The Cameo Theater on Colonial near Mills was the venue for an Emotions Dance Company event called Seven Deadly Sins. When I arrived, the first thing I saw in the theater’s plate glass windows was Brian Feldman who sat on a worn and tattered recliner staring at a TV which was showing nothing but static. Brian had a remote control, but for this 30 hour performance he was personifying Sloth so he never had the ambition to change the channel. There was also a fake aquarium with animated fish swimming about. I immediately sat on my portable stool and started to sketch. Several times people passed by that I knew so I paused for a moment to say hello. A drummer set up camp right next to me, leaned over and asked “Hey, I love your stool. Any chance I could borrow it?” I was working so I had to say “No”. He began putting out plastic buckets of varying sizes and before I knew it he was banging out a very loud beat. He must have banged on those cans for close to an hour and I found it hard to concentrate. I probably rushed this sketch a bit since I wanted to get inside away from the noise. If Brian noticed the drumming, he never showed any interest, he just stared listlessly at the static screen and ate Cheerios.
Tisse Mallon, who organized the event, came outside and said to me, “Brian is very proud of the Game of Life that is in the foreground. He replaced LIFE with SLOTH“. Feeling a bit slothful myself, I hadn’t even noticed, so I went back and added that detail to the sketch. Inside the theater, there were semi-nude dancers painted to represent the 7 deadly sins. I spent some time trying to figure out which sin each represented. They moved in slow motion constantly gesturing in an abstract sinuous ongoing performance. There were also staged acts throughout the night. This was a fun event and sketch outing.
