If there’s one thing Erica Felicella knows how to do it’s to push her emotional and physical limits.
From spending 48 hours in a transparent box, to lying motionless from sunrise to sunset as viewers place stones on her body, to dragging a shovel through Bishop Arts in a nightgown—she turns herself into a vessel through performance art.
Often, she becomes a confidant, holding space for others’ secrets; other times she delivers a kind of living soliloquy, speaking grief, memory, and emotion into the open, inviting audiences to witness her vulnerability.
So how does she define performance art?
“It’s about duration, it’s about time, and it’s about the use of the body,” Felicella said.
“The beautiful thing about performance is that it’s never the same twice. That moment you saw will never happen again; all you have is the memory you carry with you.”
A core goal of Felicella's work is to bring performance art to people who aren’t familiar with the medium.
“I love taking my work to places where people just happen upon it… I tell people, just have fun with it.”
Deeply committed to nurturing a community of performance artists, she has even developed her own artistic method and leads workshops that empower artists to express themselves through performance.
Felicella originally came to Dallas to spend time with her older sister. She discovered that the city’s vibrant cultural scene was the perfect backdrop for her creative pursuits—enabling her, as she puts it, to “stand still” and get to know herself. Now, 25 years later, she still proudly calls Dallas home.
She’s found a supportive audience and an emerging community of artists who embrace her experimental approach.
“My community here in Dallas is diverse—a beautifully tangled web that crosses over many genres and styles of people,” she explains.
Watch the latest episode of Arts Docs for an inside look into the world of Erica Felicella.
