From the WAC Institute 2002
By Marcia Roberts-Deutsch
Honolulu Community College
Prologue: In 1964, the performance artist Yoko Ono created and presented a work entitled Cut Piece at the Yamaichi Concert Hall in Kyoto. In this work, she sat on stage and invited the audience to come up and cut away her clothing with a pair of scissors. In this homage to Ono, let us imagine her own inner voice as the performance unfolds.
I am sitting on the stage floor, my knees folded beneath me, haunches on heels, arms at my sides, hands, palms curved inward, resting on the floor. This is how I imagine I would sit were I wearing a kimono, about to serve tea. I am in service here, too, but I am wary of my guests. I have given them
permission to do something, and they aren’t sure how to respond. They are silent, wondering perhaps if I am really serious, or if I have set them a test, or laid a trap. It is not that simple. My eyes are closed. I do not want to watch them approach, if and when they do. My eyes are closed. I feel somehow this gives me some protection, another layer that only I, not they, can penetrate. They are still silent. And then, the first one approaches.
I sense the grasping of the scissors, and the faint pull at the hem of my dress as the first cut is taken. It seems timid, polite even, as if wanting to acknowledge the permission of my invitation, but not wanting to seem too eager. The person withdraws—I think it is a man from the faint scent that I discern. A moment passes, then another one approaches-another man. This time, one of my long sleeves is cut, more aggressively, up to the elbow.
I am trying to remain passive, to show no feeling. Yet I feel my heartbeat quicken, my skin contract, and I wonder whether my unease is visible. Can I trust these people whom I do not know?
Oh god, why have I done this? Why do I submit myself to this? Ah, submission, yes. I am a woman, and that’s what women do, isn’t it? But we don’t choose it most of the time. So why have I chosen this? Another one comes near to me, picks up the scissors, gathers the fabric of my dress near my left shoulder, and makes a cut. After that, the cutting quickens, as one by one, they take turns.
I feel the weight of my garments, wondering what it will feel like to have that weight removed; haori over a western-style dress. My dress is like an unfeeling layer of skin, a simple long-sleeved sheath following the contours of my body. New erogenous zones: the nape of the neck, the curve of the wrist. Black wool and silk against white skin. It echoes me but is not me. I feel I am being flayed as larger sections of my jacket and dress begin to fall away—the lower part of a sleeve, a portion covering a thigh.
I feel the muscles in my legs growing tense, and I want to shift my weight a bit, but I have willed my body not to move. I want to leave my body now, like a soft-fleshed creature leaving an immobile shell about to be shattered. I hear the scissors, an angry-beaked bird whose metallic chatter teases me: cut, cut, cut.
The left sleeve is gone now, my right arm partially bare. Instead of cloth, I feel the weight and coolness of the air on my skin. The next person—a woman, I think—cuts through a shoulder seam, and the tips of the scissors press into the flesh of my neck. My hair: I have pulled it back at my neck; don’t cut my hair, I almost cry aloud. The top of my dress begins to fall away. A different transgression; they are cutting to my core. I wanted to see how far they would go, but did I want them to go this far?
Now my dress lies in soft shards in my lap. I am surprised that they have been so careful in cutting: no piercing of my skin, no drawing of my blood. No human touch—yet I feel more and more violated. The rest of the right sleeve falls away. There is a moment’s silence, a hesitation like the slow intake of a breath. Then another cut at the right shoulder. I feel the fabric fall away from my back, and slide slowly down my chest. Enough. I am in my body again, raising my arms, crossing them in front of my breasts. Startled into silence, the scissors are set down. The last person withdraws. It is over.
Postscript: Eight years after this performance, Yoko Ono commented on Cut Piece: “People went on cutting the parts they do not like of me. Finally there was only the stone remained of me that was in me but they were still not satisfied and wanted to know what it’s like in the stone.”
