Performing to the sound of silence

Scrolling through an online portfolio of his work, the first adjective that describes most of Reece Terris’ work is ‘big’.

“I don’t know what happens,” the British Columbia-based artist admitted. “I get asked to do something and I usually fill up the space.”

“The large scale appeals to me because it’s something I can get my head around and it’s easy for me to manipulate. And it becomes temporary,” reflected Terris.

“The bigger it gets the harder it is to take home with you. So it’s a very ephemeral thing, very performative. All [of it] is performative in a way… It’s something you have to experience.”

Terris’ Supercrawl debut, 3rd Stage, was no different.

Working with Danger Boy, a local pyro and special effects company, Terris wedged a full-size stage into the courtyard behind the Hamilton Artists Inc., and used it to mount a 10-minute light and pyrotechnics show.

Seemingly building up to a main event that never occurs, 3rd Stage is meant to reframe how an audience observes performance by turning the spotlight to the stage itself.

“It’s… kind of like a rock and roll show without any rock and roll,” he explained.

Terris originally planned to mount a similar show at the Toronto Sculpture Garden, lighting the statues in the park only after its gates had been shut for the night.

“Anything that’s kind of lifted, like on a plinth, becomes... a site of potential. That’s what I’m interested in,” said Terris, citing his inspiration for the piece.

“And for this it’s a little tongue-in-cheek. Not necessarily subversive, but it’s interesting the way we make direct focusing on the staging.”

In the context of Supercrawl, where multiple performances are taking place on multiple stages at any given time, a piece like 3rd Stage becomes a fond smirk at the art world.

“It’s almost like we’ve taken what you see on the street outside [at Supercrawl] and gotten rid of the performers and put in a gallery to think about,” said Terris.

To create the piece, Terris set the lighting and pyrotechnical cues to music, however the show itself was completely devoid of sound.

“I started thinking about this as like a language. Like what happens when you start watching a movie and the words drop off and are slightly off and how awkward that is. It totally ruins the visual… This is kind of similar,” he explained.

“You start to think of it in terms of having a light show that obviously does have some pattern and rhythm to it but there’s no connection to anything audible or any movement or anything. So you really start to question the primacy of visual feedback without anything else.”

During the performance, audience members continuously whispered about when the ‘real show’ would start, and when something would happen onstage.

There was an unspoken discomfort hovering over the crowd. By the show’s halfway point the anticipation in the air was tangible, something Terris was striving for.

According to Terris, 3rd Stage is a show he is ultimately satisfied with. However, even for someone so keen on the impermanence of art, the show’s short lifespan was hard to swallow.

“It’s funny,” he said. “All that work for four, 10-minute shows.”