Clara Thesis Outline & Proposal"

Bodies of Water

Using ceramic instruments, how can I create a performance expressing a sense of awe and gratitude towards more-than-human entities?

“Bodies of Water” is a spiritualist performance film which draws attention to the extraction of clay and the regeneration of the landscape by natural forces.

(2-5) Performers congregate around, and interact with, an altar from ceramic instruments in an extraction lake; a lake which is a remnant of an exploited clay pit.

It aims to express and evoce a calm sense of awe and gratitude towards more-than-human entities that enable the landscape to recover after it has been violated by humans.

Body of water

fill the abyss

Fill the void

of what’s left behind.

Motherloads exhausted

but mothers returning.

The following collection of short stories reacts to the making of the film as they document memories and ideas in relation to the themes clay, water, music and the act of congregating; Seeking for moments in which mind and body are able to rest in the present moment, fighting the identification with destructive, instead experiencing awe and gratitude.

THESIS DRAFT

Bodies of Water

Our bodies of water

jump into

a body of water

turns into

bodies of water

jump into

a body of water.

Red Brick House

She grew up in a suburbia shaped from red brick houses hosting 2 perfectly normed, nuclear family constellations at a time. She moved into a red brick house hosting 250 humans challenging these norms. She moved into a red brick house with two other artists, tedious mice, pigeons that would release themselves in her room when the door would be left open and moths nibbling on her French berets.

She despises the color red more than anyone she ever met.

Lehels House

A picturesque drive on a warm, late June day amongst the softly green, hilly landscape of the Hungarian countryside. On the back seat Azul, one of the three dogs in the silver Toyota is napping, his head rested on one of the three humans labs. He is napping too. Amber is driving. I am on the passenger seat. The atmosphere of this place, combined with our sisterly dynamic and flowy skirts remind me of Grimms fairytale Snow-White and Rose-Red. The story of two sisters living with their mother, spending their days pruning red and white roses.

A turn onto a sandy driveway brings us to a beautiful, white, cob house. The grass is high and the building overgrown by vine branches. The garden is a jungle from almond trees, nettles and tomato plants. Lehel, the old man who build the house himself with only 2 helpers, had been off the radar for a while now. People at the local market have been asking Amber about him, as he has not been selling his glasses of wheatgrass pulp, Manarax he calls it, over there for weeks by now. She doesn't know where he has been.

What she does know, is the code to his number lock and they let themselves in. At first sight the house seamed a little small, but when entering one is greeted with an open loft, all white and soft edged walls. Around 9pm they dip their naked bodies into the endless, turquoise lake Balaton, just a few minutes drive away. The rest of the night they spend inside the house from clay and straw, high, dancing on the various levels and on top of the huge clay oven in the center of it, singing, playing the guitar, wondering where the creator of this place could possibly be.

The next day they pack up and sneakily leave the house behind, lock locked again as if they had never been here.

Bibliography

Kimmerer, Robin. Braiding Sweetgrass. Milkweed Editions, 2015.

In the intersection between science and indigenous knowledge, Kimmerer shares personal experiences and revelations, teaching a new appreciation towards nature's gifts. Especially her ideas of “honorable harvesting methods” were very intriguing to me.

Coelho, Paulo. Hippie. Hamish Hamilton, 2018.

Generally one of my favorite authors, Coelho’s book Hippies is his most autobiographical one so far. It tells about him and his lover Karla’s journey to Nepal in a bus from Dam Square, Amsterdam. A book that speaks of journeys, young love and the values and lifestyle related to the term hippie.

I also see the writing style of this book as something I can draw inspiration from for my thesis.

Tolle, Eckhart. The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. Namaste Publishing, 1997.

Stepping away from a mind centered definition of self, Tolle’ teaching of mindfulness focus on, well, being present in the now, while consciously choosing when to think in future and past terms. He addresses the mind and it’s “tricks”, with which it distracts us from being present.

Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha S. Fischer Verlag, 1922.

Hesse describes the spiritual journey of the young Siddhartha. Initially seeing strength in the ability to fast and live an ascetic life, the young man embarks on a journey that confronts him with many challenges, makes him dive into the world of materialism, which he sees as a game and turns away from.

Finally he finds wisdom and calm in a river. Here he becomes a ferryman, known for his enlightened being.

Ende, Michael. Momo. Thienemann Verlag, 1973.

A book that my father read to me when I was a child and that my dance school reenacted on stage. Only now I fully understand the value of it. Momo is an orphan child living in an abandoned theater. Her character strikes with strong listening skills and her humble nature.

“Gray men” enter the small town that she lives in and start stealing people's time, it becomes a new currency that has to be saved and put in a savings account.

Visualizing a human's time in so-called hour-lilies, the book gives a poetically rich analysis of how humans do not value time, which is not spent “productively”.

Artistic References

Ragnar Kjartansson - Death is Elsewhere

A film installation in which two sets of twins move around screens set up in a circle, singing a song called Death is Elsewhere for 77 minutes at summer solstice.

"I keep thinking of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and these magical nights of love. We're having a lovely time in nature; the horror of the world seems elsewhere. But midsummer is also a reminder of death, or darkness. That's the psyche of the Arctic regions. It's getting brighter and brighter, but the light is already starting to fade into blessed darkness."-Ragnar Kjartansson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgdqSGBjTRk

Mel Arsenault - Altars

The Canadian artist Mel Arsenault is also playing on the intersection of science and spirituality, often creating altars and embracing her collaboration with the elements, the pigments in her work, interacting with the fire to become something out of her control.

https://melarsenault.com/Le-Jardin-des-AstrocytesII