Always coming hole, 2021

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Always coming hole is a choreographic reading space about Lake Poopó, a disappearing lake in Bolivia. As such, it starts with an end, and with the following question: if the lake would be a fictional character in a novel, how would its next life be? 

 

The work travels between the virtual and the real through the practices of writing, reading, and imagining, relating to the lake’s disappearance as a fictional choreography. 

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“Bodies need water, but water also needs a body. Water is always sometime, someplace, somewhere. Even in our aqueous connections, bodies and their others/worlds are still differentiated. The question, then, of ‘what is’ is never sufficient. How is it? Where is it? When is it?. (…) If we are all bodies of water, then we are differentiated not so much by the ‘what’ as by the ‘how’”. Astrida Neimanis

 

Two bodies on stage perform an audio guided choreography. They embody imaginary and real bodies of water being conducted, molded, re-shaped. Perhaps, once the “what” is released, we can make space for other “how’s”.

They navigate a space created out of the negative of the lake: its body that it's left behind, which has served as a vessel for its lifetime. From above, such as Google would capture it: a remnant of its life gets excavated as an image and transformed into banners of memories of its lifetimes, as banners to be  used to demonstrate for the rights of water(s).

 

(( Always coming hole is part of a long term research around the interconnectedness of a group of bodies of water located in South America. Taking a space as  point of departure, the work  investigates ways of listening to its movements and forces. ))

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Concept and choreography: Paula Almiron

Space Creation: Eliane Bertschi

Choreography and performance: Ines Marita Schärer & Paula Almiron

Voices: Paula Pacheco, Alan Calle, Saul Apaza Chambi, Paula Almiron. 

Video Mapping: Eliane Bertschi & Ruben Vandermeulen

Text: Paula Almiron

Lights: Dorian Stevens

Technical support: Jan Berckmans & Ruben Vandermeulen

In conversation with Simon Asencio, Eliane Bertschi, Sabine Cmelniski, Wouter De Raeve, Fabrizia Fluhler, Caroline Godard, Lili M. Rampre, and Louise Vanneste.

With the support of La Bellone Maison de Spectacle, Kunstencentrum BUDA, Louise Vanneste Rising Horses, Villa Empain (Fondation Boghossian), Bâtard Festival – workspacebrussels – Kunstenwerkplaats.

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Video Version

Videographer: Ely Chevillot, Camille Sultan & Carol Van Hemelrijck

Video editing: Eliane Bertschi

Video sound correction: Enrique Paredes

With the support of De Vlaamse Overheid and Bâtard Festival

  

 

Excerpts from interviews: 

Paula Pacheco is the regional coordinator in La Paz of “Agua Sustentable”, a Centre for the Support of Sustainable Water and Environmental Management .

Alan Calle is a rural teacher and activist living in the proximities of the lake.

Saul Apaza Chambi is the president of "Cuenca de Usuarios de las aguas del Desaguadero Mauri" (W ater Users' Basin Desaguadero Mauri) . He grew up on the shores of Lake Poopo. 

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Online première: Batard Festival, Brussels, 2021 

Live première: Veem House for Performance, Amsterdam, 2021