Anna III — Exile on Main Street

* from the script *

background of the performance series «Anna ...»

This performance is the third in a series in which I approach the cosmos and the character of my mother Anna. It is also the transformation of a forgotten past, which I bring into the now, and with which a new, challenging and possibly also irritating situation is created. With each new version I expand the material. In the performance «Anna III», the connection and pivot point to my mother Anna are her old leather mountain boots.

process of the performance

I ask the person in charge of the box office for this performance event to invite each spectator to write his or her first name on a white sheet of paper. I memorize these forty to fifty names until the event begins and during the other performances until it is my turn.

When the time comes, I stand in the hall in front of those present. I look at them for a while, then take off my shoes, look around again and blindfold myself. I ask the audience to help me with this performance, as I can't see anything and I want to bring the things deposited at the edge into the space. The audience navigates me, blindfolded I move in the direction of my material depot. One after the other, I fetch four table legs, a pair of leather hiking boots, the sheets with the first names of the audience members written on them and adhesive tape. In the meantime, I have completely lost my own orientation in the space and I have to rely on the audience: for example, I stretch my arms out in one direction, like a compass needle, and ask if I am moving in the right direction, whereupon the audience gives me directional hints and guides me with shouts such as «a little more to the right», «Attention, pillar», «a little more to the left», «Yes, straight ahead». Then I place the batch of 'name sheets' on my hands like a tray, with a roll of tape over each wrist. I lift up a sheet and call out the first name from my learnt 'memory list' by heart, which of course does not match the name written on the sheet. If it did match, it would be a great coincidence. I hold each sheet of paper up and away from me in a gesture that is both offering and inviting. I then ask those present to tape the sheets of paper they have received onto my body. Each 'name sheet' is treated in this way. Excitement and a slight bustle arise because I call out first names in quick succession, hold several sheets of paper in the air, which are being attached to me by several spectators and audience members, at the same time I keep changing places.

When all the 'name sheets' cover me like scales, I invite everyone present to accompany me outside on a parcours that I have previously defined. We cross the nocturnal grounds around the Kunsthalle building, illuminated by street lamps: I climb onto landings, onto building pillars, onto loading ramps, striking various poses. Along the back of the building, through a long corridor and the back door, we return to the Kunsthalle space. There I wait a little, moving finely and fluidly, the 'name sheets' rustling and rustling. The movements become more expansive, the leaves 'make noise'. I announce that now is the opportunity to get a new first name, which everyone can get here from me, from my body. The spectators tear and pluck the written leaves from my body. I call out 'music'. «Exit on Main Street», a not very well-known early song by the Rolling Stones, is played. Moving my hips and improvising wildly, I sing both along with and against the song, peeling the last leaves from my body and passing them on to the people around me. Still dancing, especially moving my hips, I take off my blindfold and look at the audience - a single sheet of paper with the name «ANNEMARIE» is stuck to my hair.

script