HUDSON RIVER PARK — Take off your shoes and get into bed with an actress — as part of a performance art installation coming soon to Pier 45.
Argentinean artist Fernando Rubio's "Everything by my side" will feature seven actresses lying on seven white beds, whispering childhood memories — "vivid" ones, according to a description of the show — to one person at a time, for 15 minutes at a time.
The memories are scripted, written by Rubio, and each of the actresses recites the same script. The lines are written in the second person, describing memories as though the listener has experienced them.
"It's sort of a dream of a childhood memory which they're sharing with the public," explained Gideon Lester, the director of theater programs at Bard College and one of the three curators behind the citywide art festival that includes Rubio's piece.
"It's almost as if somebody is planting a memory in your brain."
Each actress will lie beneath white sheets on a bed and the person being whispered to will lie next to her, on top of the sheets.
The performances will take place outdoors along the Hudson River between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. from Sept. 26 to Sept. 28. Tickets can be purchased in advance for $5. A ticket guarantees the opportunity to be whispered to; anyone can walk by and observe the scene.
"To be able to see a big white bed against the Manhattan skyline is strange and beautiful because it's a juxtaposition of a very public and a very private image," Lester explained. "Even if you're not in the performance you still get this beautiful image."
Rubio is based in Buenos Aires and is described as a dramatist, actor, director and visual artist. He has done similar performances involving actresses whispering to people in beds in 2011 in Chile and 2013 in Uruguay.
This is his first show in the United States. His theater productions, installations and "urban interventions" have shown in cities across Europe and South America.
Lester said Hudson River Park, and Pier 45 in particular, was the ideal space for the installation, likening the shoreline to a sort of dream state.
"That sense when you're half-awake and half-asleep is an in-between space, a kind of shoreline," he said. "The white beds are spaces of memory and dream."
Lester also was drawn to the "layers and layers of history" at the pier, noting that it was once a nexus of underground gay nightlife in the city and, long before that, a very industrial place.
"There's sort of ghosts there too," he said. "The piers are historically very rich. For people who know about that history, this project will reverberate a great deal."
The show is organized by PS 122, the French Institute Alliance Française and Hudson River Park. It is part of the Alliance Française's "Crossing the Line" fall art festival. Other artists will be showing their work at venues and events around the city, including BAM and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
"Everything by my side" by Fernando Rubio will be at Pier 45 in Hudson River Park at Christopher Street from Sept. 26 to Sept. 28. Tickets to be part of one of the 15-minute performances between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. can be purchased for $5 online here.
