Flagellar Pockets

Performance, 45 min., 2024, with Jonathan Penca, Über Brücken – Bridging, Cologne

A performative walk unfolds in Cologne’s Friedenspark, where the layered histories of place, literature, and science intertwine. The performance reframes Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, channeling the hypersensitive and easily irritated Usher siblings, played by Rosanna Graf and Jonathan Penca, as they guide the audience through the space. Their voices are transmitted via radio waves from a wearable synthesizer —Flagellar Pocket — to four portable speakers carried by additional performers. Rosanna Graf is wearing a mitten crab claw object in place of her right hand, a machine that dictates the performer’s speech.
Flagellar Pocket, a machine built to organize and control the surrounding nature, ultimately fails at its first subject: an attempt to shush pigeons away from the statue of an eagle made from war scrap with a salve of sound does not affect the birds. Instead, it renders the unseen visible — the biofilm, a dense community of microorganisms consuming the remnants of the former fortress.
Scientific insights from a research ship stationed on the nearby Rhine weave into the narrative, connecting invasive species like the zebra mussel to shifting ecological systems. Prosecco is served beside the diatom as the audience is welcomed to witness the ongoing overgrowth. They enter a threshold between past and present, the natural and the constructed, the real and the spectral. Moving through brick walls and lavender, spiraling down the stairs the procession encounters the beheaded statue of Diane and a deer. In response, the Usher siblings burst into song—The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game by The Marvelettes – guiding the audience through the foggy maze and to the river.

Concept: Jonathan Penca
Arrangement, text, performance, costumes: Rosanna Graf and Jonathan Penca
Performance: Rosanna Graf, Jonathan Penca, Jacob Penca and Philipp Schießler
Flagellar Pockets-Sound Machine: Jonathan Penca and Jacob Penca
Crab-Claw: Jonathan Penca
Master of Sound: Jacob Penca
As part of Über Brücken – Bridging Cologne
Curated by Lisa Klosterkötter and Elena Malzew

Flagellar Pockets, performance, 2024, Rosanna Graf and Jonathan Penca, Bridging/Über Brücken, Cologne (Photos: Lisa Klosterkötter, Video: Nikolai Meierjohann)

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Flagellar Pockets

Performance, 45 min., 2024, with Jonathan Penca, Über Brücken – Bridging, Cologne

A performative walk unfolds in Cologne’s Friedenspark, where the layered histories of place, literature, and science intertwine. The performance reframes Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, channeling the hypersensitive and easily irritated Usher siblings, played by Rosanna Graf and Jonathan Penca, as they guide the audience through the space. Their voices are transmitted via radio waves from a wearable synthesizer —Flagellar Pocket — to four portable speakers carried by additional performers. Rosanna Graf is wearing a mitten crab claw object in place of her right hand, a machine that dictates the performer’s speech.
Flagellar Pocket, a machine built to organize and control the surrounding nature, ultimately fails at its first subject: an attempt to shush pigeons away from the statue of an eagle made from war scrap with a salve of sound does not affect the birds. Instead, it renders the unseen visible — the biofilm, a dense community of microorganisms consuming the remnants of the former fortress.
Scientific insights from a research ship stationed on the nearby Rhine weave into the narrative, connecting invasive species like the zebra mussel to shifting ecological systems. Prosecco is served beside the diatom as the audience is welcomed to witness the ongoing overgrowth. They enter a threshold between past and present, the natural and the constructed, the real and the spectral. Moving through brick walls and lavender, spiraling down the stairs the procession encounters the beheaded statue of Diane and a deer. In response, the Usher siblings burst into song—The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game by The Marvelettes – guiding the audience through the foggy maze and to the river.

Concept: Jonathan Penca
Arrangement, text, choreography, costumes: Rosanna Graf and Jonathan Penca
Performance: Rosanna Graf, Jonathan Penca, Jacob Penca and Philipp Schießler
Flagellar Pockets-Sound Machine: Jonathan Penca and Jacob Penca
Crab-Claw: Jonathan Penca
Master of Sound: Jacob Penca
As part of Über Brücken – Bridging Cologne
Curated by Lisa Klosterkötter and Elena Malzew

DOLLHOUSES – The Swimmingpool, performance, 2023, Cologne (Photos: Jakob Engel, Video: Nikolai Meierjohann)

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