Death by Civilization/ Part II, excerpt
Free Walk Performance Group shared a few rehearsals of this ongoing creation with the public of the Newburgh Open Studios 2021.
Death By Civilization is an hour-long performance meant for an indoor setting. It confronts the natural presence of the horse with the industrial music and video work of Nickolas Mohanna, intertwined with meditations by critics of the western culture such as Gandhi, Antonin Artaud and Albert Camus. Madeleine Debure rides Dee Dee, alongside dancer Page Ogden, and young performer Nadia.
Following Part I, showcased last year at the same venue, Part II continues to explore the relation between men and Nature, and if they can exist as one being.
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“If confusion is the sign of the times, I see at the root of this confusion a rupture between things and words, between things and the ideas and signs that are their representation.”
“If our life lacks brimstone, i.e., a constant magic, it is because we choose to observe our acts and lose ourselves in considerations of their imagined form instead of being impelled by their force.”
“All our ideas about life must be revised in a period when nothing any longer adheres to life. (…) But no matter how loudly we clamor for magic in our lives, we are really afraid of pursuing an existence entirely under its influence and sign.”
“A protest against the idea of culture as distinct from life - as if there were culture on one side and life on the other, as if true culture were not a refined means of understanding and exercising life.”
Antonin Artaud, The Theater and its Double.