Your feet under my table

The dance of the receptors #8
Dresden, Germany 2023
SPOT ON : Performance, Symposium at the Dresden University of Technology
Invited by Christin Lübke and Antje Dudek
Duration: 24 minutes
Photographs by Monika Deimling

Context:

The 8th performance of the work cycle “The dance of the receptors” was presented within the framework of the symposium “SPOT ON : Performance Art” organized by the Institute of Art Pedagogy at the TU-Dresden. Besides lectures, workshops and an accompanying exhibition several performances at different places in the university building were presented as part of the two-day symposium.

A small path leads the audience to an outdoor space. Surrounded by the university building an uncut lawn with two cherry trees was chosen as the place for the performance. The whole scene is still wet from a rain shower right before the performance.

Video documentation of the performance
8:52 minutes
Camera: Lisa Marie Porst
2023

Description of actions:
A collage of performance images and sounds is created by executing the following actions with selected material.

– Sweeping the lawn with a broom. [The audience arrives while sweeping the wet lawn.]
– Painting a large, red “X” on the white shirt.
– Lighting a wooden heart on fire. [The wooden heart slowly begins to burn.]
– Taking down an old school chair hanging in a tree that is connected to a coiled rope. [The chair spins for a long time, decreasing its height until it swings a few centimeters above the ground.]
– Tying a doll’s dress in front of the face.
– Wiggling a stack of white plates back and forth with the hands. [The plates make a loud clattering sound. The chair spins and the wooden heart burns.]
– Stuffing the doll’s dress with grass. [The dress turns into a doll.]
– Brushing a pair of brown shoes with blue paint.
– Putting the blue shoes on the hands and moving them gently in the air toward the sky.
– Trying to walk horizontally up the tree with the help of a rope. [This is unsuccessful because the tree bark is slippery and the shoes can’t get a grip.]
– Putting blue smoke torches in the blue shoes, and placing them in the center of the table.
– Lighting the smoke torches and lifting the table. [The smoke rises and spreads in the tree.]
– Wearing the doll’s dress as a glove; Placing a small silver bell in her “hands”; Waving to the audience while slowly leaving the scene. [The bell can still be heard as I disappear behind a wall.]