EDGE (2000/2001)

revisiting this piece from 2000-2001 is a very good reminder. 

I had just turned 29, finally gotten to EDDC which had been a bridge too far back in 1992. the guest study was made financially possible because of a temporary government assistance program for artists living in the Netherlands. that kind of support and recognition meant the world for me, helped in the struggles with family who did what they could to be supportive but were still very much struggling to accept it all. 

being on edge, moving on edge, out of the safe but rather immobile comfort zone, into the present and danger, was very tantalizing for someone with the generational trauma of parents and grandparents (Hungarian refugees during and after both world wars) but it was also a Hic Rhodos Hic Salta opportunity, in the here and now, as imperfect, overcomplex and as under-rehearsed as it was.

the struggle I had with personal expression as very real, the blockage in my rib-cage ( "don't speak, don't feel yourself in the presence of others" ) was still very, very much active.

Meg Chang was right in her observation of me when she watched a rehearsal of In Circles back in New York in 1997, even the wide open loft space was still too small for my immense energy and drive, uncontainable. I recognize this drive in everything, and it could also wear out, destroy in the longer term, cut down. ( Ursula K. LeGuin, about "the creator spirit", in The Dispossessed)

here, the piece was epic, the ambitions could have filled an entire evening's performance, but had to be fit into a student performance evening at an institution, with very helpful and supportive colleagues who nonetheless were much younger than me and partly at different stages in their own art production. remember marvelling at how accomplished they all were and how relatively late to the party I felt myself to be. the musical environment, from personal artistic favorites, creating an open-form composition that I would move through, tested the very limited technical possibilities and working with and around it.

I can feel sympathy and solidarity for my younger self, a great deal. the drive has been given space to realize itself ever better, what I had been striving for for decades in part has finally been accomplished. a bit more relaxation, and finding some much needed further realization by being able to finally relax a bit, allow for time to happen, finding trust in the self, which has become more able to exist and express itself and communicate with others more effectively.

and I still keep going towards the edge of what is alive in the moment, as much as I can, as far as possible, but much more successfully and with more ecology in my practice to back up the work. in that sense I am finally catching up with some of my colleagues from back then. quoting an artist-friend, live and learn.

(no, I am not naked, I am wearing a silver-pailleted tanga that I bought in a sex-shop nearby)

as for the result in this VHS-copy of the VHS recording, the moments of helplessness, shortcomings, are just as much a part, the inability as much as the ability and the powerhouse that got much needed affirmation in the right kind of environment, comparable to what I understood Elaine Summers felt when she met and worked with the people who, together with her, later would be referred to as Judson Dance Theater.

i keep wondering these days if I should re-stage this work again, but so much has changed internally. this change would create a distance to the raw need at the time. the shape would be more as I wanted back then. how would I "re-visit" and restage the internal drive from back then? 

PS: this was part B that was not realized during the evening, it took a few years and it was recorded in 2005. The original intention had been to close the piecde with this solo, with the large projection of my handpalm and a rose towards the end. Alas, when the people clapped prematurely I stopped the performance instead of continuing.