“Daria Blum at the Averard” was a 45-minute multimedia solo performance staged at the Averard Hotel at Lancaster Gate in London. The Averard, built in 1856, has stood empty and deteriorating for over a decade, and the venue’s vast, empty spaces and crumbling decor, exposing layers of history, provided a fertile setting for my experimentation with doubling, layering, and multiplication.

The piece was conceived during lockdown in the preceding year of the pandemic. I developed and later performed a series of monologues, songs, and soundtracks recorded during that time, which referenced love, loneliness, and friendship. These ranged in genre from exuberant hyperpop to melodic ballad, and allowed for several theatrical devices to come together in a dramatization of daily life: a TV monitor displayed both staged and spontaneous video recordings triggered by live instruments or by my voice; footage of me yawning, crying, and dancing on-camera; interactions with a butterfly and a snail that took on unexpected meaning through an interplay with sound. Lighting changes were carried out by me and were choreographed into the piece, further intensifying my performance and the construction of multiple realities, moods, and opinions. Through the various roles I embodied in the nine chapters of the piece, I expressed and highlighted the humor and tragedy found in unremarkable occurrences, while acknowledging a common need for connection through shared experience.