“Echoes of Hope for Those Still on the Ground” – 2001
Concept, Choreography,
Costumes: Nejla Y. Yatkin
Music: Sheila Chandra andJurgen Knieper
Videographic Design: Lenita Williamson
Inspired by the
poems of Rainer Maria Rilke (used within the film Wings of Desire),
within this work we are shown the passage of one life and through it
the passage of all lives (from beginning to end to beginning). This
conveys a desire to feel and celebrate humanity, an actual celebration
of humanity and, at the same time, a longing to transcend.
Poem: Rainer Maria Rilke
When the child
was a child
It walked with its arms swinging
It wanted the stream to be a river,
The river a torrent and this puddle to be the sea
When the child
was a child
It didn’t know it was a child
Everything was full of life and all life was one
When the child
was a child
It had no opinions about anything
It had no habits
It sat cross-legged, took off running,
Had a swirl in its hair, and didn’t make a face, when photographed
When the child
was a child
It was the time of many questions:
Why am I me, and why not you
Why am I here and why not there?
When did time begin and where does space end
Isn’t life under the sun just a dream?
Isn’t what I see, hear and smell only the illusion of a world
before the world?
Does evil actually exist and are there people who are really evil?
How can it be, I am who I am,
And didn’t exist before I came to be the one who I am,
Will no longer be the one I am
When the child
was a child
It choked on spinach, peas, and ricepudding and on steamed cauliflower
Now it eats all of those and not just because it has to.
When the child
was a child
It once woke up in a strange bed and now it does so, time and time again.
Many people seemed beautiful then and now only few, if it’s lucky
It had a precise picture of paradise and now it can only guess
It could not conceive of nothingness and today it shudders at the idea
When the child was a child
It played with enthusiasm and now it gets equally excited,
But only when it concerns its work
When the child
was a child
Apples and bread were enough for him
And it is still that way
When the child
was a child
Berries fell into his hands as only berries do
And they still do now
Fresh walnuts made its tongue raw and they still do now
On every mountaintop it had a longing for yet a higher mountain
And in each city it had a longing for yet a bigger city
And it is still that way
It reached for the cherries in the treetop
With the elevation it still feels today
It was shy with all strangers and it still is
It waited the first snow and it still waits that way
When the child
was a child
It threw a stick into a tree like a lance and it still quivers there
today