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
List of possible actions written down by BBB Johannes Deimling a few hours before the start of the performance.
Context:
The performance 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 were presented as part of the two-day symposium.
Surrounded by the university building of the TU – Dresden an uncut lawn with two cherry trees is chosen as the place for the performance outside the university. 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.]