STILL LIFE (When the music is no good… 2.0)

STILL (LIFE) expands the material research initiated in Prague during the work When the Music Is No Good I Can No Dance. The fragile paper flowers produced during the residency are reactivated and transformed into performative elements.

Four performers and the artist gather around a small pedestal and sing Loudly Sing Cuckoo, a medieval song preserved in the 15th-century manuscript MS Laud 610, derived from the early Irish bardic poem Cétemain, cáin cucht, a lyrical celebration of the arrival of summer and the awakening of nature. Each performer wears a collar composed of the paper flowers, transforming the wreaths into fragile vocal ornaments. As the singers perform, breath, voice and movement activate the material, bringing the delicate forms into a temporary state between sculpture and living gesture. On the wall behind the performers appears a pencil drawing of two rabid dogs. Nearby, a wooden stool with a fluorescent orange seat supports a plaster hand from which all fingers have been removed except the central one, forming a defiant gesture. Fluorescent circular marks on the performers' shirts echo the same chromatic accent.