Our good friend, curator Paul B. Preciado invited us come to Athens, Greece to give a visiting artist lecture and do a water ritual performance prior to the opening of documenta 14. Paul explained that he was curating a series of public programs called The Parliament of Bodies which would take place at the Athens Municipality Arts Center at Parko Eleftherias. Of course we said yes.
We had just 3 weeks’ notice. Quickly we wrote up a call for collaborators to join us in creating a performance ritual which documenta 14 posted on their website. We were fairly confident we could give a great talk, but the water ritual was something we had never done before, and such short notice made for some serious performance anxiety. To gather enough collaborators so quickly seemed virtually impossible.
When we arrived at the Municipality Arts Center in Parko Eleftherias, (Freedom Park), we were intrigued to learn that the 19th century building where the Arts Center was housed had been the police station for the Greek Military Junta of 1967–74. Behind the police station resistance fighters were jailed and severely tortured in that building during the Junta. Clearly this place had a very heavy history, and we wanted to honor the history.
On the day of the ritual, September 23, 2016, we met our performers, as they met each other, for the first time. We discussed what we hoped to do that night and then held a short two- hour rehearsal. Our performers hailed from Greece, England, Canada, Brazil, Turkey, the USA and one performer was from Planet Queer. Our intention was to show water our love, address issues of the day, and to respectfully bathe the performance space, where horrendous torture during the fascist dictatorship in Greece took place.
The printed program listed activities for the audience members during the ritual, some using props we had handed out: rub a balloon with your wet fingers to make sounds, shake a water rattle, shed some tears, dribble some spit, sprinkle water from wet leaves, move your body like water, tell water what you love about it, blow bubbles, drink some water, clean the floor, or some other activity as long as it’s being respectful of the history of the space we were in.
The time had come to begin. The space was packed full of all kinds of people. After forming a circle, one by one, each of us walked to the center of the circle and poured water from the places that we had come from into a big container. After that everyone broke into simultaneously doing a water-based activity of their choice accompanied by a mesmerizing soundscape by Andrew McKenzie of the Hafler Trio. The whole thing was chaotic, weird and also visually quite beautiful. Our group of freedom loving, weird aquaphiliacs were working together to wash away the horrible order imposed by the former dictators who would never allow the kind of freedom with which we performed. After closing the ritual with a moment of silence and three claps of our hands, we opened the circle, and most of us ran outside into the grass. Right on cue, the janitor turned on the lawn sprinklers. We played and celebrated in our makeshift public fountain as the audience members trickled out and enjoyed watching us enjoy getting soaked.
Click here to view the PDF of the Wet Dreamers program with more details and the credits.
