Gallery
Eerie Days (2014-2016)
Music Theater Installation about medically induced coma dreams
Silence, sound, light, motion photography, darkness, video animations, overwhelmingness, and emptiness reconstruct the state of medically induced coma – the dreams and feelings.
I am very lucky that I have never been in a medically induced coma myself. However and unfortunately, too many people around me have been so. They have told their stories – their dreams – and these stories struck me. They struck me because they were the answer to all the questions I had when I stood in front of the hospital bed. There are no answers.
Eerie Days is a metaphorical performance that does not aim at depicting one particular person’s coma dreams but rather giving an impression of how medically induced coma is experienced – a state of mind. It gives an idea how a person’s perception is altered through strong drugs, and how different and difficult the perception of a daily situation can become for someone who is imprisoned in a body that cannot move or communicate but whose brain nevertheless keeps perceiving the outside world.
The audience’s experience of this performance hopefully sheds some light on the mysteries of coma – a state where any human communication becomes impossible. Because it can happen at any time.
Credits
Concept, Composition, Text*, Percussion, Voice, Video Animations & Stage Design Claudia Hansen (*performance includes text fragments by Max Frisch)
Recorded
Live
Eerie Days is kindly supported by the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts) and Hi-Fi Klubben Amsterdam.
Reviews
On the other end of the spectrum, there is Eerie Days: a profound installation by Claudia Hansen. Visitors sit in a dreamy white space on a bed surrounded by flowers. Wilted flowers, because we have been there for a while. Hansen immersed herself in people's experiences in a medically induced coma. While hypnotic music is played, we see on video what they see: dreamy, colorful landscapes and distorted faces. On tape, Hansen poses confrontational questions about living and dying. With its subtle way, the atmospheric Eerie Days makes you reflect.
(translated by Claudia Hansen)
With a small group of visitors, I step into the elevator that brings us to the top of the Compagnietheater. With these strangers, I will experience the intense installation Eerie Days by Claudia Hansen. We take off our shoes and lie down in a kind of nursing home including get-well flowers and white curtains. With Hansen’s projections and music, we find ourselves in a comatose state. While we stood quietly and uncomfortably in the tight elevator before the start of the performance, we talk about life and death afterward.
(translated by Claudia Hansen)