MPA: Fire for Water

Performance nights:
October 15 and 16, 2021

First performance: 6–7:30pm
Shuttle departure from If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam at 5pm

Second performance: 8–9:30pm
Shuttle departure from If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam at 7pm

Exhibition:
October 22–December 5, 2021
Friday–Sunday, 1–5pm

Human,
Come to the fire that you built
And make it a fire for water.

Burn what is not needed,
Warm, not war, with your dreams.

Collect the fire like water, pour its embers into your soul,
For where you are going needs light.

On October 15 and 16, If I Can’t Dance and Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen are delighted to invite you to a new performance by US artist MPA. A meditation on human violence and the possibility of transformation, Fire for Water is conceived specifically for the spaces and gardens of the Kunstfort, a former military fort on the Amsterdam defence line. Water vessels, armours, fires and telepathic means are characters in a story that unfolds across different states of consciousness and modes of being. The concrete walls of the fort’s bunker become the membranes of a dream-like space where different visions appear. As if in a perverted fashion show, self-armaments are done and undone, seeking the ability to swim, to be wet, to be with the water. The duality of fire as a force of both connection and destruction is a metaphor that burns throughout the piece, igniting the complicated entanglements between wounds and armaments, protection and oppression, spectacles and wars. After the two evenings, remnants of Fire for Water will stay at the Kunstfort conjuring an afterlife of the dreams awakened in the performance.

In her work, MPA explores a range of meditative, durational, theatrical and actionist modes of performance to engage “the energetic” as a potential material in live work. Enriched with ritual and theatricality, her performances and installations have critically examined behaviours of power, such as global arms race, patriarchy as governance, life on other planets, and the dysfunctional union of art with capitalist commodity. Departing from the question “Can we stop bullets with our minds?” Fire for Water develops further MPA’s investigation of psychological and esoteric dynamics propelling human violence and systems of defence.

As part of the project’s trajectory, Fire for Water comprises a series of studies and a new publication that will be released in 2022. The project’s first study—Eye—intersected the everyday activities of If I Can’t Dance with a range of inner and outer points of views, starting with Private Eye, a surveillance camera that broadcast 24h on the If I Can’t Dance Studio. An Unknown Address inhabited the radio waves of Gessnerallee’s festival El Caldo with a sonic contemplation on the foreignness of coming together across cosmological distances. MPA’s further studies on special effects will take place at Gessnerallee with the full piece premiering in their theatre in Fall 2022.

A co-production with Gessnerallee, Zürich and Kunstfort, Fire for Water is curated by Sara Giannini as part of If I Can’t Dance’s 2019–21 Edition VIII—Ritual and Display. The performance and exhibition at Kunstfort are curated by Sara Giannini in dialogue with Frédérique Bergholtz (If I Can’t Dance director) and Zippora Elders (Kunstfort director-curator).

If I Can’t Dance receives structural support from the Mondriaan Fund and the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts) and project support from the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.