December 1
Ida opens the door. She is about 8 years old. Dark dry skin. I guess neurodermatitis. She has big black eyes and two advent calendars. One with chocolate and one with Lego. She drew the picture of the knight's castle on the door herself. Then we look at each other and say nothing.
December 2
The door of kiosk 2 is open. Two boys buy a beer from the owner with dyed blond hair, black eyes and tanned skin. Apart from her in the kiosk: envelopes between packs of pringles and charcoal. Three refrigerators full of drinks, computers that invite you to surf the Internet, a coffee machine, a microwave, snap peas, sauerkraut, chocolate, tobacco. Everything in neon light. Turkish music comes from a screen hanging above the cash register. In front of it, the ice chest.
December 4
Nobody opens the door.
The day before I find out that the odd house numbers of Teichstr. 3 - Teichstr. 13 do not exist. Instead, there is a parking lot.
December 6
Light shines through the blinds. I hear noises in the stairwell, as I ring the doorbell. But the door remains closed.
December 8
The house is dark, a wreath hangs on the door. No one opens the door.
December 10
After the lack of a response to my ringing of the lowest bell button, I ring all the bell buttons above it. The door buzzes and I push it open. I walk up the stairs. A young woman with blond hair backs away into her apartment. One floor up, a young man with blond short hair stands in his doorway, almost towering over me. He has almost pulled the apartment door shut behind him. Next to him, an older lady with white hair just peeks her head through the crack in the door. Her excuse: she wears nothing. As I go back down the stairs, I hear the apartment doors close and then open again. Then the elderly lady says to the man indignantly: "I've never seen anything like that before!" The man laughs.
December 14
Jenny just pokes her head out the door. Dyed blonde hair, comfortable clothes, black made-up eyes. She seems to be in a hurry and asks me, "Is there anything else I can do for you?"
December 15
A man with gray pants, gray shirt and some kind of work clothes opens the door to me. He tells me he is still working in the house. "Did he just move in?" "No, he already lives here for a while." Behind him, a dog barks loudly. The dog's name is Mowgli because he has floppy legs like Mowgli from the Jungle Book. The man tells me that he has already heard from neighbors about my Advent calendar.
December 16
When I ring the doorbell, a Turkish woman looks out of a window and invites me to come in. Her son with strong, short, black hair comes down the stairs and opens the door for me. I follow him up the stairs into the apartment. In the living room, the daughter is baking cookies. They offer me a chair, water with or without bubbles, a plate with two of the freshly baked cookies and some kind of börek. The woman tells me, that she is from Jehovah's Witnesses. We talk about religion. That we are all human beings and actually differ only in a few things. They want to wrap me the rest of the plate.
December 17
Before the door opens I hear a woman talking to animals. They should go away. Then Anna, strongly built with glasses, gray-brown half-long hair opens the door to me. She has two cats.
December 18
Ariane with dyed blond hair tied in a braid, tan skin, and a phone in her hand pressed to her chest, opens the door for me. "Oh that's nice." She is happy to be in my doorway. "Wait a minute!" Then she's disappeared into her apartment and when she comes back to the door she gives a chocolate Santa to me. We both laugh.
I can't open the doors until the 24th because the 18th is the day I travel to my family.
twenty four
My street is my Advent calender.
Today`s date is the 1st of December 2015.
I ring the doorbell at 1 Teichstraße in order to open the first window.
[German:“door“ of an Advent calendar]
Concept
Tina Klopp
Performance
katharinajej