Death Within
Post title: Death of the child
Post title: Dying Relationally
Friday May 22nd 2026
24 hours performance. Starts at 7am on Friday and finishes at 7am on Saturday. I staged my own final viewing of my dead body in my living room. While 2 video’s played in the kitchen of my neighbors C. and M. playing. My neighbor Sean played music in the room above the living room. The audience came at 7pm for the final viewing.
Image credit: Caterina Verde
Credits:
Created by: Elke Luyten
Performed by: Elke Luyten, C. and M.
Videographer: Caterina Verde https://www.caterinaverde.com/
Musician: Sean Condron https://seansmusicforthesoul.com/
Stage manager: Michelle Gutierrez
Lemonade stand: Lemonade, oh yeah! by Caitlyn St.John https://www.caitlynkiaracouture.com/ https://www.instagram.com/lemonadeohyeah/
I created a new laboratory experiment within the series of Living Room Dances. The choreographic event was made and performed in my living room and kitchen. Participants were C., M., Ally, Michelle, Caitlyn and Sean and every audience member. The work started as a reaction against my performance of Marina Abramović’s work called House with Ocean View performed at the Royal Academy in London in October 2023. Some days there were 2500 people per day to come and see the exhibition. I noticed that the children were able to sit and be with me for a long time until the adult would take the child away. So back home in Newburgh my neighbors, C. and M. (3 and 1 and half years old children) are not able to see any live art works. And I started to work on some long durational activities with them and they also became the ideal audience for this work. The topic of children and death was given to me. As an artist I listened to what is around. This year a U.S missile destroyed an elementary school in Iran. More than 100 children were among the dead. As US citizens, how do we be with this information?
Local: how small and local can I make a performance? It is a strong reaction against the institutionalisation of art making and monetizing of art. I am engaged with the ethics in art making: what is the future of art? And who is it for?
Relational esthetics. Thinking a lot about the audience. Who comes to see a work of art and where? Who are we in relation with and who is the work for?
I also thought about dying relationally. We have constant deaths within ourselves and within our relationships. And as people that live and pay taxes in the USA how do we sit with the pain and violence that is caused by our current administration on a global and massive scale. And how do we explain this to our children. Who is responsible?
Performance Art and working via the Negativa (Grotowski’s terminology)
During the performance of this work I discovered that working via the Negativa means to strip things down; to take things away; to not take anything for granted. Resisting. Saying no until you hear a quiet yes. Resistance to accumulation. Resistance to excess material. Saying no until you hear a yes from within. Still the fundamental question remains: what is your body actually doing? And why should the work have rigor?
Death of our imagination.
Sound. Sean played the melody of “She Moved Through The Fair” and “Be Still My Soul” in the room above the living room.
Video play with C. and M.. Shot by Caterina Verde on Friday April 10th 2026. We filmed a game that C. and I used to play in the summer. This is an example of some of the long durational activities we would execute. I would light a candle and C. would blow it out immediately. I played this game over and over again until C. would be tired of it. I would notice her excitement to blow out the candle. The child is eager to take risks. I would have a script of a few lines that I would repeat to C., like are you ready? What do we do? What do we do now? Should we do it again? And within this game I would stretch the times in between. There would be a gap in between the doing and the non-doing so that the in between time became much more potent. And the duality of the doing and the non-doing was subverted. So C., M. and I established a relationship of doing long-durational activities in my home which always ended in making and having snacks. Having snacks is highly inspired from my time in Estonia where I saw one of the best performances of 2025. Eve Noormets’ (https://evestuudio.ee/info/eve) group of young students performed a dance concert in Viljandi. A work that they had been working on for one year. I asked the 15 year old performers how they made it? How did they start their rehearsal process? What was their warmup? Who came up with the choreography? The most stunning answer was that they drank lots of tea during rehearsals. So much that the parents would send honey with them during their practice. Sit down, have tea and then what? Talk. Also the group of students had different relationships to dance, movement, acting and performing. Therefore the value system that was established during their performance was direct, playful and -I don’t know how to describe the value system that they created.
Videographer: Caterina Verde. With C. and M.. Image credit Elke Luyten