Director: Ibrahim Quraishi
My Private Himalaya is a combination of a punk-rock concert and a catwalk event with the audience seated on both sides of the stage. The performance focuses on the relation between bodies and objects. During the performance a massive amount of props get manipulated on stage and objects become performers and performers become objects. My working process was unusual and very interesting. Ibrahim invited the whole team to take part in the making process and the first three weeks we all improvised and made materials. As a result the lighting design emerged from a physical, rhythmical perspective from the inside, which feels very different from looking at materials from the outside.
My Private Himalaya is a very visual performance with a fluid, rhythmical structure. All materials are presented in a very matter of fact way. In contrast the lights create bold theatrical settings that are inserted with different rhythmical dynamics. Poetic, intimate scenes in strong colors transformed into cold artificial nature settings, created by fluorescents and secretive black light environments transitioned through the insertion of stroboscopic light into rock concerts. Often my work is rather transparent and subtle and My private Himalaya was a great opportunity to stage materials in a very theatrical way.