You may rest
-a cooling action in an overheated system.
What would happen if resting was a valued part of our daily culture and public life?
Welcome to a slow and silent practice to re-articulate the value of rest.
Join the resting circle and meet the exhaustion of our body and minds, our planet, our social systems, our economy.
Let the rest matter - Let the rest rule!
What kind of society would we live in if we could take a nap and rest anytime and anywhere we needed - and no-one would find it surprising or strange?
Think of a world, where you got applauded to lay down and rest when you needed to -where you got a salary increase doing so. If people would say: This is enough for today, we have enough, did enough -let ́s rest!
Resting is something we all know deep down. It ́s simple.But resting is not always comfortable. Neither is changing one‘s own ways, or if we think bigger: To build a more coherent and sustainable society will not only be comfortable.
It can be really provoking to just lay down and rest, and to insist on resting for the sake of rest, without any pre-defined outcome or utility. The “empti- ness”, the tumble of thoughts, the listening.
You may feel restless, bored, challenged by moving focus from being active to resting, being there- with what is going on inside of you.
Resting, and even more though resting together may be a symbolic action pointing at what is lacking. Or is resting together already enacting a change?
If this is activism, it ́s a kind of activism which doesn ́t try to shout louder. Yet it may make space for qualities that are removed from our (public) lives.
Short Video about the work in Copenhagen August 2024
presented at metropolis / Copenhagen international theatre
“You may rest” is part of hello!earth “Night Time Series” premiered between 2018 and 2024:
-“The Night- visioning a post capitalist society while we sleep”.
A contemporary overnight ritual for 30 people.
-“Tuesday Night Sleeping Club”. A night and action radio,
you could listen to from anywhere at home.
-“A Night In The Trees” A sleepover in a hammock with
trees as host. On becoming part of geological time.
-“The Overnight Manual”. DIY overnight recipes from India,
Bolivia and Denmark for community sleepovers.
-“The Night in a Box”. An overnight do–it–together ritual for en-visioning futures.
These works reclaim the night as a magical and transformative space and sleeping and dreaming as spaces of collective creation, sensitive meeting and their invisible political presence.
“You may rest” manifests as a daytime intervention and marks the closure of this cycle of works.
CREDITS
Text & collaborating artists: Daniel Norback, Vera Maeder
Graphic Design: and Jacob Langaa-Sennek
and Francesca Mueller
Workshop design: Wiktoria Czekajska and Vera Maeder Spatial design: Jacob Langaa-Sennek
Production & PR: Sofie Mønster
Concept: Vera Maeder and Jacob Langaa-Sennek
Thank you to metropolis / Copenhagen International Theatre, Hybernation Residencies for generous support and space at Refshæleøen, Teater Hund&co, Bybi, Boaz Barkan, Shabari Rao and Linne University Sweden design +change for collaboration, Ana Paula Albé.
Funded by the Danish Arts Council for Performing Arts