We had the premiere performance on Friday and a second one on Sunday. They seem to mark the end of a long Summer and they took place in very warm and humid conditions, so much so that not only were we drenched in sweat by the end but so too the public were somewhat sticky. There were no major technical mishaps which was a relief given the complexity the show has reached with a lot of live signalling between all of us. There was however an accident near the end of the show on Sunday where a slip which was meant to be planned turned into an all too real one. The water that we spray around the space is quite beautiful but we will have to find another way to disrupt the harmony as this cannot happen again. I am neither keen on masochistic nor sadistic performances and this was certainly something outside the frame we had intended. It is a pity as the water looked very good. There is a picture of us spraying it around on the first review we received, that can be seen here:
The talk turned out to be interesting and the questions make a clear transition from the personal idea of freewill to how this is relevant on a communal level. I was hoping this side of the work would come out and it seems that these subtexts to Indifference can be read. Maybe what I was happiest with is how we managed to balance the piece so that it moved as much towards as against freewill. I think compared to earlier work in progress performances we achieved this sense of ambiguity and movement between the various positions.
It was, as ever, a pleasure to be in Mannheim at Wunder der Prarie, the team were very welcoming and the art and ideas remained the focus of the festival rather than it being about the institutions or personalities. I would have liked to have seen more of the other work and been able to participate in the discussion around it all more fully but was already happy to see how the festival amounted to far more than the presentation of isolated performances and art works. It certainly felt like an excellent context to show the piece in as there was already something in the air.
A thank you to Jaspreet and Carlos our assistants, to Gabriele, Wolfgang, Tilo, Katia, Uli, Julia and the rest of the festival team, and to Oli drafted in to deal with the technical side of the work.
Pictures to follow!
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