Bliss Drips–H20 Mobile Boutique® is a hybrid between a mobile ice cream cart, a juice bar and a custom- designed perfume boutique and serves as a traveling water outlet. Water experts dressed in company lab uniforms attend the cart and provide guidance and assist visitors in choosing their individual water mixtures. Experts mix the formulas from a large selection of “water compound” bottles, which contain tap water only. Bliss Drips–H20 Boutique® performers construct personal narratives around customers’ desires and needs. This project responds to commodification of water and explores tactics in which high-end businesses attach narratives to their products in order to justify high prices.
Mimicking the familiar melodic chimes of an ice cream van a soundscape of water pouring, ice clinking in glass, birds and laughing children inviting the audience to engage with the performers. Bliss Drips–H20 Mobile Boutique® is used in public spaces such as city streets and public events, urban parks, beaches and other areas where people congregate.
Structure of the performance
Similar to Dungeons and Dragons, I sets up a constructed situation as a framework in which the performance occurs. Through role play, participants have agency in creating and developing their individual characters, and, to some extent, also the development of the work itself. Like the dungeon master I am the storyteller that direct and organize the work, and each participant creates her/his own character to perform within the parameters I assign. Performers interact with the setting, the audience, and with each other– a large component of the work is constituted by the dialogue or interactions that the situation elicits. The audience has the option to either engage, be bystanders, or ignore the performance all together.
Participants: Melissa Santala, Lauren Wooley, Jeanne Buffa, Lucy Pecora, Lydia Wendt, Elizabeth Letcher, Jamie Shiller, Becky Lo Dolce, Autumn Fjeld.
