photographed by Tian Gebing
倾听
耳朵是路吗？或者说，为什么耳蜗的感知会比眼睛精确非常多？
这是《她的脸》的第八个场景，穿越了柏林8处私宅，这场多语义、多节拍和多文化的旅程暂告一段落。如果说平放的8是无限的符号，此时我们发现我们徘徊追溯到概念的出发点，而鼓手Robyn Schulkowsky正在此迎接我们。艺术徘徊在城市、历史和文化的他者空间其间，艺术是流放的幽灵。Robyn漫长职业生涯的母题是如何把非音乐的元素——尤其空间——转译成音乐。在新的声音维度上，她提出了一个问题：艺术能否撬开一个交叉的缝隙？我们在这里能否把平时认知里不可能逾越的差异暂时弥合？
Robyn让人耳目一新的声音艺术从起点就受到合作者影响的塑造，这些名字包括约翰·凯奇、卡尔海因茨·斯托克豪森、默斯·坎宁汉和萨沙·瓦尔兹等。同时她也携带着自己的使命：把打击乐这一最淳真最普世的语言、把其中蕴含的种种神奇带给全世界的人们。这次她将邀请观众进入她座落于Kreuzberg的工作室，穿过她迷宫一样层层嵌套、装满打击乐器的储藏室，这里甚至有一些自造的乐器。Robyn的话将引导我们穿梭于这座声音的迷宫，仿佛阿里阿德涅赠给忒修斯的线团：这位资深音乐人谈她谛听的方式，谈她的乐器和她人生的故事。包括荷尔德林《生命的一半》在内的文学文本将成为另一层参照系。她会邀请我们思索和感受：音乐本身即现实？音乐根本的组成部分会使我们对外部和内部环境的觉察更敏锐？
这个冬天，《她的脸》项目从柏林的已逝译者、写作者苏珊戈瑟的遗稿连接到张枣、保罗策兰、荷尔德林，将他们的文字和诗送到一家一家公寓和房间主人手里。随后，魔术般的一个又一个崭新故事、思想、记忆的“脸”被赫然看见。在那些夜晚，不同文化、肤色、语言的人们，一次次地聚集，仿佛一次次神秘的家族仪式，以诗之名，以表演之名，以共有的离散命运之名，神话般地聚集和告别。
现在是最后的第八个场景，是连续第三天表演的告别场景。这个在城市中游荡的剧场，不可思议的游荡到了Robyn Schulkowsky的铁门旁。这是《她的脸》唯一在公寓外的私人工作空间发生的表演，当铁门推开的时候，也是语言文字忽然消散的时候。只有声音或缄默，听或不听，你已经在这个城市的历史和莫名诗意之中。“她的脸”即柏林的脸、你的脸！
关于主人公
Robyn Schulkowsky
生于长于美国南达科他州，贯穿一生的创造和合作精神。她致力于向世界各地的人们揭示打击乐的神奇。对新的声音维度不断探索，发展出新的超常规的乐器。她在实验古典音乐创作全盛的时期移居德国，表演并录制了20世纪21世纪最重要的打击乐独奏作品。 她出神入化的技艺已灌进20多张唱片里。
Listening
Is it the ear that is the way? Or, why are the perceptions of the ear so much more precise than those of the eye?
With the eighth episode of “Her Face”, this poly-semantic, poly-rhythmic and multi-cultural journey through 8 Berlin residences comes to a provisional end. The horizontal 8 makes the symbol of infinity. We have meandered and now find ourselves, with percussionist Robyn Schulkowsky, at the conceptual beginning of the series. ‘Art’ wanders as an exiled ghost between the urban, historical and cultural spaces of Otherness. The central motif of Robyn's long career is how non-musical elements, especially space, can be translated into music. In the dimension of new sound, she poses the question: does art crack open a tiny intersection, where the insurmountable differences we perceive come together?
Robyn's ground-shaking acoustics has been shaped, from its very beginning, by her collaboration with artists such as John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Merce Cunningham and Sasha Walz. At the same time, she carries her mission to convey the wonders of the percussive language, most original and universal. The musician invites the audience in her Kreuzberg studio, through her labyrinthine nested storerooms, full of percussion instruments, some of which she has developed herself. A verbal Ariadne thread is given: she will talk about her own approach to listening, about her instruments and her stories. Literary reference points will include Hölderlin’s "Half of Life". She invites us to reflect on and feel how music is a reality in itself, how its fundamental components form in us a heightened awareness of the external and internal environment.
This winter, “Her Face” has connected the texts by the late Berlin-based writer translator Susanne Göße to those of Zhang Zao, Paul Celan and Friedrich Hölderlin. The words have been delivered to different apartments and private rooms. As if by magic, new stories, ideas and ‘faces’ emerged one after another. On those evening, people of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds gathered, repeatedly in a ritual of myth, in the name of poetry and of theatre, for a diasporic experience common yet impossible to share. We greeted each other and bid each other farewell. They were a myth.
This eighth episode is final, the last in a row of three days of consecutive performances. The wandering Theatre arrives at the iron gates of Robyn Schulkovsky's studio, to be welcomed to a quite unique event. This episode will be the only one in the series that takes place not in a private apartment. When the gate creaks, lettres vanish. There is sound and there is silence. One can listen and one can shut her/his ears. Either way, one finds oneself in the microbiographies of the city, unvoiced and indescribably poetic. “Her face” is the face of Berlin. Her face is your face.
About the Protagonist
Robyn Schulkowsky
Born and raised in South Dakota, Robyn Schulkowsky has been an innovator and collaborator throughout her life. She has dedicated herself to revealing the wonders of percussion to people around the world. Her continuous exploration of new sound dimensions has led to the development of new and unusual musical instruments. Robyn moved to Germany during a heyday of experimental and adventurous classical composition. She has premiered and recorded some of the most important solo percussion works of the 20th and 21st centuries. Her virtuosity has been captured on over 20 recordings.
With Robyn Schulkowsky