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First performance with an audience was as a farewell to Moscow before departing to the USA. On August 31st Moscow friends were invited to perform the shaving with a braider and a shaver selected by lottery. Since SHAVING TO AMERICA was mimicking the shaving to a monastery (immigration was a step outside the habitual style of life for a very different and unknown), it was the first performance with actual shaving (previously hair was cut very short). A satellite farewell project, Portraits by Great People, started that year. Photo-portraits of Irina (before the shaving) made by Moscow friends were collected during the summer. Angelina Panova made BRAID#2, and an unknown friend won the lottery to shave it off. Because the performance was in the shape of a party, vodka was served for the first time and became a tradition, as well as the lottery. After the shaving, Irina felt connected to all of the women who lost their hair against their will. The shaving continued in their honor and a quadrennial project of harvesting hair for Irina's braid collection became the Quadrennial Shaving Performance. The date of Irina Danilova's arrival in the United States, October 8, 1992, determined by Immigeration Services, accidently fell on the 100th anniversary of Marina Tsvetaeva's birth. |