JOHN STURGEON
Uroboros
a television simulcast* - performance
channel WILL, Champaign, Illinois
created for the School of Fine Arts
University of Illinois, Krannert Art Center
©1979
color, 30:00 minutes, sound
with dancers
Uroboros revolves around a mandala metaphor, a mythological snake or dragon that devours itself, tail first, symbolizing the unity and continuance of opposites. A mythic, circling dance - the reptilian transformation into two dancers (male & female), encircle a performer of ritualistic activities and poetic incantation - as he ascends/descends a ladder, as if to and from the bowels of some primal psyche, where elemental healings and unifying rites of consciousness are performed.
Through his performances and videotapes, John Sturgeon has developed a personal language system that explores the relationship between opposites: left side/right side, rational/intuitive, abstract/symbolic, mental/physical. He uses the human body in both ritualistic and mythic motions as a tool to explore that which is usually not expressible verbally.
Video Data Bank - video tape review
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Reference: Uroboros was distributed as a single channel video tape.
Uroboros was created for a video installation in a solo exhibition at the L.A. Louver Gallery (April-May 1979), which also included drawings, photo-collages, performance sketches and documentation and other single channel video tapes.
* (The document of the television simulcast of the performance was technically flawed during recording. Only a brief fragment from the video of the evening's broadcast remains.)