Photo: Aksel Pépin

We are collecting thoughts/responses after the weekend of our symposium in Nesodden. Here’s a text written by Schouskollektivet’s artistic director Sophie Barth, with reflections from a butoh exercise, becoming other, dreams, and the performance at Hellviktangen Kunstkafé.

Finally

I get up

I lie down

hands buried deep into the soil

eyes wide open

back bent forward

different direction

When I get up in the morning

I see a stranger gazing at

a face with features

that do not belong to me

Face down.

A dream came to me when -

no

not that dream again

when I look back

I see the door opening

a hand reaching into

the room

I fall.

When I get up

I lie down

cannot shake the feeling of 

perhaps

this body belongs

to the dreamer

a pale face in stone

I stand.

Shadows balancing on rocks

birds lying in the still waters

shifting positions

moving away then

coming together

What is left to tell?

When I get up in the morning

I

lie down.

Sophie Barth, August 2020