“Dream-in For Peace” was developed and presented for the launch of LIVE! Biennale (Vancouver), in workshop and collaboration with RedPlexus / Ornic’Art (Marseilles) as part of their “Do Not Disturb” performance series held in hotels and temporary hotel room installations, in which artists and audience members all wear masks.

The “Do Not Disturb” performances began with an introductory group ‘birthing’ sequence in the hotel lobby, with five artists (in animal masks) visible to the public through large front windows facing a main street of Vancouver’s downtown eastside neighborhood, which was then followed by three performance installations taking place in guest rooms and the connecting hallway.

While performance installations in two other rooms were based around those artists’ dream sequence narratives (such as being shot, stabbed, and seeing a school of fish), “Dream-in For Peace” referenced Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s “Bed-in For Peace” hotel room performance / protest events in Amsterdam and Montreal in 1969.

For five sixteen-minute performances held over a two-hour period, I conducted an interactive lecture / press conference / installation as a vehicle for discussing audience members’ dreams, covert assassination programs targeting anti-war movements and musicians and, in particular, the assassination of John Lennon on December 8, 1980. Wearing a zebra mask, these performances also climaxed with shamanistic actions involving the “raising” of an illuminated, effigy-type figure.

My hotel room installation included work with sound, incorporating song fragments from “A Day In The Life,” “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” and “Dream Weaver,” as well as hand-drawn posters inspired by “Bed-in For Peace.” I also compiled a five-minute sound piece (from artists’ recorded dream narratives along with the music of Erik Satie), which was played in the hallway waiting area for masked audience members, as they were being escorted to individual rooms and performances.

The “Do Not Disturb” performances, in their entirety, concluded with a mock banquet in which all of the artists, wearing animal masks (zebras, rabbits, and gorillas), sipped champagne through tubes, and a final dance with the audience, to close the opening night of LIVE! Biennale (2019).