“CROSSING”, which is designed and organised by Toine Horvers, is movement/sound sculpture, performed in october 1984 in the main hall of “Stichting ENNU” in Tilburg, the Netherlands.
The performance is composed of three elements:
⁃ a group of 65 voluntary performers, moving trough a room as a fixed form with a gradual acceleration and retardation;
⁃ The movement is rehearsed three times by Ricardo Anemaet, who is associated to the Dancers Collectief;
⁃ an electronic sound-construction on tape, which was commissioned for this project to the composer Ton Brynél;
⁃ an adjustable black-out by which the quantity of daylight in the room can be regulated and which is operated by six persons.

Crossing has been designed from the dimensions, the entrance of the light and the acoustic qualities of the hall of the Stichting Ennu.
The group could be composed of people who reacted to the appeals in the local press and trough personal calls upon friends, relatives and acquaintances.

Situation:

The hall of the Stichting Ennu measures 21x12x7,5 meters and in one of the long walls are high windows. The former chapel has such wall-articulations that the height is accentuated strongly. Between the short walls, just above man's hight, nylon threads have been stretched with small, numbered pieces of paper attached to them. The numbers represent the minutes and their mutual distances mark the distance which has to be done by the group every minute. The distance between each other vary from 2 centimeters in the beginning and end, till 5 meters in the middle.
In the middle of one of the short walls is a illuminated digital clock which counts the minutes and seconds.
Roller-blinds have been made in front of the windows, which can completely darken the room. The cords operate them have been marked according to the same series as those that hang in the room. In front of the darkening-blinds large sheets of transparent paper have been hung.
On the balcony in the room there is a sound-installation with loudspeakers. Along both long sides of the room narrow strips have been marked with tape, where the audience can stand during the performances.
Before the performance the performers are scattered among the audience and in order to get some kind of visual unity, they are all dressed in blue.
Underneath each of the windows, is a person operating the blinds in the acceleration and retardation

Performance:

When the audience enters, the room is dark, and at the same time the sound-tape and the clock are started. One of the performers takes its place in the middle of the short wall, opposite to the clock. This person moves forward in the direction of the clock, by very small movements with the toes.
After a few minutes a second person joins the first one, a bit later two at a time and so on. The distances which are covered every minute become bigger and bigger and the person who follow behind join the speed the first one has developed. According to the same serial acceleration the roller-blinds are drawn up. Out of silence a light whizzing sound has developed. When the group is complete it forms a cross consisting of 65 persons with a diameter of 10 meters.
In the meantime the individual movement has become such that small steps can be made. (The performers have been asked to concentrate on a movement as motionless as possible during the whole process).
The room is completely lighted and the sound has developed to an almost physically perceptible and space-filling roaring of jet-engines. When the first persons have passed the middle of the room they start reducing their speed. The whole movement is slowing down gradually, until the last person of the group ends on the other side of the room in a standstill, in silence and in darkness.

Slide show:
Of 'Crossing' a sequence of slides was made by Henk Geraedts, consisting of 120 slides, photographed by two camera's from one fixed position, which are projected by twos with intervals of 30 seconds.
Parallel to this the integral sound tape is played.
(Collection Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven the Netherlands.)

This project was subsidized by:
-Department for Experimental Projects of the Ministry for W.V.C

year	1984
date	28/29 october
performed by	friends, relatives and acquaintances.
photography	Henk Geraedts