The audience is left with a flurry of information as scattered as it is organized. We are the ones who pick up the pieces and place them into an order that seems to make sense. Luckily, the accompanying pocket-sized zine left on each seat at the venue provides a printed version of the script, a narrative of Cohen’s own invention, cut and pasted and seemingly as abstract as they are cohesive.
The written words move across the page as they are spoken, drawled, campaigned for, and languished. Every time anyyywayyy whatever was mentioned, one performer would say the first word, drawn out slowly, as it is written. Another would reply, whatever, in the way one would imagine a teen sarcastically responding to an authority figure—conceptually forming a W, touching their thumbs, outstretching their index fingers diagonally.
Performers—their movements inspired by postmodern dance, yoga, and socio-political undulations—always found each other. It was as if there was an unspoken romance or invisible string tightening and loosening between them. Occasionally, a phrase would get the audience to giggle or nod heads in agreement. But, largely, all but the six on stage remained quiet. Not a phone was used to text or take a photo. It was a unique experience that seemed to mimic our interactions with technology, scrolling, swiping, and shopping. Except if we were looking in a mirror (or at one another), who would dare to break that spell?
While the language was specific, it still felt up to interpretation, or no interpretation at all. The performance lasted 50 minutes, and by the end, the dancers were covered in beads of sweat, with glistening wetness visible on their backs and foreheads. Lighting designed by Sarai Frazier cast solid-colored light throughout: blues, yellow, and what sometimes looked like a black light, projected, radiating onto the clothing which looked set aflame or completely dark. Time was counted by footsteps, breath, and spoken word, a performance of stakes set high, a bar raised, and a journey into the mind of an artist or perhaps all of our minds. anyyywayyy whatever.
*This article originally appeared in Art & Object Magazine's Winter 2026 issue.
