JOHN KELLY DANCES ON A POOL TABLE

Here’s an impromptu video sketch I shot at Yaddo one rainy night last summer of the wonderously shape-shifting performance artist John Kelly improvising to Intermezzo in A minor Opus 76 by Brahms. Inspired by a dance party a few nights earlier, the pool table, with its single minimalist fluorescent, seemed a perfect stage for John’s mix of humor and drama.

Other details: the mosquitoes were biting, the darkened pool house felt like a horror movie waiting to happen, the green felt proved surprisingly rough.  We did not go for a swim afterwards, just scurried back to our rooms to bed.  Now, aside for the video tape evidence, it’s as if it never happened, like the memory of a short vivid dream

Many thanks to Yaddo for providing the setting, the time and the mix of comrades that make such unlikely collaborations possible.

Johannes Brahms            +            John Kelly                  +             Shelly Silver