Vagabonds of Art

The Capital of Performance Art

The 3rd edition of Month of Performance Art – Berlin ended last weekend. 47 locations presented more than 100 performances: site-specific, durational, indoor or outdoor, talks, workshops, screenings, public encounters and interactions, live acts and other formats and related projects. More than 170 international artists and participants as well as 23 associate curators.

This range of work and the public resonance again qualified Berlin as the world’s capital of performance art. Bloggers kept their readers informed at: www.mpa-blog.tumblr.com Please visit the official website www.mpa-b.org also for media partners and video documentation.

Reader, you have to be aware, that this Month of Performance Art – Berlin is an artist-lead, non-profit initiative of Joel Verwimp, Florian Feigl, Francesca Momana Ciardi, Nathalie Fari, Joern J. Burmester and Associated Curators, providing a platform for individuals, groups and collectives. Spirit and initiative makes it possible and it is not stoppable by the lack of public funding.

 

EXTRAORDINARY ALIENS by Alexa Wilson & Cohotography by johnicon, VG-Bild-Kunst, Bonn

EXTRAORDINARY ALIENS by Alexa Wilson & Co, photography by johnicon, VG-Bild-Kunst, Bonn

News of the Wrestling Woman

Coming from Hamburg I meet Alexa Wilson again, which I met at the Schaubude at the Hamburger Dom – an annual fun-fair – in March (–> see article in this blog). In company with Dave Hall and Teresa Peters she showed Extraordinary Aliens, which actually was the final performance of MPA-B. The stage was a screen showing excerpts of a traveler’s video, which documented stereotypes of hippies playing in deserts and on beaches cut with encounters of outsiders leading miserable lives marginalized in cities.

EXTRAORDINARY ALIENS by Alexa Wilson & Co Photography by johnicon, VG-Bild-Kunst, Bonn

EXTRAORDINARY ALIENS by Alexa Wilson & Co
Photography by johnicon, VG-Bild-Kunst, Bonn

A plastic-sac containing masks and rudiments which you can find as debris of flea markets was emptied on the floor to provide the performers with costumes, requisites, masks, etc. Elements of dance, theatre, screening, sport, game and disguising communicated feelings like loneliness, desperation and joy and conveyed elements of companionship, solidarity, fighting or tenderness to endure the marginal situation of a traveling performance artist, which nowadays comes close to the situation of vagabonds and players in feudal times when even medical doctors had to perform as healers at markets and fairs to self-promote and practicing their competence and skills.