Gloriette Trailer, mix media video, 2024
Performed by Cassie Augusta Jørgensen
“Whatta you wanna buy? Whatta you wanna buy? Whatta you wanna buy? Whatta you wanna buy? Whatta you wanna buy? You dont need that You dont need that You dont need that You dont need thatYou dont need thatYou dont need that. You don't want that old body let's just get a new one!”
Gloriette was presented at HAU1 Hebbel am Ufer Berlin in December 2024 with support from Haupstadtkulturfonds, Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, & Callies Residency.
Gloriette is a tragicomedy about a derelict department store on the outskirts of Venice that is slowly sinking. Both manifesto and a musical comedy, this histrionic opera is dedicated to the breakdown of categories.
As the water slowly rises, the shop employees don’t seem very bothered as they go on adapting to the growing challenge of running a shop under water. The isolated group each tend to their idiosyncratic highly specialised departments, proudly awaiting customers who may never arrive. The scent of anarchy is near at hand and the current fad for believing that there is nothing left to believe in is everywhere apparent. What, then, are these post-apocalyptic workers holding on to? In this dying commodified world with its imposed categories and a fading semblance of order, they develop a (perverse) desire to be free, to be loved, to be together. In the midst of the sinking city of Venice, Gloriette is going to reveal the dead end of binary categories created and enforced through capitalism. And it will show how liberation from these categories is not radical but inevitable.
