“What Do We Have in Our Pockets” is a participatory performance and reading revolving around a story of the same name by Etgar Keret. In celebration of Keret’s new book publication in the US, I generated this piece, abstracting the story’s themes of confined physicality, tension and chance.

Integrating an object, a posture, two performers and whatever the audience had in their pockets, the performance attempts to create a platform for chance, awkwardness and generosity. The story lists what the character has in his pockets, as a way of survival and a desperate hope for interaction and relationship.

During the performance I was positioned in a yoga bridge pose holding a tray on my stomach; the story was read, then followed by an invitation for the audience to participate. The audience shared what they have in their pockets and placed it on my stomach. The tension between the request to participate and “help” the performance, while the performer is in a difficult position, and has to stay put as long as people are participating, is the reason for creating this piece. The audience put literal weight/baggage on me, while generously telling short or long personal stories, songs, jokes, thereby writing the piece together.

Music by Yonatan Gutfeld accompanies the performance, made from a harsh dissonance that gradually resolves into the comforting sound of a consonant major seventh chord harmony, within a groove of found-objects noise and a whistling melody.