Opera in 5 acts · Wiener Festwochen 2012

Food performance · olfactory stage design · WUK Vienna

For the New BOEM*ian Gastarbeiter Opera, Michael Kalivoda and Alexander Nikolic developed a food performance and an olfactory stage design. The smells of fried sardines, beer and cigarette smoke were used as scenographic material, connecting taste, smell and space with the opera’s exploration of Yugoslav migrant-worker history in Vienna.

Fried Sardines, Beer, Cigarettesmoke, Pinch of salt

The Gastarbeiter Opera is a construction site. On this construction site we are the foremen and apprentices of taste. Piece by piece we build it and patch it together. Botched work, of course. It will work out, it will hold. “nema problema” or “ima problema” (Viennese construction-site Esperanto for: there are problems – there are no problems)? The model (an entire country: Yugoslavia) and the subjects (the migrant workers) have been lost to us.

We have also lost around 100 Yugoslav workers’ clubs in Vienna. In a community where the future had already taken place, God was dead, and the amens and omens of brotherly unity were spoken, we are archaeologists uncovering sediments. The clubs were located in basements back then. In the meantime, we have reached the ground floor, moved up into the “Yugo corner coffee house”. Into BOEM. Peripheral. Democratic, and often ethnically unambiguous.

Apparently socialism created the apolitical worker. Without knowing the language, one can nevertheless build Europe’s best car and clean all the museums. One can also come to the corner café with dirty hands. Nobody stays clean there. I would rather die and be buried here. That is what the waitress says. The war broke us apart. The most beautiful shards are in Vienna. Around BOEM we assemble them into a shimmering mosaic.

The mosaic, the fragments of what has been broken, what we find: we exhibit at WUK. In the form of our opera. None of us has ever been to the opera. Nothing happens there. Here it does.

In 5 acts we offer an insight into the search. We assess the shards. Some are so sharp that we transfer them into another medium. Good that our gloves are not made of velvet. Work gloves served us as cultural cloaking devices: nobody saw us. But when we look at ourselves, we realise that we are no longer invisible. Others have taken our roles. We leave the ground floor.

Opera in 5 acts · Wiener Festwochen 2012

Food performance · olfactory stage design · WUK Vienna

For the New BOEM*ian Gastarbeiter Opera, Michael Kalivoda and Alexander Nikolic developed a food performance and an olfactory stage design. The smells of fried sardines, beer and cigarette smoke were used as scenographic material, connecting taste, smell and space with the opera’s exploration of Yugoslav migrant-worker history in Vienna.

Fried Sardines, Beer, Cigarettesmoke, Pinch of salt

The Gastarbeiter Opera is a construction site. On this construction site we are the foremen and apprentices of taste. Piece by piece we build it and patch it together. Botched work, of course. It will work out, it will hold. “nema problema” or “ima problema” (Viennese construction-site Esperanto for: there are problems – there are no problems)? The model (an entire country: Yugoslavia) and the subjects (the migrant workers) have been lost to us.

We have also lost around 100 Yugoslav workers’ clubs in Vienna. In a community where the future had already taken place, God was dead, and the amens and omens of brotherly unity were spoken, we are archaeologists uncovering sediments. The clubs were located in basements back then. In the meantime, we have reached the ground floor, moved up into the “Yugo corner coffee house”. Into BOEM. Peripheral. Democratic, and often ethnically unambiguous.

Apparently socialism created the apolitical worker. Without knowing the language, one can nevertheless build Europe’s best car and clean all the museums. One can also come to the corner café with dirty hands. Nobody stays clean there. I would rather die and be buried here. That is what the waitress says. The war broke us apart. The most beautiful shards are in Vienna. Around BOEM we assemble them into a shimmering mosaic.

The mosaic, the fragments of what has been broken, what we find: we exhibit at WUK. In the form of our opera. None of us has ever been to the opera. Nothing happens there. Here it does.

In 5 acts we offer an insight into the search. We assess the shards. Some are so sharp that we transfer them into another medium. Good that our gloves are not made of velvet. Work gloves served us as cultural cloaking devices: nobody saw us. But when we look at ourselves, we realise that we are no longer invisible. Others have taken our roles. We leave the ground floor.