The Ending of a Performance

In March 2023, I performed Matxa VIP at the Art Patronage & Development (APD) in Hanoi. It was the culmination of one and a half days of workshops on performance art. Many of us participants registered to do a performance, and multiple performances took place in different areas within the building, as well as in the courtyard and on the rooftop of the APD. 

I wore wide-legged lotus print pants and a white silk camisole and looked a bit seductive, since I wasn’t wearing a bra underneath. I invited participants one by one and performed sensual massage gestures on them. My gentle strokes and arousing caresses focused on sensitive areas around the lips, face, neck, and mouth. Depending on their response, I adjusted the intensity and rhythm of my touch. 

The first participant was a Japanese male artist. Although he agreed, his body stiffened, locked-up beneath my touch. After 15 minutes, I thanked him and invited a contemporary female dancer who is a few years younger than me. Since she appeared to be quite comfortable with her body, I gestured for her to remove her outer shirt, leaving on only the bra she was wearing. She consented. I proceeded to wrap her in my arms and softly stroke her. This artist continued responding to my touches, so I whispered in her ears, “May I kiss you?” After a brief hesitation, she said, “I don’t know,” so I went on with the sensual massage without the kissing. I engaged with her for about 15 more minutes before stopping and inviting the next participant. 

The third person was a much younger gay man. He was an artist who was open about his sexuality and entirely at ease in his semi-naked body. He relaxed and allowed me to caress him. I could clearly perceive his responses to my sensual touches. His breathing shifted. So, I asked, as I had with the female artist, whether I could kiss him. He agreed to the kiss. It was a passionate and unequivocal response to the chemistry of our touch, sealed by the kiss. This exchange contradicted my assumption that he would refuse my advance because, from the beginning of the workshop, he had said that his sexual experiences were only ever with male bodies. 

After finishing with this participant, I looked around, wondering what to do next. The audience had dispersed to watch other performances. So instead of inviting another participant for a sensual massage, I laid down, gazed at those still nearby, and bound myself with a long red rope. I began to notice other eyes fixed on me. Though discombobulated, I tried to continue with the rope, then reached for the rose flowers that I put in a jar nearby to stroke them, as if they, too, were participants in the performance with me. 

I kept lying there, continuing endlessly with the flowers. A few people still stood nearby. A friend kept on filming. 

***

This is a performance that haunts me to this day. I still remember the way everyone’s eyes were on me at that moment. I have not been able to revisit Matxa VIP without judging myself. I am frustrated, and wish I had been decisive enough to stop sooner—right after finishing with the three human participants. Or if I had decided to lay there longer, why not stubbornly stay, giving myself a VIP massage, with the flowers, if no one else joined me? 

The torment and regret from this particular performance has prompted me to ask some close fellow artists about ending a performance: 

Have you ever regretted the ending of your performance? How did you feel about it, and how often do you plan the ending? If you do not mind, could you tell me about your regret?

Nguyễn Quốc Thành: Sometimes I think I could have done things differently. For example, standing in a different spot or adding other interventions to the performance. As for the ending, I usually don’t decide myself but rely on something that is beyond my control, like time running out or materials being exhausted. 

Thảo Bùi: At the moment of ending, my mind is often empty. Perhaps the thinking and analysis have already taken place, so by the time the performance unfolds, the body enters a state of responsiveness and reactivity. 

Boat Sutasinee Kansomdee: There was a time when I shaved my head and was naked and felt like I failed in the performance. But today, I don't regret anything anymore, because I understand more. Some actions we can never do again. Set the conditions for letting go of some things. Accept everything as it is.

Gao Nhi (Gạo Nhí): Often, my performances turn out to be very different from what I anticipate, no matter how much I prepare. Something unexpected always happens. Perhaps the gap between the imagination and reality is too wild, or perhaps it is that too much imagination ends up killing reality. 

Thảo **: My performances don’t usually end in a spectacular way. The conclusion comes when a task is done, or when I’ve reached a physical limit, or when the character I’m inhabiting grows bored or wants to leave. At the moment when I sense the performance is drawing to a close, but still have no concrete image of how it will end, I feel a bit uncomfortable, anxious, and confused, even as I must appear calm on the outside. When the outline of an ending begins to emerge, I might fall into a comical state of ambivalence—either pushing that intention to its extreme or resisting it altogether by doing the opposite. Those moments are nerve-wracking, but also exhilarating, because they bring out the ephemeral spirit of performance itself. 

Nhi Lê: Performance can be a gentle cool breeze or a painful puncture on the tip of the finger; it can be grand or pitiful, filthy. The only thing I can do is to go all the way and accept whatever happens. Even when it doesn’t follow the plan, I must accept failure as part of the plan. Whether it is a bad idea or no one shows up to witness it, the essential thing about performance art is that it must happen. Performance is a vivid, condensed experience that lives in the mind and the flesh; it is a marker of the artist’s existence. It must happen, just as we must continue to live. Each time I step into a performance, I try to be fully ready, needing and wanting nothing more, because for me, performance never truly ends. 

Yadanar Jewel: In the beginning of my career, I didn't really think about or decide how to end my performance. I did pretty dramatic endings—like when the song stopped, the actions stopped. These endings were based on my learning from a lot of contemporary dance and theatre. More recently, as I’ve had the opportunity to do the same performances repeatedly, I’ve tried different endings, often extending the duration each time. I’ve changed the endings and made them better by taking longer and longer. The more I repeat it, the more the work becomes concrete, but it doesn’t mean I am satisfied with the work. 

***

I still have not gone back to watch the performance documentation of Matxa VIP. The essence of performance is that it can never be fully recorded, nor can it be reproduced with the same result, because each time, the audience, the artist, and the context are different. Every work is singular, whether we repeat ourselves or re-enact someone else’s idea. Perhaps, no one even remembers that performance of mine anymore. If they do, they could not possibly sense the humiliation that I experienced. 

Even as I understand the non-replicable nature of performance, I still ask myself: Why does that performance feel like my greatest failure? Is it because of the glance I caught from the audience, suggesting they were in a rush to move on to other performances? Is it because several artists were performing at the same time that afternoon, and the lack of attention made me doubt my work? Is it the quick, dismissive look from a senior artist that left me feeling unacknowledged? Or is it because I had imagined and desired so much for that performance that when things did not unfold as I had hoped, when there was no recognition, not even wordless acknowledgement, it left me feeling ashamed? 

I rewind what happened in my head, wondering if I were to do it again, at what action I should have cut it short; or how I might have avoided putting myself in that half-hearted, ambivalent state; or how I should have pushed myself further; or how I need to let go, embracing the performance fully, regardless of how it turned out. No matter what, the performance still remains with me, unfolding within me now, and again whenever I return to it.