Pressespiegel 2009

DOCK 11 Pressespiegel 2009
75 minutes but they never lingered or indulged themselves in the highlights: each gag and action
was just as long as necessary, immediately followed by the next one.
pantomime
Their interaction with the audience reached a higher level when performers made groups of
audience perform by their order. One group was standing on their chairs, stretching their arms and
making "Bzzzzzz..." sounds. Others ran circles around their chairs, another group was bowing
with arms waving up and down as if they were washing clothes in a river. Many things happened
at the same time at different parts of the stage.
control of the audience
Unnoticed, the third performer entered the stage. Helga Wretman's upper body was wrapped in a
fur blanket and her face was concealed in a cover with many sunglasses attached, so that her
head resembled an insect or extraterrestrial. Her lower body was clad in high cut underpants of
the kind used by pole dancers in night clubs, and she wore high heal gold shoes. She crawled
through the room, squeezing her body between the legs of the chairs, touching people's knees
with her buttocks, climbing onto their laps and exposing herself from a close distance. That
reminded me of Ines Birkhan's performance on this stage two years ago. She danced with her
head and face covered and the lower body naked. Remarkably, Helga Wretman's bold action
possessed certain qualities valued in ballet. Firstly her movement appeared smooth and effortless
since she rolled up and down the knees rather than climbing them. Secondly her body did not
seem to impose much weight and she limited the use of her hands to pull herself up. Finally, in
contrast to Simo Kellokumpu and Justin Kennedy, her performance did not show physical effort.
This technique together with Helga Wretman's dehumanzing masquerade were instrumental in
endowing her interactive sequence with a distinctive imaginative quality for those who watched
her. Those who were involved in direct physical contact might have perceived the situation as more
complex.
vamp chimera
After Helga Wretman became acquainted with most of the audience, she crawled towards the
wooden steps in front of the stage where the audience normally sits. On the lowest step she sat
down facing the stage with her legs wide opened. She remained in this position at each step for a
couple of minutes and then moved up to the next. The insect-like head of her took the posture out
of the context of pornographic stereotype.
Justin Kennedy and Simo Kellokumpu took off their trousers, showing golden boxer shorts. They
created a series of bodybuilding themes spiced with some erotic, but the drive of the performance
diminished noticeably. The slow-down was probably intentional, aiming to condition the audience
for the next highlight.
Helga Wretman climbed the top step, stood up, took off the cover of her head and released her
long blond hair. Then she turned her back to the audience, took off her underpants and put on a
white dress. Transformed into a stupid girl, she opened the last part of the performance. While
Simo Kellokumpu and Justin Kennedy played low-key stories about businessmen and gambling,
she clumsily and with fidgetyness recited quotations about money. For each text she picked a
member of the audience, brought him to the stage and involved him as a dummy holding a glass
with money. The quotations ranged from stupidities such as "In remote villages in Tibet
people use dried shit as money" to dull advertisements: "Why work for money when