Wednesday, June 14, 2023
Submission Submission
As part of Sâlmon Live Arts Festival, MACBA presents Bryana Fritz‘s work Submission Submission. In this performance, the artist takes on the role of an amateur hagiographer. Etymologically, the amateur is both a beginner and a lover; while the hagiographer, as in the medieval literary genre of hagiography, is the writer of saints’ lives.
In a series of performative portraits, Fritz embodies the corporal, rhetorical and performative strategies that the medieval saints and mystics used to subvert their lives, deaths, and passions. At Festival Sâlmon, Fritz will perform her portraits of Hildegard of Bingen, Catherine of Sienna, Christina of Bolsena, Lucy of Syracuse, & Joan of Arc.
Submitting her physical and digital body to the sacred echoes of the past, Fritz dissects and repurposes the tools that produce our body. Submission Submission is a growing codex of performative portraits of medieval saints. For each iteration of the performance,different saints and mystics are chosen to share space.
This performance acts as a prelude to Invocations, a programme of performance, music and live arts exploring the potential of ritual as a catalyst for transformative experiences. To mark the summer solstice, this programme of spells, incantations and oracles invites us to consider the subversive dimension of rituals and forms of knowledge that have been relegated to the margins of modernity.
Performance, text and choreography: Bryana Fritz
Dramaturgy: Tom Engels
Technical and artistic support: Alice Panziera
Sculptural works for the portrait of Saint Lucy: Iris Marchand
Music partially based on: ‘Like a Prayer’ by Madonna, ‘Monsters’ by Heavens to Betsy, ‘Hamster Baby’ by Bikini Kill, and ‘Che ti nova Nasconder’, ‘Senti Tu Damor’, ‘Aquila Altera’, ‘Alta Serena Luce’, ‘O Crudel Donna’ by Ensemble Syntagma
Special thanks to: Christina the Astonishing, Joan of Arc, Christina of Bolsena, Hildegarde of Bingen, Marguerite Porete, Catherine of Sienna, Lucy of Syracruse, Iris Marchand, Henry Andersen, Thibault Lac & VCX Adult Entertainment.
With the support of: Performatik19, Beursschouwburg, Kunstencentrum Vooruit, LOD muziektheater, and CCNO
Delegated production: La Briqueterie
For more information festivalsalmon.com
