"The starting point was a floor mosaic devoted to the battle of Hercules against Acheloos, the river god able to change his shape. Carsten transferred the mosaic’s dimensions and ornaments to the floor of his studio in the Villa Massimo. Under the title “He whom I love with all my thoughts”, Saeger conceived a music-less performance of some 50 minutes’ duration, as part of which five dancers moved from area to area in the unroofed spaces of the Terme di Diocleziano museum, posing on sculpture-less pedestals, dancing with abandon amid archaeological relics, reposing on abandoned sarcophagi, and filling basins with water and the natatio pools with movements that cite Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies”, among other things. A moment of reflection on the nature of the institution flows almost naturally into this performance of the transitions between different aggregate states, in which the human bodies seemingly become rigid objects of display, only to immediately transform and start moving again."
Text by Julia Draganovic
(Translation by Karen Williams)
Credits:
1 – 6, Stills from "Acheloos' Dream", 2-Channel-Video, HD, 29 min., Camera: Frank Holbein
Performers: Vincenzo De Rosa, Fabritia D’Intino, Daria Greco, Siria Olivieri, Nicolò Troiano
Textile artwork: Ruth Vieren
Costume design: Ruth Vieren, Carsten Saeger
