this post starts backwards. with tonight, the night after the performance. i saw monika, and naturally gave my congratulations for her and ruedi’s performance last night. she replied, « we found the performance in the pool. » at first, not comprehending i thought …she found the stones in the pool? but seeing my expression of non-comprehension monika elaborated, explaining the pool, the site, gave the performance to them. all they had to do was execute it.

* * *

monika and ruedi opened into the intimate of performance.

walking along the black tiles of the pool bottom they stopped at the deep end. deep inside the pool, and looking straight ahead, they, gestured outwards in front of us. gestures from a language of small, close to the body movements. first monika, and then as if responding, ruedi, then as if replying monika. an urgency expressed through the quickness and suddenness of the movements. speaking inside out through the body.

now walking towards us and stopping ruedi, palm open, rubs his head. palm open covering face moving up and over close-cropped hair and back. self comfort, the body being intimate, tender to itself. and monika has a candle, on fire, not on fire, on fire. walking up and down. the length of the pool.

ruedi goes into the wings. is slowly caressing the side of the pool. monika makes the sound of stones tumbling into shore with each wave, the in sound, the out sound. stones tied with string, pulled behind.

fluidity of movement, fluidity of sound.

and then the cow bell. held in the mouth. head down. walking, jingling. a cow. a cow woman. the bell lets us know where she is. owned property should not be lost. in this gesture i felt a contempt. i can’t say why exactly, but i had the sensation that this was woman, mouth filled with someone else’s sounds, pretending to play the cow because we are so stupid this is all we see, the cow put out to pasture, bell jingling as it moves.

then, walking monika goes to the wall. back to us. starts to repeat a word i do not know, that i think becomes the word silence. silence broken by the sound of the word silence. repeated again and again, the body jerking with the intensity of the outcry. the voice shifting, here deeper, here higher.

at this moment, the sound filled the bain. the echo of the voice mingling with the voice again renewed. and rather than muffling her cry, the wall at the end of the pool, at the deep end, where monika stood, opened up. became infinity. all the absurdities and cruelties of life streamed, flowed past this voice of woman screaming silence.

monika gunther and ruedi schill: http://www.thessalonikibiennale.gr