Seehund Goldberg Variation II — mit Teppich

* from the script *

background and processing of the performance

This performance is a variation of "Seal Goldberg Variation I". I use material obtained and found on site in Brussels: a chair, two buckets filled with water and lettered paper. In addition, there is an oriental carpet that I bought at the flea market in Brussels.

A low room in a former brewery building, the floor is made of cobblestones: I let the oriental carpet hang out of the window at one end of the rope. With this counterweight I can hold myself upright, barefoot and in a sports climbing harness, at the other end of the rope in an extreme inclined position. Two black men's shoes are placed next to each other on the floor behind me. They are connected to me by strings. Gradually the spectators arrive, walk along the rope through the room and see the rope stretched over the window ledge with the hanging carpet. I stay in this position for a while. Then I begin to move my feet until I can wrap the rope around a column. Still groping at first, I gradually push myself up the column with my bare feet until I am floating in the room in a horizontal position - the carpet gives me just enough counterweight. Then, keeping the rope always taut, I work my way to the window and pull the carpet into the space.

Violently and recklessly, I pull a chair across the room on a string; the utensils on its seat, white A4 sheets, a felt-tip pen and adhesive strips, fall to the floor. I write the following two letter combinations on sheets of paper, using one sheet for each letter: S.E.A.L and S.O.I.L. With my bare feet I move the letter sheets to form new words: SALE ... SOS ... OIL ... I stick the letters S, E and A to a bucket filled with water, they form together the word SEA. I stick the L to the other bucket; the letters of both buckets make the word SEAL. Gently, so that the water doesn't spill over, I pull the buckets around the space on strings. I put the chair on the now unrolled carpet and sit down on it. I put large grey suede work gloves over my hands. With initially fine, guttural sounds that turn into singing, yodelling sounds and shrieks, I want to fill the space sonically, even blow it up with the sound. With the men's shoes on my feet, I stroll to the CD player and start J.S. Bach's «Goldberg Variations», played by Glenn Gould. To the music I move into an improvised dance, which, accentuated by the iron fittings on the shoes, has all the airs of a tap dance, but for the most part falters and puts me in difficult positions. In the middle of the dance, I suddenly bend over head first into one of the water-filled buckets and 'stand' on my head, keeping my balance and my head under water until I have to catch my breath again. I repeat this procedure several times, dripping wet, always interrupted by a 'false tap dance'.

script