I am here.
Oh back in WUK. Last time at DanceWEB, I lived around the corner with some scores of others. I recall a night with a maybe drunk Ivo Dimchev and the then Festival director Guido Reimitz sitting at a long table… something about opera…
Last night i walked around Neubau, to NIL café where again mornings were spent after too long nights. Today on the tram to Arsenal, remembering how to get there by instinct, remembering the route as I saw it. Oh much to say on this sometime, maybe later but not now.
This morning arriving at WUK for Hans van den Broeck’s settlement. Waiting, waiting… talking with people, eleven I think, one from Toronto, some from the States, one from Bruxelles, others from… I suppose in two weeks we will know these details quite well.
I wonder should I blog about this as it isn’t me making a performance, and… is that somehow encroaching on someone-else’s… something… to comment on the making of, I am unsure how far to speak. Oh well, blog now, embarrassment later.
I wanted to do something with Hans since I was at DanceWEB, and… oh it took a while, no? Five years. And I missed doing settlement in Sydney, though possibly not a detrimental absence as now I get to pretend I have a reason to be here in Europe, and Vienna.
Some talking from Hans outside the black void at WUK where DJ Krush is performing on Saturday. And so to enter, a little while after them, one at a time. They are three lying on the floor against the opposite wall, Hans has one hand shielding his eyes. Is he watching us? Beside the door Ivan from Russia/Costa-Rica is hooded. He reminds me of Ivo, with shaved head and a demeanor that could be menacing. Many seats, some sofas and things on the stage (which will be removed on Sunday). Arrivals, sittings, standings, walking around, anxiety. Is the stage somewhere we can go, or… what is the delineation of the space? What are the possibilities? What are the wrongs, mistakes, uninterestings, not-what-we-really-wanted/hoped-for…?
I wonder besides the quartet of Hans and etc, how many of the remainder are in on this, either part of his group or with sufficient extra information? I wonder if almost everyone knows more than me. I wonder if there is LSD in the bread we are given.
Things begin to get exciting, like a church revival. I’m an atheist.
I’m sitting with one from Toronto, one from Paris, one from… Hans joins us, says things about mmm yes, not wanting to be pulled into a group, I wonder how duplicitous he is being. I mean in the name of directing this performance somewhat. We drink some water, he can’t get up on the stage without assistance. He reveals about me my adventures with my father’s friend named Frank and a fifteen year-old boy. I say I’m a lesbian. He says he is followed on the subway, but not sure by whom. A tent is assembled.
More things I forget. Busy-ness, moments I’m intrigued with and moments I think are too obvious, clichés. Why do relationships – in the sense of correspondences or connections – between a male and female always become a pseudo-dialectic about relationships – in the sense of romance. Why is this between two boys or two girls both not presented or seen like this?
Someone turns the lights out. I start running. And then I decide it’s a nice time to go for a run so just keep going. I’ll have sore ankles tomorrow. Occasional lights blind me, I’m afraid of tripping on unseen black chairs in blackness, a tent moves, someone breathes heavily through a microphone while running, I’m slower than everyone, I just potter along at my own comfortable speed, I could keep going until I decide to stop. Hans overtakes me, sits down, overtakes me, sits down, overtakes me… mmm darkness and real and metaphysical, it’s nice and intense and kinda black metal, people running widdershins, stopping starting, breath heaving, noises, maybe to lose a bit of being human, animals coming out in the stygian murk.
We stop for lunch. I discover WUK has free and fast internet.
We sit and talk. Who is who and where and why and what. Interesting people: one a doctor doing a thesis on the performative mise en scene of the doctor’s surgery, people who perform and make performances and do other things.
Later I meet an older woman who smokes much, long hair a little wild, after a time, I ask what she does. She replies she is a philosopher. She works freelance and specialises in feminism. This is why I came back to Europe.
