Suzanne Hellmuth

Emigré

Margaret Fisher

Janet Jacobson, Suzanne Hellmuth

Fisher organized and performed in Emigré, a two-part happening at the Cat’s Paw Palace (September 28, 1974) and offsite at Aquatic Park in San Francisco (September 29). In reaction to the political upheaval of Watergate and the economic precarity of living here as an artist, Emigré was announced as an open call to artists and friends to “emigrate” from the Bay Area. The first evening’s event, “Leavin’ Blues,” described as “dance/theatre/music/restaurant theatre,” prepared performers for the following day with a celebration of the natural migration of living things and natural phenomena. Approximately twenty participants arrived at Aquatic Park with baskets, bundles, cages, and old suitcases. The quarter-mile walk from the western to the eastern end of the park proceeded with everyone taking one step every thirty seconds. The Super-8 film condensed four hours of walking into three minutes reflecting the distorted sense of time and relationship between the ’emigrants’ and passers-by.