THEMATICS

TEMPO explores our common agreements around efficency and speed through various slower tempos, The tempo is manifested through the bar's music and the staff's pacing — sometimes subtly, making things feel slightly sluggish, heavy, or sensitive, like waiting for a beer that never arrives or when someone looks at you a bit too long. Sometimes more tangibly and perceptually affecting, like when someone moves a tapas skewer toward your mouth in slow-motion. Sometimes, total decelerations of time occur and the room stands still.

The work aims to let performers and participants approach feelings of efficiency, capability, presence, sensitivity, and rapture that different tempos can make space for in our bodies. The various tempos also create different qualities in the encounters between performers and audience; topics like flirting, rapture, and the power dynamics between guest and service staff deepen as the evening progresses—themes that both connect to bar culture and the heightened sensitivity produced by the shift in tempo.

SCORE

Note: The percentage listed under time/tempo indicates the percentage at which the music and performers operate in relation to their normal tempo. 90% means that the music and performers operate at 90% of their normal pace.

1. BEFORE OPENING — 15 min

TIME / TEMPO

15 min at 90%

The bar staff puts on the playlist, begins cleaning up after yesterday’s party, and prepares for the evening. They prep tapas ingredients, slice limes and lemons, prepare ice, decide bar shifts, etc. The music and the staff's movements happen at 90% of normal speed.

1. OPENING / DOORS OPEN — 25 min

TIME / TEMPO:

15 min at 90%

Venus in Blue Jeans – Jimmy Clanton
Femme Fatale – Velvet Underground
Cherry-Coloured Funk – Cocteau Twins
Cloud Hopper – Dean Blunt
Valot – Rauli Badding Somerjoki

10 min at 100%

Coral reefs - Sun Palace
Strong Willed – Pavel Miyakov – the evening's slow dance

The bar opens. Music and bar staff move at 90% of their normal speed. The atmosphere is a bit tired, the lighting a bit dull, the music is pleasant but rather low-key. Guests trickle in. The bar staff sets the bar and clean up from yesterdays party: sweeps the floor, picks up glasses, puts tables and chairs in place, places menus on the tables. Guests order at the bar; the staff lets them know they can sit at the long tables. The DJ welcomes the guests and announces the karaoke and tonight's vegetarian and gluten-free tapas buffet in the microphone. The staff shouts various questions across the room to each other: "Alex, have you seen the bottle opener?" and peeks at the new visitors, lingering with their gaze.

The tempo rises to 100% and the DJ announces the evening's first slow dance .During the slow dance, Alex slips into a different tempo, she glides across the floor, meets gazes and holds them too long, dissociating into her own state. Majula and Eric stand in the bar and suddenly stop serving, their eyes get stuck in the distance, or locked at a visitor, eventually they come back to the room and continue serving.

2. BETTER VIBES — 30 min

TEMPO

100% - Do the Shake – The Renegades
100% / 75%- Tempo Tapas Guitar Theme x 3. At 3.5 minutes into the song, the tempo drops to 75% for 2 minutes and 20 seconds; this happens 3 times.
100% - Shoreline – Broder Daniel

After the slowdance the atmosphere gradually becomes a bit warmer and more sensual. The lighting slowly becomes more colorful, the music a bit more bright, the TV stops glitching, and Adde turns on the TEMPO graphics. The staff's glances at the audience become slightly warmer and longer when they light the candles on the tables. The first round of tapas music starts; Majula and Josefina each approach a tables and explain that the bar are short-staffed and need help making tapas skewers and paper garlands for the tapas buffet. 3.5 minutes into the song, the music drops to 75% of the original tempo. By this time, the audience has chopped their ingredients and makes tapas skewers on an assembly-line principle, wich means each person adds one ingredient to a skewer and then passes it along to the next person. This is the first experience the audience gets of a really slow tempo. During the slowdown, Majula and Josefina control the whole table's tempo by being the ones who hand out tapas skewers/paper for the garlands to the first person and receive the finished skewers from the last person very slowly.

This creates a queue in the tapas/garland machinery, and everyone is affected and forced to wait and slow down. When the tempo goes back up to 100% after 2 minutes and 20 seconds, the staff leaves the audience to finish the tapas skewers/garlands on their own. The second round of tapas music begins, and Josefina and Alexandra go out to two new tables, and the same sequence as in the first tapas round plays out.During the second tapas round, Eric finds a guest to help him with the sangria. The guest and Eric fill a bowl to the brim with sangria. When the song slows down to 75%, Eric and the guest slowly carry the overflowing sangria bowl through the room.

During the third round of the tapas song, Majula asks the garland table to hang up their garlands. Majula holds the tape needed to attach the garlands, which during the slowdown means the participants must wait for her and adapt to her pace. When the tempo drops the third time, Josefina calls out for the sangria; Eric asks the audience to pass the overflowing sangria bowl through the room. After the tapas it's time for the evening's sing-along: Shoreline. The lyrics appear on the TV, Adde sings and passes the mic around to the guests in a true sing-along manner.

3. FESTIVE! — 30 min

TEMPO / TIME

90% – 80% Song: TEMPO serving, 12–15 min
75% - Song: TEMPO serving, 4 min
100% - Karaoke song, 4 min
100% - Song: TEMPO nineties where I got lost, 2 min
100% - Song: TEMPO Samba mystic – 5 min

The bar's tempo is at 90–80%. The atmosphere becomes even more flirtatious, the lighting redder, the music more sensual, and the gazes directed at the audience are clearly flirtatious and slow. The staff walks around picking up glasses and fetching tapas plates for the fridge, accidentally brushing against guests. The room has become a bit messy, and now the staff cleans up. Adde reminds everyone of the tapas buffet over the microphone.The staff sends eachother with free drinks to guests they want to flirt with. They also tries to play matchmaker by treating two people in the audience to drinks from each other. The staff stands by the wall throwing yearning gazes on the guests, walks up to tables and “accidently” spills something, offers chips and olives. 12–15 minutes into the scene, the music's tempo drops to 75% of normal speed. When the first staff member realizes the tempo has dropped to 75%, they shout: "Yoo-hoo!" After the shout, everyone on the staff must rush at 75% speed to the bar, put a finger on the bar, and shout: "Turning sadness into gladness." The first one there gets a shot. The one who comes last must perform a challenge interacting with an audience member. The rest of the staff watches the challenge from the bar.

After the challenge is finished, the tempo goes back up to 100% speed. The evening's karaoke song is announced, and a guest goes up and sings Lana Del Rey's Video Games or Jaakko Eino Kalevi's Flexible Heart. If no guest has signed up, the staff must try to convince someone to sing. Either someone caves, or there is no karaoke. After karaoke, it is playtime. Majula announces game number one: Building towers: The teams must build the highest plastic cup tower in one minute, competing table by table. The winner is crowned. Alexandra announces game number two: Bottle cap toss. Before the game starts, Alexandra leads a wrist warmup and explains the rules: Teams compete table by table, and the winner is the team that gets the most bottle caps into plastic mugs that the staff wear on their heads. The music starts, and the staff performes a short choreography, placing the cups like teddybear ears on their heads. The teams toss bottle caps while the staff cheers them on. The cheering goes from encouraging to frantic, and the competion grows.

4. TWIST — 15 min

TEMPO / TIME

100% – TEMPO Samba mystic, 5 min
75% – TEMPO Samba mystic, 1.5 min
100% – TEMPO Samba mystic, 3 min
0.3% – TEMPO Samba mystic, 2 min
100% – Tom Jones – I Who Have Nothing, 3.5 min

The staff continue to encourage their teams to throw bottle caps but gradually starts barking like dogs; step-by-step, the staff transitions into dogs and drops/throws the bottle caps onto the floor. The dogs familiarize themselves with their table, sniff, bark, beg, eat crisps, breathe with their tongues out, etc. Alexandra goes and fetches a tower of shot trays and whistles for the dogs.The dogs each take a tray and distribute them to their tables.

When everyone has a glass, the dogs begin to breathe in rhythm with their tongues out, encouraging the tables to do the same. The rhythmic breathing turns into a sound—a sound often used to cheer / encourage / hype things up. The whole room chants in rhythm and takes shots together. The shot causes the staff to take their flirtation up another level—a level that is explicit and goal-oriented. They look around the room and walk toward someone in the audience, crawl up on tables, hold intensive eye contact, drink from people's drinks, pour drinks over themselves, and try to get the visitors' attention.The music drops to 75% speed and the staff begins to flirt in slow motion. After a minute, the tempo goes back up to 100% speed, and the staff starts competing with each other for various guests' attension. The flirtation is insensitive and predatory. They try in various ways to get rid of their opponents: by using their bodies, by pouring drinks on them, or giving them dishes to take to the bar.

After a while, the music starts slowing down, the staff lowers their pace, and the room finally comes to a complete standstill. The staff freezes in motion, and the room is silent. After a minute, a guest stands up, goes to the bar, and rings the bar bell. Everyone on the staff slowly turns around and look at the guest. The guest remains standing. Eric walks up to the guest. They look at each other; Eric seems to understand what the guest wants, goes and gets a microphone, gives it to the guest, and turns on Tom Jones's I Who Have Nothing on the karaoke. The guest is an incredible singer and delivers the song with emotion.

5. TAPAS / GOING HOME — 15 min

TEMPO / TIME

100% – Slow bright, 2 min
75% – Olavi Virta – Hopeinen kuu / Lise Rypdal – Romeo og Julie Inger, 8 min
100% – TEMPO Shoreline remix cleaning/going home – 6 min

The Tom Jones song fades out, Adde announces that it is finally time for the evening's highlight: The tapas buffet. the room is truly messy; bottle caps and plastic cups are everywhere. Guests are engaged in cleaning, rearranging the tables into one long table, putting on tablecloths and lights, plating the tapas, and sanitizing their hands. The ceiling lights are turned off, and the orange string lights on the table illuminate the staff and the guests' faces. Josefina explains the rules of the dinner:

One does not put any food or drink in one´s own mouth—we feed each other.
One does not talk to the others, and tells them what one wants. Instead, we use our body language:

One offers food or drink by moving it toward the mouth of the person one wants to feed.
One says yes by opening your mouth.
One says no by closing your mouth.
One offers the food from the tapas buffet and drink is always offered through the recipient's own cup.

Hopeinen kuu by Olavi Virta plays at 75% tempo, and the staff initiates the dinner by feeding the guests in slow motion. Everyone feeds each other through two slow songs. When the music ends, Adde takes the mic and announces the evening's last song. A deconstructed version of Shoreline plays, and the lights come up a bit. The staff begins picking up glasses. sweeping the floor and placing benches on tables; the cleaning starts from the inside of the room and herds the guests toward the exit. The longer time goes on, the further out the staff pushes the guests. One by one, the staff drops off and leaves the room while Shoreline keeps playing. When Shoreline ends, the performance's soundtrack starts over from the beginning: Venus in Blue Jeans by Jimmy Clanton plays, and the front-of-house hosts ask the audience to leave the room. The performance is over.