THE EARTH WILL ABSOLVE ME
The Ahhhness of Things (Nihaarika Negi, Lesley Asare, Kayleigh Handley, James Monaghan, Chloe Gayet, Annelie, Nederberg)
'The earth will absolve me'
SPILL Festival of Performance 2014,
Photo by Guido Mencari
Trailer filmed by Nihaarika Negi & Asawari Jagushte
Five figures rise through the earth, searching for worlds lost in slow-dancing tomatoes and beetroot jars.
They are healers of sweat.
Markers of the fall.
They are skinning their dreams beneath carpeted walls.
“The earth will absolve me” is a series of installed performances that occur within a landscape of soil, beetroot, tomatoes and carpet fragments. Breathing in the space between live art, theatre and installation – this work explores beauty, intimacy and tenderness using everyday materials, creating a tableau that examines the ideas of femininity within different cultural contexts.
Two women stand embracing, within a pool of water, in an earthen landscape. Their hands find the earth and the dark earth begins to glide over their skin.
A woman lays strewn in a mess of domesticity and carpet underlay that has been clawed and puckered. She begins to rebuild the space and her forgotten self.
A woman showers a man in beetroot vinegar. The stench is piercing. He gathers the falling liquid in a jar. Drenched, he is consumed by his thirst.
A woman is bound in jagged strips of flesh-coloured carpets. She is defaced by her hair, as her hands and feet are dipped in pigments of red. Then the rolling begins.
