It’s hard to miss them: people clad in vibrant pink and yellow clothing dancing and singing outside the library. Every day at precisely 4:07 PM a small group of dancers puts on a performance in Central Campus. If you happen to be on your way to the library, they might offer to carry you to the door, or perhaps they’ll sing to you as you walk by.
Performance art has existed in various forms for a long time, but it is still difficult to define. It involves a form of art that is presented to an audience in an unconventional way. It can be controversial, political or related to protest art, but it mostly tries to challenge the audience’s perception of their surroundings.
This performance, titled “I Saw A Thing” but often referred to as “the pink and yellow people,” is more whimsical than provocative. The dancers vary each day, but they perform the same actions. They dance (to no music), lie down in the middle of the sidewalk, make funny faces and even give mini lectures on insects versus arachnids. They sing songs that have to do with sunlight, such as “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” “You Are My Sunshine” and “Here Comes the Sun.”
The choreography is site-specific, which means it’s difficult to rehearse when not at that location. Eva Vargas ’16 performed in this piece once and explained that when she did, it was her first time actually going through the motions at the site: “I felt really nervous because I had never practiced it full out.” She got over her fear quickly though, saying, “Once you get into it and you see the people watching you, it becomes more of a performance.”
Art History Professor Karen Gonzalez-Rice added, “The 4:07 performances help us see campus spaces in new ways. These dancers are doing important work. Their actions force us to notice what is usually invisible: our physical relationship to the spaces of our everyday lives.”
When asked what the best reactions have been, Vargas said, “Just people taking interest instead of just pretending we’re not there.” She added, “You want people to laugh and interact with you.” Some people walk by and try very hard to make it seem like they’re not aware of the brightly clad people dancing nearby. Others are more curious. “People will ask, ‘What is this?’ We just say, ‘It’s a thing.’”
Whatever the meaning or reason behind the performance, the quirky routine is a charming way to brighten people’s days. In the middle of winter with chilling winds, gray skies and bare trees, it is cheerful to see this pop of color. The vivid pink and yellow of the dancers’ outfits pierces the monotonous landscape of a campus dulled by winter, just as the performers’ sunny attitudes pierce the gloom that so often comes with cold weather. As Vargas explained it, “Instead of looking at art, you’re interacting with it.” So if you happen to walk by the library at 4:07 in the afternoon, stop and watch. Maybe you’ll become part of the performance.
