Drop Dead (2011)

“What would
you like to eat for your last dinner? Where would you like to be buried? How
should they bury you? Who should come to the funeral? Who should deliver your
funeral speech? Which song should be played at your funeral? What are your last
words?” These are the questions that Katarina asks of the picked-out viewer
who, at the end of this short conversation, dies in her lap. Of course, the
audience doesn’t believe it’s really true, but this is not the issue here. This
prologue is about the idea of death – this is what we all believe in. Death is
profoundly intimate, but at the same time an extremely spectacular sensation.
The performance enacts both its faces: the intimate struggle of a dying person
– “They told me I would go through three stages: first is denial, second is
anger, and finally acceptance.” – and death as the ultimate spectacle
experienced by those watching from the outside. Drop Dead is a play in
which we all must take our parts: the performer becomes a corpse, the audience
becomes an undertaker and the performance becomes a funeral.

Conceived and text by Katarina Stegnar and Bojan Jablanovec; Performer:
Katarina Stegnar; Direction: Bojan Jablanovec; Music (selected by Katarina
Stegnar): W. A. Mozart: “Requiem” (sentences: Requiem Aeternam, Rex Tremendae,
Lacrimosa Dies Illa) and “Where Did You Sleep Last Night (In the Pines)”
performed by Tomaž Grom; Costume: Mateja Benedetti; Lighting design: Igor
Remeta; Producer: Špela Trošt; Production: Via Negativa, performance series Via
Nova 2010.

Organisation: Via Negativa;
In collaboration: City of Women; Old Power Station –
Elektro Ljubljana.