The tableau vivant is the final block of my long, intuitive field research: a performative condensation, the conclusion of my work with the protagonists and, at the same time, the dramaturgical framework of the film emerging from it. A happening performed on three evenings before a small audience.
In a spatially expansive installation with duvets and pillows – symbols of layers and fragments of memory – the protagonists brought in their embodied memories, gestures and voices.
They revisited personal experiences and transformed them into social sculptures: fragile monuments that remain unresolved, making an ongoing struggle visible. The space of trust that had developed during the preceding research was brought into a public sphere here.
A ‘processing in the process of processing in the actions of reconciliation’ – because reconciliation is, per se, a process that may never be complete. Through sensory bodywork and perception, we worked towards listening to and into the body in order to perceive these moments, accept them and transform them: moving from a state of paralysis back into a flow. Finding language and expression for what, until then, had no language.
Fragility and vulnerability shaped the space of our work and, at the same time, made it possible in the first place. Vulnerability as the capacity to open oneself and to allow oneself to be vulnerable. In this process, a transformation towards visibility takes place, and through it, an encounter with the world. Uncertainty and speechlessness are given a sustaining ground. The possibility emerges to open oneself, to allow things to happen, to try out, deepen and embrace new and different actions.
The performances were filmed. An essay film and a video installation are being developed from this material.
