ready, but not waiting

Performance / Video
2012

“ready, but not waiting, not on guard, not prepared”
– Bruce Nauman

CONCEPT, CHOREOGRAPHY, PERFORMANCE
Iris Dittler

MISE-EN-IMAGE, MONTAGE
Nicolai Gütermann

The choreography was developed in relation to extracts of the text:

flayed earth/flayed self (skin/sink)
by Bruce Nauman, 1973

divide your skin
into six equal parts
lines starting at your feet and
ending at your head
(five lines to make six
equal surface areas)

invest, invert, convert, relent, relax, control,
release, give in, given

standing above and to one side of yourself
-schizoid- not a dislocation, but a
bend or brake
(as at the surface of water or a
clear liquid - quartz or a transparent crystal)
(transparent crying)

imagine a heavy gas sinking tot he floor –
if you walk or otherwise disturb it, it will disperse
so you must use a great deal of care, go slow
(as though you were to enter water making neither
waves nor sounds)

anticipation
any sign
respiration
any sigh
I think neither ahead nor behind
ready but not waiting
not on guard
not prepared

things lined up a certain way can rapidly
be reversed or left behind (put behind)
make a mark to prove you are here

you want to turn (at an ordinary rate) as though
you want to speak to someone there, behind you
but you want not to speak, but to address yourself
to a situation
but now there is either greater density or less density
and if you turn back (when you turn back)
the change will be all around you

but nothing will happen and you´re only here in the room

can we stay the same for a short time?

CUT-UPS

The movement material for “ready, but not waiting” was generated through “cut-ups,” a method I developed to reconfigure the internal body space through the embodiment of visual information.
For more information see cut-ups (in drawings, notations) >