Kollaps/ Collapse/ Urban poetry (2012)

video-performance, duration 6: 44 min

This video performance was filmed in Hermes Areal at Halle an der Saale. I performed an action with the Butoh (Japanese contemporary dance) visualization of cigarette’s ash falling in the ground: the embodiment of an internal collapse. This location was chosen in base of its business of multiple directions of the traffic flow occurring simultaneously: I located myself in ”an urban island”.
I can imagine the roads being like rivers and the crossing of the cars as if they were the waves.
I have been working on the contrast between the figure that is monochromatic and quite still and the surrounding that is mixed with many colors and in continuous movement.
Why collapse ? This action condenses my feelings about the actual situation in Greece as well as in Europe.The economical crisis signs a very particular historical period that has to do with an inner need of a change. The crisis is not only economical, but more existential. Many questions arise such as how are we really treating the environment, are money worth so as to loose human lives, what is really happiness in an occidental society, how people can find an other meaning of their social being including the conviviality with the nature ?
A collapse is always connected with an upcoming birth which we can influence with our choices?