Features
Extract from: Afterwords - performing the instantaneous,
displacing criticism
displacing criticism
The set-up of Afterwords is easy to describe. Throughout the festival ImPulsTanz 2002, critics in residence share their impressions and thoughts on the performances, and this immediately after having seen them, in an act of instantaneous writing. Every night three laptops are available in the theatre for an international critic (Jeroen Peeters), a local critic (alternating Lisa-Maria Cerha, Nicole Haitzinger and Martina Huber) and one guest sitting in, mostly an artist from within the festival (choreographers, dancers and teachers). During the process of writing these comments are projected in the theatre lobby and later that night also available on the websites http://www.impulstanz.com and http://derstandard.at.
How concise Afterwords might occur in these few lines, its effervescence in a particular context moves it far beyond the instant, releasing a nebula of questions and reflections. What follows is an attempt to twine a few threads out of my personal experiences during the project.
Criticism fostering proximity?
Scintillating afterimages on the retina. Resonance’s of a performance in one’s head. Reflections crystallizing. Right after a performance, one bursts with a heightened perception, eager for being externalized, uttered in language. Though words are always coming afterwards, they seek to stay close to these initial impressions and thoughts, even close to the movements themselves. Why not looking for a criticism fostering this immediacy, the proximity of a performance?
This question I formulated as an issue before the project took off. Indeed, writing ‘fifteen lines in fifteen minutes’ doesn’t leave a broad temporal gap and speeds up the writing to an almost performative extent, as if it seeks to arrive to proximity by imitating the very act of performing, or even by performing itself. On the other hand writing leaves logically speaking a gap, for words are always coming afterwards, reflection and language are nachträgtich, the event is gone when they arrive. I’d say that criticism lives by this paradox of proximity, unlike theory, which wallows itself in the comfort of distance, and unlike art or performance, which seeks to embrace the event (looking for discomfort?). Incessantly back and forth between event and language, criticism proposes choreographic figures in writing, to make the visible readable and the readable ‘eventful’.
Does the temporal proximity in Afterwords enhance a critical proximity as such? I have my doubts, the thoughts uttered are necessarily only these which emerge already in a verbal structure (to speak with Ludwig Wittgenstein), but moreover one easily falls back upon known ideas, reflections, formulations etc. one developed before. Compare it with a dance improvisation (another common paradox): the ‘event’ is mostly not guaranteed by a merely instantaneous initiation, but achieved through a long process of preparation and rehearsal. Nevertheless, the participants to Afterwords are trained writers, able to perform a critical event in writing. And still, writing the texts in a quick tempo leaves traces in sloppy formulations and unaccomplished fragments, giving Afterwords indeed an accidental fashion – but is this what we are after? Thus the question is: how does the fact of writing on the spot affect criticism and perhaps even displace certain well-known tools and structures?
Displacing structures
The particular format of presentation utilized by Afterwords, namely its live projection in the lobby, paves the way for a different writing. Not only does one have a clear idea about the audience one is writing for, the shared background allows to transform the traditional structure of criticism: one can omit description, for all these people have seen the performance – although one could argue that a trained eye might see more and describe differently. One can omit evaluation, for the spectators know mostly whether they ‘like it or not’ – although one could also argue that a personal and a critical evaluation have different presuppositions. Rests analysis, which often drew my attention while writing Afterwords, and functioned as a means to address the readers/spectators directly.
Remark that the direct dialogue between writer and reader is also to be taken literally: the texts appear on the screens while growing, so they appear in the first place as a process of writing. An aspect of the project which was for many readers highly fascinating: formulations emerging, words being crossed out and amended… – as if the readers could look into someone’s brain, oh phantasm!
Supposed that the spectators leave the performance with some impressions, thoughts and so on, the question for the writer is how to propose a certain reflection (analysis) that might interfere with it? And moreover: a reflection that could possibly enhance the perception of these spectators and function as a tool which enables them to articulate their own questions in a more precise and profound way. A reflection ‘to take in and then take off’ – to formulate it as a motto. Several people told me Afterwords actually succeeded often in this – in the words of a reader: “I really like the dryness of your writing (in the sense of not sticky) and how ‘unexerted’ or calm or cool or what’s the word I mean something like gelassen your thoughts take a way, one or more, not forcing to say everything about all. Leaving space.”
Jeroen Peeters, August 5-6, 2002
Project Coordinator Afterwords
ImPulsTanz
Vienna International Dance Festival
How concise Afterwords might occur in these few lines, its effervescence in a particular context moves it far beyond the instant, releasing a nebula of questions and reflections. What follows is an attempt to twine a few threads out of my personal experiences during the project.
Criticism fostering proximity?
Scintillating afterimages on the retina. Resonance’s of a performance in one’s head. Reflections crystallizing. Right after a performance, one bursts with a heightened perception, eager for being externalized, uttered in language. Though words are always coming afterwards, they seek to stay close to these initial impressions and thoughts, even close to the movements themselves. Why not looking for a criticism fostering this immediacy, the proximity of a performance?
This question I formulated as an issue before the project took off. Indeed, writing ‘fifteen lines in fifteen minutes’ doesn’t leave a broad temporal gap and speeds up the writing to an almost performative extent, as if it seeks to arrive to proximity by imitating the very act of performing, or even by performing itself. On the other hand writing leaves logically speaking a gap, for words are always coming afterwards, reflection and language are nachträgtich, the event is gone when they arrive. I’d say that criticism lives by this paradox of proximity, unlike theory, which wallows itself in the comfort of distance, and unlike art or performance, which seeks to embrace the event (looking for discomfort?). Incessantly back and forth between event and language, criticism proposes choreographic figures in writing, to make the visible readable and the readable ‘eventful’.
Does the temporal proximity in Afterwords enhance a critical proximity as such? I have my doubts, the thoughts uttered are necessarily only these which emerge already in a verbal structure (to speak with Ludwig Wittgenstein), but moreover one easily falls back upon known ideas, reflections, formulations etc. one developed before. Compare it with a dance improvisation (another common paradox): the ‘event’ is mostly not guaranteed by a merely instantaneous initiation, but achieved through a long process of preparation and rehearsal. Nevertheless, the participants to Afterwords are trained writers, able to perform a critical event in writing. And still, writing the texts in a quick tempo leaves traces in sloppy formulations and unaccomplished fragments, giving Afterwords indeed an accidental fashion – but is this what we are after? Thus the question is: how does the fact of writing on the spot affect criticism and perhaps even displace certain well-known tools and structures?
Displacing structures
The particular format of presentation utilized by Afterwords, namely its live projection in the lobby, paves the way for a different writing. Not only does one have a clear idea about the audience one is writing for, the shared background allows to transform the traditional structure of criticism: one can omit description, for all these people have seen the performance – although one could argue that a trained eye might see more and describe differently. One can omit evaluation, for the spectators know mostly whether they ‘like it or not’ – although one could also argue that a personal and a critical evaluation have different presuppositions. Rests analysis, which often drew my attention while writing Afterwords, and functioned as a means to address the readers/spectators directly.
Remark that the direct dialogue between writer and reader is also to be taken literally: the texts appear on the screens while growing, so they appear in the first place as a process of writing. An aspect of the project which was for many readers highly fascinating: formulations emerging, words being crossed out and amended… – as if the readers could look into someone’s brain, oh phantasm!
Supposed that the spectators leave the performance with some impressions, thoughts and so on, the question for the writer is how to propose a certain reflection (analysis) that might interfere with it? And moreover: a reflection that could possibly enhance the perception of these spectators and function as a tool which enables them to articulate their own questions in a more precise and profound way. A reflection ‘to take in and then take off’ – to formulate it as a motto. Several people told me Afterwords actually succeeded often in this – in the words of a reader: “I really like the dryness of your writing (in the sense of not sticky) and how ‘unexerted’ or calm or cool or what’s the word I mean something like gelassen your thoughts take a way, one or more, not forcing to say everything about all. Leaving space.”
Jeroen Peeters, August 5-6, 2002
Project Coordinator Afterwords
ImPulsTanz
Vienna International Dance Festival