DVD's



The contribution by the German artist Christian Jankowski is hilarious. Instead of turning up in person for an appointment with Thora Johansen, the passionate director of Bifrons, he sent a bunch of flowers and a camera team. The unsuspecting Thora was called upon in the accompanying letter to start dancing right away to the neurotic beat of Meijering's music coming from a cassette recorder hanging from a stick. She does it, but her heart isn't in it. You can tell from her attitude and facial expression how much difficulty she has with this imposed spontaneity. She continues to look so annoyed that the viewer cannot help laughing. Jankowski makes an infectious use of Chiel Meijering's driving music. Uberhappy is the perfect counterpart to Uberhappy I, the title that Meijering gave to his composition. For this piece he sampled the sound of Johansen's harpsichord and mixed it with the voice of his daughter. With his directness, Meijering occupies an important place in classical music and shows that in fact you can dance to everything. The publicity team of DDB Berlin have looked carefully at Jankowski's work and could not avoid the dominant sound of Meijering either. We see the bare feet of a girl wearing a pair of jeans, filmed from the knees down, minutely moving to the lashing rhythm. Later a second dancer appears, also filmed from the knees down. At a certain moment they let their jeans fall down, but a bit later they shoot up again. This corny detail and the infectious play of the feet makes it evident that they were clearly enjoying it more than Thora was when she was subjected to Christian Jankowski's practical joke.

DVD 12
Chiel Mejering
Christian Jankowski
Amir Kassaei/DDB Berlin