DAY 15/16 - LAST DAYS! stories from the souk, nostalgia already close

DAY 15

I've never ever actually seen a creature die, but last night a streetcat was in extreme pain and we stayed with 4 guys around him untill death took us part. It made me think about the performance, and that's a good sign (concerning my wish for tapping this topic)

It's morning and we have some time to buy typical presents for the ones we love. I know that when I bring one of these souvenirs home they will be taken gledly, and will be seen as something special, but I see thousands of shisa's, scarfs and soaps and I refuse to take time to enjoy their differences. Mainly because on top of that, the salesman are asking the same question over and over: where you come from? In the end I can only find pleasure in making up some Skandinavian language to answer them, and by acknowledging how beautyfull their products actually are...

We (Robin and me) finally notice a very small allay where the too skinny dressed groups doesn't show much interest in. We find a Palestinien who sells herbs and spices who tells us in correct English that his family runs this small store for centuries, something our 'HEMA' can't even compete with.
He gives us 7 bags of the most local grown ones and writes on the plastic what to use them for.
If I want to give him more Sjekels then agreed he won't take it.

I'm beginning to recognise some people walking in the market and it feels kind of cool to shake hands with the locals. I check if the other tourists see me shaking this but their eyes are focussed on  colourfull parfums. Bummer. Still I love to read the eyes of the locals we get to know from the performances, because they show happyness and gratitude. At these moments I forget to check if my wallet is still their.
I hear Dutch, my language. He tells his wife to watch her wallet, and I tell her that it's probably more safe in this souk then in The Netherlands.
The boys we just shaked hands with show us the place to buy arabic coffee. He speaks to the man to be sure he gives us the local price. Yes, some tourists notice the agreement, and I feel less a tourist.

here's a plastic machinegun holdet by a man who tries to sell the pink/green flashing noisemaker.
He looks as if he doesn't remember shooting it for quite some time now, but his expression changes when he notice my attention.
Nobody including the veteran looks interested in the gun, and if I want to make a picture of him he doesnt get angry enough to aim the toi at me... too late, I shot first.










Not even 100 meters further these boys were playing with much more realistic looking toys (sometimes you can not even tell the difference), but when I shoot my camera the leader does't give up that easely and starts unlaoding his fantasy at my bulletproof t'shirt. I decite to not play the game.

Fortunately the souk also has other toi's in the market, and so I started making pictures from these creepy creatures who are dying to be unwrapped.

 
 


Without any real damage but dying of first I finally reach my hostel. When I enter the room I see a girl who looks very happy with her new pink tank that doesn't seem to have a real destination,
but is bumping into some happy feet... their Rosalie's.
She bought the innocent looking vehicle for just 25 Sjekel. The overjoyed duo also awakes Robin's enthousiasm to buy it, but this time for not less then 40 Sjekel.

Panicking as a real control freak I started creating a soloperformance, in case Mohammed won't show up on time. I'm happy and disappointed at the same time when he walkes in carelessly and greats me with a hug.
"Kill your darlins and start working together" I thouth, and as promissed (to myself) I am carefull to give him at least equal space. Space to come up with ideas and decissions. But it seems that we are still working in the same frequency. So we take time to be silent and enjoy the wonderfull view of Jerusalem with clouds that quickly change colours to eventually enter in darkness, and give us the the space to express our insecurities about being dead.

DAY 16 - going back

In a rush I pack my bags and throw -with five seconds of doubt- my collected statue stones in a container. It's sunday and the only thing to do is clean the location and catch a plane, and cause of all the impressions last two weeks, there's not much more my body will let me do.

during eating a fantastic salad this palestinien girl just pass by and tells us -with a smile on her face- that she fights for expressing her oppinnion and that she was 4 months in jail. I'm not surprised cause I've heard worse stories around here but this is the first direct one. Suddenly I can imagine that if your life doesn't change cause of politics or other religions, it's possible you won't fight for something 'better'.

After Tel Aviv's extreme controle checks and a pleasant take off I realize they didn't check two 100ml bottles of parfume in my handluggage!. And that's after I bought a can of beer and I asked if I could take it in the plane, but eventually couldn't. The lady escordet me personally to wrap my beer in plastic together with some herbs that also magicly passed three checkpoints, to put it with the normal luggage...
Maybe I should suddenly start spraying everybody in the plane to spredd some positive terror.

2 hours of writing plus two hours of sleep later the 33m metal bird agressively splits the air above the first signs of live in Belgium, when the windows seperate the outside from the romantic and peacefull experience inside the plain. The closer we reach solid materials the less romantic my thoughts become. For a second I believe we will crash or at least have a very rough landing but before I know it the wheels run smoothly across the runway. Just like my experiences in Jerusalem.

from left to right: Nina Willems, Rosalie Wammes, Robin Coops, Nick Steur (me)
want to react or see more info about me and my performancework?  www.nicksteur.com

DAY 14 - The festival is a succes. People join together in music!

                     

on location...

Mohammed's view

my view

One girl came to me and said; "I didn't laugh this loud in months!" 

Mohammed told me that as a woman, you may not be too expressive here, while the opposit sex can. 

Woman can't laugh loud, must keep their bodylanguage small, can't do anything crazy, that's what man demand around here.

Our performance tells the opposit, we must express and take space, show reality, show feelings.

Even Mohammed is experiencing breaktroughs, in every performance he opens up and expresses even more! And this is what we wanted to acchieve personally as well as with the public!

I was so amazingly happy with that girl's reaction! 

People here are not used to be silent as a public: they eat, smoke, chat and call just as easily as if they are in the streets. I'm really happy our public is concentrated to see, lissten and experience something new...

I bought this book in Jerusalem west, it's made in China, but still you have to open it at the left side :-)

It's the guestbook that i give to the audience during the grand finale... This is where I put the hearts in that I collected these weeks downtown.

(There's a lot more pictures, for later!)

Al Quds underground festival is 3 days long, each day 3 groups of 12 persons follow different routes, they see 5 performances in living rooms in the old centre of Jerusalem, afterwards they can enjoy the big final where we make music with the local artists here.

I believe everybody is really satisfied with tonight's festival, a soufi singer just made our hearts cry,

I was opening the festival speaking Arabic, the birds from Rosalie are beautyfully hanging above the final stage, voices of differrent cultures mixing together thanks to Nina, Robin and their actors, 

Merlijn's violin contributed to the sounds of the local instruments like the ut, the saxophone was communicating with the flute the twinbrothers motivated the public with their raps and beats,
we used paintbrushes to drum the metal railings, when children were saying their wishes out loud. A few hundred people were very vividly present....

What an evening.

Want to see more about me and my performance artwork? www.nicksteur.com

DAY 11 - dealing with culture, moving vertically

1.5 hours later Mohammed stood in our rehearsing room, sweating and taking some breath.

"i'm sorry, I was at the American embassy, they took my phone, they don't care if I have an appointment or not... they just say relax, it's okay, take it easy it's okay..."

I could only look at his face when he spoke, it's making all kinds of flexible mini-yoga movements and because of that my irritation about waiting again, was gone directly.

After an hour of struggeling with words on paper, which we had to translate in Arabic, we stood where I made this picture above: On the roof of the house from Ghaddar, the man who trusts us to make a performance there (!). Beautyfull. You can see all kinds of religions asking for attention on an altitude where most houses don't dare to build. If you have a wall around your city, you can eventually move only vertically, and that's exactly what families (that expand), religions, and even we do.

Taking space is our problem, our motivation and now our intention.

The public lays down to look at the stars. We lay down to look at them.

Suddenly I have a better idea then all my artistic ideas last month (considering this project):

This friday it's possible that Mohammed can not make it on time, to perform together. He lives in Ramallah so he needs to go trough a checkpoint, and you never know how long that takes.

So I had to think about making a solo for that situation.

Suddenly I began to think freely again and I thouth of something more visual and fysical, the things i do best. I'm too used to making solo's, so when I work with Mohammed I like to direct him, and that's not the meaning of this project for me. It's collaborating. So tomorrow I let control go again, like these strangers I contantly ran into:

Want to see more about me and my performance artwork? www.nicksteur.com

DAY 10 - taking the time, claiming the space.

To many people need to much space, creepy babies are staring in your face. Just wrap a generation, a whole bloody nation,
Give us some spacetime to put them in graves.


This day was immensely important. Let me tell you why.
I met Mohammed in the hotelbar. He just had 3 days with his family and friends cause a familymember died. He looked tyred. "I didn't sleep or eat these days" he said.
We spoke about it. He doesn't like the way how funelrals happen here.
"There are so many people, and they all say "I'm sorry", "don't cry", and they don't let you cry, they don't give you the space to experience loss."

When we arranged our agenda's he directly said that he wanted to speak about freedom in the performance. He doesn't feel free because he has to pay the bill, has to carry an identitycard, has to react to the phone etc. etc. He doesn't have space to choose things for himself. Let me come back on that.

I am busy with a picture collection of hearts drawn on the streetwalls.
Because it's something that you normally don't see, but if I collect them it becomes a bigger event.
The same happens in the media (about Israel). They concentrate on war, fighting, death, blood, loss. Offcourse that's just a small part of reality. I'd like to concentrate now on another side of life here.

"So, in stead of concentrating on the habbits of stress, I would like to concentrate on our needs" - I said to Mohammed. Maybe we should claim the space, in stead of being slaves of stuff, of others, who want things from you. Let's concentrate on the freedom to choose, to claim space for ourselves.
I think we should give ourselves this space, and not wait for people (or God/Allah) to give it."

He seemed very exited and I showed him the text I wrote last night. I slept 4 hours so I hoped he was exited on this too.

The concept is this:
We are looking through a big hole in the roof, at the public. We are stuck on the roof, between heaven and earth. We are there for 200 years already, longing for eigther earthly life with all it's sensations (longing for the past, down there with the people) - or heaven, with all it's promises (craving for the future, up there in the sky, where the public is also looking at).
We are stuck and bored. Waiting for something to tell us what to do, who puts us on our place.
Our boredom sometimes comes with noises from the mouth, and this will transform into making music together. Suddenly we see eachother! We are the same here, same rittme, enjoying this moment. Suddenly we don't long for other places and other times. We claim the roof. We claim this space!
Lets live here!

I wanted to speak about death with Mohammed this morning because death is such a big event, that it forces you to connect to the things that really matter, the things you really need from the heart. And this is exactly what we did today. Taking space and time in order to express ourselves to eachother.

I realise this all sounds a bit dreamy to you, and it is, because stories are dreamy. They are not real.
They are not in the present. Stories are in the head, in the past or in the future.
Tomorrow we rehearse on the roof... very real. Yes.

Want to see more about me and my performance artwork? www.nicksteur.com