Shoplifting 4 Ewa (You’re All I Have)
Submission by Franka Marlene Foth Words by Nastasia Khmelnitski
Shoplifting 4 Ewa (You’re All I Have) is a collaboration between Franka Marlene Foth and the Berlin-based producer FOOOL for the premiere of the song and the music video that comes along with the release of the new EP ‘Shoplifter 2000’. In this EP, FOOOL interprets the notion of coming of age in the big metropolitan city tinted by peer pressure (that could lead to straying from the accepted behavior) contrasted to the state of being in love.
Franka Marlene Foth is a choreographer and director from Berlin, Germany who works in a multidisciplinary sphere of stage and film music and fashion production.
With the movement and the structured dance, Franka Marlene emphasizes the music, places accents to build tension that enables the pure emotion to surface, build-up, and eventually explode. Choreography becomes a tool of storytelling, an additional music element that creates a hyperbole to the sensations viewers and listeners go through.
Falling petals of the cherry tree flowers envelope in the pink boost of color the character’s performance. Architecture plays an important role in Franka Marlen’s and FOOOL’s videos capturing the post-capitalist physical environment with the buildings in Brutalism style left from the historic moments passed. The two factors, the sensual dance, and the concrete structures stand in contradiction while creating an atmosphere of the modern sense of being.
Dance and Choreography Franka Marlene Foth DoP, Director and Editor FOOOL
Music by FOOOL
Soundcloud bandcamp Instagram
KANN Records
Website Spotify Instagram
Shoplifter 2000 EP
bandcamp
The video starts with the voice-over and the subtitles from the interview with a shoplifter who explains and justifies his action ‘I’m just doing what I do to get by’ taking the ‘excess’ of the products from the biggest stores which ‘will not gonna miss it.’ The swift movement of the camera through the petals lets the moment pass as if acknowledging that nothing stays intact, pushing through change as time and society are being reconstructed. The idea of shoplifting gets a new form that lies on the boundary of crime and the way society approaches it. Franka Marlene dancing on the bridge above the cherry trees in a contrasting white outfit augments the sense of innocence and love that is everything that remains and everything that has a power to lead to the real positive change.
The Story
‘Shoplifting is not a crime - it’s for the youth. What else would there be for a lost generation in late capitalism?’
— FOOOL
Shoplifting 4 Eva (You’re all I Have)
FOOOL: Growing up can be harsh at times: family issues, first drug experiences, school problems. While being lost it might be the warmth of a first love that opens a door to what life is really all about: kindness and togetherness. Shoplifting 4 Ewa tells a story about young lovers. While being broke but still feeling a zest for life, they start to shoplift anything they need: candy, booze and presents for each other - transforming the crime of shoplifting to an innocent act of young love.
Foth’s performance captured in the peak cherry blossom season in Berlin alongside the audio and subtitle-fragments of a shoplifter being interviewed recreates the innocence mentioned above in an abstract approach and states: shoplifting is not a crime - it’s for the youth. What else would there be for a lost generation in late capitalism?
‘I create choreography intuitively. I feel the music, the sound, and let them lead my movements. Pictures are coming to my head, floating through my body.’
— Franka Marlene Foth
How do you develop the main theme of choreography for the projects? Where do you start?
Franka Marlene Foth: Generally, I create Choreography intuitively. I feel the music, the sound, and let them lead my movements. Pictures are coming to my head, floating through my body. For me, music and dance have a symbiotic relationship. I am underlining the sound and building a oneness through the movement out of these two components. When I know the story of a specific Track, it can, of course, influence the Choreography but basically, the sounds are guiding.
What is the story behind Shoplifting 4 Ewa (You’re All I Have) in terms of emotions, aesthetics, movement?
Franka Marlene Foth: I have a very strong opinion when it comes to aesthetics. Vince had the idea to shoot in the cherry blossom season in Berlin with me as a performer. And there it was, the idea to it, on how I wanted to move. We have a very similar feel for aesthetics, I also think that brought us to collaborate.
Where does the idea to turn the film to the low bit rate media come from?
FOOOL: The video was shot on a Sony VX2100, a camcorder from the early 2000s. Sony VX cameras are kind of famous within the skateboard community, and I spent countless hours of my youth watching - and later filming - VX skateboard footages with friends. I love to use it now in other contexts than skateboarding, I love the feel, the look, the zoom, and everything about it. Also limiting your possibilities and not going for the 4K hi-res option can have cool side effects. For the same reasons I record a lot of my music on 4 track tape recorders, it’s gritty, noisy, and fun.
Tell about the collaboration with FOOOL and some insights on your work on this project.
Franka Marlene Foth: We’re both from Berlin, and we know each other for almost 10 years. We are both artists and creators, very passionate and specific with what we do and how we want to develop our art. We work together on other projects too, and there is always a very good workflow, and a great understanding of what the other one wants to create.
FOOOL: I love working with Marlene because she always has a clear artistic vision and is always very determined and direct with what she likes and what she doesn't like. At the same time, we have a mutual understanding of aesthetics and rhythm, which makes it very easy to trust one another.
