The westerner is a phenomenon of popular culture. He represents the United States and informs (or used to inform) the idea Western Europeans have of America. He is White, straight, and male. In recent years, finally, more diverse images are allowed in. The westerner was once pop, and he is now pop again. But what does a cowboy do when there are no more cows?
In HOW DO YOU, a White woman plays a man who dresses as a cowboy and experiments with being a drag queen. Cowboy Cowdy stares into the infinitely vast land. He is not the hero that Hollywood or Big Entertainment liked to portray him as. Cowboy Cowdy is a full-time idler who practices doing nothing. He enters the stage with his horses Severin(e) and Alex. Both block his way just by standing there. What do horses do? What does Cowboy Cowdy not do? This cowboy is a personage that fails humorously. When ‘doing nothing’ includes ‘doing’, then what can the doing nothing do that the doing can’t do? Can you start a revolution from idling? And how many people do you need for that? Cowboy Cowdy uses figures of speech: ‘to squeeze courage out of someone’, ‘the horse droppings have dropped’. Howdy!
Nora Jacobs works with performance and video art in implementing large-scale installation artworks. She received her diploma with honours from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2017. Before, she acquired an acting degree at the Norwegian Theatre Academy (with some time abroad at the Zurich University of the Arts as part of the Erasmus Programme) and attended the Academy of Circus Arts. Various residencies took her to Rote Fabrik (Zurich), the ImPulsTanz festival, a cargo boat crossing the Baltic Sea, and the Sahara Desert. Nora Jacobs is a co-founder of queer-feminist group HEATHERS. She also received the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts’ ArtStart scholarship and the START scholarship for media art. In recent years, her work was presented, among other places, at the Vorbrenner Festival in Innsbruck, at DIE IRRITIERTE STADT Stuttgart, at SCHÄXPIR in Linz, at Galerie Lehen in Salzburg as part of subnetAIR, and at the SLASH Filmfestival in Vienna.
Created by and featuring Nora Jacobs Outside eye Barbara Kraus Production at video shoot Larissa Huber Austrian Sign Language consultant Pam Eden
Funded by the City of Vienna’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Federal Ministry of Art, Culture, Civil Service and Sport. The revival was sponsored by the City of Vienna's Department of Cultural Affairs.
An artist talk will take place after the performance on Thursday, February 22. The artist talk with Nora Jacobs and Pam Eden will be accompanied by ÖGS interpretation by Katharina Schalber.
Note: On March 10 a workshop about ÖGS interpretation with association kinderhände and Pam Eden takes place as part of imagetanz. A visit to the performance in combination with the workshop is highly recommended. Info & registration
brut at Metro Kinokulturhaus
Johannesgasse 4, 1010 Vienna
accessible
Nordwestbahnstraße 8-10, 1200 Vienna
Subway: U1, U2 (Praterstern), U4 (Friedensbrücke), U6 (Dresdnerstraße) Tram: 5 (Nordwestbahnstraße) Bus: 5A (Wasnergasse)
accessible
Vogelweidplatz 13, 1150 Wien
Subway: U6 (Burggasse-Stadthalle) / Bus: 48A (Moeringgasse) / Tram: 9 (Camillo Sitte Gasse)
not accessible
Zieglergasse 25, 1070 Wien
Subway: U3 (Zieglergasse), Tram: 49 (Westbahnstraße / Zieglergasse)