Ligia Manuela Lewis / Sensation 1. – Conviction Series

Sensation 1. was performed in MU Theatre on the last day of L1dancefest 2012, September 23^rd. In my opinion, it was one of the most meaningful performances in the programme of the event series. After the performance, an expression was born in my mind, which I think can express what the piece was about: it was like a kinetic painting of a ‘vocal desert’.

A woman standing on the stage, naked, locked within herself, tense with repressed musical notes, performing the tragedy of muteness. All of her muscle fibres and joints shivering with the voice that was broken into her body. Even though she is naked and exposed, she is standing firmly on her feet, her limbs, her stomach, her chest and her fists are tense. 

Singing with her face and her body, the artist is performing a physical aria in a series of poses, the transition between which is slow, delicate, fluid, liquid. One time she is standing in a pose of surrender; later, broken by the weight of voicelessness, she changes to a sort of Terminator-pose. Standing rooted to the spot, her facial expressions reach up into an ethereal highness of invisible musicality; it is like she is torn between our world and another world from which only she can hear the music.

This brings me to the main question that bothered me throughout the piece: is she really the one who is mute? Or is the audience deaf? Is it her who cannot convey the voice developing in her throat, or are we incapable of receiving her message, of tuning in to her frequency?

The tension is intensifying throughout the piece, but there is still not a single note that leaves the lips of the performer, even saliva comes sooner than sound. 

Then, at the end, we can hear music playing, and, at the same time, the space is darkening. The piece reaches its climax, we can hear the well-known chorus of “I will always love you” by Whitney Houston. However, by this time the stage is completely dark, there is no singer to be seen, only her voice to be heard, which is greeted with thunderous applause.

How tragic, isn’t it? We want the artist to be heard, we want her to sing for us, we want her voice to be ours, even if it costs the life of the source. We celebrate the apocalypse of this sound of no light, of the end of voicelessness, not realizing the tragedy of the singer: that she would rather evaporate than lock her beautiful voice away from the audience. That she would rather continue her journey in this vocal desert than deprive us of a single drop of water coming from her musical oasis.

Cie József Trefeli / Jinx 103

Two dancers and one roll of barrier tape; that is all Jinx 103 needed to amaze me. The simplicity, the dynamics, the playfulness, which was somehow maintained with dead serious tools, the atmosphere; all of this contributed to the birth of an astonishing performance.

Photo by KNI - http://kni7.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/l1dancefest-2012-09-19/#

The piece started out with the two dancers, József Trefeli and Gábor Varga chanting a Hungarian nursery rhyme and using a roll of barrier tape to create evanescent, ephemeral sculptures. These postures are held out for no more than a couple of seconds and then followed by another one. The tape falls helplessly to the floor, having completed its artistic mission. It might be interesting to note, though, the pejorative meaning of this. Barrier tape is usually used to, for instance, keep ordinary citizens out of a dangerous territory, such as a crime scene, or some major construction site. And somehow this function of the prop is realized, too; after this series of tape-sculptures, the two performers create a circle on the stage, they mark their territory, shutting the audience out, excluding them from the playground which also happens to be a fighting arena, even if the duel taking place in the ring is a playful one, reminding one of a teasing display of power. 

The nursery rhyme itself is also a ghost of childhood, and just like the fact (at least for me) that the performers let this tape-tures fall on the floor without any regret, there is no compulsive clinging to the past; letting go is a matter of attitude, not a matter of fear.

The nursery rhyme goes as follows: “Egyedem-begyedem tengertánc, Hajdú sógor mit kívánsz? Nem kívánok egyebet, csak egy szelet kenyeret.” The second part of the rhyme is worth some emphasis: “I do not want anything else, just a slice of bread.” In Hungarian, if you break bread with somebody, it means that you are becoming friends. It suggests simplicity and a kind of ritual, just like the whole choreography. Furthermore, the word “sea-dance” in the first line also somehow reminds me of the belonging, the vibration shared by the performers, and the co-dependency appearing in the structure of movements.

Photo by KNI - http://kni7.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/l1dancefest-2012-09-19/#

The choreography was created in the spirit of the title; when two persons say something at the same time by accident, in English you say “Jinx” and in Hungarian you say “103”. The only difference is that in Jinx 103 these meeting points are intentional: one of the dancers starts a dance pattern and the other follows, so the dance movements include both identical and contrastive segments. The choreography abounds in traditional Hungarian folk dance steps, and a part of the music is also of Hungarian folk music. The energy of folk dance is perfect for this function of playfulness: it is loud from all the clappings, it is dynamic thanks to the kicks, and it requires undivided attention from the dancers to synchronise the movements. It suggests concordance and equality.

The battle appearing in this dancing ring is only a teasing one, as if the steps of one performer asked the other, “what will you do now? Will you follow me? Can you keep the tempo?” This joyful dual is supported by the dancers keeping almost continous eye contact with each other, the audience functions only as a group of witnesses for the scene of playful teasing. Using Hungarian heritage and joint meeting points, the performers create something that is serious and childish, ancient and modern, entertaining and thought-provoking at the same time.

I honestly hope it was not the first and last time I saw the performance.

Photo by KNI - http://kni7.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/l1dancefest-2012-09-19/#

You can also read this critique on the blog of l1dancefest: http://l1dancefestival.blogspot.hu/2012/10/written-thoughts-by-adrienn-pasztoy1st.html
See other photos of this and other performances of L1dancefest on the Kővágó Nagy Imre's website: http://kni7.wordpress.com

The full performance can be watched on Youtube, part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcB0ktUhdkQ

part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4xNKle1Udk

Enjoy! :)

Christine Borch / The body that comes

All of us have a body. Some of us are more aware of it, some less. Some are more conscious about the external factors influencing their bodily presence, some less. Some rebel, some fight – with, against, or inside their body, some do not. We could reason about which attitude is more profitable and rewarding, but to no avail – in the end we are all shackled by the same physical and socio-cultural pitfalls. None of us can deny the importance of our relationship to our bodies. We all have a body that comes. Or one that goes.

Or both, as Christine Borch’s The Body That Comes suggests: in this contemporary performance, the dancer experiments with her limits while wearing a heavy-looking, long, thick cord wrapped around her neck, hiding her face, making her breathe in a desperate and demanding way. Her movements, her posture, her airless lungs mirror how much exposed she is to the force of gravity: she is dragging her feet along the floor, hardly for a minute can she keep the vertical distance from the theatrical chasm of the floor, she can only walk slowly due to this weight, this chain of oppression. She places her body weight on her hips, making this dance of helplessness somehow feminine, sensual, inviting (which tiny aspect could be extended into its own socio-cultural study).

But what is this cord wound up around the performer’s neck? For the very simple fact that I am into literature and tend to consider myself a writer at times, I usually interpret dance pieces according to the contextuality, the hidden meanings, the metaphors they convey for me. Thereby, my associations might not have much to do with the artist’s original intentions, with what the dancer was displaying in her dance. Should my shamelessly diverging conclusion be of disgracing value to the very existence of contemporary dance – I’m sorry. My body (and mind) simply come in another way. They must be going backwards.

So the questions, the possible meanings I thought of regarding the issue of this cord-cage are the following: does it represent illusions? Self-perfeption? Misperceptions? Bodily misfunctions? Errors? Baggage? The body itself? Another body? The gap between two bodies, may they belong to the same owner or different ones?

After the performer gets rid of this extra weight, this all-consuming jewellery, she is trying to adjust to the new circumstances; like a newborn who has just left the security of the mother womb, she breathes harder, she stumbles, she strives to stand up. This dance of inconvertibility lets the audience see the beauty of body mechanism: the desperately working muscles, the dancing skin, the sweat shining from the inner fight (why the author is so attracted to this aspect of dance might be a subject of a completely different kind of piece of writing).

Despite the struggle to adapt to the new circumstances, the honesty of pulling herself up by her hair to show her face, the newly won freedom from the cord-cage, the dancer puts this extra piece of cloth back on her, as if this dragging force had grown onto her existence, as if she felt too naked without it. Can she not function without this? Is she a prisoner of pleasure-pain principle? Has she got used to this suffering to such an extent that she does not know how to live without it?

But my own Freudian mental twinge made me misread reality.

Of course I may have completely misinterpreted the ending. The most likely scenario is that the dancer herself indeed has two bodies, and the piece shows the transition between those two. The new one is stronger, it reacts to the heavy snake-cord in a different way. It is less destructible, less vulnerable, subjected to its environment to a lesser extent. It can’t be pushed down by outside forces, by mere objects of misconceptions. It is completely in control.

You can also read this critique of mine on the blog of L1dancefest: 

http://l1dancefestival.blogspot.hu/2012/09/written-thoughts-by-adrienn-pasztoy1st.html

Photos were from the website of Kővágó Nagy Imre: http://kni7.wordpress.com