Email: rebeccastenfors@gmail.com
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Website: rebeccastenfors.com
Sandcastle
2023
Performance
00:15:00
To paraphrase a story I was once told,
a long time ago, there was a king
who came to this part of the land
wanting to build a city.
The area he’d chosen to build his city
was a swampland,
it was located below sea level.
And so, he was told, in order to build on the land,
he would first have to make it level.
Not too far from this prospective city
there was a forest
full of oak trees,
which bordered the coastline.
The king ordered for these trees to be cut down
and for the wood to be used to build a foundation.
It was to be a city on stilts.
The city was built and time passed.
Gradually, however, sand from the coastline
(no longer bordered by the forest)
began to creep inland.
This worried the farmers
whose concern was that the sand would soon encroach on their fields.
A decision was then made to build an artificial forest.
Thousands of pine trees were planted,
covering the last traces of the oak forest,
reinstating the border with the beach.
These days, the forest still stands
but amongst the trees,
one can still find patches of sand.
The dunes
not totally eradicated
or
still shifting.
[Transcript of one iteration of the story as performed on 17/02/2023]
