Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Lagos Market. Today I am “Brazil!” “Customer, Customer!” “Madame!” “Oyibo!”



The market today was amazing!!!! I walked all around it. People say it's big. It is but you can easily move through it and I think I can map it. I have been staring at the Great Mosque in the photographs I took from my first visit here. In person it is truly gorgeous. I want to take out my camera but I resist. I spend most of my time in the Ankara market (where I am drawn to the outer space designs, fabrics for the Afro-future?!). There is the market that sells fabric for trousers, the red bead market, and the place where I filmed about a month ago which is at an intersection, a crossroads which mysteriously has open, still spaces, meaning there are many places to perform! This includes lots of raised areas that are virtually empty. And even the street of the Ankara market is quite clear until the late afternoon with little, if any cars, so many possibilities.  Performing in Lagos makes me think about David Hammons selling snow in New York City. And commerce. There are so many possibilities. Free services? The selling of what? And then something ephemeral. The slowing down of actions which tends to be noticed visually or just by virtue of the fact that stillness interrupts the flow.

On the way to catch my bus home an older woman pushes me out of the road, saving both of us from a speeding police truck. Like all movement in Lagos, this, too, feels strangely choreographed.