Ralph Lemons How Can You Stay In The House All Day And Not Go Anywhere

RALPH LEMON’S ‘HOW CAN YOU STAY IN THE HOUSE ALL DAY AND NOT GO

ANYWHERE?’

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Ralph Lemon was born on August 1st, 1952 in Cincinnati, (State of Ohio). He grew up in

Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has been attributed to many things such as; an African American

literal arts dancer, an imaginary choreographer, a company director. Western theatrical analysts

have also considered him to be a well-spiced writer and a visual artist. However, from all those

attributions, he chooses to categorize himself as an imagist or conceptualist. Lemon, having

grown up in a religious environment as a child, developed a deepened sense of imagination

which he translated into artistic creativity. Early in his profession, he used art painting as a

principal source and platform of expression. He, later on, discovered dance as an expression,

which he utilized its random body movements as a creative physical way of art expression.

His

performances are highly communicative of deep sentimental feelings of sadness, fatigue, ecstasy,

and stillness. One of his major works includes; how can you stay in the house all day and not go

anywhere. This paper will elaborate the various forms of art themes and creative styles that

Ralph Lemons incorporated into his work just mentioned.

Lemon as a creative artist uses several theatrical themes to bring out his artistic message

even without uttering words but random phonetics. In his work mentioned (how can you stay in

the house all day and not go anywhere); he incorporates the power of random dancing to

elaborate the daily routine of a typical person struggling to survive in the modern society.

In this

theatrical production, he asks several questions such as; how does one choreograph loss, which is

filled with randomly quick yet barely audible events up to its eventful end? He appears to answer

BojanaKunst, Artist at Work: Proximity of Art and Capitalism

Levine, Abigail. "Being a thing: the work of performing in the museum." Women &

Performance: a journal of feminist theory 23, no. 2 (2013): 291-303.

himself that there is no conceivable way too. However, instead of degenerating into despair out

of one's inability to address loss, he presents a case study of juxtaposed relationships of three

couples. They include his dying wife, Asaka Takami; that of another fictional couple in the film

"Solaris," produced and directed by Andrei Tarkovsky; and lastly that of elder Walter Carter.

Lemon uses the daily living routines of these three relationships to explain the common but also

different regular dances that constitute their lives and relationships.

It's worth noting that Lemon deliberately uses random dances to exemplify the

unpredictability of an ordinary day. Such a day could be planned well but there are some things

that just happen by chance that displace the order of the day. He uses ordinary people dressed in;

costumes and casual clothes to bring out both effects of the ordered and the random events. The

interplay between those two realities, he affirms evidentially occur during the running of an

ordinary day. Casual dressing represents the random events and activities while costume dressing

represents the planned for events.

In this theatrical play, he depicts how one can stay in the house both literary or in his

inner conscience without going out. Lemon presents the production in two dimensions; the in-

house stay represents the journey towards oneself without having to be what one is not. And the

literal in-house stay without having to go outside the house. He explains that the understanding

of oneself begins with the journey into the abyss of the self and staying still in there.

Moreover,

Nachbar, Martin. "Training Remembering." Dance Research Journal 44, no. 2 (2012): 5-11.

BojanaKunst, Artist at Work: Proximity of Art and Capitalism

Levine, Abigail. "Being a thing: the work of performing in the museum." Women &

Performance: a journal of feminist theory 23, no. 2 (2013): 291-303.

that one need not leave the house to find meaning outside of the world outside is awash with the

forces or good and bad.

He in effect leaves the views in the dilemma of what to do; whether to

go outside and work to earn a living or stay in-house and contemplate the self. One has to work

and make a living, therefore, leaving the house, yet he still wants to find meaning out of life

which warrants him to stay in-house. Since staying in-house has the self-contemplative effects

that bring meaning out of life, then the conflict between working and finding meaning presents a

problem. That problem forms the title of his production; how can you stay in the house all day

and not go anywhere. Lemon further elaborates the way to do, i.e., staying in one's own house

without leaving could be then interpreted as mentioned (not leaving the house literary but as not

leaving the emotional space one creates in the self).

Lemon further asserts that if one could only

choreograph an internal space or an emotional territory, then that space would constitute a house

to which one would be stuck inside. Such stuck persons would not able to leave their house to go

anywhere since they would have the meaning they earnestly seek by leaving the house.

Insistently, lemon asserts that it's okay to be stuck inside one's emotional territory. Some of our

more innate and powerful insights come real when we return to the core of our hearts and be

still.

Lemon utilizes the theatrical styles familiar to a black box presentation which are active-

passive and passively active. (A black box or experimental theater consists of a simple, basic and

Crary, Jonathan. 24/7: Late capitalism and the ends of sleep. Verso Books, 2013.

BojanaKunst, Artist at Work: Proximity of Art and Capitalism

Crary, Jonathan. 24/7: Late capitalism and the ends of sleep. Verso Books, 2013.

somewhat unadorned performance space. It is usually a large square room composed of black

walls and a flat floor. It is a relatively contemporary innovation in theatre also known as a black

theater.

In these theatrical styles; active-passive incorporates the use of dances and random

phonetics that are active yet seem to be empty and passive in that they are incoherent but

communicate a given message. Passive-active incorporates those disjointed dance movements

that appear vague in meaning to represent a reality in life that is active.

In addition to those theatrical styles, Lemon carefully designs his active dance

movements to indicate the struggle in life between the survival forces. He constitutes passive

dance movements also to depict the diminished enthusiasm that renders one fatigued.

He starts

this creative theatrical production by eliciting within the audience's minds the passive dialogue

inherent in their inner selves (as individuals) and the daily struggles that must either be met.

Lemon creatively illustrates that through articulated body movements, each day begins with a

dance. That dance question involves the activities of how to get out of the warm bed; will it be

with a roll to the left or the right, an immediate spring, or a swat to the alarm's snooze button?

In this dance idea, he presents the opposing active and passive forces that constitute the battle

between the cold floor and the cold street, when one is just but a halfway woken up. He further

depicts this active and passive debate as one that usually goes on in everyone's mind. According

Crary, Jonathan. 24/7: Late capitalism and the ends of sleep. Verso Books, 2013.

BojanaKunst, Artist at Work: Proximity of Art and Capitalism

Levine, Abigail. "Being a thing: the work of performing in the museum." Women &

Performance: a journal of feminist theory 23, no. 2 (2013): 291-303

BojanaKunst, Artist at Work: Proximity of Art and Capitalism

to Lemon even though the self just wants to do nothing at all, not get involved in the ordinary

dance of life that constitutes pain and struggle, it is still involved in the general dance of the

household. The dance of the household is the daily routine of events that run in a typical

household. Either way, he asserts, life is consistent of a dance of some sort either out in the cold

struggling to earn a living or in the house doing nothing but still dancing to some random and

active household routine.

Moreover, Lemon in this production incorporates the values of work, labor, and values.

He designates the three as consisting the daily routine of man's life impacting on his wellbeing.

The dance that depicts work is dotted with random movements that indicate fatigue and pleasure,

all running simultaneously and imitate the opposites evidential in a working setup. Labor is

portrayed as the transcendental value of life that every human being must be involved in to get a

decent life.

Lemon exemplifies it as the counter variable against the idleness of life. He sees

Idleness as consisting of the irony of; ‘doing nothing,' yet still doing something (participating in

a household routine - dance).

Conclusion

Finally, after analyzing this theatrical production by Ralph Lemon, the following points

are arrived at. Lemon is an imaginative artist that uses the somewhat unfamiliar art of dance to

express his message. His theatrical productions are constitutive of the opposites of active-passive

and passive-active. Lemon further views life as consisting of daily routines (dances) that one is

continuously engaged in from waking up to later going to bed. He, therefore, is a contemporary

Nachbar, Martin. "Training Remembering." Dance Research Journal 44, no. 2 (2012): 5-11.

theatric who continuously revolutionalize the theatrical world by incorporating creative styles in

his productions.

References

BojanaKunst, Artist at Work: Proximity of Art and Capitalism

Crary, Jonathan. 24/7: Late capitalism and the ends of sleep. Verso Books, 2013.

Levine, Abigail. "Being a thing: the work of performing in the museum." Women &

Performance: a journal of feminist theory 23, no. 2 (2013): 291-303.

Nachbar, Martin. "Training Remembering." Dance Research Journal 44, no. 2 (2012): 5-11.

Rainer, Yvonne. "Doing Nothing/Nothin’Doin'!: Revisiting a Minimalist Approach to

Performance." PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 37, no. 3 (2015): 46-49.

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