About

Negotiations
Parent/Child
Teacher/Student
Athletes
Boss/Employee
Lovers
Husband/Wife
Businesses
Nations

After the success of House of Jahnke and National Enquirer, Pyramid Club manager Bobby
Bradley was eager to have another performance in the same vein. Encountering James and
Iris in the club, he asked what they were working on, and James responded they were
making a dance set to an old polka record he found in the garbage. The adventurous Mr.
Bradley encouraged them to perform the result at the Pyramid.

Iris and James, who were engaged but more than a year from being married, began
working on the “dance” – really, more of a movement routine than a traditional dance –
called Husband/Wife. It was set to “The Ocarina Polka” from the found album. James and
Iris stood side-by-side and performed actions that reflected the roles that spouses take on in
a marriage. Only at the end did they come together in a spirit of cooperation. This look
ahead to married life inspired them to begin a series of investigations of different
relationships, at least partly as an oblique way of exploring their own.

Soon they had two more, set to music chosen to compliment the subject matter: for
Boss/Employee, a Muzak version of Ruby & the Romantics’ “Our Day Will Come,” given to
them by their friend (and current collaborator in the music group Nancy – see Nancy/Marty/
Masterpiece Theater) Joshua Fried, a Muzak aficionado; and for Lovers, Frank Sinatra’s
romantic ballad “Nevertheless.” These first three sections were performed at the Pyramid
Club in January 1984. In Boss/Employee, as in Husband/Wife and most of the other sections
in Negotiations, the two performed their actions independently, side-by-side. In Lovers,
however, they were connected throughout most of the piece, making it more closely
resemble a traditional dance.

A series of binary relationship movement pieces soon followed, set to a diverse collection of
American music. The remaining sections and their music:

Parent/Child – “Just for Once” and “You’ve Got to Learn Your Trade” by Mister Rogers

Teacher/Student – “Joshua Fit De Battle Ob Jericho” by the Washington, DC, All-City
Elementary School Choir (including a very young James Siena)

Athletes – “Theme from Rocky” by Bill Conti

Businesses – a medley of classic commercial jingles written and recorded live by Barry
Manilow

Nations – “The Star-Spangled Banner”

None of the sections included dialogue, other than an occasional word or sound; the music
therefore was an important part of each piece.

Iris and James performed two or three of these sections at a time at different events or
venues as they were completed. The full set of eight was first performed in June 1984 with
the title Negotiations on one of Watchface’s earliest out-of-town bookings, at the Houston,
Texas, gallery and performance space Diverse Works. The other half of the bill was excerpts
from 1984: The Future Repeats Itself. The gallery’s director, Michael Peranteau, had seen
1984 at White Columns in New York City and invited the cast to Houston. However, since Kurt
Fulton was unavailable for the trip, the remaining cast members plus Iris performed a pared
down version.

After they returned from Houston, Iris and James performed Negotiations at 8BC and Limbo in
the East Village and, on a trip to California that summer, in Long Beach and San Francisco.

In May 1985, James and Iris celebrated their wedding with a reception in Williamsburg,
Brooklyn, at the loft home of Richard Gray, later a collaborator on Iris’ show Woolworth’s. The
reception included performances by Joshua Fried, The Cucumbers, and James and Iris
performing Husband/Wife.

Husband/Wife was also included in Watchface’s Greatest Hits, the show that celebrated their
official identity as a group and announced their new name, Watchface. The show included
ten of the group’s favorite sections from shows they had already created. It debuted at
Kestutis Nakas’ Gates of Dawn, a performance series at a Knights of Columbus hall in a
Lithuanian church near the Holland tunnel entrance in Soho. Gates of Dawn postcard
Watchface’s Greatest Hits was performed only once more, the following September at
Darinka in the East Village.

In the spring of 1987, one final piece of Negotiations was performed when Nations was
included in A Watchface Sampler at the Jeffrey Neale Gallery.
Jeffrey Neale Gallery card
Jeffrey Neale Gallery program