Pegelstand I — 1810 – Jetzt – 1650 – 1242

* from research and script *

background and process of performance

In 2010, the (historic) Baden Wooden Bridge is 200 years old. In this performance, the musician Malcolm Goldstein and I explore the bridge space of the Badener Holzbrücke vertically and horizontally, sometimes close to each other, sometimes far away from each other. We want to bring to life the qualities of the bridge, which is a shelter, a passage and a moment above the flowing water. Next door in the tower, in former times a dungeon, today a tunnel passage, the artist Eric Hattan reminds us with a brass sign of a mobile made of the letters "JETZT" (NOW), which hung from the ceiling until "night-time boys destroyed this lettering and handed it over to the current of the Limmat". I included the word NOW in our performance and wrote it in large letters on paper flags.

At the beginning, I stand with the paper flags a little downstream on the side of the historical museum. The audience is on the bridge, Malcolm Goldstein as well. He follows the movement of the water with the bow of his violin. I approach the bridge from further away. I wave a homemade flag, made of roof laths and paper, up and down, two small stones, attached to my waistband by long strings, clatter across the metal-grated path in front of the historical museum.

Arriving on the bridge, I balance a flag in the vanishing line of the bridge crossing, Because of the irregular steps, I lose my balance, only to catch myself again immediately, finding myself in an up-and-down flow of movement. Malcolm and I move synchronously and in opposite directions, along the longitudinal axis of the bridge, we pick up physical vibrations from each other.

I want to use water to write two dates on the asphalt bridge floor: 1650, when the new 38-metre long, pierless bridge - one of the first and largest cantilever constructions ever - was built, and 1810, when the bridge was erected in its current design. To do this, I throw a painter's brush attached to a string into the water several times and pull it back onto the bridge. Each time it touches the bottom of the water, the brush seems to 'paint' the water, this is because it is resting on the brush hairs due to the tension of the string.

Malcolm strikes maple woods, brought from a forest in Vermont (USA), on the bridge beams, reminding me of one of his interpretations of John Cage's 'Ryoanji'. Meanwhile, I feel out the bridge structure with my body masses, then climb a bridge beam and fit into its slope lying down. Then I jump down, using the force of falling for a movement improvisation, and land in a y

performance script