Performance
Leo Daedalus, 2010
first performed as part of Rearrangutan — Found/Sorted at PNCA, October 13, 2010
Leo Daedalus performing Trouverrou (part 1) (photo: Matthew Miller)
Trouverrou (2010) is a performance piece in four parts following a thread of lost and found themes beginning with the Trouvère and Minnesinger poetry of Chrétien de Troyes' (c. 1135 – c. 1185) Perceval ou le Conte du Graal and Wolfram von Eschenbach's (c. 1170 – c. 1220) Parzival. The thread winds through Wagner's Parsifal to Anselm Kiefer's "Parsifal" cycle paintings and to the Baader-Meinhof-Gruppe referred to in those paintings.
The score comprises 32 short texts, of which 29 consist of notes about these figures, excerpts from their works and quotations — in English, French, Old French, German and Middle High German. The remaining texts are an old Zen story about the sweet impermanence of a teacup, divided into three parts.
1) In the old koan, the zen master is showing some visitors a beautiful teacup. “I love this teacup,” he says, turning it for their appreciation.
2) The zen master says, “I can choose to regard this teacup as so precious that I will be obsessively careful with it, and live in fear that I'll drop it, or someone will chip it, or an earthquake will knock it out of the cabinet. This object, intended to bring pleasure, can become a burden.”
3) “Or,” says the zen master, “I can consider this teacup already broken. Then, every time I drink from the cup will be a pleasure, a gift, a special reunion with something I had lost. I will be sure to appreciate every chance I have to use it, but having already said goodbye, I will not need to use it with fear.
Before a performance the texts are randomly divided into four sets of eight, with the specification that the first section of the Zen story is to be in the second set, the second section in the third set, and the third section in the fourth set.
The performer is also to be armed with a set of four specially prepared magician's paddles. (This is a standard trick whereby a small paddle-shaped prop typically painted with a couple of colored dots is flipped back and forth, ultimately revealing a previously unseen dot pattern that seems to have appeared by, well, magic.) The Trouverou paddles must be large enough to be read by the entire audience.
In each part of the performance, the performer randomly pulls from a hat the eight allotted texts and reads them aloud. When finished, the performer produces the appropriate paddle and flips it several times showing only the first word until the last flip reveals the "hidden" word. The four paddles are:
- first word: LOST (in red), hidden word: LOST (in red)
- first word: LOST (in red), hidden word: FOUND (in green)
- first word: LOSE (in red), hidden word: FIND (in green)
- first word: FIND (in green), hidden word: FIN (in red)
2010 Performance
photos by Matthew Miller
I performed Trouverrou as part of Rearrangutan – Found/Sorted, a collective performance curated by Mark Owens at PNCA in Portland on October 13, 2010. I used a black Stetson cowboy hat, to great effect.
Discussing the performance afterwards, I was surprised and amused to find that some people were disturbed to learn that I had "rigged" the text selections to ensure that the three parts of the Zen story would appear in order, in the last three parts of the piece. They apparently felt that chance and deliberateness should not mix, were that somehow possible! Curious.
> See also: Rearrangutan