For All Intents and Purposes… I’m Somebody, SOMEBODY! by the RAYNE&CEREMONY collective celebrated its premiere on January 22, during the Tanztage 2025 festival in the Sophiensæle Kantine.
A long room. In the center, a small stage and two performers: RAYNE and Pussy Ranz. Digital clocks are positioned around the stage. One constantly counts the minutes. The other stops and beats as soon as 60 seconds have elapsed. With each beep, a gong resounds and the two performers tear off slips from two small scrolls and read the tasks written on them. Then they have 60 seconds to complete the tasks: drink water, melt like butter, show off in front of the audience, or apologize. They morph and bend under pressure and in one-minute intervals. Why and for whom are they actually bending over backwards? There doesn’t seem to be any time for such thoughts. Nor for any real interactions between the two. Again and again they tear off new slips. The tasks repeat themselves and even the breaks prescribed by the slips are not restful moments.
Half an hour later time seems to have run out. No more slips are torn off, the light is dimmed, the music becomes more celestial. Calm. It feels as if it’s the first time the two performers really have a moment to observe the space. They move backwards and forwards, walking and crawling on all fours through the room, around and underneath the small stage. Their bodies are no longer under pressure from one-minute intervals. They have time to breathe. And suddenly their movements, particularly those of RAYNE, become softer and smoother. He dances. While Pussy Ranz walks through the room and interviews individual members of the audience with a recording device. Only Pussy Ranz and the interviewee know what it’s all about.
After that, quiet once again. A story is played from the recording device. It’s meant to be about an embarrassing, unpleasant incident. And the story is embarrassing and unpleasant. And yet, it makes people laugh, something the performance does time and again. Laughter, which cuts through the tension of what was said. They didn’t just say that? Yes, they did! Are they allowed to? Of course, it’s about their own bodies, their own being. Perhaps by laughing we can create a kind of acceptance for our own story, our own being.
And then? More stress. Once again they run towards and away from each other in time. Pussy Ranz produces sounds. RAYNE dances. And then they run towards one another. And in the basic AcroYoga pose, Pussy Ranz talks about his childhood and youth, about being Jewish and trans, and about his mother. He talks about trauma and shame. It is difficult to grasp or really follow anything. The audience is left with fragments. Fragments, which are told through the movements produced by the two in the space, between tension and relaxation, between stress and laughter.
And then one of the clocks indicates the sixtieth minute. The performance is over. It feels like there is no time to deal with trauma, shame, one’s own body, and being. Time and again, topics are broached on stage, only to be immediately replaced by the next one. There is applause. Flowers are handed over. We head back home. There’s no time for questions.
English translation by Melissa Maldonado
For All Intents and Purposes… I’m Somebody, SOMEBODY! by the RAYNE&CEREMONY collective premiered on January 22, during the Tanztage 2025 festival in the Sophiensæle Kantine.
