Tres Piezas para Barrenderos
The other day I got an e-mail from a lady friend of mine: I love getting those melodious invitations in the mail, “This is an invitation to you if you’re free” she wrote. My friend and her husband live in El Centro Historico here in México City. In fact on the new groovy street in el Centro Historico – Calle Regina.
My friend said, a “German artist named Pia Lanzinger is doing her final of three performance pieces with a group of sweepers. Friday they did the Rockettes, more like ‘pass the shoe from me to you’ in slow motion, passing brooms and batting around a ball made from recyclables taped together.” Sounded like fun and original, and this was their last performance, so off I went.
I most enjoyed hearing the sweepers sing. Though they mostly sang off key it was most enjoyable to hear their music, songs, that these sweeper created themselves. All the music and poetry conveying their lives on the street — working as sweepers. Afterward I spoke to a couple of the sweepers and they beamed when I asked questions – hell I beamed from their energy too.
The German artist Pia Lanzinger did a excellent job in working with the sweepers. Lanzinger’s work focuses on “social phenomena and their effect on the individual, her site-specific works are based on research conducted with the co-operation of people in their own social environment. In recent years she has devised a number of projects for the public realm,” México City being one of them.
It was a lovely day :-)
Here a short video of what I heard that day
And here are the pics: Pia Lanzinger sits with the crew
Click photo below to view a slide show.
