THE BUTCHER SHOP

In the Meat Sack, on the table, is Blue, while Kath, the Keeper of Hell and Heaven, sings, and Bhanu, a housewife, sits to smoke a cigarette. The 'great continents of blood' (Charles Simic) flood the Cafe, as a domestic scene becomes a celestial one, merging dance, Sufi chants and poetry. 

This performance was directed, performed and choreographed by Blue Pieta, with vocals/music by Kath Gifford and performance from Bhanu Kapil. ​ 14 years ago, in the Schindler House in Los Angeles, Bhanu Kapil created a performance in a meat sack, in which the audience stood outside the window, watching at dusk.  The room was lit by a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling.  Outside, a soundscape of chef's knives being sharpened overlapped with a recording from the Partition section of a work called Schizophrene. Bhanu was in the meat sack, glitching and moving as the recording repeated on loop three times, over the course of 45 minutes. 14 years later, Blue Pieta is in the meat sack, having reimagined this scene in a completely new staging.  The text spoken by Kapil is called Butcher Shop, a poem written by the Serbian-American poet. Charles Simic, in 1967.