What is the definition of territory?

Forward16
Public Performance Festival in Lenzburg, Switzerland,
Curated by Dominik Lipp,

On Saturday June 18, 2016 I performed in public performance festival Forward16 with seven other artists. We created works for the public space in the city of Lenzburg. It had wonderful spaces and nooks and crannies to respond to. When I saw the arches and two circular manhole covers it had the perfect acoustics for the recitation and I sung the poem spinning around like the seminal Gilbert & George performance. I adapted the performance from a recent piece I had performed at DfbrL8r for the Chicago Architectural Biennal entitled What is the definition of territory? This question was inspired by researching the archetypes that emerged from the Dream Minds poetry thinking about nationhood, borders, land ownership and then on a more personal level thinking about how territory relates to our bodies. I embroidered two blindfolds for the public to wear that had the words bodies and territory stitched onto them. The performance was interactive and wove metaphors from the Neighborhood Magic poem for Stephen Thomas entitled Ode to Ishi that I wrote in 2015. I ended the performance by singing the choreopoem under the arches on top of a circular manhole cover.