Life Lines

Life Lines is a collaborative group performance with Curvy Girls based on a physical examination performed by doctors to assess patients for scoliosis called the Forward Bend test. This test is simple; a patient bends forward with feet together, arms hanging limp, and knees extended until the back becomes horizontal. The examiner assesses from behind by running their finger down the patient's spine, feeling and looking for indicators of scoliosis. During the performance, everyone in attendance will be examined by Alexis Bulman or a member of Curvy Girls by performing the Forward Bend Test. Each person’s spine will be traced and translated onto a sheet of paper by drawing a line that looks the way the spine feels. At the end of the performance, the wall will be filled with spines transcribed into lines, one after another, some curved, some straight. This performance and the line drawings that result from it will serve as a kind of guest book of everyone who attended the event. Life lines is an active opportunity to practice anticipating the needs of others by allowing the intimacy and trust of being "traced" to replace medical jargon, medical equipment, and the notion of the body as an object of analysis.