Performance – 2019
35 minutes approx
In business parlance a ‘disruption’ means an idea / innovation that becomes a game-changer, an underdog who beats the odds to rise to the top. However in the social sphere a disruption carries a negative connotation. Leaving aside the natural causes of death and destruction, the idea, that the earth was not the center of the universe, was a terrible disruption and Galileo was amply punished for that until his death.
Performance refers to the profit making ability of a business (irrespective of any harm to the planet or the people). A disruption (in the market) therefore is essentially a great performance.
And, what about people sleep-walking their routines to the post-truth, hyper-nationalistic lullabies that are set to marching rhythms? Is that too a performance? And amid the sounds of bombs and bullets, the cries of pain and hunger, rolled into sweet music by the orchestra masters who stand on the largest of stages of our mind, is there even the tiniest possibility for a tiny, post-colonial voice to disrupt the grand lullaby and sing another tune?
This performance stands somewhere on this elusive crisscrossing of the relationships that ‘disrupt’ and ‘performance’ hold across their multiple meanings.
Performed at:
– RE: ACT – Voltage, Basel. Oct 26, 2019
