Video registration of Strangers, a lecture performance presented in October, 2022 at Litteraturhuset, Fredrikstad as one of the practical components of the research project The Many and the Form. In it, an array of materials were brought together from various phases of the artistic research: investigations in different contexts into how lived experiences can be articulated in and through live performance. During the performance some premises and processes of these explorations were shared, and the audience was invited to observe the narratives that emerged: about knowledges, situations and dangers. About strangers and intimacy, voids, desires, structures, and dramaturgies.
Strangers is a story of many people. It’s a speculation on theatre as an unpredictable and brave space, that can also become a home.
The performance was developed in collaboration with Kobbe Koopman and Rufino Henriquez, and included materials by participants of the research workshops and of the Inventory of Powerlessness project. Created with the support of the Norwegian Artistic Research Fellowship Program, Norwegian Theatre Academy.
Video documentation of the performance Parallel Life (2021), an interactive performance that is played for and by individual spectators on the streets of the city, using their mobile phones. The performance is constructed especially for each audience member based on their input. Through a conversation with what might be a friendly stranger or a bot, a profile is compiled for every participant. These profiles are then swapped, and each spectator follows the rest of the performance embodying someone else. Someone who might be at just arm's length away and possible to bump into at any moment.
“Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be someone else? To wake up in their skin, to see the world through their eyes? What it would be like to have lived their childhood, to have experienced sorrows and joys as they have, to dream as they do?
Imagine being another person and accidentally running into yourself on the street.”
Parallel Life had 40 public performances during 2021-22 in Leiden, different locations in Amsterdam, and in Fredrikstad, Norway.
concept and direction: Edit Kaldor
made in collaboration with CyberRäuber (Berlin), Jurrien van Rheenen, Marion Tränkle, Rosa van Kollem, Kobbe Koopman, Babylon Collective, Ivo Bol, Michel Bezem, Lise Brenner and with thanks to Machina Ex.
created with the support of the Norwegian Artistic Research Fellowship Program, Norwegian Theatre Academy, Prince Bernhard Culture Fund, Kickstart Culture Fund, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, and the City of Amsterdam
The video documentation was made in collaboration with Helle Lishoj, Lise Brenner, Rufino Henriquez and Milan Theys
Edited video documentation of experiments and performative work made by participants in the workshops at Pleintheatre, that were part of the research The Many and the Form. Throughout 2019 I held a series of open-access workshops at a small community theatre in Amsterdam, as part of the research project. These workshops included participants both with and without previous artistic experience. During the sessions they were guided to explore and experiment with creating performative situations. The workshop series was concluded with public presentations of the works they have created during the workshops. The presentations took place in the context of the Vrije Vloer Festival at Plein Theatre in November 2019. The video documentation shows fragments from smaller experiments during the workshops, as well as from the final presentations during the festival.
The performative materials in the video were created by Xi Zeng, Djilani Sprang-Purperhart, Ehsan Fardjadniya, Heva Osman, Igor Bogaert, Joseph Anderson, Kobbe Koopman, Maya Moore, Rufino Henriquez, Tarek Muazen, Tirza Gevers and Vincent Versteeg. The rights belong to the respective makers, who granted me the rights to share their work as part of the documentation of the workshops. The video recordings were made by Frank Theys, Pablo Alanes, Arno Vrijman and the editing by Helle Lishoj.