Could you please tell us a bit about your performance art and how it started off?
Let’s define what means beginning, because certainly I am reworking material I have created when I was 5 to 10 years old. It’s the most deep and unconditional content. As a kid I knew there are spirits to talk to and actions to take, which bridge world of hardware and world of emotions. I literally thought this is the way to live! I want to see one line between back then and now, and for that I cannot have another profession.
In 2016 I hesitated to buy a book about Butoh, it was 10EU, solid publication but I was broke in my mind, more than in my pocket. I bought it, whatever. I got to know Kazuo Ohno’s world, his soul. Same year I went to Japan with friends and for sure I wanted some Butoh experience. But time-wise I missed collective classes all over. I hesitated again, but I wrote to the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio if I could come alone for a class. So I did go to Kamihoshikawa to his studio and danced three hours with his son Yoshito Ohno. I will never forget it. R.I.P. I love you. It really redefined me, and yeah I hesitate nothing anymore.
And now I can tell you that I create physical and mental scores in nocturnal venues and nightlife, that’s what I do for living, is amazing, beyond my happiness. My first solo show was this fearless III acts performance in infamous gay Club Church. I remember I entered that state of power and synergy. Taka Taka, Church’s producer now also my friend, introduced me to the club based House of Hopelezz, one of the oldest Drag Queen houses in town. BTW we are in Amsterdam in this point of the story. The Queens took me in. The genesis of my today’s practice is the line of those Thursday shows at a party called Blue.
What is it you want the viewer to receive or walk away with after experiencing a performance by you?
First of all, I really don’t want them to walk away at all, haha. Once my show made a guy cry, and he later recognized me outside the club. I had a cigarette, and he spotted me. He had like, a let’s say euphorical cry and at the same time talking to me so dramatically. His face was so baroque, all those muscles, popping up here and there. He was high, intense and kind. This is what you are supposed to experience hahah. My work leaves unforeseen marks on me too. I want special psychic energy, in my whole life not only for my shows. But at the same time I won’t chase the waterfall and tell you what it is all really about. You gotta be present..
We are curious to hear about your thought process and development of personalities you seem to engage with.
I use subversive, radical, subjective, exaggerated and improbable personalities to drive away from moralistic directives, the rights and wrongs. I do that because I see people constantly looking over their shoulder what other people may say or think of them. I want to remind them of their body, intuition and certainly that they can have a vision for their lives as an entire picture. My characters are an essence of that..
Do you have a specific space or place where you’d like to perform in the future?
I am kind of obsessing now about the Egyptian Book of the Death somebody lend me. I’m also reading an autobiography of Myke Tyson where he’s describing a friend, a pimp, who’s so arrogant he would die just to see who comes to his own funeral - he wants to know that the whole world came, that’s what counts. I’m even worse. I want it as a performance, so I can also get some clapping at the end and then tell the stories after. I am supposed to die in a metaphorical sarcofago in Paris, I look forward.
Please explain the way you move in your performances?
It is all about tension and release. It is a basis of child movement developmental studies, so I’m not digging anything crazy new. I’m actually down to basics, the very first movement of taking a shit.
If you’re working on something interesting at the moment that you wish to notify people of, here’s a good opportunity to do so:
You see me when I’m there.
Tanati & Eri, 2019 ft. DJ let go, ADA, Rome, on the courtesy of the artist
XXX10, 2019, Nieuw Systeem, Garage Noord, Amsterdam, on the courtesy of the artist
Xenia, 2019 in collaboration with Arthur Guilleminot, Vertoon: Queer in Transition - An Ode to Zu Xenia Lucrezia, Compagnie Theater, Amsterdam, on the courtesy of the artist
Untitled, 2020, on the courtesy of the artist and ADA gallery
Untitled, 2019, on the courtesy of the artist and ADA gallery
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