When your standstill moves — Et ça, qu’est-ce-que c’est?
performance + dance + sound
* from the script *
background and processing of the performance with Malcolm Goldstein
The performance venue is a loft-like space that can be used as a theatre as well as a studio and rehearsal space. The large windows are covered with thick black theatre curtains in the evening.
During the preparation phase, the musician Malcolm Goldstein and I improvised in the space for a week. Together with Goldstein, I examined the possibilities of the material I had found and brought with me, a branch with many branches from a park in Montreal, old leather mountain boots from my mother Anna and two goat bells from Switzerland. At the same time, I observed what associations performance space, material, body and instrument awaken in this situation, what inner monologues emerge. These preliminary explorations are available during the performance as materials and subtext, but the time, duration and nature of their use remain open.
In the performance, Malcolm Goldstein improvises with his violin and voice based on his rich experience. Through his person and attitude, American performance history is also present in the space, as he was part of the avant-garde Judson Dance Theater in the 1960s. This collaboration also reveals Goldstein's curiosity for sonic experimentation, which on the one hand complements our joint duet-like improvisations, but on the other hand also claims its own territory in this space in solos and juxtapositions. The development of his playing is oriented towards my movement actions, but retains its own logic. Goldstein treats and plays the violin as a physical instrument, the weight of the bow falling on the strings is both gesture and sound sign; this handling of the bow leads to movements that interweave into joint dance actions. In addition, the musician repeatedly uses his voice - both tonally and speaking.
Concentrated, I balance a branch on my finger, which introduces the performance. Delicate string strokes of the violin join in and intensify the quiet, unstable search for balance between branch and body, which leads to more precarious movements, directly at the audience and with the branch above their heads. In the meantime, I move the branch again and again, push it around, it becomes an instrument, object, being, stage set. I also use my voice very often, tonally as well as speaking. So I ask the audience with the branch in my hand: "Et ça, qu'est-ce-que c'est?". I partly agree with their answers, but also contradict them and claim, for example, "Ça c'est un cerf qui fait la grasse matinée" - that is a lazy deer. The mountain boots become leathery squeaking instruments as I teeter on my knees, or, sole balanced against sole, are declared "bottes de montagne qui sont les oreilles des lapins de paques, hommes et femmes"; the goat bells are introduced as "pommes Mc Intosh", a Canadian apple brand. The sound and accentuation of the words in turn magnify my body gestures accompanying the speaking, which result in generous and expansive movements juggling with balance or wild dances in place.
In the final phase of the performance, shaking movements of my body make the goat bells, which I hold in one hand each, sound. The violin takes over their pitches and both sounds make the room vibrate.
project description and press release
WHEN YOUR STANDSTILL MOVES
is the title of a new series of performances to be staged by Malcolm Goldstein and Dorothea Rust in 2010. They further explore the action and performance space in its states and sensitivities between familiarity and strangeness. In CONCERT PERFORMANCE and DOPPELPERFORMANCE this was successfully done in 2008 in different contexts in outdoor and indoor spaces: on the black stage at the «Festival for Improvised Music» in Zurich and in and in front of Castelmur Castle in the imposing Bergell mountain landscape as well as in a double programme with the performance artists Valerian Maly & Klara Schilliger in the Richard Tuttle exhibition at the Kunsthaus Zug and in the old Aulasaal of the cultural centre 'progr' in Bern. ...