Funeral Ecstasy – The Paradise (performance)

A celebration, a guided meditation, or a rave for the end? Rotterdam-based interdisciplinary crew HipSick presents their newest performative installation on April 12 & 13. 

The Paradise is the first volume of FUNERAL ECSTASY, a series that challenges common notions of endings and encourages a heightened awareness of the present moment. This unique experience invites deep reflection on the impact of the cyclical nature of life and plays with our perception of time and impermanence. Can we really accept that everything is impermanent? And is there an alternative approach possible for dealing with the inevitable? 

The Paradise makes you aware of the moment, emphasizing the value of every second. In an installation with performers, you are led through ebb and flow, moving between darkness and light, intensity and calm. The work was developed in close collaboration with the audience.  

Schedule

You can choose a ticket with performance or without.

April 12 | 15:30-17:00 
Installation

April 12 | 19:30 – 21:30
Performance + installation

April 13 | 12:00-14:00  
Installation

Performance 

This performative installation plays with the notion of time and with the expectations of an attention span common within our society. As we are used to constant stimulation, this can cause friction. The performance allows you to turn on all your senses, to look, to listen, to let your thoughts run wild, to associate, to have your own experience of being in the moment. In the first part of the work, you hear a voice-over on repeat, like a mantra. It acts in a meditative way, giving you snippets of input around the theme of impermanence and finitude. Three bodies will be moving around the installation, at times relating to each other, at times to the installation, but mostly to time.  

Introduction & support act

Aynouk Tan

Aynouk Tan provides the introduction before the performance on Friday night.

Aynouk (she/ them) is an expert in the relationship between appearance, identity/ identity politics and queerness. By observing appearance from an anthropological point of view they aim to deconstruct colonial, neoliberal and heteronormative narratives. Tan has worked as a journalist for NRC Handelsblad and was a founding member of Queer Pride Amsterdam. Currently they are a jury member for the Dutch Design Awards, trainer and moderator in the field of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and founder of Queer is not a Manifesto: an organization that aims to create structural and long- lasting agency, power and influence for and by queer people, mostly of color. Other collaborators include Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Roze Filmdagen, NPO Radio 1, ABN AMRO, Gemeente Amsterdam and the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (AFK).

Misty Superdeluxe

Misty will activate the space and its resonance in a liminal solo performance in order to create a receptive atmosphere for what is to come.

Misty Superdeluxe (also known as Peter Scherrebeck), is a choreographer, performer and maker based in the Netherlands and Denmark. Working from a queer feminist perspective Misty has studied sonic somatics, clairvoyant practices and dance that happens in between the contours of things. Misty holds a BA in choreography from SNDO, Amsterdam University of the Arts.

Installation 

Like the performance, the installation can be experienced as a theatrical and musical concert. Closing your eyes and just listening to the music, voice-over and silence can be an experience in itself. As a visitor, you can sit around or under the installation on a blanket. There is room for taking time, for fantasizing about finitude. There are guides present who will facilitate this feeling. As a moment of reflection, you can leave your state of mind on paper. You can also read the “state of minds” of others. 

About HipSick

HipSick is an interdisciplinary crew from Rotterdam working at the intersection of performance and installation art. Starting from a fascination with the fringes and night culture, HipSick investigates and questions normativity. 

Would you like to join this program, but currently don’t have the means to buy a ticket? Send an e-mail to info@felixmeritis.nl to work something out.