A fragile existence
─ The symbiosis dancer and performance artist Silvia Hatzl shares with composer and electro acoustic musician Raymond Delepierre gives to the piece 'a fragile existence' a rare evocativeness. The actual performance took place at the end of Hatzl's exhibition – of the same name – at rosenfeld porcini gallery in London. Surrounded by the pieces she creates from a wide array of materials such as animal intestines, silk, cotton, linen, and paper, which have been speckled with blood rust and pigment. Hatzl moves around and over them; each of her steps echoed by the wonderfully apt and creatively achieved soundscapes provided by Delepierre. These delicate sculptures positioned around the gallery resemble human souls; they stand like living presences within their allocated space as if engaged in a secret dialogue between ages, cultures and epochs. All of Hatzl's works are inhabited by a tragic sense of time; the absence of life is attenuated by the presence of that spirit, which once inhabited these clothes and has somehow remained. Hatzl's dance brings her closer to these silent presences, yet as she engages in her dialogue they momentarily return to life thus reacting in their own way to her movements. Suddenly the stage is filled by actors speaking through the voice of Raymond Delepierre's sounds. A sense of profound mystery and communication pervades as, towards the end of her performance, Hatzl enters the largest and most un fathomable of her creations. She buries herself inside a towering dress – with its echoes of Genghis Khan and Ancient Mongolia; it is as if she has been consumed within its entrails, only to gradually re-emerge back into life, naked. It appears as if this cathartic experience for her and ultimately also for us, has led to a collective purification and re-birth into a new and better existence.
Ian Rosenfeld