courtyard dances (2019)
“courtyard dances” is a sound and video installation with a durational performance that was created for and shown at Zwitschermachine Gallery in Berlin. the installation comprised of three 20-minute projected films on loop, with a stereo multi-channelled soundtrack across two rooms.
the films, edited by myself and Coila-Leah Enderstein, came from archival footage of improvisation that we had done in the courtyards of various apartments where we have lived. the three films show work from 2016 (observatory, cape town), 2017 (muizenberg, cape town) and 2019 (wedding, berlin). the soundtrack, created by Coila, was comprised entirely of sounds from the footage.
in this way, we created a space holding the archival remains of our improvisation, our homes, our friendship and memories. we then occupied this archive in real time with our bodies, responding to the installation and the audience with a three-hour durational improvisation that moved in and out of various states of performativity.
coila and i have shared an artistic practice for many years. it is rooted in listening, responding and fine-tuning a type of presence (or a practice of being available to what is present).
in the video documentation (below) you can see the ways in which the work speaks to a spectrum of eroticism and intimacy that is present in our play, friendship and even the performer-audience relationship that we set up, keeping the line between performance and non-performance very fluid.
the pleasure that is available in mutual witnessing and listening/responding to each other, to the installation, to our past selves and to the audience becomes a kind of ever-unfolding relational act that is evocative of not only our ongoing artistic practice, but also of our more personal-political investigation into what friendship itself can be and do.
