Upstairs Geology
Genre PERFORMANCE INSTALLATION
Duration 50 min
Language English
UPG is an attempt to decentralise humans in performance. It is an ode and a reflection on the question of fluidity in the times of climate threats, juxtaposed with the universal desire for control over life.
Thickened and coloured water, ropes, pumps, and soundscapes in constellation with gravity, various weather conditions, sunlight, snow, rain and sometimes people.
With UPG, Ira Melkonyan is spending time with the metaphors of floods and natural disasters, drawing on a long tradition of repressing and taming the uncontrollable emanations of the body – its sounds, smells, and mucus – with a hysterical will to control and solidify borders. Objects, flows of air, gusts of wind coming through the open windows – they perform, and they watch.
For Full Project Video Documentation, please contact Ira at ira@rubber-bodies.com.
“Ira Melkonyan & the rubberbodies collective show the effects of non-human behaviour and question the assignment of authorship in the theatre.
full jury report ZKB ACKNOWLEDGEMENT PRIZE 2019
This performative installation is an outstanding example of political art. It does not “explain” nature, but invites us to follow the transformation of a leaky landscape and to experience it – with all its risks.”
Credits
| by | Ira Melkonyan |
| Co-creation, production design | Jimmy Grima @ Tiny Island Studio |
| Architectural development and design | Dominykas Savickas |
| | Zsofie Paczolay |
| Dramaturgical advice | Maria Rößler |
| Supported by | DAS Theatre |
| Production of | rubberbodies |