A Cunning Array of Stunts, two-channel video, 12:20 min - 2021

A Cunning Array of Stunts is a two-channel video installation resulting from a performance collaboration with my mother and incorporating found footage from a 1970s television interview with my great-aunt, Midge Kovacs. 

The work begins with a story about training to fall down and expands upon this theme of contradictory physical performances: athletic skill and the inutile slapstick body. Slapstick performance splits the performers imperfectly in two — a sentient entity driving the thingified object of their body — and, as opposed to sport, often “driver” and “thing” refuse to resolve seamlessly into one another. Through the capacity of slapstick to blur the body boundaries between individuals, the female protagonists, mother, daughter, aunt, rollick in their communal body, stunt double one another, and at the same time struggle to remain discrete.

Performance by:
Trudi Veldman
and
Annelies Kamen

Foley & Sound Editing by:
Almut Schwacke

Special Thanks To:
Yury Klimovitsky
Eseosa Edebiri
Jochen Nünning
Sufana Wajed at WNED Buffalo

Installation view: A Cunning Array of Stunts - ACRE Projects @ Drama Club Chicago, Dec 2021 - Jan 2022. Curated by Stephanie Koch, photo by Bryan LeBeuf