Performance 2020/ 180 min/ dancer: Florian Schlessmann/ 5 – 8 p.m.
Measurement has never been a constant. Tending to vary from place to place, many of the earliest forms of measurement were inextricably bound to the body. In ancient times, different body parts were used to measure distance: the length of a foot, the width of a thumb, the length of an outstretched hand, or the length of one’s belt. How, then, might the passing of time be measured through the body, through lived experience? Every phenomenon that occurs has its proper time, its own rhythm. “The secret of time,” the theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli writes, lies in the “slippage that we feel on our pulse, viscerally, in the enigma of memory, in anxiety about the future.” Asta Gröting’s performance Der eilige Geist asks not only how we sense, but also perform, the passing of time with and through the body. A lone performer dances variations of time: our hurry, our attempts to slow down, or the fear of time passing us by. In times of rapid acceleration, where might we find the moments when time stands still?