The earth is inhabited by 7 billion people – and you. How do you differ from all the others? And how much of the others is in you? What can you definitely call yours? Performer and writer Elisa Band pursues these questions down to the singular atoms that make up our body.
When I sign my name
When I sign my name, is it me or the teacher Silvia. When I speak, from whom are these words coming, from which book is the grammar I picked up.
And what part of my body is mine if the last layer of my atoms is mixed with the atoms around it.
Who breathes when I get out of breath. From where did I acquire this way of getting scared.
This way of holding the pen, or the moments before releasing the cigarette smoke, or when I sit cross-legged like a man.
The position I sleep, one arm under the head, I’ve seen someone doing so too, should I invent another way. A hug that repeats, getting undressed before bed, waiting for the train, signaling for the bill, lighting a match, which forgotten days do these belong to.
And when I said I love you, it’s almost there, do you think it will rain today, and when I said it feels like someone already said this before. It feels like someone has already said this before.
And those silences, whom did I ask for being quiet in this way. To whom do I explain that this way of being born, that was not me who invented it.
These two arms, and the upright position, when was it that I came down from the tree.
Or rather, when did I leave the water, when did I create legs, since I turned into this complex organism which has a digestive system, which excuses itself, which apologizes, creates dictionaries, builds cities, writes messages in the missiles, and invents gods, who invented the world, what is left of you in all this.
Picture and video were taken at experiments and presentations of the performance 7 bilhões e um/7 billions and one, Sesc Pompéia (Multitude Project) São Paulo, in 2014. The Performance/Live Art Study & Creation Group, São Paulo, was coordinated by Elisa Band.
Picture: Tereza de Castro Piedade and Dersu
Video: Apé Produções
