Hot and Cold Performance 

When does sound begin to mean? And how far must a word drift from its meaning before we encounter it as sound rather than language? What gives a word its meaning in the first place, and how do we learn to inhabit words—to make them our own? Through repetition, through performance, through the contexts in which they are spoken?
The artist Elisabeth Prehn approaches these seemingly abstract philosophical questions through the body. Beginning with the gradual sonic dissolution of a word in the children’s game Telephone, and moving through works by Yvonne Rainer, Pina Bausch, and Bertolt Brecht, she traces the ways in which social norms become embodied and expressed through gestures and emotions. 
At the centre of her inquiry is repetition as a mechanism through which truths are produced. Once internalised, these truths no longer appear as constructed, but as something natural.
The text forms part of Chapter 3, Sonic Spectres, which turns to the weight of sound in relation to memory and to the voice as a political instrument. Sound reaches us before it is fully understood; it carries an affective force that exceeds meaning. When, then, does sound become language, and when does language begin to produce emotion?

01 Performance as Shift

Who came first, the imitator or the demonstrator? Naturally, the demonstrator. But where did the demonstrator learn what to demonstrate? 

The game Telephone also widely known as Chinese Whispers, is very popular in German kindergarten. Its literal German translation is Silent Post. The one who begins is the one who demonstrates. Everybody else imitates. Or at least partly. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Peter the piper kicked up pickled peppers. Peter piped up and kicked a pack of peppers. Pete and Pipe are kicked and packed on peppers. More or less, this is how it goes. 

The things heard can force you to produce sounds never uttered before. The muted volume and the muffled syllables force you to get creative. Imitation is what keeps the game running, no matter the sense of the content. Occasionally, a lie becomes the chosen option. Rather passing real words than embarrassing oneself by failing to repeat gibberish. A refusal of blunt repetition and a self-empowerment to contributing additional meaning: Imitation Plus. The content has to follow some kind of logic after all, right? The lie stays unprovable. Nobody can verify what one really has perceived by the whispers. 

Social behaviour shows similar mechanisms, way beyond kindergarten. There is an accepted frame, in which we operate. We observe, practice, apply. Sometimes we dare to stretch the boundaries, test rules. If we stay in the predominant frame: mere imitation. No development. The cycle of becoming involves transformation of what we already know. The element that drives evolution is the daring, the stretching, the disobeying of rules. Somewhere between imitation and adaptation, we as social beings act like players in the Telephone game. The brave manage to alter the game. Performance, then, is not only representation, but also potential shift. Judith Butler explained this in detail from a gender theory perspective. 

But how can one successfully shift what is normal? Must the rest of society be convinced? Is everything a negotiation? In the Telephone Game, lying is technically not allowed. If our player is clever enough to package her lie in fun, it will not be held against her. If the emotions stay positive, crossing boundaries is no problem. Emotional persuasion is the main engine. Proof is given without an argument. It works perfectly within the game and beyond. That’s why we don’t know where the demonstrator learns what to demonstrate. 

02 Affect as a strategy of proof 

Pina Bausch - Café Müller 

They move separately. Her arms open in search, eyes closed, light, careful steps guide the blind slowly through the room filled with black identical chairs and coffee tables. Her head tilts slightly upward, ready to receive. Then, she rushes. Restless, the earlier caution gone. A man in a black suit throws the chairs out of her hasty path. Clears the way. Rashly, he is following, forecasting her next sudden change of direction, she’d fall otherwise. As if she knew, she slows down, approaching the wall, her eyes still closed. Only stopping by softly staggering and rebounding. Her arms are in inertia, repeating the bouncing off. She is floating farther. Her hands drawing round shapes, graceful practice. She is ready to share her sensibility, searching for something. He sits, apathetic, waiting, then stands up. Something pulls him. Tears him. He rushes to the left. Races to the right. The man in a black suit clears his path as well, throwing chairs, flipping tables. The only one with open eyes. 

Now is the second time they meet. Slowed down bodies. Their torsos touch as they feel each other arriving. Their arms rise to a gentle hug, resting in each other. He lifts her up, carries her, she tumbles, falls. Draws herself up to stand. She hangs on him, he hangs on her, the breath rhythmic and loud. She tumbles, falls. Draws herself up to stand. Her arms around his shoulders, he lifts her up, she lies in his grip, but both bodies continue like water. His muscles sagging. She slips. She falls. Draws herself up to stand. They hug, her arms around his shoulders. He lifts her up. She lies in his arms. His muscles sag, she falls. She draws herself up. Repeat. 

One believes to observe raw emotion, disruption, maybe love. Immediate. Tears, collapse, ecstasy. Café Müller (1978) by Pina Bausch, and other works of hers, are known for explosions of emotions. Feelings that seem too intimate to describe with words, were given a form. Times as unpredictable bursts, times as repetitive ongoing loops: chain reactions of sensations are made perceivable, including contradictions and extremes, which otherwise might stay hidden deep behind inside. Her performances relate to relationships, death, childhood, memory. If there is anything that makes a human relate, it is emotions. You do not have a choice. You feel. 

But this directness is a construction. Pina Bausch uses emotions as a choreographic instrument. A code which is learned, repeated and made legible. The immersion lets us forget the constructedness. Emotions persuade directly. The proof has already happened. Unbelievably good art. And yet construction, the feelings are choreographed. Affective rhetorics are convincing, no matter their nature, intuitive or rehearsed. 

03 Neutrality as an argument of objectivity 

Yvonne Rainer - Trio A 

Yvonne Rainer sets a counterpoint. She stands in dark colours against a white background, the floor simple, unadorned. She bends her left leg slightly backward,; resting on the right. Her arms sweep back and forth in four-four time,; tracing a semicircle never actually closing. A backwards step is finished before the right leg is bent rearwards. Her arms continue sweeping. While looking upward, she positions her body to the front. A loose step sequence follows, reminiscent of a waltz. Three times. Four times. Still looking upward. A scissor jump straight ahead, is followed by a squat. Her feet tracing rough arcs, she dances backward again, her gaze always lifted. Change of direction. A small hop forward. No next step is predictable, only its expression. She turns left. Her gaze shifts forward. A few quick steps. Her left arm bends into a pose: crouching on one knee, both legs bent, one balancing on tiptoe. She rises. Her front shoulder draws a circle backwards, not flirty; simply executing. Her hip repeating what her shoulder advertised. The four-four rhythm that has never left, more present through the rolls and turns. As if only practicing, the informal outfit and her hair follow the movement. Practically clipped to each side just to ensure vision, her hairstyle casual. The training outfit flutters in dark colors on a white background with a simple floor. There is no beginning and no end.  

One believes to witness the absence of feeling, a rational repetition of instructions. None of the steps seem completed. It could be a rehearsal. Fulfilment of expression is secondary to the internalisation of technical succession. One after another. Step by step, the sequence is carried forward gradually. The expression is a missing one. Or is it? She is practicing. I think of an instruction manual. 

Yvonne Rainer rejects the standards of dance at that time. In her No Manifesto (1965) she declared her refusal of drama and virtuosity. No to the heroic. No to style. No to eccentricity. No to moving or being moved. The piece described above, Trio A (1966), instead presents „task-based movements“. Sober, cool, almost documentary. 

But this absence of emotion is also a construction. It is equally intentional thus performed. The omission of intensity shifts what dance can be. She cites the dramatic dance that preceded her but refuses it by only teasing familiar gestures. In total withholding its emotional world. Occasional dramatic gestures can be sensed now and then, but they never materialise. Instead of expressive emotion, she creates another feeling, one that appears as neutral. Her stylistic antidote would be Pina Bausch. The missing catharsis with Rainer invites another form of belonging: an attachment to objectivity, to the everyday. These movements could also be yours. No trained body is pushed to extremes. Muted gestures are not a retreat from meaning but a redistribution of what counts as expression. She does not show something “truer”, only something that was “not yet” dance. Following Judith Butler, she displaces what may appear as dance on stage. Through her radical anti-stance she forces her audience to observe. The viewer shall perceive rather than feel: apparent neutrality. The refusal of extreme emotion becomes a critical tool. Yvonne Rainer uses withdrawal of emotions and constructed neutrality as a radical tool of unlearning. 

And yet a rhetorical device is also at work here, one based on feeling. The feelings are simply quieter and gain trust through their sense of universality. I think of Angela Merkel. Her agenda was nothing about Unlearning. And I was never pro CDU. But now in 2026 I suddenly find myself missing “Mutti”.

04 Who or what is getting shifted by whom or what? 

Bertolt Brecht before the HUAC (House Committee of Un-American Activities) 

The poet and theatre director is known for ‘breaking the 4th wall’, making the audience think instead of feel. The goal was to create critical thinking through art. Some still argue about Brecht’s political position, mainly in Germany. One should read his texts oneself, I think. More importantly: his female roles have aged so well eventually only because many of his lovers were significantly involved in writing them. Unofficially, of course. What a disgrace. How tired I am of leftist men who, despite all their education and political engagement, remain sexist. But back to the topic. 

Brecht was versed not only in linguistic rhetoric but also in visual form and expression, Brecht’s piece which caught me most is none of his plays, but his only solo performance: himself before the House Committee of Un-American Activities in 1947. McCarthyism put on test. He and other artists working in Hollywood were invited before the tribunal in order to denounce either themselves or other creative professionals as communists. The fear of the power of art produced a completely different kind of stage. 

Act one: the playwright playing a playwright. 

He wouldn’t say that his works were Marxist at their core. That wouldn’t be quite correct. Everybody read Marx. He was a free artist, independent, unaffiliated. It is not ‘take over’. It is ‘take over the lead’. The wrong translation would change the meaning of the whole poem. He got many visits, yes, maybe the consul was one of them. He didn’t remember. No, he believed he was certain to have not attended any meetings of a communist or political nature. He was certain. Or so he thought. One day later Bertolt Brecht leaves the US. He was happy about cigars being allowed during interrogation. They had enabled him to take strategic pauses.

What entered history as a brilliant performance is a double-edged sword. Here neutrality does not function as critique or expansion, but as camouflage: a performed non-position. A strategy of concealment: Disguise, washing, framing. It makes political survival possible, while stabilizing the dominant norm. 

Rainer used neutrality to unsettle what is seen as normal. Bausch overwhelms with affect. Both operate as strategic legibility. Brecht uses neutrality as a Swiss tactic: he hears nothing, he sees nothing. Looking at these works and situation side by side reveals recurring strategies in how behavior is performed and made readable. Emotion and neutrality operate as context-dependent tools of power. 

Recent political practices showed similar shifts: emotional speech regained credibility while neutrality lost trust. Both operate as tools of persuasion. If emotionality and neutrality are understood as strategies, the question is no longer whether they are sincere, but how they function, how they are read. 

At times, the goal is no longer persuasion, but disorientation: conflicting signals are produced intentionally. Emotion and neutrality no longer oppose each other, but operate together to generate uncertainty. In ‘Hypernormalisation’, Adam Curtis introduced Vladislav Surkov as Putin’s former PR strategist with a theatre background. His idea: If it is widely known that you mix lies with truth, nobody knows what you’re going to do next. A new political strategy. Like in the Telephone Game, we move between repetition and alteration, between what is given and what can be said. Dance exists between what shapes it and what it may become. It lives between choreography and feeling. And so do we.