IT'S A STAKE STRIKE – performance – Olympic lake MUNICH 2021
As part of GLOBAL ANGST, Anna McCarthy staged an abstract opera to tame the world‘s fears. Having been asked to ignite Warner‘s „global Angst wicker man“ with a closing ceremony, McCarthy chose to surround the fire with water, by placing the effigy in the middle of the lake, to counterbalance the fire‘s destructive nature. She collected the fears of people scratched into wax blocks and carried the wax to the fire via a rowing boat on the Olympic lake. The wax was melted by McCarthy's alight head held into the the belly of the wickerman and subsequently thrown into the cold water to manifest new wax shapes from the fire, symbolically countering the stigmatization of women as witches and the fire‘s initially destructive nature and often ritualistic affiliations to bigotry (be it witch hunts, book burning or the Ku Klux Klan), Anna McCarthy, a female community choir, a group of musicians and several performers, together reclaim it as an element for replenishment and rebirth. In a theatrical and musical rendition, she takes on the persona of Lucy Strike to call out the wicker man to honour current and past victims of bigotry.
The performance was transmitted via Radio 80 000 and the tapped-in were invited to participate in the ritual in a downsized version of the performance.
swimming at the stake to be rid of the hate
Idea | Text Anna McCarthy Musical direction Manuela Rzytki With Susanne Beck, Antenne Danger, Charlotte Huber, Luzi Illustrella, Veronica Katta, Lily Nicklaß, Paulina Nolte, Anton Kaun a.k.a. Rumpeln, Paula Pongratz, Andreas Pöschl & Kösk-Chor Wickerman Julian Warner & Jörg Besser
https://www.spielart.org/global-angst/its-a-stake-strike
My name is Lucy Strike. I have been sentenced to the stake.
What was my crime? I carry the pain of many women in me.
Their pain, their tears, their fears;
in my face, my eyes, nose, ears, shoulders, hips, toes and tongue.
Strawberries grow around the stump
and the rain still comes slow.
Moss, wet dripping walls shrouded in cobwebs protect us from the mounting of men.
No matter how the sun shines upon our granite sparkling rock, our crystals glint in the sun.
But our cracks and gulleys remain, potently filled to the brim with mountain water.
The fishes swim in our cracks and the raspberries grow,
thorns abundantly winding their way up our walls.
Dear Radio listeners,
these are your instructions:
Step 1. Light Candle Step
2. Melt wax on spoon or in candle.
Step 3. Concentrate. Project fear onto the melting.
Step 4. Throw wax into pot of water.
Step 5. Fish out hardened wax
Step 6. Kiss the Wax Angst like you would a baby, cradle it in your arms and hum softly to it. – (hum a little) – Treat it well until the next time fear is nigh and then, do not hesitate, to ONCE AGAIN melt it down to the ground.
P.S. Mixing with other waxes is welcomed.
i love the way you blow out a candle
full throttle, the wax flies up against the wall
and drips slowly down behind the door
till it gets cold just before it hits the floor
OUT OUT OUT# abortifacients go to thee
no throwing down stairs nor giving us whiskey
Anti-septic strikes again
OUT wild colocynth
opium root of mandrake,
Queen Anne's Lace,
gum resin opoponax and various types of peppers.
OUT Crocodile Feces And Dough
Pennyroyal Tea
Mentha Pulegium
step over the crow egg
Step Over A Viper
OUT Lacedaemonian Leap
OUT Lacedaemonian Leap
OUT Lacedaemonian Leap
We have the winterroom honeymoon suite all to our own:
Water faucet, oven and light ... everything...
even an extra bed and a direct view of the Fiamma.
Fiamma Fiamma! Il mondo è tuo!
The Patriarch tree was burnt to the ground in the fires that devoured the country.
1,200 years ago.
His old stump trunk pounds now strapped in wet bandages. 
The doctors come to revive him,
soothing his pain, whispering softly:
COQUE BLANCHE
Mon dieu, you really have been a very bad boy.
swimming at the stake to be rid of the hate
photos by stefane barnes & daniel tuercke
