Sam Schoenbaum "Engagement / Disengagement"
Koepelkerk, Amsterdam
'The performance is divided into four 12-minute parts. The stage is in three sections (left back, right back and front) and on the stage are four people: a young woman (Eve Grace), a young man (Harm Huisjes), an older man (Max Dooyes) and a dancer (Anne Walsemann). Part 1: Left back: the young woman and man engaged in domestic relating through the language of familiarity and intimacy. Right back: the older man watching the monitor connected to the camera filming the performance, he is engaged in looking at the world. Front: the dancer moving to sounds coming through the headphones, these sounds are the life source and can only be seen/felt by the actions produced. Part 2: All, except the young woman, have moved clockwise to the next space. The young man is watching the monitor, the older man has become the dancer, and the dancer is engaged in a domestic situation with the young woman. Part 3: Another clockwise shift and again, all except the young woman, move into the next space. The younger man has become the dancer, the older man has domesticated, and the dancer has become the observer of life. Part 4: Another clockwise shift. The young woman has become the observer of life, the dancer is again the dancer, the older and younger man have domesticated. Whilst this part of the performance is engaging the visual sense, a correspondence of love letters is being read by two readers, placed among the audience, one of the letter writers is involved in an historic situation, life in the trenches during a world war. The other is involved in the survival of everyday living.' (Sam Schoenbaum, project description, press release De Appel.) 'This piece is about how we see ourselves in the world, the extent to which our domestic situations define out way of looking, the nature of our existential process and change, the position of the individual in a couple-based society, the role of history, the lifestyle of sexual beings, you, me, your grandmother, the greengrocer, the boy-next-door, etc.' (Quote Sam Schoenbaum, invitation De Appel, April 1977.)
Etoile du Nord – Parfait Amour
archive, 1977
Sam Schonbaum – Engagement/Disengagement
archive, 1977