WSD Experiment in Terror by Blake Edwards / American thriller from the ’60s

Watching a film usually puts us in a receptive but passive role: we follow the plot of the movie and are open to it, but our feelings, reactions and interpretations can not change the film in any concrete way. For instance in this thriller shot in 1960’s a woman facing jeopardy, mind manipulation, sadism, coercion and kidnapping; the subconscious reactions of the viewer remain invisible and alienated to the film unless an active witness can materialize them and invades the film with symbolic actions changing the movie physically, affecting what is seen in the frame of the action, resisting, agreeing and commenting the situations and bringing another layer of interpretation into the story and dealing with her own fear, her need to destroy evil and her need to identify with it.

Media: expanded cinema / video-performance

Duration: 60 Min
Year: 2012 - 2018
Premiered: Bio OKO Cinema, Prague, 2012
Performed in: Bio OKO Cinema, Prague
Cultural Centre Ferenc Futurista, Černošice, Czech Republic
Festival of Dance and Theatre, Prešov, Slovakia
Festival Botana Mexicana, DIVUS Gallery, Prague
Festival Cuerpo Feromenal, Museo Ex-Teresa Arte Actual, Mexico
Centro Cultural España, Mexico
Festival Danzaextrema Xalapa, Veracruz
Festival Still Life/Handa Gote, Prague
Theatre Alfred ve Dvoře, Prague
Divadlo Konvikt, Olomouc, Czech Republic
Festival ReVizor, Kino Veselý na Moravě, Czech Republic
Carpe Diem, Arte e Pesquisa, Lisbon, Portugal
MITOS Performance Art Center, Cyprus
Divadlo 29, Pardubice, Czech Republic
Mexico tour: Cine Tonalá, Casa del Cine, FONOTECA Nacional,
Puebla, Guadalajara, Cuernavaca, Merida. 

Keywords: fear, manipulation, affect

Concept / Performer / Visuals: Cristina Maldonado
Sound intervention: Tomáš Procházka
Movement design: Věra Ondrašíková
Photo: Jan Morávek
Production: Jedefrau.org

Press: 

espanol.radio.cz: La Botana Mexicana continúa en Praga [ES]

gob.mx: What she does, performance visual de danza, diseño sonoro y narrative [ES] / What she does,
visual performance of dance, sound design and narrative

jazzport.cz: Znepokojující performance s parazitními zvuky [CZ] / A disturbing performance with
parasitic sounds 

"An hour-long live reinterpretation of the American noir-crime film from 1962, Experiment In Terror, 
brings visual collages that Maldonado creates on stage in real-time. This is done with the help 
of a digital camera, a set of mirrors and scissors (cutting a film image transferred to paper), 
telephone, garlic sticks, various papers (cut, torn, curled, etc.), foil, parts of clothing, coffee 
beans, nails, flour, balloon, massive glass lenses and other components, more or less unusual in 
artistic creation. Through physical interventions in the composition of scenes (but also movements, 
dance, gestures), the performer shifts the meaning of film speech to ambiguous interpretations, 
which, as well as uncashed life, are of concern. The fear of women who are forced to face 
danger acquires a ridiculous monstrosity - at the same time their recklessness and eventually their 
inability to resist oppression is visible, as typically women's weapons fail to confront a man 
who has a latent need for a lot of money."