Performance of Desire

Janet Biggs, 2007
Single channel SD video with sound
Running time 4:12

With a nod to Busby Berkeley’s lavish musicals and the US fascination with military reenactment, Performance of Desire explores the isolation and obsession required in the search for perfection and the boundaries of control and free will.

Relinquishing individuality to become part of the choreography of war, cadets perform a silent drill that demands precision and exact synchronization. Paired with inverted images of synchronized swimmers matched in their slow motion movements, the piece suggests new relationships between beauty and strength, as well as age, desire, and power.