vertical pool presents
a video by antero alli
i n e r t i a
("the couple next door")

richard waugh and kristen kosmas

ed byrne and jyl brewer

Seattle, 1994. Shooting a live performance of butoh artists JYL BREWER and ED BYRNE
inspired an idea of how love dies under the influence of too much inertia and how love
might be reborn by following the volatile stages of psychic stagnation out the other side.
I invited actor/writers KRISTEN KOSMAS and RICHARD WAUGH to script dialogue for a couple
"on the verge of breaking up" and then, I filmed their interactions. It was in the editing room
that a montage developed by intercutting their "mundane" relationship with the live butoh
performances. The final product turned into this experimental narrative, a symbolist vision
of how the imaginal couple's rituals (the butoh performances) might represent the unleashed
forces of passion and love oppressed by the crushing inertias in the "real time"
couple's relationship (KRISTEN KOSMAS and RICHARD WAUGH).

-- ANTERO ALLI

RICHARD WAUGH and KRISTEN KOSMAS

"inertia"
(21:00; first cut, 1994; final cut, 2001)
photographed, edited & directed by antero alli
story/script by waugh, kosmas and alli
soundtrack by sylvi alli