Inventing a performance is an opportunity to intensively engage with a particular place and people, to challenge myself to be changed by what and whom I encounter, and to design an action that reveals that process. It forces me to pay attention, and operate fully in the present. Rather than bringing a pre-planned performance with me to a festival, I instead create an event that is unique to that time and place, responding to what I discover in conversations, through explorations of the landscape and architecture, and by using local materials.

The performance festival Live Action Göteborg 2011 took place in the Museum of World Culture, in Göteborg, Sweden. The Liseberg Amusement Park was adjacent to the museum, and looming over the courtyard of the museum was the tallest free-fall ride in Europe, called AtmosFear. Every five minutes, screams permeated the air, as the riders plummeted towards the ground. In response to that context, I designed a durational, site-responsive performance to accompany the riders of AtmosFear. Throughout the second evening of performances, I stood in the courtyard of the upper entrance the museum, cradling 30 liters of peppermint ice cream in my arms, screaming in unison with the riders as they fell to earth. After several hours of screaming in the rain, the ice cream had melted down the front of me, saturating my clothing, my shoes, and the ground.

(I scream, you scream, we all scream, for ice cream.)