GIVE ME A REPTILE

Polyphonic chant and archaically flung dance steps in place (1999)

A woman wearing a towering baroque headdress, mini-skirt, high heels and a yellow child’s mackintosh stands with a small green crocodile on one square metre of blue. Inside the crocodile’s body is a microphone with a long cord. Steffi Weismann sings, speaks, croaks and whispers in all registers with the little dragon, her voice amplified by the reptile microphone. The sounds of scratching and stroking the foam scales form the only accompaniment to this surreal vocal performance.
From the alternation between snake charming, puppet animation, ventriloquism and erotic Dada performance a prophecy emerges about uncanny events that will be revealed at the turn of the millennium. The textual material comes from poems by Ernst Jandl, Friederike Mayröcker, Roger Timmermann and Steffi Weismann.

idea, performance and costume: Steffi Weismann
rehearsals with Stefan Vens, Jo Stone, Uli Ertl
duration: 18 Minuten
performed at: “XX-Junction” KuLe Berlin 1999; OFK, Kunstraum Offenbach 1999; Kaskadenkondensator, Basel, Schweiz 1999; “Schauen und Klauen” Fabrikantinnen-Festival Berlin 2002