NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/rec/nude/5710

Text File | 1992-11-22 | 18.9 KB | 366 lines

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Path: sparky!uunet!think.com!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!mkent
From: [e-mail] (Marty Kent)
Subject: X-Plicit Players Busted at UC Berkeley, 17 Nov 1992
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 01:50:33 GMT
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As some of you may know, the X-Plicit Players were arrested on
the afternoon of Tuesday 17 November, at the edge of the
campus of UC Berkeley. Here are a couple of our views about
what's going on: first, one by me (Marty Kent) and then a
piece from Deb Moore.

I'll have more coming up in a day or so...



*** History Leading to the Performance

A guy came up to Deb and Nina in our neighborhood copy center
and introduced himself as Phil Lowrey, saying he recognized
them from the nude-in (an event we did with Andrew Martinez
about 2 months ago on the UC Berkeley campus). It turned out
he was with the department of (melo)drama at the university,
and he wanted the Xplicits to come to the campus and do
something. The arrangement that finally evolved in the course
of a month of intermittent discussion was that we would come
to his drama class on Monday morning for a lecture /
demonstration, and we'd do a more full-scale performance in a
theater in Dwinelle hall the following afternoon. After a
couple of days for him to check things out, he got back to us
with the official go-ahead, telling us to "go ahead and
advertise the event".

The weekend before the class, Phil called and told us the
performances were cancelled. The chancellor of the university,
apparently profoundly moved by the inspiring examples of
personal freedom and responsibility set by ourselves and
Andrew Martinez, had instituted a new "campus policy" banning
public nudity from the campus. Lorne Buchman, the head of the
drama department and therefore Phil Lowrey's owner in the
corporate uh pardon me academic hierarchy, felt that his
owner, the chancellor, _might_ consider performance to be a
form of public display. So our performance was out, as was any
nudity in the class. A day later we got further word: not only
couldn't we be naked in the class, but we couldn't touch each
other either.

One thing I found particularly emotionally affecting was the
way Phil Lowrey seemed to consider himself a victim of
censorship, while taking on full personal responsibility to
implement _all_ the acts of censorship himself. But I guess he
didn't have much guts uh I mean his hands were tied: in
corporate environments, many people feel it's more important
to _keep_ their jobs than to _do_ their jobs...

Now the Xplicits are not known for taking cancellations of
confirmed, advertised performances lightly, so we told him the
choices were not between having a performance or not having
one, but rather between having a performance in the theater or
having a performance on the sidewalk in front of the campus.
This has always been our policy in dealing with breakdowns of
personal integrity on the part of people who invite us to
perform - in fact we once did an entire 5-hour nude
performance right beside the Pacific Coast Highway, in front
of an art gallery where the manager decided his agreement with
us was not a Real Thing - people gawking out of car windows to
snap pictures, police cars rolling by... and many of you are
no doubt familiar with the circumstances of our performance at
Hampshire College. When we agree to come to a place and be
with people, we come to that place and be with the people, no
matter what.

We spoke with the editor of the college newspaper (The Daily
Cal), who was very pleased to hear about our planned
appearance in opposition to the new anti-nudity policy. Nicole
Wong, who's written about us before with less factual errors
than any other reporter, did some investigation and wrote a
story which appeared in the Tuesday morning edition of the
Cal, documenting the chain of fear through which our
performance was "cancelled", and ending with the information
that we'd be on Sproul Plaza at noon.




*** Basic Events of the Performance and Bust

Sproul Plaza is at Bancroft Way, where Telegraph Ave, gritty,
human, central artery of south Berkeley, symbolically "dead-
ends" into the University. There's an extra-wide sidewalk area
right there at the end of Telly, where the flux of pedestrian
traffic runs high during the day. Deb, Nina and I arrived just
before noon and met Bob, who'd come down the hill on his lunch
break from work. We put up a couple of posters and spread out
our mat as Dave and Carol arrived with camera and camcorder
respectively. Our brief preparations done, Deb, Nina and I
took off our clothes and sat down in the sun to focus
ourselves in the immediate. We put our arms around each other,
drawing from the pool of love and tenderness into which our
personal roots disappear.

People are flowing through the 30-foot opening at a rate of
maybe 200 per minute. Immediately a man in a suit walks up to
us and embraces us. He's seen Deb and Nina once before, at a
cafe. "What are you doing?" he asks us. "We're being together
out here. Join us. Take off your clothes if you want." I sink
back into the very close immediate presence of Deb and Nina.
When I look out again after maybe a minute, I see this man is
in fact just removing the last of his clothes, and he joins us
in nakedness. We put our arms around him in joy. He's a very
easy-going guy. Obviously he's having a great time, the kind
of thing we see all the time in our events: he'd never have
thought he'd be able to do such a thing, and now, in the midst
of doing it, his joy of the moment is mixed with a bit of his
writing a very firm note to himself _not_to_underestimate_his_
_own_abilities_again_.

Lost in bliss for moments... I look out again and people are
collecting around us - we feel the pull of the crowd and the
push of our own desire for meeting, begin to move out towards
the people standing by - some move away as if in fear, while
others stand still or move toward us with welcoming gestures -
out of the chaos of random people sharing only this accidental
location on their paths to separate destinations, an event-
sense is coalescing, the crowd group awareness and arrangement
taking on clearer form - some being arises for a while out of
chaos, does a dance and then dissolves, like you or me -

the naked people are moving together as one, pressed tightly
together or not touching at all, we share a common focus,
picking out people in the crowd one by one and moving on them
- we take a man's hand - we touch his arms, shoulders, back,
head, giving him our affection, tenderness, invitation - he
stands uncertainly, not sure where there might be a hook in
our bait - this kind of stuff never happens to you, you have
no script for it, no pre-planned response or policy - total
strangers emerging from nowhere to lavish kindness, warmth and
affection on you! is this some kind of joke? this is not how
The World works -

but this is how our world works - we give each person as much
warmth and tenderness as they're ready to accept, then move on
and look for someone else to gift - our focus is very narrow:
although we know in some sense there are many people present,
we actually only look at one or two at a time - it's like
looking at the words while reading - we're moving slowly among
the throng, reaching out to some people with our hands and
eyes, brushing past some with the gentlest of touches, letting
others just keep their distance without pursuing them - we
wrap ourselves all around a guy, arms around his chest, head,
legs, hitting him high and low, pouring welcome all over him,
drenching him with our feeling - people right next to us
examine him and us carefully, looking for clues, explanations,
something to fit this all into their usual rhythm and roll -
but they can't find it - my cheek on this man's belly and he
meets me with some stiffness, tightness, some constructed show
of strength - okay, I'm familiar with that, just listen some
more, deeper, listen through - in just a couple of seconds I
feel this excited enthusiasm come through, like a kid in a toy
store seeing endless fields of possibility for the first time
- so joyful, so unexpected - a tear or two leaks out the
corners of his eyes - just hold him for a bit more and move
on, no need to blow his cover -

It occurs to me we've been out here for quite a while now and
it seems I've seen plenty of police come and go and none of
them have made a move on us, so I guess they've decided not to
bust us, like at the nude-in - guess they don't like to do
high-publicity nudity busts in crowds in the daylight - okay,
fine with me - swirl on - now here's a guy we recognize from
the nude-in, some young student with a beard, standing off to
the side - he joins us and we move back to our mat, take a
little breather, off our feet - we ask him if we can take his
clothes off and he lights up, "Sure!" - the 3 of us are slowly
pulling off his shirt, shoes, socks, pants - his face looks
like my two-year-old's when I'm pulling his clothes off at the
end of the day and he can barely stay awake, just knows rest
is waiting right around the corner - lets himself just fall
into it - we hold the guy by his waist and shoulders and stand
him up on his feet - he holds up his arms in the traditional
gesture of victory, greeting or surprise as we shout "Freedom
of speech for UC students! Freedom of expression for UC
students!" - people in the crowd hoot, cheer, applaud, shake
their heads - cameras are flashing, camcorders rolling
everywhere, reporters with little notebooks interviewing the
crowd and each other - intricate webs of connection forming
and vanishing and forming anew like cracks in a plate glass
window hit with a rock, or like a cartoon of synapses in the
brain, little packets of energy shuttling along the evanescent
pathways -

people keep coming and going - we've been out here for about
40 minutes I'd guess and now we have 3 guys sitting on the mat
with us - they don't want to take their clothes off or have
much body contact with us but they believe very strongly in
the rightness of our expression, and they want to be with us
to be associated with our standing up for that freedom of
expression - Deb and Nina and I are resting for a moment,
leaning against each other - a guy is sitting on a concrete
post behind us, emitting a stream of sarcastic social
commentary: "Wow, look, actual human skin! Hey, how come they
have bodies and I don't?!" - he's focussed on some feeling of
disapproval he's picked up from somewhere in the crowd, and is
defending us in the way he thinks he knows best - it's all
pretty amusing as we rest here in the center, bathed in
sunshine and bliss -

a wave of police closes over us - wave of dark blue - some
bald guy with a government-issue mustache is bending over
telling us his name and that we're under arrest - now this is
a bit of a surprise, not even a request we get dressed - just
cut to the chase - somebody grabbing my wrist from behind and
trying to lift me up, saying "Get up get up" - he's in a Big
Hurry - I tell the guy "I'm on the bottom", since it's
apparently escaped his attention that there are two people
sitting on my legs and lying in my lap, making it difficult
for me to rise - other police are reaching down and holding on
to Deb and Nina as they stand up - guy's clamping the cuffs on
me behind my back and Deb is holding on to me, her arms around
my neck - how very sweet she is in the moment - as they're
leading us away she yells to Bob "Get Marty out first!" - very
nice; she knows I have a big work deadline today, thanks honey
- Nina's being led away ahead of me, Deb behind - a cop behind
me yells at a photographer, "Don't bump into me!" and shoves
the guy with a couple of hands to the chest, with government-
issue cordiality - people in the crowd are buzzing like a
stirred-up beehive and I hear Deb saying "Gentle, gentle, no
violence please, that's not our way." The guy from the
concrete post is yelling "Yeah! These guys are terribly
dangerous!! Thanks! I sure feel so much more secure now!" and
I hear someone else ranting about how this police action "is
gonna cost the taxpayers - that's US you know - thousands of
dollars" - I have to chuckle, it's all too much -

Into the police van waiting there on Bancroft and we sit naked
on the vinyl seats, hands cuffed behind us - there's Scarlot
right outside the van, pointing her camcorder at us in a
strange motion (later we learn we're effectively invisible
behind the semi-mirrored windows) - Bob's telling some cop
he'll gather up our possessions and our mat as they slam the
door and the van rolls away up Bancroft. The three of us are
leaning against each other and relaxing on the short drive
over to the police station on McKinley, when suddenly out the
window I see The Chinaman, a special guy who only very
occasionally becomes visible on the streets of Berkeley, and
whose visibility tells me I'm being monitored by angels. If
this kind of thing is beyond you, just take it as this: a very
favorable omen.

At the jail this cute chick cop who looks like someone from a
hamburger commercial asks me why we want to cause all this
trouble and I say "what do you mean, _us_ cause trouble?! I'm
just out in the sun, having fun with my friends. _You're_ the
ones causing trouble." But I'm afraid this kind of thinking is
a bit beyond her at the moment, and I don't get time to try to
clarify it. Date and place of birth, height, weight, current
address, have you ever been arrested before etc. Up I go in
the metal cage elevator, and the cop won't let me out until I
put on my white paper jumpsuit. No naked people allowed in
jail, apparently; might offend someone's sensibilities. Five
sets of fingerprints, hands covered with black ink. Before I
can wash, Deb says "stamp me!" and I step over and slap my
hands on the ass of her jumpsuit. Valuable X-Plicit Players
souvenir, anyone?

Two counts each, they tell us: 314, which is the indecent
exposure statute we've come to know pretty much by heart, and
some new one, something in the 600's. It has to do with public
lewdness, which is already implied by 314, but with two
charges they can double our bail this time: a thousand dollars
each. Bob's here with the money for our bail in short order,
it being banking hours, so I figure I'll still be able to get
out in time to get home and get my disks to FedEx in time for
my afternoon deadline. But no, we just sit in the cells for 3
1/2 hours and by the time they're willing to accept our $3K,
it's too late. The only blot on an otherwise charming day.

[Note: when I talked to my boss the next morning to tell him I
missed the deadline and why, he told me not to worry at all:
"The work you guys are doing is great, really great. We'll
find another way to get the stuff to them in time." As my dad
always used to say, "Clean living comes through."]



*************************************************************

The "Act of Intimacy" Performance/Protest on Sproul Plaza
18 Nov 1992 - censored by UC Drama Dept.
by Debbie Moore, director of X-Plicit Players

During the Sproul Plaza performance, I went from one person to
another looking for inner connection. The cast wrapped around me,
moving as I moved, followed me nakedly every step of the way. I
purposefully dispensed with the use of a script, of music, or even
planned actions, to free us to respond most directly to individuals
in the crowd. I wanted our focus on people to be absolute and our
bodies the only tool or vessel for expression. When someone in the
crowd connected to me inwardly, I fell into their realm of feeling
and expression, and I acted in response to them and the touch they
extended within the trust that they provoked. This is not a genital
focus (as accused by police) because the kind of involvement, even
if it is just for moments, is specific to the heart and soul (or
mind). Such involvement must be channeled by the entire body; I
follow each person into the rapport that their affection and playful
gestures begin to direct. Those who connected inwardly with me fell
into a tender state that gave us a freedom and playfulness with our
bodies akin to child's play or animal freedom. Sometimes the bodies
of the X-Plicit Players linked up to form monkey-like, snake-like,
prehistoric-animal-like gestures of invitation to the audience. We
built body sculptures and danced rhythmically with those who came
forward to undress with us. The whole body became a playground or
palette of colors, not one color (genitalia) or one body part.

Audience people limited their play mostly to my hands and feet,
because there is so much taboo about body tenderness. We have no
vocabulary in our culture for touch that is sheer affection directed
at discovering good feeling, rather than directed toward genital
orgasm or intercourse. However, most people recognized our activity
immediately as a communication of direct and innocent tenderness.
Everyone I touched moved their entire body as if captured by a dance
that sprang from our inner sparks, as we merged inwardly, travelled
together.  It is this inner calling and travelling of mind and
emotion that I track with people directly when I touch their bodies.
I touch to find or know them just as a doctor listens for heartbeat
or a lifeguard resuscitates with the breath. This body reading I do
and the new vocabulary of touches that express tenderness,
playfulness, and exploration are now the lessons that we must teach
in court and in the streets of Berkeley. But let it be known we are
thrilled with the opportunity to direct others toward these freedoms
that we enjoy, just as we and Andrew Martinez have taught the police
force of Berkeley and the off-campus culture at large to accept the
freedom of topfreeness and simple nudity.

People who travelled inwardly with me on Sproul looked warmed and
gently cheered by our collaborative physical expression. The cast of
X-Plicit Players "shadow" me and line up behind me to transfer my
experience into and through their psyche and their bodies. Like an
antenna, I pick up messages from each new person that they then
absorb through touch, carry and feel. We are totally satisfied by
the current of feeling we receive from audience people, and have no
need for or focus on genital sex. People on Sproul made the leap
into using bodies to freely express inner communion, and made the
leap that the police did not make, beyond calling it "sex",
"groping" or "genital fondling". This leap into a new context for
tenderness is a leap we are taking with audiences all across the
country, and it sure was fun to take it outdoors on Sproul. We are
delighted to take this leap into the courtroom, to establish naked
touch as everyone's right.

Love,
Deb
your friendly shamanatrix

--
Marty Kent                 [e-mail]
Sixth Sense R & D            510 848 6221
2500 Durant St. #405
Berkeley Ca 94704

Kent's Heuristic: Look for it first where you'd most like to find it.
"You're soaking in it..." - Madge