BURT BIRD

BURT BIRD

Burt Bird was a bird living in the forest black. Black, bible black he always said. He loved that line from Under Milkwood, Dylan Thomas’ last work, finished only few days before a much too early death. Burt Bird was living under the roof of Friedrichstrasse 5a. Many different guests he’s seen, and he’s heard as many tales of the man who’d worked there, also famous artist. One that drank much, too, and alike, much too early, that dead man.

Burt Bird, a bird and such a manlike name. Surely such mannerly being Burt. What would a Bird care, more Burt Bird? Born as bird, flying up into the sky, running wild between trees and houses, was what Burt Bird was doing all day long.

But Burt Bird knew what the people talked, he understood their tongues. Times passes - and so time came that Burt Bird heard much about different kinds of beer, price of butter and the many different open questions on identity.

What kind of bird am I, Burt Bird said? At the time, singing together was fulfilling, flying, sitting on the electric lines and watching trains go by. Who am I? The question came from the one room in the upper town, where Burt Bird had awesome breakfast many times. Burt bird could also read, you need to know and that poor young human thing with golden hair had left the diary next to the Spatzensnack, the friendly being left there many times in freezing winter....to be continued

This project brings together seasoned artist from the stage, art education, multimedia, poetry, composition and music to develop the play Burt Bird. It could be a bird’s coming off age story in the 21 century or become another story, but it will be a bird’s one, inspired by and developed for Vogelklang. The visiting artists are invited to spend some days, weeks or a month (if they can and want) together with Pipo Tafel in St. Georgen discovering its Habitat inmidst the Black Forest. Pipo will be present throughout the entire residency stitching to pieces together into one piece.

Dylan Thomas „Under Wilkwood“ has a character who asks to stay in a small village to study birds. https://youtu.be/7ZXhPYTX1BY?feature=shared&t=2334 The former studio of Martin Kippenberger and his story and the famous radio play will be our points of departure for this MixedMedia work, that has its major inspiration in the world of birds, in nature and the people in the village and around. We welcome exchange in the process and intend to create an artistic work, that brings together wit, humor and the young and old, exploring the creative act as the means to grow into the world of adulthood, one that kills the child in us not always for good sake but for productivity, the outgrowths of industrialisation and capitalism have raised us with through breast milk.

BURT BIRD chirped chirped Matthew 6:25 from the rooftops. He picked it up in the Mass that Sunday morning, just as he had picked up some of those great sunflower seeds from the Turkish snack bar opposite the street in Hausach:

So I say to you, Take no thought for your life, about food or drink, or about clothing for your body. Is not life more than food, and the body more than its clothing?"

Darum sage ich euch: Sorget nicht für euer Leben, was ihr essen und trinken werdet, auch nicht für euren Leib, was ihr anziehen werdet. Ist nicht das Leben mehr denn Speise? und der Leib mehr denn die Kleidung?