S T O N E O R G Y x DEEPSOIL

S T O N E O R G Y x DEEPSOIL is a performance that mixes songs and story in a 90-minute interactive live show. A piece about worldbuilding, and speculative fiction writing, where the audience meanders through various rooms with videos and soundscapes while Venus Jasper narrates a world of magical folk living in an erotic dance with earth, minerals, plants, and rain.

‍

For one night, Venus Jasper transformed MU Hybrid Arthouse into a digital forest for a one-night story telling experience. During the night, which took place over the entire venue of the Worlding Worlds exhibition, Venus Jasper shared the tale DEEPSOIL (2020), which is a story that speaks of a subterranean layer of earth, mineral and nutrients that is said to have a consciousness of its own. The story was never finished on paper, and comes alive in live performances instead.

‍

The storytelling was supported and interrupted by several songs from S T O N E O R G Y (2019 - 2022), a music record and performance series based on a research into paganism, druidry and the power of oral story telling. In the performance, a world will be created which interlaces the atmosphere of a music-gig with the telling of a story of a seemingly ancient world. Griepink will perform not only as a singer and orator, but also as the facilitator of a participatory sensorial experience in which we will download a story-world from our collective unconscious.

‍

Parts of the performance:

• Part 1 - The Kinfolx of Eirdr
• Part 2 - The Great Hall Moment
• DIRTY (song)
• Part 3 - The Line of Kiln
• Part 4 - Mining the Source
• STANDING STONE (song)
• Part 5 - The Hero
• INTERMEZZO (video below)
• Part 6 - The Birth of People
• SOLAR SYSTEM (song)

‍

This video shows the intermezzo part of the performance.

‍

As a hybrid between a nature priest and a sassy musician, Griepink guides us on a collective world building journey in which our feeling, imagination, breath and attentive ears will help generate the reality; expect dancing, jumping, sounds and singing – and of course, listening to the cascading narrative of the world in the middle of being created.

‍

‍

Additionally, the performance will attempt to break the typical ‘Hero’s Journey’ that so often takes central stage within narratives: a theme of trials, violence and struggle in which one hero often prevails. Griepink wonders who raised this hero? Who took care of his food, clothing? Could the matrix of life surrounding him be brought to the fore, could that matrix perhaps become the entire narrative? A journey that leads us to the now. How would that influence the way we believe this world to be?
‍

‍

• S T O N E O R G Y x DEEPSOIL was a one night event at MU Hybrid Arthouse, Eindhoven, taking place as part of the Worlding World exhibition that featured Andrew Thomas Huang, Baum & Leahy, Ian Cheng, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Mehraneh Atashi, and others.
• S T O N E O R G Y x DEEPSOIL was later adapted to a live-stream performance while COVID-19 made live performance impossible. The remodeled work took place as Enter the Grove for IMPAKT Festival and LeGuessWho? Utrecht in 2020.
• In 2021, the essay SPELLBOUND: Grove is in the Heart by Georgia Kareola was published in Kunstlicht, analyzing the performance.
• In 2020, Mister Motley's Lieneke Hulshof interviewed Venus Jasper, about their work, thinking and recent performance pieces. Wanneer taal poëzie wordt [...] is a lovely Dutch text. Translated into english, see below.
• In 2022 the work is also featured as part of the online educational program LAND by Anouk Mulders for ArtEZ, Arnhem (NL).
• I was asked to make this work after Angelique Spaninks, Artistic Director of MU, read my Dripstone "The World Stage".
  
  ‍