Going//Coming, 2019

Two, 4 hour pieces last performed in Pine Plains, New York in May 2019.

Bodies are rarely still. The trajectory of every body in movement can be determined by two points on the line - source and destination.

Every day we would walk along the highway to town to get groceries and supplies. One day a man, fixing his car in his driveway, saw us and asked, “Where are you going?” and we said “To town,” and he said “Where are you coming from?” and we said “Down the highway half a mile.” What he actually wanted to know were points much further out on our trajectory. Where were we really from. What was our purpose for being here.

Pine Plains, New York is a town in transition. Like much of rural America, it has families in homes owned for generations, church ladies, shop owners, farmers who acquired land over decades as their neighbors were bought out by wealthy millenial ex-patriot farmers from New York. Everyone knew who was from the place, and wherever we went, we were told who was “native Pine Plains” and who was not.

In an attempt to embed and to understand the trajectories of present bodies, I place myself quietly in the town center. I sit with hot coffee and two signs, and when people approach, I let them start conversation. An old man walks by, then passes by again and tells me he was going home. Two children say they are going to the grocery store, then come with full bags and sit with me. They ask whether I am getting paid. The first day people stare, the second day they wave.

going//coming was completed during a 2019 residency with ChaNorth.