On a sauna-level dry heat afternoon, we emerged from the belly of the Chicago River cruise boat to the deck, to quickly find seats for the performance that had already begun.
Two men, clad in sweat-dirtied white linens with side lace-up and sewn holes purposed for movement, lay one atop the other. All was silent.
It was difficult to tell if one held the other down, or the one on bottom held the other up. A writhe ripple suggested struggle—but it became increasingly clear that the struggle was with something else other than each other. The two seemed to be battling it together.
This seeming struggle—a deep twitch, a pained yelp, a muffled curse perhaps, a head rolling in an unusual plane—soon came to feel and sound like cries for help perhaps, born of dancer Ben Gould’s Tourette Syndrome. It sounded like muffled and not so muffled pain, that he perhaps usually endured alone and in isolation. Not so now, when Matty Davis wrapped around him like a second skin.
Meanwhile the city floated by—or we by it—as the trip ventured down the Chicago River farther than one is used to on the typical Chicago Architectural Foundation tour. Bridges overhead at times competed with our rapt attention of the two men- but again and again, the performers won out. We were transfixed.
From floor to crouching to stand to acrobatic balancing acts, their performance art continued, in silence, other than Gould’s sometimes involuntary yelps. We feel Gould’s vulnerability as his involuntary moves either radiate to Davis’ catch or get harnessed so that he can balance Davis’ smaller frame nonetheless.
There we were in a moving open space on the boat deck that invited us to look up at the skies. The glide of the boat kept changing our visual frame around the imagined spotlight on the dancers. For this writer at least, the boat experience, while profound and always there, often receded to the far background of consciousness. It was especially during ultra-minimal moves by the two artists adjusting to each other ‘s energies that we could feel an intense sense of a private space, that belied the expansive skies above.
Few artists speak as eloquently as these two do to that clearer pre-verbal connection space that words can’t reach. Two souls, a friendship, a trust, a bond, a shared love of expression through art—experiencing Matty Davis and Ben Gould’s performance in A Vessel for Carriage was a life-memorable gift.
Choreographed by Matty Davis and Ben Gould
Curated and co-produced by Peter Taub
Clothing by Gabriella Lacza
Adaptations of this performance will continue this year including: September 21 in New York City at Queenslab and October 21 – 22 in Kansas City, MO at Open Spaces 2018, curated by Dan Cameron.
To find out more about these performers visit the Ben Gould website and the Matty Davis website.
