The sun is setting and festival-goers are already lined up and ready to let themselves be seduced by the enigmatic universe of the theremin-player and performer Dorit Chrysler. A fascinating figure, she is, when she creates an atmospheric space around her, which brings associations to the uncanny and fascinating world of e.g. David Lynch. We have been enchanted by her world and talked to Dorit Chrysler about her work.
I for one very easily surrender to this otherworldly experience and let myself wander in the mysterious landscapes Chrysler creates.
The overarching aim of the art program at the festival is interaction, intervention and relational experiences, which, besides referring to a general trend within the art world, points toward the vision of the festival to create a frame of a responsible and co-participating spirit. Thus, the art program facilitates motion, where the more traditional music program evokes emotion in the more or less passive and indulging audience (also see article/blog-post: “Art at the festival – A valuable space-in-between”).
Mysterious universes
However, even though, Dorit Chrysler is part of the art program her performance is very much between ‘motion’ and ‘emotion’. I watch her, I dream with her, I want to come closer.
If her artwork was instead presented as a parallel universe installation, I could engage with her, talk to her, be as enchanted as she is, with her. That is the strategy of so-called ‘fictional parallel universes’ that amongst other SIGNA, Fiction Pimps, Punchdrunk,Post Restante, Club de la Faye and Sisters Hope work with. It can be understood as a cross-over between performative and theatrical strategies. It is interactive and invites to co-participation but within a very theatrical environment. I would love to see Dorit Chrysler in such a performance-installation at Roskilde Festival. Imagine being invited into such as space, like walking through the canvas and really being there, interacting with this fascinating universe.
As Dorit Chrysler also pointed out when we spoke: “It is about bringing out your deepest being – The unique sound of YOU. I hope to empower people to take the step, to begin the process of bringing this forth.”
Embodied mystery
Dorit Chryslers dusk-performance is however surrounded by an installation. A light installation by the artist group Dark Matter. In collaboration with Roskilde Festival they’ve have created a labyrinthic 3D universe (B:aMAZEd) that utilizes the landscape surface via projections from a crane, to create a virtual world. Here the audience, both passively and actively, takes part in the realization, thereby affecting the projections. This ‘move’ invites the festival-goers to not watch passively, but to engage responsibly and joyfully.
Next step, I would say is to give the festival-goers the opportunity to become one with the universe by letting this enchantment that float from the figure on stage, embody themselves. To create a universe where other more aesthetic and sensuous premises are activated than those of everyday life – Democratic re-enchantment!
