For the last three weeks I have been deeply embedded with Peaches and the performance ensemble Clusterfuck at Callie’s. Every day we arrive, and we explore what is it to actually be and create with others. It has been beautiful, and challenging, I have learned a lot about how to work collectively, and I have the sense that we are gripping this opportunity (made possible by Fonds Darstellende Künste and Neustart Kultur) with all of our calloused hands.
And… I love these people (Peaches, Mad Kate, Federica Dauri, Danilo Andres, Lori Baldwin, Ginger Synne, Bishop Black, Louise Treuheart [dramaturgy], Ellison Glenn [lighting design]) even more than when we began.
Without a specific performance to prepare for, we dared to experiment with hierarchy, with different pairs and individuals assuming a leadership role for short periods throughout the research. We learned that is generous to make a clear offers to one another, and that it is generous to follow the offer of another, allowing oneself to fall into a creative slipstream.
We also learned to stay with ideas longer than our instincts would dictate; to allow ideas to flow through our bodies, to transform our bodies; and to allow the presence of our bodies, and our differing psychobiographies, to take these ideas and evolve them.
To close, here is a text that emerged from our work: One morning, Ginger led a task that involved a mix of spoken word and writing on the body. For this exercise I produced this stream of consciousness writing when given the prompt “name your hopes for the future”:
The end of capitalism is coming one way or another and I hope for a soft landing. I imagine a world of scavenger cultures, naturally egalitarian, carefully repairing the technologies they inherited from the past. The emphasis is on sustainability, so technology is simpler, but in its own way, more sophisticated, adapted as it is to the proliferation of human pleasure and sustenance. Vertical farming systems // intense re-use of water // protein production without animal cruelty. // The return of imagination: The night is darker again to conserve electricity and in this return of darkness, enchanted worlds emerge. A convergence of bodies and minds: Feminine and masculine disintegrate as molar concepts and instead a multiplicity of characteristics, abilities, strengths and, above all, adaptability are valued. My head is tired. I won't live to see this world. I only see this one. So I must find the magic inside this world; and perhaps also uncover joy, micro-utopias and prepare the ground, spiritually; intellectually for what will come. It is sad for me that the world exists only to multiply and concentrate power and wealth in a smaller and smaller set of hands. Bezos, Amazon, Nike, but all our micro-brands as well, the way we brand ourselves. Why do we desire that our name obliterate all the others, draw all the wealth and productive activity around it? I stay peaceful. As peaceful as I can be at this moment of my life.