‘Your father and I have decided that if you don’t do as we say, we’ll commit suicide.’ “The phrase stabbed me in the back. For the first time in my 18 years it hit me with sharp clarity. I turned around and saw my place in the midst of my community, uninhabited by me. Because I was different, therefore unworthy. A place to leave for good. I looked my mother straight in the eye. But it’s my place, my right of birth. I’m not going to be turned into a stranger. I won’t do as you say. I will follow my own path, and while doing that, you cannot cast me out, because I will be different, but not without you.” Nazmiye Oral developed her concept for Niet Meer Zonder Jou (No Longer Without You) based on her own experience. Performed live on location, it confronts us with a fraction of someone’s life, based on the delicate moment when they make their first step towards a reconciliation. The actors recount how they, with the ones dearest to them, went their own way, at the same time refusing to estrange themselves from their communities. In tandem with and inextricably connected to the live encounter is a series of portrait photographs, which are displayed in the public space.
dates
Wed June 3 2015 8:30 PM
Wed June 10 2015 8:30 PM
Wed June 17 2015 8:30 PM
information
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Dutch
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Duration of performance unknown (geen pauze)
Nazmiye Oral about her project Niet Meer Zonder Jou
“Growing up in an Islamic culture of 'we' meant that the 'I' which was forming in me clashed with the existing structures. There was no room for me to live according to the autonomous 'I', with its own rules, and stay within my culture at the same time. It seemed these two structures could only exist separately from each other. Choosing one meant giving up the other. Niet Meer Zonder Jou (No Longer Without You) originates from the wish to break down these barriers, to be able to be 'me' without having to give up my place in my community, to create a fluid, free space in which there's only one guiding principle: love. This is only possible if both camps fully enter into the experiment of Niet Meer Zonder Jou and surrender themselves to a radical intimacy, even inflict intimacy on themselves.
Intimacy makes me behave like an amoeba, formless and awkward. I find it difficult to deal with, and that's exactly why I want to inflict it on myself. Not experiencing intimacy makes me furious and violent. I cannot stand it if it's absent in my daily routine, in the train, on the tram, walking down the streets, when I visit my mother, when it's absent in myself and in my relation with myself. I had to engage in this experiment, this confrontation with my Mother, no doubt about that. Our parents are our most important teachers, because they are in a position to keep us imprisoned. Our most restrictive behavioural structures derive from our relationships with them; these structures are ingrained the deepest, at the same time lying closest to the surface and causing us to lose contact with the here and now in our daily lives. It's a prison built from what once was love.”
What does it mean when you decide for yourself: 'I know where I can find the key, I'm stepping out of this prison, I'm going to be myself, but 'No Longer Without You', meaning that you share everything - everything that I am and everything that you are?' This is what Nazmiye Oral tried to do when she persuaded her mother to live with her in a specially created space in which everything can be addressed, including the distance, the rejection, the disputes, the violence, the love.
Not only have actors and musicians entered the experiment of Niet Meer Zonder Jou, but members from the 'we' camp also participate: they put themselves in a vulnerable position in front of the camera, reaching out to family members who they could not share this intimacy with before. These photographs will be exhibited on billboards around the city, along the various routes leading to the performance location.
The community of people who have been photographed will frequently visit the space of mother and daughter to participate in workshops leading up to the performance, which they will influence through the structures and dynamics they bring to it.
On the night, the audience will also bring their own structures of 'I' and 'we' to the performance, acting as a living, breathing part of the performance, having an impact on the space, the themes, the energy and the course of the evening, as well as having an impact on each other.
How can you reject love in order to achieve real love? How can you counter this love, pierce right through the other's chest, take their heart in your hand and softly say: 'This is who I am, I will live my life, but 'No Longer Without You'.
