Kron Vollmer

Domestic City (2021-2022)

A series of electronic soundscapes and soundbaths for people who don’t want to relax, created by alter-ego, Vera Spaceheater. Listen.

kotepar,yap yo(Calendar, Year Zero)(2020)

As I have my own language (Kronish), I also have my own calendar. It has 13 months to a year, and 8 days a week (which clearly are not enough to show I care).

I have used my own dating system/calendar personally for a number of years, side by side with the calendar everyone else uses (of course!). No one else knew what the 34th of dunnawayna could possibly be, until now. Here is a free PDF for download, with instructions for use in German, Spanish and English. It can be folded lengthwise in thirds to keep in your purse for easy reference. Since it is my first physical calendar, it is Year Zero.

Charts explain how my months correspond (or not) to the Gregorian Calendar, and list my personal holidays, along with the activities I assign to each day of the week, in case you would like to participate. For example, fredert, is the 5th day of my week, and the activity of the day is drawing. Holidays are color coded. This calendar will take you through to August 30th, 2020.

Since Kronish is written right to left, read the calendar starting at the top of the right hand side of the page and work down. The instructions are written left to right, and all of the Kronish is translated and transliterated into Roman letters for your convenience. Transliterated Kronish is written with all letters lowercase.

Down in the Slurry, Cutting the Slag (2019)

In 2019, looking through images saved on an old hard drive, I created a series of collages with a loose narrative and taped them up in unglamorous spaces (in bathrooms, on dumpsters) to decay, to be torn down, to be seen, or more likely, unseen. See some more of them here.

How to Talk so People Will Listen (2018)

A lady bug gives a TED Talk. A puppet show and tap dance about #metoo. Also, an exploration of the lifecycle of the lady bug. These things are related. Performance in Pittsburgh, PA.

Heart of a Lion, Persistence of a Bee (2018)

I drew a lion and three bees every night for 30 days in the spring of 2018 to raise my fortitude and energy. The lions and bees morphed and the drawings in turn inspired a text, or an incantation. The short film that resulted is narrated in Kronish with subtitles.

Seasonal (2017)

Published by Secret Airport (2017), this chapbook is a year-long poem (or spell) going through the months and seasons of the year. With an introduction by Karen Pittelman. Secret Airport creates very limited-run samizdats, and the chapbook was only available in secret locations, like the Strand Bookstore’s $1 carts. It is also secretly available here.

Ersatz Pearls; Or, How I learned to Love My Lousy Little Life and You Can Too
by Kronoushka von Vollmerheim (Plastic Paradise, 2016)

Kronoushka von Vollmerheim offers an alphabetic compendium of advice. Everything from Advocacy and even Advice itself to the Zodiac. Read an excerpt here.

Instructions for Beasts (2016)

A series of drawings of demonstrating first aid for monsters.

Liberate the Snitch (2016)

Site-specific dance piece, Stuyvesant Park, New York. June 16th, 2016

Devil's Circle: Year of the Horse (2014-2015)

A meditation on running in place with 6 different carousels. 2014-2015
Video 4 minutes.

10 minutes plays

Better Than the Monkey and
Suit Yourself, Frump (10 minute plays)

An astronaut dog lost in space, woman lost in the mirror.  Two ten minute plays were presented as staged readings in the Off The Mapp Festival in 2012.

Collectors Items (Radio Play)

A sidewalk sale, an empty chair, and how it ended this way. Radio play for solo female voice.

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The Ballad of Smith and Olympia (Radio Play)

Two lonely typewriters meet in an interrogation room, each with a distinctive voice and something to hide. This is part of the Plays for Inanimate Objects series. 

 

Pieces of the True T-Shirt 

Bull Worship

The Wall Street Bull is a friend of mine.  It didn't start out that way.  Initially I offered myself as a sacrifice, Dressed as a kitsch, Cecil B. Demille notion of a virgin sacrifice to the bronze statue of dynamism, force and a market economy gone amok, I presented the bull with flowers and prostrated myself between its massive front hooves at dawn on four different days in 2007 and 2008.  When traders arrived for work, they were horrified.  One even ran across the street shouting at me.  "Love the bull," he commanded, "he's good luck!" Then he rubbed the bull's bronze testicles and went off to work.  

And as the work days began, busloads of  tourists came, each wanting to touch the bull and take photographs. Some were annoyed that I had taken up the coveted spot between his paws, and complained in different languages that I ruined their dream vacation photo. But others joined me there in what became a pagan veneration of luck, money, and change, and yes, even the market.

Sovereignty: The Smell of Freedom 

Using the conventions of a product launch (free product samples, audio and video commercials), along with dance and a recorded text “Sovereignty” parodies the way in which advertising has commandeered the language of feminism. “Sovereignty” explores the following questions: What oppressive labor conditions are used to create luxury goods?  What is the relationship between producers and consumers? What does it mean to fall in love with a product?  Why do we construct our identities with products?  Is anyone really independent?

Sovereignty was performed at Chashama’s Oasis Festival in 2007 and at New Dance Alliance’s Performance Mix in 2008.  Audience members were given perfume samples, and the perfume sales girls were played by Qxi O. Qxa and Aditi Dhruv (Oasis) and Nirali Shastri and Ileana Pinon (NDA).  The voice talents of Bobbi Leann Williams, John-Paul Skocik, Pauline Park, Carl Hsu, Yonatan Yudekovitz, Manassa Hany and Mario Hernandez were also featured.  This piece was made possible by a grant from the Puffin Foundation.
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Mykronesia

On June 26th 1998, I declared my physical body a sovereign nation.  I did so by fiat, which is the origin of the motto of those early years, Ipsa Dixit (she said it herself), and became Mykronesia.

As an independent country, I faced many challenges.  I struggled, unsuccessfully, to attain U.N. member nation status. I entered into predatory loans with the IMF.  And I found myself in the middle of a terrible civil war with myself which brought me to the International Criminal Court at The Hague where I was tried for atrocities and war crimes against myself.

I also created 3 full-length theater shows about one-person-nationhood, two of which were produced in the New York Fringe Festival and one at the Where Eagles Dare Winter Festival.  In 2005, I shared a double bill in the NY Fringe Festival with Mita Ghosal in a work called Head Over Heels and Away.

Political turmoil aside, I also created a culture, complete with native ethnic folk costumes (mostly polyester), native folk-dances, a language (Kronish), and a religion devoted to the cathartic worship of Faye Dunaway.  I shared my culture in countless variety shows and cabarets, including my own variety show, Vaudeville Utopia, where I taught some of my language and native dances to foreigners.

I also minted money: the heavily inflated Kronicle.  I pegged it to the Romanian Leu, since Romania seemed to have the same problems of high unemployment and out of control inflation.  Kronicles were minted whenever I needed cash and were given away to tourists at performances.  The Kronicles were photocopied collages with serial numbers.  Of course photocopying more money whenever I needed it led to even higher inflation.

While I am still a sovereign nation, I no longer have a tourist industry.   I have chosen to work on rebuilding my economy, finding new green energy sources, and perfecting my native ethnic handicrafts such as latch hook rugs.  The last performance of my native ethnic folk dances was on July 26th, 2008 as I celebrated my independence day and ten years of statehood.  My current motto is "Estoy Como Nunca" (I'm Better Than Ever).  

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