Songs of Labour – Dances of Death – 2023
Songs of Labour – Dances of Death – 2023
In the midth of all sort of crisis I am reminded of the tradition of the French ‘Dance Macabre’ and especially the German ‘Totentanz’.
How does this tradition, where the disciplines of music, text and visuals intervene, helps to overcome the fear of threat and death?
Cutting a 2 m long silhouette I got more and fascinated by cutting skeletons, reminding me of the shamanistic tradition of depicting the bones of humans.
Listening to the medieval song “Es ist ein Schnitter heisst der Tod… ” triggers ideas about a second silhouette….
Title: Songs of Labour – Dances of Death
Date: 2023
Seizes: 200 x 90 X 90 cm
Art and Heritage Reference
In my home town Lübeck in the main church of the Marienkirche the mural ‘Totentanz’ did not survive the attacks during the second world war. But the reproductions of it came back to me and resonated with my spiritual longing for connection with the once who came before me.
In the wall paintings of the Lübecker Totentans all people were dressed to represent their profession and affiliated social status. But in the end their status didn’t help, they were all the same, facing the inviting hand of Death for a last dance. Crucial vital profession or not…
Related Work
Songs of Colonial Labour – 2021
Investigation about unconscious values of labour in children- en folksongs, especially focusing on the old Dutch folksong ‘Daar was eens een meisje loos’.