In response to my own one on one encounter I looked for other performances that have experimented with kissing and this mainly resulted in iconic kisses from movies and Andy Warhol’s Kiss (1963). Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara stick in my mind as sharing the most iconic of movie kisses from Gone With The Wind (1939). However, where Butler and O’Hara’s kiss, it seems memorable to me because of the dialogue, we want our performance to focus on the action more than the speech.
In comparison to our performance, Warhol’s work was 50 minutes of just kissing with various couples. Couples of opposite and same sex kiss for approximately three and a half minutes as a response to the censors on Hollywood kissing. These censors stated that kisses on screen were allowed to be three seconds and no longer. The video below is the full version of Warhol’s Kiss.
It is clear, from watching Warhol’s work and from reviews, that the kissing is seen to be a lot more passionate that what I want to create. However if I am asking people to kiss me, I need to be prepared to be kissed for as long as the spectator wants.
I believe that the act of kissing is an art and I also think that by involving kissing in performances framed by beautiful surroundings, you are encouraging others to see kissing as an art form. I would personally like people to leave our performance being under the impression that kissing is an art.