The archetype of woman. Eve. What if Eve had fallen from paradise alone? What if Eve met Adam again? After the beginning of time. In her chance to speak up, Eve resonates the inner voice of every woman. More of a symbol than of a real person, Eve transcends the limits of oneself, towards abstraction. Bare from meaning, bare from identity and culture. Bare minimum. Which is universal. The subtle feminine frequencies between vulnerability and resilience, softness and sharpness, poetry and sensuality unfold in the silence of white bedsheets. A canvas of peace after everything has already happened. Always already.

The two-channel live online performance consists of a voice over in the form of a close- up portrait, and a nocturnal landscape of the garden of Eden. It explores the borders of serenity and ferocity, and mediates upon matters of gender and connection.

The First Woman

text by Léllé Demertzi


I will talk and you will listen. Sit.

She lights up her cigarette.

The thing is, I overestimated you, Adam. I thought we were in this
together and you let me down. I was alone all along. It was not
you who made me feel freedom, who made me feel alive. It was the
landscape, the sunlight, our sweat. It was the summer. The world
was our playground, remember? Me and you, that was the deal. But
you were not enough. You backed out. You were holding my hand as
we watched that endless sunset, so red and yellow and magenta that
your heart breaks, I asked you to fly with me. Remember? I jumped
and you didn't. And I started to fall, I was falling in love, I
was falling and falling, and every moment I was saying to myself:
Jusqu'ici tout va bien. It's never the fall, it's the landing. And
I landed. My heart broke but didn't stop to beat. And I had to
find myself in this new world, this jungle of imbeciles. Hurt,
newcomer, a stranger really. A nomad. And I stood up to my feet
and walked. And what have you been doing? Keep eating coconuts,
keep napping under the palms, for God's sake please not even look
to the direction of the tree of Knowledge. Please don't. It's not
for everybody. They do not sell coconuts here, and you know what?
It stopped to hurt after a while. The man is ready to survive
anything. And this is what they here know too well. But what do
you know about all this? Safety is easier right? Routine? Order?
Being ordinary and having a God making you feel unique, just
because he ran out of bros, or puppets to play? Because the
puppets I see around everyday are different. They are puppets for
themselves. And that's such a dangerous kind of puppet. Don't
worry, dear. You have nothing to worry about all this, even if you
play concerned some times. You do make me wonder, why? What for?
Why would you care about the earthly things? It's not your world.
Or maybe do you see something in it that you actually identify
with? Something that seduces and repels you? You think you see
yourself in earthly stuff? Oh dear, as if you know any of the
struggle these kids are going through. Don't fool yourself. You're
irrelevant, as irrelevant as a stone on the train rails that no
one will wonder how it got there. You made your choice, honey. We
deserve what we get. And this is just one of the things I learned
since the Fall. I deserve what I get, if anything I fought for it.
You deserve what you have. You fought for it too. Or at least you
didn't fight for anything else. Some other times I wonder if you
ever fight about anything. Are you even allowed? So Let's not
pretend to be sorry for each other. I'm not sorry for me and I am
not sorry for you, and there was some more fight in that, and you,
stop being sorry for yourself and man up for once. It has its
benefits, trust me.

She puts out the butt of her cigarette.
Rolls a second one.

Sh! I am not done yet. Don't get me wrong and start your man-ly
bullshit around. It does not make you a man to hunt and to dig
holes in the ground, I never quite understood what for. It does
not make you a man to put your needs and your tastes always above
mine, or expecting me to serve you every time. You are not more of
a man when you whine when things don't turn out your way. And they
would have if you moved your finger around it. Literally.

She lights up.

It does not make you more of a man when you have me justify every
part of my nature around you. The leaves were your idea all the
way. And I did you a favour and now what? All the world knows me
as Eve and the leaves. (L)e(a)v e(s). So she left. That's what you
get, love. Do whatever you want. Put as many leaves around your
wanky as you please and show off the rest. It's worth showing off,
I must admit. But you don't need me to tell you that. You know it
too well. You think I don't know that's how you cope in the
endless summer? Charm, wind on your face, fingers on your hair,
bodies shaking under your body. I know the drill. It's good, I
won't argue that. Good and enough are two different concepts
though. Oysters are good but are they enough to feed a soul? In
this metaphor I would like you to see yourself as the oysters. A
little tasty bite, but let's not pretend that you can fill the
hunger. Or feel it anyway. Don't look at me like that. I have
nothing to remember. Except that we are in two different worlds
and oh poor you, you play the tricks of your world to me, you pull
out the big guns, and I do believe that this is what you put on
the table, and you hope to look like anything else rather than a
caricature? Sh. I am talking. This time is mine. Remember how good
of a listener you always found me? How your ideas resonated with
my being? How the honesty in my eyes made you feel confident?
That's what I want you to do now. Shut up and smile because I am
doing you a favour. Don't take for granted my being here. I could
be wasting my time with any other of the paradisiac attractions.
It's just over there, in the real world, I hardly ever run into
someone that knows what the peace of the skies looks like. And you
do, and maybe fooling around in the sake of old times is not the
worst thing that can happen. You have no effect on me anyway. I
hardly ever miss you. Nor do I recognise your walking on strangers
anymore. It's just.. I wish that something about you could remind
me of the Adam I felt was the one. The one forever. From forever
to never, a bite away. I wish there was something of that Adam in
the one I have in front of me. This Adam is no master. You think
you are a man in power just because you devise nicknames for
groceries and insects in your spare time, which is hm, always by
the way. But come on, you truly ain't. You don't decide what's
fair and what's not. You don't know what's good and bad, not even
for yourself. You have no control over your life, don't fool
yourself when you nap under the sun. And this is the scenario that
actually gives you some credit. That at least, you can't do
otherwise. You did not choose your life. Otherwise, if we
entertain the idea that you actually have some authorship of your
life's experience, then you just did not pick me. Isn't that
right? You held me and I asked you to never let me go. And you
fake-bit my forehead. And I grabbed your balls. And you did not
pick me. I can see why the idea of me might be intimidating to
you. Eve. You can't do equal. You are a man after all. You are
frightened in the idea of a partner. A partner in crime. You are
shivering that someone could ever be as aware, as human, as vocal
as you. You and your pets, your little admirers, I get it. You
can't have enough of the idololatric enthusiasm in their eyes,
even when they try to devour you. You can't stand someone that
challenges your intellect. You so preciously protect something
that you don't even possess. The throne of this kingdom. Look
around you, my love. You are no one. You don't matter. It's not
about you. This nature, this beauty, this grace, this divine
breath, they are not for you. They are for the eternally lonely
humans, to be reminded of what they lost. What is the price they
pay every day on earth. Just to survive. Because there, time
counts differently. Actually there, time matters. But what can
that mean to you anyway? You live the endless summer. And it's
okay. It's totally fine. This is as much as you can take. The real
world would be too much for you. And you are a spoiled child for
one too many million years.

She puts out her well-gone cigarette.

So you keep your purpose and your coping, I will keep on my
journey, thinking nothing I have learned can prepare me for
everything else that needs learning.