Sick Dreams
Performance 9.–11.7.21
How can we feel aliveness? Through research into ancient healing techniques, outsourced care, bodily autonomy, divination and grief, we open ourselves to meditate on sickness and all the stories revealed.
Sick Dreams is a 90 minute performance on the topic of sickness. The audience is invited to lay in beds and dive into a soundscape that mixes interviews, poems, dreams, stories and songs. It is a meditation made by those who are chronically sick and those who care for the sick: A multitude of voices exploring what it is to wake up in pain, to care, to be tired, to be numb, to feel.
As the light is slowly dimming, the stories are accompanied by vocals from NYX electronic drone choir. A poem is read for bodies to time travel. Senses are taken to the edge of land through a guided visualisation. A karaoke song is sung. Dances are danced between the beds without fear of judgement. This is no cure. There is resilience. This is a radical space for and by sickos.
Sick Dreams premiered in Leipzig as part of KATPULT Performance Platform, a festival organized by Residenz, Schaubühne Lindenfels and Lofft.
Credits
A Performance by
Zinzi Buchanan & Fayer Koch
Concept
Zinzi Buchanan
Artistic Collaboration
Clay AD, Paca faraus, Martina Hefter, Jordan Martin, Peter Scherrebeck Hansen, Xenia Taniko, Jared Cooper Cobain
Music
Nyx Electronic Drone Choir
Stage Design
Ivanka Tramp
Dance
Zinzi Buchanan, Fjola Gautadóttir, Asaf Ahronson
Sound Engineering
Teleskop
Costumes
Rike Zöllner
Production
Falk Grever, Sasha Amaya
Dramaturgical Support
Sheena Mcgrandles
Fotos
Johanna Baschke
DJ
Tiny Sweets
Special Thanks to
Lena Löhr
Zinzi Buchanan is a dance artist, writer and death doula in training. They studied visual cultures at Goldsmiths and contemporary dance at NSCD. They received the Berlin Tanzstipendium 2020/21 and their research focuses on sickness, grief and divination.
zinzibuchanan.com
Fayer Koch is a writer and activist. He studied creative writing at Deutsches Literaturinstitut Leipzig. His latest play, Anorexia Feelgood-Songs, will premier in Theater Magdeburg in September 2021. Fayer Koch lives in Leipzig.
fayerkoch.de
Resources
- Martina Hefters poem And it was one of the devils… and a good sickbed… were originally published in German in: Es könnte auch schön werden: Gedichte/Sprechtexte. Berlin: Kookbooks.
- The text by Johanna Hedva which Zinzi and Paca Faraus discuss is called Sick Woman Theory. It was published in Mask Magazine.
- The Essay by Octavia Butler that Zinzi mentions, is called: A few rules for predicting the future. It was published in Essence Magazine.
- The Song by Kae Tempest that Zinzi mentions is called hold your own and was released on The Book of Traps and Lessons.
- The documentary film that Zinzi mentions is called Dope is Death by Mia Donovan.
- Fayers questions how sick are you… are taken from the zine Notes for the Waiting Room by the Canaries Collective. It was published for the exhibition Sick Time, Sleepy Time, Crip Time: Against Capitalism’s Temporal Bullying, curated by Taraneh Fazeli.
- The Karaoke-Song that Paca Faraus and Peter Scherrebeck Hansen sing is called Fallin’ by Alicia Keys. It was released on Songs in a Minor.
- The song World Maker by Peter Scherrebeck Hansen was written and performed for this piece.
- The poem the body is a time machine by Clay AD was written for this piece.
Attachement
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The reader breaks for everybody, that's part of the performance, can be downloaded here.