i was sitting right in the middle of the front row
thinking about what a weird audience we had to be
would Cristina Blanco notice Dora was watching the piece
while listening to her Ipod?
how far was Ana prepared to go with being a pain in the ass, annoying the public?
in fact the situation was completely absurd!
 

 We know that all dance forms –be they Western or not– reflect the society within which they are developed. Differences exist in bodies, in cultures, in thinking. But the critical appreciation may remain the same. While writing on stage performances of “dance”, no matter if ballet, folk, or contemporary, there are common elements. Similarly, the different genres follow similar basic staging tools.

 During the working sessions of Critical Endeavour, several invited experts shared their professional experience with the participants. Some of them proposed to work on exercises, such as „Write a review without adjectivation“ or „Write a statement on a show in 20 minutes“. The following are examples for task two: Twenty minutes for one paragraph

During the working sessions of Critical Endeavour, several invited experts shared their professional experience with the particpants. Some of them proposed to work on exercises, such as „Write a review without adjectivation“ or „Write a statement on a show in 20 minutes“. the following are examples for task one: no adjectivation

First let me say something general about the various talks taking place at the project space- Kunsthalle Wien, during this festival.

The fact that they are happening is great. No matter what the topic of the day is.

It’s a fantastic opportunity to meet people in an intense and time limited frame, where everyones voice can be heard. 

 

Moravia Naranjo is a Vienna-based, Venezuelan-born choreographer, who will be presenting her latest work 'skin, voice and memories of someone else...' as part of ImPulsTanz on 5-8 August.

 Gasping. Smoke. Flashing lights. The first moments of Wim Vandkeybus’ and Ultima Vez’s piece “Menske” look (and sound) like a schizophrenic interrogation and desperate attempt to remember something. Perhaps to remember a strange place, a strange city full of black, plastic garbage bags, dead wires, inhabited by extroverted citizens and their fears, their thoughts, their movements. Is it difficult to imagine a town inhabited by fears and paranoid thought? A town from where not easy to get out? It is, but it does exist in atmosphere and it exists choreographically, visually in the performing hall of Tanzquartier di Vienna

“Menske” by Ultima Vez
Trash bags full of tears

These silly little human beings. Always sleepless and not taking a moment to rest. Everyone is trying hard to climb up the same ladder to be on the top and to gain, what? Life is running fast. Thinking about motivation is a luxury that these creatures do not have. Instead, they chase the others with fog machines, kill each other with pointed feet or throw around rubbish sacks which are attached to steel wires. In it’s new piece “Menske”, Ultima Vez seems to want to tell us, that the stage is a spider web where everyone needs to act strong and selfish in order to not be eaten...

Why show the world as an even more superficial place? Especially when you have all the creative power in your hands to make something different. It all starts with the end of the world, a blinking cold neon-light and a small human-being, a „Menske“ as in the title of Wim Vandekeybus latest piece, offering a lot of half-poetic phrases of destruction. This time Vandekeybus Ultima Vez ensemble consists of actors and dancers alike, text and languages taking up more time and space.

 

Gala Abend at the Burgtheater. In William Forsythes Steptext Ekaterina Kondaurova, Anton Pimonow, Michail Lobuchin and Islom Baimuradow dance to Partita Nr. 2 BWV1004 in d-Moll by Johann Sebastian Bach.

 

Burgtheater. First break. Mmmm, I want to go, but I force myself to stay. We had two okay pieces by Forsythe but what was this weird Preljocaj doing in between?

 “I can’t sleep.” Monotonously one female dancer repeats this sentence, trying to escape into relaxing dreams. She fails. Instead of finding recreation she rolls her body on the ground, restless, somehow desperate.

 Menske the newest creation by the Belgian choreographer Vandekeybus has revealed a physical dance theatre which fusing action and dynamism last Monday at Impulstanz.

Improper urban planning? Alienation of the individual living in the city? Isolation? Subordination of women? High competition in the environment of global capitalism? Meaningless wars in the name of “democracy”? Madness as a reaction to all that? In any case, we can say that “universally applicable values” loose their meaning everywhere, but not that they aren’t “applied” equally.

Some catchwords and topics that emerged during the first and second day discussion within the group, concerning ciritcal practice and writing strategies.

As an observer of these discussions, organised by Tiago Bartolomeu Costa, I noted them as possible headlines for future meetings, or conferences to set up:

"How to solve the problems we have ourselves created ?"

Critical Fiction

"The text is always a monster."

Chasing the Metaphor

"half-poetic phrases of destruction"

 A man climbs in a huge lamp post to switch on the light. The symbolic figure of the lamplighter used to be a surveiling figure, checking out the streets during the night, but in this context his primary task is to 'unveil'. He shows the truth that is hidden in the shade. The scenery of Menske depicts a dumping ground on the outskirts of a city. It's a forgotten spot, neglected by power and covered by graffiti, a space of possibility and criticism – the space art often pretends to occupy. In Menske Wim Vandekeybus seems to take some distance from the virtuoso feats of physical strength with which he became famous. His most recent piece can be read as a dark political narrative in which the unfinished and the raw comes to the fore.

 

"A thought cannot be caught," says one character in Wim Vandekeybus' Menske, and Vandekeybus' audience must know what he means. Thoughts, ideas, images and words come streaming from the stage, in fragments and glimpses, as if the director has cast his net through the scene and swept up individual moments and details while the rest slip away through the holes.