Re-enactment — reload repeat refer respond ...
performance intervention
* from the script *
background and processing
This performance is a re-enactment of my performance "Dance MaEdlEy II", which I performed on 5 March 2008 as part of the event «die//reihe 'tanzt'» at the Kaskadenkondensator in Basel. For this I select passages of text from the final report on the event series by Markus Goessi as a script. As new instructions for 're-enactment', they tempt us into actions that reveal the interplay and differences between language and action. If the performance in the Kaskadenkondensator took place exclusively indoors at the time, in the Klingental I feel compelled to look for the material in the outside space for this new translation. My voice guides the performance: I read or quote the selected passages from the final report, address the audience directly, speak or sing them. This is how the word 're-enactment' becomes a stumbling block at the beginning, I get stuck on «RE RE RE» and thus form new words ranging from «RELOAD, REPEAT, REFER, RESPOND, RESOLVE» to «REMEMBER, REMIND, RELIEVE, REACT» and «RE-ENACTMENT».
As a 'transposition' of the original text passage «... the protagonist changed her clothes ...» I take off the clothes behind a separating wall, I am not visible to the audience. I throw them over the wall to the front of the auditorium, then step back in front of the audience in my underwear and put the clothes back on.
On all fours, hands tucked into the oversized green rubber boots, I crawl into the back garden and then climb - the text sheets with the report always in front of my eyes - onto the wall enclosure. I clearly quote the text passage «... there were five large stones attached to cords ...» and at the same time point to several very large blocks of stone outside the wall in a plaza. On the formulation «... After that, the artist took all the strings in one hand and dragged the stones on the ground ...» I move on all fours, hands in my boots, through the gravel, which I noisily push back and forth in front of me. Later, I drag and push a garden pitchfork, which at the time was dragged over the walls of the Kasko and, according to the text, «... used in the further course as a sound- and image-making object ...», clattering across the floor onto the basketball court in front of the house. A large tree at the edge of the square becomes a «plant in a pot», which, according to the original text, is rolled into the room on a trolley and then «... balanced between the body of the artist and the body of any guest ponderously to gracefully through the room ...». A spectator and I take the corresponding position so that the tree trunk is between us, so we lean the front of our bodies against the tree trunk. Everyone present is now asked to imagine the tree moving while 'my partner' and I dance together with body contact with the tree. Returning to the back garden, I read out the text passage that talks about my 'waltz', which I danced lying on my stomach on the rolling cart. Now a table takes over the role of the little cart. With my hands on my hips, I stand in front of the table and sing the song "Sunday Morning" by the cult band Velvet Underground, which is playing on the computer at the same time. Finally, I spread red apples on the table and follow the song "I am a man" by Velvet Underground faithfully to the original text: «... the artist had a song from the 60s played, stood in the middle of the room with an apple in each hand and began a kind of shaking-apple dance ...» ...
original template for the performance «Re-enactment» in the final report on the performance series «die//reihe 'tanzt'» by Markus Goessi
«die//reihe 'tanzt'» mit Dorothea Rust, Mittwoch 05. März 2008