In the spring of 2020, Meg Stuart was invited by the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin to participate in the CC: World project. Various artists and researchers contributed personal letters, in the form of videos or essays, responding to the current state of the world. Stuart created four videos exploring our changing relationship to time, in dialogue with the retro-futurist architecture of the iconic HKW building.

The four videos – The Lobby, Intermission, Overtime and The Clock – are set in various parts of the modernist masterpiece built in the 1950s, eerily deserted during COVID-19 lockdown. With its vast rooms and stylized interiors, and a remarkable rooftop, the building becomes a scene where five bodies join, resist, become disjointed, reach towards the clouds and fall backwards into the sky. Each video leaves a unique trace, while the city of Berlin hovers at the edge of the horizon.

These video letters are on daily display at Stoa’s lobby in Helsinki during the whole length of Moving in November 2022. The work is free of admission and can be seen during the opening hours of Stoa.

The Lobby

The Lobby is set in the foyer of the HKW building. Five people engage with its vast rooms and stylized interiors, normally crowded with eager anticipation, now eerily deserted. A different kind of tension is installed, a wait that is stretched indefinitely. Flirting with the solidity of walls and pillars, with angles and perspectives, they leave traces of presence and absence in this in-between space. Looking for connection, yet never quite meeting.

Intermission

Intermission moves the HKW to an otherworldly setting, shaped by its remarkable rooftop. Against an undulating white landscape, bodies join, resist and become disjointed in jagged pieces and broken lines. Playing with elements of science-fiction, melodrama and myth, Intermission is a fictional reflection of what it means to wait for the unknown. The city of Berlin hovers at the edge of the horizon, adding to the sense of drama about to unfold.

Overtime

Set to the tune of David Lynch’s electro-pop fantasy Good Day Today, Overtime playfully skirts the territories of music video and travelogue. We see a gang of people hanging out and messing around on a white expanse, part celestial playground and part wasteland. Shot during golden hour, the video draws us in through the warmth of their camaraderie and its humorous edge but leaves a wry aftertaste. Are these people free, or are they somehow displaced in time? Are they playing games, or looking for shelter?

The Clock

The Clock is an extended meditation on time and loss, a slow erasing. Movement is developed at length until it acquires a stillness and an elegiac quality. Wide-angle drone footage paints a dizzying view of the building’s curved rooftop underneath an ever-changing canopy of clouds. Five bodies are set into motion by a penetrating sound score. Reaching towards the clouds, they seem to be falling backwards into the sky. Reaching for all those that have disappeared from our world this year, unseen, they seem to be falling backwards in time.

Meg Stuart

Meg Stuart was born in New Orleans, USA. She studied dance at New York University and continued her studies at the Movement Research laboratory, where she explored release techniques and contact improvisation and was actively involved in the downtown New York dance scene. Stuart’s work moves freely between the genres of dance, theater, and visual arts, driven by an ongoing dialogue with artists from different disciplines. Through fiction and shifting narrative layers, she explores dance as a source of healing and a way to transform the social fabric. Improvisation is an important part of her creative and teaching practice. The work of Meg Stuart and Damaged Goods has traveled the international dance and theatre circuit and has been presented at Documenta X in Kassel (1997), at Manifesta7 in Bolzano (2008), and at PERFORMA09 in New York. She has received various awards for her oeuvre and practice, among which the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in the category of dance at the Biennale de Venezia 2018. She currently lives and works in Brussels, Belgium, and Berlin, Germany. Meg Stuart’s VIOLET was presented in Moving in November 2013 edition.