“in the wild / you have no power over anyone else / / now that we’re civilized / we create our own wild / / maybe when we have all this power / the only choice we have / is to destroy ourselves / /and so we do”.
American performance artist Janet Kuypers, “Everything Was Alive and Dying” (1995)
alive and dying. Site-specific performance with experimental cinema, live interactive sound, movement and puppetry. Out the Box Festival. 23 March 2010. 19:00 – 21:00h. Iqonga Programme. Rosedale Quad, UCT Hiddingh Campus.
The inhabitants of an inner city apartment block encounter a humanoid sponge puppet, fallen deity of a sublime and chilling urban ecology. It becomes both perpetrator and victim of their behaviour addiction rituals, survival and self-sabotage.
Soundscape and architecture fuse as the sound of the first nine steps on the fire escape become the scale from which the soundtrack is composed. Rigged with a live microphone, it becomes an instrument registering even the slightest impact.
Special thanks to UNIMA for technical assistance and the use of their workshop facilities.
Director/Visual artist: Kai Lossgott
Sound design: Brendon Bussy
Puppeteer: Penny Youngleson
Performers: John Cartwright
Dominika Jablonska, Dawn Garisch
Video: Marieke Helmus, Yoka van Zuijlen, Femke Monteny
Puppet/editing: Kai Lossgott