“Precipice of Depth” is a performance-video installation touching the matters of maternity or rather it’s most straightforward, physical aspect, the labor itself, as well as childbirth anxiety, fears of the perinatal period, puerperium and baby blues. This domain of a woman’s life, which still remains a taboo and which is willingly pushed to the margin of discussion on the topic of maternity being only the beautiful and momentous event, is for many women an extreme formative experience. In the “Precipice of Depth” we collide the opposites: the miracle of life, which is the conception, pregnancy and the emergence of a new being, with the “motherhood hell”, physical pain, it’s scatological and cruel literality and with mental sufferings of future and young mothers that are full of fear, uncertainty and loneliness. The creation of the spectacle was accompanied by conversations with several women of all ages, talking about their experience connected to the perinatal period and about their concerns and conditions associated with the eventuality of pregnancy in the future. The title of the spectacle refers to the psychoanalytic term known as “precipice of depth” signifying horrible, dark mood in which people tend to fall right after they make a step that has no way back.
script, stage moving and direction: Marcin Herich
script co-operation, stage moving and acting: Monika Wachowicz
video: Marlena Niestrój and Marcin Herich
music: J.S. Bach and Ulver
first night performance: Katowice, Poland, 2014
duration of the performance: 40 minutes
PRESENTATIONS
13 of June 2014 – Kinoteatr Rialto (Katowice) – International Performing Arts Festival A Part
10 of June 2015 – Kinoteatr Rialto (Katowice) – International Performing Arts Festival A Part
CRITICS
“Precipice of Depth” in some sense fits in with the series of monodramas, it is sort of parallel to full-cast projects run by Marcin Herich and Monika Wachowicz, but thank to the polyphonic form used it exceeds or burst from the structure of the monodrama. Two projectors display scenes of childbirth on a black screen, the materials are amateur and instructional, striking with its verism and naturalism. The third projector is an actress herself, who utters, tersely in contrast, some single words, single screams, mostly silent, who takes on the roles of women, embodies their hopes and disappointments, and at the same time expressing her own femininity and physicality. She does not only display, she herself does become a screen – when she stays on the projection line she takes the image on herself, absorbs it, and at the same time, being physical and non-transparent, she casts her shadow on the video. If we’d like to set in motion Hans Bellmer’s pieces of work, if we’d like to express that secret inner life, dismembered and proliferating, it could not be done better. This is the culmination of the performance. Something that exceeds its social and cultural references (to taboo, myth, to the recent, resounding but discredited campaign “Let us hurry to bear children, I missed to be a mom” – Herich has a phenomenal sense of timing), something very somatic and dark. The power of “Precipice of Depth” lies in this one brilliant visual intuition.
Radosław Kobierski, www.rueboutdumonde.blogspot.com [Katowice, Poland]
In “Precipice of Depth” an attempt was taken to picture the hardcore reality of childbirth, with all the triumph and the uniqueness of the phenomenon. In parallel there was illustrated a study of women’s suffering, measured with not purely physical measurement. The show presented simultaneously displayed videos, which very accurately reported various labours. Some movies were supplemented by a dry, analytical voice-over, „boosted” by a small shift of soundtrack (multiplying echo effect, overlapping voices) – those films were so naturalistic and meaningful, that little room was left for imagination. An interesting result was achieved by displaying a picture of a giving birth woman on the bosom of the artist. This artistic move may be read as a metaphor for an emerging platform, internal covenant of the females.
Monika Wachowicz and Marcin Herich, not arguing with the physiology of the human body, in a naturalistic way reveal what in the culture is considered to be taboo.
Undoubtedly, nudity served as the key artistic means of the whole performance, not only as a necessary part of instructional videos. In the second screening, as well as in the actor-viewer relationship, nudity was based on created trust, on an imperceptibly concluded agreement…
“Precipice of Depth” used three lamps, few words, two projectors and one person. Just about an hour play is sufficient to prove that the apparent deep is indeed the emptiness, that may be found anywhere.
Julia Kosmala, www.wywrota.pl [Katowice, Poland]
Photos: Marlena Niestrój
open gallery view video
