Üben Üben Üben - Basel, 13.09.25 in progress

Today I had to break out a little, so I made my friend a cross-border offer, just like the SBB wanted to make me at the start in Basel. I left Switzerland behind and went to Germany to finally eat something proper and affordable. Now I’m back in Switzerland again. I’m counting my last francs for this last evening. Earlier, walking through the Wolfsschlucht in the Black Forest, I was already thinking ahead about yesterday. Now I’ll try to recap some of the things that came to me.
[rec. missing]

So, so, so, thank you. So, so, thank you. Hm. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, okay. [church bells transcribed]

I swear, I double-pressed something and probably part of it didn’t even record. Maybe later I’ll come back to the first part of the evening, but for now let’s think about the second. The first time was in the bar, that wonderful round bar. And in the middle stood the performer, telling us a story — actually in three different languages: his mother tongue from Burkina Faso, in French, and in German. A multilingual mix that worked surprisingly well. Many people in Switzerland understand French anyway, since it’s taught for so long in school.

He told it traditionally, with drums and dance and with speech and song. At the start nobody was sure if it would work, but it worked — and it was fantastic. You were pulled along as part of the audience, just standing there around the round bar. And it wasn’t one of those performances that simply run their course and end because everything is already planned. It was alive, happening in the moment, shaped by the people who were there.

Besides the drum elements that came back again and again, there was also — I don’t even know what you’d call it — a rattle in his hands, and the story was told very physically, always underlined by this rattling that matched the movements. At one point he mimed casting out a fishing rod, and that too was accompanied by sound — a sharp little whoosh — and the image was perfect.

The story itself was very repetitive. It circled around the word given to someone — a promise. And how a promise could cost a person their head. There were talking skulls, and a baobab tree. In German translation some parts came across as almost kitschy: “Every human is a tree, every tree a story, every ring a year.” Or something like that. But that’s the beauty of fairy tales: they’re allowed to be a little kitschy, a little catchy. And he kept his promise and showed us that fairy tales aren’t only for children, but for adults as well. All of it performed with so much charm, warmth, and authenticity. Honestly, it couldn’t go wrong. And in the end, he was allowed to keep his head — despite the promise.

Both solos, in their own way… oh, they were very different, but still similar in how they held the audience, how they drew us in. The stories were completely different — one very fairy-tale-like, almost mythical, the other abstract and allegorical, not something you fully grasp on the first go. But together that evening, the interplay worked beautifully.

This week we’ve seen so many different ways to do solo performances. And what I really enjoy is that moment where the rehearsed and the improvised blur together. It’s not like when several people are on stage and you notice if one makes a mistake and the others have to react — which can also be exciting. Alone on stage, it’s a different situation. You carry full responsibility for whatever happens. I imagine you might actually have more control that way.

For the audience, it doesn’t matter what’s improvised and what isn’t. In both cases it was clear: Don’t lie to your master, don’t lie to yourself — it could cost you your head, or your mind.