THE GOOD EARTH IS RICH (Opening Ceremony for the Ball of Utopia, in 3 parts), 2012
Performance, Installation (string, coffee, scent)

A solo performance in three acts. A spatial string installation that bifurcates the entire gallery space is hung, then cut mid way. The performance follows the hopeful arc towards a kind of personal and social liberation.

1. Death march - Idioteque, Radiohead
2. Tribute to the Blues - I’ll Drown in My Own Tears, Etta James
3. The Good Earth Is Rich - See Line Woman, Nina Simone & the dancer recites certain lines of the following text:
“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another.In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose- stepped us into misery and bloodshed. we have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent, and all will be lost.”

-Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator 1942

Photography: Ceel Mogami de Haas