(Photos from 28.10.2017: Boglárka Zellei / OFF-Biennale Budapest Archive)
A project by Katarina Šević and Gergely László - 2017
The street play The Curfew is an alternative form of public demonstration.
A troupe roves the streets of Budapest. They push in front of them a three-meter high egg-shaped, multiplayer megaphone. They make great noise. They stop at busy public squares to perform their play as a speaking choir about the transfiguration of a group of security guards. The members of the group vow to give back the voice to the people from whom they previously took it away. With their presence, the troupe, in and of itself are proof that today Budapest’s streets and public squares can indeed be spaces of independent self-expression.
Motto: “Don’t save your skin, get it off your back!”
During the play performed on the streets, the speaking choir recounts the origins of the transfiguration of a group of security guards: how they miraculously come to realize that all along they had only been, blindly, the thugs of the powers that be. They had intimidated, and silenced their peers in the name of the mighty. In the wake of their revelation, the guards turn their back to their destiny and decide to give back the people’s voices. They are helped by the magical “talking egg” in which the voices reborn and amplify. They vow to protect the egg and bring it onto the streets to the people, to spread the gospel.
Participants: composer Dóra Halas, members of the Soharóza Choir, poet Krisztián Peer
Members of the troupe: Szaffi Asbóth, Orsolya Balogh, Ádám Boros, Kincső Bödecs, István Bukovics, Judit Sára Elek, Krsiztina Erdei, Anna Forgács, Nándor Hevesi, Ferenc Kovács Royal, Dániel Lang, Gergely László, Bogi Lutz, Katarina Šević, Lulu Schnee, Bea Selmeczi, Krisztián Simó, Dániel Sipos, Máté Szilvay, Zsófia Váradi, Balázs Várnai
Curators: The curatorial team of OFF-Biennale Budapest
Supported by: The main cooperation partner of this year’s OFF Biennale is GfZK – Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig. The cooperation project is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
The Curfew has been performed on 30.09. and 28.10.2017 on six public squares in Budapest.
