Karen's solo

This is Karen's reporting on her solo study I gave to her. I asked if I could give her a solo and asked her Billboard--her theme of the week, her operating principle these days. It was "When will he ask me to marry him?" which was about as rich as it could get.
Following is our conversation afterward about intention and interpretation.
This study had the same rule as Kelly's, in that I asked the spectator to leave at some point during the solo when she felt it was done or when she felt done.

"When you walked a little ways and then turned back to look backwards, I first
interpreted it as being on a timeline and constantly looking back to see or pausing
to see if my expectation would happen. Although, to be honest, the further it went
along I felt as if you would look back to see if I was still there watching which
made me question how long I should be staying.

I loved how the further you went away from me, the less distinguished features
became so that you would become more of a darker silhouette. It was a really neat
image, especially since your movement was much more gross (whole body). You were
always framed by the right side of the door frame for me except when you crossed
over to get a drink of water. I noticed that there was a garbage can obscuring a
small part of the bottom right part of the frame which only really bothered me when
you were still close by and in the first door frame.

I liked that your 'activities' were simple and spread out because it made it easier
to analyze for this and remember everything you did. When you got the drink of
water, my first thought was you were thirsty and maybe you hadn't started yet but I
soon assured myself this was a part of it. The girggling of the water made me want
to laugh quite honestly. It was very playful and weird and I was surprised how loud
it was from a distance. I couldn't figure out why you would be doing that though and
couldn't really relate it to myself. When you girggled periodically with pauses in
between, I was a little uncomfortable because it almost sounded like you were
choking on water or something and went on for longer than I wanted.

Then you moved to a doorway with your leg left out. I loved this! I love the
silhouette of your leg and pointed foot. For me it was once of those symbols that is
sexy and enticing with just a leg out of a doorway.

Continuing on you crawled under/through a "floor is wet" sign. At this point I
briefly wondered if you had set this up because it seemed so perfect how you were
walking to these different points with different aspects to play with. Of course, I
fully believe it was improved. Because of the distance away from me, it was
difficult to see exactly what you were doing with the sign other than crawling
through it as I couldn't really differentiate what body parts were through or doing
what. I did however love the look of the pointed sign above your body and when you
stood up with it behind you, it was so neat to see it visually pointed and aligned
with your legs. Somehow you were perfectly aligned with it. I thought it was a
clever use of the sign. But once again, struggled to see its personal purpose to me,
other than the possible symbolism of slowly and awkwardly going through my life
right now.

Next you jumped up and crawled over something, which I couldn't even tell what it
was. I thought this was a great contrast of moving under/through something to
climbing over something along this timeline.

Finally, I was surprised to see you continue on. You went through another doorway
and disappeared briefly behind the door. You then began winding back and forth in
and of visual sight to me. Because I couldn't see you very well, you could say I was
somewhat frustrated and distracted and you were so far away I felt really good about
that point being the time to leave for me. I think it was partially also that you
couldn't see me leaving so I felt more comfortable with it because for me, it feels
so awkward and rude to just get up and leave during a performance. Plus, this was my
least favorite movement because I didn't like that you were out of my visual sight
for so long. I was slightly curious if you would continue further or if you would
start coming back towards me.

Another thought I had was I love to watch dancing, and I was concerned that I could
watch forever. However, once you began, I noted it was more activities and movement
and less the "typical" thought of what dancing was, plus I did have the concern of
not wanting to be there too long because of my boyfriend. However, I tried to not
let that cloud my judgment. Overall, I feel I didn't stay that long at all and might
have considered staying longer, but because of the situation, I really felt it was a
natural point to leave. I did feel good about it afterward and in some ways felt a
little energized. I really spent more time analyzing and enjoying the silhouettes
and overall images you were making rather than symbolizing and interpreting the
movement to be personalized to me, especially since it seemed so random. Because of
the rain, I didn't think much about the movement immediately afterward. Instead, I
found myself thinking about it a lot while lying in bed and interpreting and
recalling the little things you did. I was more so entranced by the curiosity of
what you were doing, then the deep personal meaning of it."