Sunday, February 22, 2009

Again, deeper sensitivity

Last weekend I could attend and perform at the evening "Atat de Frageda..." [So tender] in memory of extraordinary Romanian producer and key-figure for the development of contemporary art and dance Gabriela Tudor, who I was informed was an instrumental figure to establish many organisations in Romania and abroad and to foster artistic development and creativity, partly also with her husband, choreographer and executive director Cosmin Manolescu, a.o. The Cultural Foundation "Proiect DCM". Manolescu and fellow-choreographers Florin Fieroiou and Andreea Capitanescu also presented works, together with music performances by Harry Tavitian & Jürg Solothurnmann, as well as music-duo AIEVEA.

What struck me about the evening, but especially the presented dances, was a very special blend of crisp rational clarity with deeply embodied sensitivity manifested in the dancers as well as the choreographies. Whether it would be Fieroiou's dreamlike atmosphere, presented with excellent clarity by dancer Carmen Cotofana to a haunting soundscape by Vlaicu Golcea, or the almost quotidian movement/dance poetry of Andreea Capitanescu, who performed her piece herself. Even with Manolescu's more theatrical and pop-culture oriented work, there was this undercurrent of sensitive understanding, which got its moments to appear and be manifested in the moment of performance. His dancers, Madalina Dan, Paul Cimpoeira, Eduard Gabia, and Mircea Chinea showed clarity as well as kinesthetic centeredness and multiplicity that could go many ways, from playing tennis to articulating diverse levels of tension and dramatically aware presentation and interaction with the audience (both Dan and Gabia also choreograph works of their own as well)

I really wish I'd see dance like this more often, also here in my home in the Netherlands, but was also told that this was a very select group of people, due to the relation of the evening being a memorial for Gabriela Tudor and her amazing pioneering work for the arts. I thought at some point that this sensorial centeredness and rational clarity could be something envisioned and prepared by the original members of the Judson Dance Theater in the 1960s. In fact seeing the two solos I was reminded of the film-registration I'd seen of Yvonne Rainer performing the phrase from Trio A, which I find to be very vulnerable and poetic, even if I'd suspect that Rainer herself would strongly disagree with such a reading.

It seems to me like such a positive move to more sensitivity, less hard-edge is a sign of growing maturity, especially against the backdrop of ever more commercialised, non-vulnerable, or just appearing-vulnerable art, which fails to meet the demands ("Use it [well] or loose it") and creates ever more poverty and stress that exacerbate the conditions even more, a waste-land, socially, ecologically, emotionally. (But maybe for a happier society that is finally matured to be more anarchistic on the outside, due to more sophisticated discipline by each of its members on the inside, as hinted at in Ursual K. LeGuinn's "The Disposessed") Then, somewhere in the middle of that, somewhere a beginning of a flower - but without water...

I find it is a rare quality to meet artists who dare to say yes to their very unique kind of sensitivity and work it successfully into performances. This experience has encouraged me to take my own moves into this direction more seriously and create more personally related work. I believe that in order to reach at a successful embodiment of such sensitivity, it is necessary to no just say yes to being vulnerable, less hard-edge and 'representative' but also strength and work to give the specific situation and conditions what is needed to bring the moment and energy across for witnessing audiences.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

New Killer Star

a song by David Bowie from 2003, for the vibes of a New New-Deal ...



See the great white scar
Over Battery Park
Then a flare glides over
But I won't look at that scar

Oh, my nuclear baby (One who spotted a star)
Oh, my idiot trance
All my idiot questions (Like the stars in your eyes)
Let's face the music and dance


Don't ever say I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready
I never said I'm better, I'm better, I'm better
Don't ever say I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready
I never said I'm better, I'm better, I'm better, I'm better than you

All the corners of the buildings
Who but we remember these?
The sidewalks and trees
I'm thinking now


I got a better way - I discovered a star
I got a better way - Ready, set, go
I got a better way - A new killer star
I got a better way - Ready, set, go

I got a better way - The stars in your eyes
I got a better way - Ready, set, go
I got a better way - I discovered a star
I got a better way - Ready, set, go


See my life in a comic
Like the way they did the Bible
With the bubbles and action
The little details in colour

First a horseback bomber (Who discovered a star)
Just a small thin chance
Like seeing Jesus on Dateline (Like the stars in your eyes)
Let's face the music and dance


You'll never say I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready
I never said I'm better, I'm better, I'm better
Don't ever say I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready
I never said I'm better, I'm better, I'm better, I'm better than you

All the corners of the buildings
Who but we remember these?
The sidewalks and trees
I'm thinking now


I got a better way - I discovered a star
I got a better way - Ready, set, go
I got a better way - A new killer star
I got a better way - Ready, set, go

I got a better way - The stars in your eyes
I got a better way - Ready, set, go
I got a better way - I discovered a star
I got a better way - Ready, set, go


Sunday, February 8, 2009

The Story of Stuff

A very actual example for problems that come up when a thought-system is incomplete but has very real consequences for the real world:
The Story of Stuff 20 minute video performed by Annie Leonard.

There are several versions with subtitles in different languages available here:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. >>> SENT BY JULI GABOR working on her new kinds of dance in Denmark...

What it has to do with (new) dance?
i think it's quite simple:
dance too has its (thought) patterns and ideologies that are given from the older generation to the younger generation. And here, too, those thought patterns can create very real problems when they get put to practice, but don't really match too well with the actual situation: for example, the number of professional dancers in classical ballet and its modern derivates, who continue to work with serious injuries and a high level of pain, even when they are still in their education, is staggeringly high according to much research. So much for one kind of thinking ruining natural resources (kinesthetically driven imagination being one of them...)
Q.E.D. ...

another is the expectation-pattern of the mainstream that the energies of life would have to be canned into specifiable and recognizable dance and dramaturgy / drama / scenography patterns, presumably with very finitely rehearsed, often pre-fab derived dance vocabulary.
a lot of life-energy is put into these mechanisms - what's left for the moment of performance? how lively is such a piece in performance? how much individuality or orginality can be revealed, at the risk of being non-understandable?

how come that dance forms where individualism is not seen as important except for a few stars (e.g. in showdance) fare so well economically by comparison? (not necessarily when it comes to the wages of the dancers who participate in these circles, again unless they get to be a shining individual)?

and what about the laboratories where alternative kinds of dance are being developed and promoted? how much can they work towards a different future, how much are they bound by current mind-patterns and needs that are often those very left-overs from the past?...

* addition Feb. 10th:
all this said, I believe all the in-between choreographers who partly conform to standardized expectations, but manage to bring in their own liveliness, can be of extraordinary value in this situation. how much effect does their input have and what will be short-term and long-term effects. how long will it be sustainable for them and at what price?

collaborativeness, again, seems to be the winning strategy over merely just separation and seclusion.