Back to the Beautiful

Sandra and I co-created and performed Back to the Beautiful (Cellar), a participatory installation, in Salzburg on November 18, 2017.  The piece primarily took place in Kavernen, a former wine cellar built in 1595 that is now an art space, dug out of a mountain with rock walls, pillars, and vaulted ceiling.  One part took place in Republic, a blackbox theater near Kavernen.

Inspired by the Saalach river as both a site of natural beauty and potential border tension, Back to the Beautiful (Cellar) layers poetic and political video images, participatory encounters with the audience, and moments of live performance around the contradictory motifs of borders and beauty. While grounded in the Saalach, this participatory performative installation also incorporates images and resonances from other sites of border anxiety globally. Back to the Beautiful (Cellar) has been developed by Sandra Chatterjee and Cynthia Ling Lee, in part through Borders Resurfacing, a long distance creative exchange by members of the Post Natyam Collective.

Part of a larger event that involved talks, a "happening" (party), and another performance work, Back to the Beautiful (Cellar) was divided into three parts that were interspersed throughout the afternoon and evening.  While we conceived of the parts as relatively distinct from each other, they ended up blending with each other in interesting ways.

Part I: ritual handwashing + bottling

Part II: interactive installation

Part III: bottle exchange at the Happening

Video loops designed by Meena of footage from the Saalach, punctuated by border images and text, were projected onto two rock walls, one face-on and one at a steep angle.  We also had a soundscape by Varsha Dewan that combined water sounds with sounds of protest (Syrian, Gorkhaland) and people walking in nature.  Together, the video and sound created an atmospheric immersive environment.  In addition, Sandra and I designed several stations that invited audience members to engage with the theme of beauty and borders through different modalities.  The audience was allowed to circulate throughout the room and choose which station to engage with and for how long.

password "B2B"
B2B projection (tech rehearsal) from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

The stations were as follows:

(1) Ritual Handwashing

In an intimate act, we washed the hands of audience members with water that we had gathered one chilly November morning from the Saalach, the river that forms the national border dividing Austria and Germany.  We played with the rhythm, tempo, and movement of the water as we washed their hands.  We mentioned scientific research that understands water as holding memories, reminded them the river is a national border, asked them to pay attention to the sensation of the water, and invited them to linger with the feeling and memories of the water as it evaporated rather than drying their hands.  Sandra spoke primarily in German, and I spoke in English.

photo: Monika Urbonaite

photo: Hubert Auer

(2) Videos and Mixing Waters

We set up a monitor with a loop of three short dance-for-camera videos, all collaboratively created by PN members in different configurations: Border Sawal Jawab, Saalach | San Lorenzo, and River Thumri.  Next to the monitor was a table with materials for the Mixing Waters ritual.  The table contained water from the San Lorenzo and Saalach rivers and natural objects such as leaves, rocks, twigs, and moss from both rivers.  The audience was invited to engage in a modified version of my Mixing Waters ritual through written instructions and personal contextualization of each river authored by Sandra and myself, and to end by making a visual arrangement with the objects, which they were asked to upload to social media at #backtothebeautiful.

Here are the videos (not looped):

password "split"

Saalach | San Lorenzo from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

password "damodar"

river thumri (working title) from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

Border Sawal Jawab from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

(3) Texts

The text station contained English and German texts, both poetic and theoretical, that engaged with notions of rivers and borders.  Audience could read the texts and write a response on a large paper posted nearby.

The English texts that we used are viewable here (Sandra, feel free to add in the German ones!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Hmflje-Ew3EHF9mcB1FclQ84yoEB7OyS

(4) Guided Movement Improvisation

This guided movement improvisation drew inspiration from a river score learned from Eiko and Koma.  It included imagining the sensation of water within one's body as well as crossing a river, encountering a significant physical obstacle along the way.

(5) Bottling
Audience members were invited to bottle water, write an answer to a question on a tag, and then tie the tag to the bottle and either take it home or place it on a table.  Bottles on the table would be exchanged with other people later during the happening.

There were three types of water to bottle: Mixed Water (Saalach and San Lorenzo), Saalach Water, and Water that has Touched Many Hands (the water we washed people's hands with).

The questions were as follows (and provided in English and German):
What is hidden beneath beauty?  What are the dark sides of rivers?  What memories does water hold?  What are we supposed to forget?  Do you have a beautiful memory of a river?  Do you have a memory of having difficulty while crossing a border?

The "altar" for the bottles also had a small video projection of Sandra's feet at a river in India.

password: Dudhia

. Camera and editing by Varsha Dewan.

Part III took place in republic (the theater) rather than Kavernen.  We set up the bottles and water along with an invitation to circulate the bottles.  We also shared some bottles with people -- this became a lovely interpersonal process of curating particular messages for specific people as a gift.

photo: Hubert Auer