Alexa Wilson – 1000 Tears and IN/TENSE
1. Presented at Unfinished Fridays 23rd May (shorter version/middle section)
“1000 Tears” embodies a double meaning of crying and cutting (referring to death by 1000 paper cuts) framed as a performance art dance and feminist critique of a climate that cushions psychopathic and undermining modes of being. Using pink (wet) blankets, costumes and textiles and silver/gold/clear textiles (emergency blankets/wrapping paper) this performance engages movement, dangerous objects and performance art as actions reflecting internalised unsaid psychological warfare to unpack micro-aggressions framed as friendly care/beauty within social politics against an overwhelming backdrop of political intensity. It is a ritualised tearing apart and alchemising or healing of disempowering ideologies and experiences.
New development in New York Cit, created @ Brooklyn Art Exchange and Triskelion Arts in development. Presented at Triskelion Arts 2024, developed further on residency at Mothership NYC and presented at Last Frontier March and April 2025. Monologue text element as part of the work titled Motivational Speech for a Snake year, to be presented at Dixon Place June 1st and 7th, 2025 as part of Threat to Democracy and developed and presented at Lake Studios.
Blog Entry 1.
I arrived in a state of overwhelm and a sense of displacement from leaving the United States after being granted a (hard to get O1) visa there last year from New Zealand/Aotearoa my home country, essentially fleeing after a creatively inspiring and productive year in New York before it slides into mayhem in America under Trump’s regime, which is unfriendly to foreigners at best, and dangerous at worst. (Think LA Riots and collective resistance in the US, think ICE terror raids kidnapping and deporting migrants, think getting rejected, detained and or deported at the border as a visa holder). All in the blink of an eye this year. It was terrifying being inside it as it unfolded. To then be in the Lake Studios residency working on 2 solo projects (1000 Tears and IN/TENSE) that inadvertently work with themes of displacement, social malaise, refugees, homelessness, species on the run, how to find comfort, how to care and connect amidst an accelerating technological and digital disaster capitalist climate. Phew mouth full. That’s how it felt. A mouth full, a head full, my nervous system took weeks to relax. My sleep was unsettled and not used to the quiet (I had a concrete mixer outside my window in NY on the residency that started at 4am).
While I love New York and am on the edge of performance art and dance/theatre involving text, objects and movement with a language of radically interwoven with complex questions, nuances and ambiguous readings as well as humour, where I felt at home and embraced creatively (eg its own creative refuge) it has been the literal refuge I truly needed at this time in these beautiful studios and in this beautiful community (Friedrichshagen and Lake Studios as well as Berlin). Having lived in Berlin pre-Covid many years, the sense of “home” was already familiar. But landing inside the quiet of the lakeside studios and gently entering Spring in a climate of care (thank you Marcela and Maria) and wonderful self-organising artists (Yasmine, Emily, Martha, Simon, Nita, Ali), nestled inside a generative wider dance and arts community on the outskirts of Berlin next to a beautiful lake was powerful. It has actually supported many answers to some of my and my current work’s questions.
I have been tirelessly working on these 2 solos over the last year and a half out of the carnage that Covid caused in the New Zealand especially Auckland performing arts scene (NZ is still in a big recession from its strict Covid response, and is currently very right wing). I presented both works in many venues between New Zealand and New York, and having worked so hard I felt the residency support a shift to slow down and to absorb the natural environment and the luxury of having studios (and a sauna!) right next to your sleeping space. Its been pretty dreamy honestly!
I literally have dreamt so much. The birds and animals have inspired me, as well as people.
Interestingly also, all of the residents while I was here at this time (I am having a 3 week break and returning in July before taking IN/TENSE to Vienna’s Impulstanz Lace Symposium) are in some form of flux as well. Getting to know each of the artists is a feature I love about art residencies, having just finished a general arts residency in New York where I also made new friends for the early part of this year, and these dance artists all from different parts of the world are all essentially homeless like me, or at least in a nomadic and transitional period of their lives without a clear sense beyond the next months of where they will live.
Is this a sign of the times?
Are we living in a time of transformation? Yes I think so.
I was even told by German authorities arriving in Berlin, who saw my previous Artist visa in my passport, “not to overstay” (the 90 days in the Schengen). Times have changed since pre-Covid, there is a great deal of tension including at the borders (even of NZ but more biosecurity atm).
Working with pink blankets as silver emergency blankets for 1000 Tears and a tent for IN/TENSE I have been exploring the body as the home, the power of transformation, through both movement and text, as well as performance art imagery and gesturing toward interactive ways to engage and implicate audiences in meta questions. Often this is done in a humourous offhand (very NZ), but conceptual (very German) and intense people (very New York) way. Getting to share aspects of 1000 Tears at the Unfinished Fridays in late May, having also done other aspects across venues in NYC late 2024/early 2025 including before leaving as part of Mothership NYC’s residency event, it was interesting to experience a Berlin audience as opposed to a NY audience experiencing and responding to the work with feedback afterward. It was a very good experience and felt useful and generative to the practice, plus always great to make new connections and bonds.
Performance wise, it felt the most supportive in the last 10 months since moving to America (between US/NZ/Berlin shows) although response was strong and good in all places between 3 different shows (including ALIEN in NY at Brooklyn Art Exchange, 1000 Tears at Triskelion Arts and Last Frontier and IN/TENSE at Tempo Auckland’s Festival of Dance. It is an energy thing, it felt that everyone was really with me in the audience and the conditions were good not making performing harder at all (which has not been my experience of Berlin previously, which shows I have changed).
Days before I had a sense of a different direction this work could take, which is to engage more with a sense of care and in an interactive way with the audience that is much slower than the first elements of the work which are more frenetic. This is a result of having landed in this space and spent time in the residency, the studios, at the lake and reconnecting with friends in Berlin and the city itself which feels very safe. I took a shared practice as part of the morning classes to explore my practice of integrating text, movement, and objects to involve others in the making of this work, and found this also very interesting and we were able to reflect on these themes together. It was fantastic to be able to work with Yasmine as a fellow artist in residence also in such an intimate and playful way.
The element of play is big in my work.
One of the former residents, Emily, who is from the US and shared the Unfinished Fridays with a brilliant piece expressing in movement and facial movements her childhood as a Mormon, said she enjoyed watching my wild creative imagination at play in my work, which was wonderful feedback. Because while my themes are often challenging themes, they are also dealt with in playful and creative ways that are often improvised in text and movement so getting to explore this further with others has been useful and enjoyable. Yasmin and I were literally wrapping each other in blankets and both reported feeling like a burrito or Christmas present and dragging each other on the blankets across the space to speak to how it felt or looked objectively or giggling and asking each other intimate questions underneath it which felt like a sleepover.
Emily many times said even in the sauna that our vibes as a small group was “sleepover energy” which was well needed for all of us and fun in such an unstable time filled with war, terror, uncertainty, fear and violence.
Another element that has come into play, is my video practice, and I unexpectedly also leaned more into the text side of my practice with 1000 Tears toward the end and have created a bunch of very random repetitive statements that speak the climate to end, potentially after the interactive part.
I have filmed myself separately in absurd costumes in public spaces, repeating these statements in locations around Friedrichshagen, in the tunnel and the forest, and the town, and also in Berlin public locations. I got a lot of attention from the locals in my outfits doing this, sometimes the thumbs up or a thank you for moving, or sometimes a shake of the head.
There is something activating about filming something that appears performative in public, both for myself / oneself and others. These shared public spaces become slightly transformed which is interesting, and I have interesting footage as part of my video practice collected (also in New York) toward something.
On a final note, because there are a lot of details from this residency that I have cherished and could share, but regeneration and giving artists a space to make outside capitalist or academic structures is incredibly generative. These temporary communities foster exchange, connection and intersections like bees in a garden cross-fertilising and sharing, and has its own kind of refuge. In having a sense of ease, quiet, support, and kindness inside care, framed by this wide expanse of a lake and forest, so magical, and in the silence of embodied meditation (also with Marlon) I have had A LOT of ideas.
I have had answers to old questions, new questions, revisited projects I have conceptualised, and had clarity on ones I need to close. I have had vivid dreams. I have processed a lot, and within this has opened up new chapters that I feel excited by. For now I still really need rest, while gently making. I look forward to my 3 weeks in a schrebergarten (not allowed officially I know) and more silence in nature. But the tenderness of this space is its greatest asset, and the non-judgemental open nature of the residency for artists to explore their interests. From this
I have a lot more fire for projects next year in the distant future.
In my former residency at Mothership NYC a good friend I made on the residency Sarah Weaver (American composer/sound artist) and I reflected on how the cement mixer outside our window was a metaphor of “cementing” something while she invited me in a message from afar to reflect on what the lake outside my window meant. I meditated on this and came up with; an alive eco-system (so many animals/humans interconnected), cleansing, still waters running deep, joyfulness (there is a sense of joy here like the NZ beachside), water as purifying, water as nourishing, emotions that feed rather than drain, earth/trees/plants as regenerative and a container for water, while being nourished by it. Safety. However, it has its obvious perils as a lake so self-care as well.
I have these cat tarot cards and on the first day I pulled the one that said “All the world’s back gardens are your stage” which seems apt, given that the garden at lake studios has a studio and essentially is a stage.
Highlights: seeing foxes, so many birds, the slow walk over an hour from the back of the studio to the back of the garden in Yasmine’s shared practice, eating breakfast on the rooftop, saunas, bonfire and marshmallows, sharing stories and practice in all moments around the residency randomly often in the kitchen, seeing beavers and birds and swimming in the lake, the forest, hearing Marcela talk (about anything really) and tell us how the studios were made. Finding text in performance, performing at the showing, meditation with Marlon and the studios. Resting. Eating. Doing tarot late night in the dark in the studio together after a sauna.
For now:
The lake has healed my soul.
Some other statements that may be amusing or interesting or not that I found and recorded in order to be repeated as text with movement:
The whole world is watching.
The whole world is watching.
You could get strip searched at the border you could get detained
If I rest and find myself nowhere then I find I am inside myself resting somewhere
Has capitalism truly stolen our souls
My heart is my own country
Does the fly in the room represent me?
100 people liked your post 200 people liked your comment, 10K liked your comment, 1 person commented
They will check your devices so dont post anything political
I can hear a small child singing and playing
Fighting your friends for funding is not community
Grief is another side of deep love
Its hard to admit failure is a collective effort
The bells ringing are an exclamation for my internal liberation and celebration
Miracles are the natural state of living
There is nothing to forgive, we do not need to forgive
The mystery is elusive emancipation
Which side are you on?
What was the last thing you stole?
I am a knowing body, I am a breathing body, I am a sitting body, I am a standing body, I am a moving body
It took me a while to realise how power hungry you guys are
I am home I am magic I am love
To see the other’s perspective is freedom
The lake has healed my soul
If you’re depressed be of service
What does is being present even mean?
Fire is fire is fire is fire
I want to say something about what I learned from the birds
I am living this dream
The moth on my screen is like nature’s scream
I miss my family
LA woman, LA riots
Boats over Gaza
Unstable wi-fi.
The whole world is watching.
Updates: Since posting this yesterday, LA Riots and mass collective resistance has erupted and across the USA in response to ICE (and Trump’s National Guard military tanks in the streets of LA, and across America) and Greta Thunberg (Swedish environmental activist spearhead of Youth for Climate/Future Fridays) and 12 international aid workers/activists being captured hostage by Israel’s Defense Force (IDF) trying to get food and aid to Gaza/Palestine in a time where a genocide and human atrocities are ocurring, eg death, starvation, deprivation of aid.
2. IN/TENSE (July 1st-11th residency)
INTENSE will be presenting in 2025 at Vienna’s International Dance Festival ImPulsTanz July 18th at LACE Symposium.
This solo is about disparity, homelessness and displacement, and how the contemporary western world others others to avoid vulnerability. How can we walk each other home?
Collaborating with AI as “experts” around themes and with Dot Dot Social virtually in NYC, this developed solo is looking at facing fear and vulnerability as a generative and connecting force. It works with movement, sound, performance art, text, music and video to present an embodied musing on these questions and the notion of walking each other home. Staying with the Trouble (Haraway).
This work presented at Grace Exhibition Space a NYC performance art venue 2024 as a work in progress funded by Todd Trust. It was presented at Pōneke (Wellington) Festival of Contemporary Dance in NZ, and Tempo Auckland’s Festival of Dance in 2024.
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