WORDS WORDS WORDS

City of Words, 1999



Vito Acconci

WORDS

A clip from the Bruce LaBruce movie Skin Flick (aka Skin Gang - 1999). Reinhold (Slava Mogutin) reads a poem about his master/slave fantasy. "I'd probably kill us both, starting with him."

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From a novel by Dennis Cooper
Created and directed by Gisèle Vienne

Dramaturgy : Dennis Cooper
Lights by Patrick Riou
Music : Corrupted
Stylisme : Stephen O’Malley
Scenography : Jean-Luc Verna et Gisèle Vienne
Puppets : Jean-Luc Verna, Gisèle Vienne, Dorothéa Vienne Pollak, the the help of Vidya Gastladon and Jonathan Capdevielle

Performed by and created in collaboration with: Jonathan Capdevielle

“Jerk” is an imaginary reconstruction – strange, poetic, funny and somber – of the crimes perpetrated by American serial killer Dean Corll who, with the help of teenagers David Brooks and Wayne Henley, killed more than twenty boys in the state of Texas during the mid-70s.
This show sees David Brooks serving his life sentence. In prison, he learns the art of puppets, which somehow enables him to face up to his responsibility as partner in the crimes. He has written a show that reconstructs the murders committed by Dean Corll, using puppets for all the roles. He performs his show in prison for a class of psychology students from a local university.

Due to the violence and humor of the text, there is an underlying fierceness to the performance. The glove puppet theater is in fact the traditional form used to enact violent illicit subjects. And “Jerk” unabashedly mingles sexuality and violence in the vein of gore aesthetics, thus harking back to the glove puppet repertory.

The text has been staged as a solo for puppeteer, who uses glove puppets and also acts the role of con artist.
The story, however realist it may be, seems to border on unrealism. The play’s apparent realism stems from its linear narration, as well as from its basic true story and from the trickster-puppeteer’s total identification with the fictive character of David Brooks.

“Jerk” merges three plays that were produced in collaboration with the American writer Dennis Cooper: “I Apologize” (2004), “Une belle enfant blonde” (2005) and “Kindertotenlieder” (2007). In these three plays, the links between fantasy and reality are being constantly probed, thereby altering our perception of reality. The more realist “Jerk” puts forth a consistent linear narrative, generating the credibility that undeniably stems from this form. And it is this undeniability that is reexamined by way of our different formal experiences.

Associate producer: DACM
With the collaboration of the Quartz - Scène nationale de Brest

Coproduction : Le Quartz - Scène nationale de Brest, Centre Chorégraphique National de Franche-Comté à Belfort


Premiere : March 5, 6, 7, 8, 2008, Festival Les Antipodes / Le Quartz - Brest

photo : Gisèle Vienne (c)

NEONS (14)

Fame, 2005
plastic, metal, wood & neon


Jack Pierson

PROGRAMME

Guy Debord, 1953

WORDS WORDS WORDS

words are sweet
Justin Simoni

My friend, Claude Pérès explores with sharpened and exact words the secrets of human being intimacy, the art of the lies and the truth, the dangers of love and our post-modern era.
Check out caractère (sale et propre) to know more.

ANDY SAID...

some Warhol photostrips
(courtesy ov Warhol Foundation)



Drella said :


Being born is like being kidnapped and then sold into slavery.

It's the place where my prediction from the sixties finally came true: "In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." I'm bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is, "In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous."

Sex is most exciting on the screen and between the pages than between the sheets.

Since people are going to be living longer and getting older, they'll just have to earn how to be babies longer.

Dying is the most embarrassing thing that can ever happen to you, because someone's got to take care of all your details.

PRAYER BY UNCLE BILLY

thanksgiving prayer,
a poem read by William S. Burroughs,
and filmed by Gus Van Sant, nov 28 1986

Thanks for the wild turkey and
the passenger pigeons, destined
to be shit out through wholesome
American guts.


Thanks for a continent to despoil
and poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide a
modicum of challenge and
danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to
kill and skin leaving the
carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves
and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until
the bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK.

For nigger-killin' lawmen,
feelin' their notches.

For decent church-goin' women,
with their mean, pinched, bitter,
evil faces.

Thanks for "Kill a Queer for
Christ" stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the
war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where
nobody's allowed to mind the
own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the
memories-- all right let's see
your arms!

You always were a headache and
you always were a bore.

Thanks for the last and greatest
betrayal of the last and greatest
of human dreams.