katalog-overlapping voices - Ritesinstitute

performance
The Medusa myth has a remarkable place in the Mediterranean cultures. It
is also rooted in western culture as a representation of part of the human psyche.
These aspects are my point of origin.
As an Arab Muslim woman, I have been inculcated from an early age with
the traditional ideas of women’s place and family honour. Since I think of Islam
as a culture more than a religion, I am fascinated by and interested in
exploring these aspects in different cultures.
My previous performance “In a twinkling of an eye” (Athens, Greece 2007)
stretched to sixteen minutes the moment preceding the beheading of Medusa.
In this project I wish to explore the moments that came after the beheading,
a moment of birth, when Pegasus and Centaur came into the world
and assumed their representation as white and pure (Pegasus) and black,
wild and emotional (Centaur).
86 OVERLAPPING VOICES
ANISA ASHKAR FROM THE SERIES LONG SHADOW, LONG SHADOW 1, 2004 *
ANISA ASHKAR FROM THE SERIES AGRIA MATIA, AGRIA MATIA 4, 2007 **
Arabischer Text in Anisa Ashkars Gesicht / Arab text in Anisa Ashkar’s face:
* LONG SHADOW: Wir werden uns an einem jener Tage der langen Schatten treffen. /
We shall meet on one of those days with the long shadow.
The Black (Ad‘ham) and White (Asbach) have a central place in my artistic
work. Horses have been reared by my family during my whole life and are
dominant in my biography.
The research that started with the performance “In a twinkling of an eye”
continued in ‘Al Adham’ (Gastatelier, Düsseldorf, Germany, February 2008),
where I explored the birth of Ad’ham, the black horse. That has led me to
this performance to explore the birth of Asbah, the white horse.
In Düsseldorf I looked for a black man that would represent Ad’ham, and in
Vienna I will look for a white man to represent the white horse Pegasus. I intend
to intertwine the Greek myth with the Arab poem “Antara Ibn Shaddad”.
Arabs are famous for their love of horses, so much so that they have even
preferred them to women.
** AGRIA MATIA: Es ist Zeit zu kommen. Ich werde bald kommen. Schlaf und Tod sind eins. /
It is time to come. I am the one who is coming soon. The sleep and the death are one.
*** EFyGENIA: Pass auf dich auf. / Take care of yourself.