“The book, here and now, with its author and reader, either uttered or silent, is a performance. Bookperformance is a naked, fixed and textual body. If movement is impossible for a fixed body, to turn the impossible into the possible, it is necessary to attempt the weird and the absurd. In order to successfully attempt the weird and the absurd, you must possess not only a considerable intelligence but also an extraordinary courage for realizing and accepting the significant power of the weird and the absurd. To be able to do all these it is necessary to be a good reader”. Bookperformance Manifesto, principle 1/7
Event: Body & Sound of I & Eye: Bookperformance
Context: Mestizo Arts Festival & Workshops
Venue: Rataplan, Antwerpen
Date: 14th October 2021
Duration: 30 minutes
Languages: Turkish, Dutch, English
Text: “Rise Through Silence” (2017) by Çiğdem y Mirol
Text Tranparency into Dutch: Çiğdem y Mirol & Geoffrey Herfts Mys, singer
Text Transparency into English: Çiğdem y Mirol & Peter J. Russels, poet
Curated by: Çiğdem y Mirol
Created by: Çiğdem y Mirol (writer. reader, painter), Chris Harrison (dancer)
Projected movie: Daydream Film (showing Çiğdem y Mirol at her studio’s rooftop) shot by the film maker Eléonore Coyette.
Video by: Event organisation
Photographs by: Victoriano Moreno
Outcome: 2.10m X 4.50m co-created artwork on paper was sold, total revenue sent on planting trees.
Body & Sound of I & Eye(U): Bookperformance events showcase how a book (as an object) becomes a book in its physicality. Readers / Audience are welcome to join the performance, which is a very nature of Bookperformance that is based on co-creation. Each Bookperformance event is unique in its nature, thus most of the happening is unexpected both for Çiğdem y Mirol and the others.
The challange in this specific
Bookperformance was that it is was ony 30 minutes and due to covid restrictions the audience in masks didn’t feel at ease to attempt to join, apart from a dancer. The event showcases how a notebook/manuscipt is written and becomes a book. From the daydreams which are captures as a movie and projected on the screen, to co-creation in the body and sound of the languages and the author as well as reader on the page stage. Improvised movements.
Please visit instagram for detailed audio-visual documentation:
@bookperformance
Read about it:
TEASER
© Eléonore Coyette, 2021
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TRAILER II