Beckett Walk VII — another ghost dance — natureza e o selvagem em nós
performance-ritual with collective enveloping
* 1 image of performance text | 2—7 performance flag panels, assembled from research material *
announcement of the performance in English, Spanish and Portuguese
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A ritual to connect us with what we cannot see, with the ghosts that may be hunting us, that are with us, and with nature and the wildness within us, wondering: What and where are others and other beings whose language we do not understand, in relation to us? And what are we?
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Un ritual para conectarnos con lo que no podemos ver, con los fantasmas que pueden estar cazándonos, que están con nosotros, y con la naturaleza y lo salvaje que llevamos dentro, maravillándonos: ¿Qué y dónde están los demás y otros seres cuyo lenguaje no entendemos, en relación con nosotros? ¿Qué somos nosotros?
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Um ritual para nos conectar com o que não podemos ver, com os fantasmas que podem estar nos caçando, que estão conosco, e com a natureza e a natureza selvagem dentro de nós, perguntando-nos: O que e onde estão os outros e outros seres cuja linguagem não entendemos, em relação a nós? O que somos nós?
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Ein Ritual, um uns mit dem kurzzuschliessen, was wir nicht sehen können, mit den Geistern, die uns vielleicht jagen, die mit uns sind, und mit der Natur und dem Wilden in uns, die uns fragen lassen: Was und wo sind die anderen Lebewesen, deren Spraches wir nicht verstehen, in welcher Verbindung zu uns? Und was sind wir?
research and the ghosts which are haunting me
The performance «Beckett Walk VII another ghost dance - natureza e o selvagem em nós» is the third ghost dance of a series that I began in 2021 with «Beckett Walk VI — another ghost dance».
This new version was again preceded by research: on literature, on colonial history, on my own past with memories of childhood rituals in the Alps, on the aesthetic political movement of anthropophagism in South America, "an aesthetic political movement since the 1970s in the South Americas, in which own traditions were reinvented in an activist sense and European inscriptions were 'eaten up'» (quote from Sabine Gebhardt Fink's text «Fäden Überkreuzen! ...»).
The image and text material that I found in my research in publications, newspaper articles on the Internet and in my personal archive, some of it also from past performances, has been woven into 6 large flag panels. In image and text, they represent the spirits that are currently occupying me:
performance flags with images and texts 1 + 2
. texts by Stuart Hall, Jacques Derrida and Héléne Cixous
. text about Nastassja Martin («In the Eye of the Wild»)
. the ancestry of my mother Anna, as well as my background from central Switzerland, rituals that I experienced in my childhood, Anna's passing and death ...
image material ... texts
performance flags with images and texts 3 + 4
. the Ghost Dance movement of Native North Americans in the 19th century, my artistic research and performances on the donkey as a stigmatised creature and an animal of cultural value, addresses the human-animal relationship
. findings from performances in Argentina in 2018 and from literature and art on Brazil, the distant country I have never set foot in: Antropofagism, the performances of Lygia Clark, as well as the writers Ana Cristina Cesar and Clarice Lispector, who are juxtaposed with the Swiss writer Blaise Cendras (who travelled to Brazil between 1924 and 1928 and was part of the avant-garde of new literature at the time), as well as map and photo finds from a private archive from the 1970s showing the new capital Brasilia . ..
image material ... texts
performance flags with images and texts 5 + 6
. my current research on microorganisms in the soil, addresses the relationship to other organisms
. Ka'apor, a people and their communities living in the south-eastern Amazon region in the «Terra Indígena Alto Turiçú»: I learnt about this people from friends in Switzerland who are in regular contact with the Ka'apor, supporting them and documenting their lives, as well as recent newspaper articles and book publications on other communities in Brazil ...
image material ... texts
interviews with the artists of DOCE EN DICIEMBRE — Edição Brasil
As for the performance «Beckett Walk VI — another ghost dance» this ghost dance was also preceded by interviews that I conducted with the participants in the DOCE EN DICIEMBRE - Edição Brasil project. I asked them about their relationship to their inner nature and whether there is any wildness there. I asked them the following questions in English, Spanish and German:
* How do you perceive nature and the wild or wildness in you? Is it somewhere?
What are we, animal, nature?
How does nature express itself in us, how can we experience it?
The wild in us that could connect us with other worlds, where is it hidden?
Which spirits help us, which ones do we want to call upon?
* ¿Cómo percibes la naturaleza y lo salvaje o salvaje que hay en ti? ¿Está en alguna parte?
¿ Somos, animales, naturaleza?
¿Cómo se expresa la naturaleza en nosotros, cómo podemos experimentarla?
¿Lo salvaje que hay en nosotros y que podría conectarnos con otros mundos, ¿dónde se esconde?
¿Qué fantasmas nos ayudan, a cuáles queremos invocar?
* Wie nimmst du die Natur und das Wilde oder die Wildheit in dir wahr? Ist sie irgendwo?
Was sind wir, Tier, Natur?
Wie drückt sich die Natur in uns aus, wie können wir sie erleben?
Das Wilde in uns, das uns mit anderen Welten verbinden könnte, wo ist es verborgen?
Welche Geister helfen uns, welche wollen wir anrufen?
Based on the one-to-one conversation, I asked the interviewees to develop a personal ritual, something like an essence of their thoughts expressed and spoken aloud, or an action that could support them in their current situation.
performance site Casa Franca with course and choreography of the performance
The interior of Casa Franca is a very large space that is permeable to the outside. It is acoustically challenging because both sounds from the street and every movement in the space are reproduced as if in an echo chamber.
The building is a neoclassical palace in the historic centre of the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. It became the seat of customs in 1824 and is now a cultural centre. The space is influenced not only by its history and 'furnishings', but also by the current exhibition of sculptures by Franz Weissmann. Weissmann is one of the most important names in the Brazilian neo-construction movement. Two of Weissmann's sculptures have been moved, making the space sufficiently permeable for the specific places that each performer in Casa Franca has chosen for herself.
The 6 panel flags mentioned above form the background of the performance. How these could be used in this space initially leaves me puzzled. I would like to wave them back and forth in the room as flags. But I don't have enough time to find the right material to attach the flags. In the end, I'm allowed to mount them in the three niches on a side wall, which is a good solution. This means that visitors to the exhibition and performances can see the panel flags all day long. I'm the last one in the program at 5pm.
The entire flow of the performance is choreographed. Again, I am the process developer and master of ceremonies of this ghost dance. All the performances realised so far in this Ghost Dance series refer to the ghost monologue by Jacques Derrida from the film "Ghost Dance" by Ken McMullen (1983) and to the many ghosts that surround us all every day. In other cultures, ritual and spiritual practices are still practised in times of crisis. In our society, they have become more distant, also because crisis are individualised as a problem. These performances "Beckett Walk V-VII ..." are designed as a collective experience in times of crisis.
I see myself as a mediator between worlds, between my own ghosts which stir me and those of the others who are in the space: The performance should provide space for 'the ghosts and phantoms of others'. With my voice, supported by a microphone, I create breathy to guttural sounds that come from the visceral depths of the body.
The ghost monologue by Jacques Derrida, which I transcribed from the film by Ken McMullen, sounds polyphonically spoken in the room: it is read by me in English, Cinthia Mendonça in Portuguese and Jazmian Saidman in Spanish.
I have internalised a prepared text script which I recite on the spot in English and Spanish as I move around the space. Unfortunately, the microphone cable is far too short, so that I sometimes have to 'speak against the spaciousness' of Casa Franca without a microphone. At the same time, however, I am carried along by Barbara Nägelin's live sound performance. Barbara Nägelin has developed a 'soundscape' of 22 minutes for this ghost dance, which she can extend improvisationally to the 40 minute performance.
All participants in DOCE EN DICIEMBRE - Edição Brasil bring their concerns and actions into the Ghost Dance with a personal ritual based on the interviews conducted with them. I gather them into the room one by one and support each of them throughout their ritual.