Charlotte Moorman performed Sky Kiss in collaboration with Jim McWilliams from 1968. Graphic designer and composer McWilliams conceived a scene of Moorman with the cello’s endpin drifting aloft from the ground meeting an immaterial lover, out of his desire to represent the erotic subject of kissing, often depicted in art history, in an unconventional form. Moorman was to float with a helium-filled balloon and play the cello in mid-air. The first attempt was made in Philadelphia in March 1968, yet the balloon did not rise. In the 6th Annual Avant-Garde Festival of New York that took place in Central Park on the evening of September 14th, 1968, the balloon narrowly took off; the shortage of helium, however, could not keep Moorman floating consistently, only to drift up and down like a kite. Dressed in red leotard tights and a satin cape, Moorman played pop songs with an aerial theme. Moorman’s Sky Kiss performances were staged in different places until the 1980s, and this photograph shows its 1982 occasion in Linz.
