conversations in ten (-four) questions 28 : Zwermers

Zwermers, Pan~ // Catwalk, © Jostijn Ligtvoet Fotografie 

What is the essence of performance in your opinion? 

Performance, in our case, has the double meaning of being a live-performance but also being Performance Art, the art form where the artwork is created through actions executed by the artist. 

Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How? 

In our project Pan~// Catwalk the performers provide this action: the continuous changing of outfits. By doing this, the outfits take centre stage and tell the story: the huge transformative power outfits can have on a body and how it provides a sense of identity. The audience get’s confronted with their own inert tendency to label everything we see and realises how fluid the concept of identity really is.

As an artist working in the field of performing arts, how do you personally cope with the challenging conditions resulting from the pandemic?

The pandemic has greatly influenced our work. Due to cancelled performances we decided to spend more time digging deeper into our work. During one month of residency in our local theatre we researched topics like: clothing from around the world, problematic overproduction of textile, what ‘casual’ style really means and ‘birds of paradise’, a nickname for people who radically choose their own extravagant/raw style, not caring what other people think. This last one was our favourite. We eventually included the highlights in our current performance making it much more diverse and inclusive. ! !

We also started to develop other creations, like installations, a video work and researched the possibilities of the digital stage. We’ve created a Zoom-performance for the Oerol festival (a Dutch festival that focusses on location based performances) where we asked 10 people from around the world to create their own version of our Pan~// Catwalk performance. Tanya Arısoy & Tolga Cuğ, performance student of Bilgi University in Istanbul, joined us as well. We were hesitant of the digital medium at first, but ultimately this was an amazing experience to connect with people around the world. By using Zoom as performance medium and asking the audience to turn on their cameras and show some outfits from their wardrobe, it was also a unique opportunity to involve audience and reach into their living rooms. There was a very personal and very global connection. We still think nothing beats the live performance, but we did discover the promising possibilities of this digital medium. In short we can say that due to the pandemic we turned our performance into a project, with multiple outcomes and still a lot of ideas to continue working on. All this was already potentially there, but the pandemic certainly gave us the time and opportunity to develop this. 

When you are working on a piece, what sources inspire you? Do dreams play a role in your works? 

We find inspiration on the streets through people wearing outfits. Sometimes this opens up a complete new style or subculture we haven’t included in our project yet. Inspiration comes also by working around the same topic (clothing and identity) for some years now. It feels like this topic keeps bringing up new questions. Our mission is to portray an inclusive representation of the human body and identity through clothing. We can’t change who we are in terms of age, skin colour and size, and there are limits to what we can wear without appropriating elements of another culture or becoming offensive. But we can seek out other people to collaborate with us. Showing a much more diverse representation of the human body and its identity expressions. We’re very curious about the customs, styles and social norms of people in different parts of the world. Including others as performers allows us to address issues around identity on a local level.

Another important aspect of the performance is the live music, played by Wouter. He creates a live soundscape that brings the audience in some kind of trance that helps them to focus on the infinite changing of outfits. The main inspiration for the music is Hauschka, a German pianist that experiments with his piano using sound effects, loops and crating percussive sounds on his instrument. After seeing a beautiful performance of Hauschka in the dunes of Vlieland, Wouter decided to approach his violin in the same way, which also has become a never ending search for new sounds that can be created with this instrument.

What does ‘fringe’ signify for you? 

Fringe literally means border or edge. A festival on the edge of what is possible, providing opportunity to experiment. 

Why did you decide to participate in the Istanbul Fringe festival particularly with this work of yours? If you had to translate this work into a single sentence, what would that sentence be? 

We were very happy to have joined the festival this year, because we got a change to not only perform our piece, but also try out a collaborative project around clothing and identity with 10 performance students of Bilgi University in Istanbul, with Fringe Istanbul and Performistanbul as partners. We asked them to bring different sets of their own clothes. They arrived to the rehearsal space with enormous suitcases full of outfits. While rehearsing we discussed the topic of identity and in what way clothes become a way of expressing who we are, how we feel. Rather than asking them to copy our performance, we created a new version together with them, using their own personal outfits. From chique to leisure, from watching Netflix on the couch to something they would normally never wear. The students showed their versatile and colorful identities, even their cultural heritage through the clothes they wore. It was touching to see the eagerness of the students to be part of the project, we felt very honored by their engagement in this experiment and it inspired us to continue in this collaborative direction. To be continued!

[the turkish version of this interview was published in unlimited on 23th november 2021]