Performance SWEEP - Letters to Hannah Arendt and Tristan  


    performance Sweep

    The most primitive experiences connected with shame are related to sight and being seen: inappropriately, by the wrong people, in the wrong condition, at the wrong moment. The reaction is to cover oneself or to hide. Guilt, by contrast, is rooted in hearing - the sound of oneself or the voice of judgement.   It is difficult for us to speak about the complex notions of guilt and shame, because they are tied up with matters we so desperately want to conceal - sweep away - from our minds and our sight.
Yet, despite our efforts, feelings of guilt and shame show themselves in the ways we behave.
 

    In a 60 minutes performance, three performers respond to silences, whispers, accords, discords and two fictive letters. Their movements are not extensively rehearsed, but reveal themselves for the most part spontaneously. To what extent is this performance a creative process, a construction of (cultural) conditioning or an expression of failure? During the performance the public will be actively addressed to take on a different perspective. After each intervention, the performers redetermine their positions and exercises in ‘becoming oneself’. The extensive bodily movements will slowly exhaust the players, amounting to more intensified expressions.
  With performance SWEEP visual artist and philosopher Tine Wilde offers us an exiting and at times humorous insight into the notions of guilt and shame which for a large part shape our decisions. She lets us experience in what ways these complex feelings lead up to distorted judgments, how we subsequently get entangled until we discover alternative different points of view and choose a new route.
For this performance Tine Wilde has teamed up with artistic director Mime, Amsterdam University of the Arts Loes van der Pligt, and performers Erwin Dörr, Gale Rama and Dennis Tiecken.
 

  premiere
22 October 2015
  SWEEP - Letters to Hannah Arendt and Tristan. Performance in Project space H401 (Castrum Peregrini), Herengracht 401, Amsterdam.