Cyclops

In his directorial debut at Ballhaus Naunynstraße, Zé de Paiva merges all of his experiences as an actor, dancer, photographer and video artist. In an intermedial performance he and the dancer Nasheeka Nedsreal seek to distort the postcolonial configuration of images.

Images rest on bodies. They glide across walls, people and objects. Everything is an image carrier. The images weigh, overlap, transform bodies. Whatever we call reality is a collage of image and matter. Image interference. Who produces the images? For whom? For what purpose? With Cyclops, performer Zé de Paiva places the camera at the center as an omnipresent, omnipotent image creater – as a counterpart, an instrument of domination and empowerment. Who operates the camera, decides on which detail, who activates the shutter release?

Cameras make things visible, give them shape. Whoever commands the camera decides on how seeing and being seen takes place. Photographic practice creates a hierarchy of those looking and those being looked at. It is part of late colonialism: an instrument of surveillance, categorization, administration, of the objectification of bodies and people. It is true that one speaks of the „protagonist“ when one means the person in front of the camera.

But isn’t the actual protagonist the person with the camera, this artificial cyclops?Is a reversal of roles even possible? What do you see? Who are you, my counterpart with this view of the world? How do you see me? Is the world attuned to your perspective? And when I see you on my screen, who are you then? Who directs the gaze, who is the one seducing?

Cyclops is a dance with cables and eyes; a struggle for potentials of movement. In the performance Zé de Paiva and Nasheeka Nedsreal seek appropriation, the refraction of light in the service of their perspectives as Black protagonists.

+++ Note: Bags (larger than DIN A5) and jackets must be handed out at the cloakroom +++