Tonight’s HYENAZ concert in Zabok was Rupture. And it–remained so–unfinished. A fire alarm, triggered by our fog machine during Adrienne’s speech, began to wail (at first we both thought the other was contributing a sonic intervention) and then an emergency button was pressed and all the electricity went off. It didn’t come on for another hour or so; by that time we were meant to be finished with all sound. So we remained unfinished.
But its okay. Its okay to perform through the performance of performing. Through the discomfort of performing the thing which feels to be performing. Perform through it, through it.
And what is rupture but this? HYENAZ Rupture IS about staying with the disconnect and discomfort of moving from Critical Magic to Foreign Bodies; moving out from the set magical ritual and into the unknown. Critical Magic was a circle drawn around a space, naming magic there, calling the space into a subjectivity known as RITUAL but which always already exists, it was about asking for a criticality about the way that we approach and think about the conjuring of magic, about the way that we ask for change together. And rupture disrupts that, or interrupts that, asks for something to change out of the routine, invites a minor gesture … as we transition into Foreign Bodies. Foreign Bodies … which is about management and control of bodies, privacy and surveillance, proximity of bodies and necessity of bodies.
I suppose what I need to understand and stay with now is … How does the importance of touch remain through this rupturing transition? What is felt in this touch when the magic is ironic, criticized, interrupted, impossible, disgraced or simply NOT WORKING, when the bodies are so overwhelmed with information and stress, when they are managed and controlled to the extent that they are driven into spaces of alienation and silence. Is there still the possibility of touch, is there difference in touch? Where touch itself may be the rupture. Or maybe the only thing we trust. I still believe … when I grab two persons hands in the audience and we hold each other there, that something important is in fact happening.