KRISTOF PERSYN blog

LIVE! from DEAD SEA in Theatre-Magazine "Scènes"

2011-10-11T22:13:00.007+02:00

Maison Du Spectacle 'La Bellone' in Brussels -who invited me in the past for my performance of THE END event- has published a new issue of 'Scènes'. The magazine is titled 'Rêvolution' and is dedicated to the theatre-arts involved in the nowadays Arab Spring. Among many interesting interviews and articles, there is a writing about LIVE! from DEAD SEA -created this year in Jordan- by pARTnership Lana Nasser & Kristof Persyn.

Reflecting on the title of 'Scènes' issue Rêvolution (a French word-game mixing Dream with Revolution) we explain how the uprisings in neigbour-countries has empowered us for our own awakening as art-activists. Specially when the motive of demonstration is on Ecology, and about the highly politicized water sources in the Midlle-East, the courage of all revolting people has been supportive in a challenging proces.

The new 'Scènes' is available.
Click HERE for the website of 'Maison Du Spectacle La Bellone.

LANA NASSER -pARTner

2011-01-01T20:00:00.000+01:00

Lana Nasser /Persyn&Nasser 2011

Spring 2011 kicked off the collaboration with Lana Nasser. She's a multidisciplinary performing artist, director, storyteller & published writer based in Jordan- with whom I initiated an artistic campaign about the decay of the Dead Sea and the dehydration of the River Jordan.

During our promotion trip in the Benelux we founded our pARTnership, which involves a bright perspective of future projects in the Arab world and the West. In our upcoming work we focuss on the issues Identity & Ecology.

I am honoured to be involved in the international tour of her one-person play In the Lost & Found in which she questions her identity as woman in an Arab- and Moslim culture, a critical statement on identity in general. We are also working on a project for the International woman's Day - festival in Amman, orginised by her co-founded organisation Aat.

Check Lana Nasser's website HERE

Watch a reportage about Lana Nasser's work on Jordan Aramram & Roya TV

LIVE! from DEAD SEA - Jordan

2011-01-01T19:00:00.008+01:00

The Dead Sea /Persyn&Nasser 2011

On the deepest point of Planet Earth's surface is a salt-lake called Dead Sea. The water level of this precious nature-phenomena drops over 1 meter a year, the Dead Sea is in danger. The lake's main tributary -The River Jordan- dries up by the end of 2011.

During the Arab spring Lana Nasser & Kristof Persyn started creating LIVE! from DEAD SEA; an ongoing artistic awareness campaign about the lake's eco-disaster. Their collaboration is an imaginative Theatre and Photographic project, based on research about the Dead Sea's cultural importance and the ecological impact of its decline. A poetical protest against our unhuman harm of our home Earth.

If the dying Dead Sea could speak, what would it say? 'In times of big global changes; we envision natures revolt in the uprising of new Mythological characters, Icons & Goddesses.' -is the response of the creators. These deities have been awakened by Lana Nasser and visualized by Kristof Persyn. 'The deep dead sea is the womb of this planet, its drought symbolises a global state.' On the stage of Al-Balad theatre in Amman Kristof & Lana were giving voice to Nature's outcry, by projecting the photographs with related stories. The project is in progress.

While creating this work in Jordan, one of the most water-scarce countries; Europe has seen a spring of extreme drought. Therefor the Dead Sea is a symbol, more then a regional problem.

watch -LIVE! from DEAD SEA- on YouTube
Watch the reportage on Aramram TV Jordan
For a report about the Dead Sea's eco-disaster on Al-Jazeera click HERE

Dried up Dead Sea

Mozes

Landscape

Sinking In

Salt wrapped stones

The Birth of a Stone

Jordan Valley Tree

Holy Sidr Spirit

Salt, Water & Stones

Dead Sea's Awakening

Copyrights on all images above by pARTnership Lana Nasser & Kristof Persyn (Jordan/2011)

I am a Sailor

2011-01-01T18:00:00.000+01:00

Self Portrait /Kristof Persyn 2009

Looking for Archetypes which mirrors elements of my personality, I have portrayed myself as a sailor. Back in 2009, being an rootless traveller since very long, the Sailor was an Icon which helped me to understand myself. This insight brought me to an embarkment. In Amsterdam -where Sailors meet Sailors- I got a tattoo of an Anchor. If someone does not find his place, he has to find it within. The tattoo anchored me in me.

Collage

Sailor's Radio

A collaboration with Shady EL Dali in Egypt

2011-01-01T17:00:00.002+01:00

Shady El Dali /Kristof Persyn 2008

In the years 2007 and 2008 I have collaborated with the Egyptian Actor and visual artist Shady El Dali in Cairo and across his country. Togheter we've created Cairo Nightnotes & The Nile Song and toured in Egypt and The Netherlands.

In the years before Egypt's revolution, Shady El Dali's art was already a form of protest. His personal way of activism resonated well with my own ideals and artistic aspirations.

From my Egyptian Collegues I learned how opposing forces -such as cencorship, poverty, corrupt art shools, no political support, lack of logistics and social discouragment- are not reasons to give up on art. During the revolution on Tahrir Square I recognised Shady's urge and courage among all Egyptians in their will to break bounderies. And art has an important role in there.

The NILE song -Egypt

2011-01-01T16:00:00.000+01:00

The Nile song /K.Persyn

Concerned about the disappearance of Myths & Folktales, I travelled along the Nile collecting popular Egyptian stories about supernatural powers living in the River.

Son of the Nile

Storyteller in Qena

Storytelling in Aswan

Praying on the shore

Looking for something

I asked people on the road to 'perform' Nile-fables in front of my lens and collected photographs showing their stories and its characters. In collaboration with Shady El Dali, this research was transformed in a theatrical play; a docu-style performance which toured trough Egypt.

Swimming Saïd

Unknown girl in boat

Son of the fisherman

Drowned Diver

Nile is my mirror

Bride in mourn on her wedding day

He lost his brother by a Dogr

About the Performance...

Shady El Dali & Kristof Persyn
performing "The Nile song" in Al-Mania

On stage we tell the story of Shady who enters the Nile-river at night and disappears. Since his body has not been found there's lot's of legends about his disappearance. And soon, many more young Egyptians vanish at the Nile's shores. Shady's friend Kristof decides to look after them and travels along the Nile, from Cairo till Sudan. During this travel he askes villagers what could have happened to the missing people. In all the explanations supernatural powers are involved. Paradoxically in Egypt, rich with cult of dead and pyramids, dead itself does not exist; the afterworld is a vivid place among Djinns, mermaids, kidnapped brides, kings and sacrificed virgins on the muddy bottom of a river. Drowned in the Nile, the dissapeared youth has transformed in water-spirits.

Article: Thirsty Egypt clings tight to the Nile

The Drawings

2011-01-01T15:00:00.001+01:00

Drawing is a meditation in which new ideas rise-up. In periods of less activity, I make ornaments around photographs which I discover in my archive. I always seek for ways to present a photo, as in a theatrical context, a narative collage or a simple drawing around. It might be my way to write visions for future-projects. Drawing though, requires a calm state which is hard to catch. (work untitled - 2008)

THE END event - Surrealism in Brussels

2011-01-01T14:00:00.002+01:00

THE END event /K.Persyn 2009

Crisis in Belgium! In a series of photographs projected in a burlesque setting with dancers, musicians, actors and a singer; THE END event portrays a dark image of Belgium's capital Brussels. The motive starts with the death of the King, symbolising the modern decay of the country's unity. THE END event was a post 9/11 comment, and a big NO to it's separatist and racistic afterwaves in my own country. Infected with fear, the characters I photographed have to live with the demons they created themselves in a country that falls apart.

The result shows the sinister quality of Brussels those days, but is a hymn to the city of surrealism where paradox governs well.

The Performers on stage:

Nele Van Den Broeck

Valdimar Johansson

Krijn Hermans

Kristof Coenen

Angels among me...

2011-01-01T01:04:00.001+01:00

When it comes to beauty, I see it within everyone. But probably in a very particular way. In collages as above, I show some Archetypical quality of friends around, a reflection of my view on them. (untitled work 2009)

Creating Characters with Aïcha Funk

2011-01-01T01:03:00.001+01:00

All Round Talent Aïcha Funk has been my collaborator since long, as dramaturg & model. In my Egyptian creation Molahazat Ly Leia (Cairo Nightnotes) she was also performing live on stage multilingual lullabies. Most recently Aïcha created the make-up in my Logo (on top of this blog).

In 2009 Aïcha Funk stood model for many female characters in my long-term writing-project Mirror Storm, in which I express my ideas about modern identity.

In this portraits we were seeking for different styles of how the Mirror Storm - characters would look. My camera became a spectrum of all Aïcha Funk's qualities, while she showed me her personal and nostalgic interpretations of the women in my manuscript.

Mirror in Mirror

Alice

Portrait of Aïcha as her Mother

Madeleine

Mata Hari

Molahazat Ly Leia (Cairo Nightnotes) -Egypt

2011-01-01T01:02:00.001+01:00

Downtown Cairo 1 /2007

Presenting Molahazat Ly Leia on this blog is challenging. The images of this project are existing only on diapositives since the theaterperformance was an old fashioned slide-show, and not all of those survived the censorship of Mubarak's regime in Egypt. We might have been naive, or rather courageous; but an attempt to create a theatrical lullaby for the vivid but also tensed city of Cairo, turned out in a very critical production.

For my first project in Egypt (and my first visit to the Arab World), I asked Shady El Dali to show me his city during nighttime. I was seeking for the more obscurated side of Cairo. Shady agreed, he was living at night anyway. He took me on several trips, and everywhere I saw beauty, poetry, surrealism and absurdism, Shady would show me his hard reality behind. Not only illuminated pyramids; but slums, inhuman workconditions, social injustice and poverty became the destinies of our nightly journies. Shady loves his country -that's why he showed me its uglyness- and wanted to use this project to speak out about the symptoms of dictatorship.

We have made that lullaby for Cairo on stage, I had never expected it would be such a discomforting one. While I wanted to soothe our audiance with pictures of Cairo, Shady wanted to wake them up by showing that same images. This dynamics worked very well - one image has always plural realities. What I care with me is the beauty of Egypt's people, their strenght to stand. I've seen theatre groups rehearsing at 4AM, a time their theatre was finally available for art. If life could'nt happen during the day - it had to happen at night. Such experiences had major impact on my life & work. It was the openness and generosity in Shady and the Egyptian people, which made that happen.

Downtown Cairo 2 /2007

The following images are Rehearsal-photos by Eyal Pinkas, during the Performance in Theatre Frascati, Amsterdam 2008:

How to catch a dream?

2011-01-01T01:01:00.003+01:00

I used to dream the same dream for many nights:

The violet flower motives of my bed-sheets are growing over my sleeping body, branching around my bones, intertwining with my veins... When I open my eyes to stop the dream, flowers grow out of my iris.
The dream was pleasant nor nightmarisch, just fascinating. In an attempt to catch that image in an illustration I made those photographs, a mixture of forgotten diapostives and flowers-veins.

Work untitled/2006

Formulating Fundaments (...an attempt)

2010-01-01T13:00:00.002+01:00

- Art is Activism -

- Visualizing, not conceptualizing -

- Thinking globally, acting locally -

- Everything starts with a Dream -

- Remaining optismism, cultivating possibilities -

- In reality seeking its sur-realism -
-United we stand, devided we fall -
- With our Mind we make the World -
-Why does the Planet has no flag?-
-Now is our time-
-Life time is (un)limited-

- ... -

A composite of archival Hubble data taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys. Like a whirl of shiny flakes sparkling in a snow globe, Hubble caught this glimpse of stars in the globular cluster M13. The cluster is home to over 100,000 stars, packed closely together in a ball approximately 150 light-years across, and is located at a distance of 25,000 light-years. Source

kristofpersyn@gmail.com