project image
Roland Szabo
LEARNING ABOUT DEATH

first performed on September 26, 2017
MU Theater, Budapest, Hungary
performed once in 2017

ISTVÁN KOVÁCS

Monor, Hungary

l1dancefestival.blogspot.hu

LEARNING ABOUT DEATH
ISTVÁN KOVÁCS

I slowly move forward from the back of the stage. My naked body is smeared with white clay and covered by a wire frame. With an accordion, I make accelerating, whispering sounds. After I drop the accordion, I remove the wire frame from my body. I try to hold the wire frame with one hand, but I can’t. I put light-blue cloth on myself, and a halo on my head, and after sitting down I take the wire body and put it into my lap. Pieta. I stand the wireframe on a cross. I wrap myself up with foil, holding a skull made of paper in my hand that is flying in the sudden wind, then flies away and falls to the ground. I wrap my body with another layer of foil like a suit of armor putting on a plastic corset. I put on a shoulder bag and a helmet on my head. I go to the candle burning with a gas burner. I go to the other corner of the stage. I take out a strung scythe, which I hold towards the floor. I then hit the floor with the handle, and sprinkle sawdust from my shoulder bag onto the ground. I take out a bow and start playing tones and rhythms on the string. I march slowly without going anywhere—this becomes a dance. The back lights are on and a scrim rises in front of the spectators. Now only the dancing silhouette of the scythe man appears. The shadow is getting bigger and bigger and at the end only my enormous leg shows. I remove all of my belongings and put small wings on the wire body. I squat behind it pushing it all forward so that I am lying down on my stomach stretching on the ground. I repeats this motion as I move toward the front of the stage. There, I take out a tube made of rhomb-shaped foil and inflate it. I then climb through the opening. I take a knife, a metal disc and some straw in my hand. I knock the metal with the knife which makes a ringing sound. I give a blade of straw to each spectator. I continue this pacing between the spectators until the straw runs out of my hands.