Üben Üben Üben - Surge Of Heat, by Margaux Fievet

In fact I had straight away technical problems. The recording device was full. To hear was a diffuse noise from the ICE, I think for 3 hours. And I heard travelers and older people getting worked up. Well, actually it reminds me of this story about my grandma, how once she filmed the whole vacation… How was that again? Oh, she had a camera, and it dangled on her hand. And actually on this film, on this SD card, there are probably five hours of foot, like cobblestones in Rome or so, to be seen, always in a swinging movement. That is the only pictorial content from this vacation.

I am of course a bit more known to handle digital items than my grandma and earlier I even emptied the memory card, to be able to babble on it again. But yes, so technical problems are overcome. Now it goes to the Rhine. Now it really starts with this real walking. The shadows are already stretching quite long. I wasn’t out again in the morning at 8 o’clock.

Talking and walking alone is somehow still difficult. I prefer sitting and speaking. Well, so actually we already walked and talked yesterday evening after the performance back home about performance in general and how we stand towards it, very subjective, very general talk, and then we realized that I actually wasn’t even the only one who has this problem with, um, this dividing line between watching and imagining yourself as the performer. We realized that we all do that, that these thoughts are definitely there, that we are really very body-focused on the person who performs in front of you and how you feel watching it. And that you imagine yourself doing the movements, that you project yourself. At what point you feel comfortable or not. I mean sometimes it’s good when you don’t feel comfortable. For sure. Not that I felt uncomfortable yesterday. Anyway, we started with some more general considerations about physicality and the role you take on stage. Also no groundbreaking thoughts, more like casually rambled along.

We talked about our own body, how it becomes visible somehow in the performance. Or in watching others perform. And then there is always this break at the end, after the choreography, after the performance, where suddenly you see the person and not the performer – before you were the center of attention and did your thing, and as soon as the plan is over, the presented thing, then I think many people aren’t really so… don’t feel so comfortable suddenly standing in the middle anymore. And that is somehow such a warm moment to watch. Yesterday I somehow liked that moment very much. To see how the body and also the face and everything was so concentrated in the performance and with such incredible body tension and body control. And you could really literally see how it fell off her at the end. Like such a very intimate, authentic moment.

I play this game, I used to play this in theatre or ballet… I can’t look at a group of people on stage without thinking about, yes, maybe who stands in which connections with whom and whether they do or don’t… When groups dance, I find that quite… I am really totally body-fixated when I watch something like that. I think I am not yet trained in performance-watching. At least not on such a… I’m more like a little teenage girl when I watch things like that. Maybe also okay. I mean, it is also very… It is also an intimate moment when you watch something like that. Even more intimate and bodily as you have no words, then its relay just body and movement. That’s definitely what my friend said, that it’s okay that I always notice that everywhere, because it’s somehow also what it’s about?

Then I also asked myself, why do you do that? Why do you do performance? Like I find it great, but it’s just so specific. It’s so foreign to me. How do you come up with doing exactly that, alone in front of so many people? Very brave, definitely. In Basel, in such a hall, on such a floor, in front of such a curtain. Last night's performance was definitely very full of tension. Very kurzweilig. You always think it’s a bad word, but actually it’s something positive. And like this moment, how under the slit, how the body under the slit of the curtain rolled forward or oozed out. This slow movement. And in general the performance was so very… The axis was so very close to the floor, almost the whole time. With very exact, but very tense, trembling movements. Already such totally unnatural movements. Not so… the function is so… you don’t know what stop, but… Yeah, it is somehow exciting when it’s not dance and the pure beautiful moving of the body, but…

The minutes of watching had something very cramped also. Yeah man, I felt it in myself too, that I was so tense the whole time while watching. And then I also thought about how it is, when movements are so completely functionless. I don’t know, like why should you also do that some other place? It has a very interesting way of communication. When body language is no longer just this pure mimic and gesture, that you know, that has such a fixed connection of meaning, or somehow the language that you also speak yourself with your own body, but somehow another language was spoken to me during the performance last night, which I basically probably don’t understand, because I can’t speak it myself. Actually, I probably did understand.