Att högtidlighålla | Johan Petri

To celebrate one’s own inner contradictions and inconsistencies
Att högtidlighålla sina egna inre motsättningar och motsägelser
2023

The title of this performance is a quote by composer Brian Ferneyhough which in full goes "It is only infrequently that one has the chance to celebrate one’s own inner contradictions and inconsistencies, the meaningful coexistence of which might well be seen as an art in it self." The play is existential in nature and the protagonist reflects on the challenge to be part of a world that has abandoned those experiences that lies beyond the known.
The guitar composition Kurze Schatten was written by Ferneyhough in close dialogue with guitarist Magnus Andersson. It has seven movements and intertwined with those are seven situational monologues performed by the character Leo.

LEO

When the light, which I've been trying to shut out with that half-broken roller blind I've been meaning to replace for years with ones that you pull from the sides, lays like a quivering yellow string across the room, I cringe and think that I should understand something of all the things that everyone else, it seems, has a clear understanding of. It's not that I'm not making an effort, absolutely not, I am. I work my way up to the idea of the thing in general, substantiate and refute this thing with reasons in order to be able to perceive its concrete and rich fullness in accordance with its certainties and to give proper answers and serious judgments about it. Moreover, pushing aside all longing, and unfolding my eyes as wide as possible, I carry with me all that I see and perceive, setting up brackets and shelves, drawing lines and conclusions, practicing the same cunning, shifting syllables, smoothing distances, eating medicine. Even distances between the beats and the people, and the meals and the steps and the stitches. Even distances, it is said. That's what the doctrine of rejection sounds like. I pull the covers over me, let my hands play something inaudible. It is rare that one has the chance to celebrate one's own inner contradictions and inconsistencies, this meaningful coexistence that could well be seen as an art in itself.