Day 2: Thursday, 23 August 2012: Part 2
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| Jacque Poulin Denis |
Performance-wise, we saw two very different
pieces on Thursday. One was a work in progress (very early stages of progress)
by a young dancer-choreographer from Montreal, and the other was a full-length
dance work from Norway.
Before we went into the first piece, we
were in a meeting with Andre Theriault – Artistic Director of Tanz Im August.
The discussion with him spanned several areas covering the history of the
festival – it is the biggest festival of contemporary dance in Germany and is
now 24 years old – the functioning in terms of curatorial, administrative and
financial concerns, and several other areas. The festival, unlike many others
of its creed, is an annual one that immediately turns the pressure on. It is
unusual in that it rarely plans two years beforehand, focussing instead on what
is available and possible in the here and now. Though a large festival, it
apparently does not have that large a budget (we are not talking in Indian
terms, of course – the ‘modest’ figure mentioned was 9,00,000 Euro), and the
finances come completely from the State and the City of Berlin. There is no
private sponsorship. There are four curators who make choices together – a
format that has often come in for criticism – and decisions are usually made on
the basis of seeing the actual work, not on DVDs etc. This means that the
curators have to travel a lot – but it automatically means that work from
countries such as ours where festival circuits are minimal if not non-existent,
and performance runs are rarely conceived of – gets left out in the cold purely
because there is little opportunity to see the work in performance.
We cam straight out of this meeting into a
work in progress showing. The festival has a sort of residency programme where
artists work in a studio on a furture piece. During the festival, a showing of
the work in progress is aimed at giving the artist feedback on ideas and
processes they are engaged in. Jacques Poulin-Denis is a dance-choreographer
fro Montreal who is working here on a piece that is scheduled to premiere in
Autumn 2013. One of the first things one notices about Jacques is his
prosthetic left leg, which – we realised later – prevents him from doing
nothing! The piece itself was in the very early stages of development and, as
Jacques himself said, the showing was more for him to test out all his ideas
including the mistakes he does not want to make later! It was an eclectic
collection of images to say the least inspired by the question – what is the
value of things? What was most delightful to me was his wicked and quirky sense
of humour – so different from so much of self-proclaimed profound work that one
sees in contemporary dance today. And yet, it was not – or rather, will not be
– a frothy, superficial piece of work. There is deep thought, insight and
questioning there, which uses a greatly imaginative soundtrack including text,
very little so-called music, and also an extended section of a couple in the
throes of sex. I came away amused and thoughtful, and very sorry that I will possibly
never see the finished piece!
I can’t say the same for the evening main
performance though. It was everything that Jacques’ performance was not.
Performed by Carte Blanche, Norway and choreographed by Sharon Eyal from Tel
Aviv, the work took the act of walking as its starting point. It began
interestingly enough, but after ten minutes I had had enough, and was wondering
how I would sit through this one hour piece that bombarded the sense for no
apparent reason! I cannot fault the dancers – one rarely can fault contemporary
dancers in terms of technique and body, something that classical dancers must
learn from them. I cannot even – fundamentally – fault the choreographic
structure, which was constructed through minute detail. But the piece itself said
nothing, was insanely aggressive – in the words of one of the delegation , it
was almost Nazi in its violent posturing and hostility. Dressed as the dancers
were in nude coloured bodysuits which accentuates and hugs all the curves of
the body without discrimination – not a very intelligent choice when a lot of
the dance is going to be about jumping and hopping about – with hair waxed
white (including the lone black dancer), I could see how the piece could come
across as a very ‘Aryan’ supremacy kind of propaganda. And the fact that it
comes from a choreographer from Israel is doubly disturbing.
This is not to say that the piece was
conceived with any of these notions. But it was one hour of pure bombardment,
repetition, and boredom. There is nothing at all problematic about a piece of
abstract choreography – but if it does not convey anything (not in terms of
narrative), does not engage, and leaves one’s nerves on edge for all the wrong
reasons, I don’t see any value in it at all! I wonder if this a Norwegian
thing. I have seen three of four Norwegian physical performances over the past
couple of years – both dance and circus – and a spirit of violence, aggression
and machismo pervaded all of them. No, I can’t say that anybody in the
delegation liked it at all! When a post show Q&A was announced, we all
escaped to a lovely Vietnamese dinner in unspoken accord – something so rare
when a group of Indians get together!
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