A spectacle, a tragedy (EN)

Growing up in the industrial port city of Varna, Radina Kordova recalls the waters of the Black Sea turning actually black: suds, rust, petroleum; ecosystem poison. The Amsterdam industrial port zone tells a similar tale. Sludge, no longer water. It’s a tragedy of an industrial spectacle. 

By introducing a Bulgarian folklore spirit, Kordova dives into a collective cultural memory that echoes across lands. The samodiva is a protector, bound to water, causing mischief when in danger. She utters words, drifts, and jolts. “What a tragedy!” she loudly announces, taking people to the edge of the water, pointing at the ships and port in the distance. Her costume is heavy. Her presence drags, but she longs for a spectacle. Running around the village, everybody must know that if the water is dead, she and other spirits will die too. She draws on the ground, leaving traces, and carries polluted water in a vessel to a place where she can clean it. Eerie, haunted, and absurd, the spirit questions our relationship with industrial port zones and critiques its neglect of the non-human. 

The performance takes place all around Ruigoord between 12:00 and 18:00. It folds into the day, into Ruigoord.

Radina Kordova is a performance artist from Bulgaria, currently living and working in Groningen, the Netherlands. She creates sound-based performance installations, where water plays a central role as a folklore element, material, and a metaphor for collective and individual transformation. Her work explores our relationships with one another and the more-than-human world. By using personal writings and myths not as fixed tales but as evolving narratives, she engages with collective memory and ecological and cultural themes. Kordova’s performances activate sculptural environments through sound, movement, and poetic text, inviting audiences to slow down and co-listen.

This performance took place during the festival in September 2025.