Abstract
STOP START PAUSE is a performance created by LIMINAL performance group in close collaboration with Danish artist duo Hesselholdt & Mejlvang.
The audience was met by three emissaries armed with banners, symbols, fanfares and beliefs. They had come to help us to a new beginning without the conflicts and problems of our time. And asked the question: how do we free ourselves from ingrained patterns and existing beliefs and values?
The human being is an amazing animal. We are good at recognizing and reading patterns. This makes us able to decode and adapt to the conditions in our surroundings, and even able to create new, complex systems ourselves. But it is also our Achilles heel because we see patterns everywhere - even where they do not exist. And we interpret these patterns based on habitual thinking, beliefs and prejudices. Pattern recognition has taken us far, but it also dominates us, and now we realize that they are destructive and create division and polarization. Never in human history has it been more necessary to be able to create new patterns to survive.
STOP START PAUSE investigates what happens to our self-understanding and our capacity to understand the society around us in a complex reality that seems to have exploded into an unfathomable number of different positions and understandings of truth. What constructs a common 'we'? Why and how, for example, do the flag, national symbols and rituals become important to us in that reality? How is the nation-state articulated? Who is part of the community; who is included and who is excluded? Are there new communities emerging between the national and the global?
The audience was met by three emissaries armed with banners, symbols, fanfares and beliefs. They had come to help us to a new beginning without the conflicts and problems of our time. And asked the question: how do we free ourselves from ingrained patterns and existing beliefs and values?
The human being is an amazing animal. We are good at recognizing and reading patterns. This makes us able to decode and adapt to the conditions in our surroundings, and even able to create new, complex systems ourselves. But it is also our Achilles heel because we see patterns everywhere - even where they do not exist. And we interpret these patterns based on habitual thinking, beliefs and prejudices. Pattern recognition has taken us far, but it also dominates us, and now we realize that they are destructive and create division and polarization. Never in human history has it been more necessary to be able to create new patterns to survive.
STOP START PAUSE investigates what happens to our self-understanding and our capacity to understand the society around us in a complex reality that seems to have exploded into an unfathomable number of different positions and understandings of truth. What constructs a common 'we'? Why and how, for example, do the flag, national symbols and rituals become important to us in that reality? How is the nation-state articulated? Who is part of the community; who is included and who is excluded? Are there new communities emerging between the national and the global?
| Translated title of the contribution | STOP START PAUSE: A performance game |
|---|---|
| Original language | Danish |
| Publisher | LIMINAL performancegroup |
| Media of output | Multimedia |
| Publication status | Published - 2022 Mar 22 |
Subject classification (UKÄ)
- Performing Arts
Artistic work
- Performance