The performance “Disorient” was created during an artistic residency at Museo CAV La Neomudéjar in Madrid in March and April 2016, as part of the interdisciplinary project Disorient. Ludivine Allegue (painter, videographer, photographer) and I (Valentina Lacmanovic, performer and video maker) created a body of work that includes video art, painting, drawing, engraving, photography (both digital and analogue), sound art, holographic installation, and performance.

The concept of the whole project was to make art that is capable of taking anyone on a journey from consensual (time and space) and ephemeral (political, sexual, social, religious, or other identities) parameters into the essential—humanity, communication, intuition, creativity, and imagination. The main tool utilized was the body in sustained spiraling movement that, by means of repetition, took the spectator into a hypnotic, almost hypnagogic state. This opened the doors to one’s own imagination, which projected itself within the structure of the performance, as well as through other media such as video, painting, and photography. As the universe spirals and whirls, it spins the smallest particles of our sub-atomic matter. This unconscious movement is what keeps us alive and our macro- and micro-cosmic bodies together. Therefore, bringing this atavistic movement into a performance created an immediate response. The immersion of the subject is compulsive, and the echo of the archetype of all movement, the spiral, forms a strong connection between both the performer and the rest of the audience.

In my performances, I consciously play with elements of ritual (as the root of all performing arts) in order to step out of banality and into a re-creation of essential time and space, awakening the human in each of us. It has to be a ceremony. A ceremony is different from a ritual. It aims toward an awakening of the free imagination instead of the belief system of a community.

Created during a collaborative residency, this performance was a result of our constant dialogue and exploration of different tools. Each media resonates with echoes of the other—in the performance a painting intervened, presented on a costume which had been custom designed. Also integrated were site-specific video installations and live voice improvisations responding to impulses from the soundscape.

The structure encouraged and allowed infinite freedom and experimentation of overlapping mediums. It was inspired by martial rituals and more specifically by the symbols of feminine energy in the origins of bullfighting. I, the performer, incarnated a female warrior—one who gives life and fights to protect it.