TEMPEST(S) PROJECT / 2008-2009
By Gilles Pastor
Tempest at 54° North / Thirteen Degrees South
A performance writing about sinking, dreams and sleep,
Based on The Tempest by William Shakespeare
A story of travels.
A syncretism between Kent desert and Bahia.
In Shakespeare’s play, the story begins by a tempest, and it turns out that this tempest, this phenomena that we believe being natural, is actually the figment of magical scheme. A tempest orchestrated by a magician, Duke of Milan, also called Prospero. The island is in crisis. The sinking is inaugural.
Tempest at 54t° degree North / 2008
Derek Jarman, British filmmaker, real white wizard, who died of AIDS in 1994, fought in Dungeness against sea winds to grow a garden while his health deteriorated.
"Fortunes threw me in this garden, close to a nuclear powerplant that twinkles in the night like a liner in the sea."
The boundaries are swaying and Derek Jarman’s movies meet Shakespeare’s characters.
Kent desert is Prospero’s island.
Wednesday 9th August 2006. I go to Dungeness Cape, Kent, UK, latitude 54° North. On the train that takes me to Dungeness Cape, I wonder if I won’t revive the dead or if I want to. I was given the keys to Prospect Cottage, the fisherman cottage of Derek Jarman. I have slept in the filmmaker’s bed. I have slept in the bed of a dead. Prospect Cottage bothered me. Is it because it is so close to the nuclear powerplant ? Or because of Derek Jarman’s radiations ? Kent desert took hold on me. I chose to write about my sinking at Prospect Cottage. What led me here ? I went to the black-painted house with canary yellow windows. I am alone in my idol’s temple. I feel sick.
