Performance Run! — July 2017

Painted with mud from performance in the underground

Suzon and I, as Igneous, perform a piece in the group show Overflow in the Underground, in the underground storm-water tunnels of Munich.

We lead the audience into the tunnel until we reach the darkness. We turn off lights and go through the groundings (a set of instructions that help people bring their focus on their body, the sound around them and awareness of the moment). I lead them on a slow walk further into the tunnel. It gets colder and darker. I leave the group with Suzon and walk briskly a few hundred metres up the tunnel until it takes a turn to the left. The audience watch my lights (white at the front, red at the back) disappear. Suzon hoots for me and I cooee back. The sound reverbs excellently. I then run back to the group. I’m huffing and puffing when I arrive, and let the group listen to me recover. We then walk back to the lit space.

We do this participatory performance twice, as the entire program is repeated. Our performance ends the program, and since we are a little late in the schedule I make the groundings and the slow group walk shorter.

People say that when my light disappears into the darkness is a strong moment. Also, that walking into the dark tunnel brings up feelings of apprehension for them, and memories of citizens escaping the bombs in WWll by sheltering in the tunnels. One of the group show artists says that when I run back, he has the sense that something larger, maybe dangerous, is coming upon the group from within the tunnel.

Review in Munich paper Süddeutsche Zeitung here