From: mkent@netcom.com (Marty Kent)
Subject: X-Plicit Players Busted at UC Berkeley, 17 Nov 1992
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 01:50:33 GMT

As some of you may know, the X-Plicit Players were arrested on 
the afternoon of Tuesday 17 November, at the edge of the 
campus of UC Berkeley. Here are a couple of our views about 
what's going on: first, one by me (Marty Kent) and then a 
piece from Deb Moore.

I'll have more coming up in a day or so...



*** History Leading to the Performance

A guy came up to Deb and Nina in our neighborhood copy center 
and introduced himself as Phil Lowrey, saying he recognized 
them from the nude-in (an event we did with Andrew Martinez 
about 2 months ago on the UC Berkeley campus). It turned out 
he was with the department of (melo)drama at the university, 
and he wanted the Xplicits to come to the campus and do 
something. The arrangement that finally evolved in the course 
of a month of intermittent discussion was that we would come 
to his drama class on Monday morning for a lecture / 
demonstration, and we'd do a more full-scale performance in a 
theater in Dwinelle hall the following afternoon. After a 
couple of days for him to check things out, he got back to us 
with the official go-ahead, telling us to "go ahead and 
advertise the event".

The weekend before the class, Phil called and told us the 
performances were cancelled. The chancellor of the university, 
apparently profoundly moved by the inspiring examples of 
personal freedom and responsibility set by ourselves and 
Andrew Martinez, had instituted a new "campus policy" banning 
public nudity from the campus. Lorne Buchman, the head of the 
drama department and therefore Phil Lowrey's owner in the 
corporate uh pardon me academic hierarchy, felt that his 
owner, the chancellor, _might_ consider performance to be a 
form of public display. So our performance was out, as was any 
nudity in the class. A day later we got further word: not only 
couldn't we be naked in the class, but we couldn't touch each 
other either. 

One thing I found particularly emotionally affecting was the 
way Phil Lowrey seemed to consider himself a victim of 
censorship, while taking on full personal responsibility to 
implement _all_ the acts of censorship himself. But I guess he 
didn't have much guts uh I mean his hands were tied: in 
corporate environments, many people feel it's more important 
to _keep_ their jobs than to _do_ their jobs...

Now the Xplicits are not known for taking cancellations of 
confirmed, advertised performances lightly, so we told him the 
choices were not between having a performance or not having 
one, but rather between having a performance in the theater or 
having a performance on the sidewalk in front of the campus. 
This has always been our policy in dealing with breakdowns of 
personal integrity on the part of people who invite us to 
perform - in fact we once did an entire 5-hour nude 
performance right beside the Pacific Coast Highway, in front 
of an art gallery where the manager decided his agreement with 
us was not a Real Thing - people gawking out of car windows to 
snap pictures, police cars rolling by... and many of you are 
no doubt familiar with the circumstances of our performance at 
Hampshire College. When we agree to come to a place and be 
with people, we come to that place and be with the people, no 
matter what.

We spoke with the editor of the college newspaper (The Daily 
Cal), who was very pleased to hear about our planned 
appearance in opposition to the new anti-nudity policy. Nicole 
Wong, who's written about us before with less factual errors 
than any other reporter, did some investigation and wrote a 
story which appeared in the Tuesday morning edition of the 
Cal, documenting the chain of fear through which our 
performance was "cancelled", and ending with the information 
that we'd be on Sproul Plaza at noon.




*** Basic Events of the Performance and Bust

Sproul Plaza is at Bancroft Way, where Telegraph Ave, gritty, 
human, central artery of south Berkeley, symbolically "dead-
ends" into the University. There's an extra-wide sidewalk area 
right there at the end of Telly, where the flux of pedestrian 
traffic runs high during the day. Deb, Nina and I arrived just 
before noon and met Bob, who'd come down the hill on his lunch 
break from work. We put up a couple of posters and spread out 
our mat as Dave and Carol arrived with camera and camcorder 
respectively. Our brief preparations done, Deb, Nina and I 
took off our clothes and sat down in the sun to focus 
ourselves in the immediate. We put our arms around each other, 
drawing from the pool of love and tenderness into which our 
personal roots disappear. 

People are flowing through the 30-foot opening at a rate of 
maybe 200 per minute. Immediately a man in a suit walks up to 
us and embraces us. He's seen Deb and Nina once before, at a 
cafe. "What are you doing?" he asks us. "We're being together 
out here. Join us. Take off your clothes if you want." I sink 
back into the very close immediate presence of Deb and Nina. 
When I look out again after maybe a minute, I see this man is 
in fact just removing the last of his clothes, and he joins us 
in nakedness. We put our arms around him in joy. He's a very 
easy-going guy. Obviously he's having a great time, the kind 
of thing we see all the time in our events: he'd never have 
thought he'd be able to do such a thing, and now, in the midst 
of doing it, his joy of the moment is mixed with a bit of his 
writing a very firm note to himself _not_to_underestimate_his_
_own_abilities_again_.

Lost in bliss for moments... I look out again and people are 
collecting around us - we feel the pull of the crowd and the 
push of our own desire for meeting, begin to move out towards 
the people standing by - some move away as if in fear, while 
others stand still or move toward us with welcoming gestures - 
out of the chaos of random people sharing only this accidental 
location on their paths to separate destinations, an event-
sense is coalescing, the crowd group awareness and arrangement 
taking on clearer form - some being arises for a while out of 
chaos, does a dance and then dissolves, like you or me - 

the naked people are moving together as one, pressed tightly 
together or not touching at all, we share a common focus, 
picking out people in the crowd one by one and moving on them 
- we take a man's hand - we touch his arms, shoulders, back, 
head, giving him our affection, tenderness, invitation - he 
stands uncertainly, not sure where there might be a hook in 
our bait - this kind of stuff never happens to you, you have 
no script for it, no pre-planned response or policy - total 
strangers emerging from nowhere to lavish kindness, warmth and 
affection on you! is this some kind of joke? this is not how 
The World works - 

but this is how our world works - we give each person as much 
warmth and tenderness as they're ready to accept, then move on 
and look for someone else to gift - our focus is very narrow: 
although we know in some sense there are many people present, 
we actually only look at one or two at a time - it's like 
looking at the words while reading - we're moving slowly among 
the throng, reaching out to some people with our hands and 
eyes, brushing past some with the gentlest of touches, letting 
others just keep their distance without pursuing them - we 
wrap ourselves all around a guy, arms around his chest, head, 
legs, hitting him high and low, pouring welcome all over him, 
drenching him with our feeling - people right next to us 
examine him and us carefully, looking for clues, explanations, 
something to fit this all into their usual rhythm and roll - 
but they can't find it - my cheek on this man's belly and he 
meets me with some stiffness, tightness, some constructed show 
of strength - okay, I'm familiar with that, just listen some 
more, deeper, listen through - in just a couple of seconds I 
feel this excited enthusiasm come through, like a kid in a toy 
store seeing endless fields of possibility for the first time 
- so joyful, so unexpected - a tear or two leaks out the 
corners of his eyes - just hold him for a bit more and move 
on, no need to blow his cover - 

It occurs to me we've been out here for quite a while now and 
it seems I've seen plenty of police come and go and none of 
them have made a move on us, so I guess they've decided not to 
bust us, like at the nude-in - guess they don't like to do 
high-publicity nudity busts in crowds in the daylight - okay, 
fine with me - swirl on - now here's a guy we recognize from 
the nude-in, some young student with a beard, standing off to 
the side - he joins us and we move back to our mat, take a 
little breather, off our feet - we ask him if we can take his 
clothes off and he lights up, "Sure!" - the 3 of us are slowly 
pulling off his shirt, shoes, socks, pants - his face looks 
like my two-year-old's when I'm pulling his clothes off at the 
end of the day and he can barely stay awake, just knows rest 
is waiting right around the corner - lets himself just fall 
into it - we hold the guy by his waist and shoulders and stand 
him up on his feet - he holds up his arms in the traditional 
gesture of victory, greeting or surprise as we shout "Freedom 
of speech for UC students! Freedom of expression for UC 
students!" - people in the crowd hoot, cheer, applaud, shake 
their heads - cameras are flashing, camcorders rolling 
everywhere, reporters with little notebooks interviewing the 
crowd and each other - intricate webs of connection forming 
and vanishing and forming anew like cracks in a plate glass 
window hit with a rock, or like a cartoon of synapses in the 
brain, little packets of energy shuttling along the evanescent 
pathways - 

people keep coming and going - we've been out here for about 
40 minutes I'd guess and now we have 3 guys sitting on the mat 
with us - they don't want to take their clothes off or have 
much body contact with us but they believe very strongly in 
the rightness of our expression, and they want to be with us 
to be associated with our standing up for that freedom of 
expression - Deb and Nina and I are resting for a moment, 
leaning against each other - a guy is sitting on a concrete 
post behind us, emitting a stream of sarcastic social 
commentary: "Wow, look, actual human skin! Hey, how come they 
have bodies and I don't?!" - he's focussed on some feeling of 
disapproval he's picked up from somewhere in the crowd, and is 
defending us in the way he thinks he knows best - it's all 
pretty amusing as we rest here in the center, bathed in 
sunshine and bliss -

a wave of police closes over us - wave of dark blue - some 
bald guy with a government-issue mustache is bending over 
telling us his name and that we're under arrest - now this is 
a bit of a surprise, not even a request we get dressed - just 
cut to the chase - somebody grabbing my wrist from behind and 
trying to lift me up, saying "Get up get up" - he's in a Big 
Hurry - I tell the guy "I'm on the bottom", since it's 
apparently escaped his attention that there are two people 
sitting on my legs and lying in my lap, making it difficult 
for me to rise - other police are reaching down and holding on 
to Deb and Nina as they stand up - guy's clamping the cuffs on 
me behind my back and Deb is holding on to me, her arms around 
my neck - how very sweet she is in the moment - as they're 
leading us away she yells to Bob "Get Marty out first!" - very 
nice; she knows I have a big work deadline today, thanks honey 
- Nina's being led away ahead of me, Deb behind - a cop behind 
me yells at a photographer, "Don't bump into me!" and shoves 
the guy with a couple of hands to the chest, with government-
issue cordiality - people in the crowd are buzzing like a 
stirred-up beehive and I hear Deb saying "Gentle, gentle, no 
violence please, that's not our way." The guy from the 
concrete post is yelling "Yeah! These guys are terribly 
dangerous!! Thanks! I sure feel so much more secure now!" and 
I hear someone else ranting about how this police action "is 
gonna cost the taxpayers - that's US you know - thousands of 
dollars" - I have to chuckle, it's all too much -

Into the police van waiting there on Bancroft and we sit naked 
on the vinyl seats, hands cuffed behind us - there's Scarlot 
right outside the van, pointing her camcorder at us in a 
strange motion (later we learn we're effectively invisible 
behind the semi-mirrored windows) - Bob's telling some cop 
he'll gather up our possessions and our mat as they slam the 
door and the van rolls away up Bancroft. The three of us are 
leaning against each other and relaxing on the short drive 
over to the police station on McKinley, when suddenly out the 
window I see The Chinaman, a special guy who only very 
occasionally becomes visible on the streets of Berkeley, and 
whose visibility tells me I'm being monitored by angels. If 
this kind of thing is beyond you, just take it as this: a very 
favorable omen. 

At the jail this cute chick cop who looks like someone from a 
hamburger commercial asks me why we want to cause all this 
trouble and I say "what do you mean, _us_ cause trouble?! I'm 
just out in the sun, having fun with my friends. _You're_ the 
ones causing trouble." But I'm afraid this kind of thinking is 
a bit beyond her at the moment, and I don't get time to try to 
clarify it. Date and place of birth, height, weight, current 
address, have you ever been arrested before etc. Up I go in 
the metal cage elevator, and the cop won't let me out until I 
put on my white paper jumpsuit. No naked people allowed in 
jail, apparently; might offend someone's sensibilities. Five 
sets of fingerprints, hands covered with black ink. Before I 
can wash, Deb says "stamp me!" and I step over and slap my 
hands on the ass of her jumpsuit. Valuable X-Plicit Players 
souvenir, anyone?

Two counts each, they tell us: 314, which is the indecent 
exposure statute we've come to know pretty much by heart, and 
some new one, something in the 600's. It has to do with public 
lewdness, which is already implied by 314, but with two 
charges they can double our bail this time: a thousand dollars 
each. Bob's here with the money for our bail in short order, 
it being banking hours, so I figure I'll still be able to get 
out in time to get home and get my disks to FedEx in time for 
my afternoon deadline. But no, we just sit in the cells for 3 
1/2 hours and by the time they're willing to accept our $3K, 
it's too late. The only blot on an otherwise charming day.

[Note: when I talked to my boss the next morning to tell him I 
missed the deadline and why, he told me not to worry at all: 
"The work you guys are doing is great, really great. We'll 
find another way to get the stuff to them in time." As my dad 
always used to say, "Clean living comes through."]



*************************************************************

The "Act of Intimacy" Performance/Protest on Sproul Plaza
18 Nov 1992 - censored by UC Drama Dept.
by Debbie Moore, director of X-Plicit Players

During the Sproul Plaza performance, I went from one person to 
another looking for inner connection. The cast wrapped around me, 
moving as I moved, followed me nakedly every step of the way. I 
purposefully dispensed with the use of a script, of music, or even 
planned actions, to free us to respond most directly to individuals 
in the crowd. I wanted our focus on people to be absolute and our 
bodies the only tool or vessel for expression. When someone in the 
crowd connected to me inwardly, I fell into their realm of feeling 
and expression, and I acted in response to them and the touch they 
extended within the trust that they provoked. This is not a genital 
focus (as accused by police) because the kind of involvement, even 
if it is just for moments, is specific to the heart and soul (or 
mind). Such involvement must be channeled by the entire body; I 
follow each person into the rapport that their affection and playful 
gestures begin to direct. Those who connected inwardly with me fell 
into a tender state that gave us a freedom and playfulness with our 
bodies akin to child's play or animal freedom. Sometimes the bodies 
of the X-Plicit Players linked up to form monkey-like, snake-like,
prehistoric-animal-like gestures of invitation to the audience. We 
built body sculptures and danced rhythmically with those who came 
forward to undress with us. The whole body became a playground or 
palette of colors, not one color (genitalia) or one body part. 

Audience people limited their play mostly to my hands and feet, 
because there is so much taboo about body tenderness. We have no 
vocabulary in our culture for touch that is sheer affection directed 
at discovering good feeling, rather than directed toward genital 
orgasm or intercourse. However, most people recognized our activity 
immediately as a communication of direct and innocent tenderness.  
Everyone I touched moved their entire body as if captured by a dance 
that sprang from our inner sparks, as we merged inwardly, travelled 
together.  It is this inner calling and travelling of mind and 
emotion that I track with people directly when I touch their bodies. 
I touch to find or know them just as a doctor listens for heartbeat 
or a lifeguard resuscitates with the breath. This body reading I do 
and the new vocabulary of touches that express tenderness, 
playfulness, and exploration are now the lessons that we must teach 
in court and in the streets of Berkeley. But let it be known we are 
thrilled with the opportunity to direct others toward these freedoms 
that we enjoy, just as we and Andrew Martinez have taught the police 
force of Berkeley and the off-campus culture at large to accept the 
freedom of topfreeness and simple nudity. 

People who travelled inwardly with me on Sproul looked warmed and 
gently cheered by our collaborative physical expression. The cast of 
X-Plicit Players "shadow" me and line up behind me to transfer my 
experience into and through their psyche and their bodies. Like an 
antenna, I pick up messages from each new person that they then 
absorb through touch, carry and feel. We are totally satisfied by 
the current of feeling we receive from audience people, and have no 
need for or focus on genital sex. People on Sproul made the leap 
into using bodies to freely express inner communion, and made the 
leap that the police did not make, beyond calling it "sex", 
"groping" or "genital fondling". This leap into a new context for 
tenderness is a leap we are taking with audiences all across the 
country, and it sure was fun to take it outdoors on Sproul. We are 
delighted to take this leap into the courtroom, to establish naked 
touch as everyone's right. 

Love,
Deb
your friendly shamanatrix

-- 
Marty Kent 				mkent@netcom.com
Sixth Sense R & D			510 848 6221
2500 Durant St. #405
Berkeley Ca 94704

Kent's Heuristic: Look for it first where you'd most like to find it.
"You're soaking in it..." - Madge
Newsgroups: rec.nude