Do you love yourself? are you addicted to anything? are you afraid? what kept you alive? are you lonely? would you like to change? are you obsessed? what means beauty? when was the last time you cried?… are some of the questions proposed and the process of answering varies in the course of the evening.
Visiting Time, a live installation by and with Litsa Kiousi, is an intimate encounter between a blind-folded performer and the audience. It is set in a small, restricted space, coldly lit, filled with the sounds of piano. Entering one-at-a-time, audience members are given a questionnaire. They are invited to offer their answers by writing them on the performer´ s naked body therefore the skin and a marker immerse in an intense dialogue.
“… Litsa Kiousi and Marco Wittorf, choreographer/dancer, and actor respectively, were taking part in Berlin Soup Festival in Copenhagen, a ramshackle affair offering performance, poetry, music and visual art. Litsa and Marco presented Visiting Time, a two-hour installation, where you are greeted by a host who hands over an envelope with a letter formed of questions, and a permanent marker pen. Once read, and the letter folded back into its envelope, the host asks you to think of the questions and the answers you formed in your head. He then opens the door to a room for your appointment and then the door is closed.
Putting pen to a then blank canvas of flesh, you are invited to write your answers. What can one remember of the questions? I think out of the 16 I remembered 5 at the most. The prospect of transposing those answers onto a seemingly vulnerable body, created a melancholic tension characterised by feelings of love and protectiveness towards the ‘loved body’, and a sense of duty towards enacting the contract – to recall and transcribe the answers onto the body.
I don’t quite remember where I started, and for some moments respectively stood back to take in the low-lit scene and watch my blindfolded figure responding in movement to Morton Feldman. It crossed my mind that my inactivity could easily slip into voyeurism which I think was the uneasy prompt that moved me to interact.
What answers and where on the body? The writer intuitively selects the ‘right point’ to start, and a conversation composed of silent movements begins…”
(Adelaide Bannerman, curator)
Visiting time has been presented so far at:
Henrys Dream Festival(DK) – Performance and music festival in Roskilde (3-hours version)
Visiting Times-An event, at Panke in Berlin (2-hours version)
WW/Weiße Würfel gallery in Leipzig, in the frame of Akkunacht Event (1-hour version)
University of Fine Arts in Florina, Greece (2-hours version)
