Clément Layes / Public in Private - Allege

Allege is the first performance I made. It is a solo and was premiered in January 2009 in Berlin. It was then performed in many countries in Europe and North America, first only by me then also by my friend Vincent Weber. In this first performance, I wanted to create a meaningful gesture to respond to what was happening in the year of its making: the financial crises and the unsuccessful conference of Copenhagen on climate change. I was searching for ways to reopen an horizon of hope. After years of work I had developed a technic of balancing object and the performance took the form of a challenge, a multi-tasking activity in which I was to construct relation between objects while balancing a glass of water on my head. It is as well a system of signs, as in the piece objects carry conceptual meaning and are moved around and organized according to this meaning, which is only later explained. The text in the second part of the performance, is giving an insight into the activity of the first part of the performance, but the metaphoric game in which things became concept is also moved to another level and becomes itself a a sign.