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Event: Performance
Where: Berlin
Text and Pictures: Julián Roncal
Video: Andrea Morote
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Ungemütlich, translated into English means uncomfortable. The exact definition at the dictionary is causing or feeling unease or awkwardness.
A series of performances made by different artist could be enjoyed the past 22 of June at Shift in Berlin. All of them under four premises: The first one is directly related to its title, ungemütlich/uncomfortable. The second premise is about some general ideas about the body, empathy and contemporality. The last two could be fused into two related topics. One is the place, a basement that reminds an old fabric where a nonexistent humidity could be breathed, combined with the work of each artist, being between merged from one performance to another, without losing the thread of the event…the discomfort.
The back-scene-music was performed by Emilio Gordoa and Mathieu Sylvestre, decorating the entry of the artist Moran Sanderovich playing one of her most stunning performance: Insight Skin. We could contemplate the artist trapped in a deformed body, fighting to get rid of it leaving apart each prejudice created before in order to rebirth and feel comfortable oneself once again. A great played metaphor about the different psychological status suffered by the population those days directly tied with stereotypes far away from the personal comfort.
After Sanderovich and almost without letting the mouth of the assistants to be closed, Frédéric Krauke started his performance in collaboration with the versatile Mathieu Sylvestre.
A power struggle between them, where the character of Frédéric was involved into the most uncomfortable situation of the whole event. He was locked in a big bag of plastic by Mathieu, taking his revenge for being wrapped with aluminum foil some minutes before by Frédéric, without oxygen. To surprise of everyone, a member of the public came in time close to Frédéric ready to make a little hole at his mouth, letting him to take some breath after some seconds of uncertainty. Without a doubt, a clear example that in the those-days performances, the public’s behavior is more than noted and acclaimed: The interaction between the artists and the assistants is elementary and needed.
[vimeo 70300309 w=500 h=227]