Woman-bomb

"My short and quiet life as a woman
is to end in a noisy death and questions I
never managed to answer: Is this a heroic act
that ends with my suicide, or is it a suicide
hidden behind a heroic act?" (Woman-bomb)

My performance is a lecture aimed at assessing the line
between self and the character being portrayed, together
with the multiplication of the voice on both ideological
as well as musical levels. The strategies employed while
writing the text are also used in the creation of the
performance.
The creation process of Woman-bomb, an auto-referential
reading performance, began in 2004 while taping a
conversation with my friends on terrorism-related issues:
- Is suicide hidden behind the heroic act, or is the heroic
act transformed into suicide?
- Do the remaining 12 minutes and 36 seconds before
the explosion go by faster or slower?
- Is it possible to make a 12-minute-and-36-second
performance that could incorporate and relate such
concepts?

The conversations used in my lecture are replies to the
questions directed to the people on my mailing list while
I was working on this piece: What would you do if you
had only 12 minutes and 36 seconds left? It was my
intention to move the focus of interest away from the
heroine-terrorist who is the barrier of ‘the clock’, and
make visible the various aspects from which we can
speak, not only about terrorism, but also about art.

The reason behind the deconstruction of my own
text and the process of its creation is that I wanted to
publicly confront myself with the essential body of the
work which I had drafted with reference to documents,
interviews, polls, newspaper articles as well as my own
insanity. I also employ those same methods that define
terrorist methodology, such as use of media for portraying
the symbolic nature of a suicide attack. I wanted to
deconstruct what I once constructed because I believe
that this provides a new performance potential outside
that of a standard theatre presentation. Discussion of art
is also art. I have provided one such method.

Sajko will be accompanied by the musician Vedran Peternel (Croatia / France)
In Croatian*

Author: Ivana Sajko; performers: Ivana Sajko & Vedran Peternel; production: BAD co.

Organisation: City of Women
In collaboration with: Galerija Gregor Podnar