by Michaela Preiner | Jul 24, 2022 | ImPulsTanz, Tanz
[A few decades ago – I don’t know if it’s still the case today – you learned a lot in art history courses. Especially styles and their geographical distribution. You studied buildings, paintings and sculptures and made comparisons. And if you had already enjoyed lectures on iconography, then you were also able to interpret the message of individual works of art that was hidden from the layman. When one had finished 8-plus-x semesters and was allowed to put an academic title in front of one’s name, one suddenly found oneself often in the embarrassment of being able to give only the most rudimentary biographical information about artists. There was almost no space devoted to them in studies; if there was, then one acquired them oneself or read up on them in acute need. For works of art themselves, however, there was and still is an unwritten law: if they are good, they do not need biographical supplements.
Jan Lauwers, Belgian theatre director who originally studied painting at the Academy of Arts in Ghent, sets many scents in the direction of artwork creation and its biographical background with his new play “All The Good”. It was presented as part of the Impuls Dance Festival at the Volkstheater in Vienna. With the Needcompany, co-founded by his wife Grace Ellen Barkey and himself, he offered the Impulstanz audience at the Volkstheater insights into the genesis of a special work of art. In doing so, he did not focus on an iconographic approach and its philosophical background. Quite the opposite. The only tentative progress of the development of the object, equipped with blown glass drops from a Palestinian glassblower, only forms the background for a vividly told family story that gets completely out of kilter at the end of the performance. And it also forms the background to a very subtle indictment of Israel. An indictment, however, in which there are no victors and vanquished, only losers.
But until this happens, the events – accompanied by live music by Maarten Seghers and three other musicians – intensify in a dramatic way. The parents Jan and Grace Ellen are put to the test by the relationship actions of their children Romy Louise and Victor Lauwers. There is the realisation that art actions today, no matter how shockingly intended, are neither shocking nor original. A coitus scene that takes place coram publico subsequently turns into a nightmarish event of a traumatised former Israeli combat soldier.
All the good (Foto: © Phile Deprez)
All the good (Foto: © Phile Deprez)
All the good (Foto: © Phile Deprez)
The unrestricted ruler of the family events, however, is Jan Lauwers, who has his alter ego portrayed on stage by Benoit Gob. Although Lauwers initially explains the scenery and introduces all those involved, he then always remains in the background observing and hardly intervening. In between, works of art are shown again and again, and Jan briefly lectures about them. Then there is dancing and singing – Maarten Seghers demonstrates both his beautiful bass and melodious tenor in two performances. Again and again, the ensemble is annoyed that the electric drive for the glass-fronted work of art doesn’t work properly. For a change, a fox bites off the head of a pigeon in the best Dada manner and again and again a rat pushes itself to the front of the stage to present its view of things in a know-it-all manner.
One scene replaces the next, costumes are changed and after the revelation that the artist Jan Lauwers abstains sexually so as not to disturb the energetic flow of creation for his glass artwork, there is a real crack in the family-friendly woodwork. The banal fact of sexual abstinence completely upsets the family structure. This is followed by a story of infidelity that has happened, is happening and will happen countless times on this earth in an almost identical constellation.
Thus, one has completely distanced oneself from the current production of art, but also from the historical considerations of various works of art. Now there is arguing, reproaches are made, now one is deeply offended and no longer sure whether a harmonious family life will ever come about after this argument. It is now the fullness of life with all its distortions that comes to the fore.
All questions of art theory are blown away. The audience can ask themselves these questions after the performance. What remains is the realisation that a work of art lives from narratives. Of those that arise ad hoc through association, but also of those that are reported about it. If the object rotating on its own axis with its blue-turquoise glass drops were in a museum, then nothing at all would indicate its genesis in the midst of a family tragicomedy. Then the unwritten law would come true that a good work of art does not need biographical attachments to be good.
The intelligent show opens more questions than answers. It covers more than it shows – leaves the audience in the dark as to which statements are to be taken truthfully and which follow purely a theatrical dramaturgy. The only thing that seems certain is an eternal cycle. A cycle that is actually stopped by a never-ending run around the art object by all the ensemble members. Props are picked up, dragged along, dropped again, only to be picked up again by others. The eternally human – the doing – remains as the constant of a creative process. A production like something out of a picture book: clever, funny, profound, varied and entertaining. And a production you can watch several times!
This article was translated with deepl.com
by Michaela Preiner | Jul 24, 2022 | ImPulsTanz, Tanz
Who doesn’t know the story of the foundling Mowgli, who grows up among animals in the Indian jungle? That story by Rudyard Kipling, which was filmed as an animated film at the Disney Studios?
Now there is “Jungle Book reimagined” by Akram Khan. The Austrian premiere took place as part of the Impulstanz festival at the Burgtheater. The British dancer and choreographer, whose family comes from Bangladesh, played Mowgli in an Indian dance performance as a young boy. This memory, but above all “the three profound lessons of the play”, as he calls it, made such a deep impression on him that now, after many years, he is staging a newly interpreted Jungle Book with his company. The main plot of the story remains more or less the same, but in his version “Mowgli” is a girl who is separated from her family due to an environmental disaster. She is portrayed tenderly and fragilely, but in the end strong and full of hope for her future, by Pui Yung Shum. Like her male role model, she too spends time among animals who take care of her, only to ultimately set out again in search of humans.
Jungle Book reimagined (Foto: © Ambra Vernuccio)
Jungle Book reimagined (Foto: © Ambra Vernuccio)
Jungle Book reimagined (Foto: © Ambra Vernuccio)
Jungle Book reimagined (Foto: © Ambra Vernuccio)
Jungle Book reimagined (Foto: © Ambra Vernuccio)
Jungle Book reimagined (Foto: © Ambra Vernuccio)
Jungle Book reimagined (Foto: © Ambra Vernuccio)
Many of Akram Khan’s productions deal with the disastrous state of our world. The confrontation with what has been and is still being destroyed on our earth is one of his central themes. And so his story also begins with a wild doomsday scenario. Rising waters, sinking, destroyed cities, people fleeing on rafts, all this becomes visible on stage through computer-animated drawings. Although they were originally planned only for reasons of economy and to minimise the environmental impact instead of a haptic stage set, Miriam Buether’s depictions contribute significantly to the success of the evening. Delicate and at the same time expressive, full of poetry and yet real, she created a world of memory and current events at the same time. Flying birds, singing whales, leaves falling to the ground – all of these set the action in changing environments without much reconstruction. The use of this technique on stage and in dance is not new, but it is used excessively here. So much so that at certain points one imagines oneself in London’s West End or in a Broadway production.
However, Khan’s Jungle Book – contrary to all dance conventions – does not do without language. Rather, it is just as central a component of the production as the visuals. The text, adapted to the present day, was written by Tariq Jordan. The voices of the individual characters, such as Bagheera the panther or Baloo the bear, come from the tape. The fascinating thing is that every single dance movement is carried and supported by these voices. This combination, through the use of individual movement patterns, reinforces the recognisability of the figures. The dialogues of the individual animals are repeatedly replaced by pure dance numbers, underpinned by a coherent sound. It is a joy to watch Holly Vallis as Bagheera sneaking lithely around Baloo or Mowgli. It’s just fun when Tom Davis-Dun mimes the “dancing bear” and gets completely out of hand. The fact that there is nothing to fear from the snake Kaa is also wonderfully solved and will appeal especially to young audiences.
The compositions show strong borrowings from the most diverse origins. Whether Philip Glass’ “Koyaanisqatsi – which he created for the film of the same name by Godfrey Reggio, or whether it is broad symphonic rock interpretations – as known from Vangelis, whether quotations from a Christian Kyrie Eleison or sounds like from a world music album – the English composer Jocelyn Pook drew from the full for her soundtrack. Her compositions are catchy and support the action in a highly emotional way, just like a good film score.
The fleet of animals looking after Mowgli is bathed in dramatic red, then again in cool blue through changing lighting. The movements of the monkeys, the panther and the bear imitate their gait or even boisterous behaviour. But when they want to behave like humans, they dance, as we know from contemporary productions. Mowgli herself remains an observer for long stretches, intervenes kauf. At her side is often the “monkey outcast”. He is danced frighteningly, unfathomably, but also full of empathy by Max Revell. Greta Thunberg’s “how dare you are!” – from her 2019 speech to the United Nations, but also mountains of cardboard boxes as distributed by online giants across the world to people addicted to consumption, are just two of several references to the problematics that seem to be sheerly overwhelming us at the moment.
Despite all the doomsday mood and gloomy outlook, Akram Khan hopes that his production will also be visited by children. To confront them with what we call “everyday life”, he thinks, is necessary. Above all, however, it is the three teachings mentioned earlier that are important to him to pass on. The teaching of the community of species, the interdependence of humans, animals and nature, and the importance of family and our human need to belong.
The choreographer has a knack for great productions. The spectacle created by his company and a large number of co-producers will, in all likelihood, conquer the world’s great stages. The fact that it will also inspire many people for contemporary dance who have not previously had an affinity for dance is a side effect that should not be underestimated.
This article was translated with deepl.com
by Michaela Preiner | Jul 13, 2022 | ImPulsTanz
“Full Moon. A Play by Pina Bausch”
Unterferent they could not have been – but also not more complementary. “Full Moon” – shown on the big stage of the Burgtheater, performed by the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch – came up with a lot of “theatre magic”. The piece, which premiered 16 years ago, requires a total of 12 dancers, stage equipment that can make it rain and also has the possibility of flooding part of the stage floor. Bausch starts with a sultry summer night atmosphere in which young men and women interact with each other in a constant succession of short scenes. In the process, one or two sentences are dropped in the direction of the audience, usually spiced with a fine pinch of humour.
“Full Moon” (Photo: © yako.one)
The choreography, like the costumes, is gender-dualistic. While the men, predominantly in long trousers and with bare upper bodies, demonstrate their strength in a dance-like to acrobatic way, the typical Bausch repertoire of movements can be seen in the women with hip-length hair and softly flowing dresses. Oscillating between gestures of the desired establishment of contact and those in which the withdrawal into one’s own inner self is always clearly recognisable, alternate here. The visualisation of emotional states occurs much more frequently with female dancers than with their male colleagues. Intersexual encounters are often marked by moments of tension. Loving and hating each other, not being able to let go of each other and punishing the other with contempt are visualised just as much as moments in which the women dominate the men. Right up to instructions on how a woman’s bra must be unclasped as quickly as possible so as not to disturb the tingling moment of erotic anticipation.
“Full Moon” (Photo: © yako.one)
Despite an intense choreographic work that demands extremes from the ensemble, there is, however, another silent and motionless actor on stage who equally captures the audience’s attention. This is a mighty boulder that is undercut by a body of water. Particularly in the second part after the intermission, the water streams down on the stage almost incessantly like a continuous rain and at one point even becomes the unrestricted stage star. Scooped up in buckets by the men in piecework, it is hurled by them in powerful blasts from all sides against the boulder. The optical stimulus that results can well be described as “water fireworks” without opening up a contradiction. For the explosive cascades of water visually resemble those of rockets which, once exploded, pelt towards the earth in a fine rain of fire. This visually powerful scene has addictive character and burns itself into the memory just as much as the soaking wet costumes of the dancers and together they form an indelible pair of recognition.
“Dances for an actress”
While Bausch worked with an extremely high technical effort in her piece, “Dances for an actress” gets by with the power consumption of a hoover running for 1 hour. At least that is how the Belgian actress Jolente De Keersmaeker, sister of the choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, who is also a frequent guest in Vienna with her choreographies, told it. Jolente was persuaded by Jérôme Bel to create a dance piece. It should be clear to anyone who has seen Bel’s work that this is no ordinary piece. Perfection and beautiful appearances – all that Bel does not demand from his artists. On the contrary, he demands a great deal of courage for imperfection and for revealing both their skills and their failures to the audience. The French choreographer is something of a pioneer in his guild. He rethinks what moves society in a way that is suitable for the stage and, in doing so, questions what socio-politically relevant themes could mean for performance practice.
“Dances for an actress” (Photo: Herman Sorgeloos)
A current example is the widespread refusal to print programme booklets. For ecological reasons, these are currently being saved at performances around the globe, see also “Wiener Festwochen” – Bel found her own method of nevertheless giving the audience a little insight into the events in advance. Through an oral introduction by Jolante herself, who told the audience what was normally printed, including the list of sponsors and partners. Inevitably, this was accompanied by a huge dash of humour, a hallmark, but also a subtle hint that this practice popping up at the moment is probably not really the last word in wisdom for Bel either.
After this prologue, triggered by the general ecological disaster we cannot escape at the moment, the dancing actress presented a longer scene in which she gave samples of her classical ballet repertoire. She drew on a body of movement she had developed during her ballet classes between the ages of 6 and 14. That this time must not have been fun for her is still apparent today. The individual dance steps are executed with great concentration, jumps are only performed in such a way that there is no risk of injury and a body control that makes dancing not fun but rather an agonising experience – all this can be taken as proof why Jolante did not take up the profession of a dancer.
From these first impressions, she spans a wide range of different improvisations by various choreographic and dance greats of the 20th century. She begins with a Chopin Prelude, originally choreographed and danced by Isadora Duncan. Using this example, she also demonstrates one of the methods dancers use to memorise movement sequences. The verbalisation of movement sequences is still a common means of remembering step and movement sequences today.
“Dances for an actress” (Photo: Herman Sorgeloos)
The change to a Pina Bausch improvisation, based on her work “Café Müller” from 1978, is initiated by her silently taking off her clothes. The immersion in that fragile figure, dancing naked in front of the audience to the sounds of Henry Purcell’s “Didos lament”, is one of the most impressive moments of the entire performance. The way the fragility of the human body and its soul become visible and tangible at the same time unfolds an incredible emotional magic. What a big difference to the pompous “Full Moon” piece by the same choreographer. If one wanted to vividly explain that technical commitment does not have to correlate with the emotional movement of the audience – these two pieces would be textbook examples of this.
What a great, great idea to replace this Bausch choreography with Rihanna’s song “Diamond”. Equipped with a pulsating rhythm and a life-affirming drive, the music alone sweeps the audience away in just a few moments. The still naked body now has absolutely nothing of fragility about it, but radiates pure life energy, unbridled joie de vivre and pure dance power. So much so that one would like to dance along.
After an intensive study of mimicry, dedicated to the Butho grandmaster Ono Kazuo, in which the performer can show her enormously strong mimic expressiveness, she ends up in contemporary dance performance. For this, sitting on stage with a laptop on her lap, she describes a YouTube video, the content of which she only reproduces verbatim. However, “Dances for an actress” would not be a production by Jérôme Bel if he did not himself respond with much humour to the purely verbally-reflective dance rendition with the upcoming “John Travolta number”. The way Jolente De Keersmaeker slowly begins to dance along with the famous “Saturday Night Fever scene” during her description, steadily getting into it, is simply stunningly funny.
The fact that she adds a self-designed choreography to Renaissance music with a strong, repetitive rhythm and southern flair rounds off the performance in a successful and once again highly intelligent way. How strong is the contrast that Keersmaeker expresses with her classical ballet rehearsal at the beginning and her own powerful and lustful choreography at the end of “Dances for an actress”! With this own choreography, she has visibly reached a point where you can believe that dancing is something that she also enjoys, and that it even seems to be in her blood. Through its ingenious protagonist Jolente De Keersmaeker, Bel’s piece reveals what is actually a profoundly simple insight: dancing is a human means of expression that everyone is allowed and encouraged to shape according to their own needs. Whether you want to reproduce a given choreography exactly, dance an improvisation on it or implement your own ideas – everything is possible, everything is desired, nothing is forbidden. What a wonderful insight even for people who have been working with this medium for decades. Merci Jolente and chapeau Jérôme.
This article has been automatically translated with deepl.com
by Michaela Preiner | Jun 23, 2022 | 2021, Literature
If you have ever wondered who the narrator is who constantly looks over the shoulder of the anti-hero Brenner in Wolf Haas’ crime novels, you should attend a reading by the author himself.
In Graz, the venue for such a reading was moved at short notice from the casemates on the Schlossberg to the Orpheum. The venue on the Schlossberg was difficult to reach by cogwheel railway due to maintenance work. Despite the fading, extended weekend and the heat that had just set in, the hall in the Orpheum was not badly filled. While readings usually take place in bookshops, someone like Wolf Haas actually fills larger halls. On the one hand he has a loyal reading community, on the other hand many know him because of the film adaptations of some of his books. In it, Josef Hader plays Inspector Brenner, who soon leaves the police force and then has to solve many a case on his own.
On the one hand, it is this special character that fascinates the reading public. This grumpy, solitary and at the same time lovable man slips into criminal cases against his will and without doing anything.
In the process, he – like the majority of the audience – has to deal with everyday adversities, which he tries to avoid in a highly unconventional way. On the other hand, it is also the easy-going language that appeals to many. Despite this lightness, profound world problems are discussed en passant, as if they were marginalia. This special mixture guarantees great reading pleasure.
His new novel “Müll”, from which Haas read in Graz, also contains all these factors. He not only lent his voice to the narrator, but one could get the impression that the narrator is a kind of alter ego of Wolf Haas. However, with the paradox that this alter-ego, were it to be brought to life, would not have much in common with the writer himself. For Haas leaves the impression on stage of a calm, level-headed and intellectual person with a high capacity for linguistic expression. His narrator, on the other hand, speaks with umpteen repetitive standing sentences like “You don’t believe that”, “Don’t ask” or “You mustn’t forget one thing” and loves to make comments in sentences without verbs. In “Rubbish”, this slang adapts like a second skin to the characters in it: They are so-called “Mistler” of a Viennese rubbish dump who find a dismembered corpse in their rubbish tubs. There is a reason why Simon Brenner is among them. He works there himself and considers his job to be the best he has ever had. Whether Udo or Mr Nowak, whether the young intern or Brenner himself – Haas succeeds in creating wonderful character studies of men who, as permanent employees of the City of Vienna, know a lot of bosses about them. Nevertheless, they are proud rulers in their working environment, deciding who may or may not deposit manure for free. They keep a watchful eye on the correct placement of waste in the tubs provided for this purpose and that a little tip usually leads to special helpfulness – who is not familiar with this procedure in Austria?
Brenner lives in a chic flat high above the rooftops of the city – but only as a “bed-walker”. As such, he uses empty flats to spend the night, with the noble aim of leaving no trace.
The great art of Wolf Haas is the interlocking of socially relevant themes with a crime story in a language that – although artful – comes across as loose and fluffy, as if he had picked up and written down every sentence in beer-swilling inns or at tent festivals. Whether it’s the rubbish problem or the organ mafia, whether it’s relationship stress or bourgeois ways of life, there seems to be nothing that Haas can’t deal with profoundly and humorously at the same time. At the same time, the tragic story of a man whose body parts ended up in a landfill is served up in easily digestible morsels.
As a surplus, Haas offered the audience of his reading a highly amusing story about the difficulties of translating his texts into Japanese. In “Müll”, translation heads will start to smoke at the latest at the point where “Spuckerl” is the name of a small cleaning trolley that Brenner puts into operation – clearly unauthorised. The scene in which he involuntarily cleans the shoes of hundreds of passers-by in Vienna due to a defect in the vehicle’s spraying system, which cannot be switched off, is not only one of the most humorous in the book. It also shows Haas’s literary skill in making a complete film scene play out in the reader’s mind with just a few sentences.
Conclusion: Readings by Wolf Haas are worthwhile. Reading his books anyway.
This text was translated automatically with deepl.com.
by Michaela Preiner | Jun 14, 2022 | 2021, Theatre
Imagine your radius of experience is limited to four walls and you don’t mind at all, you even find it comfortable. Imagine you have your own assistant who takes care of everything for you. Call her Isadora and talk to her like your best friend. Imagine that everything is so conveniently arranged for you that you can even receive friends at the virtual lunch table. Imagine you are completely independent of the outside world and happy as can be – only you never go outside because you are afraid of it.
This is exactly the setting Caroline Peters offered with the Ledwald group in the play “Die Maschine steht nicht still”. The production is a paraphrase of a text by E.M. Forster’s “The machine stops” from 1909 and was created as a reaction to the pandemic in which most of us became much more dependent on computers and the internet.
Amazing visuals by Eric Dunlap, a permanent live camera guide by Andrea Gabriel (also responsible for recorded videos) and a perfectly coordinated light and sound design by Lars Deutrich add an electronic layer to the performance that is not only absolutely zeitgeisty, but also makes sense here. The text, adapted by Caroline Peters, tells of a woman who receives a call from her father one day. Like her, he lives 2.5 km away from her in a setting like the one described above, wants to tell her something and asks her to take to the road and come to him not just virtually but in the flesh.
Die Maschine steht nicht still (Foto: © Frank Dehner)
Die Maschine steht nicht still (Foto: © Frank Dehner)
Die Maschine steht nicht still (Foto: © Frank Dehner)
Die Maschine steht nicht still (Foto: © Frank Dehner)
This initial situation puts his daughter in a quandary, as she is supposed to leave her protective environment against all orders and go into a terrain of which she has no idea what awaits her there. Mindcontrol has progressed so far that any experiment outside of one’s own four walls no longer seems desirable and the maxim applies: standstill is progress and what I don’t try can’t go wrong. Towards the end, however, the daughter actually succeeds in freeing herself from her monitoring companion Isadora, who immediately invites comparison with Alexa, Siri or other currently active electronic helpers. In addition to the description of everyday life, which Peters renders with high acting skill, whether it is a cooking recipe she wants Isadora to implement, taking voice calls or watching video lectures, she is fascinating in multiple roles in the scene at the table with her invited friends. They have all been recorded by her beforehand and, at the push of a button, gather around the laid table in virtual space to – as is familiar from real life – show off, look frightened, be amazed or be admired, just like the respective characters.Lars Deutrich on the electronic sound machine and Andrea Gabriel in the role of the mute Isadora, who captures everything with her live camera and also saves it, are permanently present on stage. Both Peters and Gabriel wear poison-green costumes with a spider pattern – a symbol of imprisonment in the web, which is nevertheless perceived as chic and essential. (Costumes Flora Miranda) It is not only the illusionistic setting that impresses, but also the text, which has a whole series of dazzling sentence pearls such as: “Since the pandemic, we know that viruses and technology grow exponentially”, “Knowledge is a kind of fiction”, “Deep Intelligence is also just another kind of cheating” or “To time its loop, to the loop its freedom” – a rewrite of the Hevesi slogan emblazoned over the Vienna Secession. These are just a few, few statements that one would like to read at home because of the further abundance of philosophical ideas, bon mots and visions of the future.
The clever, open ending leaves a taste of relief and fear at the same time and in no way glosses over the digital future we already find ourselves in.
This article is automatically translated with deepl.com
