Compass
«Let’s not anymore feign surprise by estrangement. Start here, before familiarity takes hold with knots of misrecognition. Circumnavigating the cautious understanding of the stranger, since there is no understanding, we look to the compass. Watch the needle waver and drift off course; magnetic deviation in nearness to the desirable. Wet with tears or soaked by storms, another wave brings another sailor and thoughts of amorality. Drying out will mark the passage of time or might bring winds to weather the storm. Bring smoked fish and loads of salt for preservation. I’ll watch you eat as I have watched others before.»
The performance Compass by Simone Aughterlony, Petra Hrašćanec, and Saša Božić is inspired by Homer’s Odyssey. This epic poem about the sea and maritime adventures has been turned ironically into a narrative of contemporary loneliness. This new version can be read as a personal story in an intimate universe and also as a parable of a new Europe. The smell of sea salt and algae, the immense vastness of the coastline and secret landing planks, the dead silence of the watery world, wind and storms, flashes of lightning and darkness, birds and fish, the furling of the sails and billowing foam, and the mysterious voyages and the desperate shipwrecks prove that we are essentially alone and are always perceived as strangers on new shores.
Aughterlony, Hrašćanec, and Božić tackle the motif of alienation and through a fascinating, grim landscape of nautical images and mystical figures confront us with the dystopia of co-existence.
Credits