Hannah Beilharz:Fuck Borders
Hannah Beilharz writes after the performance of Sawi Laila (EDHEA) presented on Saturday, 07.05.2022 on the occasion of ACT festival in the Schlachthof Kulturzentrum Biel.
Their presence provokes a softness, warmth, and a sense of connection between audience and performer. Their voice is an embrace, holding worlds.Other multitudes, we try to hear them. A conversation between the self on screen, the self in the room, the self not imagined yet.We follow.They ask: «Did you ever see the sun and moon walking together?» «Yes» one answered, and another, «no». The conversation drifts from dreamworld to now, the cage we are in, the one we forgot. «When did you stop flying?»«When did you stop flying?»The question echoes through the audience, humming in our momentarily collective mind.I feel it’s a metaphor forWhen did you stop dreaming?When did you stop becoming the fullness of yourself? What stopped you?
The performer continues the conversation with a voice (their voice) on screen.Speech becoming ragged, sometimes a hurt inside it.Speaking, repeating, sometimes translating, sometimes not. The gaps leave space for us, the audience. We wander together and apart, through feeling words, through feeling lost, through feeling resonance.
The performer begins to make a square, unfinished, another space. Space to be undefined, uncertain. They ask the audience’s permission for this, playfully, and we are along for the ride. But it is not a game.Borders evoke violence, an insistence of separation between those with power and those without. And a violent condition of existence for those that exist in both, that must cross over, those without. The unfinished square undoes this, if only for a small moment in time, in a warm dark room where there is a temporary agreement between people, to be gentle, to really listen, to be human.
Slowly, the performer begins to walk, or run, at first in slow motion.The video follows them, their shadow, on screen, and in the room.As they raise arms and gather speed, we, audience, now participants, do too. We are also going to fly, gathering speed, together in this room.And then, off! We fly together, for moments, maybe longer.Exhilaration and joy fills the space, fills each one. We are captivated and free at the same time.The applause is unanimous, without reservations.The applause is our thanks for the shared moment, the freedom to dream together of worlds without borders, a world we can live as undefined, beings becoming, sometimes even flying.
Hannah Beilharz 2022
