by pavleheidler, originally published on pavleheidler.wordpress.com on September 3, 2013
I’m thinking it’s time I started writing (actual) reviews of (actual) theatre I (actually) see, so as to try and gently focus this blog.
I realise there is clarity enough for creating something more concrete than random expressions of different thoughts, feelings, spiritual visions, etc. Not that I have a specific idea or a set goal: it’s more about being ready to devote this blog to everything that is theatre related. Be that reviews, notes on creative process, method or one of the latest interests: defining the difference between choreography based dance theatre and practice based dance theatre.
Having said all that, I’d like to begin with reviewing (1) “YOU”, a show created by Lisa Östberg and Kim Hiorthøy.
It was at Stockholm’s MDT, this past Friday and Saturday, that the show was presented as part of their program called REPLAY in which they – replay – some of their past productions. Which, mind you, is praise worthy.
“REPLAY is our way of giving you a second chance to see some MDT shows. We present our productions in average 2-4 times. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up. It just got a lot easier.” (2)
If you’d allow me to make a short detour before I really, honestly focus on the review, review, review:
When one is, as MDT is, focusing on showing and sharing work of the “younger” (3) kind: the dialogue (4) with the audience is what grows into being the driving force of what is to become their inspiration to – come back and see more.
Coming back for more is crucial in the context in which, I imagine, a lot of artists want to be working nowadays. Namely, I imagine many artists starting from the point of view in which they are not preachers or carriers of the truth; rather they are aware of their subjective everything and are sharing it in its true form, acquainted with the benefits and hardships that this kind of communication entails. What does that mean for the rest of us?
Unlike the truth, subjectivity is not a communication tool that prospers from exclusive agreement (or silent disagreement, for that matter). It needs to be challenged, it needs to be considered and then re-considered. Re-thought. Re-imagined.
Even when it’s fun and charming and agreeable – subjectivity needs to be kept in check by other’s subjective understandings; otherwise it runs the danger of becoming the truth; which should be avoided at all costs because the moment one is working with the truth one is also working with vertical hierarchies in a vertical evaluation system where one is inevitably either in and racing to the top or one is out and searching for a structure that, in the implied scenario, MDT used to be like.
By now one thing is clear. Working in a system without a vertical hierarchy tends to be difficult for the random spectator who comes in to see the work once a year and has no idea how to evaluate it, how to understand it, according to which standards to watch it. And while some artists incorporate “the dictionary” into the fabric of their work, others find that a waste of time and are rather interested in challenging ways of understandings. To challenge ways of understanding within one single work sometimes proves to be unreadable, which is practically potentially extremely frustrating and off putting for the fresh eye – and how are we, then, to get more audience into dance: is what the question is, underlying this whole little detour.
By programming REPLAY, MDT is taking a chance to re-visit a past productions, giving the audience a chance to catch up or maybe, maybe, maybe even see the work again. Maybe, maybe, maybe inspiring; and if not inspiring, then at least opening a potential up for a certain behaviour that is very much available in other mediums: How many times have you seen your favourite film? Even a film that might not be a favourite of yours but is that of your boyfriends?
Being familiar with various approaches to different work, having experience with watching – could – cultivate an audience which is unafraid to watch and talk. And share their opinion. And see how it goes and influences their environment and future work.
That kind of environment will, I believe (used-a-forbidden-word), prove specially fruitful for work that wants to question ways in which we understand, because it is only through presenting and witnessing multiple variations of the same – that the challenge itself will become more visible and clear.
That is: if the common goal is not to win but to keep racing…
photo©TomSachs
YOU starts by captivating your sense of hearing. Even before the doors to the auditorium open, one is overwhelmed by the impact (measured in dB) of what I would call a drum roll. Thought slightly on the uncomfortable side to those who own fragile hearing equipments, the drum roll’s rhythm reminds one of a (good) pop song, which inevitably has an effect on ones shoulders staring to move. The combination of present elements provides for a strong opening; one both sensorially and aesthetically stimulating.
The floor of the stage is light coloured wood, there are fake tree trunks hanging from the ceiling but touching the floor so as to create “a feeling of a forest”, which is enclosed by the white of the theatre’s walls. Back stage left – a drum set. Back stage right – another drum set. Centrepiece of the both kits: sparkly, colour red. Drummers: Lisa & Kim. Front stage right, a table covered in props. The way these props have been organised alludes to the patience necessary for an idea of order and precision to materialise in actuality.
After a clumsy fade out, the sound is gone and Lisa and Kim walk towards the audience. Lisa stands at the mark named YOU and Kim stands at the mark named ME. They introduce the audience to the four tasks this performance is “going to be about”: (1) a documentary about David Attenborough; (2) the world’s longest ghost ride; (3) a neo-classical ballet; and (4) an epic failure. All four tasks are presented under the following reasoning: You do it, we don’t have time. When saying you, they are looking at the audience, are speaking to the audience, are implying that we are going to be the ones to literally perform these tasks. This strong and authoritative implication makes one react with the feeling of self-consciousness, which I number as “the second wave of excitement” (the first one being the sound of drums). “The second release”, then, is one following the realisation that I will not need to perform anything, after-all; which is where Lisa and Kim placed their first joke.
Within a heartbeat: everyone’s won over.
What I find brilliant about this opening is that it gives all the clues necessary to understand the approach one is to take whilst watching the show in the same time as it allows for a stress release “exercise” which in turn results in an easy entrance to focus. It doesn’t take much then to maintain that focus in all its intensity. The care given to the articulation of the spoken word and the crisp precision that visuals are handled with all through the show pretty much work as a constant reminder.
I’m keen on thinking that it’s the precision with which the described elements are presented and handled with that gives Kim and Lisa the opportunity to un-intrusively add layers through which they introduce a whole different set of priorities. Take the structure, for example. As is common to much task based work, the structure of YOU is that of a collage. Four tasks are presented one after the other, with no evident common denominator or goal.
Each task, or rather, their solutions, present to the audience a standard by which to deal with a subject. Each subject calls for a different approach since they are, in theory, very different one from another. What I found smart is that it was not the reality of their aesthetic code that the different solutions varied the most in. It was in their fiction in which they did and it was in their fiction that the “new” (5) was most likely to present itself in.
YOU thus presents to the audience an impressive complexity of thought without ever compromising its readability and/or aesthetic stability.
To come back to one of the only constant subjects, the phrase: You do it, we don’t have time. Though funny when first mentioned, through repetition this phrase is turned into presentation of paradox and a question.
The paradox: After sounding like a joke, the repetition of You do it, we don’t have time. starts reminding one of a phrase a child would pick up, and then repeat endless amount of times, without ever knowing what it means. Which is an entertaining thought until you ask yourself – where did Lisa and Kim hear this phrase and how many times must they have heard it before they started to repeat it. Is it a phrase that frequently came up in conversations with their producer, one who would want to get rid of his responsibilities by placing them on the artist? Not too hard to imagine, if you think about it. Now, the tormented artist stands before his/hers audience and continues “the line of violence”, transferring the frustration given to them onto the next one in line.
Naturally, the fact that I make this phrase about relationships of responsibility in making artistic work only shows how present this question is in a maker’s mind. Kim and Lisa confirm their interest in the subject in their third segment, the one focused on the failure. And though they don’t bring news to the discourse, (new as in a brilliant solution that will help change the world and actually solve the problem) they handle the question with great skill: never solving the problem but happily and simply presenting it in all its glory.
What is exciting about their approach is the fact that they are working in an environment in which they have already blurred the boundary between “the maker” and “the watcher”. Pointing to the fact that responsibility is “up in the air” and that, parallel to that there exists a problem makes the problem as far removed from them as it is removed from us…
YOU essentially creates a performance that exists only when nobody is responsible for it. Only when responsibility is “up in the air” and everyone is equally far from “the point of origin”, “the source” and “the problem” – then the space is free and for something (4) to happen.
YOU is a very well crafted/choreographed piece of contemporary theatre. Its presence in the realm of dance one shouldn’t question, though it clearly does not show interest in developing the physical. Rather, choreography is put to use to organise props and concepts, feelings and impacts in such a way in which an untrained eye might experience nothing but feelings of excitement, pleasure combined with intellectual stimuli.
The complexity of what is proposed by Lisa and Kim leaves no one unhappy, for there is enough detail present for various levels of interaction or interest. Having said that, YOU is definitely an audience friendly work that might be a good starting point to those who do not see much of what is offered in “smaller scale” or “young” theatrical environments. It deals with both questions of how to make and what to do once something has been made.
All in all – a very good start of the season.!
1 REVIEW, noun: (1) a formal assessment of something with the intention of instituting change if necessary: a comprehensive review of UK defence policy; (2) a critical appraisal of a book, play, film, etc. published in a newspaper of magazine: she released her debut solo album to rave reviews; (3) a ceremonial display and formal inspection of military or naval forces, typically by a sovereign or commander-in-chief; (4) a facility for playing a tape recording during a fast wind or rewind, so that it can be stopped at a particular point – Oxford Dictionary Online
2 taken from MDT’s web. link
3 a note on “young” theatre: the term young was or is mostly used in the context of a young author, one that has recently left school, is not “established” yet or has only recently started to make work. it could be that till that point the person was strictly a performer or an artist dealing with a different medium. i think, and do correct me if i’m wrong, that the adjective itself was used by producers and publishers to warn the audience that there is risk implied in going to see the work of a young author, a risk of “no experience”, which would show itself through, lets say, aesthetic clumsiness (which is not to be mistaken with amateurism). “s/he is a young artist and is still looking to find hers/his voice” or “realise hers/his potential”.
nowadays, though, these qualities, that were once specific to young author’s work whose potential was “not fully realised yet” (think of vertical hierarchies), are qualities that could be found in many artists’ work. some artists that are mature, sometimes even old, and with decades of experience to support their name are prone to leaving that clumsiness present in the final versions of their work; for it’s that clumsiness that often proves to be the space of misunderstanding, the presence of which can enrich the potential to communication by releasing the stress some works put on the audience. the stress i am thinking of is the expectation to understand correctly, present in some experimental but hermetic work that shows a strong tendency towards abstraction that leaves no room for variation in interpretation.
4 a note on “the dialogue”: at this point i couldn’t specify what would the term “the dialogue” stand for. at times it seems as if talking to your audience member is as rewarding for the word as “knowing” that your audience member “had an experience”. as a maker and a performer, i understand so many ways of exchange as productive and should maybe write a special text to elaborate on that.
5 a note on the “new” and “something”: these words stand proudly describing awkward places where communication! might occur. unlike presenting elements that trigger in the spectator the process of understanding, awkward places for communication might trigger misunderstanding, confusion or nothing – which could result in the unexpected. not that unexpected might not happen at any other time in process of understanding…
dancers writing 