. (2012). Yoko Ono: Collector of Skies. Abrams.
Biggs, B and Belchem, J. (2020) Bluecoat, Liverpool: The UK's First Arts Centre. Oxford University Press
Bocaro, M. (2021) In your Mind: The Infinite Universes of Yoko Ono. BookBaby
Brown, S. (2012) Scream from the Heart: Yoko Ono's Rock'n Role Revolution. La Revue des Musiques Populaires.
Bryan-Wilson, J. (2003). Remembering Yoko Ono's" Cut Piece". Oxford Art Journal, 99-123.
Cott, J. (2013). Days that I'll Remember: Spending Time with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Anchor.
Jullien. J. (2017). Imagine - John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Amnesty International, Frances Lincoln Publishers
Lennon, J., Ono, Y., & Sheff, D. (2021). All we are saying: The last major interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Pan.
Ono (1967) 13 days do-it-yourself dance festivalin Beram, N., & Boriss-Krimsky, C. (2012). Yoko Ono: Collector of Skies. Abrams.
Ono, Y. (1970). Grapefruit: A book of instructions and drawings by Yoko Ono. Simon and Schuster.
Pinnington, M. (2017). Public View. Art Monthly, (405), 30.
Rowland, H. (2017) Yoko Ono: The World's Most Famous Unknown Artist. The Culture Trip.
Smith, P. and Smith, L. (2022) Rock Concert Performance: From Abba to ZZ Top. Lexington Books
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