Johanna Went (b. 1949)
Bloodletting (1988)
JW: You know the bloodletting, even though it’s fake blood, creates a very powerful sense of bloodletting in my imagination, it’s just being completely wet, all parts of you red.
There are people in the front row who are just into the blood, these are not the people who would call the club afterwards and be like “urrr could you pay for my cleaning bill I can’t get this out of my clothes.” One day the guy who ran the laundry said to me “yeah well you know we had some complaints from people calling up about wanting to their clothes cleaned and wanting us to pay for their cleaning bills because of your blood, but you know what, I just told them to forget about it, I wasn’t going to do anything”.
I was lucky enough to have a tape like this and to look at the show afterwards. I was able to understand all the little things that went perfectly but were not planned.
This is kind of the end of the show when I’m all wet from the blood, I’m really exhausted and I’m trying to remember what I’m supposed to do. You can see it in my eyes that I am totally out of it. By this time I’m in a trance, moving from thing to thing, I’m looking around trying to see what’s going on, I’m looking at the musicians, I’m ready for the show to stop and then somebody grabbed my leg and I kicked them.
There are people in the front row who are just into the blood, these are not the people who would call the club afterwards and be like “urrr could you pay for my cleaning bill I can’t get this out of my clothes.” One day the guy who ran the laundry said to me “yeah well you know we had some complaints from people calling up about wanting to their clothes cleaned and wanting us to pay for their cleaning bills because of your blood, but you know what, I just told them to forget about it, I wasn’t going to do anything”.
I was lucky enough to have a tape like this and to look at the show afterwards. I was able to understand all the little things that went perfectly but were not planned.
This is kind of the end of the show when I’m all wet from the blood, I’m really exhausted and I’m trying to remember what I’m supposed to do. You can see it in my eyes that I am totally out of it. By this time I’m in a trance, moving from thing to thing, I’m looking around trying to see what’s going on, I’m looking at the musicians, I’m ready for the show to stop and then somebody grabbed my leg and I kicked them.
RESOURCES:
Johanna Went in UbuWeb Sound