Criticisms From a Dog

A list of criticisms that a dog would have of humans:

  • People are too critical
  • People speak too much
  • People rely on technology
  • People are negative
  • People have an unnecessarily large vocabulary
  • People worry about the wrong things
  • People lie
  • People care too much about their appearance
  • People are ashamed of excitement
  • People are afraid of love
  • People mix up love and hate
  • People think about the future too much

There is an immediate paradox caused by the first item on this list, criticising that people are too critical. I want make these points in my performance with a very conscious awareness of the hypocrisy throughout. The intention of my piece is not to literally translate a dogs thoughts into a comprehensible performance. Rather, I want to criticise the behaviours of people, myself included, whilst in the guise of a dog. I would use the dog as a preferable identity even though the content of the performance wouldn’t necessarily line up with the way a dog may truly act. The rest of the arguments on the list can be made with just as much hypocrisy at the forefront in different ways. Simply speaking aloud that people ‘speak too much’ or ‘have an unnecessarily large vocabulary’ becomes hypocritical. The context of a man dressing up as a dog to claim that people ‘lie’ or ‘care too much about their appearance’ also becomes hypocritical. I will almost certainly use sound, lighting, or projections in my performance creating an ironic reliance on technology. I don’t want it to come across like I’m being intentionally hypocritical, but more like I have to contradict myself in order to make any kind of performance and that the human flaws are something seemingly inescapable.

Criticisms From a Dog