| Tract Live A rt |
|
|||||||||
| Site specific live art and performance in and around Penzance, Cornwall, over three weekends. Summer 2006 | ||||||||||
|
||||||||||
| Information on this site will be updated as part of the Tract Live Art Programme | ||||||||||
Eva
Weaver
Friday
21 July
Mermaid's
Calling
Arriving at the railway station from the city, a woman transforms from
her city suit into, what she feels called and lured by: a Mermaid...
Having set foot so close to the sea, things begin to change...
a metronome stops ticking,
words change shape
shoes turn into boats...
Join the city-woman-turned -mermaid on her journey to the water...
Dragging a net of longings, she follows the calling of the sea...
Born in Germany, I have been living and working in the UK for over ten
years.
My performance work concerns issues of cross-cultural identity, belonging,
historical trauma and stereotyping.
My performances, both time-based and durational have a
strong visual emphasis and are sometimes created
for a particular site. I have been devising solo-performances for the
past six years and I am striving to create
challenging, yet funny and poetic performances which touch on a broad
register of emotions.
Performances have included juxtaposing performance-action with bilingual
text, myth and narrative, song,
visuals and sculpting of objects and costumes from non-traditional materials
such as bread, paper, bones and wool.
Eva Weaver arrived by train at the station in Penzance and for a brief moment looked indistinguishable from the other travellers. She drew attention to herself and to the artifice of her presence there, by marching around her suitcase and reading loudly from the newspaper in her hand. A business-woman in caricature, she drew titters and sidelong glances from unsuspecting members of the public, but soon had an audience that followed her onto the seafront. She was intending to change into a mermaid: the interest was in finding out how she planned to do this.
Gradually she lost her attire – shedding clothes and props as she went till she was wearing nothing more than a glittering green miniskirt, some netting and a wig. Continuing her journey along the seafront she stopped the traffic, and a police car, in the process of her metamorphosis. Not only did her outward appearance change, but so too did the object of her gaze and her voice. She took up some binoculars to look out to sea and, instead of reading from the paper, started singing a mournful lament whilst wearing a mask. Arriving at the Jubilee pool in Penzance, she descended into the water and lost her costume - emerging naked on the far side of the pool.
Though the tone of Eva’s piece was light and playful, the bold, confrontative nature of her transformation from one contemporary archetype to another more timeless one had a potent and profound quality that couldn’t be ignored. Is n’t an escape from the rat race towards something mysterious and romantic something all visitors to Cornwall aspire to? That Eva was able to incorporate the station into her performance is important: it is after all the end of the line. She avoided using a fish tail – perhaps she felt that would be too cliched – yet in her more contemporary clothes she looked like a modern-day siren. In both roles though she seemed troubled: obsessional and neurotic as the businesswoman, downcast and melancholy as the mermaid. This itself was well observed. There is something uptight about the 21st century, yet would any of us really want to live in another era?
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |