Correction, Aug. 13: An earlier version of this piece incorrectly stated Dean Terry’s position. He is a professor at UTD.
The ethereal realm of PHANTOMs, where reality and performance intertwine, leaves audiences questioning the nature of their own beliefs and perceptions. Art and performance group Therefore took the audience on an unforgettable journey through sound, movement and immersive visuals with a performance leaving the audience in a state of suspended curiosity and contemplation.
Arts Mission Oak Cliff, a Dallas nonprofit dedicated to showcasing artistic creativity, presented Therefore’s PHANTOMs, a site-specific hour-long performance, held from May 23-25 and May 30-June 1. Directed by Dean Terry, a transmedia artist and professor of aesthetic studies at UTD, ‘Therefore’ began as a music recording project in the 1990s, transitioning to a performance art group in 2016. The cast included guest artist Laura Hyunjhee Kim, assistant professor of visual and performing arts at UTD, who said the performance aimed to foster interactivity and spontaneity within the space and between those participating in it.
Kim’s involvement in the project for PHANTOMs was highly improvisational, adapting to the space and audience reactions each night. Kim said this flexibility allowed her to contribute fresh perspectives and challenge the preestablished rules of the performance, adding new layers of performance that distinguished each iteration from previous ones.
Before the night began, cast members with unkempt hair dressed in basic black shirts and sweatpants crept up, whispering to those waiting in line for tickets, “We’ve been waiting for you.” When walking into the venue, a small space adorned with yellow lights scattered across the roof and sparse rows of seats greet the audience as they enter the repurposed venue, placing the audience within arm’s reach of the performers. To the side, six sets of stained-glass windows with blue and orange hues catch the eye. Small posters decorated the back of two windows, bearing the words “This is the end of the show” and a grid with symbols like stars, the moon, facial expressions and a bone.
As the show began, the lights dimmed, and an eerie atmospheric sound elevated the tension. A figure slammed his hand down on a piano at the front left of the stage, and purple lights illuminated the entire room, accentuating the beat and heightening the pressure. The show started with soft piano and the murmuring voices of the performers, angelic yet hard to decipher, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats, weaving an auditory tapestry that felt like a character itself.
A cast member stood against a wall, talking to something unseen. Words seemed to dissolve into the air, their meanings elusive, with a larger image of the cast member projected against the wall in front of her and on the side walls.
Then, Kim walked around the audience with a yellow circular light in each hand, shining and dancing the lights between the audience members. Whispers of fingers on skin and lingering footsteps created a sense of haunting intimacy and magic, a visually stunning and abstract part of the performance that evolved organically with the other components.
“It was very abstract and kind of spoke to the space,” Kim said. “Nobody really had to know what was going on, but it organically built upon the other performances.”
When not performing, cast members would join the audience, sit beside them, or sneak up on them. Lights frequently flickered on and off, enhancing the sense of being in a storm, and at one moment, two cast members held a fake bow and arrow and Nerf gun to each other, talking and adding an element of playful tension.
PHANTOMs by Therefore was an experience that defied traditional categorization, blending elements of performance art, experimental music and conceptual art. It held the audience’s attention from start to finish. Though confusing at times, the performance succeeded in creating a space where reality and performance merged, effectively inviting the audience to explore and question their realities.
“People are coming together to believe in the arts,” Kim said. “This spiritual gathering to consider aesthetic experiences outside of our collective. For me, it was more about the community and what the arts can do to propel this spiritual feeling”.
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