Clara von Schantz ~ Once Upon A Fight
Clara von Schantz' "Once Upon A Fight" was presented before live audience at Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy on August 4, 2024 as one of 38 AEROPONIC ACTS of CHAMELEON ORBIT curated by Elisa Giuliani & Giulia Crispiani.
Here you will find the documentation of Clara von Schantz' presentation as filmed by Baha Görkem Yalım. The written report is by Bethany Crawford and it includes a summary of the comments by esteemed guest respondents.
Once Upon A Fight
Clara von Schantz' question: If the voice in my head is me, who is the one listening?
Clara's introduction: On a rainy and windy day, two identical characters take the stage. Amidst their everyday arguments, they swap roles; rehearsing what it is to be, exploring the boundaries of selfhood. In the never-ending pursuit of becoming the sole winner, they steer away aimlessly, beginning anew as soon as it ends. Holding a script, a third figure emerges, narrating and guiding the characters’ actions. Somewhere between self-creation and arm wrestling, mundanity of everyday life takes hold.
By blurring the lines between the interior and exterior, the vanished and the haunted, the living and the dead, the singular and the double, identity may split—leaving behind a scattered and interconnected unit that never, fully, came to be.
Bethany's report: The second part of "Once Upon a Fight" resumes with the twins in the same positions and outfits as the first performance, reinforcing a cyclical, constructed structure. They wake up under the stage lights, acting dazed, as though stepping back into the fictional framework of their lives as art. As they rise, they begin dancing—a traditional style focused on footwork to a soundtrack of Pink’s "Don’t Let Me Get Me" with the refrain, “I want to be somebody else”. Their breathing grows labored and the become exhausted. When the song loops back, they refuse to comply, sitting down and fanning themselves with their scripts, visibly breaking the performance’s flow and drawing attention to its artifice.
Their actions intentionally blur the boundaries between rehearsal and performance. They drink water, text on their phones, and audibly breathe into microphones. They edit their scripts in full view, showing each other notes and commenting in Swedish, making their creative process a focal point. One twin steps to the side of the stage, reflecting aloud: “We need to go over this more.” Switching between Swedish and English, they gesticulate and debate, seamlessly merging their lived experience as twins with the fictional structure of the piece. They rehearse a script—one not heard in the first performance—hinting at past rejections or reworkings, further emphasizing their meta-commentary on creation, iteration, and negotiations. This oscillation between raw process and polished performance underscores how their lives, art, and identities are inextricably fused.
The twins disrupt the frame of the performance with an absurd fight over stage lighting. One twin runs off to turn the lights on, the other follows to turn them off, repeating the act with escalating tension. Shouting phrases like “Stop touching it!” Returning to the stage, the twins rehearse actions from the first performance, such as listing their frustrations with one another, but these are reframed as deliberate exercises in self-reflection and performance commentary. They question whether they can truly discover anything new about each other and explore how games of intimacy and fun become essential tools, even when they know one another completely. These moments, such as mimicking gestures like scratching behind their ears, reveal their commitment to performing their closeness while interrogating its boundaries.
Their physicality crescendos as they run toward one another. The spotlight dims as they return to their seats, recounting shared memories and joking about the need for name tags to distinguish themselves. They reflect on what it means to be indistinguishable in almost every realm of life, wryly noting that only their cat seems to recognize the difference The final moments of the performance draw attention to its constructed nature. The twins ask the audience to turn on the working lights, explicitly inviting them to participate in dismantling the boundary between the fictional and the real. They reflect on their shared meta-existence as sisters, collaborators, and performers, existing in a liminal space where life and art are indistinguishable.
As the soundtrack shifts to a refrain of “Everything has been done, done, done, done ” from A.G Cooks song “21”, the twins clear the stage, sometimes removing real objects, sometimes miming the removal of imaginary ones. They carry a heavy, invisible object together. The work interrogates the meta-nature of creation, showing how their lives, art, and relationship are not just interconnected but mutually constitutive. By exposing the mechanics of their process, they reveal that the act of making—whether art, self, or connection—is inseparable from the act of living.
Antonia Majaca: Antonia began by reflecting on the performance, admitting she was trying to think of what to say. She remarked that the work felt like something that could belong on a YouTube channel, consisting of small snippets of exchanges that audiences could follow whenever they felt like it. She noted how such content might initially seem uninteresting but then becomes compelling for that very reason. Antonia added that the performers could even become social media superstars, emphasizing that she didn’t mean this in a derogatory way. She thought the performance was genuinely good and saw potential in how it could continue to develop.
She described the performance as one scene among many, which was why she referenced the YouTube format. Antonia admitted she didn’t know how to make sense of the dialogue or structure yet, but she was deeply curious about how it would unfold in the future. She expressed a desire to understand what was going on in the performers’ minds when they decided to create this piece, emphasizing her genuine interest in their thought process and decisions.
Inti Guerrero: Inti began by sharing an anecdote that reflected his personal experience while watching the performance. He admitted he hadn’t been sleeping well over the past few days, which, he explained, often triggers a state he described as a “micro-psychosis.” When he reaches the third day without sleep, he starts encountering vivid visions—moments of déjà vu where he feels like he has been in the same place, had the same conversations, and seen the same events before. Inti described how, in the past, these visions would escalate into panic if he allowed his mind to believe they had truly happened. However, with time, he has come to expect these experiences, which helps him manage them.
The performance, he noted, triggered this sensation of déjà vu once again, evoking a flood of overlapping thoughts and memories. Inti connected this to a film from the 1970s or 80s about a man who keeps waking up to the sight of a black tower outside his window. The man repeatedly encounters this tower, which becomes a haunting motif throughout the film. Inti explained how the filmmaker used a water tank to depict the tower, but the way it was shot made it look like a monolithic structure reminiscent of the black monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
For Inti, the performance echoed the disorienting quality of déjà vu—starting with familiar sensations and escalating into a more profound, layered experience. He appreciated how it tapped into this psychological space, blending memory, perception, and the uncanny.
Ramon Amaro: Ramon reflected on the performance, describing how seeing it again—or perhaps for the first time, as it blurred the boundaries between familiarity and novelty—left a strong impression. He commented on the layered and recursive structure, saying, “So you’re telling me these twins came to DAI, decided to do a project, then decided to each do their own project, which is actually the same project, taking up two slots for their own project, acting out different scenes from the same project as if it’s their own project, which is also the same project. Talk about meta.” He noted how the performance existed in a fascinating space of unfolding, where it was not just about the interpersonal or the psychic fight but something much larger—something that staged the project itself and explored both its internal logic and its meta-commentary. He expressed curiosity about where it might go next, wondering if it was part of a series or if it would build to a surprising resolution. He suspected it wasn’t about resolution at all but about creating possibilities and perhaps pulling off an unexpected “hat trick.”
Ramon acknowledged that while his description might make the performance seem calculated, he didn’t think it was manipulative. Instead, he believed its strength lay in its intuitive and organic process, which made him confident that whatever emerged would be brilliant. He explained that he had initially wanted to discuss the concept of doubling in Freudian theory, particularly the idea of the double and how it relates to the uncanny. Freud’s theory of das Unheimliche suggests that the uncanny arises when the barrier between the familiar (Heimlich) and the unfamiliar (Unheimlich) collapses, bringing repressed elements to the surface. This collapse creates a doubling of the self, often seen as a shadow or alternate side. Ramon noted how these ideas have influenced how we understand such phenomena, even if they are rarely explicitly acknowledged.
However, Ramon critiqued Freud’s framework, finding it overly negative and rooted in victim-blaming. Instead, he turned to Bergson’s theory of duration, which offers a more generous view of phenomena like déjà vu. Bergson’s perspective, later expanded by Deleuze in his writings on cinema, suggests that déjà vu is not a symptom of neurosis or psychosis but a reconciliation of past and present. Ramon explained that, according to Bergson, the mind’s ability to preserve the past within the present reflects the true nature of consciousness. For Deleuze, this phenomenon reveals time as a continuous forking of past, present, and future—a dynamic that reflects the plurality of being. Ramon connected this idea to the performance, which he described as a nodal point, an interface where infinite pasts and presents converge.
Ramon expressed his admiration for how the performance invited audiences to embrace these multiple realities and release themselves from rigid conceptions of the present. He described the work as creating an infinite array of possibilities, rather than a single, fixed narrative. While his reflections leaned heavily into theory, he emphasized how “cool” and thought-provoking the performance was. He concluded by congratulating the performers and expressing his excitement for what might come next in their practice.
