THE READING
Solo Performance - Magdeburg October 2014
Olo Bianco Performance Festival
Script and Performance: Leo Meyer-Schwickerath
As Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky is describing in his book “Phsychomagic” the subconsciousness can not differentiate to a certain extend between real and symbolic actions. Therefor subconscious patterns it can be transformed by conducting symbolic acts. The Performance was set up as a transformative ritual in itself. Intending to offer the performer a change of subconscious patterns. After realizing that his psychosomatic symptoms would eventually lead to a complete destruction of himself Leo started to dig into his subconsciousness. The old goal of successfully working as an engineer and founding a family crumbled. He had to reconstruct a new identity. The performance deals with this search. Particularly with the transformation of his expression of his sexuality and the transformation of the relationship with his grandfather.
Leo edited 10 excerpts of his digital diary dealing with this search and combined them with the fairy tale “Rumpelstiezlchen”. In the fairy tale “Rumelstielzchen” repeatedly is asking the beautiful daughter of a miller about his name. Leo took this as a red thread of again and again asking “Who am I?” to read out his most private memoirs of the process of his transformation. Entering the Performance as an old grandfather he leaves it 2 hours later on high heals as a beautiful woman.
Photos (C) by Luz Scherwinski