For the week of  October 10 - 16, 2001

Dix offers 
performance piece

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By ADAM TANOUS
Express Arts Editor

Wood River Valley residents have seen a wide variety of artistic endeavors and cultural events come their way. A genre one rarely if ever comes across in this area is performance art. It is a genre usually associated with bigger cities.

Hailey resident and artist, Bob Dix, brings his considerable talents and experience to the Sun Valley Center for the Arts Friday night, when he performs a unique work based on the WWII internment experience of over 110,000 Americans and people of Japanese descent. The performance begins at 8 p.m. at the center.

The Sun Valley Center for the Arts will open a visual arts exhibition Friday titled "Whispered Silences: Remembering America’s Internment Camps." It will focus on the manifestations of fear and intolerance in America.

Dix, who has long taught art classes for the Center, was commissioned to create an installation and performance for the show. It is a work designed to evoke memory of the life in the internment camps, one of which, the Minidoka National Relocation Center, was an hour southeast of Ketchum in Hunt, Idaho.

The installation recreates a stark room wrapped in tattered tarpaper. Tatami mats rest on a floor of rice—a grain for every Japanese American who served time in the camps. One lone origami crane is suspended from the ceiling. The room is surrounded by shelves on which are placed jars of personal items and mementos common to the internees. Dix described the barrack as a "somber place, a place of reflection, a place to remember."

Dix has managed to keep the exact nature of his performance piece a secret. He has said only that it will be based on the internment experience. It can be safely said that surprise is an element of performance art.

Educated in fine arts at Alfred University in New York, Dix is currently a teacher at the Wood River Middle School in Hailey. He has shown his work in exhibitions in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Reno. He also has works in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art collection and many private collections.

Dix’s installation and the rest of the Sun Valley Center exhibit will open for Gallery Walk at 6 p.m. The performance will begin at 8 p.m., and is free of charge.

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