A love story for 6 dancers

she always thought of her life as a movie no one is watching / he was only happy when he was alone or making love / he made repeated unsuccessful attempts to injure himself in perfect 5=4 rythm; he was joined by another / she used to have trance seizures she'd hear voices and feel like her body was burning up / he thought she was possessed by the devil / she rehearsed her false self in the evenings / he could no longer attempt an ordinary action tying his shoe turning door knobs or stand up even if he was free to walk away / he had to be carried everywhere he was exhausted drained of strength / her limbs thrashed in the air as she tried to escape from herself her memories her history / he continuously replayed and acted out the event in his mind. he played all the part fast forward rewind zoom zoom zoom / numbly and automatically she obeyed then she felt ashamed and disgusted with herself / he no longer had control of his bodily functions he slept in his own excrement / unable to make sense of spoken language she gave only yes and no answers in a random score / he would seduce her in a stuttering of dislocated speech / he hallucinated her other realities in order not to feel anything / she took off her clothes believing that the guards did not exist that they were repulsive worms that she could erase from her mind by thinking of pleasant things / he had the sensation of being icy cold inside his surfaces were disrupted as if he was flowing and spilling and not held together anymore: her self mutilation produced a powerful feeling of calm and relief she could at least then prove that she existed / together as survivors they described themselves as supernatural creatures or nonhuman life forms they thought of as witches vampires whores dogs rats and snakes / they made love amongst the animals
Meg Stuart - August 1994