"If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution" tour, text by Tanja Elstgees

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You don't love me yet, Press release for "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution" tour, text by Tanja Elstgeest 2005

Johanna Billing takes care of the opening performance You Donąt Love Me Yet (2002-2005). In her long term touring project along different international cities, Johanna Billing invites local bands to play all their own version of Roky Ericksonąs song "You Donąt Love Me Yet" (1984).

If I Can't DanceŠ organised the Dutch part of the tour from Utrecht, to 's-Hertogenbosch and Leiden. During the Theaterfestival Boulevard more than ten acts from mainly 's-Hertogenbosch and surroundings will participate in this special concert. The repetition of the You Don't Love Me Yet ­ song during the concert is everything except boring. The obstinate interpretations of the song by the different bands and artists become in this way extra visible. As if Johanna Billing with this project wants to emphasize that the artistic quality of a work (or a song) is defined by the performance and not only by the first idea; something that is quiet a common thing in the music world, but leads in the visual arts still to some confusion. The quality of the performance is also not perse defined by the virtuosity of the musicians. More it is about the way a song is presented live, de podium-act and the interaction between the public and the band. In other words: the quality is defined by the right choice in a specific place and moment.

In this project Johanna Billing makes herself as an artist almost invisible. Behind the scene though, she tries to organize the event as precise as possible. By for example choosing for a location that normally is not used as a music podium, she consciously treis to break through existing patrons of behaviour in a popconcert surrounding. She searches for a balance between a concentrated and still good concert-atmosphere. As an artist she facilitates in this way a special collective experience wherein individuality expresses itself in the different artistic interpretations of the song. The concert ends with the presentation of the video of the studiorecordings of the You Donąt Love Me Yet ­ song, that Johanna Billing took and organised with a group of musicians in Sweden.

With among others: Revenging Juliet; Jonas Ohlsson; Reinier Bil; On Javor Speedblues Band; and Delychees.

You Don't Love Me Yet is a project initiated by Index (the Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation) and NIFCA (Noric Institution for Contemporary Art). Original song by Roky Erickson, published by R. Erickson, 1984.

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