Best Intentions, Weak Promises
By Claire Sabel
EINAT AMIR, vests hang at "Our Best Intentions," 2013, interactive perfomance piece at Performa 13, New York, 2013. Photo by Dan Haimovich. Courtesy the artist and Artis, New York.
The best part of “Our Best Intentions,” Einat Amir’s experimental work, was the anticipation of engaging as both an audience member and an actor. Staged as part of Performa 13, by the Israeli arts non-profit organization Artis, “Our Best Intentions” utilized 20 participants to conduct an intimate performance. Gathering on a chilly November evening, members of the group that I took part in were invited to create an “introspective experience of therapy” to contrast with the “dramatic devices of performance.” Unfortunately, the dramatic, therapeutic and experiential claims of the piece failed to materialize, and I left the space feeling that the event’s intentions had been far from realized. As each version was unique to the particular participants and moderators, I cannot claim to speak for the piece as a whole, but while intriguing in premise, this iteration failed to provoke as promised.
