Die Gehängte
(the hanged woman)

Pain-body goes bye bye. Time to stop blaming. Let’s reverse thoughts. Where Jesus meets Adolf in heaven. There is nowhere else to go. One more sound, one more tear and that’s it. We see only the past but the past does not exist. Let’s give up seeing. Forget what you think. It’s not true. Remember that moment when you were empty? Go there.

In Tarot the hanged man symbolises the peace of acceptance after the confrontation with what we have made of our lives. It’s an awakening, the beginning of seeing life from a different perspective, turning round (up side down) our views, attitudes and experiences. The hanged woman is ready to let go of feelings that she has suppressed for many years. Still, now she has to manifest the change, to truly let go of the past and move forward.

Die Gehängte is an uncompromising journey into the truth, a radical exploration of performance itself. A fifty minutes solo piece, it lets the audience witness the last encounter between a German woman and the burden of her country. It’s like saying good-bye to the past that has been lasting on shoulders for too long. Symbolic actions, text directed towards the audience, live vocal sounds (overtones), rich music and a subtle expressive choreography blend into an atmospheric and moving ritual.The piece questions what we call reality and it engages its audience by the naked honesty of the performer.

Die Gehängte was premiered in November at the Liverpool Biennial 2004, was shown at Brighton Fringe Arts Production in January 2005, the National Review of Live Art in Glasgow in February 2005, and in April 2005 at the Centre for Performance Research conference Towards Tomorrow in Aberystwyth, Wales. In October 2005 Die Gehängte will be presented at the city of women festival in Ljubljana/Slovenia.

The research for this piece was supported by artsadmin (bursary scheme 2004) and the production was funded by the Arts Council England, South East.