The Emperors New Cloths

Why would I not say what I see? Where does the shame come from that prevents me from standing by my own perception? Where could I be compromised? How come all the people cheer for a naked emperor, how come honourable old ministers insist that they see the most remarkable colours and patterns, and no one dares to admit that they don’t see anything?

We will take Andersen’s folk tale as a starting point from which to explore sometimes painful and embarrassing, but often also amusing autobiographical material together.

This material is initially (usually in the kitchen) gathered jointly and then (in the practice room) woven back into the tale. As ourselves, we try out the role of the deceivers, the deceived people, the disgraced emperor – and finally that of the child who exposes the deception.

Although the aim of our rehearsals was not necessarily to have a fun evening, we arrived at a result that, like Andersen’s original, was a balancing act between deadly seriousness and comedy – perhaps even one that finally develops a political dimension?

CUTTING THE GROUND FROM UNDER HEIDI KLUM & CO.’S FEET

An examination of shame, the desire to please, the beauty craze, conformism and the reduction of social values to marketability

On 11 May 2014, a few days ago, the final of the ninth season of Heidi Klum’s talent show Germany’s Next Top Model was broadcast all over Germany and watched by millions of people of all ages. The makers of such shows claim to be acting in the service of values like ‘development’, ‘personality’, ‘naturalness’, ‘authenticity’ or ‘creativity’.

In reality, it is all about adaptation to a very specific market, about TV ratings and ultimately simply about money. Looking at Heidi Klum & co. makes our stomachs turn, both as artists and educators.

We wish

– that development did not mean conformity, but rather the development, liberation and invention of a multiplicity of different possibilities available in different people;

– that personality did not mean the ability to manipulate current rulers (or become rulers ourselves), but rather to stand in the world free, vigilant and flexible in our perception and judgement;

– that naturalness did not mean toothpaste grins and perfected bodies, but rather having a wholesome inner balance, whether smiling or weeping, in open or closed expression, in fat or thin or middling bodies;

– that creativity did not stand for the level of cleverness with which one can use market conditions for one’s own financial goals, but rather the ability to keep looking at things as if for the first time and trying out new solutions with new people.

In short, we lament, with Andersen, the loss of personal integrity by the emperor, who shirks his imperial responsibility and flees to the outside world; by his ministers, who lie for fear of losing their high social status; and among the people, where everyone leaves judgement to so-called experts, repeats their lies uncritically, submits to the most questionable norms and cultivates their own complexes out of insecurity.

Engaging with the role of the child, who finally exposes the deception, we found it helpful to go back to the medieval tale that Andersen used as the basis for his own story. There, the motif of the magic cloth’s visibility was handled somewhat differently: only a man who was genuinely his father’s son was able to see the cloth. This went back to some inheritance disputes in the Spanish princedoms. At the end of the story, the scenario is much like in the Andersen: no one admits that the prince is naked, since this would result in their being disinherited. It is ultimately a black slave, whose origins are unclear anyway, who is able to expose the trickery.

Since we, as adults, will not be able simply to return to a state of childlike innocence (and one would have to ask, in any case, if this is not a romanticized figure born of the late 19^th-century zeitgeist), the only happy ending we can imagine – if any – is one like that of the black stable boy.

What sets him apart is that he has nothing to lose – and that makes him free.

We can only achieve this by doing our best to let go of everything that opens us up to blackmail. By doing our best to free ourselves from concerns of status, to question our conditioning, to become as independent as possible of the world’s applause, or at least to become aware of these dependencies…

Dear Maja,

would you believe, I discovered some research findings today in the newspaper about ‘shame and clothing’:

Embarrassing: the feeling of embarrassment leads people to choose products they can hide behind. That’s the result of a study by Sun Yet-Sen University, Toronto University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In the experiment, test persons reliving an embarrassing situation in their lives bought larger sunglasses than the reference group. In another experiment, they were more likely to buy sunglasses or decorative cosmetics than other product groups.

From the article ‘On the Trail of the Enigmatic Customer’, Berliner Zeitung, 21/22 December 2013