Summer Holiday (Vaginale VII)

“Stay with me baby, please, stay with me baby, oh, stay with me baby, I can´t go on,” heart-breaking lyrics from the American soul legend Lorraine Ellison, in playback, sung by Kurdwin Ayub.
A long curtain moves in the wind, a door, a simple bed; in the midst of it all, a dainty performer in a much too large oriental wedding dress. Left alone in a room, which brings to mind a hotel room, she crazily sings and dances her heart out. In reality, she is at the house of relatives in Iraq, in which the artist has been stuck for three weeks. Just as disproportional as the sprawling wedding dress is Lorraine Ellison´s voluminous, deep voice, an ironic contrast to Kurdwin Ayub´s fragile, girlish body.
The curtain in front of the window fluttering in the wind gives the impression that it is a hot summer day—but the young, abandoned bride seems to be imprisoned; not only in this room, but also in this dress and its cultural connotations.
Ellison´s song, which stormed the U.S. charts in 1966 and was later covered by numerous artists, roars “Remember you said you´d always gonna need me, remember you said you´d never ever leave me.” 
 Trapped in a world in which she seems to fit just as little as she does in the bride´s gown and in female victim roles, the ironic-passionate interpretation of the soul song in Sommerurlaub is like a breaking free from traditional women´s roles, which are not at all suited to the performer. Sommerurlaub is part VII of a series of short films that the young artist and performer has entitled Vaginale. (Christa Auderlitzky)

Translation: Lisa Rosenblatt