Mark Kadota

artist

Hold Breath
This was originally performed at the 2019 Honolulu Biennial
March 16, 2019 at 4:30PM
THE Hub, Ward Center, Honolulu, Hawaii


Here is the text of the performance:

A State of Being
Mark Kadota

It is time that consumes my thoughts
It is this passage, which I must pass through

I am in a state of being…
Undefined

Whirlwinds of the world, turbulent and unsettling, makes humanity feel unfamiliar to me
Am I misplaced in a world I no longer recognize?

We exist in a fragile domain
A realm of changing sagas

We are desperate to control
Squeezing time into our empty palms

Nothing can be contained

Do we hold dear to our false stories and diminishing realities?

Do the illusions we manifest, bleed us dry and re-enforce our fables?

Screaming out our manifestos and imposing ideas onto other

Have we left behind opportunities of knowing in trade for the sparkle of transient things?

Desperation and confusion seem to plague our empty moments.

Distractions keep us well hidden from each other.
Material wealth has become the new religion.

Mask the empty
Decorate the discontentment

The anger is buried deep
Your pain cannot be shared
The load becomes unbearable.

We search for answers in dark crevices of deceit and the sweat of our pits.

How have we become so misplaced?
Can we find ourselves returning back to a place of new beginnings?
Can we grow even larger than our self-imposed limits?

Will we manifest a fuller dream?

Where is the sense of wonder?

What happens when things no longer go the way we are accustomed.
Does the un-ease, angst, discomfort and dread bear down on us? When we dancing in the shadows, apathy no longer lingers.

The story begins in the dark, and ends in the dark… this transitory life
Even in this darkness there is a beckon of hope.

No one bypasses the dance with death. It is the event that unifies us. Nothing lasts forever, not even our myths. History is full of gods that are long forgotten and obsolete.

The knowledge of our inevitable death and fragility can transform us.

We are bursts of energy orbiting around the sun
We often occupy the perceptions of our minds and forget the larger reality

We believe we know
Man’s ego attempts to cover the vulnerable state we are in

Only when we are confronted with losing it all, do we take pause and re-evaluate our existence.

Our longing to live is eroded by the deterioration of our borrowed bodies.

It becomes our function to re-choreograph our movements.

Creating change
Creating dialogue
Creating empathy
Creating grace

I seek the words of the interior
And dance in the world of the exterior
The vocabulary of our myths,
Are in constant change.


Pick up the pieces and re-assemble them into something profound