Performance as a contemporary ode to the lament
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With the performance rock to jolt [ ] stagger to ash, Alexis Blake has made a contemporary ode to the lament. Blake won the Prix de Rome last year with this project, though the performance could only be shown during the opening because of the lockdown.
In this work, the American Blake, who resides in the Netherlands, seeks out the liberating, emancipatory power of uncensored and uncontrolled emotions.
The lament was outlawed in Ancient Greece as an oppressive patriarchal tool. Blake has her performers break the silence. They express their bodies and voices in all sorts of ways to bring out what is being repressed or censored.
dates
Wed June 15 2022 1:45 PM
Fri June 17 2022 6:30 PM
Sun June 19 2022 4:30 PM
Mon June 20 2022 4:30 PM
prices
- default € 23
- Museumkaart € 3
information
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Language no problem
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45 minutes
Warning: this performance has loud noises.
Background
For her work rock to jolt [ ] stagger to ash, the American artist residing in the Netherlands Alexis Blake examines the lament. Its point of departure is the practice of laments in ancient Greece in the 6th century b.c.
Ban
This era saw a ban on the lament, a ritual performed by women as a way of mourning, protesting and processing loss. The men in power found it inappropriate for a city state, with its foundational democratic ideal of rational thoughts and speech.
The lament was women’s domain. The patriarchal ban introduced an important mechanism of exclusion and silencing that remains present to this day. Blake has her performers break this silence. They use their bodies to bring out what is repressed or censored.
Throughout history, women’s laments were often banned or neutralised in different ways by patriarchal systems. Together with the performers, Blake set out to discover the emancipating power of the uncensored and uncontrolled expression of deep emotions.
Undergo physically
The performance is a dramatic parade through the monumental stairwell of the Stedelijk Museum in which the performers do everything that is uncustomary in a museum ordinarily. They are seductive like sirens at one moment, when at another they roar like wounded animals. They whine, lament, let their pants down, spread their legs and tear into the audience. In this way, Blake confronts the old structures that attempt to keep women’s voices under control.
‘Silencing women has always been an important project of patriarchal culture, from ancient times to the present,’ writer Anne Carson says. Fragments of verses she translated from the ancient Greek poet Sappho are interwoven into the performance.
In this liberating lament, bodies are fully free and fully themselves. The energy, embodied emotions and the vibrations of the resonant sound in the stairwell make this a performance you need to undergo physically in order to fully experience it.
Blake also uses smell, which was specially designed by the smell artist Sissel Tolaas. It is the smell of decay. According to Blake, decay and laments follow the same underlying process. In her words: ‘Decay is, just like a lament, always subject to change and transition. It is a sign of our impermanence.’
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Alexis Blake
© Daniel Nicolas
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rock to jolt [ ] jagger to ash
© Daniel Nicolas
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rock to jolt [ ] jagger to ash
© Daniel Nicolas
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rock to jolt [ ] jagger to ash
© Daniel Nicolas
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rock to jolt [ ] jagger to ash
© Daniel Nicolas
