short description day 1

Berlinrapport A 

Some time now, and already forgetting what we did in fact – high time to give an overall description at least...

The theme Boules de Berlin / Boul de Bruxelles (also meaning mess, as in mess of stuff, things, boul & bagarre) was a bit of a red thread to begin with, at Grüntaler9, where we met up for the first time – since the crew was not made up of only Buktapaktop members it was an interesting project in itself, converging as it were at the first venue, in the kitchen, making and baking boulettes... falafel actually... no meat involved whatsoever, so already a variation of the classic boulette...

We had a situational meeting at G9 when finally all participants showed up, co-coordinating our strategy and playlist as it were, deciding and delegating, getting right into it...

So, the performance commenced in the kitchen, preparing, poisciches in a wonderful double-basin table, made for fifty-fifty it seems, and a great space-saver even today’s high-tech designers couldn’t come up with... everything seemed on track the evening before so we all went out for Chinese, seated around a dervish table eating the house’s specialty – dumplings (the closest we could get to boulette)...

The following morning balls were rolled in all seriousness, (both in the G9-space as well as at home) for we expected quite some hungry visitors- rolling and cooking, it all looked a bit chaotic but worked out quite well... the kitchen aspect took up quite a section of the preparations, since actual arrangement in the space of Grüntaler9 was not necessary- we had decided to adhere to the tradition of intervening where others had left off: so point of departure was the situation at hand:

Removing sections of the text on the ‘blackboard’ standing against the rear wall, the reading the resulting poetry, before reclining the blackboard on to trestles to make a large central table around which we arranged the available chairs... Deuxelles appeared wearing what seemed to be an abstract caftan, unbuttoned it to reveal the two L’s of her name, re-buttoned them together to form one large tablecloth which was then draped on the table as a basis for the developing meal-induced painting to come...

Before beginning the service Julien C. proposed an offering, using a specially crafted ceramic owl for the occasion, filling it with spirits while accompanying the ritual with cranial percussion... to then hand the owl around to the guests to sip communally from this vessel... after which it was placed centrally on the table.

Service could begin and was paired with a presentation by Lise D. concerning the various philosophical and physical aspects of wild plants and our own sojourn on this planet...

In the meantime Carina G. rolled herself into a ‘boule’ on the floor and remained there motionless for quite some time, as long as, in fact people didn’t take notice... once the public had discovered that there was ‘something’ going on there it was over so to speak... and Michael L. proceeded to draw and write onto the wall the basic theme of the operation:

Does the Boulette have a Soul?

Good question, one that stood out and remained on the wall, like the writing on the wall that the representative of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babel, - Balthazar saw but could not read before the city was taken by the Persians... and speaking of the signs on the wall, Viviane K. proceeded to use the shadows of the participants, dancing in the candlelight, to add descriptive drawings to the many-layered graffito-wall, result of umpteen performances before us and which will still absorb umpteen after we have been long gone... it became a rather strange mix of recognizable elements of activities taking place, and chance-drawing, marks left behind after some... well, mishap perhaps...

While dinner got well under way we participated in a proposal by Irene P. to ‘reenact’ scenes from non/existing performers, in which it was entirely unclear how much of the narrative proposed was actually based on fact and how many of the protagonists were actually real... but one must say it all was plausible enough to consider questioning the thin line between empirical research and an imagined reality... where one might consider creativity to have a seminal part...

Julien proceeded to execute the continuation of the yellow wall while incorporating his own image of the owl he had made for the spirited ritual at the table, fronting for the (-artist evoked by Irene and later taking part in a duo-tug-o-war with nylon head-connection... 

Another of these re/enactments was the Cypriot artist  who had made various charred/coal works, of which the performance in the no-man’s land in the DMZ between greek and turkish parts of Cyprus was the most memorable... here in this case he proceeded to use the typically germen ‘Eierbriketts’ left on the windowsill to force a streetdrawing on the sidewalk to infringe on the street, across the street to the other side, effectively drawing a line, border between two parts of a unified (re) Berlin...

Dialogist-Kantor split the difference whit DK1 disbanding a headband made of ripped lengths of cloth in from of a hairdresser (or barber) just further along, while DK2 prepared the ‘niveau d’art’ on the inside... which would measure the height of our culture during the rest of the evening... Viviane continued to draw on the wall,  accomanyed by vocal chant ritual humm and right up there to primal scream type of music - there was another reenactment (details on that project in another article) was performed by Lise D at the and of the table, while also the yellow drawing-painting was going on, modifying the existing ‘factura’ on the walls, which then became subject of investigation: or rather exchange... Heini O proposed to gather some wall  surface fragments by using sticky tape, which he got all messed up, in fact so messed up that he himself became part of the mess and ended up falling out into the street in a panic attack.

To end the evening Irene P. did a try-out run-through of a birth, hoping I guess that here real birthing would also be as easy and quick... since this one was really a case of, one two three push/pull, voilà! Presto. Ah if all life would be as simple... we continued well into the night in a combination of philosophical banter, cleaning up while simultaneously making a mess, and dancing a bit in the glare of the midnight sunrise, but all in all it was quite civilized...

Next day saw us getting back into gear at the Volksbühne.

(next report)