POTATO
PIECE

A durational dance performance
questioning what it means to be free
in the contemporary society.

Concept: Joanna Kalm
Choreography, performance: Bridget Lappin, Joanna Kalm, potatoes, baskets, flowers, a golden dress
Mentoring: Sue MacLennan
Recording: Sze-Wei Chan, editing: Joanna Kalm
Photographs: Gabi Serani
Premiere: London Contemporary Dance School, The Place (UK), 2016

The whole room is covered with potatoes. In the room there are two performers: one is the mover, whose main activity is gathering the potatoes into a pile, and the other improvises with sound (using a microphone): giving orders and suggestions with regard to movement qualities, reading poetry and expressing general thoughts, adding music.

‘POTATO PIECE’ is about multiple things: it represents the systems we consciously and unconsciously follow (economics, upbringing, social norms), allowing room for questioning and fighting it, it is a search for freedom within a fixed pattern, it is about accepting the reality for what it is and finding ways to live within it, it is about not trying to become anything greater or better for the sake of outside presentation. For the audience it can be a place for serious contemplation, as well as for laughter (because at times it is quite funny and absurd).

It is a durational piece allowing the performer to engage with the activity of gathering potatoes for long periods of time taking a form of active meditation, where she and the audience can occupy themselves with the simple activity of carrying one potato after another into the pile. Because it lasts for a long period of time it feels as if you are being immersed into the ‘potato world’ without a clear agenda, there is no beginning and no ending, it feels like an immaterial space in your head in which you experience life. Depending on the day and on the performer sessions can vary, the constant activity can become pressing or liberating, sometimes the performer has a very caring feelings towards the potatoes, sometimes there are negative emotions present. There are also specific stories which are being told, performers speak to each other often, short dances with set concept are performed within the frame of carrying the potatoes.

Use of physicality and voice are important. The mover works with using practical ways (picking the potatoes up with hands) and impractical ways (for example using her nose or her knee) to move the potatoes, often very distinct characters and physicalities arise from it. Sometimes the performer improvising with the sound gives direct orders like change, go with it, fight it, pause, rewind, repeat to influence the physicalities of the mover. We aim to find new and unexpected ways of carrying out the main activity, which often result in comical situations and impossible tasks (try moving the potato with only your voice). Everything is equally valuable and worthy. We try to avoid prejudice and opinions about what arises, there are no beautiful or ugly movements, there is no good or bad composition, there is no way it should or has to be. It is a free space in which to be as you desire.

Episode "Rumpelstiltskin"

Once upon a time there lived a poor-poor man, whose only richness was his daughter. One day he took his daughter to the king saying that she knows how to spin straw into gold. A straight-forward lie, this was.

Now the beautiful daughter

was locked inside a castle’s room filled with straw

from floor to ceiling

given a spinning wheel and a reel

and one day’s night

and a future of either life or death.

A lot of crying proceeded, of course. After a while a teeny-tiny man resembling a potato (that’s how round he was) entered the room and inquired the reason for all the violent and loud sobbing, which was intruding his late-night crossword solving and tea time.

R: Girl, what is the problem, you explain this very minute. Now!

Through a layer of tears and snot the girl explained her situation.

G: I.. I.. I.. I.. (sobbing)
have to spin all this straw into gold,
or I shall not see the age of old!

Oh whatever have I done
to deserve this fate?

Perhaps for my dreams and loves

it is already too late.

Invisible freedom granted by life

I discovered stabbed into my back - a knife!
Dripping and disappearing into the void from my lips
is the nectar of joy because all of this!

(pause)

R: Hmmmmm...What will you give me if I spin it for you? The man asked.

The girl thought for a moment and then said

G: Honestly I do not have much to give

but perhaps of some service I could be

I notice your shoulders are a tad stiff

my hands, some say, are a true gift

If a massage will not do

then perhaps a dance or two?

Men often claim when dancing with me

that they’ve never felt as free

they forget their wooden legs

and for more and more they beg

I understand you like tea

the best recipe I know and to you I can give

take the hair of famous men and women

mix it well with berries, cacao, dust and honey

and your wallet will be never lacking of money

Oh please, say you will spin it for me

or this will be the end of the life I see

The manikin thought a few minutes, considering it a good bargain, he finally agreed. At sunrise the king came, and when he saw the gold he was surprised and happy, but his heart became even more greedy for gold. He had the miller's daughter taken to another room filled with straw. It was even larger, and he ordered her to spin it in one night, if she valued her life. Everything was repeated. The crying. The tears and the snot, swollen eyes, red puffy face, lack of oxygen, gasping for air, fear of death. And then the manikin reappeared.

R: Hmmmmm...What will you give me if I spin it for you?

(pause)

G: Here is my true self, if you please

I shall become whatever you need me to be

I can leave behind my free will

Pff.. it is a relatively easy kill

I can box away my humanity

whoever needs to sleep, eat and pee?

I can sit on nails and sleep with the pigs

it is overrated - the comfortability

I need no self-love

or self-worth

your doormat easily I can be

all the while criticizing... me

I will aim to be more efficient

in cleaning the shit from

the soles of your shoes

I can lick them, if you please

(pause)

Perhaps for my dreams and loves

it is already too late.

(pause)

Dripping and disappearing into the void from my lips
is the nectar of joy because all of this!

But it is okay.. (pause)

if the cost of my survival

is the removal (pause and slowly)

self.

Then the manikin took a vacuum cleaner and sucked all the stems of her true self out of her. Slurrrrrp. At sunrise the king came, and when he saw the gold he was surprised and happy, but his heart became even more greedy for gold. He had the miller's daughter taken to another room filled with straw. It was even larger, and he ordered her to spin it in one night, if she valued her life. Everything was repeated. The crying. The tears and the snot, swollen eyes, red puffy face, lack of oxygen, gasping for air, fear of death. And then the manikin reappeared.

R: Hmmmmm...What will you give me if I spin it for you?

(pause)

G: Physical improvisation about giving away your body