Requiem for a Belief

The three performers interact and dialogue with the installation by Maryam Mohammadi and Keyvan Paydar, dealing with the number 13 and cultural practices stemming from both religion and popular culture.

Vera Hagemann reads, chews and spits 13-lettered words. They are consumed, disintegrated and transformed in a performative way. In the end, we all have to digest and process both food and information that circulate in our bodies. Language and thoughts out of place and time need to be metabolized.

Anna Jurkiewicz works the soil in a futile attempt to prepare the ground for burial. Her singing and earthy breathing accompanies the act of burying the used-up words with both respect and relief. Beliefs and words that are first subject to dismantling by chewing and spitting then become respected remnants of the past. This transformation is paired with the concept of death and decay of living beings as returning to the soil, worded in an old Polish funeral song. The latter is used here to bid farewell to beliefs the artists would like to let go of, while at the same time belonging to the reservoir of used-up ideas.

Reza Kellner performs live sound. Pre-recorded vocals, voice and various sound effects are processed and transformed into new sonic material, manipulated and mixed live on stage. The sound frames and brings together the three processes.