Mara Ravins

 EARLY WORK: PERFORMANCE ART

The 1980’ s were a heyday for performance art. It felt like a time of total freedom to experiment, without boundaries and judgement, taking risks, breaking rules and having lots of fun doing that. We performed in empty warehouse spaces, shop windows, railway tracks, streets and after hours clubs. For me it was mainly in the Toronto Queen St. scene, before gentrification (when suburbanites were terrified to go to Queen and Bathurst :) , when rents were cheap and large raw warehouse space was abundant. If one chose, it was easily possible to live decently as an artist and produce work.

I studied theatre at UC Playhouse at University of Toronto under Stephen Martineau and did workshops with masters, such as Jerzy Grotowski or Peter Brook’s actors, receiving a radical, physical theatre training that also allowed one to tap in to the deepest of raw emotion and work with that as material. In an audition for a Tremblay play, I threw aside the part I had worked on, and instead performed one of my own monologues. I realized then, that I was not an actor but had to write and perform my own material.

At UC Playhouse I met Caroline Mardon, an intelligent, mischievous sublime English beauty. In January 1982 at the Crest Grill (beside the El Mocambo Tavern) we formed Static Interference as a performance art duo. Over coffee, cigarettes, bagels or a bowl of sour creme and bananas - we would sit for hours at the Crest and conceptualize our performances, then find places to perform, often late night venues with punk bands. We would plaster the streets with our home made flyers xeroxed at Kinko’s, advertising the event. The venues were always packed. Around 1987 Caroline began work as an actor in traditional plays and I continued to create a few solo performances. Around this time high tech performance art (such as the work of Laurie Anderson) was eclipsing the the more raw, intimate forms, which trend I found disappointing (though I love the work of Laurie Anderson).

Near the end of the 80’s I realized that I needed to find a new artistic form that would allow for more emotional intimacy to be expressed in my storytelling, naturally gravitating toward video, film and finding a renewed passion for black and white photography.

I compose this in the midst of Covid-19, a good time to go through archival materials and digitize them, to honour a body of work that has sat for many years in boxes and that may inspire someone some day.

In retrospect, I am so grateful to have had those experiences and lived in that time, because it reminds me of what is possible - supportive community, a healthy collective rage against the machine that does not treat people well, affordable housing and decent living expenses and the ability to explore, experiment, create and expand as a human being. This, I believe, has been a positive contribution to my life.

Performances noted in the Canadian Anthology of Performance Art 1970-1990, Alain-Martin Richard and Clive Robertson, Coach House Press, 1991. (but no archival materials left)

November 7, 1981: Aquaspheres or What Happened to Narcissus? Film and performance in collaboration with artist Ruta aka Ines Gravlejs. 149 Yonge St.

October 31, 1982: The Night When the Veil is Thin: Kensington Market, Hallowe’en Night Happening in the alley

March 31, 1985: Estimated Purity. Performance at the Latvian Cultural Centre, Toronto, Mara Ravins text, Richard Underhill on Saxophone.