LILITH
I AM A MOMENT and so many others
By and with: Julie-Anne Stanzak, Scott Jennings, Pawel Malicki, Ophelia Young und Nathalie Larquet
LILITH
I AM A MOMENT and so many others
Who are these creatures of nature that look like warriors in their queer armour, roaming the devastated forests in bewilderment? Nathalie Larquet has pinned them simultaneously next to each other in a large semicircle in her installation so that they are etched in our memory. It is the language of the bodies and the gazes of the eyes that can only be guessed at behind the masks of these creatures and yet, or precisely because of this, they are so affecting. The words from ‘I am a moment’ (and so many others)…, often hit the harrowing images precisely or contrast them. This text, spoken and developed by Ophelia Young, which simultaneously underlies all these projections, is a fictional, fourfold dialogue with imaginary beings, which lends the images of destroyed forests an additional and deep psychological level.
Huluppu – The tree of Life
Sumerian mythology
The digital, forty-minute performance opens up the space for an analogue, danced monologue based on the Sumerian myth of Lilith. It tells of the mythology of the Huluppu, the tree of life, which is said to have connected the earth, the underworld and the sky as a single entity. It tells of Lilith, who inhabited it before it was felled by Gilgamesh, according to legend, so that a shining throne and a bed for the deity Inanna could be built from it. The symbol of life becomes a symbol of power and domination*. Lilith fled from this violence into the desert. (* Others interpret the myth as the end of chaos and the beginning of an orderly world)
It is more than a dance of lamentation, danced alternately by the protagonists from the digital world of the first part in the here and now. It is also a dance of devastation, rebellion and resistance.
In the Sumerian tales, stories are often told several times, each time from different perspectives, and there is much to suggest that Lilith and Inanna were the same figures in this myth.
In other early traditions, however, Lilith also personifies the equality and equal rights of all genders. She is said to have been the first wife of Adam, but she did not want to be subordinate to him, but to be treated as an equal. In these stories, she therefore fled from the Garden of Eden.
The deep-rooted origins of the Huluppu tree and its role in Sumerian mythology are far from being a mere echo of a distant past. Rather, they serve as enduring symbols that resonate in our society today.
The echo of this ancient tree remains, and its message resonates more poignantly than ever in these times of environmental and social challenges.
Total duration of the performance 70 minutes
Sponsors & Supporters
The Basis – A TINY CUT IN A VELVET DRESS I and II were supported by the NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETWORK – STEPPING OUT, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of the NEUSTART KULTUR. Hilfsprogramm Tanz, the Kulturbüro Wuppertal and with the kind support of Christian Baierl – Renaissance Immobilien AG
