Brown, A

English

Nottingham Trent Institutional Repository (IRep)

Moving in mysterious ways

,osr22 DANCE TH EATRE JOURNALMOVING IN MYSTERIOUS WAYSAndrew Brown encounters dance in many guises at NOn Dance 2003What kind of dan ce fest ival is it that incl ud es afilm about a sculp to r? Or in wh ich one of thepieces is eccessed via the telephone? Or wherenot one but two sho ws feature performers whoremain seated almost thr oughout? Non Dan ce isthat festival and th is year seems to have finallyo utg rown the need to justify itself. The questionfirmly st ressed in the p ublic ity surrounding th isyear 's event was: 'W here can you find dan ce?'Dance was du ly found and enjoyed in a multitudeof forms.Nottingham has be come alm ost bl ase about hav-ing a dan ce festival in which dan ce barely puts inan appearance, and the European arti stic co mmu-nity has a high regard for NOn Dance . Thatexperimentation can be carried out so openly andstill attract significant and motivated audiences is amystery to many, but is in reality no great secret.Determined programming against the grain and14 years of audience development have reapedtheir own reward.A particularly inspired piece of programming sawthe film Rivers and Tides receive its English pre-miere to one of the largest audiences at the festi-val. Andy Goldsworthy is a widely respected sculp-tor who recreates, almost obsessively, natural formsin the landscape using materials dose to hand.On seeing the film Ifound myself unable to fath-om why has it taken so long for Goldsworthy towork with a film-maker. He has always photo-graphed his work in order to document what hehas done and to approach it from a different per-spective. Encounters with his work are generallythrough such photographs in book form.However, through this film it becomes apparentthat still images, even those that seem to conveya strong sense of the work, are limited in theirability to communicate what Goldsworthy is reallyabout. Film is able to reveal not only movementbut also the decay and transience that are pivotalto Goldsworthy's take on art and life. Skilful useof the movie camera allows for unlikely anglesand heightens the impact of works such as thewall sculpture in New York State that, filmed froma helicopter, weaves in and out of individual treesbefore disappearing into a lake and reappearingout the other side. Of course the filmic mediumtoo has its limitations that would very likely beexposed by an encounter with the actual workin situ.The film follows Goldsworthy through a number ofprojects, including some near his own home inScotland. Director Thomas Riedelsheirner allowsthe artist to speak for himself and provides us withwhat appears to be an honest and intimate por-trait of a man whom one suspects is not at hismost comfortable as the centre of attention.Goldsworthy comes across as highly driven yetsolitary, at his most content interacting with thenatural environment. He lives a philosophy ofrespect for the natural world, leaving an imprintthat is temporary and enigmatic, His process isthoughtful, instinctive and improvised.DANCE THEATRE JOURNAL 23Some of the most memorable sequences in thefilm occur when fragile structures collapse or arereclaimed by the tide or other natural processes.Structures taken to the edge of collapse reveal a,great deal about themselves and the fabric ofwhich they are comprised. The artist conducts adialogue with his materials, working with barehands despite the harsh elements, and in doing so. explores balance, interconnectedness, and the'laws' of nature.Goldsworthy's works are fundamentally about themovement of form through time and space, mark-ers of a journey and ultimately of a life. They couldbe viewed as a more thoughtful version of themarks carved into trees and stone at importantlandmarks and ultimately in marker pen and spraypaint on urban walls and public transport.One of the most effective scenes in the film is ofGoldsworthy lying inert on his back on a Scottishroad during a shower of rain.~After receiving athorough soaking he simply stands up to revealthe dry shape of a man on the road.Miguel Pereira's 8th May 2003, lakeside arts centrewas based upon the premise that by revealingwhat is not supposed to be seen we can reachanother level of understanding. A legitimate aimwhich has preoccupied many great thinkers andartists over the last 100 years or so. We were prom-ised a glimpse of the backstage world and collec-tively hoped for revelation. However real life israrely so gripping and tends towards the banal.Which is exactly what was explored, somewhatbravely, in this piece.There is an assumption around time-based media,such as performance, that artists will take libertieswith time in order to make their point more effec-tively. Pereira broke the rules by not only omittingto include any recognisable 'dance' (clearly not aproblem at this particular festival), but also byrefusing to compress the action. Thus a perform-ance about banality, born of a desire to reflect theemptiness the choreographer felt towards his workand the environment, was in itself banal.The three performers, including Pereira, initiallyappeared onstage as though receiving post-showapplause, convincing patches of sweat on their24 DANCE THEATRE JOURNALshirts. They gravitated to chairs centre stage andproceeded to converse about their health, holidaysand the diverse uses of Coca Cola, working from ascript in both English and Portuguese that commu-nicated a universal banality. Unrelenting small talkwas punctuated by a round of dressing andundressing and fiddling around with supermarketplastic bags containing food and drink. The tediumof the dancer's life was laid bare. However this wasas nothing compared to the bleak vision of themute technician, whose futile industry, seeminglylocated in a parallel universe to the performers,took on the aspect of a latter day Sisyphus.Deja Donne returned for its third successive yearat Non Dance, this time as festival artists in resi-dence. Thus instead of showing a finished piece tofollow the acclaimed In Bella Copia and AriaSpinta, the company presented a work in progressand provided a welcome insight into their process.During the post-show discussion the company alsorevealed living through an all too common situa-tion, in which the struggle for recognition andexternal funding caused them to lose touch withthemselves. Deja Donne has come through the cri-sis with a renewed belief in their method of work,with a desire to go deeper and become more intu-itive. There Where We Were is envisaged as a tran-sitional piece in which the company's artists revisitoriginal questions, concerns and research and dis-cover new approaches towards them. The piece isset to premiere in August 2003.Confession Time by Norwegian company ZeroVisibility Corp was an attempt to confront theintegrity of modern-day confessional culture.Although there was some particularly pleasingmovement in the piece, the style was deeply root-ed in the tradition of devised experimental theatrepioneers Forced Entertainment. The scenario wasof a group of people who, finding themselvesthrown together in an isolated location, use strate-gic confession in order to gain the upper hand.Using diverse text sources such as Blade Runner,dailyconfession.com and Amok Journal, each per-former took their character through the process ofrevelation. These declarations were undermined bycompulsive behaviours, frequently of a sexualnature. Unfortunately much of what was said waslost due to heavy Norwegian accents or was lostbeneath Zoviet "France's sound palette.Some of the most effective language was in theform of a text message description of the originaljourney the company made to their retreat on aremote lighthouse. It managed to cut straight to theheart of the matter and yet also left a great deal tothe imagination. Zoviet "France's live music wasanother strength, forcing sound into the conscious-ness and creating an energy that filled the spaceand gave an edge to the performer's behaviour.The inconspicuous ending was intended to fore-stall a sense of closure and presumably to take theshow home with us. Unfortunately the mentalimages and moral issues failed to linger in thememory for much longer than the applause.Beck & Vincenzi have been exploring the ways inwhich work can be presented for several years.Their latest episode is a piece of dance mediatedby a taped transcription and the audience mem-ber's own telephone handset, continuing thetheme of invisibility that runs through their work.invisible dances.,.from afar rejects the ubiquitousvideo image and offers instead a throwback to theearly days of wireless. Old technology perhaps,but no less effective in its own way.You have dialed a number on your tele-phone. Listen. Listen hard. It is a woman in anempty theatre watching a show being per-formed to the dead. You'll hear a voicethrough the roar of the sound onstage.Listen. She is trying to tell you what it is liketo be there. She is trying to get through.The show apparently featured six dancers and waswitnessed by a handful of people in a 'dark' WestEnd theatre, one of whom can be heard on thelengthy answerphone message. Her voice ishushed as though eavesdropping and competeswith background noise that resembles an industrialplant, but is in fact the amplified body sounds ofthe performers. She is compelled to keep talking,aware that if she stops the piece will disappear.The experience has the intimate feel of a latenight radio play or listening to a friend recountinga traumatic event on the other end of a telephoneline.It is hard to create any meaningful sense of thestage show from what is heard, but then again howDA NCE THEATRE JO URN AL 2Softe n have people's avid de scription s o f the per-forman ce/film/exhib it ion they have ju st seen failedto convey anything o f the work? W hat one cangl ean is that the sho w sounds d ist inctly odd, withveiled figu res. someti mes co mp lete ly naked,engaged in high ly phy sical activity. At one pointthe witness asks whe ther it is she or the listenerwho br ings the meaning to the p iece. Her falter ingreflections on her own role alongside the breath-less description s make for a co mpelling work .Jonath an Burrows and Matteo Fargion 's 80thSitting Due t owed much to the musician's art . Thepair strode purposefu lly into the Boningt on Galleryand sat dow n on two wooden chai rs as thoughabout to perform a recita l. Two A4 no tebooks wereset at their feet . one containing musical notation ,the other a co mbi nation of te xt and symbols. Theaudience were hushed and senses heightened inthe reson ant space. Previously Farg ion has co m-posed music for Burrows's dance p ieces and th iswas an attempt, in the spi rit of true co llaboration,to work in an area that did no t obviously favoure ither one.Dur ing the devising phase many d ifferent textshad been brou ght in but the inspi rationa l poi ntappa rently came when Morton Feldman'svio lin/p iano duet enti tled For John Cage wasselected as a 'found p rocess'. Using the score sim-p ly removed some of the decision -makinq and leftthe du o free to co nstruct the sequ ence o f upperbody cho reog raphy, This m igh t sound like a dryintellectual exercise but was anything bu t . Itexplored co unterpoint. the rela tionship betweenmusic and dance and t he re lat ionsh ip be tween t hetwo men in terms t hat were vigorous and human .Diverse sounds were produced in the course of theperformance but were not born o f a del iberateatt emp t to make music with their bodies. Howeverthe feeling pe rsisted that we were expe riencing ap iece o f mu sic, t ranscribed into another form.Aher some minute s o f intricate movement, hand -claps suddenly exploded in the still air and from thispoint the mu sicality of th e piece was foregrounded.The sudden end ing was me t by warm appla use.O uesnon s ab ounded, part icu larly in th e post -showd iscussio ns and late bar co nversations during th efest ival. W hether da nce is to be fou nd on theo ther end of a telephone or in th e way a leaf snakeis carri ed downstre am by t he curren t, what mattersis th at arti sts have a context in whi ch to exploretheir urges and the rest o f us have a chance toenga ge with this process.Andrew Brown lectures et Nott inghoilm Trust Unive rsity. is m" n·"ge r 01 e. pe rimen tlll t heatre com p<llny Reckl,"s Slee pe rs.writes for is va riety 01 "rt -rel;rted pub lica tions lInd performswith the music/ film out fit left H"nd Right H" nd ,

Moving in mysterious ways

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