Projects—Master PPS Performing Public Space

Jun 20

Jun 20 GUERILLA DEATH SCORES – for alternative world weaving practices

Class 2017/18

Death is not supposed to be part of our daily conscious thought. A focus is being pushed towards what makes life worth living, to keep productivity going. In my mourning I’m encouraged not to offend others by reminding them of their sorrow, forcing grieving out of public spaces and into the home sphere. The symbolic language to show grief slowly fades into the background. Turning cemeteries into tourist attractions instead of places for mourning processes and rituals.

Guerilla Death Scores is about reclaiming the cemetery as a site for alternative world weaving. In the publication you will find 9 movement scores.

a score for unfamiliar red threads
a score for those who died ‘pour la Patrie’
a score for letting grief disrupt your life
a score for rats and pigeons
a score for kids without parents •...
Meldy sees them as propositions based on movement and playfulness to train interfering with normative narratives surrounding death and politics. Using the cemetery as a site for practice and the scores as tools to imagine and dare to take risks for new stories to be written.

Meldy IJpelaar

Since she was a child Meldy always thought she would somehow have a part in changing the
world. It sounds arrogant and at the same time impossible for one individual to achieve. She started out studying politics in order to understandthis structure that rules. When she felt it was finallytime to express her ideas as an artist, she began creating works that confronted people in a violent way. There was little room left for the imagination; she wanted to suffocate her audience. It didn’t reach her aim and the work started to feel empty. So she took a different road into a more sensitive expression.

At the moment she is researching the potential of movement scores on cemeteries to imagine new realities. An ideal that maybe isn’t here yet, but that can come to life from practicing disruption, interference and building narratives. In her work Meldy uses methods like Contact Improvisation, Somatic practice, Context Oriented Theatre andSensory Labyrinth Theatre.

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