This production, fully titled One Song (bugged from a common heartbeat) was created by multidisciplinary Belgian artist Miet Warlop as a response to an invitation from director Milo Rau (director of “Antigone in the Amazon“) to create a piece about her practice. The singular song is repeated throughout the run of the show by twelve performers in a state of endurance, ritual, and competition. The performance highlights themes of grief, unity and the human, and the ways in which one shared song can create meaning for a community.
Recommended readings to get you in gear for the show… or to get your research into a higher gear post-show, when you can’t stop thinking about it.
Chelsea Coon, Space, Time, and Excessive Performances of Endurance (2020)
Karen Gonzalez Rice, Long Suffering: American Endurance Art as Prophetic Witness (2016)
TMelanie Davis-McAfee, Exploring the Impact of Live Performance Art on Overall Psychological Well-Being (2019)
Paul Zimet, The Paradox of Repetition (2015)
“By way of singable texts, snapshots from a gym, oxygen and sweat, moments of exhaustion, and gestures of resilience, it invokes ‘our human condition.’”
“If at times One Song resembles a riot, it is a clearly choreographed disturbance.”
“This project is like a long conversation that would move from one artist to another.”
Did you know that another term for “earworm” is “involuntary musical imagery”? The meta-category of “one song” has provided fodder for many songwriters and is a recurring theme across decades and genres – here’s a little playlist to satisfy the earworms.