Flight Theater: guide & cheat sheet
Flight Theater is a performance and study practice by Steffani Jemison and Quincy Flowers. Flight Theater at Westfälischer Kunstverein is performed with Elliot Reed, dramaturg and movement direction.
Flight Theater at Westfälischer Kunstverein is presented in partnership with The Kitchen, New York. The artists extend special thanks to Callan Fish, HEKATE Studios, Vivien Kaempf, Theresa Roessler, and Robin Völkert.
Please be aware that this performance contains moments of darkness and occasional loud sounds.
This guide contains:
- A partial performance lexicon in English and German
- Script in English
Flight Theater ist ein Performance- und Forschungsprojekt von Steffani Jemison und Quincy Flowers. Flight Theater wird in Zusammenarbeit mit Elliot Reed, Dramaturgie und Bewegungsregie, aufgeführt.
Flight Theater im Westfälischen Kunstverein wird in Zusammenarbeit mit The Kitchen, New York, präsentiert.
Bitte beachtet, dass es während der Performance zu phasenweiser Dunkelheit und einzelnen lauten Geräuschen kommen kann.
Dieser Leitfaden enthält:
- Ein ausgewähltes Performance-Lexikon in Englisch und Deutsch
- Das Skript in Englisch
* a partial, non-exhaustive list of words that might appear in Flight Theater.
* eine unvollständige, nicht abgeschlossene Liste von Wörtern, die in Flight Theater vorkommen könnten.
Antagonize – jmd. gegen sich aufbringen
Atmospheric pressure – Atmosphärendruck
Blue jay – Blauhäher (Vogelart)
Ceiling – Decke
Clouds – Wolken
Conflict – Konflikt
Constellation – Konstellation / Sternbild
Crown – Krone
East – Osten
Elder – Ältester
Fair weather – Schönes Wetter
Fledgling – Jungvogel
Flow – Fluss
Formation – Entstehung
Grass – Gras
Grasshopper – Grashüpfer
Ground – Boden
Gusting – Böen
Habitat – Lebensraum
Hackberry tree – Zürgelbaum
In chorus – im Chor
Latitude [both definitions] – Breitengrad / Freiraum
Leaning – Lehnen
Light – Licht
Long haul – Langstrecke
Longitude – Längengrad
Magnetic – Magnetisch
Me – Ich
Millet and sorghum seeds – Hirse- und Sorghumsamen
Moisture – Feuchtigkeit
Nestling – Einnisten
North – Norden
Nothing beats a good song to begin and end the day – Es gibt nichts Schöneres als ein gutes Lied, um den Tag zu beginnen und zu beenden
Pigeon – Taube
Oppose – Ablehnen
Pagoda dogwood – Etagen-Hartriegel (Pflanze)
Pavement – Bodenbelag / Fußweg
Personal possession – Persönlicher Besitz
Repel – Abwehren
Roots – Wurzeln
Sidewalk – Gehweg
Silver – Silber
Singing – Singen
Sky – Himmel
Song sparrow – Singammer (Vogelart)
Soot – Ruß
South – Süden
Stars – Sterne
Stayed with the flock – Blieb bei der Herde
Supporting – Unterstützen
Testing out their wings – Ihre Flügel ausprobieren
Them – Sie
Undulate – Wellig
Us – Wir
Walls – Wände
Wandering – Umherwandern
Warbler – Grasmücke
West - Westen
Winter – Winter
Yellow Bellied Flycatcher – Gelbbauchschnäpper (Vogelart)
You – Du
1
We were sitting on a bench.
We were making conversation.
We were sitting on a bench, talking, making conversation, when a man shuffled into our field of view.
This man: let me tell you about this man. His shirt was not fully buttoned, or the buttons were off, and there were stains mixed in with the stripes, and his cuffs flapped loosely around his wrists. His fly was partially unzipped, as if he had run out of energy to pull it all the way up. His jacket hung from his shoulders the way jackets hang in your closet, the way they hang on a skeleton. The general impression was: negligence. He was an older man, but he was an ageless man, I could not tell you exactly how old. He shuffled into our field of view slowly, as if shuffling onto a stage, and it was a little dance, the way he slid, one tiny step at a time. He was singing as he shuffled.
And as he entered, I felt the breeze ripple my clothing as though he had brought some wind with him, as though the wind was his own personal possession. It was a clear day, a hot July day, but I shivered. I thought of something I have seen in books about the pleasure of being tickled by a single feather, a pleasure I have never experienced myself.
Why did I think this? Perhaps I could sense the feathers coming, or maybe I could smell them. Now, I have seen pigeons—I live in the pigeon-y-ist city in the world, New York City—but believe me when I tell you this man’s cry, his yodel, his melody, summoned more pigeons than I had ever seen in one place before, the entire area was covered with them, it was like an invasion or an infusion or an explosion of pigeons, he was like a human-animal fountain, they covered him and fluttered around him and hovered over him.
And as they flew, I realized for the first time how many variations of pigeon there really are, like have you ever noticed that there are pigeons with white heads and bodies and others with smoky grey heads and bodies and some with bright emerald patches and others the color of soot, the green and grey and white seem designed almost as extensions of pavement and sidewalk and grass, the colors of the city, with occasional patches of purple thrown in, like jewels.
It was not only pigeons but also sparrows and blackbirds and squirrels too, all encircling the man as if he was a preacher or a zookeeper, as if he was Santa Claus. As he sang, he stood still as a statue, turning his head gently from side to side to watch them. I noticed, maybe for the first time, that birds are so rarely entirely still, they are always hopping and fluttering and gliding. It was an uneasy situation somehow, the tension was building, I noticed I was holding my breath as I waited.
Finally….finally….finally…RELEASE by which I mean he tossed some bits of food and the birds began to undulate and flow around him in response, it felt almost symphonic, the way they flocked, they were like an orchestra and his hand, slicing and beckoning, was their conductor. The way he tossed those seeds in different directions, I was reminded of those free t-shirts they shoot out of guns at basketball games—have you ever seen those—like he was trying to get some to the folks in the back and some to the VIPS in front and some to the less mobile, the kids who can’t jump, the old heads, the true fans, who were hanging out waiting their turn.
I could not believe it, I could not believe what I was seeing. I saw a squirrel climb part of the way up to the fence so that its hands were level with the man’s hands as he pushed something from his fingers to the animal, who took it between its two front paws and gnawed. I saw a bird hover just over his shoulder and saw him swat it away like you swat a fly; then, I saw him wipe his hand on his already grimy pants. Friends, there was filth everywhere. The air around him looked dense and white with feathers or dander or birdseed or dust, like I said, he was like a fountain, he was making it rain. I am allergic to dust, and I felt the stirrings of a desire to sneeze, but I swallowed it down, I held it back, I was sure the sound would cause everything to scatter and I didn’t want to break the spell.
I didn’t want to break the spell that this man had created, he had cultivated some incredible power, some spiritual or magical capacity, and I say this because the animals were behaving as though bewitched. And as the activity continued to what felt like unusual or even unnatural lengths, I began to wonder whether they were possessed by him or he was possessed by them. I say this because yes, they were high on seeds but he, too, appeared to have worked himself up into some kind of state. His eyes were half-closed in ecstatic communion, his palms raised on both sides like a preacher on the brink of levitation, even as the very next moment, he would scrunch up his face and begin slapping at the air, he was like Jekyll and Hyde, I marveled at his contradictions, the way he invited and opposed the pigeons in a single stride, a single breath. He actually walked away a few times, and the birds would begin to disperse, then turned around and came back as if he were playing a little game.
I like games. I like my games fair, and I couldn’t decide how I felt about this one. Was he taking advantage of them, their hunger, their need? Were they taking advantage of him, of his loneliness, his emptiness? He had their food but they had their freedom; I couldn’t decide whose side I was on if I had to pick.
I looked down at my own hands. They were empty, as always. I was surrounded by life and yet I felt, and not for the first time, a keen sense of myself as barren, as unbountiful and alone.
--
2
I was walking, I was watching the pigeons blend into the city streets, and this is the thought that crossed my mind: pigeons are the rats of the sky. That’s what they say in New York, anyway, I’m sure that pigeons would be offended if they heard me say this, if pigeons are capable of offense. Actually, I bet the fact that I am repeating this slander is the reason the pigeons want to hang out with that man in the park and do not want to be friends with me, I bet he would never compare pigeons to rats. For all I know, he likes rats, he considers them his brethren or maybe his subjects, his peasants. For all I know he feeds them too.
But now that we’re on the topic of whether pigeons take offense, I recently read an essay about the limitations of the vocabulary we have in English to write from a place of solidarity between humans and other living beings.
“If I call them “I”,” the author said, “then I’m appropriating them to myself without regard to their separation, their specificity.” Then again, the author said, “If I call them “you,” I differentiate them from the kind of being that I am.” And they said, “If I call them “he” or “she,” then I’m gendering them according to heteronormative concepts. . . . ”
In other words, to speak from a space of solidarity between humans and mosquitos and birds, our vocabulary is inadequate, “her” and “him” and “them” all feel too distant whereas “I” and “we,” those are too intimate.
Or are they? I mean, maybe there is a “we” that includes both me and an eagle, or me and a seagull, or even me and a dove. Me and a pigeon? Is it too far-fetched for me to imagine?
Maybe a better question is: is it too far fetched for a PIGEON to imagine. Because pigeons are a lot like people, in a certain way. They cluster and gather in hordes. Their intimacy can be menacing sometimes, like a pigeon will head directly to you and start poking around, as though the space you occupy now is also theirs, in other words, a kind of “ours.” And this, this is not dissimilar: a mosquito will zoom directly up to you and start poking around as though your body is also theirs. In that sense, the way that our bodies are inextricable from other bodies, the ones we eat and the ones that eat us, maybe every “I” is some kind of “we.”
--
3
I am lying down.
I am—well, it doesn’t matter where I am, I am lying down, there is a bright light directly over my head, but I’ve been told to close my eyes, I’ve been told to relax the base of my spine, to relax my ribs, to relax the back of my neck, to relax my head.
I’ve been asked to enter the room like, metaphorically, spiritually, enter the room, I’ve been asked to leave behind the outdoors, to leave behind all other rooms, like classrooms, bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, corporate offices, any other room is to be left outside, I am to focus on this room and this room only.
I am enclosed but I am asked to think myself outside the space of enclosure, to imagine that I am free, and this is a challenge. I can’t help thinking, even as I am being instructed to release all thoughts, I can’t help thinking isn’t my mind enclosed by my physical self, by this layer of epidermis and fat and blood and fascia, isn’t this body surrounded and infused by air, it covers every part of me from the tips of my toes to the very top of my head?
I am asked to scan my body from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet and of course when she say top, she means what would be the top if I were standing up, which is now something more like the edge of my head, the northern edge of my whole body, and so I start there, I start by allowing my head to sink down into the bench, allowing gravity to pull my insides down from the inside which means letting go of the muscles that are secretly propping things up, finding release towards my bottom which is obviously at this particular moment what I would ordinarily call the back of my body, the part of my body that’s on the other side of my eyes, not the part I navigate with but the part that I’m usually navigating away from, now I am navigating toward that space, toward my back,
and I let it keep flowing down, I let it keep flowing low, I imagine that there is a lake inside my body and my energy is silt inside the lake and my muscles are like the little currents and waves and surface tension that hold things up, and my task is to release the surface tension, allow everything to drop, allow my silt to fall to the sandy bottom of the lake and become one with the bottom, I feel my back becoming my bottom, I feel the skin of my back becoming one with the skin of the bench, the bench is leather, it is the skin of a cow, I think this is the closest I will ever come to being back to back with another animal that is not a human.
I let my shoulders drop, I let my ribs drop, I imagine my back sinking deeper and deeper into the bench, below the skin, below the padding, below the stitches, low enough that my lower back touches the top of the bench and the back of my upper thighs touches the top of the bench and my legs are straight so the back of my knees can also touch the top of the bench and the back of my ankles touch the top of the bench, and the back of my heels too
and I am making full body contact, from the north of my body to the south, with the bench, and even though my eyes are closed, I feel the light prism right through my lids and the prism-ed light is prism-ed further by my skin, by the outside of my eyelids, the part I know is brown like the rest of me, and by the middle of my eyelids, whatever that may be, perhaps more translucent than I’ve ever thought, and by the inside of my eyelids, red and orange and yellow and pink and even purple sometimes, even black sometimes, and i can’t quite tell if I’m looking at what’s inside or what’s outside of me or whether it matters, it is the color of the inside of my skin mixed with my light, and I want to close my eyes against this color but I can’t, they are already closed, they cannot close them any further,
and then I hear the instructor, she says something about activating our core, and pressing our back down so that our legs go up, and I open my eyes all the way and see a light in front of me, exactly where it was when I left it, it hasn’t moved, only I have moved, I can feel my feet lifting in front of my eyes and that’s it, that’s the story.