BurkaBondage – no ordinary experience
by Helena Waldmann

With „BurkaBondage – no ordinary experience“ director and choreographer Helena Waldmann (Letters from Tentland) brings another provocative production with current political references onto theatre stages. It premiered 9. October 2009 at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, further shows in Germany and in Salamanca, Spain are already scheduled (see Tourdates below).

Afghanistan, March 2001: after pointlessly firing guns and missiles for 26 days, the Taliban militia destroyed the world’s two largest standing Buddha statues in the valley of Bamiyan, using 3 tons of explosives. They left behind only rubble and the enormous gaps in the rock.

After having travelled to Kabul for the first time in 2007 to show her production „return to sender“, choreographer Helena Waldmann made a discovery in the following year: the young Afghan actors she works with call themselves “Generation Rain”. A generation that even without the reign of the Taliban is disoriented and stuck in the rut of fundamentalist history.

In Japan, a highly industrialised, rich country that couldn’t be further from Afghanistan in many ways, Helena Waldmann experiences something similar: young people who have no faith in a self-chosen future, bound by the oppressive traditions of a rigidly structured and hierarchical society, call themselves “Lost Generation”, and take the destruction of the Buddhas in distant Afghanistan personally.

Once the choreographer had established channels of communication between those two groups, the blasting and disappearance of the Bamiyan Buddhas became the starting point for the conversations. Both the Japanese and the Afghan side recognise themselves in the forced disappearance of the bodies. And both arrive at corresponding questions. Are the empty niches that remained after the explosion the framework of something that has no right to exist? And what must we detonate in order to become free – the frame or what is contained within?

Helena Waldmann has found a virtually iconic image for the parallels between both generations, for the fight for visibility and unleashing: Burka and bondage. The burka is an Afghan gown that covers people up. Bondage is a Japanese technique that shackles them.

Helena Waldmann sets out on a search for the body without a face. With two female dancers who love extremes, a video animation artist and a genius on the drums.

…………………………………………………………
Helena Waldmann, born in 1962, is one of the most unusual artists in the field of theatre. She studied her craft with Heiner Müller, Gerorge Tabori and Gerhard Bohner, amongst others and graduated in Applied Theatre-Studies. Since 1991 she is working as theatre director and choreographer in Germany and abroad.
…………………………………………………………

17. November 2009: Lörrach, Burghof
21./22.November 2009:  Jena, Festival “Theater in Bewegung”
Beginning of 2010: Nürnberg, Tafelhalle im KunstKulturQuartier
May 2010: 20. Potsdamer Tanztage
26. May 2010: Münster, Pumpenhaus
28./29. May 2010: Düsseldorf, Tanzhaus NRW
June 2010:  Spanien, Festival Internacional de las Artes de Castillia y Leon

http://burkabondage.de/

pumpkinpretty (c)tygerlily

pumpkinpretty II (c)tygerlily

Pumpkin Poem

One day I found two pumpkin seeds.
I planted one and pulled the weeds.
It sprouted roots and a big, long vine.
A pumpkin grew; I called it mine.
The pumpkin was quite round and fat.
I really am quite proud of that.
But there is something I’ll admit
That has me worried just a bit.
I ate the other seed, you see.
Now will it grow inside of me?

(I’m so relieved since I have found
That pumpkins only grow in the ground!)- Children’s Poem, Author unknown to me

i think the installation turned out quite beautiful and the title my friends gave it fits the intriguing quality i felt it conveyed. here are some pictures i took and the very beautiful text olivia wrote for the exhibition catalogue (my translation below). the installation was done by olivia j., johanna f. and myself ;)

luring into I (c)tygerlily

luring into II (c)tygerlily

luring into

Seile, die einen Körper halten, gefangen halten?
Der Körper ist verschwunden,
Seile sind als Spur zurückgeblieben. Sie hängen von der Decke, erzählen in ihrer gefrorenen Form von dem Körper, den sie umschlangen – umfassen noch eine unbestimmte Körperlichkeit.

Seile als Grenze vom Innen zum Außen.

Erst durch den Betrachtenden, der sich selbst als Außen begreift, werden die Seile erneut mit einem Körper gefüllt, ein Innen wird definiert. Das Sehen, Definieren, Füllen schafft einen Körper in den Seilen.
Ein Körper wird in die Seile gelegt, der Betrachtende hat sich selbst gefesselt.

Welches Geschlecht, welches Alter besitzt der Körper? Ist er nackt oder bekleidet? Wie fühlt es sich an in den Seilen zu sein?

Beim Schmelzen löst sich langsam die Form der Seile, der Körper verschwindet. Mit dem Vergehen der ikonischen Form der Seile wächst eine indexikalische Pfütze am Boden.

******

ropes that hold a body, hold it captured?
the body has vanished,
ropes have remained as trace. they hang from the ceiling, tell in their frozen form of the body they enlaced, still clasping an undefined physicality.

ropes as boundary between inside and outside.

only through the viewer, who conceives her_himself as outside, are the ropes again filled with a body, is an inside defined. the viewing, defining, filling creates a body in the ropes.
a body is laid into the ropes, the viewer has bound her_himself.

what gender, what age does the body possess? is it nude or dressed? how does it feel to be in the ropes?

during melting the form of the ropes loosens, the body vanishes. with the disappearance of the iconic form of the ropes grows an indexical puddle on the floor.

(olivia j.)

how easily you pick me up
my heart
on the point of a needle
not like the butterfly
(one being’s death for another’s curiosity)
but still beating
its wings
and all the more vivid for your inspection

how easily we thread
these salty beads on a twine
of desires called forth and answered

you tug at my heartstrings

there is a warm ocean within me
and it’s breaking through the surface
of my skin

05/06/2009 for t.

"cherry season I" (c)tygerlily

"cherry season II" (c)tygerlily

Cherry-Time

Cherries of the night are riper
Than the cherries pluckt at noon
Gather to your fairy piper
When he pipes his magic tune:
Merry, merry,
Take a cherry;
Mine are sounder,
Mine are rounder,
Mine are sweeter
For the eater
Under the moon.
And you’ll be fairies soon.

In the cherry pluckt at night,
With the dew of summer swelling,
There’s a juice of pure delight,
Cool, dark, sweet, divinely smelling.
Merry, merry,
Take a cherry;
Mine are sounder,
Mine are rounder,
Mine are sweeter
For the eater
In the moonlight.
And you’ll be fairies quite.

When I sound the fairy call,
Gather here in silent meeting,
Chin to knee on the orchard wall,
Cooled with dew and cherries eating.
Merry, merry,
Take a cherry;
Mine are sounder,
Mine are rounder,
Mine are sweeter.
For the eater
When the dews fall.
And you’ll be fairies all.

- Robert Graves

so i didn’t get back from boundcon munich empty-handed, and as soon as my newly bought ropes from bindme were out of the bag it was hard to keep fizzgig* away from them… and then of course i couldn’t wait to try them out as fortunately they are not just aestetically pleasing but also feel quite lovely indeed

and i know it’s saturday, but i would be surprised to have anybody complain about me tagging this “hnt” *wink* as i’d say the half-nakedness is the more important part – and phytha i’m sorry there aren’t any gloves in this one, but i’ll try to make up for that *promise*

"new rrrope" (c)tygerlily

"tear in the mirror" (c)tygerlily

i wasn’t that much interested in the shopping part anyway, but mostly looking forward to the bondage performances and judging from the photos on the website i was sure that i’d get to see some excellent ropework, but wasn’t sure about how much feeling the shows would convey – as opposed to just being technical show-offs on a “sexy in the mainstream definition of the word” model.  so i was happily surprised to watch performances where both the rigger and the “tie-ee” seemed to be really into it and in touch with each other.

one was an intriguing stage performance by dragonrope & she-bari (of which i didn’t get any good pictures but you can find some here at dragonrope’s blog ) and i was lucky to see them again later, doing a demonstration at an exhibitor’s booth – i  bravely joined the cluster of guys with cameras that had, typically for such occasions, already formed and got out my own camera *wink* so there you go… there seemed to be much quiet connection between them, which, regarding the circumstances/setting i found even more admirable. unsurprisingly, as soon as they got to the untying most viewers rushed off but for me the untying is as much a part of a bondage as all the rest, so i stayed until i felt that it might be a bit too weird to keep on watching and taking pictures

another beautiful stage show i got to see was by rigger and bondage photographer maliz and honey (obviously one of her stage/rope partners) who did a wonderfully spirited rope tango/suspension performance together. i guess i have a thing for women in shirts and suspenders, and their ropework and interaction were lovely and hot to observe, so – lucky me!