The Routledge Companion to Performance Practitioners [2, 1 ed.] 113895375X, 9781138953758

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THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO PERFORMANCE PRACTITIONERS

The Routledge Companion to Performance Practitioners collects the outstanding biographical and production overviews of key theatre practitioners frst featured in the popular Routledge Performance Practitioners series of guidebooks. Each of the chapters is written by an expert on a particular fgure, from Stanislavsky and Brecht to Laban and Decroux, and places their work in its social and historical context. Summaries and analyses of their key productions indicate how each practitioner’s theoretical approaches to performance and the performer were manifested in practice. All 22 practitioners from the original series are represented, with this volume covering those born after 1915. This is the defnitive frst step for students, scholars and practitioners hoping to acquaint themselves with the leading names in performance, or deepen their knowledge of these seminal fgures. Franc Chamberlain is Professor of Drama, Theatre and Performance at the University of Huddersfeld, UK and the series editor for Routledge Performance Practitioners. Bernadette Sweeney is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the School of Theatre & Dance at the University of Montana, USA and co-editor with Franc Chamberlain of the expanded Routledge Performance Practitioners series.

ROUTLEDGE THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE COMPANIONS

The Routledge Companion to Scenography Edited by Arnold Aronson The Routledge Companion to Adaptation Edited by Dennis Cutchins, Katja Krebs and Eckart Voigts The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance Edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario The Routledge Companion to Theatre, Performance and Cognitive Science Edited by Rick Kemp and Bruce McConachie The Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance Edited by Kathy A. Perkins, Sandra L. Richards, Renée Alexander Craft, and Thomas F. DeFrantz The Routledge Companion to Theatre of the Oppressed Edited by Kelly Howe, Julian Boal, and José Soeiro The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Politics Edited by Peter Eckersall and Helena Grehan The Routledge Companion to Dance Studies Edited by Helen Thomas and Stacey Prickett The Routledge Companion to Performance Practitioners Edited by Franc Chamberlain and Bernadette Sweeney The Routledge Companion to Performance Philosophy Edited by Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca and Alice Lagaay The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance Historiography Edited by Tracy Davis and Peter Marx

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/handbooks/products/ SCAR30

THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO PERFORMANCE PRACTITIONERS Volume Two

Edited by Franc Chamberlain and Bernadette Sweeney

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an in forma business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Franc Chamberlain and Bernadette Sweeney; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Franc Chamberlain and Bernadette Sweeney to be identifed as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Chamberlain, Franc, editor. | Sweeney, Bernadette, 1969- editor. Title: The Routledge companion to performance practitioners/edited by Franc Chamberlain and Bernadette Sweeney. Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2020. | Series: Routledge theatre and performance companions | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifers: LCCN 2019053698 Subjects: LCSH: Theatrical producers and directors – Biography. | Choreographers – Biography. | Theater – History. | Acting – History. | Dance – History. | Performance art – History. Classifcation: LCC PN2205 .R59 2020 | DDC 792.02/320922 [B] – dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019053698 Volume II: ISBN: 978-1-138-95375-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-66720-1 (ebk) Also available Volume I: ISBN: 978-0-367-41732-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-81599-8 (ebk) Set: ISBN: 978-0-367-90348-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-02798-0 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

For our families, those close by, those far away, and in memory of those who are no longer with us.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements List of contributors Introduction

ix x xii

11 Kantor (1915–1990) Noel Witts

1

11.1 Biography and context 11.2 Key performances

1 18

12 Halprin (1920–) Libby Worth and Helen Poynor

42

12.1 Life and work 12.2 The mountain perfor mances, Circle the Earth and The Planetary Dance 13 Lecoq (1921–1999) Simon Murray

42 72 107

13.1 The life of Jacques Lecoq 13.2 Traces of Jacques Lecoq: Théâtre de Complicité’s Street of Crocodiles and the work of Mummenschanz 14 Boal (1931–2009) Frances Babbage

107 129 150

14.1 Biography and context 14.2 Forum Theatre in production

150 170

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Contents

15 Grotowski (1933–1999) James Slowiak and Jairo Cuesta

194

15.1 Biography and context 15.2 Grotowski as director

194 226

16 Barba (1936–) Jane Turner

250

16.1 Building a ‘small tradition’ 16.2 A spectator’s view of Ego Faust

250 273

17 Mnouchkine (1939–) Judith G. Miller

295

17.1 Intellectual and artistic biography: nomad of the imagination 17.2 Four key productions: Mnouchkine’s “fanatically theatrical” 18 Bausch (1940–2009) Royd Climenhaga

295 310 334

18.1 An artistic and contextual history 18.2 Kontakthof in context 19 Wilson (1941–) Maria Shevtsova

334 356 375

19.1 A working life 19.2 Einstein on the Beach 19.3 Pushkin’s Fairy Tales

375 403 422

20 Abramović (1946–) Mary Richards

433

20.1 Biography and context 20.2 Key works

433 457

21 Lepage (1957–) Aleksandar Saša Dundjerović

487

21.1 Cultural and artistic biography: Robert Lepage in-between worlds 21.2 Performance text: The Dragons’ Trilogy Index

487 502 524

viii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Bernadette Sweeney: I would like to thank Franc Chamberlain for sharing this editing task with such grace and rigour. I would like to recognize the support of my colleagues at the University of Montana School of Theatre & Dance, most especially John DeBoer, Pamyla Stiehl, Mike Monsos and Erin McDaniel. I would like to thank my family Bryan, Ruby and Saoirse Sweeney Ferriter for their love and laughter, my siblings and my parents Mary and Ted Sweeney – their unfailing love, support and belief in education are gifts that I will always treasure. Franc and Bernadette would like to thank Ben Piggott, Kate Edwards Laura Soppelsa and Zoe Forbes at Routledge for their patience and support with this project.

ix

CONTRIBUTORS

Frances Babbage is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Shefeld. Franc Chamberlain is Professor of Drama, Theatre and Performance at the University of Huddersfeld UK and the Series Editor for Routledge Performance Practitioners. Royd Climenhaga currently teaches at Eugene Lang College/The New School University in New York City, and is the Editor of The Pina Bausch Sourcebook: The Making of Tanztheater. Jairo Cuesta is Co-artistic Director of New World Performance. Laboratory. He collaborated with Jerzy Grotowski on Theatre of Sources and the Objective Drama Program from 1976 to 1986. Aleksandar Sasa Dundjerović is Professor of Performing Arts at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and a professional theatre director with international experience. His books include: The Cinema of Robert Lepage: Poetics of Memory (2003), The Theatricality of Robert Lepage (2007), Brazilian Collaborative Theatre (2017) and Brazilian Performing Arts (2019). Judith G. Miller is Professor of French and Francophone Theatre in the Department of French Literature, Thought and Culture at New York University, New York, and Afliate Professor at New York University Abu Dhabi. Simon Murray is Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow. Helen Poynor is an independent movement artist specializing in environmental, site-specifc and autobiographical performance and cross art-form collaborations. She runs the Walk of Life Workshop and Training Programme. She is Visiting Professor of Performance at Coventry University, UK and a Registered Dance Movement Therapist. She and Libby Worth trained with Anna Halprin in the early 1980s. Mary Richards is Reader at Brunel University London, UK. She has written a number of papers and journal articles on performance and live art practices.

x

Contributors

Maria Shevtsova is Professor of Drama and Theatre Arts at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her books include Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance (2004), Fifty Key Theatre Directors (2005), Sociology of Theatre and Performance (2009), Directors/Directing: Conversations on Theatre (co-authored, 2009) and The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Directing (co-authored, 2013). All her books have been translated into multiple languages, and she is Co-editor of New Theatre Quarterly. James Slowiak is Professor of Theatre Arts at the University of Akron, USA and co-artistic director of New World Performance Laboratory. He assisted Jerzy Grotowski in the Objective Drama Program at the University of California-Irvine and in Italy from 1983 to 1989. Bernadette Sweeney is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the School of Theatre & Dance at the University of Montana, USA and Co-editor with Franc Chamberlain of the expanded Routledge Performance Practitioners series. Jane Turner is Principal Lecturer in the Department of Contemporary Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University. Noel Witts is Emeritus Professor of Performing Arts at Leeds Beckett University and a Professorial Fellow of Liverpool Hope University. He is co-author (with Mike Huxley) of The Twentieth Century Performance Reader, published by Routledge. Libby Worth is a movement practitioner focusing on collaborative art processes, performer training, and site-responsive performance. She is a Reader in Contemporary Performance Practices at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. She and Poynor trained with Anna Halprin in the early 1980s.

xi

INTRODUCTION Franc Chamberlain and Bernadette Sweeney

The Routledge Performance Practitioners series was conceived, at the end of the last century, as a series of handbooks on key fgures in twentieth-century performance practice, some of whom would, of course, be still practicing into the new century. Each volume aimed to provide a basic theoretical and practical grasp of the practitioner’s work and was structured around four major sections: (i) biography in social and artistic context, (ii) a summary and analysis of key writings, (iii) description and analysis of a key production or productions and (iv) practical exercises. Each of these sections was framed by some guiding questions that were designed to keep the focus on the contemporary relevance of the practitioner’s work. The aim was for the books to be useful in the studio and able to inform creative practice and for each volume to be written by a practitioner-academic, someone who was able to conduct the necessary scholarly research as well as having an understanding of how this material worked in practice. The working assumption was that someone who had an embodied understanding of a practitioner’s working practices would have a better grasp of how the more theoretical aspects of the work could be understood through practice – but that brings with it another set of problems (see below). Odd as it might seem, there wasn’t a series of short, introductory texts on key performance practitioners in English at the turn of the twenty-frst century. There was the excellent Directors in Perspective series from Cambridge University Press, but their emphasis was more of an historical rather than a practical one and so didn’t address the aim of being useful in the studio processes of making performances. The books in the Cambridge series may have been written about exercises and devising or compositional techniques, but they didn’t provide readers with material that they could try out in their own processes of performance making. The frst four volumes of the Routledge Performance Practitioners series appeared during 2003: Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Chekhov, and Lecoq. The volume on Michael Chekhov appeared in the autumn of 2003 but, as per the publisher’s normal convention, 2004 is the date on the copyright page. The publication of Mary Richards’ volume on Marina Abramović, the twenty-frst to appear, brought the frst iteration of the series to a close in 2010. In 2018 the twenty-one original books began to be reissued in bright new covers, some texts fully revised, and by mid2019 the complete set was available. In 2018 a decision was made to re-open the series and start commissioning new volumes and adjusting the focus to include the work of ensembles. The initial series proposal had conceptually embraced the inclusion of ensembles but Routledge’s decision at the time was to stay with individual fgures. There has been a growing interest in the xii

Introduction

work of ensembles in recent years, and the collection of essays and snapshots in the collection edited by Britton (2013) ofers a good grounding in the feld. The exclusion of ensembles from the frst twenty-one volumes of Performance Practitioners raises the question as to how the various practitioners were selected for inclusion. Given the explicit focus on performance practice and, perhaps more implicit emphases on processes of training and devising, it is not surprising that dramatists were ruled out. As the series was focused on key practitioners (indeed, the frst proposal referred to ‘Key Performance Practitioners’ as the series title) there was the notion that anyone who was proposed for inclusion would have a sufciently high profle within the curriculum of Higher Education Institutions in the UK and the US. Stanislavsky was an obvious person to include, perhaps too obvious, and there was no shortage of books on his work. Bella Merlin, who authored the volume on Stanislavsky in the series, had already published a very useful handbook before beginning work on her book for the series. Meyerhold, on the other hand, was a practitioner with high name recognition in the feld, but there was very little available that would provide an efective introduction to his practice in the studio. In addition to Stanislavsky and Meyerhold, the big names were easy to call to mind: Grotowski, Lecoq, Artaud, Brecht, Graham, Laban, Copeau, Abramović, Wilson, Boal, Bausch, Brook. Making a case for inclusion on the basis of their prominence in the feld, and consequently their marketability, was simple enough. From the very beginning of the commissioning process, it was clear that monographs would be sought on these luminaries. It is, of course, easy to argue that some of these fgures are more important than others or to suggest that some should be replaced. Is Wilson more important than Kantor? Or Mnouchkine? What about Lee Strasberg or Stella Adler? Or Rachel Rosenthal and Liz LeCompte? Don’t they belong in this company? Or Michael Chekhov? Shouldn’t he be included at the top table? And they are mostly male and, with the exception of Ohno and Hijikata, of European heritage. Where are the practitioners with disabilities? Aren’t they just as important? Deciding who the most important practitioners are depends on the position from which the evaluation is made. Is it possible to imagine the history of mime over the past century without paying attention to the work of Decroux? No, Decroux must fgure in any consideration of modern mime – but shouldn’t Suzanne Bing also be there? What about a history of American dance without Martha Graham? Or Katherine Dunham? Why not Tadashi Suzuki? The construction of a series such as Routledge Performance Practitioners provides material for these debates, but the debates themselves generate claims for the inclusion of other practitioners. The operational openness of the series (it was never intended to be a ‘Top 21’ but to continue growing) allows for the possibility of adaptation, of becoming more diverse as the feld changes. But, as a series published by a major company, attention always has to be paid to the relative marketability of a book. That doesn’t mean that only those already recognized as major fgures can be published, but that a volume on a minor fgure might need to be balanced by one on a major fgure. Sometimes the editors went in search of authors, and sometimes authors came with their own proposals; some proposals were so obscure or radical that it wasn’t possible to enact them at that particular point in time. Perhaps some of these fgures will be included in the new iteration of the series. Some of the major fgures mentioned above did not appear in the original series list: Lee Strasberg, Katherine Dunham, Peter Brook, Martha Graham, Suzanne Bing, Stella Adler, Rachel Rosenthal, Liz LeCompte, and Antonin Artaud. At some point these were all under consideration for inclusion, some were contracted but never completed, for others it proved xiii

Franc Chamberlain and Bernadette Sweeney

difcult to fnd someone either suitable or interested to take on the task. Hopefully, in the future, these omissions and absences will be addressed and new fgures will come to the fore and be included. Some are already under contract. One problem that occurred on more than one occasion was where the subject of a proposed volume was still alive and did not want to co-operate with the project. This could be where the author’s frst-hand knowledge of the practitioner’s work could pose a problem. If the author were to go ahead and write the book anyway, and they would be perfectly entitled to do so, they might jeopardize their relationship with the practitioner and, in at least one instance, this led to the dropping of the project. The series was never designed to be ‘complete’ or to represent a fxed canon but, by bringing together this collection of practitioners into a single volume, it can appear that it is these twentytwo practitioners and no others who represent the key performance practitioners. That is not the intention at all. Each author makes a case for the importance and relevance of the individual practitioner and the signifcance of their work for contemporary practice without excluding the contributions of others. It would not be practicable to bring together all twenty-one monographs into a single book, and the two volumes of The Routledge Companion to Performance Practitioners include roughly half of each title in the series comprising sections (i) biography in social and artistic context and (iii) description and analysis of a key production or productions.

Themes The task of compiling the material in this volume has provided fresh opportunities for considering the relationships between the diferent practitioners. The architecture of the series, with each book following a similar pattern, facilitated comparisons and the recognition of some shared themes. True, there are many ways in which the work of these practitioners could be considered in isolation and with an emphasis on what makes their work unique, but they inevitably reference the infuences and legacies of other practitioners in the series. This is true even when Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, and Copeau are being considered; there is no original source, but they are practitioners constantly in dialogue with the work of each other. When these interactions are considered, a number of parallels in the experiences of theatre making, conceptualization, and experimentation become apparent. The chapters in this volume are listed in order of the practitioners’ birth dates, which can give a sense of who came frst and ofer some intimations of the lines of infuence and transmission. This is a claim to treat with some suspicion, however, particularly when periods of activity cross, but it does seem possible to trace out meaningful lines of infuence. The following chapters evidence how, for example, Halprin looks to Grotowski; Lepage looks to Halprin; Mnouchkine looks to Lecoq; Boal to Brecht, Barba to Grotowski, Kantor looked to Meyerhold and Wigman looked to and away from Laban. But this implied linearity can be deceiving – in many cases, over the course of their artistic careers, these practitioners have been infuenced by those who followed, are younger and earlier in their career, or by political, social or artistic movements and moments that resonated or continue to resonate across artistic, geographical, and other boundaries. The gathering of the material for this volume has brought into sharper focus a number of shared ambitions, themes, and ways of looking, with practitioners striving in diferent ways to solve the same problem, or innovate in similar ways. These shared concerns range from the broader political ones to more focused artistic issues and are evidenced in their biographies and in their productions. xiv

Introduction

It is interesting to note how many of these practitioners were revolutionary in some way – whether they were involved in fomenting explicit social revolution or were engaged in an artistic revolution that might shift the way in which the world is perceived. For some of these practitioners this seems more apparent, or familiar, than with others: Boal was looking to use theatre to rehearse for revolution; Brecht and Littlewood were looking to give agency to the audience so the audience could change what they considered to be possible or desirable and consequently enact social change; Abramović seems to have sought to incite change through risk, often to herself. But other names that have become synonymous with mainstream practice were revolutionary too – Stanislavsky would be the most obvious example here. Stanislavsky was looking to reinvigorate acting as an art and his series of approaches is well documented here and elsewhere. He is an example of a practitioner whose work became set and distributed in a certain phase (reliance on the emotion memory) because of its dissemination, and although he is one of the practitioners who learned from his students, these discoveries (more centred on the physical) were made later and didn’t circulate as freely for a long time. Merlin (2018), in the second chapter of her book on Stanislavsky in the series, discusses the problems with the dissemination of Stanislavsky’s work outside of Russia and the difculties that have plagued English translations of his writings. Many of the practitioners featured here lived through tumultuous times of one kind or another. Some were directly afected by this unrest, with a number going into exile such as Brecht, Boal, Laban, and Chekhov, while others like Wigman remained at risk under oppressive regimes, experiencing censorship, incarceration, torture or even, as was sadly the case with Meyerhold, execution, for their artistry, innovation, and resistance. Much of this work thus evolved in the shadow of tyranny and at great personal cost to the practitioners themselves. It is also interesting to note through this exercise how theatre functions as a global community: practitioners are not only infuenced by each other, but look out for one another, as evidenced by the petition by international practitioners for Boal’s release from prison when he was incarcerated and tortured by the Brazilian dictatorship in 1971. Another example of international solidarity was the theatre artist-led petition against the US State Department’s refusal to permit Grotowski’s Teatr Laboritorium to enter the country in 1968, which resulted in the company being allowed in in 1969. The playwright Arthur Miller was a signatory in both cases. Freedom of movement can be viewed, historically, as a key generator of exchange and education for the artist and, when this is threatened, as some would argue it is right now in our current political moment, it endangers the generation of art, ideas, the philosophies of theatre making, and the dissemination of artistic knowledge. Some of the practitioners featured here were more obviously afected by the politics of their day than others. Some brought their responses to bear in the content of their work, in its form, in how they developed their companies, ensembles, the hierarchies of organization, in their engagement with the audience or their arrangement and confguration of space. Some companies had more open and dialogical structures because of the authoritarian politics of their respective regimes. What the practitioners featured here share, however, is a focus on process and the work of the ensemble (however it may be formed), with the possible of exceptions of Hijikata and Ohno, and Abramović. While Barba cultivated an ensemble with unknown, untrained actors, others like Kantor sought to work with established professionals; some like Halprin moved outside the mainstream and sought alternative collaborators. By contrast, Mnouchkine has maintained a company but renewed the membership over a long period of work. Someone like Lecoq was more focused on pedagogy while Grotowski’s work moved outside of theatre altogether, and then returned. xv

Franc Chamberlain and Bernadette Sweeney

Meyerhold was infuential in his early eforts to reject psychological realism, and many of the others experimented with form as we see in Wigman’s, Decroux’s and Copeau’s focus on the body. Other experimentations with form include Laban’s and Bausch’s work with Tanztheatre, Wilson’s work with an objective rather than subjective actor, Wilson’s and Abramović’s experimentation with duration, Boal’s use of agency, and Lepage’s work with split subjectivity and media. In a bid to reinvigorate their practices, a number of these practitioners looked back into the pasts of their own cultures to seek out abandoned or diminished forms. The interest of Meyerhold, Copeau, and Lecoq in commedia dell’arte is one example of this. They simultaneously looked outwards to other cultures sharing a fascination with the performance forms of the various Asian cultures in particular (inter alia, Brecht, Wigman, Mnouchkine, Lepage, Grotowski, Barba). This courts the danger of an accusation of cultural appropriation. Other rituals and traditions, such as those of various cultures of Africa or Bali, can be found throughout in a reaching out beyond the borders of the ‘West’ to reinvigorate western practices. Looking to other cultures is a long-held tradition across forms of performance; where it becomes problematic is in the cases of appropriation rather than exchange – a fetishization of otherness for proft, ridicule or crude entertainment. Nonetheless the infuences of non-western actors, practices, rituals and design recur across the twentieth and into the twenty-frst century. This interest in the ‘other’ poses questions: what were these practitioners looking for in these engagements and did they fnd it? Not just the artists featured here, but others, such as Brook, Gregory, Yeats, and Craig, were consistent in their search for a quality they felt lacking in European theatre – was it a deliberation, spirituality, stillness, simplicity, discipline? Obviously, it is reductive to search for a single answer, as the sources are as various as their impacts, but in much of the work that follows we see this fascination manifest, not just in the work as staged, but in the studio practices and rehearsal techniques. This was often used as a foundation for building the ensemble, alongside a sharing of personal stories, skills and music. Those non-western practitioners featured here, such as Boal, or Hijikata and Ohno, have created specifc relationships with western traditions, through opposition or absorption. Practitioners were sometimes looking to bring some kind of spiritual experience to their practice and/or by extension to their audience. A return or retreat to nature was sometimes a pathway to an alternative spirituality or a way of being in the world. Both Stanislavsky and Copeau took their actors out of the city and into the countryside, while Chekhov established his studio in the idyllic surroundings of Dartington Hall, and then of Ridgefeld in Connecticut. Grotowski and Halprin engaged with the natural world in both their training and in the production of the work, in a way that resulted in the audience being participants rather than ‘merely’ spectators or observers. This move to the natural world could perhaps be equated with the search for non-western infuences in a rejection of commercialism, capitalism, and the treatment of art and performance as commodities. This immersive experience in the natural world was perhaps a progression of eforts to rethink the audience experience within the formal theatre space – to reconfgure the space, to treat the work as a ritual, and to reject the formal traditions of dramaturgy, psychological realism, and form. Practitioners featured were actively looking to reinvigorate the imaginations of the actors and thus of the audience. Visual art, architecture, and design drives the work of Kantor, Wilson, and Lepage, for example, while rhythm and musicality were key to the work of the dance theatre practitioners like Wigman and Bausch. Song was signifcant in the work of Littlewood and Brecht, in slightly diferent ways. Some of these practitioners chose very controversial forms or subjects such as nudity, high risk, profanity, or unfinching challenges of accepted norms or histories: Halprin, Kantor, Abramović, Grotowski. While some looked to embrace life, the xvi

Introduction

environment or spirituality, others like Hijikata and Ohno, Kantor and Abramović went further to investigate the performance of darkness, death, and the subjugation of the self. Many of these studies in the following chapters also cite Artaud as an infuence, and given the lack of a specifc method or practice left by Artaud to facilitate and deliver his extreme demands, it is intriguing to see the variety of practices that claim his infuence. Lecoq cites Artaud and Copeau as key infuences, Mnouchkine cites Artaud too, while Abramović’s work could be a considered as an embodied engagement with his philosophies. The Routledge Performance Practitioners series was formed to focus on practice, and these books evidence the sharing and perhaps demystifcation of these studio practices, and provide a look at how these practices can serve in the building of any performance ensemble. Living lineage informs creativity, but texts, video, and other documentation can solidify and extend this legacy. Of course the act of generating written texts on practice can be limiting and lead to misunderstanding and misinterpretation – but can also lead to new departures and ways of working. One of the things that can evade documentation is the way performers learn through practice and pass on this living legacy through embodiment. Thus, many of us will have encountered these practices before without necessarily knowing their source. Here we also encounter the gap between theory and practice – the ethics of work espoused can sometimes idealize our sense of the practitioner, or conversely construct a somber authoritarian fgure far removed from the warm individual who might have been encountered live in the rehearsal room. None of these fgures was living or working without the real human weaknesses, faws, or follies of the rest of us, and much of their work was actually developed in a bid to counter the dangers of the ego. In his book To the Actor, Chekhov highlights this when he asks the reader for help – here he breaks down the fourth wall in a way, but in an appeal to the reader rather than the spectator. This gives agency to the reader, as he and others did for the audience member, but it also points to the openness in the work and a lack of completion that only the reader or audience member can resolve. Perhaps this is our cue to reiterate Chekhov’s appeal to the reader, you, to help us through your own practice to continue the relevance of the work and artistry of the theatre practitioners featured in this companion.

Further reading Britton, John (ed. 2013) Encountering Ensemble, London: Bloomsbury.

xvii

11 KANTOR (1915–1990) Noel Witts

11.1

Biography and context Introduction

Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Brecht and Beckett – four of the great pioneers of twentieth-century theatre practice – all lived through periods of history and historical events which infuenced their lives and work, and it is true to say that Russia, Germany and France during the Second World War could all be described as crucibles from which emerged new performance practices and key roles for the theatre and its relation to society. But of all European countries none has had such a chequered and violent history as Poland, which has been described as being on one of the ‘faultlines’ of Europe where, over 200 years and more, the interests of the nearby countries – in particular Germany, Russia and Austria – have often been bloodily played out. In the centre of Europe, surrounded by powerful neighbours, most of whom had imperialist pasts, Poland has had fuctuating borders: it changed from being a huge state in 1634 to a non-state from 1939 to 1945, and fnally to a moderate-sized country after 1945. Any examination of its history will fnd maps of diferent shapes, names in diferent languages, countries invaded or invading, and treaties broken or established; indeed, it was probably the most disturbed European nation of the twentieth century. Tadeusz Kantor, born in 1915 during the course of the First World War, lived through four turbulent periods of Poland’s history, all of which infuenced his attitudes, his ideas and his performance practice to such an extent that it is impossible to understand any of his key performances without being aware of the historical events that shaped them. Therefore, as well as recounting the major events of Kantor’s own life in this section, we will attempt to contextualise these by reference to historical events as they occurred at four major points in the twentieth century. The frst is the period and consequences for Poland of the First World War, from 1914 to 1918; the second is the frst period in the twentieth century when Poland was independent – from 1928 to 1939; the third is the period of the Second World War, from 1939 to 1945, when the country was occupied by the Nazis; and the fourth is from 1945 to 1990, when Poland was a communist country broadly controlled from Moscow. In the light of this history it is not surprising that Kantor’s attitude to the idea of biography was – as

1

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he suggested in his last theatre piece, Today is My Birthday – that any single interpretation simplifes too much: An artist’s life and an artistic process escape the strategy of biography, which seeks to impose restrictive and restricting temporal boundaries on them. They should never be reduced to being ‘texts’ which are assigned locations and predetermined names. As the transformations in Kantor’s manifestos and his productions poignantly illustrate, any desire to provide a historical and social map will immediately be ruptured by the thoughts, events, objects, and people who emerge, disappear, and re-emerge to present their conficting claims, testimonies, and fragmented (his)stories. (Kobialka 1993: xix) These thoughts come as a result of living through times where identities, relationships, employment and artistic opportunities were all subject to the changing and volatile political conditions as they emerged. Nevertheless the period through which Kantor lived, located at a European crossroads of culture, religion and politics, gives us both a need and an excuse to relate his work to this history.

Poland 1914–18, the First World War By 1914 Poland had been at the mercy of a rivalry between the Russians, the Germans and the Austrians that went back well over 100 years. The many partitions of the country between those adversaries and the resulting multi-ethnic composition had left a burgeoning nationalism which had resulted in a series of risings and rebellions over the years. In 1914, although the outbreak of war had no connection with Polish problems, the country in efect became a battleground with Germany fghting Russia, and one of the crucial images of Kantor’s theatre – soldiers marching and shooting – became etched on the memory of the nation. Tadeusz Maria Kantor was born at Wielopole Skrzynskie, Poland, on 16 April 1915, the son of Marian Leon Kantor-Mirski and Katarzyna Berger Kantor. Wielopole is situated 130 kilometres east of Krakow, and is roughly 100 kilometres from the Polish border with Ukraine, part of which was Polish until the end of the Second World War. To the north is the main road from Krakow to Rzeszow and Przemysl, and eventually to Lvov (now in Ukraine), while to the south lie the Bieszczady Mountains, today a major tourist destination in the new Poland of the European Union. Wielopole in 1915 was a shtetl – a small provincial town – but with a Jewish majority, at the back end of the then Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1939, 60 per cent of the population was Jewish. Kantor said of it: It was a typical eastern small town or shtetl, with a large market square and a few miserable lanes. In the square stood a chapel, with some sort of saint for the Catholic faithful. In the same square was a well near which Jewish weddings were held, primarily when the moon was full. On one side stood the church, the rectory, and the Catholic cemetery, and on the other the synagogue, the narrow Jewish lanes, and another cemetery, somewhat diferent. Both sides existed in harmonious symbiosis. . . . Aside from its everyday life the town was oriented toward eternity. . . . And the children from the countryside and the town painted, put on plays, and were artistic without even being aware of it. (Plesniarowicz 2001: 11) The social makeup of Wielopole meant that this must have been one of the corners of Europe where Jews felt at home, where, in the words of the historian Norman Davies, ‘Almost every 2

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Polish family possessed Jewish friends or relatives, traded in Jewish shops, consulted Jewish doctors or lawyers, or drank beer in the local Jewish tavern’ (Davies 2005: 191). Kantor’s grandmother, Katarzyna, arrived in Wielopole when her husband Josef died, to stay with her half-brother, who was the priest there; her daughter, Helena Kantor, also moved there to escape the chaos of the First World War. But Wielopole was in the direct line of German troops fghting the Russians at Gorlice in 1915, the same year that Tadeusz was born in the rectory, into a world of religion which had an ambiguous relationship with the war. Wielopole at that point was in the area known as Galicia, north of the Carpathian Mountains between Krakow and Lvov. From time to time it was occupied by both Austria and Russia, and the town would have experienced the criss-crossing of soldiers and military units from both countries. By 1916 there were 1.9 million Poles fghting in the war, which eventually left 450,000 dead, images of whom appear from time to time in Kantor’s work. However, in February 1917 the Russian Revolution took place in St Petersburg, one result of which was a proclamation, made on 30 March, of an independent Poland, where Russian state property was to be transferred to Polish control. It is difcult to exaggerate the importance of this to Poles, who for years had been condemned to dream of an independent nation, with only their – often forbidden – nativity scenes at Christmas, and ceremonies to mark weddings and funerals. Kantor remembered later that he and his sister would re-enact them at home. Marian Kantor was drafted into the Austrian army at the start of the war, though he was later transferred to the Polish Legions, the volunteer units organised by Josef Piłsudski, who was to become one of Poland’s most famous military heroes. At the end of the war, however, Marian Kantor did not return to his wife and children in Wielopole, but took part in an anti-German uprising in Silesia, where he was decorated with the Polish Cross of Valour and the French de Victoire order. It seems that he settled with another woman and taught in schools in the region. In spite of this absence from his son’s life, Marian often appears as a recurrent character in Kantor’s work, as a dysfunctional soldier.

Poland 1918–39, twenty years of independence David Lloyd George, the British prime minister, referred to Poland in 1918 as a historic failure, having ‘won her freedom not by her own exertions but by the blood of others’. Poland ‘was drunk with the new wine of liberty supplied to her by the Allies’, and ‘fancied herself as the resistless mistress of Central Europe’. With insults like these being liberally thrown about by a Western statesman, it is not surprising that Polish independent art, expressing a restless experimentation, should assert itself between the wars in an intense way, with the work of the writer Witkiewicz, the painter Maria Jarema and the composer Karol Szymanowski, as well as the theatre and art of Kantor. During this period of independence there were six border wars in which Poland fought against neighbouring countries, combined with a series of holding treaties and optimistic acts of non-aggression. The Battle of Warsaw in 1920 was followed by the Treaty of Riga in 1921, made with what was by then Soviet Russia. Pacts of non-aggression were signed with the USSR in 1932 and with Germany in 1934. The following year saw the death of the key fgure in all this, Josef Piłsudski, the head of state. All these events were part of the birth pangs of a state which had been trampled on for centuries, and demonstrate well enough what Poland was up against even after it had been granted its independence. Once again its geographical position at the centre of Europe had to be strongly guarded by a variety of military means. But fnally, in 1939, came the last straw, with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, thus crushing the optimism of the independent country. 3

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After Poland’s defeat by the Germans in 1939, Kantor’s father Marian joined the Union of Armed Struggle resistance movement, but was arrested by the Germans on 9 November 1940 for distributing an underground newspaper. He was transferred to Auschwitz concentration camp on 20 February 1942 and his family in Tarnow heard of his death on 4 April 1942. Marian Kantor, in spite of his absence from Tadeusz’s life, became an important character in his son’s theatre pieces: as Marian/The Recruit/The Bridegroom in Wielopole, Wielopole, in the Auschwitz scene in I Shall Never Return, and in the family photograph that comes to life in Today is My Birthday. Kantor’s frst school was in the village at Wielopole: where he sat on a straight wooden bench marked with penknife carvings (just like the bench he created for his play The Dead Class). He sat among other children his age, who were barefoot and dressed in ‘raggedy homespun trousers and shirts’. These children snatched time for schooling between work in the felds and chores around the farm. (Plesniarowicz 2001: 17) However, in 1925 Helena and her children also moved to Tarnow, where Tadeusz attended the Kazimierz Brodzinski First Gymnasium. Tarnow is an old city with a grand central square and an educational tradition which goes back to the 1500s. In the twentieth century the town’s signifcant and long-standing Jewish population was a target for the Nazis, and there are still a series of Jewish monuments around the town. The Kantor family would have relished the move from Wielopole to a larger and better connected place, nearer the provincial capital Krakow, with a cultural tradition which included a signifcant contribution before the Second World War from the 40 per cent of the population that was Jewish. Kantor apparently did well there, particularly in humanities subjects, and gave private lessons in Latin and Greek. Here he both made his frst forays into painting and visited the famous Cloth Hall in Krakow, where the huge canvases of the nationalist painter Malczewski were on display. He was particularly struck also by the work of Siemiradzki, whose gigantic front curtain was in the Słowacki Theatre and which upstaged the performances from Kantor’s point of view. Already his interest in the theatre was beginning to collide with that in painting. At that time also, in December 1932, Kantor designed and painted the stage set for the third act of Wyspiański’s’ play Wyzwoleni (Liberation) and for the fourth act of another, Acropolis, both of which were performed by an amateur school troupe in Tarnow’s Sokol Hall. In June 1933, having passed all his exams (he did particularly well in Latin and Greek), Kantor moved with the family to Krakow, where they rented a fat with his sister, Zofa. He began studying in the Faculty of Law and Administration at the prestigious and old-established Jagiellonian University, but left after two weeks and in October 1933 became a student at the Academy of Fine Arts, where he remained until 1939. Krakow is the ancient capital of Poland, where kings had their residence over the centuries. With its aristocratic and artistic air, its ancient buildings and medieval street plan, the city is at least as impressive as Prague or Budapest. Its Main Square is dominated by the sixteenth-century Cloth Hall or sukiennice, which is unparalleled in Europe. When Kantor moved there in 1933 Krakow was at the height of its artistic fame, with the Młoda Polska (young Poland) art movement, led by Stanisław Wyspiański and Jacek Malczewski, the Słowacki and Stary theatres, and a fourishing musical scene led by Karol Szymanowski. It also had the distinguished art school, where Kantor studied painting and stage design with Karol Frycz, one of Poland’s great scenic designers. This allowed him to see performances at the Słowacki Theatre. But at the same time 4

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he began to learn about the Russian director Vsevolod Meyerhold and the specifc work of the designer Oscar Schlemmer at the Bauhaus Art School in Germany. Schlemmer had pioneered a stage workshop where painters and designers created stage works. Ironically, Kantor’s discovery of Schlemmer was in the year in which the Nazis fnally closed the Bauhaus in Dessau. Round about the same time Kantor began to discover the work of Stanislaw Witkiewicz, another extraordinary Polish artist who crossed boundaries between theatre and painting, and began his acquaintance with the work of the novelist Witold Gombrowicz and Bruno Schulz, who was a painter and short story writer. This Polish literary/visual tradition, allied with the experimental theatre work of Meyerhold and the cross-disciplinary work of the Bauhaus, must have given Kantor confdence in developing what would be his unique contribution to twentiethcentury theatre practice. In 1937, on the eve of the Second World War, Kantor founded a group called the Ephemeral Marionette Theatre, which gave a performance of The Death of Tintagiles (1894), written for marionettes by the Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck. The play had been staged by Meyerhold at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1905, using live actors in still poses. Kantor’s production is remembered for the marionettes being ‘simplifed geometrical forms of triangles and rhomboids’ and the prevailing colours being black and grey, with a moveable moon cut out of tin foil. Kantor also, according to a witness, attached particular importance to a special intonation and way of sounding the words, which he worked out for each character. Around this time he may have come across the work of the British theatre designer and visionary Edward Gordon Craig, who pioneered the idea of theatre as primarily a visual experience, and who, in a notorious essay, had proposed that a marionette could be a more reliable stage presence than a live actor – a view which was taken up by Maeterlinck in several of his marionette plays. By now Kantor was assisting the designer Frycz in Krakow in his productions as well and beginning his own independent theatre practice. At this point he saw that, in Russia: the constructivists supposed that the social revolution would be followed by an artistic revolution. The war came instead, and it destroyed all hope of combining the two revolutions. And that is the starting point for my theatre and my art. (Plesniarowicz 2001: 29)

Poland 1935–45, the Second World War From 1939 to 1945 the Nazis occupied Poland, and the territory taken over by them was referred to as the New Reich. The south of the country, with Krakow as its centre, became known as the General Government. Martial law was in force in all the occupied parts of the country, and ‘death’ or ‘concentration camp’ were the punishments for any kind of ofence. Hans Frank, who had been Hitler’s lawyer, became governor of Krakow and lived in the former residence of the kings, Wawel Castle, overlooking the River Vistula. At the same time Poland became the major place where Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler began to devise ways of putting his racial theories into practice: ‘The removal of foreign races from the incorporated eastern territories is one of the most essential goals . . . We either win over the good blood we can use for ourselves . . . or else we destroy that blood’ (quoted in Davies 2005: 329). The mechanisms for this destruction were the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration/extermination camp, approximately 60 miles from Krakow, the Jewish ghetto in Krakow, and the Plaszow concentration camp on the outskirts of the city. The activity of establishing these was being undertaken while Kantor was living in Krakow, and for him must have seemed something like a rerun of the situation in his home village of Wielopole after the First World War, where identity was also emasculated, 5

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though to a lesser degree. Krakow, as Poland’s major cultural centre, had always seen itself as the force for preserving Polish sensibility and multi-ethnicity, something that became a vain hope as the Nazis tightened their hold and built the Jewish ghetto and the camps. One might well enquire how a 24-year-old emerging theatre-maker with Kantor’s avantgarde and experimental interests coped during this period. He was living two lives, one the ofcial life of the street, the other the artistic life of the underground. At one point he tried to describe how the events of the war infuenced both him and his friends, and how for artists a connection with the outside world of the European avant-garde was important as a framework within which to work and survive: the group of young artists, from among the best Polish painters and theoreticians who emerged after the [First World] war, did not take up any sort of national ideal in those times of horror. Instead, and in the face of all logic, they turned to the international avant-garde, which has shown the way for art in Poland to this day. This occurred in an epoch of genocide unprecedented in history, at the very centre of the harshest terror, cut of from the rest of the world. (Plesniarowcz 2000: 32) In fact Kantor and his family lived for several years near the walls of what was the Jewish ghetto, set up by the Nazis in the Podgorze district of the city. During this time Kantor was allowed to work for the Institut für Deutsch Ostarbeit, after which he was employed as a ‘decoration painter’ in the State Theatre of the General Government, which was the name the Germans gave to the Słowacki Theatre. Krzysztof Plesniarowicz describes Kantor’s physical situation: the theatre workshops were then located at ulica Kupa 18, in the ruined Izaaka Synagogue in the Kazimierz district, which was abandoned after the deportation of the Jews. In 1942 Kantor, his mother, his sister, and his brother-in-law were resettled at ulica Wegierska 10/27 in the Podgorze district. The building stood within the original ghetto established by the Germans; after the reduction in the size of the ghetto, Kantor now lived next to the walls of the ‘closed’ district. He was an eyewitness to the Holocaust. (Plesniarowicz 2001: 35) By 1942 Kantor had established a group of artists who created a clandestine theatre – the Independent Theatre – and met in private apartments all over Krakow under the Nazi occupation. They gave each other lectures on, among other subjects, Cezanne, Cubism, and Futurism, and they read works by Wyspiański, Kafka, Gombrowicz, Schulz and Witkiewicz, as well as other avant-garde poets. The frst full production of the Independent Theatre was Julius Słowacki’s Balladyna, an ironically tragic romantic folk-tale which tells a story of a country girl whose craving for power plus a multitude of crimes allows her to reach the royal throne. For Kantor this became an opportunity to create an abstract production. He used geometrical forms, circles, arcs, right angles, and materials such as tin sheet, black tar paper and fabrics to create a sculptural structure. One of the characters, Goplana, was ftted with a golden string which vibrated and gave of a moaning sound. Inside the structure sat an actor who had to speak into a washbasin in order to achieve a metallic tone of voice, and so on. While the performances of Balladyna were taking place the Nazis were rounding people up, but somehow the Germans managed to avoid the particular apartment in which they were going on. The impact of the production was strong and 6

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was described as ‘an authentic sensation in underground Krakow, which had not seen for years a production that was at once so mutinous and so splendid’ (Plesniarowicz 2001: 38). Balladyna can be viewed as Kantor’s theatrical response to his war-time exposure to abstract and symbolist art. It is both as a way of encompassing what he came to see as the visual imperative of theatre and of acknowledging that theatre and visual art are complementary. The production was also a means of linking his work to other European avant-garde artists and a means of escaping the more conventional work that was being shown in Krakow’s ofcial theatres. Working in this manner during the war was one way of remaining in touch with artistic currents outside the occupied country. The next production of the Independent Theatre was of Wyspiański’s’ last play, written in 1907, The Return of Odysseus. Although Wyspiański had conceived the Greek hero Odysseus returning as a war criminal and a traitor, Kantor presented him as a German soldier retreating from Stalingrad, the great siege of which had been a defeat for the Germans, and which had already taken place when the production opened. The opening scene was Odysseus returning in a muddy uniform and helmet to the strains of a German parade march. The production had to change venue several times to escape Nazi prosecution. For his set Kantor created a room destroyed by war – which was a kind of authentic reality, since there were thousands of such rooms in Poland at the time – which was flled with found objects discovered in nearby ruined houses, and also contained a barking loudspeaker intended to imitate the sound of the wartime communiqués from the German authorities. The contrast with Balladyna was important, for Kantor was now already looking at ways of expressing human reality on stage, confronting Odysseus with the worn realities of Europe at the end of a cataclysmic war. He wrote in his ‘Credo’ in 1944: I do not want my Odysseus to move around within an illusory dimension but within and without our reality, our objects – that is objects that have certain specifc value for us today – and real people, that is people who are in ‘the auditorium’. (Kobialka 1993: 35) Such was its importance for Kantor, this production was restaged at the Bagatela Theatre in Krakow in 1974. He wrote of it: The Return of Odysseus established a precedent and a prototype for all the later characters of my theatre . . . there were many of them. The whole procession that came out of many productions and dramas – from the Realm of Fiction – all were ‘dead’; all were returning into the world of the living, into our world, into the present. (Plesniarowicz 2001: 43) This may be the frst mention of the idea of a theatre of death, which was to become one of the main philosophical tenets of Kantor’s work over the coming years: the notion that all representation on stage is of something that is no more and has been resurrected from memory. Indeed, the two themes of death and memory permeated Kantor’s theatre material until the end of his life. It is arguable that living and attempting to work in the occupied city during the Second World War was instrumental in leading him towards what is a respect for death and memory. No one who does not know Poland can possibly envisage what it must have been like for an artist to carry on functioning a few kilometres away from Oscar Schindler’s factory and the reality of the death camps. In some ways it is almost incredible that a group of artists could fnd the motivation to produce theatre work at all under such conditions. No wonder that Kantor returned to regular 7

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key themes that represented not only an aesthetic position, but a recognition of what the past and death meant for a post-war Poland dominated by the result of another kind of dictatorship, that of communist Russia.

Poland 1945–90, the communist period Poland became communist as a result of the deliberations by the victorious countries at the end of the Second World War. At a conference in Yalta in the Crimea the British prime minister Winston Churchill and presidents Roosevelt (United States) and Stalin (Russia) divided Europe in half according to the pre-war boundaries – with the exception of Germany, which was divided into West and East Germany. As a consequence of Russia’s help in defeating Hitler, which had resulted in a loss of 27 million Russian lives, Stalin was given the whole of Eastern Europe as the communist sphere of infuence. Once again Poland found itself on a European faultline, geographically situated between the eastern part of Germany and Russia, thus next to two historical enemies. The situation now became harsh once again, with much of life and living heavily controlled, with restrictions on travel, with artistic censorship, and with membership of the communist party being seen as an ‘advantage’. Much of Kantor’s most famous work was created during the 1960s and 1970s, during a period in Poland in which there was a sense of resignation. There was nothing much anyone could do about the system, so it would be as well to go with the fow. And, compared with the majority of the countries of Eastern Europe, Polish independent sensibility meant that the country was more liberal than most. It is no surprise, therefore, that a series of riots and demonstrations through the 1970s led eventually to a general strike – unheard of in a communist country – and to the founding in 1980 of Solidarity, the frst independent trade union. Two years before that, in 1978, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla had been elected the frst Polish pope, an event seen as both a triumph for the religious Polish nation and a vindication of the Polish spirit. The Solidarity union was based at the shipyard in Gdansk and led by a feisty worker called Lech Walesa, later to become president of Poland. He encouraged the union to grow in strength and confdence to such a point that in 1980 there was a threat of Soviet intervention in the face of growing Polish political confdence, which was then followed by a declaration of martial law by the government, led by General Jaruzelski. At the same time President Gorbachev of Russia initiated his ideas of ‘glasnost’ and ‘perestroika’, which eventually led to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Through all this time Kantor remained in Krakow, creating theatre work that spoke to Poles of Poland and of Polish identity and history, and which became symbols of Polishness underground, whereas above ground communist ofcials were still prowling the streets. Immediately after the Second World War, in 1945–6, Kantor was employed as an assistant stage designer at the Stary Theatre, one of Krakow’s fnest theatres, today still housed in a striking art nouveau building in the centre of the city. He also created sets for other theatres in Krakow, where one critic thought that the designs often outstripped the work of the directors. But in the years following this Kantor devoted himself more and more to his painting. He exhibited together with many artists who would in future take part in his theatre work, initiating a European precedent for visual artists working in theatre. After the liberation of Poland by the Russian Red Army in 1945, Kantor married Ewa Jurkiewicz, who had been involved in the young artists group and been a member of the Independent Theatre. They had one daughter, Dorota, who was born in 1955. At that time in the studio in his fat there was a certain black umbrella, ‘old, tattered, and bent’, to which Kantor became attached to such an extent that it became a key element in his painting. There is a series of pictures where umbrellas are fxed 8

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to the canvas, and many of his drawings include this object, though it does not appear much in his theatre work. In 1946 Kantor won a Polish Ministry of Culture and Art scholarship to travel to Paris for six months. This was his frst visit to the key centre of twentieth-century European art, and he was able to see the huge collections at the Louvre as well as the display of the impressionists in the Jeu de Paume. He saw the work of Picasso, Kandinsky, Klee and Ernst, thought Miro’s paintings were like the writings of an extinct culture, and felt very powerfully the memories of wartime cruelty present in Paris. France had also been occupied by the Germans during the war, when Samuel Beckett and his wife had worked for the French Resistance movement. Kantor’s visit, in spite of the shock of recognising remnants of the occupation, reconnected him to the European avant-garde, which meant that returning to communist-dominated Krakow, with all its restrictions, was even more difcult and depressing. However, on 1 October 1947, Kantor took up an appointment as junior professor in the State Higher School of the Plastic Arts in Krakow – the historic art school – where he held painting classes. The following year he was involved in a big exhibition of modern art in the Palace of Art in Krakow, which included lectures, concerts and various events. This turned out to be the last display of alternative exploratory art in post-war Poland, as communist ideology, with its restrictions on experimentation in art, began to be asserted. It was shortly after this that the authorities, in common with most communist governments in Eastern Europe, imposed the Russian-created artistic doctrine of Socialist Realism. Socialist realism had been proclaimed as part of the continuation of the Russian Revolution in 1920 in an attempt by the Soviet authorities, and Stalin in particular, to harness art to political ends. All art should portray the positive aspects of life and of communism and, by so doing, should help to persuade the population of the value of the communist cause. Gone, therefore, were all infuences from Western Europe, which were seen as anti-communist, especially contact with the kinds of visual artists that Kantor had encountered in Paris. Socialist realism was to portray optimistic naturalistic life in theatre terms as well, or to display the key classic texts, which were felt to express the true spirit of man according to the communist analysis. So out went the work of Witkiewicz, and in came texts by many now forgotten names, as well as plays by Shakespeare, who was often seen as the anti-bourgeois writer who satirised the aristocracy. Kantor’s attitude to all this was one of utter contempt, where state authorities were ‘ruthlessly destroying and exterminating “abstract” tendencies, while promoting whole tribes of mediocre, zealous conformists and opportunists’. In fact his contempt for the communist ideals meant that his theatre work was never seen in any ofcial venues, but always in alternative spaces with no connections with ofcialdom, a choice Kantor made as a gesture towards retaining the independent Polish spirit. In the confused aftermath of war, and amid the imposition of alien forces that were bureaucratic as well as ideological, it was felt that employing an openly dissident artist at the art academy was courting trouble. So, in February 1949, Kantor was dismissed from his post, for ‘the incorrect manner of teaching represented and practised’ – a phrase which shows how far the more ofcial educational institutions were being controlled by the government. However, he was still able to be employed as a scenic designer, and this meant that he gained experience while in his early thirties designing for both the Słowacki Theatre and the Stary Theatre in Krakow and for theatres in Poznan and Katowice. The list of productions for which he created designs included texts by Calderon, Shakespeare (Measure for Measure), Shaw (St Joan), Lorca and Alfred de Musset. After the death of Stalin in 1953, Kantor received a series of medals for his work as a stage designer, among them the Ofcer’s Cross of the Order of Poland Reborn (1955), but his response to this was that such awards downgraded his painting, which for him was always his most important activity. 9

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In May 1955 Kantor visited Paris again, this time with the Stary Theatre, which had been invited to the Theatre of the Nations season, itself a meeting point of European theatres which allowed companies from the communist countries to participate. It is worth commenting on these cultural exchanges which took place throughout the communist period. The Stary Theatre, with its solid and often very beautiful productions, toured abroad, representing the best of Polish theatre, something that was seen as non-political and which disguised any images of suppression at home. The company also visited the London World Theatre season, although without Kantor, where it presented a display of theatrical technique that also managed to disguise any communist infuence. For the government these tours were a good way of spreading ‘good’ news about Poland. If the theatre could be so good, then life must be OK back there, so went the crude analysis. Any attempt at dissident activity on the part of actors while away would result in the cancellation of any future visits abroad or even the loss of employment at home, so the government was on safe ground. In this way the privations endured by Poles were not visible on stage.

Cricot 2 and the key productions On his return from Paris Kantor began a kind of painting which was near to action painting and which he called his ‘informel’ painting (from the French informelle, ‘shapeless’), and exhibited this work in Warsaw at the Zacheta Gallery. A major event occurred in 1953 with the death of Stalin, which was followed by a period of cautious cultural optimism in the communist world. In the autumn of 1955 came another key moment when Kantor founded, with Maria Jarema, another painter, the Cricot 2 Theatre, which was to make his name universally famous. The name harked back to the pre-war Krakow Cricot Artists Theatre (1933–9), the name ‘Cricot’ being a French-sounding anagram of the Polish phrase ‘to cyrk’ – ‘it’s a circus’. In 1956, however, the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, made a secret speech to the twentieth party congress of the Communist Party in Moscow. In it he made an extraordinary denunciation of Stalin’s activities and his management of the Communist Party, after which there was a slow softening of artistic censorship. It was during this period that Kantor met and fell in love with Maria Stangret, a student at the Fine Art Academy in Krakow, which caused him to dissolve his frst marriage and exchange new marriage vows within the Polish Embassy in Paris in 1961. The Cricot 2 company was in some ways an extension of Kantor’s wartime Independent Theatre, composed as it was of artists, actors, musicians and poets. Its frst production, given on 12 May 1956, was Witkiewicz’s The Cuttlefsh, directed by Kantor with costumes by Maria Jarema. Witkiewicz, who had come to prominence during the period of Polish independence, had been banned during Stalin’s time, and so Kantor was the frst to stage any of his texts since the war. He stayed loyal to the playwright for the rest of his life. During the frst two decades of the existence of Cricot 2 the company owed much of its reputation to its method of ‘playing with’ Witkiewicz. After The Cuttlefsh came In a Country House, The Madman and the Nun, The Water-Hen and Dainty Shapes and Hairy Apes. The last two were presented on the Fringe at the Edinburgh Festival in 1972 and 1973 under the auspices of the gallery owner and impresario Richard Demarco. Kantor later explained that his idea was in no way to follow or interpret texts, but to have both the text and the action functioning as separate elements. The performances often began at 10 o’clock at night, as many of the performers were employed in the ofcial Krakow theatres, this being seen as a symbol of new-found freedom after the strait-jacket of Stalinism. It is interesting to realise that, whereas in Poland in 1956 Kantor was able to begin the experimental work of Cricot 2, in the communist world as a whole there were also major stirrings of political discontent. In Hungary that year Russian troops brutally suppressed an uprising of the people 10

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of Budapest, which became one of the defning moments of the Cold War, while in Poland the election of Wladislav Gomułka as president was seen an element in the slow thawing of Russian control over the country. For the frst time, as the British historian Norman Davies points out, Moscow’s claims to automatic control of another country’s ruling party had begun to be questioned. At that time also there were many eforts to try and register Cricot 2 as an ofcial company, but these all ended in failure, mainly on account of the fact that it was evidently seen as irresponsible. Plesniarowicz relates that there was an allegation that Cricot 2 spectators had damaged the sanitary facilities at the Artist’s Club on the night of a performance, and there exists a letter from the authorities billing the company for the cost ‘of repairing the broken washbasin in the toilet’. In 1958 the Krzysztofory Gallery was opened in the cellars of the Gothic Krzysztofory Palace, just of Krakow’s Main Square. Added to the gallery was a café which became the unofcial headquarters of the Cricot 2 group. Both gallery and café – somewhat updated – still exist, along with the area in which many of Kantor’s productions were premiered. It is therefore to be added to spaces such as Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble, Grotowski’s Laboratory in Wrocław, Mnouchkine’s Cartoucherie and Brook’s Boufes du Nord in Paris as a key place still extant where signifcant twentieth-century performances had their origins. During the late 1950s Kantor once again began exhibiting paintings abroad in Germany, Sweden, France and the United States, where his work began to be bought by private collectors. It is interesting that, although his reputation as a theatre-maker has been prominent internationally, he was at this time recognised mainly as a key Polish visual artist. He reckoned himself that his fame as a theatre artist came only in 1972, but it was in the early 1960s that Kantor began to recognise that he was crossing the boundary between painting and theatre, the turning point being the frst text that he staged in the Krzysztofory Gallery in December 1961. This was The Country House by Witkiewicz, where living sculpture met theatre: the performers were all crammed into a wardrobe, in which they played for half an hour ‘jammed together like garments’. Kantor saw this as a trial run at translating the language of visual art or living sculpture into theatre. He used the same metaphor in the introduction to Dainty Shapes and Hairy Apes, where the audience had to fght their way into the theatre space through their coats left in the cloakroom. He said later in life to Denis Bablet: Whether it is theatre, or painting, or drawing, or a book – it all comes into being in a strange way, and I can do anything. You cannot say ‘theatre ends here and painting begins here’. To me it’s all the same. (Plesniarowicz 2001: 87) The Country House was given thirty-three performances, and the Cricot 2 company now included mostly professional actors from the various theatres in Krakow. The year 1963 was what Plesniarowicz calls a turning point in Kantor’s life. He resigned from work as a stage designer but extended his work with Cricot 2 by directing Witkiewicz’s The Madman and the Nun at the Krzysztofory Gallery according to the principles of the Zero Theatre, the manifesto for which was published in that year: ‘This process means dismembering logical plot structures building up scenes, not by textual reference but by reference to associations triggered by them, juggling with CHANCE, or junk’ (Kobialka 1993: 60). An example of this process was that for this production Kantor constructed a mobile in the form of a pyramid of carefully joined-up chairs – the Machine of Annihilation – which came from the Dominican church in Krakow, ‘found’ by Kantor as new pews were being constructed. This object when 11

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set in action drowned out the sound of the performers, pushing them of the small stage, and making it impossible for them to perform properly. In November 1963 Kantor held a one-man show in the gallery with the intention of enlarging the concept of a work of art by including objects used in his stage work, as well as several hundred drawings which were hung up on washing lines and placed in old baskets. There were also costumes and objects from productions, together with a reconstruction of the ‘poor room of reality’ from The Return of Odysseus. The following year was notable for the appearance of another of Kantor’s key concepts – that of emballage (or ambalaz in Polish). He had already produced his Emballage Manifesto between 1957 and 1965, where he wrote: ‘Emballage, Emballage, Emballage / Its potential is limitless’ (Kobialka 1993: 79). Emballage (a French term meaning ‘packaging’) became for Kantor a new means of artistic process whereby objects, people or works of art are eventually hidden or made inaccessible. This had some parallels with the artists of the Dada movement, who had provoked audiences with physical objects. In this case the provocation came with the hiding of the object in an emballage, which in some cases were parcels or large envelopes, connected not simply to Kantor’s static art forms but to his collection of Happenings and Wanderings, which we now examine. Kantor, in his visits to the United States, had already come across the concept of the Happening, a term invented by Allan Kaprow, whom he met in 1965. These were described as ‘non-matrixed performances’, a concept similar to that used by the Dadaists earlier in the twentieth century, especially in their performances in Zurich as part of the programme of the Cabaret Voltaire during the First World War. It very much paralleled Kantor’s Zero Theatre, in that it used chance structures and everyday events and sought to sensitise audiences to unexpected actions in unexpected places. Kaprow summed it up when he wrote: ‘The line between art and life should be kept as fuid and perhaps as indistinct as possible’ (Huxley and Witts 2002: 260). Kantor’s great collaborator over his Happenings was the newly opened Foksal Gallery in Warsaw, run by a group of art critics, in particular the writer Wiesław Borowski. It still exists, having become one of the most important Polish galleries to survive the communist period. In The Letter, created in January 1967, an enlarged envelope measuring 14 metres long and 2 metres high was transported through the streets of Warsaw by seven authentic postmen, to be received by the audience at the gallery. This alluded to the way in which letters during the communist period – often tampered with – were an important method of ambiguous communication of ofcial demands. In August of the same year Kantor staged The Sea Concert as part of a festival at Lazy, on the Baltic coast. This was one of fve sections of a larger Panoramic Sea Happening, which Plesniarowicz describes: Aside from the fgure [Kantor] in tails directing the symphony of the waves, the happening also included The Raft of the Medusa, a replica in happening form of Gericault’s famous painting the Erotic Barbujaz in which the bodies of female volunteers were rolled in sand mixed with oil and tomato sauce, Agrarian Culture in the Sand in which newspapers were planted on the beach, and the Sinking of a crate containing ‘important documents’ from the Foksal Gallery. In the organisers’ report they wrote that ‘the outdoor event had a very good press, which stressed the boldness of the artists and the authorities’. (Plesniarowicz 2001: 102) The Anatomy Lesson Based on Rembrandt (1968) presented a dissection of clothing on a person lying in an operating theatre, confrming Kantor as a major fgure in the history and extension 12

Kantor (1915–1990)

of Allan Kaprow’s original concept of the Happening. In 1968 Kantor once again accepted a professorship at the Fine Art Academy. It was also the year of the major political revolt against Russian domination in Czechoslovakia, which bordered on Poland. The consequent Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia and the reimposition of Russian-backed political leaders showed yet again that any anti-Russian dissidence in the Eastern bloc countries would be brutally dealt with. At the same time there was a virulent anti-Semitic campaign in Poland, with the Krzysztofory Café full of informers spying on students. At this point it is worth mentioning some of Kantor’s artistic contemporaries whose work was already well known in the West, and whose publications helped the world understand that Poles were both struggling to face down Russian domination and were also able to write material which could be seen as unambiguous criticism. The dramatists Sławomir Mrozek, Tadeusz Rosewicz and Witold Gombrowicz, the poet and critic Czesław Milosz, the flmmaker Andrejz Waida, composers Witold Lutosławski and Krzysztof Penderecki, and theatre maker Jerzy Grotowski formed a major framework for this international reputation. It is also interesting that in the major history of Poland in the twentieth century, God’s Playground, written by the British historian Norman Davies, there is no mention of Kantor and Cricot 2, which perhaps shows how clever Kantor was in keeping his work below the parapet of public recognition. However, this was all to change when the company started to tour outside Poland.

International fame Kantor’s work was frst shown to a foreign audience in 1969, when the Cricot 2 company went to Rome with The Water-Hen of Witkiwewicz for the Premio Roma Festival. Michal Kobialka describes the premiere in Krakow: For The Water-Hen Kantor converted the Krakow’s Krzysztofory Gallery into a space that looked like a poorhouse. The whole space was flled with mattresses, old packets, ladders, wooden partitions, stools, chairs, and so on in such a manner that there was no separation between the audience and the actors. The spectators were under the infuence of the same problems and moods as the actors. A wandering group of travelers and their bags entered the space. As Kantor observed, ‘for the time being, the actors do not have names’. Once inside they engaged in banal, every day actions and gestures so as to defne themselves . . . the text of the play ceased to be perceived as material waiting to be formed by a director or by space. Rather the text was treated as pre-existing or ‘readymade’ reality . . . signifcantly, the group of travelers did not begin to act out the parts of characters from the play. Instead they spoke the lines of the characters with diferent intonation and rhythm. (Kobialka 1993: 298) These manipulations prefgure the work of the American Wooster Group and the UK group Forced Entertainment, both of which seek to undermine an audience’s expectation of what a theatre performance may be. However, in spite of the Cricot 2 group’s success in being invited abroad, on their return they lost half their subsidy and Kantor’s contract was terminated by the Krakow Academy of Fine Art. Political nervousness was once again stalking the streets of Poland. The Water-Hen toured to Italy, France and Scotland, where Richard Demarco presented it at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1972. Demarco later spoke of the resistance he encountered 13

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from the Polish Ministry of Art and Culture: ‘They promised to cover all the costs if I invited Grotowski. When I asked about Kantor they said no such thing existed’ (Plesniarowicz 2001: 104). Michael Billington was one of the frst UK critics to enthuse about Kantor: ‘Alas, he and his 23 strong company return to Poland on Sunday. But if I were running an experimental theatre I would pull every string going to get them back’ (The Guardian, 23 August 1972). Thus was the work of Kantor frst received in the English-speaking world – with no translation, no subtitles, no real aid to understanding. While Kantor’s transformations and imaginative interpretations of the work of a playwright were hardly known in the UK, the production worked an exciting spell on audiences that were ready for a break from solid naturalistic fare. As future visits to the UK by Cricot 2 were to confrm, Kantor’s performances showed audacious ways of theatre-making never before seen in Great Britain or America. In the following year, 1973, Kantor again took Witkiewicz’s Dainty Shapes and Hairy Apes to the Richard Demarco Gallery in Edinburgh, where it received The Scotsman Fringe First award. By now the UK critics, led by Michael Billington of The Guardian, were waking up to the fact that in far-of Poland there were modes of theatre-making that completely avoided the Stanislavsky method, that ‘played with’ texts in contrast to ‘being faithful to the author’ – a favourite British expression – and that produced a form of theatre that defed classifcation. Most visual artists had no problems with Kantor’s work, but for the text-heavy creators of British theatre this material was a rather unwelcome revelation. There were, however, one or two critics who were able to see what was going on: ‘You only have to look at the smiling, hawk-profled fgure of Kantor himself, orchestrating the action from its centre, to realize that the solemn absurdities of most avant-garde theatre would never get past that wry, quizzical gaze’ (Michael Billington, The Guardian, 23 August 1972). In 1974 Dainty Shapes and Hairy Apes was shown at the International Theatre Festival in Nancy and the Theatre National de Chaillot in Paris, as well as at the Festival of Arts in Shiraz, Iran, where three years earlier Peter Brook had shown Orghast, written in an invented language by Ted Hughes. Audiences had also seen the work of Grotowski there, but there is no record of how Kantor’s work was received. It is possible to see many of Kantor’s early writings, most of which were in manifesto form, as rehearsals for his manifesto The Theatre of Death, which he published in 1975. He said to Denis Bablet: I noticed at a certain moment that reality in art is not the reality of life, but rather an imitation object. . . . I never returned to illusion, but I created something that was imitation reality. That is where the mannequins, the wax fgures, come from. (Plesniarowicz 2001:117) This is where Kantor for the frst time shows how far he has departed from all the main traditions of European theatre in advocating non-linear forms and speaking of and dealing with the actor as object. He expresses here his concept of theatre as vision, as a process of parallel actions and events folding back on themselves – a concept that was to be made public on a grand and extensive scale with his next and most famous production, The Dead Class, frst performed on 15 November 1975 at the Krzysztofory Gallery. In recollections of his holidays in the early 1970s at the seaside he came across: a humble, deserted school building. . . . It had but a single classroom. It could be viewed through the dusty panes of the two small, shabby windows. . . . I glued my 14

Kantor (1915–1990)

face to the window pane. Long long did I look into the dark and dim depth of my memory. (Musial 2004: 66) Rehearsals for the production had begun in December 1974, this time with a subsidy from the Culture Department at the Krakow City Hall. It became the longest-running of any of Kantor’s pieces (more than 1,500 performances in seventeen years), and was performed by professional actors from the Bagatela and Groteska theatres, together with painters. Over the years it was given in at least three diferent versions, with slightly changing interpolations of characters. It was the frst version that was flmed by Andrejz Wajda in 1976, and which is now available in a cleaned-up DVD version. For many audiences all over the world The Dead Class became a symbol of Polish theatre, humour and survival. Although this was the time when Grotowski was retiring from theatre activity, it was nonetheless a revelation that there existed in Poland a diametrically opposed form of creating theatre. Much of the extensive student theatre that had visited the UK and other ‘Western’ European countries had contained ritualistic forms that linked them to Grotowski, or more political forms which linked to a tradition of agit-prop theatre. Kantor’s work was unique in its visual invention, in its lack of linearity, and in its obsessive Polishness. For most audiences, understanding little or no Polish, the performances became a kind of mime, but for those who understood the texts from Schulz, Gombrowicz and Witkiewicz that permeated the show it became a compendium of memory and a history of a nation constantly dominated by others. The reception of The Dead Class was nothing less than rapturous. It was as if the scales had been lifted from the eyes of many critics. One noted ‘an agony of expression which you don’t fnd in the work of western artists’, while another wrote that ‘Kantor invokes a traumatic experience that has damaged us all: school’. Yet another spoke of the Waltz François as a ‘schmaltzy café waltz, whose lilt, promise of some never-fulflled hope of gaiety . . .’. The poetry of Kantor’s visual and aural imagery seemed to speak to all nations. The piece won an OBIE (Of-Broadway Theatre) award in New York. It also won the Grand Prize at the Belgrade Festival in 1977, the Cyprian Norwid Critics Prize (Poland), the Mayor’s Medal of the Commune di Roma, the Grand Prix, and the Puana Sujo at the Caracas Festival (Venezuela). In late January 1979 came Ou sont les neiges d’antan?, a ‘cricotage’ lasting twenty-fve minutes, where ‘a line of life and death’ was stretched across the centre of the stage in the Palazzo delle Esposizione in Rome. Around it was staged a grotesque wedding with a dead bride and twin cardinals dancing an Argentinian tango with mannequins. It is difcult to place this in the canon of Kantor’s work except to suggest that even he needed to fnd a form to experiment with images from time to time without the pressure of a long performance. He did this once again with I Shall Never Return in 1988. In 1979 also came an invitation from the city of Florence to go there for a whole year to mount a new production, with all expenses paid. This solidifed Kantor’s links with Italy, which became a second home both for Cricot 2 and for followers of the work. Only some of the members of the company of The Dead Class went to Florence, so that Kantor had to recruit Italian performers for what was to become his next best-known theatre piece, Wielopole, Wielopole, a memory piece which evoked scenes, characters and issues from Kantor’s childhood village in eastern Poland. The premiere took place on 23 June 1980. For the frst time Kantor wrote his own text, much of which is concerned with memories of events and the confusion of memory, with actors as mannequins occupying a signifcant role. The piece evokes not only personal history but the military framework of war which so dominated Kantor’s childhood. One English critic wrote of the piece: ‘these are the little, inefectual actions 15

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which fll our lives and eventually combine to form a pulsating rhythm of memory’ (Fulham Chronicle, 12 March 1980). Once again there was something in this Polish provincial material of universal meaning, for the piece then toured Italy, Great Britain, France, Poland, Switzerland, Venezuela, Germany, Spain, Mexico, the USA, Sweden, Finland, Argentina and Greece, winning another OBIE award in New York in 1982. It also received the Medal of the City of Lyon, and the Mayor’s Gold Medal of Florence.

A major artist for Poland At this point the Krakow municipal authorities fnally woke up to the fact that a major artist was promoting both Poland and Krakow abroad and gave Kantor the premises of the recently opened Artistic Exhibitions Bureau Gallery at ulica Kanonicza in Krakow. This consisted of rooms, owned by Wawel Cathedral, on the ground foor and in the cellar of a newly renovated medieval town house. It became the home for the Cricot 2 archives, which Kantor called the Cricoteka, and which still exists in situ. The Solidarity movement is often given credit for being the beginning of the end for communism in Europe, precipitating as it did a food of dissident protest outside Poland. Wielopole, Wielopole, was performed at the shipyard at Gdansk, where the movement was founded, and where it was disrupted by a heckler who thought it profaned national values. As a consequence Kantor requested the mayor to provide police protection for the show, which he did. He said later: ‘it seems to me that there are only moments of some sort of historical accident, when life is accepted by art, or when art justifes life’ (Plesniarowicz 2001: 125). By this time Kantor himself had been honoured in several countries. In 1978 he was awarded the Rembrandt Prize by the Goethe Foundation in Basle, and in 1982, on the second anniversary of the birth of Solidarity, he accepted the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Poland Restored from General Jaruzelski – though by this time Poland was under martial law in order to crack down on anti-Russian elements in the country. Kantor’s public response was to declare that ‘no Avant-Gardist had ever received such a decoration’. He also received the prize of the Jurzykowski Foundation in New York (1982), the French Légion d’honneur (1985), the Cross of Merit of the German Federal Republic (1989) and the Italian Pirandello Prize (1990). It is to be noted that Kantor did not emigrate or withdraw from public life but continued his work and to tour until the end of martial law in 1983; however, a writer in a Solidarity bulletin referred to him as ‘an inert puppet in the hands of the junta’. As Krzysztof Plesniarowicz notes, referring to the support he received from the Ministry of Culture and Art: ‘True enough, Kantor’s theatre had never received such attention in Warsaw as it did during the martial law period, often regarded as an unfavourable time for art’ (Plesniarowicz 2001: 126). Jan Josef Szczepanski, who was the last president of the Union of Writers before it was banned under martial law, wrote: Cricot 2 managed to carve out and maintain a place for itself regardless of the tightening and loosening of communist cultural policy . . . when it came to Cricot 2 Kantor himself apparently paid no heed to the political context in which he realized his intentions. All he cared about was art. To a signifcant degree, this immunized his theatre, making it incomprehensible to the ideologues, while at the same time appealing to their snobbism, all the more because its foreign successes endowed it with particular prestige. (Plesniarowicz 2001: 127) 16

Kantor (1915–1990)

The next invitation to come to Kantor was from Karl Gerhardt Schmidt, a banker from Nuremburg, who also had a gallery and wanted to commission a theatre piece with some connection with Nuremberg. Kantor immediately thought of the story of Veit Stoss, the famous sculptor of the altarpiece in Mariacki church in the centre of Krakow, who on return to Nuremberg had been punished for his debts by having a nail driven through his cheek. The outcome was a brilliant piece, Let the Artists Die, which combines the story of Veit Stoss with the presence of Marshal Josef Piłsudski, the founder of the Polish legion and Poland’s key romantic military hero. Piłsudski as leader is seen through the eyes of young boy who travels in his cart in front of Piłsudski’s horse, followed by a band of generals. The piece, more than any of the other Cricot 2 creations, is dependent on the interaction of performer and object, and strikes out in what seems to be a new direction for Kantor, with virtually no story, little text, and a set of startling visual refections. It was performed in January 1986 on the stage of the Słowacki Theatre in Krakow – a kind of ofcial homecoming and recognition for Cricot 2. The piece, although it was never taken to Britain or the United States, toured to Italy, France, Germany, Spain and Brazil (Buenos Aires) and remains Kantor’s last acknowledged masterpiece. In 1986 Kantor gave a series of workshops at the Piccolo Theatre in Milan, the frst time he had presented himself publicly as a teacher. The students were twelve recent graduates of the Milan School of Dramatic Arts. In efect the workshops consisted of a series of lectures complemented by practical exercises, which still surprise today by their audacity. . . . The key concept was that, in order to understand theatre, we must understand art, in particular the abstract, surrealist and constructivist revolutions of the twentieth century. In fact Kantor was answering Peter Brook’s 1961 complaint that theatre in the twentieth century had never caught up with the visual arts. These lectures, the only written insight we have into Kantor’s working methods and his teaching style, were later published in English as The Milano Lessons, as well as in Italian, French and Polish. Kantor’s next production, another installation-type cricotage entitled The Machine of Love and Death, was shown at the Kassel Dokumenta 8 exhibition in June 1987. A critic wrote in Avvenire: the tempestuous and changing images steered by the wisely conceived music of Saro Cosentino . . . the processions of living-dead specters . . . the stage governed by organized disorder, in the centre of which stand heavy metal doors that open wide to expel from inside marionette fgures, or to reveal three super-marionettes, the royal servants. (Plesniarowicz 2001: 135) In spite of the critical acclaim for The Machine of Love and Death, Kantor never agreed to further performances as he was beginning to work on his next ‘major’ piece, to be called I Shall Never Return. The frst performance took place in Milan in April 1988. When pressed Kantor admitted that the place to which he would never return was, above all, Krakow, ‘my beloved city’. The elements of the piece included isolated phrases from his own copy of the 1944 Return of Odysseus, with the fgure of Madame de la Mort as a key element. I Shall Never Return was performed in Germany, the United States, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, Japan and Iceland, but the critical reception for once was beginning to be ambiguous. By now there was a feeling among the Cricot 2 actors that Kantor was in a hurry, and the footage of rehearsals of his last piece, Today is My Birthday, prepared in Krakow with his Polish performers, shows a man frustrated and maybe even ill. By now he was living alone in his fat in ulica Sienna. Although he was being looked after by his last companion, Anna Halczak, he is said to have made statements such as ‘I am completely alone; I have no one to talk with’, ‘what an abyss has been created around me’, and other such pessimistic pronouncements. A major event 17

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that had taken place during Kantor’s last years was that the enemy – communism – had suddenly been, if not eradicated, then at least routed: the Berlin Wall had been knocked down in 1989. As one who had grown up and matured during the triumph of communism and its restrictions, and who, in a strange way, had benefted from them, in that his imagistic and overtly dissident work had managed both to bemuse the authorities and to attract an international audience, Kantor could now see the advent of another conqueror of his homeland – the Western market economy – and there may have been a sense in which he could see himself losing his way. In the summer of 1990 he led another month-long workshop for a multinational group, at the end of which he made what was his fnal complete theatrical work, Ô douce nuit (Silent Night), which was performed only four times in the Chapelle des Pénitants Blancs in Avignon. A flm and a commentary were published in France after his death. For now the concentration was on his last unfnished piece, Today is My Birthday, the elements of which seem to have been the summation of much of his work – a room full of paintings which harbour fgures from the past, a room which is invaded by cages full of historical characters, much music – particularly by Berlioz. In the midst of rehearsals on 7 December 1990 Kantor left, feeling unwell, and he died the following day, Saturday 8 December, aged seventy-fve. He was buried in Krakow’s prestigious Rakowicki cemetery, his tomb surmounted by his sculpture Boy at a Desk. The streets of the city were silent as the hearse wound its way from the Main Square to his fnal resting place, accompanied by what seemed to be the whole artistic community not just of Krakow but of Warsaw as well. After his death the Cricot 2 company continued with the production, premiering it in Toulouse and then touring to the United States and to European countries. At the Edinburgh Festival it appeared as part of the ofcial programme, no longer on the Fringe. An empty chair for Kantor was incorporated as part of the show, which ended with an abrupt freeze frame representing Kantor’s last created visual image. Thus ended an era of Polish theatre which produced a unique artist, whom we now celebrate – along with Stanislavsky and Grotowski, both of whom he despised, and Meyerhold, whom he adored – as one of the great theatre-makers of the twentieth century.

11.2

Key performances Introduction

We are extremely fortunate that Tadeusz Kantor insisted on documenting his productions with a view to creating an archive of his work, which eventually became the Cricoteka, the collection housed at various locations in the city of Krakow. This insistence came from his major preoccupation in his later years, that of the function of memory. In archiving his theatre work on flm, he was aware that only a partial record would be left, but his obsession gives us a privileged way of seeing the shape and hearing the sound of his productions. In this section we will examine four of Kantor’s key theatre pieces created between 1975 and 1989 – The Dead Class (1975), Wielopole, Wielopole (1980), Let the Artists Die (1986) and I Shall Never Return (1989). These were the works by which he became internationally known, and which toured the world, winning numerous awards and prizes. A performance of The Dead Class was flmed in the Krzysztofory gallery in Krakow in 1976 by the great Polish flm-maker Andrejz Wajda, thus providing the format in which most people can see the piece today. There are several flm versions available for consultation in the Cricoteka of Wielopole, Wielopole, Let the Artists Die and I Shall Never Return, the most readily available of which are those by Andrejz Sapia. His flm of Wielopole, Wielopole, was made in Wielopole itself in 1985 and published for the Krakow 2000 festival. 18

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There are flmed versions of several works available in the Cricoteka, which means that we are able to undertake a detailed analysis of these key productions in a way that few other twentieth-century theatre practitioners have enabled us to do. Brecht tried to archive his own work, but his means in the 1950s were limited to photographs, his model books, and a few flmed versions of performances by the Berliner Ensemble, his own company established after the Second World War in what was then the German Democratic Republic. Jerzy Grotowski left us only a few shadowy flm versions of his work, together with some interviews. Choreographers have often been meticulous in their documentation for revival purposes, having evolved notation systems which enable us to reconstruct performances. Pina Bausch authorised several videos and DVDs of her work, whereas Robert Wilson has been very selective in what he has allowed to be available on video and DVD to the public. In the light of this, Kantor’s own insistence on documenting his work thoroughly has given us unique insight into their shape. All Kantor’s major theatre pieces are concerned with memory and its attempted reconstruction. In the case of The Dead Class the memory is of school years, where the stage area divides the living audience from the representations by the company of the dead. In Kantor’s idea of a Theatre of Death, the concern is that of resurrecting memory. Krzysztof Plesniarowicz insists that: The fundamental characteristic . . . is the obsessive demonstration by the Cricot 2 actors that it is impossible to resurrect the dead pre-existence of the performance, or bring characters who once existed in history of literature, together with their experiences, back to life. (Plesniarowicz 2001: 186) Hence in The Dead Class characters are often given physical links with objects, emphasising the connection between the living and the dead, combining some object or place with a human characteristic: the Old Man with a Bicycle, the Woman Behind the Window, the Woman with the Mechanical Cradle, the Old Man in the WC, the Absent-Minded Old Man from the First Row (of school benches), all have obsessive behavioural traits associated with their respective objects. In Wielopole, Wielopole, each character brings a gestural characteristic associated with the remembered personality: Mad Auntie Manka, the Little Jewish Rabbi, the Uncles, Marian Kantor the father on leave, the platoon of soldiers, Uncle Stasio the Deportee with the violin. These gestural keys give us memory clues in recalling the performances, and the flmed versions can therefore act as memory triggers in a way that no other twentieth-century theatre-maker has allowed.

The Dead Class (1975) Although Kantor had been creating theatre work either as a designer or director for many years, most of this had been related to single Polish texts of various kinds, in particular texts by Wyspiański and Witkiewicz (known as Witkacy), and so could be seen as being broadly interpretive in nature, albeit in a thoroughly expressionist and surrealist manner. Kantor said of Witkacy in 1956: ‘The name of Ignacy Witkiewicz acts on people with a developed sense of humour like a red fag to a bull. And that red fag is what we’re after’ (Plesniarowicz 2001: 175). Kantor had presented The Water-Hen and Dainty Shapes and Hairy Apes, both by Witkacy, at the Edinburgh Festival in 1972 and 1973, under the auspices of Richard Demarco, to great acclaim. At the same time throughout his life he had been continuing to draw and paint wherever he went, picking up and presenting strange, often Surrealist images 19

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that surprise even now in their conjunctions and collusions of fgure and form. However, nothing had prepared the world for the astonishing series of textual and imagistic conjunctions that made The Dead Class of 15 November 1975 into one of the key theatrical works of the twentieth century. It was frst performed, where much of Kantor’s work originated, in the medieval Krzysztofory Gallery in the basement of the sixteenth-century Krzysztofory Palace in ulica Szcepanska in Krakow, which is still very much as it was in Kantor’s day. Away from the crowds in the city streets above, The Dead Class became Kantor’s frst great international signature work, eclipsing to a great extent both his former visual work and his former theatre pieces. The piece – it is not a ‘play’ by any stretch of the imagination (although most British commentators used this term) – is a collage of texts and images from a variety of ‘alternative’ Polish writers, with other material and imagery added by Kantor himself. The overall framework is a nineteenth-century schoolroom, with wooden desks, inhabited by twelve performers who present an image of a class of old people, accompanied for some of the time by what appear to be their former selves in the form of mannequins strapped to their backs: ageing school kids carrying their histories with them. Their ‘teacher’ would appear to be Kantor, but this is not actually the case. He stands in front of and among them, dressed in black trousers, jacket and scarf and a white shirt, and silently directs them with hand gestures throughout the show. He appears as the master of ceremonies, allowing certain actions to happen and controlling others, while orchestrating the movement and the sound with impatient gestures to the theatre technicians. There is a clear parallel between him and the conductor of a symphony orchestra, who makes sure that the players come in on time. But there is also a kind of Brechtian distance created whereby the audience sees the show partly through the presence of Kantor, who becomes the editor of what we see. The visual impression is of a forgotten or excavated school class of around 1914/15, or so the costumes would imply – an image which connected with audiences everywhere in the world when the piece toured from 1975 until 1990. It also represents visually the time around Kantor’s birth in 1915 in a small country town in Poland (or Galicia, as it was then). Inside this framework is played out a multiple texture of image and word in what can only be described as a series of expressionist games, fghts and scenes that together combine to make a remembered and distorted picture of school days and memories. All this is fltered through the mind of Kantor and three key Polish Surrealist writers – Bruno Schulz, Witold Gombrowicz and Stanislaw Witkiewicz, the frst two of whom in their diferent contexts also present the idea of the remembered schoolroom. But the overall image is also importantly of a Polish past which evoked for audiences in 1975, living under a communist regime which was censoring dissident artistic work, a symbol of creative freedom. The fact that Kantor’s work was being performed away from ‘ofcial’ theatres such as the famous Stary Theatre in Krakow, which was only 100 yards from the Krzysztofory Gallery, and that it was difcult to pick up any anti-communist message from the anarchic Surrealist images, meant that audiences were able, in the small basement space, to feel a Polish historical presence that was a world away from the communist life on the streets above. Yet it was a Polish presence that played with itself and the audience in such a way that Kantor described The Dead Class as a ‘séance’ – a kind of evocation of a Polish past which yet was in no way realistic. In 1975 Poland was in any case, under the premiership of Edward Gierek, going through the very beginnings of a disgust with communism and its rules and regulations, and the frst open public protests were taking place. The Dead Class therefore became both a reminder of the past and a symbol of the free creative mind and its ingenuity. And for international audiences, most of whom who did not, of course, understand the Polish texts, the show became an example of Polish performance that was liberating and quite unlike anything previously seen in Europe, even though some audiences 20

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would have been familiar with the visual and aural shock of the work of Grotowski from his many tours. However, Kantor’s performances had little, if any, connections with the more ritualised work of the Theatre Laboratory. Inside a roped-of area in the basement Krzysztofory Gallery – this is no ‘theatre’ but a kind of invented performance space – there are four rows of wooden, almost black, school desks that look as if they have been found on an abandoned site, forming what Kantor called ‘the wreck’. To the side of the desks is the village ‘privy’ – the loo ‘where one got one’s frst taste of freedom’ – also constructed, like all Kantor’s objects, of found wooden boards. Beside the desks, sitting on a chair, there is a dummy with a waxen face, dressed in black. This is the Beadle, a kind of parish councillor, looking like something out of the world of Charles Dickens. At several points in the piece this dummy is replaced by a live actor (Krzysztof Miklaszewski), who sings the Austro-Hungarian anthem as an attempted counterpoint to the chaos of the ‘old’ children. There are three lights hanging over the desks, and the overall colours are black and grey – there are no lighting changes throughout the piece. The general impression is of a forgotten small town schoolroom with books about to crumble to dust, a place whose real existence – if it ever actually existed – is in any case something from an invented past. Another description is that it appears, described by Jan Klossowicz, ‘like an unknown drawing by Bruno Schulz’ (Drozdowski 1979: 109). As the audience enters the seating area Kantor is standing near the desks, waiting to start the piece, like the classical conductor waiting for the audience to be quiet and the orchestra to start playing. Indeed Kantor’s function throughout is the theatrical equivalent of such a fgure, constantly guiding the players, making sure the visual and aural balance is correct and as it ought to be. Sitting among the desks are the twelve performers of Cricot 2, all dressed in what might be classed as funeral clothes, with bowler hats and white and grey faces, staring straight ahead in silence, a frozen image of a remembered or invented past. In fact Kantor captured the image after looking through the window of an abandoned schoolroom that he came across near the Baltic coast. At a sign from Kantor the show begins, and the twelve performers each slowly raise their right hands with the frst two fngers up in the pose of either wanting to ask a question or wanting to show that they know the answer – an archetypal image of an old school where facts and the remembrance of material is of crucial importance. The image of these questioning old people in black behind their poor and old school desks has now become, as we have seen, one of the key theatrical images of the twentieth century. At another sign from Kantor the old people jump up from their desks and quickly disappear into the dark space at the back of the gallery. Only one performer, the Absent-Minded Old Man from the First Row, remains in the empty schoolroom. In a moment another of the performers comes back, collects him, and drags him away from the room. Suddenly all the old people appear in the entrance, this time carrying on their backs dummies of themselves in black school uniforms with white children’s faces. The idea of the dummies, or mannequins, may well have come from Kantor’s admiration for the British designer/director Edward Gordon Craig, who, in his On the Art of the Theatre, proposed that the theatre needed to move beyond the natural, that the actor needed to lose his personality and take on the attributes of a puppet in order to release a diferent kind of imaginative potential. In The Dead Class these puppets are both self-images and a kind of homage to Craig, lifeless yet redolent of a life past. The old people and their dummies are accompanied by the striking sound of the Waltz François, composed by Adam Karasinki in 1907 and played on a disc by a ballroom orchestra. This waltz, with its aristocratic overtones of ballrooms and elegant pre-war dresses, becomes one 21

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of the key sounds of the piece and is heard from time to time at the order of Kantor. At its frst hearing now it accompanies the Grand Parade of the old people circling round the desks with jerky, clumsy movements, dummies on their backs. One character whips the foor as she moves, another – the Old Man with a Bicycle – has his likeness strapped to the saddle of a pennyfarthing, yet another – the Old Man with his Double – carries his own image as though dead. They circle ‘the wreck’ three times then sit down in silence. The music stops, and what follows appears to be the memory of a lesson about Solomon and King David consisting of random associations of words resembling a Dada poem: What do we know about King Solomon? (repeated) King Solomon . . . Loved . . . Who did King Solomon love? Many . . . Strange women What women were they? The moa . . . bites Two old men drag another – the Old Man in the WC – to the loo, pulling his trousers down. He bares his backside while the questions and answers come in quick succession, contributing to the general confusion. They shout: Ammo . . . nites Edo . . . mites Hit . . . tites Zidonians, Ammonites, Zidonians, Edomites, Moabites Then comes the next question: King David . . . What did King David do? King David . . . Oompah, oompah Shit On your pa, King David’s grown old David’s crown Absolom cursed David!!! Where is the Ark, where is the Ark? And so on. There is general confusion, and then the performers shout out the Hebrew alphabet. The impression is of another universal memory of unruly children who can’t agree on anything. It becomes like a Dadaist chant, the old people accompanying themselves by pulling grotesque faces, watched by Kantor, carrying one of the dummies in his arms. Gradually the image of a wailing Jewish crowd comes to the fore, but the strains of the waltz now seem to calm them down, and they sit quietly, smiling serenely, as if the waltz represents some kind of paradise or escape from their trapped situation. Now Kantor’s imagery, by a strange coincidence, seems to 22

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bear a resemblance to some of the images of Samuel Beckett’s characters, trapped by past situations from which they cannot escape. At this point in the flm made by Andrejz Wajda in 1976, the characters move outside the gallery for no apparent reason, where one of the characters, the Somnambulist Prostitute, bares her breast while the Old man with a Bicycle trots around what looks like the backstage area of a theatre. There was some confusion over this passage, which was Wajda’s attempt, one assumes, to introduce an element of the flm-maker’s interpretive art and to give the flmed performance some extra dimension. Kantor apparently disliked this interpolation, as did most of the company, but by some means the section has always remained in the documentation, as this performance was generally felt to be of one of the best given of The Dead Class. The old people end this part by running around on the hills outside Krakow, and when the piece resumes in the gallery the performers start on more questions and sayings remembered from history lessons: What year was Capet’s head . . .? What year was Capet’s head . . .? Queen Anne is dead!!! And the geese which saved the Capitol? And the geese which saved the Capitol? Hannibal ante portas!!! THE IDES OF MARCH And so on, with more chaos and the shouting of Polish and Latin quotations, as if life itself consists of having to say and remember phrases, facts and questions, which are the only things that legitimise existence or keep total anarchy at bay. One of the women keeps walking round, cackling and looking through the wooden window frame which she carries. At a sign from Kantor they all return to their desks, sitting down in silence. Then one of the men gets up and starts giving a lesson on the way the mouth creates sound: Various things happen in the mouth when you speak. Lips take diferent Positions to articulate A or E, and quite diferent ones for U!!! For B or P, they come together to completely close the air channel, and this is followed by a sudden release resulting in an audible explosion. Gradually his speech becomes incoherent, and the old people begin fdgeting, starting to test out their own mouths with a vocal composition as follows, which resembles nothing so much as a poem by the Dadaist poet Kurt Schwitters: Vyst rr bzirk FUMTSEKAKA Vyst rr bzirk FUMTSEKAKA Bistri virk FUM TSE KAKA Kantor conducts this as if it were being rehearsed for a special performance. Then they start making faces at each other, pufng out their cheeks, pushing out their tongues, turning up their noses with their fngers. This is a direct quotation from the novel Ferdydurke by Witold Gombrowicz, where there is a challenge of an all-out duel of face-making in Mr Piorkowski’s Surrealist school. The turmoil continues, and Kantor chases the performers out of the space; the Beadle’s dummy is taken away, to be replaced by an actor, leaving only the dummies in the school 23

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seats. Then at last the Cleaning Woman gets up from the corner in which she has been sitting throughout the performance. She is a big woman, played by a man wearing a black dress and a black hat. She begins cleaning up by throwing the decaying books around, thus furthering the atmosphere of disintegration in the room. She fnally goes up to the Beadle, takes his newspaper from him, and starts reading from what appear to be an account of the events of 1914, the year before Kantor’s birth: Konstanty Wisniweski, the chemist, recommends tablets Of his own prescription Cheap meals for the unemployed In the streets of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, A Serbian named Gavrilo Princep Has assassinated the Crown Prince, The Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife Kaiser Wilhelm II has ordered a general mobilization Of the German Empire . . . Well, there’s going to be a war . . . The Beadle jumps up from his chair, stands to attention, salutes and sings the Austro-Hungarian national anthem in a wavering tone of voice: Gott erhalte Gott beschutze Unsern Kaiser, unser Land. These are the frst insertions into the piece of what might be termed a version of historical reality, placing the framework of The Dead Class frmly at the time of the First World War, a time when German and Austrian control of Poland was unchallenged. So this class of the dead represents an image of controlled humanity, a world that would have been recognised by the audience of 1975 – a Poland under foreign domination, yet where the chemist continues to sell his own recommended tablets. On the other hand, the newspaper and its contents might well have been made up by Kantor, so that we are still in the world of ambiguity. What is genuine are the historical facts quoted and the sound of the anthem. At this point we may recap what we have watched so far and see the seated old people, the schoolroom chaos, the reading of the newspaper, the singing of the anthem, even the parade of the performers around the desks, as static images or even photographs brought to life, or as drawings by Kantor which form the scenario much more than the textual content. If we try to make sense of the words alone, or, worse, make the mistake of thinking that the words are the major signifer of the piece, we are forgetting that Kantor was frst and foremost a visual artist. The words he chooses from the three authors are used like objects or other visual elements – they become tools by which to help construct the totality of the piece. The Dead Class is a visual and aural totality of which the only coherent progression lies in the succession of images, which consist of the comings and goings of the group and the moments of silence, with the sounds of the old people as counterpoint, all bound together by Kantor’s persistent use of the strange Polish waltz. It is also bound by the way in which the class of old people walk, talk and physically portray themselves as younger versions. Much of the text is shouted at screaming pitch, as if the performers were children attempting to be heard or craving attention, so that the piece often takes on the 24

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nature of an expressionist painting, where distorted features are complemented by cacophonous sonic elements. There are clear parallels with Edvard Munch’s famous painting The Scream. The next section consists of some members of the group bringing on something that looks like a cross between a gynaecologist’s couch and an instrument of torture. This is accompanied by snatches of dialogue from Witkiewicz’s play Tumor Brainiowicz. At the same time the Charwoman brings on the Mechanical Cradle, consisting of a wooden box, inside which are two wooden balls which clack and clatter as the box is moved. These are both major examples of Kantor’s creation of objects having an invented life of their own, which are then inserted into the already destroyed life of the schoolroom – both objects representing Kantor’s theory of Theatre of Death, which we have discussed earlier. The presence of these two instruments of torture simply adds to the unpredictability of the action. The Charwoman now enters holding an object which seems to be a combination of a broom, a scythe and a mop, which she sweeps around the room with wide gestures, just missing the performers and causing everyone to fall on the foor in heaps. With every sweep of the broom the old people collapse. Then there begins a series of textual extracts from Tumor Brainiowicz, which are random lines spoken by Witkiewicz’s characters in his play, but here are heard as snatches of unconnected sentences: Papa writes poems you know . . . Recite one for us, Iza Once there was a little kitten, once there was a soft green mitten Ate its breakfast in the by and byes Someone gave a secret glance, someone gave a shove by chance They all cried out their eyes At the back of the class one of the men takes on the role of teacher, pointing his fnger and provoking a further series of variations: Prometheus . . . Prometheus and his liver Cleopatra . . . Cleopatra’s nose The nose, the foot . . . Achilles’ heel, Adam’s rib, and what about the ear, or the fnger, or the eye . . . One actor then bares his heel, which is gnawed at by one of the others. The chaos continues, snatches of dialogue being played with and thrown around among the performers like children playing with new words, only all the snatches are related to classic European fgures or biblical concepts, such as the camel passing through the eye of the needle, these ideas contrasting previous Jewish elements such as the alphabet. The overall impression is of total confusion of meanings and sounds, and of what might be termed the futility of memory. At the height of the confusion the waltz arrives again, calming the old people down as a moment of peace and organisation in this world of madness. As the music swells the old people stand to attention, emphasising the controlling nature of this music. After more snatches from Witkiewicz, the Woman Behind the Window interrupts with this speech from Tumor Brainiowicz: You, children, go for a stroll. It’s a glorious day Today, Spring is defnitely in the air 25

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The trees are sprouting green all over. I’ve even seen two brimstone butterfies which Left their chrysalises encouraged by the warmth and circled In the scented air. The poor things, they don’t know That there are no fowers yet and they’ll starve to death This is the only overtly ‘poetic’ moment in the piece, at which point the old people hitch their satchels to their backs and leave the space. Wajda’s film now takes them outside once again, this time up on the hills above Krakow, where they run around, watched by the silent dummies at the desks which have been placed in the swaying grass – a moment of enjoyment and optimism in an otherwise dark piece of theatre. But they have run ‘until they are absolutely exhausted and dead-tired’, and they stagger back to their desks in the gallery space. There follows an extended section using elements from Witkiewicz, which begins with a parody of an erotic scene where the performer Maria Stangret (later to become Kantor’s second wife) is kissed by her two male schoolmates. The Charwoman drags various cast members of, while Kantor is picking up the various books strewn around the foor. At this point the whole cast re-enters, each carrying a handkerchief and a notebook. They seem to be in mourning for someone, or perhaps in mourning for their lost personalities. There is a cemetery conversation between them, with snatches such as: Not so long ago Grass hasn’t had time to grow . . . Death cut her down . . . She didn’t survive the winter . . . He was always wont to joke . . . But she had nice weather . . . Then they begin a long recital of names of the dead, supposedly culled from a real Krakow graveyard by Kantor himself, while one of the cast brings in a pile of black-bordered death posters for each of the old people to hold bearing the name ‘Jozef Wgrzdagiel’. The name itself seems a composite of German, Polish and Jewishness, perhaps symbolising the cultural mixture of Poland at the time of the First World War, perhaps an attempt to show us the ethnic mix of these dead people from the dead class. The only one not to read out the names is the Beadle, who is clearly from the controlling Austro-Hungarian Empire. There follows a further series of extracts from Tumor Brainiowicz, with Professor Green eventually taking photos with a machine that seems to be a combination of camera and gun, a long-term connection made by Kantor with several of his objects in other works. A camera-gun appears also in Wielopole, Wielopole, as we shall see later. Once again the speech from the Woman Behind the Window comes: ‘You children go for a stroll . . .’ This is undercut by the strains of the waltz, on the one hand, and by Maria Stangret now singing a Jewish lullaby, on the other. At this point Wajda has once again moved his camera outside the theatre space into the market square of the Jewish quarter of Krakow known as Kasimierz, where Maria sits singing, accompanied by the clacking balls of the cradle: Az du vest zain raich zinele Vest du dich dermonen dos lidele Rozhenkes mit mandlen . . . 26

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Then we are inside the gallery again and into the penultimate scene of the piece. Once again this is the world of Witkiewicz, where there appears to be a kind of free-for-all of both action and dialogue which transforms itself into a parody of a scene from Tumor Brainiowicz, where Professor Green, the white chief, arrives at the island of Timor aboard a cruiser called the Prince Arthur. As Green enters the room, holding a black pirate’s fag, he cries: ‘Hooray, let’s take possession of this land.’ Then we move into the fnal section of the piece. The Old Man with a Bicycle enters carrying what looks like a camera, from which emerges a black bellows which he points at various members of the group. Two old men get hold of another and start cleaning his ears by pulling a bit of string back and forth under his bowler hat. Some of the cast start singing ‘Eeny meeny miny mo’, another shouts a line from Tumor Brainiowicz – ‘Do you want to become the 5th Marchioness of Micetower?’ Strands of previous questions and answers keep being thrown back and forth, while the cast rushes around, falling over and piling on top of each other. The Man with the Bicycle rides in and out, the Woman at the Window looks on with a manic expression, and the Beadle walks back and forth trying to sing the Austrian national anthem. Kantor looks on and then, after a while, freezes the action twice, after which, released, the cast exits still chanting the snatches of sentences that have been started, now heard of stage at the back of the gallery. All that is left are the benches, the tattered books, and the dummy of the Beadle. Kantor exits mysteriously to the backstage gloom, then quietly slips back, standing at the arched exit of the gallery. The noise continues, phrases being repeated over and over, until members of the audience eventually start clapping. Everything is gone, the old people have fnally exhausted their memories; there is no order, no music, no resolution to the sequence of images of the séance. The class that died has now disappeared for ever. As Kantor himself once said, ‘In the theatre the only living beings are the spectators.’ We, the audience, are all that is left of the séance. The complexity of The Dead Class was such that it needed viewing several times. For some audiences it was difficult to realise what kind of ‘theatre’ this was, and the work was always better understood by visual artists than more orthodox ‘theatre’ people. But everyone recognised that there was a unique vision here, together with a company of performers many of whom were themselves visual artists of reputation, others of whom were refugees from Poland’s official theatres, but all of whom understood the work and could convey Kantor’s ideas. An understanding of the literary references was not necessary, though for Polish audiences in 1975 Kantor’s use of specific ‘underground’ authors would have had special significance. But for audiences all over the world Kantor’s strange blend of image, sound and music conveyed a palpable sense of an imagined human existence having only memory to confuse it. It also showed that theatre could be a strong combination of image and sound that in some ways approximated more to opera. Audiences could respond to the images of death and decay filtered through the schoolroom with its desks and tattered books. Most people would have had neither translations nor ways of entering the verbal world that Kantor used, but his images of death, the pre-war costume, Surrealist objects, and sheer anarchy crossed with attempts at order struck powerful notes across the world, so that The Dead Class was able to emerge from its Polishness and become a universal picture of human memory.

Wielopole, Wielopole (1980) Wielopole, Wielopole was the next piece created by Kantor and Cricot 2 after The Dead Class to tour internationally, becoming Kantor’s second great signature work. The title comes from the 27

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name of the little town in eastern Poland, or Galicia as it was then, where Kantor was born in 1915. The Polish writer Piotr Krakowski describes the place as: a ramshackle Galician backwater with a comical little sloping square surrounded by one-storey houses, a parish church with an eighteenth century tower, and the barely visible remains of the Skrzynski manor house, which the Jews had dismantled at the turn of the century . . . Thanks to Kantor’s performance, the place became known all over the world. (Plesniarowicz 2001: 234) Krzysztof Miklaszewski adds to this: Its history was shaped by its geography, merchants in the Middle Ages being attracted by its location on a trade route. Subsequently only military strategists took an interest in it, and then only in time of war. The mercantile ‘invasion’ was the main reason for its initial prosperity, which was then efectively destroyed by numerous wars, including the Second World War. Hence the history of Wielopole was one of defeat and downfall, rather than ascent and development. (Miklaszewski 2005: 74) Wielopole today is strangely like the old photographs – the open square, the Catholic church, the restored manor-house with a small Kantor museum. A visit there takes one to a largely unknown area of Poland – although with the advent of low-cost airlines to nearby Rzeszow it is becoming known as a hiking and holiday area, yet still retaining elements of the old Galicia in its rural architecture. Once again Kantor’s piece is a sequence of actions, this time utilising not Polish literary texts but material written by Kantor himself, as a way of trying to memorise key events from the life of his family seen through a few faded photographs, and more importantly as a discussion and forum for his Theatre of Death. As before, these events can be seen in the form of remembered still photographs which are animated to form a collage of life in a small town family around 1914/15, similar to the period of The Dead Class. But here the resemblance ends. Wielopole, Wielopole, is an examination of the impossibility of reconstructing dead memory and at the same time is a fragmented and distorted family history based on a few known facts and images. Also in this case the performers play, or rather play with, the idea of Kantor’s family, or his theatrical version of how he saw them from a distance of sixty or so years. The historical elements of war and loss are present, as are the co-existence in one small Polish town of military, Catholic and Jewish elements and characters. But the overall metaphor of war and its disturbances, as well as its sounds of marching and military music, is present throughout the piece. Wielopole is situated 130 kilometres east of Krakow, near what is today the Ukrainian border. When Kantor was born it was a town that was partly Polish but with a strong Jewish majority. The Polish writer Piotr Krakowski sees the place as being made internationally famous by Kantor: In the square stood a chapel with some sort of saint for the Catholic faithful. In the same square was a well near which Jewish weddings were held, primarily when the moon was full. On one side stood the church, the rectory [in which Kantor was born], and the Catholic cemetery, and on the other the synagogue, the narrow Jewish lanes, 28

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and another cemetery. Both sides existed in harmonious symbiosis. Aside from its daily life, the town was oriented toward eternity. (Plesniarowicz 2001: 11) Wielopole, Wielopole takes this place and Kantor’s own family history as partly remembered by the artist, and gives us a deliberately distorted and grotesque picture of the everyday lives and traumas faced by a community confronted at that time with the consequences of war. A platoon of Polish conscript soldiers is on stage for much of the time, and a military march and marching feet dominate, prefacing the fnal image of the Jewish Rabbi helping the Catholic Priest of stage in a gesture of reconciliation – perhaps the only note of optimism in the entire piece. As with The Dead Class, the playing area is constructed of rough materials, in this case a platform of rough boards on which stand elements of a room – chairs, a wardrobe, a bed, a pair of slatted wooden doors which open to a blank space at the back of the stage. The whole represents what Kantor calls a ‘dead room inhabited by the dead . . . stamped into the memory for eternity’. The piece, however, is a series of memory fragments which, like memory, follow no logical order, but which together make up a commentary on memory. The various versions of the piece that have been flmed (and which form our major reference points) difer somewhat from each other and from Kantor’s published scenario, so the account I give is based on what appear to be the major elements common to all versions. The piece begins with Kantor, in his trademark black suit and scarf and white shirt, arranging the furniture of the room of his childhood, watched by the members of his family grouped in what might be the pose for a family photograph. Kantor’s unspoken introduction goes as follows: Here is my Grandmother, my Mother’s mother, Katarzyna And that’s her brother The Priest Some used to call him uncle. He will die shortly. My father sits over there. The frst from the left On the reverse of this Photograph he sends his Greetings Date: 12 September 1914 Mother Helka will be here any Minute The rest are Uncles and Aunts. They went the way of all fesh, Somewhere in the world Now they are in the room, Imprinted as memories: Uncle Karol, Uncle Olek, Auntie Manka, Auntie Jozka. From this moment on, their Fortunes begin to change 29

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Passing through a series of Radical alterations, Often quite embarrassing, such As they would have been unable To face, had they been among The living. (Kantor 1990: 18) So the characters are both the living and the dead, though all are now dead, and it is possible that none of these events happened with all of them present: a typical commentary by Kantor therefore, which resembles the Jewish idea of a midrash, or commentary on established and accepted teachings. Although it is now clear that Kantor was not himself Jewish, there was enough observation and inculcation of Jewish experience in him to help suggest this possible Jewish focus in his work. The frst scene is one where Uncle Olek and Uncle Karol, both in formal black dress and wearing stark white makeup, run back and forth, asking if the photo of the family was correct. They are played by the Janicki twins, who were major performers in the Cricot 2 company for many years: Surely, Uncle Olek wasn’t Sitting down, was he? He was standing, or walking . . . The suitcase was on the Wardrobe . . . What about that chair? Much of the two uncles’ function throughout the piece is to run around, placing and displacing objects, dressing and undressing, trying to bring some order to their memories and the events going on around them, and at the same time representing what Kantor sees as the useless daily family concerns. In the same space is the revolving iron bed on which Uncle Jozef, the dying Catholic priest, is laid, while Grandma sings Psalm 110 to him, at the same time inserting a metal bedpan under his body. The wooden slatted door at the rear of the playing area opens for a brief moment to reveal the dead body of a woman in a wedding gown, Kantor’s mother Helka. There is also a female photographer with a ‘bizarre rattling tin camera’, who is not allowed to enter the room because she is stopped by Grandma. The performers in Wielopole, Wielopole, according to Kantor, do not so much play as impersonate: The principle of impersonation can be generalised as a method. Thanks to it, the actors in Cricot 2 do not have to act. Everyone who impersonates someone does it badly, and ends up playing himself because it is impossible to be transformed. Transformation that’s the most boring method in conventional theatre. (Plesniarowicz 2001: 235) But we can see that in this piece there is a greater approximation to what might be called ‘character’ – members of the family – than there ever was in The Dead Class. This is a piece of distorted family history which yet is close to both real public and private events in a small town in Poland at the beginning of the First World War. 30

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Grandma now repeats the psalm as well as her action with the bedpan, but in comes the photographer, who is actually the widow of the owner of the local photographic studio (known as ‘Ricordo’): and a foul skivvy from the parish charnel house, rolled into one. A dismal agent of death, bluntly thrusting in her hooded handcart with a built-in camera. She behaves in a careless, slapdash fashion, showing the typical callousness of her trade. (Kantor 1990: 27) Grandma exits, leaving the photographer to perform some Kantorian exercise in which she shows us that the bed upon which the dying Priest is resting is actually a piece of revolving machinery: the top can rotate around a shaft, which ends in cog-wheels and a crank. As the photographer turns the crank, the dead Priest disappears, to be replaced by a performer as the Priest emerging from underneath. This time he is dressed ceremonially. The photographer props the Priest up and brutally twists his head to the camera, takes two shots, then steps up to the door and, stomping around, controls our vision in the way that commercial photographers often do. This deathbed is therefore another example of one of Kantor’s bio-objects, where the machine-like elements transform both the performer and the spectator’s vision of what is happening, and which efectively blurs life with death in one visual image. Now the family members enter again, presenting another family picture. The photo is taken, and the family disappears behind the closed doors. At the side of the room stands the platoon of conscripts waiting to be sent to the war – another remembered image of Wielopole at that time. They wear combat fatigues and each carries a gun. According to Kantor they are: pathetic nondescript fgures in full uniform, with rifes. Illegal tenants of the room since childhood, they arrive from the past, reduced to a single pose and single moment of a photograph. There is something rudimentary about these dwellers on the margins or life and memory. (Kantor 1990: 31) The platoon of soldiers sits there, shaking in an image of exaggerated fear, and the camera, in one of Kantor’s object transformations, becomes a machine gun, accompanied by the photographer’s shouting voice, which is reminiscent of the sound of the ‘old’ children in The Dead Class. This platoon often dominates the piece, with sections of grotesque marching serving to remind us of the military context of the entire performance. The Priest now points across the stage to Marian Kantor, the father, sitting in the front row of the platoon, expressionless. The Priest begins a lengthy section in which he tries to teach Marian how to march properly, accompanied by a Polish military march known as The Grey Infantry. The whole efect is of a ludicrous attempt at making a dead image come to life, until the staggering movements that Marian manages (and which are to become his trademark gesture) themselves defy any real existence. By now the Priest has been given a huge wooden cross on his back which accompanies his own attempt at marching. Images of crosses and marching men become the leitmotifs of this extraordinary piece from now on. The Priest goes and opens the wooden doors, behind which lies the dead bride, Kantor’s mother Helka, all in white, sometimes torn, with her pathetic veil. The Priest lifts her, props her up, and drags her forward into the room, where it is time to conduct the marriage service 31

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with Marian. He props Helka next to Marian, reaches into his pocket for the marriage service, and begins: Marian Kantor! Wilt you take this woman Helena Berger To thy wedded wife to live Together After God’s ordinance in the Holy Estate of matrimony? Mother Helka can only respond in a puppet like voice. Father Marian, according to Kantor, ‘can utter nothing but a hideous animal gibber, choking with the efort of remembering the human voice. Thus unfolds the dialogue of the quick and the dead’ (Kantor 1990: 37). The efect of this terrifying moment is to disrupt completely the image of the marriage ceremony, while at the same time making a comment on the fact that Kantor’s father never came back after the war, but settled in Silesia and fnally returned to Tarnow, near Krakow, and ended up in Auschwitz for distributing an underground newspaper. Kantor gave the next section the overall title ‘Vilifcation’, by which he meant the family’s shame at the knowledge that Marian had deserted Helka. Images of Marian’s return to the family while on leave end in the family’s making Helka a sacrifcial victim on the cross at Golgotha. Helka is now seen sitting on a kind of mobile scafold which is on a push cart. The family keeps pushing this thing around while Mad Auntie Manka begins to speak the words of the Gospels, ‘as she does whenever a crisis befalls this terrible family’: Oh Helka, Helka! Why did he degrade you And so meanly desert you . . . Perhaps it serves you right To be so degraded, Debased, defled and abused. How are the mighty fallen! . . . When the morning was come, Pilate had him scourged, They put a crown of thorns upon his head And they spat upon him and mocked him And smote him on the head and the kidneys. Oh Wretched Helka Wretch indeed, To have come to this in the End. (Kantor 1990: 48) The platoon advances from all sides of the space, encircling the family as if to trample them underfoot. The family leaves and a dummy of Helka appears above the soldiers’ heads. The soldiers throw her up in the air, leaving her with her arms and legs ‘shamelessly fung apart’. At this point Uncle Stasio, the Deportee, enters slowly, skirting the back of the stage near the 32

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doors, playing a tune by Chopin on his violin. The family leaves the room slowly and disappears behind the door. Helka is left on the foor, dead, raped, her knees apart. Once again we are aware of the mix of farce, tragedy, prejudice and religious bigotry, contrasted with the formal musical elements of chant, march and piano piece which form the framework of this piece of theatre. Wielopole, Wielopole as a title is now becoming a wail of shame, the family being clearly implicated in the disaster that was Helka’s marriage and their consequent humiliation. They now enter and argue about the marriage, about Helka’s dowry and Marian’s defection. All the time Marian is performing a grotesque march around the stage like some demented statue, yet the family tells us that a postcard from him has just come with its seasonal message. How far, we wonder, was this grotesque family story a form of therapy for Kantor, who as a small boy remembered these intolerable events, framed against the precepts of a Catholic upbringing? His mother died in Krakow as late as 1962 while Kantor was abroad, and he was therefore apparently unable to attend the funeral. One wonders how far Wielopole, Wielopole, created twenty years later, was his ambiguous tribute to this determined woman. The next section is entitled ‘Crucifxion’, and we now see the two uncles in a scene entitled ‘the repetition of the commonplace’, where they are both busy dressing and undressing, repeating questions of dress protocol: A waistcoat under a jacket Though lacking a jacket Under a coat Of I go with a waistcoat on etc. etc. There are more religious forebodings from Auntie Manka, and a scene where young Adas is sent to the front while the family debate what they can do: Well, something must be done To help him out, To obtain his release We’ll have to think of something Make him stay put, maybe Just watching the world go by Or doing a bit of gardening . . . The best idea is medical grounds, Say varicose veins . . . What have varicose veins to do With war? We are all under one banner! On the pages of history! We shall not give in! Forward march! (Kantor 1990: 73) Now the Deportee-cum-Busker (Uncle Stasio) turns up. He has nothing left but a violin case in which is concealed a hurdy-gurdy. He turns a crank of the machine and we hear the distorted version of Chopin’s B Minor Scherzo, a strange echo of a more civilised and aristocratic Poland, 33

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to try and calm the panic. The Priest comes back with a cross, on top of which is strapped Adas’s body. Next comes the court martial of the Priest, who is set with his back to the audience. He is facing the entire platoon, who threaten him with wooden rattles, the sound of which fll the stage. The two uncles and a platoon ofcer (Auntie Hanka) pass judgement on the Priest. The wooden clatter sounds like a death rattle and the Priest is symbolically shot by the platoon. The family history now becomes intertwined with military rituals of control and destruction. The last section is called ‘The Last Supper’, and is preceded by images in which the deathbed machine wreaks oral havoc among the family: on top the dummy of the Priest, underneath the performer playing the Priest. The family is split into two groups, one taking the side of the dummy-Priest, the other that of the performer-Priest. They creep on the foor and peep under the bed as they keep turning the machine: Here they go again My head’s turning He is not one of ours It’s not him What does it matter Up and down up and down. (Kantor 1990: 83) All this is absurd and, as Kantor says, ‘inexplicable’. The room of childhood suddenly becomes a room of turmoil; the family members bring in and arrange chairs and crosses, the soldiers being now accompanied by their dummy doubles as children, wearing priests’ birettas and holding rifes. They sway above the marching platoon, which is circling the stage. From behind suddenly comes the Little Rabbi, played by Maria Stangret, singing a kind of music-hall funeral song and wringing his hands in despair: Sha Sha Sha de Rebe Gite Sha Sha Sha bam reben Stite Der shames ba dy tur In di Rebezn oy is duisa Oy Oy Oy Oy Oy Oy (Kantor 1990: 86) The soldiers take aim and fre and the Rabbi falls to the ground. The Priest lifts up the Rabbi. The Rabbi takes up his song again. Another volley and he collapses. This goes on a number of times, then the Rabbi leaves. Mad Auntie Manka enters wearing a uniform and marches round the room uttering commands in an unknown language that sounds like a dog barking. The soldiers keep marching until Auntie Manka exits, after which they fall to the ground. The Grey Military March, which has been accompanying all this, suddenly stops. It is replaced by the psalm sung by a congregation, which is followed by the entry of the family once again: ‘There is a distinctive air about the way they enter this time, quite diferent from that of all previous entrances. You can feel that they are arriving here for the last time, and with a special purpose in mind’ (Kantor 1990: 90). 34

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They all begin to line up chairs, collecting them from all over the room. Marian Kantor measures all that comes his way with his broken ruler. Behind the row of chairs are the naked dummies, behind them a pile of crosses, and further of the army with their rifes. The family members take their place downstage. Suddenly the two uncles rush out and return with an enormous board swaying over the assembled company. Next two soldiers arrive with another board, and the two boards end up at the front of the stage, propped up by the performers. The family persist with their arguments while the psalm continues, but it is now clear that we are about to see the Kantor family as Leonardo’s Last Supper, a kind of blasphemous image reminiscent of Luis Buñuel’s flm Viridiana of 1961, where the Last Supper consists of a crowd of beggars who have been introduced into the grand house to create chaos. Finally an immaculately starched white cloth is introduced and laid on the boards to complete the picture. The noise increases: the soldiers have grown insubordinate and they push everything to the edge of the stage – the wardrobe, the table, the chairs, the window, the bed – ‘a monstrous pulp of wreckage’. They then exit through the wardrobe, and there are naked corpses of soldiers lying on the foor. Uncle Stasio enters with his violin and we hear again the Chopin music. Slowly the performers retreat from the stage, moving backwards, looking behind them. The Priest remains on the ground under the table. Then from the back comes the Little Rabbi in his synagogue garments. He approaches the Priest, helps him up, and leads him away, Jew and Christian together leaving the room of Kantor’s childhood. Uncle Stasio follows behind with his distorted Chopin. Kantor goes up to the table and very carefully folds the white table-cloth. He sticks it under his arm and with a sweep of his right hand goes out, banging the doors to the room behind him. So ends another of the great imagistic pieces of twentieth-century European theatre – on one level a distorted Polish family tale, but to international audiences an emblem of European history, militarism, religious prejudice and family destruction which speaks even now across the decades and generations.

Let the Artists Die (1986) This was the piece that Kantor made fve years after Wielopole, Wielopole and which originated in Germany, then toured to Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Argentina and Japan, and had its Polish premiere at the Słowacki Theatre in Krakow. This was an immense leap for Kantor, who had always avoided ofcial theatre spaces, but in fact showed the increased status which his work had now achieved in his home country. There is a touching photograph of Kantor, with an ironic smile on his face, climbing up onto the stage of this grand theatre to set the design, and another of the Słowacki Theatre audience in their gilt boxes applauding this invasion of an alternative vision of what theatre could be. Let the Artists Die was commissioned by, among others, Karl Schmidt, a Nuremberg banker who was a great follower of Kantor’s work. One of the fgures in the piece is the Nuremberg sculptor Veit Stoss, who made the famous altarpiece in the Church of the Blessed Virgin in Krakow. The story goes that Veit Stoss had a nail driven through his cheeks as punishment for fnancial malpractice in his home town, an image of which appears during the piece. Kantor himself called Let the Artists Die a ‘review’, which indicates not simply a light-hearted collection of sketches – which it is not – but also a review of many of Kantor’s productions and obsessions from a life lived on what we have already described as one of the faultlines of Europe. Thus we have references to attempts to gain Polish independence in the nineteenth century, references to the family from Wielopole, Wielopole, a plethora of objects of varying types and from varying theatre pieces by Kantor, many moveable travelling wooden crates symbolising the wanderings in the world of the Cricot 2 company, and a theatrical format which appears to be a random 35

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collection of images from Kantor’s mind. The piece was seen as the last part of what Kantor considered the Theatre of Death trilogy, and is clearly yet another experiment in constructing stage meaning from memory. In some ways it is the most difcult of Kantor’s pieces for a non-Polish audience, but its virtuosity and invention is so breathtaking that one is content simply to watch the various images passing in front of one’s eyes – the grand parades, the Janicki twins’ word games, the entries of ‘Marshal Piłsudski’ on the skeleton of his horse, accompanied by a set of Polish generals and with Kantor as a six-year-old boy on a wooden tricycle – to name but a few moments. The title was said to come either from a remark made by a Parisian maiden lady who lived next to the Gallerie de France where Kantor exhibited, or from a cleaning lady confronted by the chaos of a private view – ‘Qu’ils crèvent les artistes’. In his commentary on the piece in the ‘Guide de Spectacle’ produced for the performances, Kantor wrote: one will fnd neither the setting nor the action on this stage. in their stead, there will be a journey into the past, into the abyss of memory, into the past time that is gone irrevocably but that still attracts us, into the past time that foats into the regions of DREAMS, INFERNUM, THE WORLD OF THE DEAD, AND ETERNITY. (Kobialka 1993: 340) The stage has one wooden door for all the entries, a bed, chairs, and a set of wooden crosses placed towards the back of the stage. They are ‘crosses of a country cemetery as if I was searching for other secrets’. Kantor sits stage right on a small chair. The door opens and in comes the gaoler, or, as Kantor interprets him, Charon, the boatman who, in Greek mythology, ferries the dead across the river. The stage is described again by Kantor as his ‘Poor Room of the Imagination’, without walls, without foor or ceiling – a site for recollection. The family members from Wielopole now enter – the same dark costumes, the same movements – and proceed to dress the corpse of someone who has died. Dr Asklepios, in black with a beard and hat, played by Mira Rychlicka, now enters and checks the pulse of the dead man. Asklepios was the Greek god of medicine who had the power of restoring the dead to life, but in this context he comes from one of Kantor’s school memories of his class, of one who has aged and has no more work in this house of death than to check the pulse. Asklepios enters from time to time throughout the piece and takes a pulse wherever a hand hangs loose – one gesture repeated frantically. If we regard these images as photographic memory plates of Kantor’s past, then the next image is the entry of Kantor himself as a six-year-old boy, propelling himself on a wooden tricycle to the front of the stage as if checking the space, after which enters the extraordinary presence of Marshal Piłsudski, played by a woman, seated on the skeleton of his famous chestnut mare, Kasztanka. Piłsudski was the head of state from 1918 to 1922 and later the leader of the Second Polish Republic, from 1926 to 1935; thus throughout the period of Kantor’s childhood he was the major Polish political leader. After his death a funeral train toured Poland, and now Kantor’s image of the horse skeleton being accompanied by a set of generals in Polish four-cornered hats is clearly a memory of a photograph from the period. The music, a patriotic march from the First World War entitled First Brigade, was Piłsudski’s funeral march, and accompanies the procession of small boy, horse, rider and generals. It is played by what sounds like an army band and reappears throughout the piece, sometimes in a slowed-down version. Kantor said of it: The Fame and Glory of the past are recognisable only in a fragmentary form. I grasped this when, fascinated by the Leader’s funeral march, I became the owner of a damaged 36

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gramophone recording of this lofty and moving march, which made the piece both thrilling and repulsive at the same time. (Miklaszewski 2005: 119) Here it represents a rather hopeful Polish victory. However, Plesniarowicz points out that the group image of the generals might also recall the mass graves of thousands of Polish army ofcers discovered at Katyn in 1940. Kantor wrote in his programme guide: ‘It is impossible to say whether it is a victory parade or a funeral procession for the pride of the nation.’ The soldiers exit robotically, leaving the horse and rider plus the boy-Kantor, and Dr Asklepios rushes in, taking everyone’s pulse and behaving like a manic trafc controller, when suddenly there is the sound of an Argentinian tango and the wandering players of Cricot 2 appear, heralding the start of Act II. They arrive with a series of prop and costume boxes, one marked ‘NÜRNBERG’. They appear to be characters and (bio)objects from Kantor’s past performances – the Hanged Man with his gallows, one who is addicted to card-playing, a Religious Bigot with her kneeling desk and rosary, a Dishwasher with her sink, and others, all of whom proceed to try and memorise moments from their past lives. The Angel of Death/Batwoman presents a Kantorian chorus of sound and moving image which is stopped for a moment by the sound of a Jewish song with accordion, sung by the soldier sitting on Piłsudski’s horse (Maria Stangret, Kantor’s wife). Kantor described the method of creating this piece: The performance very often has to take shape during the course of rehearsals, through the actors, their actions, their bodies, their feelings. We might be able to fnd in the performance from time to time distant echoes of this character or the remains of that literary text. But this is not because we are transferring a literary work to the stage. It has much more to do with my basic practice of not relying on some ‘constructed’ or ‘composed’ reality, but of operating with a ‘ready-made’ (prête) reality, and with characters and objects which have been ‘found’ (objets trouvés). (Miklaszewski 2005: 114) One of Kantor’s inspirations for the piece was an obscure novel published in 1932 by Zbigniew Unilowski, The Common Room, where throughout the reader is a witness of the hero dying. Thus the visual actions of the wandering Cricot 2 performers now take place in a room of the dying characters of Kantor’s performance memory, where the Janicki twins play with the idea of death, the doctor and the bedroom: ‘In this production I wanted dying to be the “binding” of various manifestations of life, almost constituting the structure of the whole’ (Miklaszewski 2005: 114). The characters now proceed to create one of Kantor’s Grand Circles, where performers and objects circle the stage to the sound of the military march, joined by Piłsudski, his horse and generals – a kind of visual memory of the show’s motifs so far, reminding us also of the links between each character and his or her actions, objects and costumes. Then the wooden door at the back of the stage begins to move forward to the sound of a Jewish/Polish religious chant, and two characters dressed in black walk through to the front of the stage. One of these wears a long black cloak and fedora hat and clutches a wooden cross. This is the entry of Veit Stoss, the Nuremberg sculptor who is to dominate the rest of the piece. He drags the Angel of Death up from her bed to perform a tango, and the two go of through what is now clearly the door to some kind of underworld. Now comes the entry of the torture machines – strange wooden contraptions which look like something out of the Spanish Inquisition, to which each of the actors is strapped to the sound of 37

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the march. This is all supervised by Veit Stoss as if he were assembling some of his statues at the Church of St Mary in Krakow. Kantor’s series of drawings entitled Man Bound up with Objects is clearly the source of these images. Stoss tangos once again with the Angel of Death, who now has a set of metal wings strapped to her as she mounts Piłsudski’s horse to exit with the tortured actors, followed by Dr Asklepios. There is then a re-entry of performers, who commence a routine of tapping wood on wood around the objects, a sequence which suggest ideas of the death rattle of a dying person. This transforms into the collection of all the objects and persons on stage to create a massive barricade, with the Angel of Death on top waving a fag. Clearly based on Delacroix’s painting of 1830 Liberty Leading the People, it also refers to the Polish uprising that year against the Russians, and is accompanied by the military march which has been so dominant throughout the piece. One by one the actors climb down from the barricade and exit, followed by Kantor, who closes the piece with a hand gesture, and by Veit Stoss. Let the Artists Die is one of the most complex and self-referential of Kantor’s works, but is also the one where we can most clearly see the close relation between actor/character and object. Throughout the piece objects are used as integral, predominantly moving, elements in the picture, and it is interesting that at the end all of them are piled up as if their life is over after being part of an image of liberty: it appears as if it might be considered Kantor’s last stage image of fnality, although there were two more major pieces to come.

I Shall Never Return (1988) This was the last completed major piece that Kantor saw fnished (he was still in rehearsal for Today is My Birthday when he died in 1990) and seems to be another collecting together of memories of many of his past pieces, images and characters in a strange Surrealist cabaret – he called it a personal confession – held together by a hypnotic tango – Tango Argentinian by Canaro – played on piano, accordion and violin. It was given its Polish premiere at the Stary Theatre in Krakow, Poland’s major prestigious venue, once again emphasising the bowing of the state to the evident international fame of Cricot 2 and the demands of an audience, members of which were by now heralding the eventual downfall of communism in Poland. There is a touching photograph of a well-heeled audience at the theatre observing this strange acceptance back home of its major artistic exile. One critic in Marseilles wrote of the piece: ‘a seventy-three year old man recapitulates his life, mingling it with the history of his works. Poland as seen through the eyes of this man is universal, embracing the whole of mankind’. Plesniarowicz describes it as: A deliberate historical conclusion of the cycle that runs from the occupation production of The Return of Odysseus (1944) through the Theatre of Death trilogy (1975–85). So the ‘eternal pupils’ return to the benches of the dead classroom to make one more attempt at playing a work of Wyspiański’s. Visited with amnesia, however, they cannot remember their parts despite the prompting of the Priest, the leader of the whole group. (Plesniarowicz 2001: 260) The stage in this case has become the interior of an inn or some abstract space, with simple wooden chairs, tables with sheets of tin on top, and a host of shady characters – an old waiter, a mad half-naked washerwoman, a priest who seems to come from Wielopole asleep at a table, and a drunk who delivers a slurred speech to the tango accompaniment, and so on. The tango brings on the collection of characters from old Kantor productions – The Water-Hen, Dainty 38

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Shapes and Hairy Apes, Wielopole, Wielopole, and Let the Artists Die – all quotations from the life of Cricot 2. The space is transformed from the inn into a poor classroom and a dressing room, with shards of past actions and sound meshing together. At one point all the performers sit at the school benches from The Dead Class and attempt to reprise parts of the show. One image that returns several times is that of ‘the Armoured Orchestra of Violinists’, a terrifying row of eight musicians in Nazi uniforms with high boots and an identical rhythmic parade step, moving their violin bows in an automatic manner across the violins that they hold like dead objects. Their march is repeated over and over again as they cross the stage. On one occasion it is played out against the medieval Hebrew song ‘Ani Maanim’ (I am a Believer), sung by the Jews on the way to the gas chambers. In this instance the Nazi orchestra leads their victim, Samuel, who is also followed by the Dishwasher, who shouts the words of the song: ‘Ani maanim, ani maanim, beemuno shleimo bevies hamoshiach bechol zos hamoschiach veaf al pi sheyismamel in kol zos ani maanim’ (I believe fully in the coming of the Messiah, and even though he is slow to come I expect him). The impact of these contrasting images, connected with some kind of historical memory, is overwhelming. In Kantor’s own words from his programme notes: A nightmarish march of phantoms From the ‘Band of Ironclad violinists’ Unplanned by the innkeeper Well-known uniforms Legs in patent-leather knee-tops Thrown upwards Iron fddles And fddlesticks – going up and down And in order to complete this nightmare, The Rabbi is running in front of them, Schmul, dragged from his synagogue at Wielopole Mad with fear He is conducting His executioners. (Halczak c. 1990: 193) At the end of this strange piece there is a prolonged wrapping up of all the characters in what Kantor called the ‘Grand Emballage of the end of the Twentieth Century’ to the entire length of the Rakoczy March from Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust. The characters are chased under an enormous black blanket by some of the cast who are wearing formal frock coats – ‘These Serious Gentlemen’ – egged on by Kantor himself, who seems to be orchestrating the entire scene, accompanied by a woman in riding gear with long blonde hair and a top hat. MADAM. It is uncertain whether she belongs To them or else Rules them . . . And maybe she rules The entire performance. (Halczak c. 1990: 193) As always the frantic music gives the whole scene an air of panic, as if this really is the end of their (fctitious) lives and the end of Kantor’s own memories. Kantor wrote in the programme 39

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notes to this piece: ‘I gave them life, but they also gave their own. They were not easy or obedient.’ The Polish critic Bronislaw Mamon wrote about I Shall Never Return in February 1990, eight months before Kantor’s death, attempting to sum up the latter’s attitude to the socialist society in which he was supposed to have functioned: During the 45 year long period of ‘real’ socialism Kantor has sufered various injustices on the part of people responsible for the so-called ‘cultural policy’. They resented him because he was always himself, because he loved his own art and independence, because he had never joined the ranks of those who – in a joyous rapture – were building the utopia of a happy society. He was blamed for many grave ofences, namely for being narcissistic, egotistical and cosmopolitan, for not having enough patriotism and respect for ‘the common man’. He was classifed as a member of the species of escapists, outsiders, aliens. Those who said so understood the artistic presence very narrowly and one-dimensionally. In their opinion the ‘artistic presence’ was equalled with a duplication of ideological schemata and the resulting elevation of reality. From the perspective of the present time we can see how fallacious all those dogmas proved to be. It is enough to have a look at the performance I Shall Never Return to become convinced of it. (Halczak c. 1990: 195) In conclusion we may once again emphasise that, for someone brought up in a tradition of literary theatre – the all too dominant form in the UK, for example – viewing Kantor’s theatre has never been particularly easy. It is good that there are generations of viewers now who are used to multiple meanings in works of the performing arts, who can look at performance with an eye schooled in the visual arts, and who, in many cases, make no distinction between a piece of text-based theatre and a performance which may be visually based. The most difcult task in viewing Kantor’s work is to resist the temptation to try and convert every visual image into a language of explanation or interpretation. If this is the dominant approach, then everything which is untranslatable into literary meaning becomes questionable – Why the marching Nazis? Why the tangoing cardinals? – or else treated as nonsense. And so it is better to stop asking those questions, to stop asking precisely what it means, what thought lies behind it, what the director really meant to say. In the words of Bronislaw Marmon: ‘This theatre should be either received as a poetic magic, or not received at all.’

Further reading Books and journals Beckett, Samuel (1984) Collected Shorter Plays. London: Faber & Faber. Cage, John (1987) Silence: Lectures and Writings. London: Marion Boyars. Ciof, Kathleen M. (1996) Alternative Theatre in Poland, 1954–1989. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic. Craig, Edward Gordon ([1911] 1956) On the Art of the Theatre. London: Heinemann. Crampton, Richard, and Crampton, Ben (1996) Atlas of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century. London: Routledge. Davies, Norman (2005) God’s Playground: A History of Poland, Vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Drozdowski, Bohdan (ed.) (1979) Twentieth Century Polish Theatre. London: John Calder. Ficowski, Jerzy (ed.) (1990) Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz. New York: Fromm. Fiedler, Jeannine, and Feierabend, Peter (eds) (1999) Bauhaus. Cologne: Konemann. Goldberg, RoseLee (1979) Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present. London: Thames & Hudson.

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Kantor (1915–1990) Gombrowicz, Witold (1979) Ferdydurke. London: Marion Boyars. Gropius, Walter, and Wensinger, Arthur S. (ed.) (1961) The Theatre of the Bauhaus. Middleton, CT: Weslyan University Press. Grotowski, Jerzy (1969) Towards a Poor Theatre. London: Methuen. Halczak, Anna (ed.) (1986) Cricot 2 Theatre Information Guide. Krakow: Cricoteka. Halczak, Anna (ed.) (1988) Cricot 2 Theatre Information Guide 1987–1988. Krakow: Cricoteka. Halczak, Anna (ed.) (c.1990) Teatr Cricot 2 Informator 1989–1990. Krakow: Cricoteka. Hughes, Robert (1980) The Shock of the New: Art and the Century of Change. London: BBC Books. Hunt, Albert, and Reeves, Geofrey (1995) Peter Brook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Huxley, Michael, and Witts, Noel (eds) (2002) The Twentieth Century Performance Reader. London: Routledge. Innes, Christopher (1998) Edward Gordon Craig: A Vision of Theatre. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic. Kantor, Tadeusz (1990) Wielopole, Wielopole: An Exercise in Theatre. London: Marion Boyars. Kaprow, Allan (1966) Assemblages, Environments and Happenings. New York: Harry N. Abrams. Keneally, Thomas (1982) Schindler’s Ark. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Kobialka, Michal (ed.) (1993) A Journey through Other Spaces. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kobialka, Michal (2000) ‘Of the Memory of a Human Unhoused in Being’, in Adrian Heathfeld and Andrew Quick (eds), On Memory (Performance Research, 5/3). London: Routledge. Kobialka, Michal (2009) Further on Nothing, Tadeusz Kantor’s Theatre. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lehmann, Hans-Thies (2006) Postdramatic Theatre, trans. Karen Jürs-Munby. London: Routledge. Micinska, Anna (1990) Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz: Life and Work. Warsaw: Interpress. Miklaszewski, Krzysztof (2005) Encounters with Tadeusz Kantor. London: Routledge. Miłosz, Czesław (1981) Native Realm: A Search for Self Defnition. London: Sidgwick & Jackson. Musial, Grzegorz (ed.) (2004) Tadeusz Kantor: Umarła klasa. Warsaw: Panstowa Galeria Stuki. Pioro, Anna (2005) The Cracow Ghetto 1941–43. Kracow: Historical Museum of the City of Kracow. Pirie, Donald, Young, Yekaerina, and Carrell, Christopher (eds) (1990) Polish Realities. Glasgow: Third Eye Centre. Pitches, Jonathan (2003) Vsevolod Meyerhold. London: Routledge. Plesniarowicz, Krzysztof (ed.) (1994) The Return of Odysseus. Krakow: Cricoteka. Plesniarowicz, Krzysztof ([1994] 2001) The Dead Memory Machine: Tadeusz Kantor’s Theatre of Death, trans. William Brand. Aberystwyth: Black Mountain Press. Schenkelbach, Erwin (2001) Behind the Scenes of the Dead Class. Krakow: Cricoteka. Schulz, Bruno (1963) The Fictions of Bruno Schulz. London: McGibbon & Kee. Suchan, Jaroslaw, and Swica, Marek (2005) Tadeusz Kantor: Interior of Imagination. Warsaw and Kracow: Zacheta National Gallery of Art and Cricoteka. Whitford, Frank (1984) Bauhaus. London: Thames & Hudson. Witkiewicz, Stanisław Ignacy (2004) Seven Plays, ed. and trans. Daniel Gerould. New York: Martin E. Segal Theatre Center.

DVDS Bablet, Denis (1991) The Theatre of Tadeusz Kantor. Chicago: Facets Video. Sapija, Andrejz (1984) Wielopole, Wielopole. Krakow: Cricoteka. Sapija, Andrejz (1992) Proby tylko proby (Rehearsals for ‘Today is My Birthday’). Krakow: Cricoteka. Sapija, Andrejz (2006) Gdzie sa niegdysiejsze sniegi (Ou sont les neiges d’antan?). Krakow: Cricoteka. Sapija, Andrejz (2006) Powrot Odysa; Nigdy tu juz nie powroce (Return of Odysseus; I Shall Never Return). Krakow: Cricoteka. Wajda, Andrejz (1976) Umarła klasa (The Dead Class). Krakow: Cricoteka.

Website The ofcial website of the Kantor documentation centre in Krakow is www.cricoteka.com.pl

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12 HALPRIN (1920–) Libby Worth and Helen Poynor

12.1

Life and work

Family background In 1994, at the age of 73, Anna Halprin made an unexpected return to the public stage. Invited to perform at a Festival of Jewish Artists at the Cowell Theater in San Francisco, Halprin created a solo performance inspired by her Jewish heritage. This piece, which became known as The Grandfather Dance, was subsequently performed at the American Dance Festival in 1997 and at Halprin’s 80th Year Retrospective in 2000. Although Halprin had never stopped dancing and creating dances, for more than 20 years her attention had been turned away from theatrical performance and focused on the inter-relationships between artistic and personal process, dance and healing and the creation of contemporary community dance rituals. It is signifcant that The Grandfather Dance, which heralds the almost coincidental blossoming of a late and remarkable phase of Halprin’s artistic career, is autobiographical. The dance celebrates her relationship with her grandfather; it is dedicated to her grandchildren to help them appreciate their cultural roots. Halprin’s grandfather and his family had been forced to fee the Russian pogroms and, along with many other Jewish immigrants, had settled in Chicago establishing a tailoring business. Lacking a common language, the loving relationship Halprin had with her grandfather who spoke Yiddish was expressed primarily through body language and touch. The Grandfather Dance, performed in her father’s elegant pyjamas with a white silk shawl reminiscent of her grandfather’s prayer shawl, tells of her weekly childhood visits to her grandfather’s synagogue. The young Halprin, whose own life was relatively assimilated in mainstream American culture, was captivated by her grandfather’s passionate and embodied prayer and his personal sense of relationship with God. Interpreting his prayer as a dance she concluded that ‘God was a dancer’ and subsequently claimed that she has spent her life attempting to create dances which were as meaningful as her grandfather’s (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 2). Certainly a potent combination of expressive physicality, emotion and spirituality has characterized much of Halprin’s work. Ann Schuman was born in 1920 and grew up in Winnetka, Illinois. Although named after her maternal grandmother Hannah, a fact that she only discovered many years later, Halprin was 42

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known at home (and professionally until 1972) as Ann. Ann was the youngest child and only daughter of a close and supportive family. An unconventional child, Ann danced from the age of three, her natural expressiveness fnding an outlet in classes based on the approach of Isadora Duncan (1878–1927) after a less than promising start with a teacher of Russian Ballet (McMann Paludan 1995: 24). Halprin’s love of dance was nurtured by her mother who encouraged her to experience many diferent approaches to dance. Her physicality was also evident in sport at which she excelled and tree-climbing exploits with her two older brothers. Halprin’s upbringing appears to have given her the security and self-confdence to develop a clear sense of herself from an early age. Her Jewish background made her aware of her ‘diference’ and a concomitant need to prove herself in the mainstream American culture which was her social milieu. At the same time Halprin claims this sense of diference proved liberating later in her career when her pioneering work few in the face of the establishment. Halprin’s family was involved in social issues and she attributes her social conscience to a Jewish sense of responsibility. Several of her early dances refect her concern with world issues on the brink of the Second World War. In 1939 she created a dance on the theme of war and refugees, and in 1940 another on liberty and freedom. An earlier dance in 1938 inspired by the beauty of nature highlighted the signifcance of her early relationship to the natural environment (Halprin c. 1938–40).

Early years Halprin’s childhood passion for dance developed throughout her teens as she continued classes and created her own dances to be performed at school and in Chicago, including her frst solo Saga of Youth. With her mother’s continued support Halprin’s dance education touched on a range of modern dance techniques based on the styles of eminent choreographers of the period, such as Isadora Duncan and Ruth St Denis (1879–1968). In 1936, whilst still studying at Winnetka’s New Trier High School, she choreographed Pastorale, performed at The Goodman Theatre in Chicago, in which she danced using music ‘with contrasting themes of improvised circular and angular movement’ (McMann Paludan 1995: 25). These early performances which drew on an eclectic mix of dance infuences allowed Halprin to experiment with her own style and content. So that, at the summer workshop in 1937 at Bennington College, she already had a basis from which to evaluate the experience of working with major modern dance techniques prominent in America at that time. In 1934, ‘Bennington College, a new women’s school in Vermont, created the nation’s frst center for modern dance. The summer program consisted of a school and a series of concerts given by the faculty’ (Mazo 2000: 136), which rapidly gained a reputation for providing expert teaching in a range of modern dance forms attracting the best known dancers to its staf. These included Martha Graham (1894–1991), Doris Humphrey (1895–1958), Charles Weidman (1901–75), Hanya Holm (1893–1992) (who had worked closely with German modern expressionist dancer Mary Wigman (1886–1973)) and Louis Horst (1884–1964) (musician, composer and dance composition teacher). While open to discovery of other dancers’ techniques and styles, even at such a young age Halprin did not feel driven by what she had experienced to settle into one form of training. At Bennington, Doris Humphrey spotted Halprin’s dance talent and asked her to join the Humphrey–Weidman Company in New York City. However, difcult as it was to reject such a prestigious ofer, Halprin recollects of the period ‘I had promised my family I would graduate from college before I became a professional dancer, so I decided to postpone this opportunity until I had fnished school’ (Ross 2000: xv). Of the two colleges in America that ofered a dance major Halprin chose Bennington and was initially disappointed to be turned down and to have to take up a place instead at the University of Wisconsin. However, this turned 43

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out to be ‘the luckiest mishap of my life. It was at the University of Wisconsin that I met the two people who would most infuence my dance career: my future husband, Lawrence Halprin [1916–2009], and my mentor, Margaret H’Doubler [1889–1982]’ (Ross 2000: xv).

Margaret H’Doubler and dance at Wisconsin Halprin enrolled at the University of Wisconsin in 1938 and studied there for four and a half years, clearly exhilarated and inspired primarily by Margaret H’Doubler’s teaching. Although not a dancer herself, H’Doubler had become an enthusiastic advocate for the value of dance in education. Many of the principles she adhered to became foundational in Halprin’s development, an indebtedness that Halprin continues to acknowledge. Recognized as a pioneer in the feld of dance education, having set up the frst undergraduate dance degree in the world in 1926 at Wisconsin, H’Doubler was initially a scientist with a degree in biology. She taught physical education at the University of Wisconsin and had an enthusiasm for basketball. The particular combination of values and skills she brought together in the creation of the dance degree was to infuence directly and indirectly generations of dance teachers and to a lesser extent dance performers and choreographers. The formulation of the degree had its origins in a period of research at Columbia University and in New York City in 1916. Here H’Doubler came into contact with two teachers who used a scientifc approach to dance and elements of improvisation, while a music teacher she met had students lie on the foor and begin to move from that position (Ross 2000: 118–19). ‘H’Doubler suddenly realized that lying on the foor, removed from the pull of gravity, it was at last possible to get the body to move with true freedom . . .’ (Ross 2000: 119–20). In addition she became absorbed in the work of John Dewey (1859–1952), an educationalist and philosopher in the Department of Philosophy and Psychology at Columbia. His advocacy of the importance of experience in the learning process had obvious applications to the teaching of dance. This was combined with a theory of knowledge based on problem solving long used in the sciences, but according to Dewey, just as relevant in the teaching of the arts. In his view any inquiry or refection would ‘have the same pattern of steps’. ‘It would begin with a problem and proceed through testing of possible solutions, to a resolution’ (Ross 2000: 125). Although Halprin studied with H’Doubler well after her initial establishment of the dance degree, the type of class she experienced was still based on the philosophical principles H’Doubler had encountered in her studies with John Dewey. H’Doubler was determined to take a holistic approach to the teaching of dance, like Dewey avoiding a mind/body split and recognizing the signifcance of the physical, emotional, spiritual and intellectual components of dance. In her book Dance – A Creative Art Experience completed while Halprin was at Wisconsin, H’Doubler makes a strong case for the role of dance in education, stressing its value for developing the personality: ‘It serves all the ends of individual growth; it helps to develop the body; it stimulates the imagination and challenges the intellect; it helps cultivate an appreciation for beauty; it deepens and refnes the emotional nature’ (H’Doubler 1940: 64). As Halprin would do later, she argued for the need for accessible dance and abhorred the thrust she had observed in New York for forms that were becoming tightly codifed and refned, resulting in a reductive process that generated increasingly less involvement in dance. She wanted ‘to revive, through some kind of movement education, the impulse to move expressively, to dance, to develop adequate techniques for artistic expression’ (H’Doubler 1940: 44). Ross notes in her book on H’Doubler that the ‘shift to valuing the process over the product was one of Dewey’s ideas that under-lay H’Doubler’s whole philosophy of dance education’ 44

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(Ross 2000: 129). Dance students at Wisconsin undertook a pre-medical course to increase their knowledge of anatomy and scientifc principles. H’Doubler built on this and encouraged her students to learn experientially about the structural make-up of the body and its capacity for movement. Their control developed through increased kinaesthetic awareness aiding creative expression. Alongside explorations into the spatial, rhythmic and dynamic elements of dance, H’Doubler insisted on the value of the emotional and imaginative experience of movement. She encouraged her students to have a sense of connection with the natural world through dancing outside. In order for dancers to follow the innate ‘craving for expression and the sharing of the enhanced emotional state’ (H’Doubler 1940: 53) they must both ‘train the mind to use the body and to refect its conditions . . . and train the body to be responsive to the expressive mind’ (H’Doubler 1940: 70). As Halprin recalls, this style of teaching allowed students to explore ‘all the possibilities a movement could yield. This self-discovery evoked qualities, feelings, and images. Out of these personal responses we would then create our own dance experience’ (Ross 2000: xvi). Both H’Doubler and Halprin drew on the pioneering work of Mabel E. Todd (1856–1932) who, in 1937, published her seminal work The Thinking Body, a book that continues to inform and inspire dancers and teachers of dance. It is based on the principle that: ‘The individual is a totality and cannot be segregated as to intellect, motor and social factors. They are all interrelated’ (Todd 1968: 3). Todd proceeded to analyse the relationship between these factors in great detail. Drawing on the work from a variety of felds such as science, engineering, medicine, anthropology and psychology, she explored the impact that thinking and feeling have on the basic structure of the body and way that we move. Of particular value in her work for Halprin was the emphasis on visualization, imagination and tasks to explore her ‘psychophysical’ theories. For instance she examined the specifc difculties a person has to overcome in walking, by virtue of the fact that they stand upright on two legs in a feld of gravity. She considered anatomical facts in relation to mechanical forces while simultaneously extolling the importance of visual images and psychological attitude in encouraging ease and efciency in movement. While at Wisconsin, Halprin recalls in interview that her ‘reconnection with Judaism and Rabbi Kadushin was a reaction to the Hitler era’ (McMann Paludan 1995: 35). She became politically active in the Jewish student organization, the Hillel Foundation led by Rabbi Kadushin, and found support here and through H’Doubler for performance work and her senior dance project on the history of Jewish dance.

Lawrence Halprin and the Bauhaus connection In 1939 Ann Schuman met Lawrence Halprin, a graduate from Cornell University who had come to Wisconsin to study botany but realized while there that he wanted to focus on landscape architecture. They married in 1940 and while Anna Halprin completed her dance studies, Lawrence having fnished his Ph.D. went to study at the Harvard School of Architecture in Cambridge. On joining her husband, Anna Halprin’s interest was sparked by the work of Walter Gropius (1883–1968) who was then teaching at Harvard. Gropius had led the German Bauhaus movement of the 1920s and established a teaching institution for the arts at Weimer (director 1919–28) consisting of a collection of workshops and a self-contained community of teachers and students who ‘embraced the whole range of visual arts: architecture, planning, painting, sculpture, industrial design and stage work’ (Gropius 1961: 1). Given Anna Halprin’s recent experience of study with H’Doubler and Mabel Todd it is hardly surprising that she felt drawn to sit in on lectures given by Gropius who stated: 45

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One of the fundamental maxims of the Bauhaus was the demand that the teacher’s own approach was never to be imposed on the student; that, on the contrary, any attempt at imitation by the student was to be ruthlessly suppressed. The stimulation received from the teacher was only to help him fnd his bearings. (Gropius 1961: 1) Alongside the dance teaching Halprin had organized at the Windsor prep school and volunteer work in two settlement homes, she sat in on design courses, ‘transposed the design problems into choreographic studies and found interested architecture students to study dance with her’ (McMann Paludan 1995: 37). The Bauhaus principles of cross-art collaboration, collective creativity and the integration of art in society and in everyday life were to remain fundamental aspects in the development of both Anna’s and Lawrence’s artistic careers. The Bauhaus ideal that encouraged workshop experimentation and democratic group work rather than artist as hero, reinforced Halprin’s experiences with H’Doubler at Wisconsin. However, during this period, while Lawrence Halprin left to serve in the navy during the Second World War, Anna Halprin still identifed herself as a modern dancer. By chance, an opportunity arose for her to audition for Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman, who had reunited to choreograph a musical Sing Out, Sweet Land. Halprin could now take up the ofer she had turned down before Wisconsin and become a part of a dance company run by Humphrey and Weidman. She was promoted to female lead and performed in Boston (1944) and subsequently in New York. For several years she worked on this and other similar musical productions gaining a reputation as a successful dance comedienne. During the 1940s Halprin continued to experiment with her own style of dance including choreographing The Prophetess and Lonely Ones (1946). She performed these at the YMCA Annual Young Choreographers’ Concert, where John Cage (1912–92), the avant-garde American composer, was impressed with her work and introduced her to dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham (1919–2009). The friendship that was established in New York was maintained once the Halprins moved to San Francisco, with Cage and Cunningham visiting to teach classes and give informal performances on the dance deck at her studio in Kentfeld (McMann Paludan 1995: 42).

The move to San Francisco As Lawrence Halprin acknowledges, his wish to settle in San Francisco after the War in 1945 was not so welcome to Anna. ‘She felt that the centre for dance was in New York City and from her point of view at that time I think she made a great sacrifce’ (Lawrence and Anna Halprin, Inner Landscapes 1991). Anna Halprin’s initial experience of living in San Francisco was to confrm her view that there was little dance to interest her in the immediate vicinity. However, a chance meeting with a Martha Graham trained dancer, Welland Lathrop, led to the establishment of a joint studio in the city for teaching adults and children, alongside the development of their own choreography for concert performances. The two dancers’ styles of working were very diferent which had the advantage of attracting a wide range of people to the studio. Halprin took main responsibility for the children’s work and in doing so began a particularly fertile period of research through teaching, that resulted in her being ‘instrumental in developing the Marin Dance Co-operatives (1947)’ (Halprin 1995: 25). In 1948 Halprin founded Impulse, a magazine that became a forum for writing on emerging dance practices. In the same year she travelled to the newly formed country of Israel for the frst time where she was introduced to the movement 46

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practitioner Moshe Feldenkrais (1904–84), whose work immediately appealed to her and whose friendship she valued.

The Marin Dance Co-Operatives Through the Marin Dance Co-operatives (1947), Halprin ‘taught dance for the next twentyfve years to children in the community’ where she lived (Halprin 1995: 25). From the start of the Co-op, Halprin recognized the importance of ‘the holistic nature of working with the child’ and of integrating family and school experience in the classes. Parents were brought in as assistants and the school curriculum or major events were translated into dances or rituals that were shared with other groups and parents at performance festivals. This frst experience of working with a community was well received in Marin and had the added beneft of extending her own development as a dancer, teacher and choreographer. From as early as 1948 a clear set of principles guided the teaching, including that classes were to be cheap and open to all since ‘every child and adult who can move, can dance’ (Halprin 1948). Classes were run somewhat on the H’Doublerian model of stimulation to encourage learning through personal kinaesthetic investigation rather than mimicry of a single dance style. Instructions were formulated to ‘simultaneously cultivate physical skill, together with the emotional and intellectual spheres of activity’ (Halprin 1948). Basic movements were explored such as running, jumping and skipping in a non-judgemental atmosphere where learning to value each other’s diferences took precedence over grading performance. Halprin’s recollection of one boy demonstrates the value she placed on self-motivation and experiential learning. He ‘galloped for about six weeks in a row, that’s all he did because every time he galloped he got some new little insight about galloping’ (Halprin 2001b). Halprin struggled to fnd the right structural balance for the classes to support spontaneity while maintaining stimulation and motivation (Halprin 2001b). This provided useful experience for later work on closed and open instructions for improvisation with co-dancers and artists. Halprin’s interest in the dramatic content of the classes distinguished her work from H’Doubler’s, as did her preference for working with time in relation to space rather than as she had done at Wisconsin ‘in terms of the meter system’ (McMann Paludan 1995: 53).

The move away from modern dance The Halprins moved out of San Francisco to Kentfield, into a house designed by Bill Woorster in collaboration with Lawrence Halprin on a five acre wooded site on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais. With the birth of their daughters Daria (1948) and Rana (1951), Halprin spent less time at the Halprin–Lathrop studio in order to concentrate on family life and on increasingly important research she was conducting into dance at her home studio. The final split with both the Halprin–Lathrop studio and with modern dance came at the end of 1955. She had previously danced two of her solos The Prophetess and Madrone on the outdoor dance deck built beneath her home as audition pieces for Martha Graham, who was touring America in order to assemble performances for the Festival of American Dance in New York. Halprin’s dances were selected and she travelled to New York to join a prestigious gathering of modern dance performers from around America, seemingly a valuable forum for Halprin after her relatively secluded period on the West Coast. Martha Graham ‘supplied Halprin with a rehearsal space and costuming advice’ and her performances were well received (McMann Paludan 1995: 59) yet her actual experience was the reverse of stimulating. For the two weeks of performances she noticed that ‘all the 47

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dancers looked like imitations of the leading choreographer. I wasn’t able to connect. I felt depressed, discouraged, distrustful, and I knew that my career as a modern dancer had just died’ (Halprin 1981: 14). On return from New York, she left the studio she had run with Welland Lathrop and threw herself into detailed research on the basics of dance. Lawrence Halprin and Arch Lauterer designed a dance deck beneath the Halprins’ house in Kentfeld making an outdoor studio that became a major source of inspiration for dance research and teaching. Originally designed to overcome the prohibitive expense and difculty of building a large indoor studio on such steep wooded slopes, Anna Halprin wrote of the deck that it ‘foats in a ravine surrounded by redwood and madrone trees on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais. The deck breaks rectangular shape and reaches into the woods in a meandering fashion’ (Halprin 1988: 1), with diferent levels and low stepped benches on one side for seating it provides a versatile and stimulating space. Halprin appreciated the ‘deep and lasting efect’ the deck had on her work as it ‘removed the usual restrictions and added elements of nature and chance and, with them, a lack of control and predictability’ (Halprin 1988: 1). Here Halprin was able to follow her own movement explorations, gradually drawing other dancers and artists of diferent disciplines interested in improvisation to work with her. ‘The space is full of trees, rocks, uneven surfaces and textures. Here we have to accommodate our movements to the space itself. This was the origin of task movements’ (Halprin 1988: 1).

The San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop Early work 1955–65 The Dancers’ Workshop was initiated by Anna Halprin with a group of dancers and artists of other disciplines in the early 1950s. In 1955 the group established a base in San Francisco and became known as the San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop. The impetus to form this new group grew out of a combination of Halprin’s increasing disillusionment with modern dance and the practical circumstances of her life. The foundations of Halprin’s future work began as a series of explorations on her dance deck at her home at the foot of Mount Tamalpais. She established a workshop situation with a group of young artists and dancers from San Francisco, which allowed her the freedom to explore, rather than teach, and to enter unknown territory. She began to actively discard modern dance as a limiting orthodoxy, using improvisation to ‘eliminate stereotyped ways of reacting’ and release the restrictions imposed by modern dance training and philosophy (Halprin 1995: 77). She returned to anatomy as a basis for the creation of movement. Not only was the form of her work fundamentally diferent from the modern dance of the era but her basic orientation was at odds with the contemporary assumptions about what constituted dance: ‘We began to deal with ourselves as people, not dancers. We incorporated actions that had never been used in dance before’ (Halprin 1995: 79). She invited ‘visual artists, musicians, actors, architects, poets, psychologists and flm-makers’ (Halprin 1995: xi) to become collaborators in her explorations. Voice, dialogue, objects and music became an integral part of the work. The quest was ‘to rediscover the basic nature of our materials free of preconceived associations and concepts’ to avoid ‘the predictability of cause and efect’ (Halprin 1995: xi). Although the group created performances, the workshop ethos was central to the work, the process of creative questioning and research was as important as the performances generated. Throughout the 25 or more years of its existence the San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop

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never became a repertory company. Two years of process might come to fruition in a single performance before the company moved on to a new phase of exploration or an ephemeral event could be created with little preparation. Birds of America (1960) was the frst major work produced by the company; it was a manifestation of a system of movement compositions based on anatomical combinations and emphasized the ‘non-representational aspects of dance’ (Kostelanetz 1970: 67). Immediately before the performance Halprin unexpectedly asked the company to dance holding long bamboo poles, radically changing the spatial environment. This development heralded another phase of Halprin’s evolution, signalling her life-long interest in the relationship of movement to the environment.

five-legged stool (1962) Halprin was concerned that the emphasis on personal kinaesthetic awareness used to develop Birds of America had resulted in the work becoming too introspective (Halprin 1995: 81). This is a criticism that could be levelled at some of the subsequent practitioners of postmodern dance for similar reasons. Five-Legged Stool, the company’s next work, had a radically diferent focus. The movement vocabulary was generated by physical tasks such as moving 40 wine bottles up into the ceiling or crawling up a diagonal plank and sliding down it head frst (Halprin 1995: 83–4). Collaboration with artists from other disciplines became integrated in the process of creating the work. The performers broke away from the restrictions of the proscenium arch and began to use all the space in the theatre building, ‘the outside, the corridors, the ceilings, the basement, the aisle, everything . . .’ (Halprin 1995: 85). They no longer looked like modern dancers but wore randomly selected costumes and shoes. Halprin had begun to create a new form of ‘total theater’ (Halprin 1995: 256). Pre-fguring the work of Pina Bausch (1940–2009), commonly recognized as the instigator of European Dance Theatre, Five-Legged Stool used radical juxtapositions in an attempt to challenge the audiences’ habitual associations. Undermining conventional notions of cause and efect, Halprin hoped the audience would respond to her work as a sensory experience rather than intellectually. For her the juxtapositions were without logical meaning but possessed an inherent theatricality and emotional coherence (Kostelanetz 1970: 68–9). Audiences in America and Europe responded to such an audacious challenge to the status quo with outrage and hostility.

exposizione (1963) Lucianio Berio, an Italian composer inspired by Five-Legged Stool and the creativity of Halprin’s work with children, invited the company to collaborate with him creating an ‘opera’ for the Venice Biennale in 1963. Exposizione developed several of the techniques initiated in Five-Legged Stool, including the use of the performance environment, task-based movement and juxtapositions. The work was a full-scale collaboration between the dancers, the composer, a sculptor, visual artist Jo Landor and lighting designer Patric Hickey (both of whom had worked on Five Legged-Stool and continued to work with Halprin for many years). The scale of the undertaking exceeded anything that Halprin had previously attempted. The performance was created in response to the architecture of the Venice Opera House, which was transformed by a large cargo net suspended 40 foot high across the proscenium stretching over the orchestra pit and back into the stage, and a ramp creating a slanting foor. The dancers (including Halprin’s young daughters, Rana and Daria) were given the task to ‘penetrate the entire auditorium’ (Halprin 1995: 88)

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carrying enormous bundles of objects: car tyres, parachutes and a hassock full of tennis balls. The performers’ movement was conditioned not only by the environment and their luggage but by the time that had been allocated for each stage of their journey which had to be strictly adhered to. This Herculean task was further complicated by the complex vocal scores written for the dancers in Italian, Greek and English. In addition, the dancers heard the musical score, played by an 18-piece orchestra, for the frst time in performance. Each person was ‘designed as an object’ (Halprin 1995: 91) with the costume intended as an extension of their props, but the costumes were ripped to shreds every performance as a result of the extremity of their tasks. The intensity of the experience for performers and audience alike, with bodies and objects fying through the space, generated an active and vocal response from the audience, and left Halprin with a desire to investigate the nature of ‘the encounter’ between performers and audience more fully (Halprin 1995: 93).

parades and changes (1965–7) Parades and Changes can be seen as the culmination of this period of work. The complex use of scoring through which it was created had evolved from the earlier works. The performance score was created in collaboration with composer Morton Subotnik who had worked on FiveLegged Stool. It consisted of a series of contrasting cellblocks written on cards, created for each of the artistic media: visual, sound, environmental, light and movement. These cellblocks operated independently from each another and were selected and combined in diferent sequences according to the environment for each performance. The result was 12 diferent versions of the dance of varying duration created in response to each of the performance venues. The interdisciplinary approach allowed the artists to work collectively across art forms, their roles at times becoming interchangeable. In the ‘Paper Dance’ the dancers generated a soundscape by tearing huge sheets of paper rolled across the stage, at other times they used their voices, laughing and shouting or stamping their feet percussively. The dancers interacted with elements in the environment including a moveable scafolding structure and, in one version, a large weather balloon. The New York performance included a goat, which promptly urinated on stage (Hering 1967). Parades and Changes included an undressing score in which the performers slowly and ritualistically removed and replaced all their clothing while looking frst at the audience and then at one another. The movement was not eroticized, the instruction to the performers was to be aware of their responses and their breathing as they carried out the task. For Halprin the dance was not about sexuality (Halprin 2001b) but rather an initiation (Halprin 1981: 16) which refected an approach to dance, the body and the self. While this section of the dance was perceived as a ‘ceremony of trust’ when it was performed in Sweden in 1965 (Halprin 1981: 16) it created a furore at the New York performance in 1967 and Halprin narrowly escaped arrest. In some situations the ‘Undressing and Dressing Dance’ could not be performed; in a performance in Poland (1965) the score was reversed with the dancers progressively adding rather than removing articles of clothing (Halprin 2001b). The outraged response to Halprin’s use of nudity had an adverse efect on performance opportunities available to the company in the following years (Halprin 2001b). Nevertheless Halprin has continued to use the naked body in her work when appropriate refecting her approach to the body and ‘natural’ movement and the Californian environment in which her work has evolved. The ‘Undressing and Dressing Dance’ and the ‘Paper Dance’ were recreated for Halprin’s 80th Year Retrospective in 2000 and at the Festival D’Automne (Paris 2004).

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apartment 6 (1965) In parallel with Parades and Changes and in sharp contrast to it, Halprin was developing Apartment 6 in collaboration with actor John Graham (1930– ) and A. A. Leath, a H’Doubler trained dancer, both core members of the Dancers’ Workshop with whom she had been working for 14 years. The performance focused on the complex relationships between the three colleagues. Its structure was more unpredictable than Parades and Changes (Kostelanetz 1970: 77), for although it highlighted each relationship in turn and the performers carried out specifc domestic tasks, such as making pancakes or reading the newspaper, their interactions were improvised in each performance. The authenticity of these interactions was paramount. The performers played themselves using their personal responses as their artistic material, contained and expressed within agreed limitations, for example who could use words or movement in particular situations. Three levels of ‘reality’ functioned simultaneously: the practical reality of the tasks, the emotional reality of the interactions and the embodiment of fantasies which arose in the moment (Halprin 1995: 98–9). Apartment 6 was even less identifable as dance than Halprin’s other performances of this period. The intention was radically diferent to the early kinaesthetic improvisations which had not been concerned with self-expression (Halprin 1995: 77). Like those explorations improvisation is again being used to bypass the limitations of stereotypical or conventional behaviour, but now psychological blocks are being challenged as well as physical and artistic ones. Apartment 6 was motivated in part by a need to move beyond a potential impasse in the working relationships of the three performers who formed the nucleus of the company (Halprin 1995: 97). While succeeding in its own terms as performance, Apartment 6 catalysed a parting of the ways which led to signifcant structural and artistic changes in the Dancers’ Workshop. This split was perhaps inevitable given the intensity and personally provocative nature of the working process. After Apartment 6 Halprin wanted to keep her artistic options open while Graham and Leath wished to continue in the same vein (Halprin 2001b). Many years later, in the 1980s, Graham returned to work with Halprin on the training programme at the Tamalpa Institute. Apartment 6 was the frst real attempt to integrate personal and artistic process, which subsequently became a major focus in Halprin’s work. The depth of emotional confrontation in the work could not have been achieved without psychological guidance. During this period Halprin became involved with the therapeutic work of Fritz Perls (1893–1970), the founder of Gestalt Therapy (McMann Paludan 1995: 79). Perls worked as a consultant on the piece and became an infuential fgure in the development of Halprin’s future work.

Human potential movement Halprin’s involvement with the human potential (or growth) movement of the 1960s and 1970s was as infuential in the development of her working process as any of the artistic or performance trends of the era. At this time in California there was an explosion of alternative therapies and approaches to the body. Nothing in Halprin’s dance training had prepared her for, or equipped her to deal with, the strong emotions which were being provoked in performers and audiences alike once she moved away from the confnes of a stylized approach to dance. Inevitably as the Dancers’ Workshop began to work holistically and collaboratively rather than within the depersonalized forms and clearly established hierarchies of modern dance, the artists’ emotions and the interactions between them began to be exposed. In order to be able to work creatively with this material Halprin needed to gain an understanding of personal and group process and to develop new tools to engage with and transform emotional material and facilitate communication.

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Gestalt Therapy was ideally suited to her needs, emphasizing the link between non-verbal behaviour and underlying attitudes and beliefs, and examining the relationship between the use of language and physical expression. Gestalt highlights sensory impressions engendering an in depth body awareness. Its focus on ‘here and now’ experiences directly contributes to the sense of presence in performance. The Dancers’ Workshop company worked intensively with Perls for several years in the 1960s (Halprin Khalighi 1989: 18). This method of embodying feelings became fundamental to Halprin’s creative work. Other techniques such as ‘active listening’, a tool for communication, and bio-energetic body therapy were also incorporated into her training methods. . . . Through Perls, Halprin began to teach at the Esalen Institute, a focal point for the growth of alternative therapies in California where she continues to teach annually. Halprin also created ceremonies for the American humanistic psychology conferences (Halprin 1981). Halprin came to believe that ‘each of us is our own art’ and that restrictions in personal/ emotional expression would result in corresponding artistic limitations (Halprin 1995: 112). The integration of therapeutic techniques into her creative training refected Halprin’s desire to create ‘authentic’ performances and laid the foundations for the Life/Art Process which has become the hallmark of Halprin’s approach.

Alternative approaches to the body Throughout her working life Halprin has maintained a lively curiosity about alternative approaches to the body. Concurrently with her use of alternative therapies and inspired by the pre-medical course taken in her early training Halprin investigated many diferent approaches to body work (Halprin 2001b). She was particularly attracted to the movement and awareness work of Moshe Feldenkrais . . . which has remained a lasting infuence, because she felt a kinship between his approach and H’Doubler’s. Halprin’s skill at combining and integrating the emotions and alternative approaches to the body in her movement work is central to her contribution to the dance world. While the inclusion of practices such as yoga, the Alexander technique and martial arts in dance training is no longer surprising it was a radical approach in the 1960s and 1970s.

Evolution By the end of the frst ten years of its life the San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop had achieved international recognition as an avant-garde performance group. With the break-up of the original core group in the wake of Apartment 6 and a desire to investigate the relationship between the performers and audiences, signifcant changes were underway. The company re-emerged as a group of young people that was constantly in a state of fux. The work being created had already begun a process of transformation from recognizable, albeit radical forms of theatrical performance to what Halprin called ‘events’. This transformation had been triggered by the extreme audience reactions to the earlier work. Halprin had been taken aback by the energy that had been unleashed and wanted to explore ways of channelling it more constructively. Not content with her research into the personal creative process of her performers, she wanted to explore the interaction between audience and performers. To create work which was ‘a collective statement’ that involved the audience creatively rather than being ‘introspective, private, esoteric and abstract’ (Kostelanetz 1970: 74). Early explorations with the original company had included a Series of Compositions for an Audience (Halprin 1995: 93). 52

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myths (1967–8) and other events In 1967–8 the Dancers’ Workshop initiated Myths, a series of ten participatory events in the San Francisco studio conceived as ‘an experiment in mutual creation’ (Halprin 1995: 130). Environments, created in collaboration with Patric Hickey, provided both a stimulus and container for the participants’ activities and responses functioning as ‘self-directing score(s)’ (Halprin 1995: 131). These environments varied according to the theme and intention of the myth. For Maze, a 12 foot high labyrinth suspended from a wire grid was constructed from wrapping paper, newspaper and sheets of black, white and clear plastic. For Creation, 60 empty chairs were suspended from the walls at diferent levels above lighted platforms. The environments were combined with simple physical scores which were intended to be ‘self-generating’ (Halprin 1995: 149). Participants altered the environments through their interaction with them, bodies became environments, recurrent formations of lines and circles were used. The working method of combining movement scores and environments that the Dancers’ Workshop had developed as a performing company was now being extended to the participants of Myths. Initially, members of the Dancers’ Workshop were the initiators and guides during the events; as the series evolved roles became blurred, the participants becoming performers and the catalysts for one another and the group. Working with archetypal themes each myth generated a diferent atmosphere and quality of interaction: exuberant, contemplative, intimate, ritualistic and confrontational. In Atonement, facing starkly lit walls papered with a repeated page of newspaper, participants made a symbolic gesture to alter their clothing then remained in stillness and silence for an hour contemplating the notion of sin. Halprin saw Atonement as an initiation or ordeal; Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, immediately springs to mind. The last myth of the series Ome also had strongly spiritual resonances. The series was in a constant process of evolution, which was unpredictable at times falling into chaos, in Maze the group destroyed and rebuilt the whole environment. This response was recycled in the next myth Dreams when half the group constructed an environment for the other half to experience. Halprin’s task in Myths was to create scores which gave individuals the freedom to respond in their own way to the stimulus ofered, while providing a strong and fexible enough structure to facilitate the creative engagement of the whole group and to generate a sense of ownership. In her role as director Halprin responded to what was happening in the moment, modifying scores, introducing new ones or integrating suggestions from participants. Myths were in every sense ‘live’ events. The transformation from ‘performance’ to participatory event demanded an equivalent transformation in the role of the artist, from controlling artistic genius to creative facilitator and collaborator. The Dancers’ Workshop also created events in non-theatre venues. Bath (1967), a ‘spontaneous theatre piece’ created in response to the fountain in a museum courtyard in Connecticut, evolved out of several months of workshop explorations on the theme of bathing. In 1968, in response to an invitation to create a performance for a formal lunch at the Hilton Hotel, the group created a slow motion eating ritual to the bemusement of the other diners. Halprin was inspired by community events and public ceremonies which she had witnessed when travelling (Kostelanetz 1970: 67). She began to reclaim public places as sites for her work which on several occasions resulted in clashes with the authorities. The Dancers’ Workshop staged a march with blank placards through the centre of San Francisco symbolizing their right to perform anywhere in the city (1967), and in Automobile Event (1968) used cars in the street as an environment for movement (Halprin 1995: 9, 11). There are parallels between Halprin’s work of this era and the ‘Happenings’ on the East Coast. Halprin aligned her work more closely 53

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with the beginnings of performance art and avant-garde theatre than she did with the dance establishment. Like musician John Cage and artist Allan Kaprow (1927–2006), key fgures in the evolution of Happenings, Halprin rejected the restraints of a highly technical training, traditional boundaries between art forms, and the rigid separation between artist and audience or between art and daily life. Her events, like Happenings, disregarded theatrical conventions of time, space and linear narrative, frequently taking place in non-theatre spaces where the environment became a crucial component of the work. Both Happenings and Halprin’s events operated as multilayered experiences where meaning was not prescribed. In both, scores were used to communicate with participants and the activities were frequently task-based, incorporating everyday objects, sounds and movements. Some of the characteristics of Happenings are apparent in Halprin’s early performance works, for example the use of illogical juxtaposition and the discrete ‘cells’ of action in Parades and Changes that could be combined or sequenced in diferent ways. One of the diferences between Halprin’s events and Happenings is Halprin’s growing emphasis on collective creativity and the autonomy of participants and the interaction between them, resulting in a sense of community and group ownership of the event. Increasingly Halprin was concerned with creating events that were meaningful for the individuals participating and served the needs of the community. While Halprin was undeniably part of the general trend in avant-garde art in the 1960s, and was in communication with artists working on the East Coast, her work had a distinctly West Coast favour. She responded to the hippy culture which fourished in San Francisco leading a group of 1,000 young people dancing at a Janis Joplin concert in the Haight Ashbury (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 77). At a another concert by the Grateful Dead, Allen Ginsberg chanted his poetry while members of the Dancers’ Workshop painted their bodies in ‘intricate fuorescent patterns’ and danced among the audience holding aloft plastic sheets on which flm images were projected (Halprin 1995: 102). The social and cultural movements of the era were crucial infuences on both the form of Halprin’s work and the values implicit within it.

The theatrical avant-garde At this time Halprin’s work was denigrated by the dance world although she infuenced many young dancers who later attracted international attention. But she was recognized as infuential by practitioners of avant-garde theatre and performance art resulting in a relationship of mutual interest and exchange. Scores were sent back and forth between Halprin and the Fluxus experimental art group in New York (Halprin 2001b). Julian Beck (1925–85) and Judith Malina (1926–2015), founders of the Living Theatre, contacted Halprin after seeing Parades and Changes on European television. Two of the performers in the New York version subsequently joined the Living Theatre and, in 1968, the two companies worked together at the San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop (McMann Paludan 1995: 157). Richard Schechner (1934– ) too was quick to recognize the importance of Halprin’s work. After the 1967 performance of Parades and Changes he invited her to lead a workshop for the nascent Performance Group in New York and attended her workshop at the Esalen Institute in 1968 (McMann Paludan 1995: 151–4). Halprin saw parallels between her work and that of Joseph Chaikin (1935–2003) at the Open Theater, an experimental theatre workshop/company which operated in New York for ten years from the early 1960s. Some members of the Open Theater had studied with Halprin although she only came into direct contact with Chaikin when he moved to the Bay area in 1989 (McMann Paludan 1995: 156). Halprin found the work of Chaikin, Peter Brook (1925– ) and Jerzy Grotowski (1933–99) more stimulating 54

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than the dance practice of the era. She was attracted to the exploratory nature of Grotowski’s work, his changing relationship with the audience and his combination of physical work and text. She eventually met Grotowski when he was working in California in the 1980s and expresses some reservations about his experimentation with emotional material, feeling that there was not a clear enough containing structure or process to conduct such work responsibly (Halprin 2001b). Halprin was touched by the beauty and mythical quality of Peter Brook’s production The Conference of the Birds, appreciating the interaction between the performers, the quality of their physical and vocal work and the cross-cultural nature of his company (Halprin 2001b).

Moving into the community the watts project and ceremony of us (1968–9) In 1968 a signifcant turning point in the evolution of the Dancers’ Workshop occurred. Shortly after the Watts race riots in Los Angeles, Halprin was approached by James Woods, director of the Studio Watts School for the Arts, to create a performance for the Los Angeles Festival of Performing Arts. Woods had been impressed by the inclusive ethos of Myths and asked Halprin to create an event which would bring people from the black community in Watts into the prestigious Mark Taper Theater. Halprin, not satisfed to involve this community simply as an audience, worked regularly for several months with a self-selected group of young black people in Watts, and an equivalent group of white people in San Francisco. Halprin worked in similar ways with each group, developing movement resources and exploring personal, creative and group processes. Ten days before the performance the two groups were brought together. The encounter between them and the real and volatile process of the two groups learning to work creatively together became the raw material of Ceremony of Us. The performance focused on issues of power, sexuality, competition, aggression and ultimately co-operation and celebration. The issues that the performers were confronting were of vital importance to them, their personal investment was high and the touchstone of the performance was its authenticity. The audience had to choose whether to enter the theatre through a door where the black performers were assembled or another where the white group was gathered. The aim was to confront the audience with their racial attitudes from the beginning, involving them personally in the process of confrontation and reconciliation that the group had experienced. A fnal celebratory procession led the audience into the plaza outside the theatre where members of the public joined them. Ceremony of Us manifested Halprin’s desire to create ‘theatre where everything is experienced as if for the frst time, a theatre of risk, spontaneity, exposure and intensity’ (Halprin 1995: 101). It was a challenging process for Halprin, forcing her to confront her own attitudes and to engage with reality of cultural diference. The need for a method that could enable groups to work collectively across diference became apparent and precipitated the evolution of the RSVP Cycles for collective creativity. . . . As a result of the Watts project, the Dancers’ Workshop transformed into a multi-racial group. The Reach Out programme, which received government funding for 12 years, was established to enable the participation of people from a cross-section of racial and cultural backgrounds, training them to become creative facilitators within their communities, and teachers and artists in their own right. Rather than superimpose white dance forms Halprin worked actively to develop the diverse movement resources of the group, for example black street dance, integrating them into the Dancers’ Workshop programme. 55

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new time shuffle (1970), kadosh (1971) and moving days (1973) The Watts project was the Dancers’ Workshop frst confrontation with a major social issue. They continued to create work which engaged directly with contemporary social concerns working as a multi-racial group of ‘performing social artists’ in a variety of community locations (Halprin and others 1975: preface). In 1970 they performed New Time Shufe a cabaret style performance at Soledad prison, a high-security goal known for its racial tensions. Kadosh (1971) challenged the relevance of Judaism and God in contemporary society at the time of the Vietnam War. Performed as part of the Friday night Shabbot service at a Jewish temple in Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco, Kadosh incorporated traditional Jewish texts and symbolic actions such as the lighting of candles and the tearing of garments. The Rabbi and the cantor actively participated in this dramatic and emotional interaction which expressed diferent attitudes to religious beliefs. In 1973 the Dancers’ Workshop worked with parents, teachers and pupils to create a score to return a school to its premises which had been rebuilt after being destroyed by fire. Moving Days combined practical tasks, such as moving the furniture, with symbolic gestures including ceremonial farewells to the school’s temporary accommodation, a ritual invocation of the new building, and a celebratory procession, dancing and feasting. Such events rather than being participatory performances were collaborations with communities created with specific social intentions. The Dancers’ Workshop had become more than a performance company. They saw themselves as a creative community whose personal, social and aesthetic values were intertwined, embodying a lifestyle rather than creating a dance style.

initiations and transformations (1971) In 1971 following the trail blazed by Ceremony of Us the Dancers’ Workshop created a new multi-racial performance work Initiations and Transformations which incorporated Animal Ritual, a score also performed in its own right. The animal imagery created a cohesive whole integrating the diversity of movement styles in the group and facilitated the expression of archetypal themes and interactions such as confict, territory, attraction, isolation, family and hunting. In common with many of the other works Halprin created in this period, a cycle of confict, catharsis, resolution and celebration occurred. Developed collectively the score for Initiations and Transformations was sufciently open to allow each performer to create a new journey in response to it each time they performed, resulting in diferent versions of the work. The audience joined the performers in the fnal ‘Trance Dance’ which began with the group moving in unison to a repetitive drum beat. The intention was to create a ‘moving community’ with the company supporting the audience to claim ownership of the dance and create its own ‘myth’. For Halprin this went beyond audience participation and was a genuine interaction between two communities (Pierce 1975: 13). Halprin understands trance dance as a collective process, an opportunity ‘to experience . . . the journey from the self to the many and back to the self again’. In this context the ‘myth’ is a spontaneous ‘event’ which symbolizes ‘the spirit of the collective psyche of the group’; it is unique, specifc to that group at that time (Halprin 1995: 128). At the American College Dance Festival in Connecticut in 1971 Animal Ritual was created by dancers from the Dancers’ Workshop in collaboration with dance students at the festival through a process of parallel workshops similar to the one devised for the Watts project. Apparently unrepentant after her experience with Parades and Changes, Halprin returned to New York in 1971 and performed Initiations and Transformations with the Dancers’ Workshop in the New York city 56

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centre. The use of nudity in this performance directly challenged taboos around sexuality and the body (Halprin 1995: 114). Halprin’s work and life experience during the 16 years that had passed since she had performed The Prophetess in New York at the Festival of American Dance in 1955 had so radically transformed her understanding of dance, her movement vocabulary and her approach to performance and creative process, that the images of her in The Prophetess and Animal Ritual are hard to reconcile.

citydance (1976–7) Citydance created in San Francisco in 1976 and 1977 was a synthesis of Halprin’s experience creating participatory events in public spaces and working in a variety of urban and natural environments. Following the murder of San Francisco’s mayor and another ofcial (Amirrezvani 2000), Citydance aimed to regenerate a sense of community and an awareness of and revitalized connection to the urban environment. Citydance (1977) was the culmination of a year-long programme of public events at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. A dawn to dusk journey through San Francisco, Citydance travelled through contrasting environments and neighbourhoods, including woodland, a ghetto playground, a skyscraper, a formal plaza in the city centre, a graveyard and the cable car terminus. The focus was on interacting with the environments, spaces and people of the city through simple scores which facilitated spontaneous expression and individual participation. Starting with a dawn ceremony looking out over the city, the event gathered momentum as it progressed with people joining along the way until the fnal exuberant celebration in the heart of the city with nearly a thousand participants. Halprin saw the journey in mythic terms; for her the group became ‘a living embodiment of the city’ (Halprin and San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop 1977: 27). A celebration of community Citydance refected the diversity of its participants, it included poetry, masks, face painting, a lunch ritual, an impromptu basketball game and an eclectic mix of live music, it began with a Native American chant and closed with bagpipes, African drumming and a Tibetan horn. All the participants in Citydance were considered ‘co-creators’. Members of the Dancers’ Workshop performed prepared pieces and guided the group process, participants who had attended the museum series had been involved in devising the scores, members of the public who had read the score in the local newspaper and passers-by joined in, others became unwitting performers. Citydance was the fruit of Halprin’s developing practice in collective creativity and her continuing exploration of scoring for and facilitating large group events. The creation of Citydance laid the ground for the Circle the Earth series in the 1980s (see Section 12.2). Citydances were also created by the Natural Dance Workshop in London (1977) and in Europe. This popular but little documented group, which operated in London from 1976 until 1980, was established by Jym MacRitchie and his partner Anna Wise. Originally a community artist from the Great Georges’ Community Arts project in Liverpool, MacRitchie had worked with Halprin at the Dancers’ Workshop in the early 1970s. The Natural Dance Workshop, operating concurrently with the burgeoning New Dance movement and the growth movement, ofered a highly successful workshop programme open to everyone, which challenged elitist and stylized approaches to dance. The Natural Dance Theatre, their performance group, created large-scale participatory dance events and environmental performances. The Natural Dance Workshop introduced Halprin’s approach to dance to the UK. Many of its students and teachers subsequently trained with Halprin and are currently working as independent dancers performing and teaching in universities and the wider community. 57

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The scores and documentation of the original Citydance continue to inspire performance, including City Dance Edinburgh which took place in Scotland in 2011 during the International Edinburgh Festival. The event, led by Audicia Lynne Morley and Taira Restar, generated scores made by participants for prominent open spaces across the city such as Waverley Station, the Castle, the Scottish Parliament and Calton Hill. Amidst rain and sunny moments the promenade performance invited participation from the crowds at the festival, from a ritual daybreak opening at Arthur’s Seat to a celebratory fnal dance on Calton Hill. Created through close contact with Anna Halprin and adapted from her original score, Halprin demonstrated typical invention through adding bright yellow rain ponchos to the usual costume of all white or all black clothing. These became by turn, rainwear, picnic cloths and a chequered ground design in front of the Scottish Parliament (for images and documentation see http://www.citydance-edinburgh.org/about.html).

Environment work The collaborations of Anna and Lawrence Halprin From their initial meetings and early study with teachers from the Bauhaus, the working lives of Anna and Lawrence Halprin have interwoven in a richly creative manner that both acknowledge as important to their development. A vital element within their work has been their reliance on observations of the natural environment as a consistent source of inspiration whether for dance or architecture. During the late 1960s their shared commitment to broadening participation in artistic projects with the resulting enrichment and reafrmation of community was combined with a determination to establish processes to ease the difculties inherent in such collective creative ventures. The RSVP Cycles, a structure that aids communication within artistic collaborations, was formulated by Lawrence Halprin during this period in response to his own needs as a landscape designer/architect and those experienced by Anna Halprin in her teaching and work with the San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop. (See Section 12.2 for application to a specifc performance.) Together the Halprins worked on joint projects such as a series of summer workshops, ‘Experiments in Environments’, for architecture students and dancers from 1966 to 1969 . . . held in the city, at the Kentfeld outdoor studio and at Sea Ranch where they had a house on the coast. This series proved mutually benefcial for architects and performers in generating creative material, while simultaneously allowing the Halprins to test out the fedgling framework that would become in its fnal form, the RSVP Cycles, an essential tool in their subsequent work. As a direct result of the workshop series the Sea Ranch Collective, a multinational group of performers and visual artists, was formed and continues to meet each autumn to extend their explorations of environment-based dance (Halprin and Sea Ranch Collective 2003).

Sea Ranch While the outdoor dance deck at Kentfeld had provided Anna Halprin with an unusual and inspiring place to work, of similar impact was the Halprins’ retreat at Sea Ranch, a coastal community 100 miles north of San Francisco on the Pacifc Ocean. The buildings were designed by Lawrence Halprin Associates (begun in 1962) to satisfy the needs of residents and to harmonize with an area of outstanding natural beauty. In the design process Lawrence Halprin used community participation and scoring to establish a series of guidelines that would ensure maximum blending of the buildings into the environment resulting in a major achievement in ecological planning. For Anna Halprin the house at Sea Ranch became a space for retreat and regeneration as well as providing an inspiring environment for the many summer workshops she taught there. 58

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The close proximity of Sea Ranch to the Pomo Native American settlement helped foster an ongoing interchange in which the Halprins were invited to ceremonies at the Pomo Roundhouse, along with colleagues and students on more public occasions. Anna Halprin reciprocated by welcoming members of the settlement to attend workshops or performance events that she had organized. The witnessing of each other’s work and subsequent friendships proved infuential in many aspects of Halprin’s development as both artist and teacher.

Work in the natural environment Just as Halprin had refused to inhibit movement exploration by limiting what could be included under the term ‘dance’ or by controlling who could dance, similarly she expanded where dance could take place. The public face of this attitude was most in evidence in an urban environment with the San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop events and performances such as Citydance and through their subversive use of conventional theatre spaces. However, the less visible, but nevertheless crucial, process of researching movement in nature has been a continuous thread throughout her career. Whether through intensive workshops, retreats and performance group research or as part of the Tamalpa training programme, the natural landscape has proved an inspirational force for Halprin and those working with her. The underlying principles that guide her work in nature are based on three beliefs: that ‘the human body is a microcosm of the earth’, processes of nature ofer aesthetic guidelines and nature is a healer (Halprin 1995: 214). Halprin emphasizes the physicality of response when working outside and the importance of heightening awareness through opening up the senses and ‘isolating them so that you can focus on what’s there’ (Halprin 2001b). The multi-sensory approach and a sensuous, tactile engagement with places immediately undercuts the notion that the landscape might merely serve as an attractive backdrop for performance. Instead Halprin establishes a means of working with nature that integrates fascination with naturally occurring processes and patterns alongside personal and collective stories, images and emotions triggered by such encounters. Although Halprin’s work in nature forms an essential, abiding element of her teaching/ research, it has little public visibility. Performances regularly take place within the workshop context, but the immediacy of personal response, the unpredictable nature of the elements and the inaccessibility of some sites militates against conventional theatrical performance. Alongside the more intimate workshop performance style in which the audience might more accurately be called witnesses, a body of work has developed in which Halprin works with flmmakers and photographers to give environmental work public artistic expression. Embracing Earth, Dances with Nature (1995), a video directed by Halprin and flmed by Ellison Hall and Andy Abrahams Wilson, is an example of such work. Halprin’s work as a performer in Still Dance, created by performance artist Eeo Stubblefeld, is discussed towards the end of this section.

Cancer and the healing power of dance In 1972 aged 51 Halprin was confronted by a personal crisis from which she emerged with a new sense of purpose. She had begun to use drawing (visualizations) to explore the relationship between imagery and movement. During a workshop she drew a grey ball in her pelvis that she felt unable to interpret in dance. On intuition she requested a medical examination of the area, which revealed a malignant tumour in her colon. Surgery left Halprin with a radically changed body (she had a colostomy) and with understandable concern about her future as a dancer. She was informed that if there was no recurrence of the cancer within fve years she could consider 59

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herself clear. In 1975 the cancer recurred. Halprin, who had intensifed her research into visualizations and movement after her diagnosis, fell back on her own resources. Recognizing that ‘drastic changes’ (Halprin 1995: 66) were needed she went into retreat and undertook an intensive emotional and physical exploration of her personal process through movement and drawing. As a result of this she created a personal ritual which efected a transformation in her healing process. She created two larger than life self-portraits, one an idealized image of herself as young and healthy and, on the reverse side, an angry and violent picture of her ‘shadow’ side. Supported by an intimate group of witnesses Halprin danced frst the negative image releasing acute feelings of rage and pain and then her original portrait imagining herself being cleansed by mountain cascades fowing through her body. It was a powerful and emotional experience, a healing ritual that had a profound impact on her; her cancer went into remission and her priorities in her artistic work changed. Halprin felt that she needed to ‘re-evaluate my role as a dancer’ (McMann Paludan 1995: 249); ‘before I had cancer, I lived my life in service of dance, and after I had cancer, I danced in the service of life’ (Halprin 2001a: 16). Theatrical performances slipped into the background as Halprin began to focus her attention on investigating the inter-relationship between art and personal process, the creation of dances which carried meaning for the individuals and groups involved, dances which had the power to efect change in people’s lives. In the last two decades of the twentieth century Halprin developed the use of dance and visualizations, now referred to as the Psychokinetic Visualization Process, with people facing life-threatening illness. She began to formalize the intuitive process she had used in her own healing, creating the Five Stages of Healing, discussed in more detail in Section 12.2. In 1980 she began to run workshops as part of a cancer support and education programme at the Creighton Health Institute in California. From 1986 she ofered a cancer self-help programme entitled ‘Moving Towards Life’ at the Tamalpa Institute. In the mid-1980s Halprin was also invited to work with men and women living with HIV and AIDS which was fast becoming a major issue in the Bay area. This work led to the formation of the STEPS Theatre Company for People Challenging AIDS (which later became Positive Motion) and Women with Wings for Women Challenging AIDS through Dance and Ritual. Both groups continued for many years and performed in Circle the Earth, Dancing with Life on the Line (1989 and 1991), a large-scale performance ritual designed to address the issue of AIDS in the lives of individuals and the wider community (see Section 12.2). Halprin’s book Dance as a Healing Art (2000) distills the knowledge gained through this 20 years of experience into a practical and accessible workbook. Her work embodies a holistic approach to the body and healing, refecting the intrinsic relationship between the body, mind and emotions, integrating dance with feelings and images. Halprin expresses a deep-seated belief in the innate wisdom of the body and its power to heal itself, using dance as a means of empowerment, a way of ‘reclaiming’ a body in crisis and afrming the will to live (Halprin 1995: 207–8; Halprin 2000: 30).

Tamalpa Institute Anna Halprin and Daria Halprin founded the Tamalpa Institute in 1978 as a response to the growing need to extend the training and research elements of the San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop. The later Dancers’ Workshop projects had become increasingly concerned with using dance and theatre to confront personal and social issues. This combined with community involvement and commitment to exploration of the healing purposes of dance were forceful reasons for focusing on the development of the Life/Art Process. The Tamalpa Institute was established to research the implications of this approach and ‘to train others in a creative process 60

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which integrates psychology, body therapies and education with dance, art and drama’ (Tamalpa Institute 1986a).

The Life/Art Process The Life/Art Process lies at the heart of the workshop, training and performance work of the Tamalpa Institute. It was developed to investigate the complex and potentially transformative relationship between artistic expression and life experience. Key aspects of this method include a holistic approach to teaching dance, an acknowledgement of, and respect for, both diferences and commonalties between people and a commitment to collective creativity. Although the political and philosophical implications of this path were not new in Halprin’s work, as demonstrated by her community-based projects and Marin co-operatives, the performance aesthetic had become more precisely determined. There seemed to her to be little point in doing ‘dances that were about being inventive and cute and funny when our planet is in such danger’ (Halprin 1992: 53). In addition to the physical explorations Halprin had developed from her work with H’Doubler and Todd, she relied increasingly on methods such as the RSVP Cycles for collective creativity and the Five Stages of Healing (also known as the Five Part Process). The latter process was developed with Daria Halprin, who from childhood had worked with the Dancers’ Workshop, subsequently training in Gestalt Therapy and developing her own approach to expressive arts therapy. The RSVP Cycles helped to make the diferent elements of the creative process visible and accessible, while the Five Stages of Healing encouraged participants to assimilate what they learned from performance back into daily life. . . . The application of this process to a community project that began as a series of workshops ‘The Search for Living Myths and Rituals’, and continues today as a yearly large scale ritual dance performance, is examined in depth in Section 12.2. Tamalpa Institute students were closely involved with the project from its inception. Over the years it has shifted and altered form from the series of dances on the mountain that addressed an urgent local community issue, through to a fexible structure of workshops and performance called Circle the Earth designed to run in any country. As more people were inspired to create dance rituals in their own communities, in sympathy with the theme of peaceable living initiated in Marin, the worldwide Planetary Dance was created.

Training programmes and public education The Institute began to attract students from all over the world and from a range of felds including those engaged in the therapeutic, educational and caring professions as well as dancers, actors, musicians and visual artists. The Reach Out professional training programme, designed to foster a multi-racial student body, funded participants from countries and from sectors within America, such as the Native American population, who could not otherwise have aforded to participate. The intensive training programmes and the public education component (including community projects, summer workshops, public events, performances and publications) of Tamalpa have continued to refect a holistic, inclusive approach to the teaching of dance. In 1991 Anna Halprin withdrew from the artistic management of the Institute but retained contact through teaching on specifc elements of the programmes. Daria Halprin took over the directorship with a faculty of teachers who have developed an ‘intermodal approach’ which uses ‘the tools of creative embodiment for transformation and social change – movement, poetry, artistic drawing and the freedom of personal expression’ (www.tamalpa.org). The Tamalpa Institute ofers professional training programmes (Levels 1–3) that follow the fundamentals of the Tamalpa Life/Art Process® for those ‘who wish to incorporate the principles and tools of 61

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embodied creativity into their own personal development and professional practices’ (www. tamalpa.org). Graduates of these programmes who gain the Tamalpa Practitioner Certifcate are eligible to apply for registration as a Movement Therapist/Educator through the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association (ISMETA) or as an Expressive Arts Therapist or Expressive Arts Consultant/Educator through the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA) (see www.tamalpa.org for details). It is also possible to combine study at Tamalpa Institute with certain MA or PhD programmes. The Institute continues to support ‘underserved’ communities internationally as well as in the USA through the various activities of the Tamalpa ArtCorps, including sponsorship to undertake Level 1 and 2 of the training programmes. In addition Daria Halprin founded and mentors the Tamalpa Collective that currently includes four international branch centres in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Korea.

The relationship with contemporary dance During the mid-1950s Halprin’s shift away from modern styles of dance, made popular by such choreographers as Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey and Hanya Holm, left her in an uneasy relationship with the dance world. This was not to resolve itself for many years and, during the early period of the Dancers’ Workshop, Halprin’s work was so misunderstood that she was accused of setting dance back 20 years (Kerner 1988: 12). However, the many elements of her work that made it incomprehensible to more conventional dancers and critics were the very attributes sought out by young avant-garde dancers. In the documentary flm Lawrence and Anna Halprin, Inner Landscapes, dance scholar Janice Ross suggests that because Halprin ‘always moved freely between the various art worlds. She was never locked in the pocket of dance only . . .’ so instead of ‘being stifed by it . . . she brought that very fuid stimulating environment to her work’ (1991). James Waring (1922–75), who was to make a name for himself as a dancer and choreographer in New York, had taught at the Halprin–Lathrop Studio, but Simone Forti (1935– ) was the frst dancer with whom Halprin spent an extended time after moving away from modern dance. Forti and her husband, the painter Robert Morris (1931– ), shared the Halprins’ interest in the history and philosophy of the Bauhaus with Forti noting the infuence of the Bauhaus principles in the task-orientated improvisations that Halprin devised in their work together in 1955–9. The idea of these ‘tasks’ was to set up a structure or an object and to explore the physical possibilities that it ofered. . . . in this way we were able to enrich our corporeal and kinetic imaginations directly – without recourse to external referents (literary or psychological) as had been the case up until then in most dance practices. (Forti 1999: 147) As she worked with Halprin, Forti shifted from a primary interest in painting to dance. Both she and Morris welcomed the opportunity they found with Halprin of an extended period of experimentation with artists from a range of disciplines. In addition, Forti points to their openness to diverse infuences, from Japanese performance, developments in visual art, use of collage/ radical juxtaposition in performance and the practice of Zen Buddhism. ‘We wanted to be open to the unknown, to welcome disorientation’ (Forti 1999: 147). Forti took part in several of the early Dancers’ Workshop performances such as the informal Nez Plays (Zen spelt backwards), Four Square (1959) and Trunk Dance (1959). Exploration of improvisation in performance and task-based movement experienced with Halprin, contributed to Forti’s involvement with artists 62

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such as Allan Kaprow, Claes Oldenburg and musician La Monte Young in the creation of ‘Happenings’ when she moved to New York (Forti 1999: 149). Forti and, to a lesser extent, Morris were responsible for increasing the interchange between the East and West Coast avant-garde performance artists that had begun with John Cage’s and Merce Cunningham’s visits to California. Cunningham was supportive of Halprin’s initiatives, but he was already pursuing his own style of dance linked initially to experiments in chance combinations associated with composer John Cage. Although he visited Halprin and danced on the deck at Kentfeld, their paths veered in diferent directions. He became more reliant on highly trained dancers and a distinct style of abstract dance based on the challenging execution of unusual combinations of movement sequences. Forti took part in composer Robert Dunn’s dance composition classes held at the Cunningham studio (in 1960–2). These developed into radical forms of improvisatory performance given in a series of concerts from 1962 to 1964 at Judson Church in New York (the groups of performers became known collectively as the Judson Dance Theater). It was Forti who suggested early on in this process that members of the class take part in Halprin’s summer workshops in California. Subsequently in 1960 Yvonne Rainer (choreographer, dancer and flmmaker) and Ruth Emerson (choreographer and dancer) went with Forti and Morris to Halprin’s summer workshop where they worked alongside, amongst others, dancer and choreographer Trisha Brown, composer La Monte Young and actor John Graham. This proved to be a rich time for cross-fertilization of ideas between dance developing on the East and West Coasts of America. It had lasting implications for the Judson Dance Theater group of artists, including the subsequent solo development of well-known choreographers such as Yvonne Rainer (1934– ), Trisha Brown (1936–2017) and later Meredith Monk (1942– ). Dance scholar Sally Banes, in her book Democracy’s Body: Judson Dance Theater, 1962–1964, suggests that Halprin’s teaching provided members of the group with the ‘freedom to follow intuition and impulse in improvisation’, experience of work in nature and an ‘analytic approach to anatomy and kinesiology’ (Banes 1993: xvii). Rainer valued the freedom of the summer workshops where ‘anything could be explored and everything was up for grabs’ (Lawrence and Anna Halprin 1991). While Monk found Halprin’s ‘afrmation to continue [her] own path’ important and suggests that ‘maybe that’s the beauty of the way that she teaches and is as a person, that it really is an encouragement to fnd your own way’ (Lawrence and Anna Halprin 1991). Over the years Halprin has been teaching, many dancers have been drawn to work with her, while others like Forti, under her infuence, have changed course to become dancers. Her commitment ‘to break down the idea of separation between art and life’ that Monk sees as Halprin’s mission (Lawrence and Anna Halprin 1991) is combined with an openness to all art forms with the result that even artists connected with specifc styles of dance have found Halprin’s material useful and cite her infuence as signifcant. For instance Cynthia Novack describes the overlap of movement ideas and values in her analysis of the development of Contact Improvisation (Novack 1990: 29, 30). She selects particular elements as infuential such as the collective creative process, development of structures for improvisation (scores), direct sensuous experience of movement and an expanded range of movement rather than a codifed vocabulary (Novack 1990: 30). While some well-known choreographers/dancers sought out Halprin’s workshops or training programmes, for instance the British choreographer Rosemary Butcher (1947–2016) and the American Mary Fulkerson (1946– ) who later taught extensively at Dartington College in Devon, UK, others came across her work by chance. American Deborah Hay (1941– ) inadvertently took part in a Dancers’ Workshop performance called Bath (1967): ‘A girl from the audience came into the fountain and pressed her body against the statue’ (Halprin 1995: 106). While Kei Takei (1946– ) (dancer and choreographer), who later trained with Halprin, was an 63

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audience member for Initiations and Transformations (1972) and joined in the open section for audience members with such energy and force that Halprin immediately noticed her presence. ‘She just burst out of the “Trance Dance” we were doing and she did a dance that was . . . she was just out of her mind’ (Pierce 1975: 9). The outdoor deck and studio at Kentfeld has remained a meeting place for artists to exchange ideas and methods of working even when styles are apparently very diferent. For example although not particularly drawn to the Japanese form of contemporary dance called Butoh (full name Ankoku Butoh – Dance of Total Darkness) which has become too rigidly codifed for her taste, Halprin greatly appreciated the work of individual dancers who have worked closely with or within the Butoh style. When Min Tanaka (1945– ) (renowned Butoh dancer/choreographer and founder of Body Weather), who originally met Halprin in Japan, visited her in Kentfeld, the dances he performed on the deck confrmed in her view that he is ‘a wonderful artist’ (Halprin 2002a). More recently she has worked with dancers Eiko (1952– ) and Koma (1948– ), the Japanese couple who do not see their work as Butoh although they did train with Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno (known as the founders of Butoh). In 2001 they collaborated with Halprin on Be With, a dance that was performed in Washington, San Francisco and New York. Movement-based theatre artists have continued to draw on Halprin’s approach both for her methods of stimulating individual and collective creative response and for the structures that help formulate these into performance. For instance the French-Canadian theatre director Robert Lepage (1957– ) was introduced to the RSVP Cycles through his work with Jacques Lessard, founder of Théâtre Répère. Using their own development of the process, ‘resource, search, evaluation and presentation’, the Répère method has contributed to Lepage’s work with continuously evolving performances based, in part, on audience response.

Dance awards Ironically after so many years of feeling more accepted by and in sympathy with the theatrical avant-garde, Halprin’s achievements have gradually been acknowledged within the dance world with a series of awards. In 1980 during the twenty-ffth anniversary year of the San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop she was awarded the American Dance Guild’s Award in recognition of her work as one of the nation’s leading exponents of experimental dance. While in 1994, aged 73, she returned to the University of Wisconsin to receive an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts. In 1997 she was presented with the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award, established in 1981 and one of the most prestigious dance honours for lifetime achievement, accompanied by a $25,000 cash award. The dedication Halprin received was a public, if belated, recognition of her extensive contributions to dance. ‘Generations of dancers have been inspired by Anna, whose multi-faceted ideas have transcended traditional boundaries, embraced uncharted seas of expression and always encouraged freedom and the purity of unrestricted creativity’ (Certifcate 1997). She continues to receive awards through her nineties, including in 2014 the Doris Duke Impact Award and the Isadora Duncan Award for Parades and Changes at Berkeley Art Museum.

Later work 80th year retrospective (2000) In June 2000 The Dancers’ Group, an organization which promotes dance in the Bay area, hosted an 80th Year Retrospective for Anna Halprin at the Cowell Theater in San Francisco. The programme included extracts from Parades and Changes, Memories from My Closet: Four Dance 64

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Stories performed by Halprin, and the premiere of a new work, Intensive Care, Refections on Death and Dying. It also featured a photographic exhibition Still Dance, the fruit of Halprin’s ongoing collaboration as performer in the environment with performance and visual artist Eeo Stubblefeld, a retrospective exhibition entitled ‘Five Decades of Transformational Dance’ and photographs of Parades and Changes.

parades and changes From all her early works Halprin chose to recreate the ‘Undressing and Dressing Dance’ including the ‘Paper Dance’ from Parades and Changes for a number of reasons. The most important consideration was that she felt that the shocked reactions when it had frst been performed in America in 1967 had prevented any real understanding of the dance. Her hope was that 30 years later an audience would be able to perceive it in the spirit in which it was created. She also felt that the dance had historical signifcance because it had challenged both the social and artistic norms of the era. In addition to the use of nudity the performance disregarded established gender stereotypes by dressing the performers androgynously and few in the face of the conventions of contemporary dance by creating a work based on an everyday task. Pragmatically it was not a difcult dance to recreate as the movement vocabulary was easily accessible. In fact Halprin had previously reconstructed it with participants at the American Dance Festival in North Carolina in 1997, and at the Museum of Contemporary Art at Los Angeles in 1998. Critical responses to the performance of Parades and Changes at the retrospective were enthusiastic. John Rockwell in the New York Times describes the ‘Paper Dance’ ‘as striking a stage image as I have seen’ comparing it to ‘the best of the Living Theater, the Open Theater and early Robert Wilson’ (2000). A clear contrast to the derisive ‘no-pants dancers’ headline in the same paper after the earlier performances (Halprin 1995: 6). . . .

memories from my closet The next section of the retrospective’s programme was comprised of more recent works which are concerned with reminiscence. Memories from My Closet is a series of four dance vignettes inspired by memories associated with clothes and objects Halprin came across when clearing out her closet. The solos in Memories from My Closet are loosely strung together with the help of actor David Greenaway who combines the roles of master of ceremonies, interlocutor and costume assistant. The sequence commences with Halprin careering on stage in clown mode, complete with hat, large white shoes, a hat-box and a suitcase on wheels. Her entry is accompanied by a comic text spoken by Greenaway about her ‘moving’ career. Both the character and text are reminiscent of a much earlier phase of her performance work. All four pieces in Memories are created in an intimate story-telling style that includes direct address and combines movement and text. Halprin accomplishes the costume changes between the segments with pragmatism and panache, leavened by a mixture of comedy and self-parody. The frst piece From 5–110 was inspired by a poem by James Broughton, a collaborator from the San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop, for one of Halprin’s birthdays. It follows Halprin’s journey as a dancer from 5 to a putative 110 years old: through joyous childhood dances, adolescent rebellion and motherhood, to dances for peace and social justice, and now, at 80, dancing with a deepened understanding of the natural environment from the ‘creepy crawlers’ to the giant redwoods. Halprin envisages herself at 90 years old dancing 65

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as a healer and at 100 dancing ‘the essence of things’, coming full circle to an exuberant childlike dance of freedom. In contrast the Courtesan and the Crone is an unusually stylized performance for Halprin in which she transforms herself into a courtesan at the Venice Opera House. Donning an elaborate gown and evening gloves Halprin engages in a comic mock Italian exchange with Greenaway, remembering the performance of Exposizione at the Opera House in the early 1960s. A carnivalesque mask completes her transformation. In a highly theatrical performance, momentarily tinged with irony, Halprin masquerades as a much younger woman using a sequence of elegant hand gestures, firtatiously displaying her legs and blowing kisses at the audience. The masquerade dissolves when she divests herself of her fnery returning with deliberate and good-humoured bathos to the reality of her 80-year-old body. Unabashed she sends up the next costume change showing of her legs to the audience. The Grandfather Dance mentioned at the beginning of this section is the third solo in Memories from My Closet. Performed to the music of a Jewish Klezmer band, this tender and exuberant celebration of her relationship with grandfather is the liveliest and most physically ambitious piece in the sequence and is danced by Halprin with verve. Gratitude, the fnal vignette, is also the slightest. It is a personal ritual in which Halprin acknowledges her lineage. She performs in a Bedouin shepherd’s robe which reminds her of her frst visit to Israel in 1948 shortly after the establishment of the state, an experience which evoked a deep feeling of belonging and of homecoming. Naming her matrilineal and patrilineal ancestors Halprin scatters two piles of leaves across the stage with branches, using the symbolism of a tree to represent her forebears and all their descendents. In an attempt to bring her work with the natural environment into the theatre (Halprin 2001b) Gratitude is performed to the sound of bird song and the rustling of the leaves as Halprin runs through them and sweeps them across the stage. Unfortunately it has neither the theatricality nor the contact with the audience of the previous pieces and lacks the power of Halprin’s performance work in the natural environment of which Still Dance is a striking testament.

intensive care Premiered at the retrospective Intensive Care, Refections on Death and Dying is a 40-minute investigation of our relationship with death. In this confronting work Halprin’s intention is to marry an authentic exploration of the feelings around death with aesthetic considerations. Halprin’s motivation for creating Intensive Care interweaves a number of personal and artistic concerns. The immediate catalyst for the work was a period of two months in 1998 when Lawrence Halprin was unexpectedly confned to intensive care as the result of a simple surgical procedure going wrong. The dance also refects Halprin’s 20 years of work with people facing life-threatening illnesses, her own experience of cancer and an attempt to come to terms with her ageing process and the inevitability of death. Intensive Care was created in collaboration with three performers and was devised through an in-depth physical exploration of the feelings, associations and images which the theme of death provoked for each performer. Halprin views Intensive Care as a successful expression of the Life/Art Process; it combines a raw but crafted theatricality with intimacy and a rare degree of personal honesty. Given the taboo nature of the subject matter, the emotional intensity of the performances and the raw nerves it touches, Halprin was uncertain about how Intensive Care would be received (Halprin 2001b). One critic confessed that ‘it is not an easy piece to watch; and . . . it was not easy to turn away either’ (Ulrich 2000); another described it as ‘relentlessly compelling’ (Howard 2000b). . . . 66

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summing up Halprin’s 80th Year Retrospective was enthusiastically received by audience and reviewers alike. According to John Rockwell of the New York Times the opening performance had an atmosphere of a reunion. While it is arguable that a signifcant proportion of the sellout audiences were people who had worked with Halprin over the years, both Still Dance and the performances themselves testifed to Halprin’s continuing power as an artist. Her natural performing presence, sense of theatrical timing and rapport with her audience, the range of work from comedy to the refned aesthetics of Parades and Changes and the emotional confrontation of Intensive Care, coupled with her physical expressiveness, demonstrate that in her eighties Halprin is still ‘a moving force’ (Memories from My Closet, 80th Year Retrospective 2000). Although Halprin professes that the retrospective was intended as a goodbye (Wolf 2000), she clearly had no intention of stopping dancing but rather in From 5–110 prays for the time to dance all the dances which still remain. It is ftting for an artist who has consistently prioritized the ongoing evolution of her work over a defnitive fnal product that Halprin’s perspective in her 80th Year Retrospective encompasses not only the past but is frmly rooted in the present and opens to a vision for the future.

Subsequent collaborations Far from the 80th Year Retrospective signalling an end to performance, in 2002 Halprin was back on the New York stage after several decades of absence. Included in the programme of dances at the Joyce Theater was Halprin’s solo from the retrospective, From 5–110, Eiko and Koma’s Snow, and a new collaborative piece, Be With (2001), with Halprin, Eiko and Koma and cellist, formerly of the Kronos Quartet, Joan Jeanrenaud. Demanding as it was to tour an extended programme at the age of 81, equally the processes undertaken in this and other recent collaborations testify to an undiminished desire to explore new ground. In Be With and the performance work with Eeo Stubblefeld on Still Dance, issues of ageing, the role of the elder in society and awareness of death are to the fore, subject matter that many fnd uncomfortable, even taboo. While this for Halprin was a continuation of development of art from life experience, the making of the pieces raised a variety of very diferent challenges specifc to each venture.

be with (2001) Be With, created by Halprin, Eiko and Koma, and Jeanrenaud, was commissioned by the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington and premiered there in October 2001. The Japanese couple, Eiko and Koma, have lived in New York since 1976, performing and choreographing their own dances. They have developed a style of ‘movement theatre’ that has been described as specializing ‘in the art of elegy . . .’ that operates in a ‘world of infnite shadow and infnitesimally calibrated motion much of which is painstakingly slow’ (Greskovic 1999: 99, 100). Although their work is frequently compared to Butoh, a contemporary form of Japanese dance, the couple resist this categorization. Halprin, however, noted several similarities in their work with the Butoh form (Halprin 2002a). Eiko and Koma ‘have known and admired Anna Halprin from their earliest years in America, when they lived in California and took her workshops at the Tamalpa Institute’ (Eiko and Koma 2002). For Halprin this was the frst time she had created a public performance with dancers who had such a distinct style and creative method. This, combined with the challenge for Eiko and Koma of opening up their close working relationship to another dancer, made for a highly demanding process. To overcome these diferences and to fnd a means of communicating successfully drawing on their respective backgrounds, 67

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they focused on specifc themes emerging from their movement together. In particular they worked with the idea of journeying along a path by the studio wall and with the relationships that sprang out of the age diference between them (Halprin 81, Koma 53, Eiko 49). Gradually the piece began ‘to take on a story just because of these external factors’ (Halprin 2002a). As the devising process progressed Halprin found it easier to work with Eiko and Koma separately, since she continued to feel that when they danced together ‘their style was so specifc . . . there was no way into their world’ (Halprin 2002a). It is possibly a repercussion of this that was noticed by Anna Kisselgof in her review of the performance in New York: ‘Eiko and Koma never dance directly with each other, rather, it is Ms. Halprin’s personality that draws them in’ (2002: 1). In the same review, however, she notes that: ‘For all their diferences, the three dancers share an interest in ritual and myth, an unself-conscious regard for the nude body and an afnity for nature’ (Kisselgof 2002: 3). Inevitably part of the challenge of such collaboration stemmed from the issue of working across cultural diference. Halprin resisted the slow pace of the work particularly when the piece involved her in a section with Koma in which she had to assert herself forcefully. The slowness lacked authenticity for Halprin, denying the energy of the confrontation. Halprin recalls that Eiko’s observation of that particular interaction was that it was more like a workshop than performance, thereby tapping into a criticism that has sporadically arisen during Halprin’s career, that her performance is really therapy not art. In repudiating this view and refusing to maintain the slow pace which felt unreal for her, Halprin nevertheless took Eiko’s criticism seriously and worked hard to refne the section, which, in performance, she felt Eiko came to appreciate (Halprin 2002a). In the process of confronting deeply rooted diferences in style, devising methods and aesthetic preferences Halprin suggests each of them had to make personal changes and adaptations (Halprin 2002a). The challenging process of creating Be With culminated in a demanding schedule of performances in Washington, California and New York. Reviewer Sarah Kaufman writes of the Washington performance that it was ‘infused with undeniable beauty’ and indicates the signifcance of Joan Jeanrenaud’s contribution, ‘the singing minimalist tones of the cello composition played on stage by its composer’ (quoted in Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater 2002). While from New York, Kisselgof notes the ‘distancing efect of Ms Jeanrenaud’s musicianship. She theatricalizes the activities, making them part of a performance rather than the usual Eiko and Koma dreamscape’ (2002: 1).

still dance Eeo Stubblefeld, performance and visual artist, created Still Dance in 1981 as solo performance work arising from her response to chosen landscapes. She describes this work as weaving together ‘performance, body art, story, photography and the particularity of a place’ (2001). Initially she worked as performer, director and visual artist creating dance inspired by the quality or story of each place, with Peggy O’Neil taking photographs. The impetus of the danced exploration was towards the distillation of the dialogue between performer and place, rather than a conventional performance and it is this ‘still point’ (Stubblefeld 2001) that lives on in the photograph. The body art and design elements are essential to each piece. They function on an overall aesthetic level, but, as signifcantly, support the integrity of the performer’s experience. . . . Stubblefeld’s work with Still Dance had incorporated a wide range of people in the role of performer before Halprin began to perform with her in 1997. The outcome is a collection of photographs, which shows the collaborative work of artist/designer Stubblefeld and performer Halprin in a variety of natural sites across North America. A body of this work has been brought together as an 68

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exhibition held in several venues and with each image described as ‘the summation of a performance ritual, the arrival at the “still point” in which the voice of a living place is responded to by a performer’ (Stubblefeld 2001). Stubblefeld has a long connection with Halprin through the training programmes at Tamalpa Institute, as an artist contributing to Circle the Earth and The Planetary Dance and as a regular member of the Sea Ranch Collective. Facts that Halprin is quick to acknowledge as contributing towards the success of their collaborative work. In addition both Stubblefeld and later Andy Abrahams Wilson, who made the flm Returning Home (2003) based on Halprin and Stubblefeld’s work with Still Dance, have a ‘deep understanding of the kind of creative process’ Halprin uses (Halprin 1997–2000) and a shared history of dancing with her. The images of Halprin in each landscape are captivating, each one intensifed by the design for place and body covering created by Stubblefeld. . . . Whereas Stubblefeld’s work concerned the story and the ‘still point’ within the performance ritual, Abrahams Wilson responded to the transitions between daily life, exploration and performance ritual. The flm he produced traced the making of several of the Still Dance series, capturing both the poetic quality of this method of responding to the land along with the logistical challenges that were in store for Halprin as a performer in her seventies and eighties.

Other projects The creative energy that has resulted in such an array of public performance and continued teaching showed no sign of abating as Halprin embarked on directing an ambitious year-long project to mark each season. Summer, the frst of the four sections of Seasons (2003) ‘informed by the solstice theme of Emergence’ (Halprin and Sea Ranch Collective 2003), once again broke new ground for Halprin. It was the frst public performance given by the Sea Ranch Collective and the frst time that her mountain home studio/theatre, deck and surrounding woods had been used for public performance. The day event, performed three times in June, took the form of a trail through the woods surrounding Halprin’s studio with performances taking place in each of several sites plus a sensory workshop led by Halprin. At night, Pathways, described by one member of the group as a labyrinth dance (annotation to programme, Halprin and Sea Ranch Collective 2003), followed a dusk food ritual. In her early eighties, Halprin rejects stereotypical ideas of ageing as ‘retirement’ from the world of work and instead embraces an altogether more robust attitude that values the elder in the community for their knowledge and experience built over many decades. Typical of her confrontational approach to issues facing her, whether personal or social, she continues to employ the Life/Art Process to transform her own observations of the ageing process into artistic expression. This involves a commitment to rigorous personal exploration through movement, not for purposes of retreat but as her current contribution to an equally energetic engagement with other artists and performers and her community. As well as embarking on new projects she continues to mould and re-site past work in a recycling process that tracks the applicability of older performances/community rituals to current situations.

seniors rocking (2005) In 2005 Halprin embarked on a project with her peers embracing her own status as a senior citizen as well that of participants aged between 60 and 90, residents in a local Senior Centre and in the community. The process and performances which took place on the shore of a lagoon at the Marin Civic Center in October 2005 were documented by Ruedi Gerber in the flm Seniors 69

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Rocking (2010). This title refects both the celebratory atmosphere of the event, the expressive, rhythmic and often sensual quality of the movement and the rocking chairs used by the dancers. The rocking chairs were rich in associations and memories for participants and audience, introducing a soothing repetitive motion. Moments of tenderness, mutual support and physical contact were woven through the uplifting and joyful tenor of the piece. These diferent qualities were supported by the rhythm of the drums and the music of the fute. While embracing the inevitable limitations to movement for some people (hence the rocking chairs) Halprin ofered the participants in the workshop sessions that preceded the performance, the freedom to express themselves in movement, awakening their vitality and generating a sense of well-being. By ofering stimulus and permission and validating their contributions of movement, imagery, popular songs, writing and refections, Halprin gathered a rich cauldron of resources from which to structure the work. It was central to her vision that the dancers felt a sense of ownership of the material, that it accommodated their skills, that the movement was meaningful and heartfelt, and that they were visible as individuals. At the same time Halprin was committed to the artistic integrity of the performance; for her these aims are complementary. Dressed in their own colourful clothing the dancers put their stamp on the movements they shared. This is not about uniformity but individuality within community. The movement and sounds of the environment, especially of the birds, enhanced the natural imagery which had been used to generate movement. For some residents even coming to the site was an adventure (Seniors Rocking 2010). The pleasure Halprin takes witnessing the dancers mirrors the pleasure with which she witnessed the children in her early classes over 50 years before (Breath Made Visible 2009). Her enthusiasm for the creativity and life force generated by and expressed through movement remains undiminished.

Anna Halprin as an elder Dancing Life/Danser la vie (Andrien and Corin 2014 DVD Rom) opens with images of Halprin moving in the ocean and a voiceover in which she refects on what it means to be an elder, concluding that ‘the age of 91 is not the time to stop, it’s the time to begin’. She has certainly lived up to this intention. In her mid- to late nineties she is still teaching regular classes including a weekly performance lab and monthly collaborative sessions with other artists (www.annahalprin. org). She has created new works, developed ongoing and new collaborations and has embraced technology as a means of documenting and disseminating her approach. It is a challenge to keep pace with the continuing fow of her creativity. However it is possible to give a favour of her work over the last decade by highlighting a few examples.

Remembering Lawrence: A Trilogy (2009–2014) In 2009 Halprin began a series of dance performances to honour the many decades of collaborative work and artistic exchange with her husband Lawrence. The frst of this trilogy, Spirit of Place (May 2009) took place in the last months of Lawrence’s life, in Stern Grove, an outdoor theatre that he had designed in a San Francisco park. Halprin placed the audience on the stage to enable them to watch ‘not just the dancers’ but the passers by and the environment ‘because all of life is a dance’ (www.annahalprin.org). Halprin’s collaboration with her husband continued after he died in October 2009 with In the Fever of Love: Song of Songs (2011), inspired by erotic sketches (which Anna discovered only after Lawrence’s death) drawn by him whilst in the navy during World War II, and his wartime love letters. Appropriately Song of Songs featured husband 70

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and wife performers Shinichi and Dana Iova-Koga, as well as the Halprins’ grandson, environmentalist and poet Jahan Khalighi, and took place on the dance deck that Lawrence had created for her (publicity fyer). The fnal event was a trip to Israel (2014) that once again included responding to one of Lawrence Halprin’s designs, as Anna led a multi-faith women’s peace march on the Goldberg promenade along the seam between East and West Jerusalem (www.annahalprin.org). Her visit not only honoured Lawrence’s architectural legacy but also acknowledged his involvement with the Kibbutzim movement in the 1930s. During her stay in Israel Anna worked with several groups in diferent locations ofering workshops and performances. Each occasion culminated in the Planetary Dance, refecting Halprin’s continuing commitment to contribute to creating a more peaceful world through her work. She also worked with the Vertigo Dance Company to co-create an Israeli version of Parades and Changes which included not only recycling the ‘undressing and dressing dance’ and the ‘paper dance’ but new scores including ‘shooting/falling’, ‘embrace’ and ‘stomp’ (www.annahalprin.org). This demonstrates not only Halprin’s ongoing use of the RSVP cycles and her desire to work collaboratively with participants and artists to create work that refects their lives and concerns, but also an attitude that resists the ossifcation of earlier work, allowing it to be a living process which evolves in response to each situation.

Awaken (2007) and Journey in Sensuality: Anna Halprin and Rodin (2016) Halprin’s continuing collaboration with the Sea Ranch Collective, several of whom have been immersed in her approach and the environments she works in for many years, once again bore fruit in the performance Awaken among the redwoods at Halprin’s mountain home studio in 2007. This project was inspired by Halprin’s experience of Rodin’s sculpture in Paris. Both the creative process by the ocean and among the redwoods and the resulting performance are documented in Journey in Sensuality: Anna Halprin and Rodin, the fnal flm in a trilogy that flm-maker Ruedi Gerber has created about Halprin’s work (annahalprin.org and zasflms.ch). Halprin uses the forms of Rodin’s sculpture as a springboard for exploring movement and the relationship between the human form and the natural environment. It is highly aesthetic work in which the imaginative and emotional inner landscapes of the performers breathe life into the movement. The subject matter allows Halprin free rein to return to her use of nudity in the service of her art.

Remembering (2015) As part of the celebrations for her 95th birthday Halprin created a duet with her grandson Jahan Khalighi. Following her own advice to him as a ‘young artist on the road of life’ her performance is ‘courageous’ and ‘outrageous’ demonstrating her continuing engagement in learning ‘her instrument’ as she explores the abilities of her changing body with skill and humour without hiding her vulnerability. It is a dance based on the memories of ‘life-changing’ moments ofering her audience ‘stories that linger just beneath my skin’. It demonstrates the tenderness and connection, the joy and support in her relationship with her grandson. The contrast between their two bodies as they move and speak, Jahan voicing her memories, their movements now echoing, now counter-pointing one another, is poignant. As she distances herself towards the end of the dance moving towards the edge of the deck and turning her attention to the natural surroundings and Jahan squats by her empty rocking chair there is an acknowledgement that her 71

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time to leave is approaching. He whispers ‘I remember, I remember’ as he takes her place in the chair and the shofar calls (www.annahalprin.org).

12.2 The mountain performances, Circle the Earth and The Planetary Dance Background and evolution In 1981 Halprin embarked on a project which would sow the seeds for a major strand of her work for the next 20 years, work which is still evolving in the early years of the twenty-frst century. Initiated with her husband Lawrence, as a local community project, entitled ‘A Search for Living Myths and Rituals through Dance and the Environment’, it unexpectedly evolved into a fve-year cycle of performances and community events inspired by Mount Tamalpais, where the Halprins live and work. In 1985 this transformed into Circle the Earth, a large-scale ritual performance which was recreated and performed in several countries until 1991. The Planetary Dance, a global participatory dance ritual, grew out of Circle the Earth and developed alongside it from 1987 onwards. The Planetary Dance continues to be performed, in spring each year, by communities and groups across the globe. Through this ongoing process Halprin has developed her practice and thinking concerning performance and ritual and working with communities. In the course of its evolution she has explored the relevance of myth and ritual in the contemporary world, pushing the boundaries of dance as a transforming medium for individuals and communities, a means of healing on a personal, community and global scale, and an efective tool for social action. Halprin refers to it as a dance which ‘has been many years in the making, as many years as I have lived. It is the largest manifestation of my own search for a dance of meaning, content and spirit’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 1).

The mountain performances ‘A Search for Living Myths and Rituals’ began as a series of workshops with members of the Halprins’ local community in Marin, California. The series was envisaged as ‘a search for a myth with a community vision’, an opportunity for the Halprins to explore ‘the mythology of the collective’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 8) using collective creativity. For Anna Halprin it marked a broadening of her work with students at the San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop and the Tamalpa Institute in personal and creative process, to a community-orientated approach. Lawrence Halprin’s contribution was crucial since he had been ‘working with groups of people around issues of community development in relationship to the environment’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 8). The project and its subsequent developments also signalled a return for Anna Halprin to public performance. The mountain performances were performed by Tamalpa dancers in a local theatre and were followed by a community event. Circle the Earth involved a minimum of 100 performers and an audience of witnesses. With The Planetary Dance the performance element, together with any notion of audience, dropped away as the event became a participatory ritual. In the ‘Living Myths and Rituals’ workshops the Halprins used art, movement and the environment to draw the community participants together, creating a context and shared language to facilitate the emergence of a group myth. They had no preconceived idea about what would evolve. Early in the workshops the image of a mountain kept recurring; more than an archetypal image this theme had poignant local signifcance. The community was located at the base of Mount Tamalpais, a beautiful natural reserve usually widely enjoyed by the public, steeped in 72

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legend and seen by Anna Halprin as ‘the spiritual center of our area’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 8). At that time the trails on the mountain had been closed because several women had been murdered by a serial killer who was still at large. Through the workshops the mountain emerged as a ‘living myth’ central to the community, with a clear connection to the participants’ lives. ‘We discovered our need to reclaim the mountain in order to reclaim our sense of community and vision’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 9). The project culminated in In the Mountain, On the Mountain, a two-day event created in response to this need. In the Mountain was a ritual theatre performance by dancers from the Tamalpa Institute (including Halprin) with a chorus of participants from the ‘Living Myths and Rituals’ project. The performance ritual was divided into three parts, Initiation, Oferings and Regeneration, imagined to be taking place in the heart of the mountain. It was dedicated to the spirit of the mountain, the Miwaks, the indigenous people who lived beneath her including those among them who had lost their lives, and the women who were killed on the trails. The purpose of the performance is clearly stated: It is our intention to evoke the spirit of the mountain through our performance and to feel a unifed sense of community. . . . We hope this performance will inspire you to become your own performers, and to fnd your own personal and collective myths tomorrow ‘On the Mountain’ as we do a ritualized walk down its trails. The walk will symbolize the re-investment of hope and the rebirth of Spring. (Tamalpa Institute 1981) This was a performance in which the life of a community in crisis was clearly interwoven. Community participation had furnished the central theme of the performance, which included ritual re-enactments of the violence. Friends and relations of the victims were in the audience. There was tension as people wondered if the murderer might attend the performance. During the night of the performance in Passage, a preparation for the community ritual the next day, participants were encouraged to create their own rituals and ceremonies culminating in a sunrise ceremony. On the second day, On the Mountain, 80 members of the community of all ages, invited to wear white, travelled up the mountain by bus. As a group they walked to the summit to view the four directions which had been invoked in the performance. Participants were asked to consider what they wanted to restore in their lives. There was a silent ritualized walk down the trails; oferings, including poetry, meditations, music, song and a tree planting, were made at the sites of the murders ‘as a way of marking these tragedies, and afrming the community’s need to reclaim the mountain’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 9). The procession was completed carrying bamboo poles and a panel from the Running Fence by the well-known artist Christo, objects that had been invested with symbolic signifcance during the performance, and culminated in a sunset ceremony. Two days later the police were alerted by an anonymous telephone call. Three weeks later the killer, who had been active for two years, was captured. While not claiming direct causality between the ritual and the killer’s arrest, Halprin is clear that the two events are related: ‘In one sense we performed a prayer and our prayer was answered’ (Halprin 1995: 230). What is clear is that a ritual had been created and enacted, which efectively reclaimed a site of signifcance to local people, a site that had been desecrated by violence and had become unsafe for them. The Halprins’ search for an authentic living myth and ritual empowered a community paralysed by fear, by a combination of expression and action through an interaction of the arts and the environment. The outcome was more far reaching than the Halprins had anticipated. 73

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The next year (1982) a dance of thanksgiving was created to commemorate the end of the murders and the renewal of the mountain. Perhaps this would have been the end of the sequence if it had not been for Don Jose Mitsuwa, an indigenous Huichol shaman who came to the Tamalpa Institute to present a deer dance ceremony. He commended what had taken place on the mountain, describing it as ‘one of the most sacred places on earth’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 9) but commented that it would be necessary to dance there for fve years in order for the purifcation to be successful. Halprin followed this advice and created mountain dances for the following three years. The synchronicity that marked the frst event continued, as it took fve years to convict the murderer. While the essential theme of the dances remained the struggle of life against death, each year the performances had a diferent emphasis. Return to the Mountain (1983) was the frst one to be described as a peace dance. It included a dance inspired by animal imagery and a ceremony for peace between people and the environment. Don Jose was invited to participate in the ceremony on the summit of the mountain. Run to the Mountain (1984) was a dance for peace among all the peoples of the world. Running was the central motif ‘because running is common to all people and helps communicate the urgency for peace within ourselves, with each other, with our communities, our nations and throughout the world’ (Tamalpa Institute 1984). In the lead up to the performance the company of Tamalpa Dancers ran with brightly coloured banners across Golden Gate Bridge. The audience were gradually becoming more involved in the performance, participating in communal running dances. At the beginning of the mountain ceremony on the day after, the performance runners, including members of the audience, ran up the mountain from the four directions. The spiritual leaders invited to participate alongside Don Jose now included a representative from the American Indian Council of Marin and a Presbyterian minister. Circle the Mountain, a Dance in the Spirit of Peace (1985) completed the fve-year cycle and marked a radical change in structure that prefgured its transformation into Circle the Earth. The dance embodied a vision of world peace, ‘the underlying objective is to make a vivid statement for mutual understanding and peace – one that can be taken from its performance here and shared with many people in many places’ (Tamalpa Institute 1985). Halprin felt that a small performance company was no longer a potent enough vehicle for such a vision. She aimed to create a dance with 100 participants, so that the scale of the vision would be matched by the scale of the performance: Making a peace dance, like making peace is not a small task. It takes the harmony of many to stop a war that only a few might begin. So our peace dance needs the commitment of more than two, or ten, or twenty, or even ffty performers. I am seeking 100 performers. One hundred performers to create a circle large enough for clear images of peace to come through. One hundred performers to create a spirit voice, strong enough so that our peaceful song is heard and our peaceful steps felt. The weapons of war have a critical mass. So too do the hopes of peace. We need 100 performers, 200 feet, to dance upon the planet for its life and its healing – to fnd a dance that inspires us to keep the earth alive. (Tamalpa Institute 1985) Halprin ofered a nine-day workshop to prepare the participants who were no longer all Tamalpa trained. The second day (Easter Sunday, Buddha’s birthday and the day after Passover) was spent in a ritual celebration on the mountain. Lawrence Halprin was actively involved in the group’s preparation for the mountain celebration, as he had been in ‘Living Myths and Rituals’. Bill Wahpehpeh from the Kickapoo and Sac and Fox tribe in Oklahoma, head of the 74

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international Indian Treaty Council, participated in the ceremony on the mountain, continuing the involvement of Native Americans. During the workshop Halprin collaborated with composer Terry Riley who created a new composition for voices for the performance. On the eighth day Circle the Mountain was performed to an audience of invited witnesses. The intention had broadened from restoring peace on the mountain to peace on the planet. The dance renamed itself Circle the Earth and began to travel. In 1985 it was recreated in sites across America including the United Nations Plaza and Central Park, New York.

Circle the Earth A contemporary peace dance ritual for 100 performers, Circle the Earth was recreated in Marin, California, at Easter in 1986, 1987 and 1988. The format continued to be a nine-day workshop, with the second day spent in ceremonies on Mount Tamalpais, culminating in the performance. By 1987 the scores which formed the basic structure of Circle the Earth were clearly articulated although they continued to evolve. Many of the scores developed elements from the earlier mountain performances including running, honouring the four directions and the theme of restoration. Each year had a diferent emphasis. In 1987 participants were given the choice of working with Halprin or with vocalist Susan Osborn on a new musical score. In 1988, inspired partly by the events in Chernobyl, the whole event was held on the Marin headlands and the focus was on our connection with the natural environment. Every year the story of the original dance on the mountain and the capture of the killer was reiterated. This repetition served to re-enforce the event as a contemporary myth. From 1986 onwards Circle the Earth travelled not only across America, including being performed at the American Dance Festival and Esalen, but to Europe including Germany (Freiburg and Essen), Switzerland (outside Zurich 1989), Italy (Mont Blanc) and to Australia (Melbourne 1987) and Bali. Its growth was unprecedented. In 1987, in order to respond to the interest worldwide and to allow communities in diferent countries to participate in their own way, Halprin created The Planetary Dance, based on the ‘Earth Run’ score in Circle the Earth, which is still being performed in 2018. Circle the Earth continued to be performed and in 1989 there was another major shift in emphasis. Circle the Earth, Dancing with Life on the Line confronted AIDS, a crisis which was threatening the community around San Francisco and in which Halprin had become involved through her work in the healing arts. ‘From the killer on the mountain, to the killer in the world, we now journey inside to confront the potential killer within ourselves’ (Tamalpa Institute 1989). Participants included members of two groups Halprin had been working with: STEPS Theatre Company for People Challenging AIDS and Women with Wings for Women Challenging AIDS through Dance and Ritual. AIDS was still seen as a frightening taboo surrounded by ignorance and prejudice. Halprin confronted this taboo head-on: Among the dancers this year will be men and women in various states of wellness after exposure to the HIV virus. Their healing journey will be the focus of the 1989 performance of Circle the Earth. But Circle the Earth is not just for people who are HIV+; it is for all of us. We need to dance together. AIDS is a crisis of the body, and in this crisis it is important the body speak in its own language – movement. AIDS touches not only those who face it, but also those who do not. This year we ask YOU to dance with those among us who are fghting for life, to support the commitment and honor the courage of our brothers and sisters who are challenging AIDS. (Tamalpa Institute 1989) 75

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This version of Circle the Earth was the culmination of the work of all the previous years. For Halprin it was ‘the frst time where our goal was not at a distance from the ritual itself ’ (Tamalpa Institute 1989). The personal and collective crises addressed were totally interconnected. Like the frst performance of In the Mountain, On the Mountain, Dancing with Life on the Line was addressing an immediate and specifc issue. The intensity of both the process and the performance refected the immediacy of the crisis for all concerned, participants and witnesses alike. It closely paralleled Halprin’s own experiences dealing with cancer and she led the participants with passion in the performance. In this performance her long-term concern with healing was fully integrated in the artistic process. The efects of Dancing with Life on the Line were so far reaching that this version of Circle the Earth was recreated in 1991. This was the last time that Circle the Earth was performed in its entirety, although Halprin continued to work with elements of it in The Planetary Dance and in workshops.

The Planetary Dance With the increase of requests for Circle the Earth to be run in diferent parts of America and the world, it became clear that Halprin would not be able to facilitate them all. Although other facilitators had been trained by Halprin to run Circle the Earth, if the dance was to grow into a global form as she had envisaged, ‘100 communities world-wide performing this dance simultaneously via satellite’ (Tamalpa Institute 1986b), it would be necessary to create a simpler form. The new dance ritual, called The Planetary Dance, was based on the ‘Earth Run’ section from Circle the Earth since this was a dance that ‘would be accessible to many people, no matter where they lived’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 11). The fyer that went out to friends, colleagues and former students in 1987 explained that the intention was to create a worldwide performance in the spirit of peace with all those who had touched Circle the Earth. It was never Halprin’s intention that the Marin format for the dance should be slavishly adhered to across the world and one reason for selecting the ‘Earth Run’ from Circle the Earth was that, as a closed score, it was the easiest to facilitate and follow. As a ritual it was self-contained. More signifcantly the activity itself acted as a metaphor for the intention of achieving ‘harmony and peace in our lives’ through its demand for group awareness ‘as people run together – accommodating each other’s physical capabilities and speeds’ in a ‘moving act of Peace’ (Planetary Dance Board 1988). Although the instructions for the score were precise, ofering a unity of purpose and activity, there was emphasis in the invitation to participating groups on two ways that the dance could be made to resonate with the local community’s needs/character as well as the global intention. Groups were invited to ‘frame the score (preparation and closure) in diferent ways – a ceremony, ritual, blessing, or dance pertaining to something special in your community or culture . . .’ (Halprin 1987) or to change some of the resources in the ‘Earth Run’ score, particularly the spoken text. If, even with these suggestions, it was not possible to organize a run, then there were other ways that individuals or families could participate through, for instance, doing the ‘Peace Dance Meditation’ (part of the frst preparatory score for Circle the Earth). While from 1987 to 1991 The Planetary Dance in Marin ran alongside Circle the Earth, from 1992 onwards it settled into a regular day-long format that varied slightly each year in response to the chosen issue and altering community involvement. Each spring the event began with a group of all ages greeting the sunrise with ceremonies and songs, many having run to the summit of Mount Tamalpais. The men’s and women’s rituals that took place simultaneously on local beaches became regular features of the day. All groups met at a site on the mountain to share 76

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readings, stories and interdenominational prayers before rehearsing for the ‘Earth Run’. At this point greetings from other groups taking part in the dance from many parts of the world were read out, reafrming the global nature of the dance ritual. Halprin then led everyone in a long snake into a carefully prepared site to form a square of kneeling people within a circle (defned by four and banked straw in The Planetary Dance 2002). With drummers and musicians playing to keep a regular pulse and help the runners maintain energy and focus the ‘Earth Run’ was performed in a series of concentric circles. While extra runs might be included for the children or ‘in memory of loved ones who have died’ (Halprin and friends 1995), the essence of the dance remained the same. This included each dancer voicing a dedication for their run, and a unifed intention to dance ‘[a] prayer for peace among people and peace with the Earth’ (Halprin and Planetary Dance Community 2002). The day concluded with thanksgiving, music and a feast. Since this was a global dance ritual, it was important to set up lines of communication that would allow groups to grasp the size and impact of the whole event. Halprin had requested feedback from all those who had participated in the frst Planetary Dance (1987) and due to time diferences across the world this began to arrive by phone, frst from Amanda Levy in New Zealand before the dance had even begun in Marin. Over the next few months Halprin ‘received word from groups in Switzerland, Australia, Germany, Spain, Mexico, Israel, England, Egypt, New Zealand, Indonesia, India and many places in the United States’ (Halprin 1987). By 1996, as Halprin had envisaged, The Planetary Dance had been performed by over 2000 people in 37 countries. The dance continues to be performed each spring across the world but by 2002 Halprin no longer knew how many people from how many countries take part as it had become too large to track.

The ‘Living Myth’ Despite the radical changes that took place during the creation of the mountain dances, Circle the Earth and The Planetary Dance, there are continuous threads that link them, as emphasized by the recent publicity that states 2002 will be the ‘22nd annual world-wide Planetary Dance’ (Halprin and Planetary Dance Community 2002). Although there have not been 22 years of The Planetary Dance, the connections between the diferent forms are seen to be sufciently strong and signifcant to be acknowledged in this way. Some of the major contributory elements that have supported the longevity and expansion of the dance, from its early performance structure through to its current participatory form, are considered below. In 1987 Halprin described the score for The Planetary Dance as ‘open-ended and self-renewing’, adding that: ‘It could be the recycling score to all future Planetary Dances’ (Planetary Dance Board 1988). Judging by the version held on Mount Tamalpais (2002) and in many locations around the world, this has remained the case. The essential ‘ingredients’ pinpointed in 1988 were all apparent, yet it was not a tired repetition of the same material, but an invigorating, heartfelt, community response to new challenges that had arisen through the year. In the wake of the attacks on America on 11 September 2001, the escalation of violence between Israelis and Palestinians and the fear of nuclear war between India and Pakistan, tension was evident amongst the participants of the spring 2002 Planetary Dance. Although much of the structure remained the same, changes were made in the choice of text and in the way the four directions were marked in the walk around the peak of Mount Tamalpais. These refected a sense of urgency in the need to look beyond America to forge greater links and understandings across nations. Individual dedications for the ‘Earth Run’ were highly charged as news arrived of the dance rituals being held in New York’s Central Park and in diferent countries around the world. Making room 77

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for the individual statement of commitment to act for ‘peace among people and peace with the earth’ (Halprin and Planetary Dance Community 2002) was just one of the means by which The Planetary Dance shifted and stayed vibrant year after year. From the original exploration that the Halprins undertook in their 1980–1 workshops ‘A Search for Living Myths and Rituals through Dance and the Environment’, the idea of the ‘living myth’ has remained crucial. It was described as: a narrative pattern giving signifcance to our existence, whether we invent or discover its meaning. A myth is not a fantasy or an untruth. It is a true story we discover in our bodies, and it is both unique and common to us all. (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 4) Every year the original ‘myth’ of the killings on Mount Tamalpais was retold as a reminder of both the history of the event and the purpose of this particular style of dance ritual. While the retelling of the ‘myth’, along with other actions and ceremonies directly echoed previous dances, repetitions alone would not keep the dance alive. There were more fundamental issues facing contemporary society that needed to be addressed: ‘We live in a society fractured by diferences and a series of dishonored tribal and cultural afliations. The absence of a solid community base creates a spiritual and social vacuum that needs to be flled’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 4). From the start in 1981, it was clear that the performance must address the community’s shared cause and desire for action. In shaping this frst dance and the subsequent performance/rituals, Halprin used terms such as myth, ritual, ceremony and prayer in conjunction with dance and performance. This opened out the original community need to a broader perspective, suggesting that a higher power be engaged or contacted. The issue of spirituality and belief systems that this approach raised is a vexed one, since a premise of the work was to engage with a society fractured by diferences who do not share religious beliefs or indeed see religion as relevant to their lives. How then is it possible to call upon a ‘higher power’? Whose symbols and rituals are they? Halprin refers to the centrality of the ‘living myth’ throughout the performance series because she values individual input bound by a common intention. In taking part in the dances it is necessary to recognize both the importance of creating a community with shared tasks refective of a joint intention, combined with an acknowledgement of the diferences each person brings from their own community. The individual’s contribution and story is essential to the growth of the collective myth and is one of the reasons for Halprin’s insistence that contemporary ritual making should not import wholesale, established rituals from a particular religion or culture. Halprin’s close contact with Native Americans and particularly with the people of the Pomo Tribe, into which she was initiated, has had a profound and lasting infuence on her beliefs. However, she is adamant that the way to fnd and develop ‘living myths’ is not through the appropriation of ancient or indigenous peoples’ myths and rituals: The history of Western culture is largely one of the exploitation and destruction of indigenous cultures. We must return to the resources that are really our own – our bodies and our experiences – to forge a new way of honoring peace and human dignity. (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 5) From 1981 onwards the history of the performance has been enriched year by year through the ‘gifts’ of those who participated in it. This enabled the piece to renew itself in kaleidoscopic fashion as fragments gifted by a particular year, individual or group shifted into central focus and others moved to the periphery. For instance elements in the ceremonies that connect with 78

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Native American practices were present through Native American participation in the dance. In another country entirely other symbols and activities would emerge in response to the needs of the local community. There is no doubt that the project the Halprins assigned themselves – the search for ‘living myths’ – was ambitious. It involved the community in answering some ‘fundamental questions’ about individual and group identity combined with how these might connect with the environment, ‘attitudes about life and death’ and what spiritual values the group embraced (Halprin 1995: 5). If the ‘myth’ in Halprin’s terminology is uncovering the stories around those basic questions then the term ‘ritual’ refers to the enactment or performance of the myth through whole group participation. Encapsulated in the idea of the ‘living myth’ is a sense of fuidity of content that can adapt to political, community or circumstantial changes. In her evaluation of the 1994 Planetary Dance Halprin notes the importance of fnding a balance within the relationship between tradition and experimentation in order to achieve this: ‘In order to make rituals that create change, we need to remain in an experimental mode, while holding fast to the elements of our rituals that are weighted in time’ (Halprin 1995: 236). This balance has been supported consistently through the contribution of many artists of diferent disciplines. Some have stayed involved over many years, while for others it has been a passing connection, but their role in collaborating on the projects has been essential to its growth and vitality. For example The Planetary Dance (2002) was coloured by contributions of giant painted puppets at the entrance to Santos Meadows, oral poetry, drumming, singing and violin playing at the centre of the ‘Earth Run’ and, at its close, classical melodies by a virtuoso whistler. Many of those who contributed through their art form or in other ways have been engaged from the start of the mountain dances. While just as welcome have been newcomers, such as the teenage group from two local schools who had worked together to ofer short songs or poems and to begin the ‘Earth Run’ (2002). The variety and creativity of the dances performed around the world were shown in the photographs and documentation that arrived in Marin after each Planetary Dance. They testifed to the success of another type of collaborative process that could operate across distance and over time. Halprin’s vision for a global peace dance entailed those who had taken part in The Planetary Dance initiating new forms in their own countries or communities. This would ‘keep the material truly alive and creative’ (Halprin 1987) in a process best illustrated through recounting her reaction to the growth of a sweet pea in her garden. While preparing for The Planetary Dance (2002) she spoke with pride of the sweet peas she had cultivated, but noted with a combination of curiosity and pique that one single plant dwarfed the others with its rich blossom, stature and luxuriant growth. She had not planted this one, it had self-seeded in the best possible spot, watered by a drip from the tap, in semi-shade protected from harsh sun and wind. The innocuous comment on the resilient self-seeder became a running metaphor for the way that participants in The Planetary Dance could begin the dance in their own community, fnding just the right conditions and context for it to thrive (Halprin 2002a). In 2017 Halprin was honoured to be invited by curator Christine Macel to include a live participatory performance of The Planetary Dance as part of the opening of the Venice Biennale. Unfortunately unable to attend herself, the dance was led by her grandson Jahan Khalighi and Korean artist Dohee Lee with enthusiastic engagement by local artists, friends and the public on the Viale Garibaldi (12 May 2017). In addition to the performance, flmed versions of The Planetary Dance were shown in the Viva Arte Viva, opening programme for the 57th International Art Exhibition for the Venice Biennale, revealing Halprin’s lasting commitment to the potential 79

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of dance ritual as a generative force for healing and change. There is a website that now tracks the international performances of the dance: http://www.planetarydance.org/ and invites new contributors.

The RSVP Cycles The use of the RSVP Cycles has been an essential tool in the collective creative process of the mountain performances, Circle the Earth and The Planetary Dance. While the aspects summarized above have tended to support the continuity and growth of each dance over time and across distance, this has been made possible through the use of a form that, like a fexible skin, can both contain and respond to the shifting internal elements. As a framework the RSVP Cycles allow even large groups to retain clarity in what is potentially a chaotic process. This is achieved through making the creative process visible, allowing opportunities for the entire group to participate and using the cyclical nature of the RSVP model to emphasize process rather than goal. The defnitions of each of the four elements that make up the RSVP Cycles have varied slightly over time and according to context. As applied to Circle the Earth they have been defned as follows: R stands for Resources, which are the basic materials we have at our disposal. These include human and physical resources and their motivation and aims. S stands for Scores, The word scores is derived from its original use in music which makes it possible to instruct groups of people to carry out prescribed activities. They delineate place, time, space and people, as well as sound and other related elements. V stands for Valuaction, a coined term meaning ‘the value of the action,’ or the analysis, appreciation, feedback, value building and decision-making that accompanies the process of creation. P stands for Performance, the implementation of the scores, which includes the particular style of the piece. (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 23) The following section includes a detailed discussion of how each element contributes to the Circle the Earth workshop/performance process and how in any combination: ‘Each part had its own internal signifcance, but got really cracking when it related to the others’ (Halprin, L. 1969: 2). For the process to succeed participants need both to feel free to move between the elements in any direction and to be aware of the fow between their individual cycle and the encompassing group cycle. Halprin’s desire to create an inclusive dance ritual, Circle the Earth, that is meaningful to a wide a range of people and reflective of the diversity of the community entailed various choreographic challenges. While the RSVP process was sufficiently flexible to deal with the formidable task of producing a dance within a very short span of time (5–9 days) that satisfied participants on both an individual and community level, the question of the style of movement remained. In order to fulfil her stated intentions of creating ‘dances that anybody can do’ that would ‘return people to an awareness of movement that I believe is one of our most essential birthrights’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 20), Halprin focused on the principle of encouraging participants to explore a wide range of movement responses within the structure of the score. Important to this inclusive stance was the learning of a common language through the use of ‘natural, intrinsic movement’, both to encourage everyone to dance and to focus on the way that ‘[t]he body’s patterns reflect and influence 80

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the patterns of our lives’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 20) This allowed participants to engage with the work on a physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual level and to create resources for the final performance. The performer’s body was therefore valued for its holistic, idiosyncratic qualities rather than as a medium to be moulded into a preconceived aesthetic design.

The Circle the Earth scores The prospect of running a week-long workshop culminating in a performance with over 100 people, many of whom have no background in dance, is daunting. However, Halprin had built up experience in the many large community dance classes and performances prior to the series. Years spent observing the recurrent patterns made by large groups moving in response to a range of instructions helped formulate the scores for Circle the Earth. These sustain a delicate balance, ofering sufcient guidance to navigate safely through a potentially provocative process, without bringing into play a rigidity that would sufocate imaginative, physical and emotional response. In addition to allowing a great deal to be accomplished in a short time, the scores were sufciently clear and fexible for those who had taken part in the ritual to use them as a basis for performing Circle the Earth in their own country/community. The rituals went ‘on tour’. ‘What travelled from place to place were not the performers or even a particular performance, but the scores, the recipes for creating the rituals’ (Halprin 1995: 232). The fact that Circle the Earth began with the scores already set and with some of those virtually closed, might seem to fy in the face of the idea of collective creativity. However, the scores act as a starting point to stimulate and channel the group’s expression in the direction of an overall intention but without determining the end result. They help to structure the performance, but more importantly they are used extensively in the workshop to enable exploration of each theme through movement. Additions and alterations have been made to the scores in response to new participating groups, diferent environments or circumstances. The most extreme example was doing Circle the Earth ‘at the American Dance Festival where most of the performers were professional dancers and used to strict choreography, we abandoned the Circle the Earth score and did an improvisation with Peace as the theme’ (Halprin with Stinson 1987: 9). In the course of describing her work, Halprin regularly refers to it as a craft that demands discipline. Although this difers in form from the demands of stylized step-based choreography, it takes no less rigour, time, energy and attention to detail to evolve. One example of this is evident in the balance achieved between ‘open’ and ‘closed’ scores within Circle the Earth, that determine the degree of freedom given to the participants in the instructions. A very closed score is one ‘in which all the actions are defned and leave very little room for improvisation’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 23), while an open score contains instructions that encourage free movement exploration. The degree of openness of each score for Circle the Earth is shown on the outline below as a fgure on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is open and 10 closed.

Outline of scores for Circle the Earth The scores for Circle the Earth mapped out below provide an idea of the overall structure of the performance. While the titles (with alternative names that occur in diferent versions of the dance shown in brackets) and intentions are taken directly from the 1987 manual produced for participants, the descriptions of activities are synopses of each section and are not taken verbatim from the text. Although there is an individual intention for each section, this is contained within an overarching aim for the whole performance: ‘to make a vivid statement for mutual 81

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understanding and peace, one that can be taken from the performance in Marin and shared with many people in many places’ (Halprin 1995: 244).

score outline of circle the earth Score 1: Preparation ‘Every year we go to the mountain to reconnect with the natural world, to give thanks and receive blessings, to pray, to meditate and to celebrate’ (Halprin with Stinson 1987: 14). Score 2: I am the Earth (Rising and Falling) Intention: To birth ourselves. Participants begin lying in spirals and other forms then gradually rise from the earth to face the witnesses and request their support. Scale: 9. Score 3: the Vortex (Snake dance) Intention: To create a group identity. From walking individually the group fnd a common pulse and evolve a dance that eventually uses vertical space to build an image, for instance a mountain. Scale: 2. Score 4: Confrontation (Monster, Mask and Warrior dances) Intention: To evoke and confront the destructive forces within us. ‘Stomping rhythmically upon the ground, lines of warriors urge the monsters to emerge from the group. They enact for the performers and the witnesses the horror of death and destruction’ (Halprin with Stinson 1987: 21). Warriors’ score – scale: 9.5. Monsters’ score – scale: 2. The witnesses are asked to watch this section through white paper masks. Score 5: Restoration Intention: To heal our wounds and restore our lives. To the singing of the restoration song the dancers hold and comfort each other, developing into contact movement. Scale: 3. Score 6: Bridges and Passages Intention: To create a pathway to peace. The performers create a gateway and bridge through which they walk followed by the witnesses who may sing or dance. Scale: 5. Score 7: the Earth Run Intention: To make an ofering to the planet. To voice and act on our commitment to peace. The performers dedicate their run to a group or cause of their own choosing. They run in concentric circles, within a square of the four directions. ‘The Earth run is a moving Mandala of Peace’ (Halprin with Stinson 1987: 29). Scale: 9.

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(This was originally known as the Chief Seattle Run due to the practice of reading his speech during the run. ‘Back in 1853 Chief Seattle, of the Puget Sound Tribe wrote his reply to “the Great Chief in Washington” who had sought to acquire two million acres of land for $150,000’ (Halprin with Stinson 1987: 31). However, this changed as Circle the Earth extended to other countries where this speech was substituted by poems or prose that held greater resonance for the local community.) Score 8: Peace Wheel by Terry Riley (Sound Circle, Peace Song, Sound Spiral) Intention: To create a wheel of harmony. Singers at centre of a circle sing fve diferent notes and turn slowly. The dancers in three concentric circles around them echo the diferent notes as the singers turn towards them. Scale 9. Score 9: Bird Transformation Intention: To send word of what has happened here to the whole planet. Dancers spin out from the circles on the sound of the Peruvian whistles and didgeridoo and transform into their bird images. Closure of the dance with acknowledgement of witnesses and singing of the peace song. Scale: 5. Score 10: Action and Commitment Intention: To develop and communicate a personal programme to guide our actions for peace. Participants write a statement on their intended action for peace. These are witnessed and refected upon the following year. Score 11: Peace Bird Intention: To prepare for The Planetary Dance by uniting through a collective task. At points during the workshop participants construct a Peace Bird for The Planetary Dance. The fnal scores, 10 and 11, take place after the performance and do not appear in the same form in later versions. However, action and commitment is an essential part of the ritual and is always included in some format.

The function of RSVP Cycles: a detailed analysis of two scores The two scores selected below contrast sharply in construction and function within Circle the Earth and therefore provide an opportunity to explore the operation of the RSVP Cycles in relation to open and closed scoring. Since the workshops began with the scores set, as outlined above, the following analysis also starts from this point in the cycle. The aim is to expose the relationship between form and content in two scores, the ‘Vortex’ and the ‘Earth Run’, with particular emphasis on the dual function of each score to both provoke exploration and act as a container for the movement generated for the final performance.

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the ‘vortex’ The ‘Vortex’ is the third and most open of the Circle the Earth scores and is presented in full below. An exceptionally dynamic use of the RSVP Cycles contributes to a dance, characterized by Halprin as ‘the most fascinating dance to perform and witness, or the most perplexing, but always exciting and highly charged’ (Halprin with Stinson 1987: 9).

The Vortex Intention To create a group identity. Theme In the Vortex Dance, we gather strength from each other. Using the ordinary movement of walking, we pass each other in the space in a kind of communal greeting. Within our diferent ways of walking, diferent paces and carriages, diferent steps and directions, we are searching for something: a common pulse, a common beat in the sounds of our feet upon the ground. Once we have reached this non-verbal consensus, we build upon the group spirit it expresses. We dance in two’s. We dance in three’s. We build human families. Finally we join as a whole in the center of the space and build a symbol of our collective strength, a mountain.

Activities Walk. Cooperate in fnding a collective pulse. Develop a personal walking movement to the collective pulse. Evolve your dance. Move in lines, circles, levels, areas, between, over, under, around. Join and rejoin with other people, and other groups. Build a mountain of people with a base and a peak in the center of the space. (The mountain image is changeable in accordance with each community’s tradition – whatever is built needs to have a vertical use of space.) TIME: 20 mins SCALE: 2 (Halprin with Stinson 1987: 19)

s = score The score for the ‘Vortex’ dance looks deceptively simple yet each activity releases new challenges for the participants. Its openness makes it ‘the longest of all scores to practice, and invariably causes confict as people struggle to make their own order out of chaos’ (Halprin with Stinson 1987: 9). The following annotation is not comprehensive or prescriptive, it indicates questions and issues that might arise in doing the score and suggests how carefully these are raised in sequence to both provoke an energetic response and to provide sufcient security to support participation by all.

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Intention: The ‘chaos’ arises early on, if not evident physically, then as an internal response to the intention for over 100 people to create a group identity. The dual provocative focus on group and individual identity remains at the heart of this score. Theme: This outlines the type of content with which the dance is likely to engage. Activities Walk: For those daunted by the prospect of such an open score, the entry to the dance is reassuring. It is based on an everyday activity and, since there is no other specifcation, can be performed in any way the individual wishes. Although the simplicity of the action might act as a boost to confdence, the focus is on the self and the questions such as ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Who am I in this context?’ might begin to emerge and be expressed through the movement. Co-operate: While still working with the same simple movement, this second instruction demands that the participants split their awareness between themselves and the group. This is a crucial point in the score and can take a long time since it requires non-verbal consensus. Questions about remaining true to oneself while co-operating with the whole group might be provoked. Develop: If the sense of self has been subsumed within the collective, this instruction reignites the focus on individual movement. The common pulse is retained to unite and support the whole group, but each participant can fnd their own way of moving within it. This is a good example of Halprin’s general guidance when working with scores to look at the gaps in the instructions that allow for creative freedom. Evolve: This marks another critical point that needs individual and group confdence to move from walking into ‘dance’. This could include participants redefning what dance is, or could be in response to what they witness. A wide range of movement resources is likely to emerge at this stage. Move: More resources are added here to refresh the process and to deal consciously with the relationship to the environment and to the use of horizontal and vertical space, a process that could help broaden the perspective of the dancer in preparation for the fnal action. Join: Particularly with such a large group the danger is that the groupings can become stagnant as dancers fxate on one relationship or group. This instruction gives permission for participants to come and go in a free-fowing way. As in the previous action the intention is perhaps to remind participants of the broader perspective. Build: The culmination of the score, dealing with community identity and group trust/ co-operation.

p = performance This term applies broadly to the enacting of a score in any context (workshop, ritual, theatrical). In the case of the ‘Vortex’, Halprin states that: ‘We do the Vortex dance over and over throughout the workshop to develop our ability to be in improvisational space with one another’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 62). Valuaction between each performance leads to changes in resources or the score in order to avoid the problems of failure to build on improvisation. The fnal performance of the ‘Vortex’ in front of witnesses remains improvised. For this to be successful there is a need for an ‘evolution of the collective’s relationships, and the development of a rich movement language with one another’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 62). Although Halprin’s

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aesthetic demand for the dance is secondary to the ritual purposes it pursues, the comment above raises the question of what entails ‘success’ in this context. She is concerned that the group can develop a rich movement language that is satisfying for the participants as well as being a means of conveying their experience to the witnesses. The ‘Vortex’ dance is unusual in Circle the Earth since it is performed many times during the workshop, but all the workshop activities whether performance of the scores or exploration of resources lead towards the fnal performance. This has a signifcantly diferent quality from the previous performances that take place within the workshop context, since it is a distilled version of group intention and less focused on personal exploration. ‘Performance is the enactment, or carrying out of the scores before the witnesses’ and is the ‘crystallization of 75 workshop hours into a two hour evening’ (Halprin with Stinson 1987: 11).

v = valuaction The coined word ‘valuaction’ brings together the process of evaluation and resulting action in a dynamic combination. This dual aspect is important as it fuels the movement onto the next stage of the RSVP Cycles. Where evaluation might suggest completion, ‘valuaction’ indicates a stage in a continuing process appropriate to the fuid relationship between the elements in the cycles. One participant in Circle the Earth, Dancing with Life on the Line described her pleasure in doing the dance in the following way: ‘I was just there in the moment. I didn’t think about what I was going to do. I didn’t do anything I had planned to do’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 63). Her relish of the immediacy and creative spontaneity experienced in this section of the dance is based on her acquiring the skills and discipline consistent with Halprin’s description of her dance as a craft. The valuaction process of the RSVP Cycles ensures that the skills necessary for performing the score are elucidated and built upon. Participants might refect on the specifc elements of the dance that helped or hindered them as well as the overall demands of working in this open format. Practice therefore is not likely to be about achieving a certain series of steps as might be expected in a more stylized form. Instead the types of skills necessary would include: refning the dancers’ awareness of their own movement in relation to a changing environment, staying alert to the intention, responding with fexibility to stimulus provided by other dancers and fnding a balance between taking initiative and following a lead. Halprin confrms the importance of this particular combination in the following statement: ‘The criterion I use to judge dances and the people who make them is both the conscious use of craft, and the artist’s ability to make choices within that framework’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 29). Halprin summarizes the valuaction process as being necessary in order to ‘externalize, objectify and clarify the individual and group experience’ resulting in improvement in the ability to ‘build trust, make sense, support, co-operate, include input, make agreements, and resolve conficts’ (Halprin with Stinson 1987: 10). The practical difculties of achieving this degree of participation with such a large group are obvious. So a method of valuaction was set up for this and all other scores in Circle the Earth involving the establishment of small (seven to ten people) support groups. One person who had trained with Halprin or had particular skills took on the responsibility for feeding back a summary of the discussion to the facilitator. In this way each voice was heard and the facilitator could further summarize information in order to feedback to the whole group and ‘assimilate it into the overall score, accommodating the group needs, discomforts, visions, suggestions and new ideas’ (Halprin with Stinson 1987: 10). Diferent methods of valuaction were used by Halprin, the most common being: discussion in response to a series of direct questions, the use 86

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of visualization, partner work ‘to practice being a witness and a performer’ and experiments in small movement groups (Halprin with Stinson 1987: 10).

r = resources There are many resources that have been included in the score such as choice of movements, motivation, space, number of people etc. The purpose of the workshop is for participants to individually fnd their connection to the resources ofered. Just as the score is non-judgemental and does not say how it is to be accomplished or what the end result will look like, so too the resources do not include how any individual should feel. Although the resources from the score are explored on three levels of awareness (physical, emotional and images/content), specifc emotions do not appear in lists of resources since this would destroy the immediacy of response that is essential in a dance ritual. Instead the action that provoked the feeling or image can be included in the score if appropriate. Of course certain movements or instructions are more likely than not to generate certain outcomes, but the success of the score is dependent on it remaining stimulating and meaningful for the participants.

rsvp cycles The daily repetition of the ‘Vortex’ dance is an example of rapid recycling from performance to valuaction and back into re-scoring or the addition of resources. The dance can be enriched through the recognition of the most helpful resources and through the refnement of the skills required by the dancers to accomplish the score. The subject matter and structure of the ‘Vortex’ clearly exposes the importance of the relationship between the personal and group cycles. ‘Each score needs to have a personal meaning for the participant, but the dance as a whole must have a universal meaning for the witnesses and group as well’ (Halprin with Stinson 1987: 10).

the ‘earth run’ score If many of the Circle the Earth participants were daunted by the openness of the ‘Vortex’ score with subsequent demands on their own physical and imaginative response, there were others who were hesitant about the tight constraints evident in the ‘Earth Run’ score. The issues provoked are considered below, combined with a brief analysis of the score’s structure. The colours mentioned under the section ‘Activities’ refers to the simple costuming of the diferent groups of dancers in white, black or rainbow colours. The Earth Run Intention To make an ofering to the planet. To voice and act on our commitment to Peace. Theme We are part of the Earth. The Earth is part of us. Knowing this, we are also responsible to act upon it. Just as the Earth takes care of us, so we must take care of the Earth. The Earth Run is our act of commitment, an expression of our individual and collective dedication. We each run for a group of people on the earth of our own choosing: for a tribe or nation, a culture, a class, an ancestor, a loved one, for children, for the living, the dead, for those yet to be born. Run in concentric circles within the square of the four directions. 87

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Activities Performers: Form a large circle in the space. Kneel. Rainbow Colors begin the run. One by one stand and say ‘I run for_______ (choose a group of people).’ Run counterclockwise within the large circle. Run in a common pulse. When all Rainbows are running, Black and White begin to join the running circle. When you choose, run clockwise inside the frst running circle. When you choose, stop and stand facing one of the four directions. You may rejoin the run or stand at any time. Always change activities in sequence: (clockwise – counterclockwise – stand). Never cut across lanes. Stop wherever you are on the cue: ‘Where is the thicket? Gone.’ [A line from the end of the ‘Chief Seattle Speech’] Witnesses: Voice your own dedications. TEXT The Earth run is a moving Mandala of Peace. Each step upon the earth is a prayer for its healing. (Chief Seattle Speech, or a narration of your community’s choice.) TIME: 20 mins SCALE: 9 (Halprin with Stinson 1987: 29)

score In this seventh score the emphasis expands from the ‘Vortex’ content of individual in relation to immediate community, to community in relation to environment and planet. The running circles are neither inward looking, which represents self-sufciency, nor outward looking to show the group relating outside themselves, but sideways on to allow ‘the integration of the inner group itself with the outside world’ (Halprin with Stinson 1987: 63). Unity of focus is encouraged through keeping the pulse and ensuring equal distance between all runners by altering pace to accommodate the shifting from one circle to another. The space is delineated with precision using the pattern of the circle contained by a square which ‘represents balance, harmony and peace’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 99). Even within such a tightly structured score there is some room for individual variation as dancers choose which circle and therefore the speed to run at (the larger the circle the faster the speed to stay on the pulse) and how often they change circle.

resources The instructions for the dance are unusually prescriptive, providing specifc suggestions for how dancers should run. This results in the preparation for the run looking closer to a traditional dance rehearsal than the free exploration of the ‘Vortex’. For instance Halprin suggests that in order to emphasize the energetic connection between earth and sky, dancers need to run with an open chest, sternum forward and the torso straight with no wiggle or break at the pelvis (Halprin 2002b). Within the whole group aim of ‘A prayer for peace among people and peace with the Earth’ (Halprin and Planetary Dance Community 2002), each dancer calls out their own dedication that relates to a specifc community or area of concern. This confrms an 88

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individual motivation in running while simultaneously marking the dance as the starting point in a commitment to action beyond the confnes of the performance.

performance The ritual aspect of the performance is predominant in this score and extends to the formalized entry and exit from the running circles. Although the music and running can be energetic and joyful the intention is serious: that runners fnd the strength to go beyond their normal capacity through the support ofered by the whole group, texts and music. In metaphoric terms this can be seen as recognition of the efort and commitment necessary to counteract violence and war as the favoured means of resolving confict.

valuaction Unlike the ‘Vortex’ this dance is not repeated and refned through daily valuaction. Although the whole dance can be valuacted and has altered slightly over the years, the basic framework remains the same even when incorporated into The Planetary Dance. Logistical issues and specifc performances can always be improved but perhaps the most signifcant element of valuaction lies in a more personal analysis. If the dance spans the transition from making a commitment within the group to sustaining that in the community then the valuaction process must similarly extend beyond the dance to address individual action after the performance. Halprin is aware that the power generated by this form of dance can have its dangers as well as its strengths. She has worked over many years to provide ‘safeguards’ against the destructive forces evident in, for instance, cults or extreme political movements. ‘By virtue of making a score (scenario) visible, learning and evaluating it, and them modifying it with their own images, the performers become empowered as co-creators of the dance’ (Halprin 1995: 229). This reinforces the crucial role the RSVP Cycles have in the creation of these dance rituals and has repercussions for the style of leadership necessary that ‘does not require obedience but rather creative involvement’ (Halprin 1995: 229). After working on the ‘Vortex’, Halprin noticed: ‘A larger power, a deep collective physical intelligence, directs the choreography. The more times these large group dances are done, the less outside direction is needed’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 62). In the ‘Earth Run’, by contrast, clear direction is needed before the dance and a very particular type of leadership is necessary once it has begun. Halprin’s role then is as ‘ritual keeper’, the person who ensures that the small variations people introduce to stay alert to their dedication do not detract from the overall intention of the run. The ‘Earth Run’ has somewhat diferent functions according to the context of its performance. When it is performed as part of The Planetary Dance, Halprin says: ‘On the mountain, the Earth Run is the score we have to connect us to the mountain and to others doing this dance in other parts of the world’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 99). When the dance is done within the Circle the Earth performance in front of witnesses it ‘is a step in the evolutionary process of healing’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 100).

Dancing with Life on the Line and the Five Stages of Healing Circle the Earth, Dancing with Life on the Line (1989 and 1991) is the culmination of the previous ten years of exploration and holds a special signifcance for Halprin. Participants in Dancing with Life on the Line included people with HIV and AIDS, cancer and chronic fatigue. Their healing journey was the focus of the performances. The intention was ‘to heal the fear, isolation and 89

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prejudice surrounding the AIDS crisis’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 12). This was ‘a new version of Circle the Earth embodying a commitment to live’ (Tamalpa Institute 1989). Halprin refers to the performance in 1989 as ‘perhaps the most challenging, the most rewarding performance which I’ve experienced in my whole life . . . this is where my personal research and my competence was put to the test . . . this dance was the ultimate test of dance . . .’ (Halprin 1995: 21). She also claims that this version of Circle the Earth was so changed that: ‘You couldn’t recognize it as the same dance’ (Halprin 1995: 22). In fact, most of the scores used to create the dance are the same as in earlier versions of Circle the Earth, with some striking and powerful new additions. However, the reality of the situation, coupled with the clarity and challenge of the intention, intensifed the experience of the workshop and the performance. ‘In a performance that utilizes the Life/Art Process, there is no need to playact or pretend. When you work with the real-life issues of the people who are performing, there is no abstraction, only real experience’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 28). The particular achievement of Dancing with Life on the Line is the way in which it marries Halprin’s work with life process and healing, with aesthetic concerns. It demonstrates her understanding and use of ritual in relation to performance and her unique approach to art-making through intense personal and group process. In Dancing with Life on the Line, Halprin consciously uses the Five Stages of Healing process, which evolved out of her own experience of cancer, as ‘the guiding choreographic structure for this dance’ (Halprin 1995: 69). To use a process created for the purposes of healing as the artistic template for a performance ritual is a courageous undertaking. It is an example of Halprin’s ability to cross boundaries and her skill in interweaving diferent concerns and layers of life experience. Her commitment to the quality and authenticity of the experience of her performers is unique and unwavering. At the same time she never loses sight of her artistic perspective, the fruit of all her years of experience in creating performance, of her long collaborations with other artists and her deeply ingrained sense of the body in motion and in relationship to space. She is clear that: ‘Both the efcacy and the craft of Circle the Earth are important to me’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 29). Dancing with Life on the Line demonstrates unequivocally that she is no longer interested in creating art for art’s sake but in ‘dancing the dance that is needed’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 30).

The Five Stages of Healing In Dancing with Life on the Line, Halprin used the process of the Five Stages of Healing in conjunction with the RSVP Cycles. The RSVP Cycles provided a framework for generating collective creativity and a common language with which to communicate. The Five Stages of Healing ofered a map for the healing journey undertaken both by individuals and by the community. The seeds for this map grew out of Halprin’s transformative experience of dancing her self-portrait when she was struggling with cancer in the early 1970s. As she refected on this experience and began to articulate her approach to working with others, she became aware that her experience was relevant to the healing process in general. She has continued to apply this process in her work with dance and healing. Her daughter Daria Halprin Khalighi has developed this approach as the Five Part Process in the context of expressive arts therapy (Halprin Khalighi 1989: 46–61). For Halprin the Five Stages of Healing constitute a ‘rite of passage,’ a series of activities that mark moments of signifcance in a person or a community’s life. Traditionally, rites of passage acknowledge the passage 90

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of time – birth, death, entrance to adulthood, and marriage are all marked by rites of passage. . . . My self-portrait and my dance were a personal rite of passage; Circle the Earth is a rite of passage for an entire community. (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 17) The Five Stages of Healing are: 1 2 3 4 5

Identifcation. Confrontation. Release. Change (sometimes referred to as Integration or Transformation). Assimilation (also referred to as Growth or Application).

Identifcation names the issue or theme to be addressed, which is the focus of the ensuing process. In Dancing with Life on the Line the core issue was life and death. Confrontation is the physical enactment/embodiment of the feelings and images associated with this life issue. Release involves a physical, emotional and mental letting go, as a result of the expression elicited in the stage of confrontation. It opens the way to the next stage of healing. Change constitutes an integration of what has happened, a transformation from ‘one state of being to another’, a new way of perceiving oneself and of being in the world. Assimilation is the application of the knowledge or experience gained in daily life. (adapted from Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 16–17 and Halprin Khalighi 1989: 46–56) Each of the scores in Dancing with Life on the Line, both in the performance and in the preparatory workshop, can be located within these fve stages. The divisions between the stages are not rigid and they may overlap. Anna and Daria Halprin point out that the process is not necessarily linear and can involve starting at diferent points or returning to earlier stages. However, the later stages of Change and Assimilation cannot efectively take place without the earlier stages. When examining Dancing with Life on the Line from the perspective of the Five Stages of Healing it is essential to address the process in its entirety rather than just the performance. The performance was the climax of the healing journey undertaken by the participants in the workshop. The order in which the scores were explored and developed during the workshop was not necessarily the order in which they were performed. The fnal stages of the healing process, Change and Assimilation, continued after the performance on the day of closure, in follow-up meetings and in the participants’ daily lives. During the workshop each of the performance scores was explored in depth, accompanied by careful preparation and creative process, both individually and in the group. Simply rehearsing and performing prescribed scores is not only alien to Halprin’s approach to creativity but also would not have functioned efectively as a healing journey for the participants. At the beginning of the workshop before embarking on the frst stage of the healing process the group was taken through a number of preparatory scores. These included drawing selfportraits and exploratory movement scores and games to establish trust and prepare the group for working together in depth. The second day was spent on the mountain where the group participated in The Planetary Dance experiencing the ‘Earth Run’ in the environment before recreating it in the performance. Below the performance scores are identifed in relation to their function in the Five Stages of Healing. Scores of particular signifcance in Dancing with Life on the Line are examined in more detail. 91

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Identifcation In Dancing with Life on the Line the two scores which belong to this frst stage of healing are ‘I am the Earth’ and the new score ‘I Want to Live’.

‘i am the earth’ ‘I am the Earth’, also referred to as ‘Rising and Falling’, has always refected the cycle of life and death in Circle the Earth. In Dancing with Life on the Line it took on a new resonance. Halprin guides the participants through a detailed kinaesthetic exploration of rising and falling using the movements to metaphorically confront the core theme of life and death. Participants are encouraged to connect with the personal images, feelings and associations evoked by this exploration. Given the nature of the group this was particularly confronting and served as a way of defying a cultural avoidance of death, and the taboo of expressing our feelings about it. I am the Earth is a commitment for all of us, dancing alone and in a group, to get in touch with where we stand in regard to life and death, and to make our own ofering. (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 53) This is a period of personal preparation and research. As the participants explore, and witness each other exploring, rising and falling, they are extending their movement resources not in order to choreograph their performance, but to deepen their feeling connection to the material. ‘In this exercise, the performer isn’t asked to pretend or re-enact, but to feel their experience of living or dying in that moment, to “practise” living and dying’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 52). This is a clear example of the double spiral, central to the Life/Art Process, of deepened life experience married with expanded artistic expression (Halprin 1995: 15). The discussions that followed these explorations were passionate, personal and revealingly honest. Halprin’s associations of rising with life and falling with death were challenged by the experiences of the group. Her commitment as facilitator of the group healing process, as well as director of the performance, is to agree upon a version of the score which allows each individual to connect with their personal experience of the theme in an authentic way. The movement explorations were followed by journal writing and creative visualizations on the theme of life and death. These, combined with sharing in small support groups, allowed the participants the time and space to begin to integrate their experiences and to see them in relation to the ‘larger myth’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 56). That is to locate the personal within the context of an exploration of the human condition. Personal material is respected and is central to the content of the performance within the framework of a larger score that provides both an artistic structure and the matrix for the healing ritual. It is not manipulated for Halprin’s artistic aims, nor used as a way of simply generating theatrical material.

‘i want to live’ This score was developed in response to a crisis in the group during the workshop process. The crisis highlighted the fact that the participants with life-threatening illness were directly engaged in a fght for their lives and the others weren’t. A crisis in the group dynamic and the artistic process, it threatened to split the group and epitomized the challenges of the type of theatre Halprin creates with ‘raw and human experiences calling for immediate 92

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resolution through new and creative means’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 57). The crisis was catalysed when a participant shockingly admitted his jealousy of the group members with HIV, claiming they were the stars of the show. The score that Halprin evolved to address this issue was simple and direct. It focused on the common ground that all the participants shared, their desire for life. Each person was invited to walk or run down a pathway formed by other members of the group and to say ‘I want to live’ as they approached the witnesses. This bald statement stripped bare the core issue which the group was grappling with and confronted the participants directly with their feelings about life and death. The experience of carrying out the score returned the group to the original intention of Dancing with Life on the Line providing an emotional and artistic resolution to the crisis that threatened to undermine the project. ‘I Want to Live’ simultaneously provided new and powerful performance material. In earlier versions of Circle the Earth, performers had come forward announcing their names and countries (Halprin with Stinson 1987: 17). In Dancing with Life on the Line, the participants with HIV, AIDS-related conditions and AIDS made themselves visible before a thousand witnesses afrming their desire for life. It is a riveting moment even on video (Circle the Earth: Dancing with Life on the Line 1989) because they are fghting for their lives and because of their personal courage in refusing invisibility and the challenge that this presents to the community. For some performers it radically changed their attitude to being visible with their HIV status in their daily lives (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 120). This score works theatrically because of the performers’ authenticity and because it confronts the witnesses directly with the content of the performance. For the same reasons it works for the performers as a signifcant step in their healing journey: When it was my turn, when I said, ‘My name is David and I want to live,’ I really meant it. It wasn’t a performance. It wasn’t a dance. It was the frst time in my life I consciously said, ‘I want to live’. And it was the frst time since I had been diagnosed with AIDS I had consciously said ‘I want to live’ and meant it. This was the most powerful moment for me in the dance. (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 59) The two scores, ‘I am the Earth’ and ‘I Want to Live’, make the theme and intention of Dancing with Life on the Line clear. They form the frst step of the healing journey, Identifcation, as well as being the opening scores of the performance. The group is now poised to move towards the second stage of confrontation.

Confrontation The new score ‘Tell the Truth’ and the ‘Monster/Mask and Warrior’ dances constitute the confrontation stage in Dancing with Life on the Line (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 62–76). The ‘Vortex’ dance which takes place between these two scores prepares the ground, providing a strong enough sense of community to contain the extreme emotions that are provoked by the ‘Monster and Warrior’ dances: the Vortex dance is done in preparation for our confrontation with illness and death. . . . The group needed all the strength, power and afrmation it could mobilize before taking on the arduous task of facing and confronting its demons. (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 62) 93

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‘tell the truth’ Like ‘I Want to Live’, the new ‘Tell the Truth’ score was developed in response to the difculties within the group and addresses the central issues of Dancing with Life on the Line. In this score, participants with HIV call a member of the group out to support them, telling them why they have chosen them. In the workshop the score, which only evolved fully on the morning of the performance, facilitated the speaking of many powerful and hidden truths. Like ‘I Want to Live’, it was highly emotional and confrontational, and served to heighten the commitment of the group to the process and to each other. Halprin sees these two scores as ‘the signature scores of Dancing with Life on the Line. They are the movement portraits of the group self ’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 65). Out of the context it may appear that this score has more in common with the revelations of confessional chat shows on daytime television or group therapy than performance. Witnessing the process it becomes clear that the integrity with which it is performed and experienced has little to do with sensational confessions or emotional voyeurism (Circle the Earth: Dancing with Life on the Line 1989). Instead it enables the group to move onto the next stage of healing, breaking through some of the barriers of isolation, fear and prejudice surrounding HIV. Like the ‘Vortex’ score, but using radically diferent means, it strengthens the sense of community. In efect it mirrors the process that needs to happen in the larger community in the context of the performance group. For Halprin, the authenticity demanded by this score in performance is essentially a performance skill (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 65). ‘Tell the Truth’ retains its power in performance precisely because the performers are still in touch with the raw feelings it provokes rather than attempting to re-enact them.

the ‘monster’ dance This score together with the ‘Warrior’ dance forms the core of the Confrontation stage of the healing process. The intention of these scores is ‘to release the destructive forces’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 74). In earlier versions of Circle the Earth this was related to war, violence or destruction of the environment depending on the theme of the particular year. In Dancing with Life on the Line the demon was the ‘killer within’ of the AIDS virus. Confrontation is the most demanding part of the personal process. Participants are carefully prepared for the score in order to ensure that it functions as a healing catharsis rather than a destructive provocation without resolution. Before entering the exploration of their personal monsters participants are led through a healing meditation which connects them to a ‘sacred healing place in nature’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 71). This meditation prefgures the ‘Restoration’ score in the performance. For Halprin this is an essential safeguard because of the level of emotional process that the ‘Monster’ dance provokes. It demonstrates her clear sense of responsibility towards the participants and her concern for their psychological safety: In preparing to plunge into the dark side of anger, fear and anguish, it is imperative to frst secure three things: a safe and strong place within; a way to maintain yourself through darkness; and a place where you can return. (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 70) These are broadly therapeutic concerns that are also necessary to create a successful rite of passage. Nevertheless the resulting performance score is highly dramatic, constructed to ensure that the urgency and power of the confict is communicated to the witnesses. 94

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In the workshop the resources for the ‘Monster’ dance are researched through a combination of kinaesthetic explorations and drawn visualizations. The face itself is used as a mask. Participants are encouraged to explore the ‘mask’ that connects them most powerfully to their ‘dark’ side and to embody this in dance. To this end intensity and extremity in images and movements are encouraged (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 69). In the workshop all the participants explore the confrontation with their own monsters so that it is a healing process for everyone. As ‘ritual keeper’ Halprin decided that in the performance only the participants with life threatening illnesses would dance the monsters because of their ongoing struggle with the forces of destruction (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 75). In the performance the facial masks discovered in the workshop process are used as a way of re-triggering the emotions provoked during the earlier explorations. Most of the participants are not trained performers and would not have the performance skills to enact the intense emotions generated by the ‘Monster’ dance. The score is constructed to allow them to experience the feelings and to embody them in the dance. This is Halprin’s skill in working with untrained performers. More technical working methods would not be as successful artistically with such a group nor would they serve the participants in their healing process. After the ‘Vortex’ dance the build up to the ‘Monster’ score sets the emotional tenor for the dance preparing both the performers and witnesses. The narrator rallies the group from their positions on the foor by a repetitive drumbeat and a chant that swells as the participants join him: OUT! OUT! OUT! OUT! We’re drawing the line Our lives are on the line OUT! OUT! OUT! OUT! (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 74) The witnesses are included in the score for the ‘Monster’ dance in an action which serves both a theatrical and ritual purpose. Plain white masks of various shapes had been placed on each seat. Prior to the dance the narrator urged the witnesses to hold the masks in front of their faces: ‘Witnesses, put on your masks. We need to be protected when the warrior lines come forward pushing the danger out. Witnesses, put on your masks. We need to be protected when the carriers break through carrying the poison out’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 76). From the perspective of the ritual there is a belief that a negative force is being expelled in the ‘Monster’ dance and therefore a genuine need to protect the witnesses from receiving the full impact of the energy that is being directed towards them (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 75–6). The masks serve to distance the audience from the intensity of the emotion being expressed, paradoxically perhaps allowing them to receive it more fully without the need to distance themselves in other ways. As the dancers approach the witnesses their experience is intensifed by this unexpected wall of white masks and they in turn are protected from any emotional reaction on the part of the witnesses.

the ‘warrior’ dance The ‘Warrior’ dance is performed by the rest of the group simultaneously to the ‘Monster’ score. The function of the warriors is to support the monster dancers and to give them strength and energy (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 73) to embody their monsters fully in performance. The monster dancers have also experienced the power of dancing their warriors. In the performance 95

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the warriors embody that power for them so that they are not overwhelmed by the symbolic forces with which they are struggling. In turn the warriors are able to empathize with the experience of the monster dancers. The ‘Warrior’ dance is the most dynamic score in Circle the Earth and it is an unusually closed score. Whereas the ‘Monster’ dance is concerned with the struggle of the individual, the ‘Warrior’ dance represents the power of the collective. Both the movements used and the spatial patterns of the dance are prescribed. The warriors advance in unison in lines which the monsters break through; using an ‘insistent’ beat the warriors lift their legs in a ‘high-stepping movement’ to the side, using their voices as they bring them down forcefully on the down-beat with the chest raised (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 73). This choreographic framework, efective in performance terms, was chosen because of its function in the healing process. The movements are an afrmation of the strength necessary to confront the challenges of the situation. Halprin maintains that certain movements or movement qualities can engender certain feelings, but she is clear that it is not possible to score feelings directly. Although the movements of the ‘Warrior’ dance are prescribed, it was crucial, for both ritual and artistic purposes, that the dancers experienced the movements on a personal level; that the three levels of awareness, physical, emotional and mental, were fully engaged. Some participants initially had difculty in embodying the movements in the ‘Warrior’ dance, but as they were challenged to broaden their movement vocabulary they also experienced a sense of personal empowerment (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 73 and 85). This is another example of interlocking spirals of the Life/Art Process: ‘When participants viscerally experience the Warrior movements, there is a marked visual change. . . . It is precisely because of its transformative quality that this particular movement was chosen’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 73). Alongside the clarity of this intention Halprin’s aesthetic sense is also clearly operating in the dynamic of the movement, and the use of space and colour as the lines of warriors, each in a diferent rainbow colour, advance towards the witnesses. In the fnal section of this score the warriors embody victory over the forces of destruction and move forward to comfort the monster dancers in the dance of ‘Restoration’.

Release After the intensity of the confrontation the ‘Restoration’ score provides a change of atmosphere and pace. It is a time of recuperation necessary for performers and witnesses alike and constitutes the third stage of the healing process: Release. The performers are physically and emotionally exhausted after the ‘Monster’ dance, leaving them vulnerable and receptive to the care and gentle touch ofered by other members of the group. This is a movement from isolation to compassion. One participant describes it as ‘a kind of rebirth’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 90). Halprin comments that this sense of connection was mirrored among the witnesses, some of whom spontaneously reached out to one another (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 88). The narration of the ‘Restoration’ poem and song (which continues during the ‘Bridge’ score), with its repeated phrases and simple harmonies, is reminiscent of a litany and is imbued with spiritual resonance. In this struggle between life and death ‘The promise of life is restored’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 92). For Halprin the ‘Bridge’ provides the transition from Release, to the stage of Change in the healing process: People are beginning to resolve their own personal issues of grief and loss and are able to attend to the grief and loss of the collective body. There is a newfound ability to 96

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connect to the larger world of humanity, to recognize the universality of sufering and the possibility of change. . . . (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 90)

Change Several diferent scores, together with the fnal day of the workshop after the performance, form the fourth stage of the healing process: Change.

the ‘earth run’ The ‘Earth Run’, the structure of which has been discussed earlier, is central to this process of change: This is the moment when we can begin to see new options both in our beliefs and our behaviors. We have recognized our circumstances, named them, grieved them. Now we have the opportunity to stand in a new relationship to them. (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 99) In an integration of the earlier stages of the Five Part Process there is a progression from afrming the individual’s will to live, to afrming the life of others and of the planet.

the ‘sound spiral’ and ‘victory’ dance The ‘Sound Spiral’, which is an evolution from the ‘Peace Wheel’ and the ‘Bird Transformation’ in earlier versions of Circle the Earth, also forms part of the stage of Change, or Transformation. Both scores ‘are associated with new growth and new beginnings’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 100). The ‘Spiral’ dance symbolically links the participants to the wider world as they spiral out from the centre of the space. The ‘Victory’ score invites the witnesses, starting with those most closely afected by life-threatening illness, to join the dancers and to sing the ‘Restoration’ song. The closed community of participants who shared the intense ritual journey is widened to include the community of their daily lives.

closure The day after the performance the group met to complete their process together. Halprin was conscious of the need for the participants to make a transition from ritual time and space to everyday life. The emphasis was on integrating the experiences of the previous week and the performance on a conscious level. Participants were guided through a refective process that facilitated ‘a metaphoric reading of the experience as a way to apply the lessons we learned through dance to our daily lives’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 100). This enabled them to understand the changes that had taken place as a result of participating in Dancing with Life on the Line, and to make choices based on these experiences in the future. A return from the collective experience to personal learning, this process clarifed the relationship between the individual and collective mythologies engendered. Self-portraits, which had been used on the frst day of the workshop, were used again giving the participants an external representation of the result of their healing journey. The workshop closed with a prayer and a return to nature, this time the ocean, for a feast and celebration. 97

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Assimilation The ffth and fnal stage of the process, Assimilation, happened for the participants after the workshop, as the repercussions of their experiences during this intensive period reverberated through their lives. Halprin acknowledges that the process of assimilation ‘often takes a long and circuitous path’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 130). Since many of the performers facing HIV were part of the Steps Theatre Company and Women with Wings these participants continued to have contact both with one another and with Halprin. These groups also had their own closure ceremonies as part of their process of integration and transition. Through her continuing contact with participants Halprin was aware of some of the ways in which individuals applied the experience gained in their lives. Inevitably after such a heightened experience and with the challenges of living with life-threatening illness the transitions were not always smooth. Halprin describes the struggle of the Women with Wings group to come to terms with the deterioration in the health of one of their members who had been hospitalized during the workshop. For Halprin the fact that the group had the resources to face the negative and self-destructive feelings evoked by this situation together and ultimately found a spontaneous resolution was indicative of how much they had gained (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 109–10). According to Halprin the experience of Dancing with Life on the Line left many participants better equipped to face the challenges of their daily lives: Many participants in the workshop acknowledged afterwards that the tools they had gained – access to their bodies, the resource of their visual images, and the mental and spiritual associations these realms held for them – were tools they could integrate into their daily lives and use over and over again. The processes of reclaiming the symbols of the body and the mind serves participants long after the dance has ended. (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 108–9) Halprin makes a distinction between curing and healing, she does not suggest that the Five Part Process is a way of curing people but rather a holistic approach to healing. To ‘cure’ is to physically eliminate a disease. . . . To ‘heal’ is to operate on many dimensions simultaneously, by aiming at attaining a state of emotional, mental, spiritual and physical health. Healing also addresses the psychological dimension and works with belief systems, whether they are life-enhancing or destructive. It is possible, therefore, that a person with a terminal diagnosis may not be cured, but can be healed, and inversely, that someone can be cured, but not healed. (Halprin 2000: 15) In these terms Dancing with Life on the Line (1989) served as an efective healing ritual for the participants.

Ritual or performance? Throughout the above discussion the use of the word ritual recurs, so how are we to view Circle the Earth and specifcally Dancing with Life on the Line? Is it ritual or performance? What is the relationship between the two? 98

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Dancing with Life on the Line never masquerades simply as a theatre performance. Every element of how it is described, created and performed is infused with another layer of intention. This does not invalidate it as performance but reminds us that it cannot be viewed solely from a theatrical perspective. There is another agenda, in addition to an artistic one, and any assessment of the work must take this other dimension into account. It is inappropriate to discuss or critique Dancing with Life on the Line solely, or even primarily, on the basis of its merit as theatre. This does not mean that it can be dismissed as a ritual that has no place in a discussion of contemporary performance. We have seen earlier that Halprin is a child of her time and the cultural environments within which her work has evolved. A maverick child perhaps but, precisely because of this, one whose infuence has permeated contemporary performance practice more widely than is generally acknowledged. It is too easy to marginalize work such as Halprin’s that challenges and crosses boundaries because it defes tidy classifcation, upsetting established or fashionable notions of dance and performance. Halprin is uninterested in an academic discussion of the boundaries of ritual and performance. As a practitioner who refects on her practice her approach is a fundamentally pragmatic one: ‘Something that is a ritual is not necessarily art, and vice versa, but it is always my intention to create an artful ritual’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 28). For her performances such as Circle the Earth efectively ‘blur the boundaries between art and ritual as they exist in our contemporary culture’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 29). This implies these boundaries are to some extent arbitrary, have been variously delineated in other times or in non-western (for example, indigenous) cultures and are dependent on a changeable defnition of the terms involved. For Halprin the most important characteristic of a ritual is that it carries the specifc intention of creating change and that it connects with a higher power, with something larger than ourselves (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 28). A ritual is therefore imbued with spiritual resonance. All the decisions made during the process of creating Dancing with Life on the Line are congruent with the intention in creating this ritual. Halprin is acutely aware of the diference between the workshop process which is essentially ‘a personal and inward experience’ and the performance which is ‘an outward and community orientated event’ and the difculties inherent in this transition for the group (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 116). She is not interested in creating entertainment or images for their own sake. She is concerned with creating a ritual that involves the witnesses with the life and death issues that the participants are facing. Authenticity is primary not only in terms of process but also artistically. Halprin uses her artistic sensibilities to channel and structure the experiences of the dancers so that they serve not only their individual needs but also those of the group and communicate efectively to the larger community. As an artist she is keenly aware that the form in which the work is expressed is fundamental to its ability to fulfl its intention: The gap between ‘art’ and ‘ritual’ can be traversed when we are conscious not only of the content of the work and its efects on the participants, but also the form and manner in which this content is presented. It is my . . . highest ideal in the creation and use of the Life/Art Process to make rituals that are art, and to make art that is ritualistic in nature. (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 30) One reviewer of the frst mountain performance was critical of Halprin’s attempts to present ritual in a theatrical context (Ross 1981). Halprin herself didn’t feel these performances worked (Halprin 1995: 21 and 24). Their weakness was that the relatively conventional theatrical form and setting served neither the content nor the underlying intention. In the evolution of Circle the 99

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Earth the two strands of art and ritual become so closely interwoven as to be inseparable. With The Planetary Dance, community ritual supersedes performance altogether.

Ritual time Halprin works consciously with notions of ritual time and space, diferentiating them from both daily life and performance. In many ways the workshop has more in common with a liminal period, when those who are to take part in a ritual are removed from the circumstances of their daily lives and undergo an intensive period of preparation, than it does with conventional rehearsals for performance. During this period participants are prepared: physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. They are given the knowledge and the skills necessary to undergo what is required of them. The careful preparation of the dancers for the ‘Monster’ dance, ensuring that the participants are both personally equipped to face the emotional demands of the experience and are safely contained within the context of the larger group, bring to mind the preparations of participants in other sacred rites. The timing of this score, preceded by the strengthening experience of community in the ‘Vortex’ dance and followed by the nurturing of the ‘Restoration’, is dictated by the needs of the ritual rather than by theatrical structure. As an experienced ‘elder’, Halprin is concerned, and takes responsibility for, the well-being of those undergoing this rite of passage but within the containing structure of the ritual she is uncompromising about the demands made on them. These demands are governed by the underlying intention of the ritual and by her experience of, and belief in, the efcacy of the Five Part Process, rather than the artistic imperatives of most directors. The ‘Victory’ dance, in which the witnesses merge with performers, breaks notions of western theatrical time and continues for more than an hour.

Ritual space The preparation of the space is also governed more by the demands of ritual than by those of theatre. The gym was transformed from a secular to a ‘sacred’ space by the participants creating altars of fruit and fowers in the four directions. Halprin uses religious terms such as altar, prayer and sacred, loosely without afliation to a particular religion, allowing room for participants to imbue them with their own meaning. For Halprin, the altars bring beauty into the space and evokes nourishment, marking ‘the life spirit’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 115) and reminding participants that they are working with the cycle of life and death. As part of their preparation participants were encouraged to visit the altars and to meditate. The group also received the blessings of spiritual leaders in the community to remind the dancers of the ritual intention of the performance, and its relationship to ‘a higher power’ and to the wider community. The blessings of spiritual leaders (both indigenous and western), together with honouring the four directions, has been an ongoing feature of the dance since 1981 and continues in The Planetary Dance. The rocks which are suspended from the ceiling as part of the ‘set’ in Dancing with Life on the Line create an evocative theatrical environment, simultaneously beautiful, powerful and precarious, but they also function on a symbolic level. Each participant searched for a rock the size of their skull and brought it to the studio. Through the course of the workshop the rocks became imbued with personal symbolic meaning, functioning ‘as a container for the feelings, fantasies, insights, dreams and associations that are generated during the workshop’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 44). The participants’ relationship with their rock continued to evolve beyond the duration of the workshop and performance. The performers emerge from the rocks in the truth-telling score which could be interpreted as symbolizing both the personal and theatrical risks inherent in this score and the weightiness of the truths involved. Just as the participants had 100

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diferent names and associations for the environment created by the rocks they will have evoked diferent images and emotions for the witnesses. It is important that the participants were actively involved with the creation of the altars and the selection of the rocks, enabling them to fnd their own relationship to these symbolic elements. Other symbolic objects such as the eagle feathers, which are run through the space at the opening of the performance, gain signifcance from their repeated use in Circle the Earth and The Planetary Dance and the stories associated with them as part of the ‘Living Myth’: A ritual contains within it specifc symbols which are made meaningful to members of the community through repetition and the creation of a common language which invests these symbols with signifcance. The input of the collective is crucial in the creation and maintenance of a ritual. (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 28) At the opening of Dancing with Life on the Line the witnesses are led into the ritual space through a ‘pathway of light’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 115). These lighted candles had been placed by each of the performers in memory of someone who had died. They served as a memorial, highlighting the theme of life and death, and linking the dancers and witnesses.

Witnesses Halprin’s concept of witnesses is fundamentally diferent from that of a theatre audience. They are participants in the ritual with a specifc function and responsibilities; they are there neither to judge nor to be entertained but to witness and support the participants’ rite of passage. The witnesses for Dancing with Life on the Line were prepared for the ritual separately from the performers and before entering the performance space. They were informed of the process that the participants had been through and that their reason for performing was ‘to make themselves visible, it is important for them, they’re not doing it for you, they’re doing it because they want to claim their pride, their courage and their nobility and . . . you will be their witnesses’ (Circle the Earth: Dancing with Life on the Line 1989). To be a witness requires an element of receptivity but it is not a passive role; their presence is crucial to the efectiveness of the ritual. Rather than the distance of a spectator their personal involvement is invited. In the preparation before the performance of Dancing with Life on the Line the witnesses were encouraged ‘to meditate on what in themselves they wanted to be healed, and for whom among their friends and families they wished to pray’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 115–16). There were three layers of healing operating in Dancing with Life on the Line, frstly the personal healing journey that has been described in depth. The wider purpose was to heal the fear, prejudice and ignorance surrounding AIDS in the community. During the workshop these issues were addressed within the group. In the truth-telling score an honest dialogue between those with HIV and AIDS and the other participants was initiated, feelings of isolation and the fear of rejection and exhaustion were revealed, attitudes such as the fear of infection and moral judgements were owned and transformed. Through this process and the shared experiences of the workshop and performance, acceptance and increased trust were engendered. The performance became a means of spreading this ripple of change out into the wider community: to reach out to our extended community in a way that would encourage a trusting, loving and non-prejudiced viewing of the participants’ lives. We needed witnesses to 101

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clarify our intention to heal, and we hoped to create an event that would enable people with HIV to be accepted, without judgement, by their community. (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 114) The intention was to afect the attitudes and beliefs of the witnesses, so that they too underwent change as a result of participating in the ritual. The measures taken to ensure the safe passage of the dancers through this ritual were mirrored in the treatment of the witnesses. They were prepared beforehand and their transition into ritual time and space was symbolically marked. They were symbolically protected from potential psychic harm through the use of the white masks. At the completion of the ritual those witnesses most likely to have been directly afected by it were invited into the centre of the ritual space and participated in the ‘Restoration’ song. Then the circle was extended to include all the witnesses. As the witnesses merged with the performers the ethos of the workshop was also extended to them; there was time, space and permission for physical contact, the expression of feelings, dance and celebration. Since many of the witnesses had close relationships with the participants they were deeply afected by the ritual. One dancer chose to use the performance as a way of telling his family of his HIV status. Identifed as HIV positive through his participation in the ‘I Want to Live’ score, his family’s journey as witnesses mirrored his own, through shock, grief, restoration and celebration. The ritual left them ‘with a feeling of strength, support and faith’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 61). For them too it was a healing ritual. Halprin draws comparisons between Circle the Earth and the rituals of some non-western cultures, for example the Andaman Islands (Halprin with Stinson 1987: 74) and Bali (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 87). She gives examples of the use of masks in these cultures and suggests a parallel between the trance states entered by masked dancers in a Balinese ritual she attended and the altered state of the performers in the ‘Monster’ dance. Halprin has attended many indigenous rituals, including a powerful and confronting experience witnessing the Native American Sun Dance in 1989 (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 80). While these experiences have informed her understanding of her own work in creating rituals, she does not claim them as sources and, as already noted, has no wish to appropriate the rituals of other cultures. She acknowledges that in comparison with such traditional and stylized rituals Circle the Earth is ‘raw’ and ‘unrefned’ (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 87). For Halprin one of the features of such contemporary rituals is that they are necessarily ‘multi-dimensional’ since they do not represent one cultural group (Halprin 2002a). Halprin’s approach to ritual is essentially idealistic and dynamic, she believes in the power of contemporary, dance rituals to address problematic social and environmental issues in our society, to change the way we live, individually and collectively: I see us dancing the hard dances until they become easy, stumbling and tripping over each other until we learn to dance together. I see it all as a wonderful possibility and a great hope . . . hoping that the process that created Circle the Earth will encourage the creation of all the dances we need to learn to live gracefully with one another and the planet that supports us. (Halprin with Kaplan 1995: 131)

Further reading Allsopp, R., Friedman, K. and Smith, O. (eds) (2002) ‘On Fluxus’, Performance Research 7(3). Amirrezvani, A. (2000) ‘Purposely Out of Step’, San Jose Mercury News, 2 June.

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Halprin (1920–) Anderson, J. (1966) ‘Dancers and Architects Build Kinetic Environments’, Dance Magazine November: 52–6, 74. ——— (1969) ‘Ferment and Controversy’, Dance Magazine August: 47–55. ——— (1997) ‘Celebrating Life after a Dance with Death’, New York Times, 22 June. Andrien, B. and Corin, F. in collaboration with Anna Halprin (2014) Anna Halprin, Dancing Life/Danser la vie, DVD-ROM, flming by Peter Hulton. Brussels: Éditions Contredanse. Anna Halprin: Parades and Changes, Intensive Care (2004) Performance Programme, Festival d’Automne, Paris, September 23–25. Banes, S. (1987) Terpsichore in Sneakers: Post-modern Dance, Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press. ——— (1993) Democracy’s Body: Judson Dance Theater, 1962–1964, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Burns, J. T. (1967) ‘Experiments in Environment’, Progressive Architecture July: 131–7. Butler, D. and McHugh, J. (2001) ‘Anna Halprin at 80’, Contact Quarterly winter/spring. Certifcate (1997) Samuel H. Scripps, American Dance Festival Award. Charest, R. (1987) Robert Lepage: Connecting Flights, trans. W. Romer Taylor, London: Methuen. Circle the Earth (1987) Video, Melbourne Town Hall, Melbourne, 18 January. Circle the Earth: Dancing with Life on the Line (1989) Video, Anna Halprin with Media Arts West. Dancers’ Group Studio Theater (2000) Anna Halprin 80th Year Retrospective, performance programme, Colwell Theater, Fort Mason, San Francisco. 80th Year Retrospective (2000) Video, Dir. Andy Abrahams Wilson. Eiko and Koma (2002) Ofcial website: http://www.eikoandkoma.org/home. Site designed by E. N. Waterhouse (accessed 14 July 2003). Embracing Earth, Dances with Nature (1995) Video, Dir. Anna Halprin, flmed by Ellison Hall and Abrahams Wilson Productions. Feldenkrais, M. (1980) Awareness through Movement, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Feliciano, R. (2000) ‘Anna Halprin Celebrates Long Life and Dance Career’, San Francisco Chronicle, 28 May. Forti, S. (1999) ‘Style is a Corset’, interview by Christophe Wavelet, Writings on Dance 18/19, winter: 147–53. Gerber, R. Dir. (2009) Breath Made Visible: Revolution in Dance, Anna Halprin. Film, 1hr 22mins, Zas Films. ——— Dir. (2010) Anna Halprin: Seniors Rocking. Film, Zas Films. ——— Dir. (2016) Journey in Sensuality: Anna Halprin and Rodin. Film, Zas Films. Greskovic, R. (1999) ‘Eiko and Koma’ in Martha Bremser (ed.) Fifty Contemporary Choreographers, London and New York: Routledge: 97–9. Gropius, W. (ed.) (1961) The Theater of the Bauhaus, Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press. Halprin, A. (c. 1938–40) Unpublished college notebooks in San Francisco Performing Arts Library and Museum archive, 11 iii Chronology, early work. ——— (1948) Impulse, San Francisco: Halprin–Lathrop Studio. ——— (c. 1960s) Untitled unpublished interview notes in San Francisco Performing Arts Library and Museum archive, 11 ii Performances, theory, general notes. ——— (1969) Collected Writings, San Francisco: San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop. ——— (1973) ‘Community Art as Life Process’, The Drama Review 17(3): 64–80. ——— (1979) Movement Ritual, with illustrations by Charlene Koonce, Kentfeld, Calif.: Tamalpa Institute. ——— (1981) ‘Discovering Dance’, Lomi Bulletin summer: 14–18. ——— (1987) Letter to Friends of Circle the Earth. ——— (1988) ‘Expanding Spaces’, In Dance 15(9): 7. ——— (1992) ‘What Else is There?’, interview by Janice Ross, The Drama Review 36(1): 52–4. ——— (1995) Moving Toward Life, Five Decades of Transformational Dance, ed. R. Kaplan, Hanover and London: Wesleyan University Press. ——— (1997–2000) Untitled unpublished pre- and post-performance notes on Still Dance, Kentfeld, California. ——— (2000) Dance as a Healing Art, Mendocino, Calif.: Life Rhythm. ——— (2001a) ‘A Future Where Dance is Honoured’, Roundtable keynote address Dance Journal USA 17(3/4): 16–17. ——— (2001b) Interviews with Helen Poynor, Kentfeld, California, 25–7 June.

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Libby Worth and Helen Poynor ——— (2001c) ‘Dancing on the Mountain – Moshe and the Halprin Life/Art Process’, Keynote address, The Feldenkrais Guild® North America, Annual Conference: On-Site Recording Productions. ——— (2002a) Interviews with Libby Worth, Kentfeld, California, 31 April-2 May. ——— (2002b) Workshop on ritual, Mountain Home Studio, Kentfeld, California, 3 May. ——— (2009–14) Remembering Lawrence: A Trilogy. Spirit of Place (2009), dance performance at Stern Grove, SF; In the Fever of Love: Song of Songs (2011), dance performance at Halprin Mountain Home Studio; Trip to Israel (2014), peace walk and workshops. Images and article available: https://www. annahalprin.org/performances [Accessed 16 Sept 2017]. ——— and friends (1995) The Planetary Dance fyer, Kentfeld, California. ——— and Khalighi, J. (2015) Remembering, dance performance at Halprin Mountain Home Studio. Information and YouTube video of performance available. See ‘95th Birthday Festivities’ www.annahal prin.org/recent news [Accessed 15 Sept 2017]. ——— and others (1975) Second Collected Writings 1973–75, San Francisco: San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop. ——— and others (1989) Collected Writings III, San Francisco: Tamalpa Institute/San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop. ——— and Planetary Dance Community (2002) The Planetary Dance fyer, Kentfeld, California. ——— and San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop (1977) Citydance, 1977, San Francisco: San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop. ——— and Sea Ranch Collective (2003) Seasons, Part 1/Summer, performance programme, Mountain Home Studio/Theatre, Kentfeld, California, June. ——— performance programme, Festival d’Automne (2004) Anna Halprin: Parades and Changes, Intensive Care, Paris, September 23–25. ——— with Kaplan, R. (1995) ‘Circle the Earth, A Search for Living Myths and Rituals through Dance’, unpublished, Kentfeld, California. ——— with Stinson, A. (1987) Circle the Earth manual, unpublished, Kentfeld, California. Halprin, D. (2002) The Expressive Body in Life, Art and Therapy: Working with Movement, Metaphor and Meaning, New York: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Halprin, L. (1969) The RSVP Cycles – Creative Processes in the Human Environment, New York: George Braziller. ——— (1999) Interviewed by Andy Hestor, Places 12(2): 43–51. Halprin Khalighi, D. (1989) Coming Alive, The Creative Expression Method, Kentfeld, Calif.: Tamalpa Institute. Hartley, L. (1989) Wisdom of the Body Moving – An Introduction to Mind–Body Centering, Berkeley, Calif.: North Atlantic Books. H’Doubler, M. (1940) Dance – A Creative Art Experience, Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press. Hering, D. (1967) ‘Reviews: Dancers’ Workshop of San Francisco in Parades and Changes Hunter College April 21–22, 1967’, Dance Magazine June: 36–7, 72. Howard, R. (2000a) ‘Dancing Outside’, San Francisco Weekly, May/June. ——— (2000b) ‘Anna Halprin 80th Year Retrospective’, Dance Magazine 1 November. Kapit, W. and Elson, L. (2003) The Anatomy Coloring Book, New York, San Francisco, London: Canfeld Press/Harper & Row. Kaplan, R. (1992) ‘Dancing with Life on the Line’, Vox Magazine summer: 11–12. Kaye, N. (2001) Site Specifc Art, Performance, Place and Documentation, London and New York: Routledge. Kerner, M. C. (1988) ‘Anna Halprin – Integrating Emotion and Technique’, Dance Teacher Now June: 12–16. Kisselgof, A. (2002) Dance review: ‘Travel Companions on Life’s Inevitable Journey’, New York Times, late edition, Section E, 31 January: 1. Kostelanetz, R. (1970) The Theatre of Mixed Means, London: Pitman Publishing. Lawrence and Anna Halprin, Inner Landscapes (1991) Video, Dir. Joan Safa, San Francisco Cultural Programming Dpt. KQED, Inc. (aired summer 1994). Legacy Oral History Project (1992) Circle the Earth, 1991 Dancing with Life on the Line (narrators: Jerry de Jong, Mary, Jef Regh, Brian Varanzof), San Francisco: San Francisco Performing Arts Library and Museum.

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Halprin (1920–) McHugh J. (1989) ‘Elemental Motion: “Dancing Myths and Rituals in Nature”’, Contact Quarterly spring/ summer: 9–10, 12–13. McMann Paludan, M. (1995) ‘Expanding the Circle: Anna Halprin and Contemporary Theatre Practice’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Kansas. Mazo, J. H. (2000) Prime Movers, second edition, Princeton, NJ: Princeton Book Company. Novack, C. J. (1990) Sharing the Dance: Contact Improvisation and American Culture, Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin. Parades and Changes (1965) Video, Dir. Arne Arneborn, National Swedish Television. Pierce, R. (1975) ‘The Anna Halprin Story’, The Village Voice 20: 93–9, 13 March. Also in Halprin, A. and others (1975) Second Collected Writings 1973–75, San Francisco: San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop. Planetary Dance (2002) Community performance ritual facilitated by Anna Halprin, Mount Tamalpais, Marin, California, 4 May. Planetary Dance Board (1988) Letter to Circle the Earth/Planetary Dance network. Positive Motion (1991) Video, Dir. Andy Abrahams Wilson, San Francisco. Poynor, H. (2009) ‘Anna Halprin and the Sea Ranch Collective, an embodied engagement with place’, Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices 1:1: 121–132. Rehg, J. (2001) ‘Refections on Intensive Care from a Performer’s Point of View’, Contact Quarterly winter/ spring: 46–9. Restar, T., Morley, A. L., with Halprin, A. (2011) City Dance Edinburgh. Documentation available: http:// www.citydance-edinburgh.org/about.html https://www.annahalprin.org/performances [Accessed 16 Sept 2017]. Returning Home (2003) Video, Dir. Andy Abrahams Wilson, Sausalito, Calif.: Open Eye Pictures. Rockwell, J. (2000) ‘Bridging Past and Present’, New York Times, 11 June. Rolf, I. (1977) Rolfng, the Integration of Human Structures, New York: Harper & Row. Roose-Evans, J. (1970) Experimental Theatre from Stanislavsky to Today, New York: Avon Books. Ross, J. (1981) Review of In and on the Mountain, Dance Magazine July. ——— (2000) Moving Lessons – Margaret H’Doubler and the Beginning of Dance in American Education, Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press. ——— (2007) Anna Halprin: Experience as Dance, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Rutkowski, A. (1984) ‘Development, Defnition and Demonstration of the Halprin Life/Art Process in Dance Education’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, International College, California. Sandford, M. (1995) Happenings and Other Acts, London and New York: Routledge. San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop (c. 1970/1) Workshop and performance documentation, San Francisco. Steinberg, J. (1986) ‘Ritual Keeper-Anna Halprin’, High Performance, 33(9): 9–12. Stubblefeld, E. (2001) Still Dance publicity, New York. ——— (2004a) Information on Still Dance website http://www.stilldance.net (accessed 14 February 2004). ——— (2004b) Telephone interviews with Libby Worth, February. Tamalpa Institute (1981) In the Mountain, On the Mountain programme, Kentfeld, California. ——— (1984) Run to the Mountain programme, Kentfeld, California. ——— (1985) Circle the Mountain, a Dance in the Spirit of Peace with Anna Halprin promotional leafet, Kentfeld, California. ——— (1985/6) Publicity brochure, Kentfeld, California. ——— (1986a) Publicity for Moving Toward Life, Kentfeld, California. ——— (1986b) Circle the Earth – A Dance in the Spirit of Peace, promotional leaflet, Kentfield, California. ——— (1989) Circle the Earth, Dancing with Life on the Line, promotional leafet, Kentfeld, California. ——— (1995) Tamalpa Drum, Kentfeld, California, winter. Todd, M. E. (1968) The Thinking Body, New York: Dance Horizons. Ulrich, A. (2000) ‘Halprin a Delight at Retrospective’, San Francisco Examiner, 6 June. Van Alstine, A. (2005) ‘Going to Paris with Anna’ Tamalpa Drum, Winter Newsletter Tamalpa Institute. Wolf, M. (2000) ‘Dancing Solo’, Northern California Bohemia, 14 December. Worth, L. (2005) ‘Anna Halprin in Paris’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 15:4: 440–448. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater (2002) Publicity for Be With, Anna Halprin, Eiko and Koma, Jean Jeanrenaud for 17–19 January 2002. E-mail (10 January 2002).

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Web sites www.annahalprin.org/classes [Accessed 16 Sept 2017]. www.annahalprin.org/recent news [Accessed 15 Sept 2017]. www.planetarydance.org/ [Accessed 18 Sept 2017]. www.tamalpa.org [Accessed 18 Sept 2017]. www.zasflms.ch/en/flms/journey-in-sensuality-anna-halprin-and-rodin [Accessed 16 Sept 2017].

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13 LECOQ (1921–1999) Simon Murray

13.1

The life of Jacques Lecoq

A theatre school should not always journey in the wake of existing theatre forms. On the contrary, it should have a visionary aspect, developing new languages of the stage and thus assisting in the renewal of theatre itself. (Lecoq 2000: 162)

Jacques Lecoq (1921–99) When Jacques Lecoq died in 1999, world theatre lost one of its most imaginative, infuential and pioneering thinkers and teachers. Compared to many of the fgures featured in this series, little has yet been written about Jacques Lecoq. While this can be partly explained by that phenomenon common to many great artistic and cultural innovators of not being fully recognised until after their death, it is also because Lecoq is celebrated almost exclusively as a teacher and thinker, rather than for plays he might have written or for the productions he directed and choreographed. Jacques Lecoq’s real infuence lies embodied within thousands of performers, writers, movement choreographers and theatre directors across the world who were once his students in Paris – and elsewhere – during a period of forty-two years. To a greater or lesser extent, his signature rests inscribed in the theatre these ‘students’ have constructed, in the performances they have made and in the plays they have written or directed. This chapter attempts to bring that signature into sharper focus by ofering responses to the following sorts of questions. Who was Jacques Lecoq? What did he do? Why was his work important? How did his thinking and practice connect to other signifcant fgures of twentieth-century theatre? Why is his legacy still important for contemporary theatre? The frst part of this section attempts to paint a picture of Lecoq’s life in France and Italy from the end of the Second World War, tracing his development as actor, director, movement choreographer and theatre teacher. Following this early history, I examine the foundations of the Paris school and consider its organisation and structure. The rest of this section considers the broader historical and cultural context into which Lecoq’s life and work may helpfully be placed and understood. Conventional wisdom suggests that, historically, Lecoq’s legacy from 107

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Jacques Copeau (1879–1949) was the defnitive infuence that most shaped and framed his work. However, in so far as Lecoq ever chose to invoke other twentieth-century theatre practitioners as sources of authority, the fgure of Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) should be equally acknowledged. Here, I focus on Copeau, while arguing that what primarily drove Lecoq was not some kind of self-conscious attempt to place himself within any particular tradition of European theatre, but an overriding curiosity with the body and how it moved. Having speculated about historical infuences, I then consider the recent dramatic rise – in Britain and parts of Europe – of theatre forms which foreground the performer’s body and its movement in space, and refect on Lecoq’s role in these developments. Finally, in continuing an attempt to locate his work upon a bigger cultural canvas, a brief account is ofered of the ways in which the human body has become a central concern in other disciplines apparently unconnected to theatre and performance. . . . To think about the life and work of Lecoq; to understand the how, what and why of ffty years of pedagogy; to consider his theorising on how things, materials, humans . . . animals move; to refect upon his ideas on how performance communicates itself; to debate his views on theatre’s stake in the politics of place, identity and internationalism is to engage with issues utterly germane to the problems and challenges of contemporary theatre practice. This is a chapter about how one of Western Europe’s great teachers of theatre, working in the second half of the twentieth century, implicitly and explicitly presented a challenge to much of the received wisdom on actor training and – hence – the making of contemporary performance. To put it another way, Lecoq is important to our understanding of contemporary Western drama because he was a central fgure in a loose movement of practitioners, teachers and theorists who proposed that it is the actor’s body – rather than simply the spoken text – which is the crucial generator of meaning(s) in theatre. Lecoq’s school in Paris thrived (and, at the time of writing, continues to fourish) during a period when many young European theatre-makers were creating work which they – or the publicity departments of theatres and arts centres – wished to describe as physical theatre, movement theatre, body-based theatre, visual performance, or even occasionally modern mime. Whether these labels help us to understand a particular theatrical form is debatable. Nonetheless, there can be little doubt – especially within Britain – that, from the 1970s, there was a signifcant increase in the amount of devised performance which emphasised movement, gesture and mime as the main expressive tools of theatre. That this development was particularly marked in Britain refects a reaction against a dominant tradition which has given an almost deferential authority to the playwright in the construction of theatre – a tradition that has placed the spoken word at the centre of the theatrical experience, and one that, arguably, has been more pronounced in Britain than in other countries of Europe. Translated into actual live performance this has been a theatre culture that applauded and celebrated actors with a rich vocal range and virtuosity which often, however, far exceeded their talent or aptitude for expressive movement and gesture. Many British drama schools ofering training for the aspiring professional actor have consciously reinforced this perspective by prioritising vocal expertise at the expense of other physical skills within their curricula. The reasons for the upsurge in forms of theatre which have privileged the expressive potential of the actor’s body are complex, and cannot simply and unproblematically be reduced to the infuence of those theatre practitioners and teachers who also chose to explore the power of movement and gesture as tools of communication on stage. While Jacques Lecoq and his contemporaries, such as Jerzy Grotowski (1933–99), Eugenio Barba (1936–), Peter Brook (1925–) and Étienne Decroux (1898–1991), have all had a major impact on the shape and direction of what one might wish to call ‘body-based’ theatre in the West since the 1950s, to understand 108

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their work fully it is necessary to consider the wider cultural movements within which their own specifc practice existed. The signifcance of the body in late twentieth-century Western culture goes well beyond the performing arts and permeates the discourses of – for example – cultural studies, sociology, psychology, anthropology and feminist theory. It is not the place of this chapter to examine those wider cultural forces that provide a framework for theatre movements celebrating movement and physicality, although much of what follows implicitly engages with these broader issues. So, if Jacques Lecoq is but a single player in a larger pattern of cultural circumstances all concerned with the signifcance of the body, he is nonetheless a very considerable one within the feld of contemporary theatre and performance. His infuence on a wider debate about actor training and the meaning of movement and physical expression within theatre has been substantial. However, his impact on the actual production of theatre and approaches to performing in Western cultures over the last thirty years has been equally signifcant, though perhaps less straightforward to detect. The roll-call of directors, writers and actors who at one time trained with Lecoq is extensive. Among the better known we may identify: Philippe Avron, Luc Bondy, Michel Azama, Yasmina Réza, Steven Berkof, Ariane Mnouchkine (1939–), Geofrey Rush and Julie Taymor (1952–). Of the companies which have acknowledged a collective debt to Lecoq, the most signifcant include: Théâtre de Complicité, Mummenschanz, Footsbarn, Théâtre du Soleil, Moving Picture Mime Show, Els Joglars and Els Comediants. The issues with which any investigation into the work of Jacques Lecoq must engage, and which this chapter attempts to examine and analyse, may be summarised as follows: • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Play and the creative actor The performer’s body and the generation of meaning(s) Bodies: culturally inscribed or universally constructed? The subversive clown, boufon or grotesque Matter: texture, movement, sound and taste Rapport and complicité in the creation of ensemble Preparing the body for theatre Mime and nature: mime and theatre Internationalism, humanism and theatre Connecting two centuries: the legacy of the modernist avant-garde Against interpretation: the practitioner as art form Space, architecture, mobility and stillness Releasing mime from the closet Mask and anti-mask: from neutrality to the red nose.

Lecoq, Grotowski and other bodies Jacques Lecoq died on 19 January 1999. By one of those strange coincidences of timing which invite us to refect on the cultural forces that frame and shape artistic innovation and development, the Polish teacher and theorist of actor training, Jerzy Grotowski, had died only fve days earlier. Although their approaches to the training of actors difered in many signifcant respects – and there seems little evidence that either invoked the other in his writing or teaching – these major fgures of twentieth-century European theatre are connected in at least two signifcant ways. First, they were both deeply infuenced by a way of looking at actor training initiated through the radical experiments of the French theatre director, Jacques Copeau. For Grotowski, the link was through Copeau’s nephew, Michel Saint-Denis (1897–1971), whom he called ‘my 109

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spiritual father’. For Lecoq, the connection is by virtue of his ‘apprenticeship’ to Jean Dasté (1904–94), Copeau’s son-in-law. Second – and crucially – is their joint insistence that the creative ‘pulse’ at the heart of theatre is the actor’s body, its movement and its stillness. For Copeau, Grotowski and Lecoq – but in varying ways – it is the actor’s body that is both starting and fnishing point of all live performance. Such an apparently unexceptional observation – shared by other signifcant theatre practitioners – however, disguises often contesting assumptions about what the body actually is, and whether through theatre training it can be stripped of all its cultural habits and dispositions acquired through socialisation. Arguably, the body of the performer and its ability to generate ‘presence’ and/or to ‘represent’ authentically has been the most significant challenge for Western theatre-makers over the last three decades. At the same time, this issue – how the performing body is constructed and communicates itself – has perhaps been the central problematic facing academics of theatre and performance studies. As this chapter attempts to illustrate, the work and thinking of Jacques Lecoq lie at the heart of such debates. Although he was a prolifc movement choreographer and director of plays between 1948 and 1956, while working and living in Italy, Lecoq’s impact on world theatre, from the inauguration of his Paris school in 1956 until his death forty-three years later, can only really be measured directly through his teaching, research and occasional forays into writing. Almost all the other key fgures of European (and American) modernism whose work has interrogated the theory and practice of acting – from Stanislavsky (1863–1938), Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874–1940), Copeau, Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) and Michael Chekhov (1891–1955), through to Grotowski, Joseph Chaikin (1935–), Brook and Barba – have also directed, devised or choreographed work for the stage. For practitioners such as these, teaching and research existed alongside directing and making professional theatre. For them, explorations into the nature of acting have been partly realised through the theatre productions for which they have been responsible. To the extent that such work has been documented – and within the considerable limitations which any documentation of live performance, however sensitive and sophisticated, places on the suspect notion of a single ‘accurate record’– we can at least see or read about what apparently happened on stage. Here, it is theoretically possible to unravel the connections between pedagogy, dramaturgy, mise-en-scène and performance.

Modernism is a complex historical and cultural phenomenon that embraces a wide – and often contradictory – range of ways of thinking about and explaining the world. Linked historically, but elastically, to a period from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, modernism embraces a wide variety of political, cultural and artistic movements which shared little other than a belief that nothing is as it seems, and that appearance and meaning have an awkward relationship with each other. Mise-en-scène means literally – from the French – the ‘action of putting on the play’. It refers to all elements of the staging of a piece of theatre – lighting, design, props and costumes – and their relationship to each other and to spectators. Dramaturgy is the process of thinking about – and realising in practice – the appropriate theatrical vocabularies and languages for carrying the meanings of the piece to spectators. Dramaturgy or ‘looking with knowledge’ (Keefe 1995: 12) engages with the process of considering all the possible texts for a work of theatre and how these will ft together to shape the structure of the piece in question. ‘The specifc link between form and content’ (Pavis 1998: 125).

For Lecoq, given that his experience of directing theatre in Italy chronologically predates forty-three years of theorising, research and practice-through-teaching at the Paris school, we 110

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have no such opportunity. What we do have instead is a shadowy legacy of the traces left by those companies and actors who trained with Lecoq and who will readily invoke his infuence when their work is described, analysed and assessed. Section 13.2 of this book is devoted to considering the work of two companies – Mummenschanz and Théâtre de Complicité – many of whose actors trained at the Paris school. By focusing on these companies we are presented with the opportunity of tracing where and how Lecoq’s infuence is manifest through, for example, approaches to acting, deployment of dramatic space, manipulation of props and other objects and – above all – in a conscious devotion to the power of movement and gesture.

Jacques Lecoq: actor, director and teacher Early career: foundations in France and Italy (1940–56) Jacques Lecoq was born in Paris in 1921. He was active in a variety of sports at school and throughout his life retained an interest in the way athletes efectively organise and use their bodies. At the age of twenty Lecoq attended a college of physical education at Bagatelle in the Paris suburbs and began to teach physical education, as well as coaching athletes to swim. At the college he met Jean-Marie Conty, an international basketball player who was in charge of France’s policy on physical education. Conty also had a strong interest in theatre and later set up a school entitled L’Éducation par le Jeu Dramatique (Education through Dramatic Performance). Here, in 1947, Lecoq was to teach classes on physical expression. By the end of the Second World War he had started to undertake rehabilitation work among the disabled: ‘he saw how a man with paralysis could organise his body in order to walk, and taught him to do so’ (McBurney 1999a). Between 1945 and moving to Italy in 1948 Lecoq made his frst connections with a number of theatre practitioners and teachers who provided a link back down the twentieth century to the pioneering work of Jacques Copeau and his laboratory for the renewal of French theatre and acting at L’École du Vieux Columbier. Lecoq’s connections to the various ‘technical’ traditions that have shaped contemporary mime and movement theatre will be explored later in this section, but at this juncture we should note that the four key fgures of twentieth-century French mime – Jean-Louis Barrault (1910–94), Étienne Decroux, Marcel Marceau (1923–) and Lecoq himself – can all trace their artistic lineage back to the teaching and thinking of Copeau in the 1920s. While this heritage is neither uncomplicated, nor a simple afrmation of Copeau’s legacy, various writers on modern mime and movement theatre – Myra Felner (1985), Tom Leabhart (1989) and Anthony Frost and Ralph Yarrow (1990) – have all noted the interconnected and ‘incestuous’ nature of the French mime tradition. Shortly after the liberation of France, Lecoq joined the Association Travail et Culture (TEC). This was an infuential organisation that, during the war, had served as the cultural wing of the French Resistance movement and had the purpose of opening up opportunities in artistic activities for working-class people. Frost and Yarrow note that TEC ‘gave shows and organised spectacles for 10–15,000 people . . . echoes here of Fo and Piscator’ (Frost and Yarrow 1990: 61). Here, Lecoq received his frst formal theatre training and began to explore ‘mimed improvisations’ (Lecoq 2000: 4) with members of the company, a number of whom had been pupils of Charles Dullin (1885–1949).

Somatic means relating to the body and implies an activity, or a process which is ‘hands on’ and physical rather than cerebral and intellectual. The term can sometimes unwittingly reinforce a false distinction between ‘mind’ and ‘body’.

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Dullin had also been a member of Copeau’s frst company, but set up his own studio for theatre research (the Atelier) in the 1930s. It was in the Atelier that Decroux and Barrault initiated their years of somatic ‘research’ into corporeal expression and thus laid the foundations for a codifed grammar of mime that many years later Lecoq was himself to reject as too constricting. Lecoq records that, at the Association Travail et Culture, he performed: in Chartres to celebrate the return of prisoners of war . . . and in Grenoble where we participated in two large celebrations: one for the liberation of the city, and the other for the May Day holiday in honour of the work taken up again by men who had been liberated at last. (Lecoq 1987: 108) It is interesting to surmise at this point the extent to which the young Lecoq’s involvement in ‘popular theatre’ subsequently shaped the form and direction of his pedagogy at the Paris school until his death in 1999. The emphasis which many Lecoq disciples give to comic performance and clowning – at least in the early stages of their careers – seems to refect a concern with the popular and accessible in theatre. David Bradby, translator of The Moving Body and writer on French theatre, regards this commitment as a signifcant indicator of the school’s future direction and of Lecoq’s politics: That’s one of the attractive things about him. . . . He did not want to do Brecht, but he was very interested in discovering the popular roots of theatre. . . . So his whole practice was about giving voice to the people, giving expression to the people. His four main dramatic territories were all in their own way ‘popular’ art forms. It’s not by chance that one of these was melodrama – the popular art form par excellence. He was interested in those basic situations of people saying goodbye, people in need. He reckoned that was his political statement. (Bradby 2002a) It is fruitful to compare this disposition to the austerity and asceticism with which Decroux – also on the political ‘left’ – approached his own teaching and performance work. Although Marcel Marceau learned the technical grammar of mime from Decroux, his teacher was later to disavow the technically accomplished but ‘popular mime’ with which Marceau was to tour the world for over four decades. Towards the end of this immediate post-war period, before he moved to Italy in 1948, Lecoq was invited to join Les Comédiens de Grenoble in Grenoble by its director, Jean Dasté, son-in-law of Jacques Copeau. Here, again, the interrelatedness between strands of practice within European modernism is evidenced when we learn that Dasté had also worked with Antonin Artaud some ffteen years earlier. It was Artaud, as Alison Hodge notes in her introduction to a book of essays on actor training, who ‘called for a theatre which celebrated the nonverbal elements of consciousness . . . for a more sensuous physical actor . . . an “athlete of the heart”’ (Hodge 2000: 6). In the same period, through his exposure to Dasté, and Léon Chancerel (1886–1965), Lecoq frst began to work with masks and explore the commedia dell’arte. Refecting on this time, when he also worked with poet and writer, Gabriel Cousin (1918–), many of whose plays he was later to direct, Lecoq again emphasises the sporting connection: ‘as we were athletes . . . our fundamental gestural language was based on the sports we practised: I was a swimmer, he was a runner. Sports, movement and theatre were already closely related’ (Lecoq 2000: 4). 112

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Commedia dell’arte is a theatrical tradition that dates back to sixteenth-century Italy and has its deep roots in the theatre of ancient Greece. Commedia has had a signifcant infuence upon comic theatre throughout Europe ever since. Formally, commedia was improvised around a tight structure of stock characters (e.g. Pantalone and Harlequin), most of whom were masked, and incorporated various theatrical disciplines, including acrobatics, mime and slapstick. The challenge tor twentieth-century theatre practitioners interested in commedia, such as Lecoq, has been how to invest it with more than merely a historical or archival signifcance.

During these three years in Grenoble and Paris we must register Lecoq’s exposure to, and burgeoning interest in, various theatre forms that were to become central to his pedagogy and research, frst in Italy and then from 1956 at the Paris school. Working with masks, commedia dell’arte, the nature of movement and a political and emotional commitment to ‘popular’ theatre forms all continued to inform his thinking, and remained – with varying degrees of emphasis – central features of the curriculum at the Paris school. In 1948, Lecoq was invited to Italy to teach movement skills at the University of Padua, and so began an eight-year period during which time his reputation as a teacher, director and thinker blossomed. In Padua he began to direct plays at the University Theatre and here ‘he claims to have discovered le jeu de la Commedia Dell’Arte in the markets of the town’ (Frost and Yarrow 1990: 61). As we shall see, the idea of ‘le jeu’, which at its simplest means ‘play’, lies at the very heart of Lecoq’s analysis of acting. . . . In Padua, Lecoq met a young sculptor and mask-maker called Amleto Sartori and embarked on a partnership of great signifcance for his subsequent research and teaching: ‘the masks made by Amleto and his son Donato still make up an integral part of my pedagogic tools today’ (Lecoq 1987: 109). Amleto’s concept of the neutral mask was a product of detailed discussion with Lecoq, and was initially constructed and modelled around the contours of Lecoq’s own face. When Lecoq fnally left Italy for Paris in 1956, Amleto Sartori presented him with a full set of leather commedia masks, which he continued to use until his death in 1999. Sartori adapted the techniques of Renaissance bookbinding to the task of fabricating leather commedia masks, and together for nearly a decade they researched and investigated the relationship between the form and theatrical function of the mask. While this ‘great friendship’ ended with Sartori’s early death at the age of 46 in 1958, his son Donato continued to supply a range of masks for the school. A comment made by Lecoq many years later gives an indication that he had already seen the potential for political subversion in the ‘Italian comedy’: I don’t bury myself in historical references. I try to rediscover the spirit of these forms. Commedia has nothing to do with those little Italian troupes who export precious entertainments. It’s about misery, a world where life’s a luxury. . . . If you are thinking of Commedia forget about Italy. (Hiley 1998: 40) In 1951, Lecoq moved to Milan to join Paulo Grassi (1919–81) and Giorgio Strehler (1921–97) at the Piccolo Theatre. Grassi, an actor-director, and Strehler, a director, had founded the Piccolo in 1947 on an explicit anti-fascist ideology and with a commitment to reaching working-class audiences. By the time Lecoq arrived, the partnership had already 113

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launched the teatro stabile movement that – by the 1960s – had established a network of permanent troupes throughout Italy. By 1951, however, the Piccolo already had a reputation as one of Italy’s leading theatres, and Strehler and Grassi invited the young Lecoq to open a school there committed to the pedagogy of movement. Shortly after arriving at the Piccolo, Lecoq introduced Sartori to Strehler and all three worked together on his famous masked production of Goldoni’s A Servant of Two Masters. Lecoq collaborated with Grassi and Strehler until 1956 and, during this time, worked on over sixty productions, not only at the Piccolo, but for teatro stabile theatres in Rome, Syracuse and Venice as well. He directed and choreographed in a wide range of theatrical styles, but was particularly engrossed by Greek tragedy, pantomime and commedia. In her chapter on Lecoq in Apostles of Silence, Myra Felner observes that: He continued the exploration of the Commedia he had begun with Dasté. He examined the ancient mime traditions – the Greek chorus, the acrobatic Roman mime. He was searching for the roots of movement in the theatre. (Felner 1985: 147) It was during this period in Milan that Lecoq frst met and worked with Dario Fo (1926–). Both became members of a troupe committed to experimentation within a framework of popular theatre. In 1952 they created a couple of satirical and political reviews. These marked a major departure from the traditional ‘safe’ reviews which had until then been dominated by famous actors. Nearly ffty years later Fo received the Nobel Prize for Literature after a working life of writing, directing and performing theatre which had been resolutely antiestablishment – the Catholic Church, the State, the corruption of the ruling classes and the debilitating power of capitalism have all been the butt of his writing and theatre-making. Lecoq’s and Fo’s friendship and mutual respect continued until Lecoq’s death in 1999. Here, recorded for a French television profle of Lecoq shortly before his death, the two men refected on their early work together, and on the cultural and social conditions of Italy in the early 1950s: DF: We were children back then, I was 23 and you were 25, So we were really just kids. JL: We had no idea of the results of what we were doing. We just did it; we just made it up, but we had no idea. We weren’t diplomats or strategic about anything. DF: But there was a very important phenomenon that we were going through at the time. We were living among extraordinary renewal. We had to throw away everything and construct a world. The world had to be made all over again. JL: There were no more rules. There were no more rules. We had to make up the game again – fnd new rules. (Roy and Carasso 1999) This snatch of dialogue between two old men of European theatre has a resonance and poignancy to it, not least because the conversation was recorded within a year of Lecoq’s death. More importantly, perhaps, it reveals a strong feeling of optimism following the defeat of Fascism, and a sense that artists could – and should – empower themselves to invent afresh the rules of their particular creative work. For both these men the post-war landscape of Western theatre had 114

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to be re-mapped with diferent conventions and methods. In any attempt to understand what drove Lecoq it is essential to imagine the times and circumstances of his life as a child and young man. The collective and individual trauma of living through the Second World War, which so obviously shaped the perceptions of those who experienced it, was often matched by an overwhelming sense of the need for cultural, social and political renewal when the war had ended. It is always important to place the subsequent working lives of both Lecoq and Fo within this historical and cultural context. In 1956, at the age of thirty-fve, Lecoq returned to France and established the school he was to direct until his death in 1999. Much of the rest of this section concerns itself with an examination of what he was trying to achieve in Paris’s tenth arrondissement at 57 rue du Faubourg St Denis. While it is clear that the school was never simply a vehicle to train actors with the skills that Lecoq himself had acquired when working with Dasté in Grenoble, and later during his time in Italy, these years were crucial in constructing a platform upon which to launch the research and teaching that followed. As we noted earlier, most of the great fgures of twentieth-century theatre who were committed to rethinking the nature and direction of acting used the rehearsal studio as their arena for testing ideas and hypotheses. For Lecoq – at least from 1956 – the school was his ‘laboratory’ and students – rather than professional actors – were the subjects of his experiments. Clearly, his time in Italy was an episode of intense and energetic exploration of dramatic form, and a period that frmly established the theatrical territory he was to inhabit for the rest of his life. Lecoq’s relationship in Italy with fgures such as Strehler, Sartori and Fo, and his immersion in mask work, Greek chorus, improvisation, movement and the politics of popular theatre, all provided the framework and context which were to provoke the questions he continued to pose – of both himself and his students – for the next forty years from his base in Paris.

The Paris schools (1956–99) In life I want students to be alive, and on stage I want them to be artists. (Translated from Le Corps Poétique for obituaries in Total Theatre: Berkof et al. (1999)) I am nobody; I am only a neutral point through which you must pass in order to better articulate your own theatrical voice. I am only there to place obstacles in your path so you can fnd your own way around them. (Lecoq in conversation with Simon McBurney: McBurney (1991a)) The school moves; otherwise it dies. (Lecoq 1987: 120) From 1956, Lecoq devoted himself to running a school of: Mime and Theatre based on movement and the human body . . . a school of dramatic creation; it relies on knowledge of the organic and emotional dynamics of man and nature . . . the school concerns itself with theatre to be created; this theatre belongs to the pupils, their ideas, their quest. (Brochure advertising the school in the 1980s) 115

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During its frst twenty years, the school seemed always to be on the move within Paris, apparently shifting from one less than satisfactory space to another. Lecoq records the difcult conditions in which sometimes they had to function. For example, in the early 1970s the school was based in the American Centre on the Boulevard Raspail, and Lecoq notes wryly that it was a ‘vast, unheated space in which we worked on lessons wrapped in blankets’ (Lecoq 2000: 12). Despite the unsatisfactory nature of such a nomadic existence, the experience helped Lecoq to formulate his thoughts on the relationship between space, movement and creative discovery: ideas that were later to be explored more formally with the introduction of LEM (Laboratoire d’Étude du Mouvement). Diferent spaces proposed diferent possibilities for creative work and Lecoq was happy to be provoked by these: There were experiments with ‘danse concrète’ which ran parallel to ‘musique concrète’. It was also in this period that I tried to create theatre using the rules of sport. Two teams performed around the same theme – jealousy, for example, within the parameters of a basketball court . . . this was ‘theatre ball’. And it was also towards the end of this roaming around, at the Centre Américain, that the school discovered other artistic areas: melodrama, the storyteller mime, comic strips and tribunes. (Lecoq 1987: 118) Finally, in 1976, he found the premises (Le Central) ‘that seemed destined for us’ (Lecoq 2000: 12) at 57 rue du Faubourg St Denis in Paris’s tenth arrondissement. Most appropriately, given Lecoq’s early and abiding interest in sport, Le Central had been a gymnasium devoted to boxing. It had not only witnessed some of the great boxing contests of the frst half of the twentieth century, it was near to Copeau’s birthplace and where Louis Jouvet (1887–1951) lived and worked. Moreover, Le Central had inspired Marcel Carné’s flm, Air de Paris. When they took over the building it was, according to his wife Fay, almost a complete ruin and without electricity, changing rooms and toilets. Today, the ‘ruin’ has all the necessary facilities, the foyer and passageways decorated with photographs, posters and notices, and, at the heart of the building, a massive hall – once a boxing gymnasium – encircled high up by a precarious-looking wooden balcony. A lot of wood. Here, you can almost smell its history and feel the presence of the sporting fgures who once gave life to this extraordinary space, ‘redolent of that 1930’s world of the Popular Front which was so well captured by Jean Renoir [1894–1979] in his flms’ (Bradby 2002a). Characteristically, the school does not shout its presence to the world outside: only a small nondescript plaque on a heavy steel security door leading on to the street suggests that down a long narrow courtyard lies the building which Lecoq, with his wife, Fay, has turned into one of Europe’s leading laboratories of contemporary theatre practice. Rue du Faubourg St Denis itself is a busy, raucous and noisy thoroughfare. Today, much of it seems more or less equally devoted to the selling of sex, fruit, vegetables, fast food and cheap electrical gadgets. Training actors to move at number 57 sits happily alongside a variety of other uses to which the human body may be employed – a good place for a school devoted to exploring nature as well as culture; the perfect location to explore the ‘le jeu de boufons’; and, perhaps, the best possible site to enjoy the heightened emotions of melodrama, or the plebeian camaraderie of the Greek chorus. Far better here than in the more refned bourgeois quartiers of the seventh and eighth arrondissements. The short extract from a brochure – . . . – hints at the essence of what Lecoq’s school was trying to explore: the philosophical assumptions which remained more or less constant over fortythree years, and which underpinned all the practical teaching strategies employed by Lecoq 116

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and his colleagues. A school engaged with ‘dramatic creation’ rather than merely realising the theatrical edicts of other ‘masters’. A school that would spend time investigating the ‘emotional dynamics’ of – and between – man and nature. A school concerned with ‘theatre to be created’. Observe here a forward-looking stance that aspires to construct a theatre of the future, not simply re-presenting the theatre that is already known. Perhaps, above all, a school which – without any apparent awkwardness – speaks of ‘mime and theatre based on movement and the human body’ (brochure advertising the school). While Lecoq himself led the school, a small team of other tutors with particular skills and specialisms worked alongside him. Most tutors have been students at the school and should also have attended the third – optional – year in pedagogy. His second wife – Scottish-born Fay – led a team of administrators and often dealt with the world outside the school on behalf of her husband. Fay regularly toured with Lecoq when he was conducting workshops, or ofering his lecture-demonstration – Tout bouge – in diferent countries of the world. Where English translation was required, Fay would provide it. Entry to the school’s two-year course is upon the presentation of a satisfactory curriculum vitae and teacher’s reference, which should testify to the applicant’s movement and acting ability – or at least potential. No further audition or test of skill and potential is required at this point. Typically, about 100 students – ‘more than 50 nations have been represented’ (extract from school brochure in the mid-1980s) – enter the school every September. Although the frst term is ofcially a trial period during which both school and pupils decide whether the relationship will work, rarely more than ten students leave at this juncture, and when they do it is largely of their own volition. The end of the frst year, however, is a very diferent matter. At this point, Lecoq and his team would select those who were deemed suitable to progress into the second year. Sometimes as many as forty or ffty might have been asked to go at this point, leaving a core group of about thirty-fve or forty. Successful passage into the second year has never been predicated upon any formal examination or assessment and was based on Lecoq’s sense of who was ‘open’ (disponible) enough to beneft from a further year at the school. While it is stressed that those leaving the school are not being judged on the basis of their acting skills, it is hard to imagine that most departing students exit with much sense of pleasure and achievement. For frst-year students it is a time of great tension as they await the verdicts of their tutors. Nonetheless, the school is anxious to stress that the decision to ask students to leave is not about perceptions of quality, success or failure. Thomas Prattki, who took over as Director of Pedagogy at the school after Lecoq’s death in 1999, puts it like this: Maybe the student’s vision is already clear . . . they no longer need the school. It’s not a judgement about the quality of the student. Sometimes they confuse a desire for life with a desire for theatre. It’s not about whether a student ‘fts into the Lecoq approach’. (Prattki 2001) In addition to a third and entirely optional year on pedagogy, from 1977 Lecoq launched LEM (translated as Laboratory for the Study of Movement) as an evening class for those interested in studying the relationship between the human body and the constructed space in which it moves. In a brochure Lecoq described LEM as ‘a laboratory devoted to research . . . a place of experiment and of science’ (author’s translation). While LEM was not concerned with theatrical creation as such, the course focused on understanding the dramatic potential of objects and materials and the spatial relationships between them. Elsewhere in the same brochure Lecoq writes that the course studies ‘the dynamic of colours, their movement, 117

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their texture, their speed . . . and their relationship with the body and human passions’ (author’s translation). From such descriptions we can detect both a poetic and abstract quality to these enquiries, although for students attending LEM the actual process is a largely practical one entailing a considerable amount of making. One task was to construct balsa wood models that sought to capture and express the dynamic of the relationship between particular objects in space. As the word ‘laboratory’ implies, Lecoq conducted these workshops very much in a spirit of research and open-ended enquiry. He led the course jointly with an architect, and one imagines that the experience provided an opportunity for him to test and play with ideas – a freedom which was perhaps less available within the structure of the two-year course. Today, LEM continues to be a popular and signifcant adjunct to the main business of the school. . . . From 1956 until his death in 1999, Lecoq directed most of his considerable energy and imagination into the school. However, throughout this period – and certainly during the frst ffteen to twenty years of the school’s life – Lecoq used non-teaching time to engage in various directing and movement choreography projects. Fay Lecoq records that, from the late 1950s he was movement director for a BBC production of Prokofev’s Peter and the Wolf, worked with the opera in Rome, directed Mayakovsky’s The Flea in Berlin, choreographed for Les Ballets Contemporains in Lille, and regularly produced and choreographed Greek tragedies at Syracuse in Sicily. For the latter, according to Fay Lecoq, he would take his actors from Paris and rehearse for several weeks in Rome before opening the productions in Syracuse. In addition, the school’s publicity announces that he collaborated with the Comédie Française and the Schiller Theatre and advised on various French television productions. We know, too, that Lecoq was happy to ofer dramaturgical advice and support to ex-students whose companies he much admired, such as Mummenschanz, Footsbarn and Théâtre de Complicité. From the 1980s, as the school became well established, consolidated its international reputation and signifcantly increased its student intake, Lecoq had less and less time to devote to directing and choreographic projects. However, the annual summer school in Paris continued, as did a master class that was only ofered every four years. The latter allowed Lecoq to communicate and share special discoveries made from his research during the intervening period. The frst of these was in 1964 and included Steven Berkof as one of its participants. Alongside these regular commitments, he would also accept – but increasingly selectively – invitations to run classes and workshops in diferent parts of the world. For example, in 1982, at the request of the Arts Council of Great Britain, he ran the two-week British Summer School of Mime in London. In 1988 he conducted a fve-day workshop and performed Tout bouge (Everything Moves) – his seminal lecture-demonstration – at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall for the International Workshop Festival (IWF). By the time of his death, Lecoq had performed Tout bouge on numerous occasions across the world, and particularly in Japan, China, Australia and North America. In August 1990, at the invitation of Dick McCaw, who was now running the IWF, he taught a LEM masterclass with Krikor Belekian and his daughter, Pascale – both architects – at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. The workshop examined relationships between movement of the body, theatre and architecture, and was attended by architects and visual artists as well as theatre practitioners. At the time of writing – . . . – the school that Lecoq meticulously constructed continues to accept students. Fay Lecoq maintains overall administrative and managerial leadership, working with a college of teachers. From October 1999 until he left in July 2002, Director of Pedagogy at the school was Thomas Prattki, who had begun teaching there in 1993. Immediately after Lecoq’s death, there was considerable speculation as to whether the institution could survive 118

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without him – whether, indeed, it could attract pupils without the appeal of his intellectual leadership and provocation. However, the school recruits as healthily as ever, thus ofering an interesting comparison with other similar establishments where the death of the ‘master’ – of the ‘guru’ – would certainly have precipitated closure. Fay Lecoq remains committed to overseeing its development for as long as she is able, but clearly the school will continue to change and experiment – perhaps in ways unimagined by its founder.

Jacques Lecoq and the Western tradition of actor training Training actors (Actor training) is arguably the most important development in modern Western theatre making. Actor training in Europe and North America is a phenomenon of the twentieth century, and has come to inform both the concept and construction of the actor’s role, and consequently the entire dramatic process. (Hodge 2000: 1)

We have so far traced the main contours of Lecoq’s life and considered in some detail his school and its development in Paris. Earlier, I argued that Lecoq’s assiduous, but unfnished research into the pedagogy of actor training that privileged the performer’s body located him within a wider cultural and historical tradition – a tradition that regularly ofered a challenge to existing notions of the business of acting and, by implication, the nature of theatre itself. Alison Hodge suggests in the introduction to her book of essays (2000) that the development and formalisation of actor training in the West has been largely a twentieth-century phenomenon. While the systematic training of actors in Eastern forms of dance and drama such as Kathakali from Southern India and Noh theatre from Japan dates back to the Middle Ages, in the West – although we can identify some elaborate traditions and rituals of actor apprenticeship and ‘learning on the job’ – the frst specialist European drama school, Le Conservatoire National d’Art Dramatique in Paris, was not established until 1786. Indeed, while in the nineteenth century a small number of conservatoires were opened in a few major European cities, it is not until the twentieth century that any signifcant expansion in formal actor training began to take hold. The systematic organisation of the training of actors in the West has an interesting and symbiotic relationship to a number of other distinguishing features of twentieth-century European and North American theatre: its increasing commercialisation and commodifcation, the rise of the professional theatre director, the infuence of ‘scientifc’ research and psychology on the performing arts, and a growing interest in – and sometimes an extreme romanticisation of – Eastern dramatic forms and their associated training regimes. In this sense, training for the theatre refects the development of mass education in the West, and is both cause and consequence of industrialising societies’ need for a partially educated workforce. Training and education are not gifted by benign authorities, but are both fought for by diferent constituencies at particular times, and are the necessary corollary of industrialisation and market forces. At least in one sense Lecoq is no diferent from other key innovators in twentieth-century actor training – for example, Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Copeau, Brecht, Decroux and Grotowski. What all these fgures share are wider territories of intellectual interest, which spread well beyond the narrow inculcation of ‘technical’ skills. It is impossible to understand 119

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diferent models of actor training without considering the kind of theatre or performance such pedagogies were designed to address. None of these men sought simply to equip young actors for the theatrical status quo. In often sharply contrasting ways, each was trying to shift and redefne the parameters and possibilities of what constituted theatre and what its purpose should be. If the rationale for these models of actor training had been simply to help the student actor deliver text more persuasively, or move with greater fuidity and efectiveness on stage – all in the service of a naturalistic or realistic theatre – then our interest might be equally limited. The models of actor training practised and theorised by those fgures identifed above have all proposed relatively diferent answers to a similar set of questions – Lecoq no less than Meyerhold or Stanislavsky. Questions such as these: • • • • • • • • •

What kinds of relationship are possible between performers and spectators? Where do the boundaries between theatre and other art forms or cultural practices begin and end? What sorts of metaphors are useful to express the essence of this particular approach to training? What is the relationship between the actor’s body and the actor’s mind, and, indeed, is it helpful to pose these two as separate entities, the former ‘directing’, or controlling, the latter? How does the model of training understand the body and its construction? Is the attempt to defne and create a universal language of theatre either possible or desirable? How does the training regime acknowledge, deal with and utilise (for performance) notions of the ‘conscious’ and ‘unconscious’ mind? To what extent does the idea of, and quest for, ‘presence’ have any validity in a programme of actor training? How far does the training model seek to engage with issues and ideas beyond performance and theatre?

Any attempt to understand how diferent models of actor training actually work demands that the philosophical and cultural assumptions which inform practical teaching methods are teased out and identifed. While these questions may appear to be of little interest beyond the academy, answers to these enquiries have a concrete and tangible bearing on performance dramaturgy, such as the efcacy of particular approaches to acting, the spectator’s ability to ‘read’ the signs of performance, and the ideological infections and nuances of any piece of theatre and its component elements. The intelligent and creative director or actor has little choice but to have some kind of informed grasp of these issues. Teacher and director, Philip Zarrilli, neatly summarises the argument as follows: Every time an actor performs, he or she implicitly enacts a ‘theory’ of acting – a set of assumptions about the conventions and style which guide his or her performance, the structure of actions which he or she performs, the shape that those actions take . . . and the relationship to the audience. Informing these assumptions are culture-specifc assumptions about the body–mind relationship, the nature of the self, the emotions/ feelings, and performance context. (1995: 4) When interrogating the work of any radical and visionary teacher such as Lecoq, there is a delicate balance to be struck between locating their practice in a wider cultural-historical 120

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context on the one hand, and grasping the extent to which their work and ideas represent genuinely new and innovatory formulations and propositions on the other. To err too much on the side of the former is to run the risk of becoming overly derivative, or determinist in explaining a particular individual’s contribution to their art form. However, to overemphasise notions of originality, or, indeed – at its most extreme – of ‘genius’, is to idealise artistic process, and to uproot that fgure from both history and the contemporary culture in which he or she practised. In addition, there are two other – related – problems: how to defne what we mean by the term ‘infuence’; and how to use the luxurious commodity of hindsight with intelligence and sensitivity. The issue about infuence seems to pivot around how consciously and manifestly one subject acknowledges that his or her practice draws upon and develops ideas from another. The problem with hindsight is that its lofty vantage point encourages the commentator to make connections and to identify infuences that were never explicit or realised by the subject at the time he or she was a practising artist. Thus, while Lecoq acknowledged both Artaud and Copeau as signifcant in shaping his own thinking, the linkages one might want to make with, for example, Brecht and Meyerhold are more difcult to uncover and tease out. Similarities, connections, discontinuities and overlaps are there to be unearthed, but with Lecoq this is especially difcult, since he ofers few clues in his writing as to which other historical fgures he either admired, or for whom he had little time.

Copeau and Artaud: a complex legacy Copeau’s legacy for French and certain strands of European theatre has been well documented. His missionary vision for the rebirth of French theatre and training methods rooted in movement and corporeality have greatly infuenced subsequent generations of French theatre-makers. Schematically, these can be divided into two – overlapping – groups. On the one hand, there were those such as Charles Dullin, Louis Jouvet, Jean Dasté and Michel Saint-Denis, who worked largely in text-based, popular and often politically committed theatre during the interand post-war years; and on the other, a select group of individuals dedicated to the reinvention and modernisation of mime: Étienne Decroux, Jean-Louis Barrault, Jacques Lecoq and Marcel Marceau. While the work of Decroux and Marceau stands as a monument to the project of establishing mime as an autonomous art form distinct from dance and theatre, Barrault and Lecoq chose to inhabit a more expansive territory in which mime was redefned and had a signifcant, but only partial stake. In fact, Lecoq straddles both these groupings, as his early postwar theatre work was with Jean Dasté, and it is the latter who provides the most tangible link to Copeau. Lecoq joined Dasté’s Compagnie de Comédiens in Grenoble shortly after the war and stayed with him until the ensemble moved to St Étienne in 1947. Dasté – Copeau’s son-in-law – had been invited to Grenoble by former members of the cultural wing of the Resistance, and his purpose was nothing less than the reinvention of popular theatre: ‘to discover folly, festivity, the fundamental freedom of being’ (Dasté 1977: 43). In The Moving Body, Lecoq remarks that ‘through Dasté I discovered masked performance and Japanese Noh theatre, both of which have had a powerful infuence on me’ (2000: 5). Another link to Copeau was through Claude Martin, with whom Lecoq worked on improvisation during the immediate post-war period. Martin had been a pupil of Dullin, who too had trained with Copeau at Le Vieux Columbier. The main emphasis at Copeau’s school, Le Vieux Columbier, and later when he moved his company to Burgundy, was on movement preparation for the actor and on play. Certainly, Lecoq shares with Copeau a belief that movement training for the actor should not primarily 121

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be directed towards ftness, athleticism or technique, but must be harnessed as a means towards spontaneity, playfulness and creativity. In addition, physical training was crucial in the process of generating the chemistry of ensemble. Signifcantly, and in line with many avant-garde artists of the time, Copeau’s philosophy was also predicated upon a wider belief that in contemporary industrial society the modern ‘body’ was atrophied and dulled of its sensations. Christopher Innes in Avant Garde Theatre (1993) characterises the key quality of this cultural movement as ‘primitivism’ or, in other words, the desire to return to an imagined state of simplicity. This romantic yearning for a purer more wholesome existence echoes the philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s (1712–78) ideal of the ‘noble savage’: someone uncorrupted by the debilitating complexities and demands of modern industrial and bourgeois society. After rejecting Émile Jaques-Dalcroze’s (1865–1950) system of eurhythmics on the basis that it led to a narcissistic approach to the body, by 1921 Copeau had wholeheartedly embraced Georges Hébert’s (1875–1957) method of ‘natural gymnastics’. Hébert was an infuential theorist who had revolutionised approaches to physical education in Europe during the frst few decades of the century. According to Hébert, a key feature of man’s corporeal alienation in industrialised societies was that, as we grow into adulthood, our muscular development becomes limited, constrained and deformed. As a consequence we lose the instinct for play, and hence our expressivity and ability to be creative. Thus, for Copeau, an essential task in the training of the creative actor was to rediscover the child’s instinct for play. Essentially, this was to be achieved not through accretion and the addition of skills and techniques, but through a process of ‘shedding’ and stripping away, thereby removing those socialised impediments to spontaneous play. John Rudlin, in his essay on Copeau for the Hodge compilation, notes the link between Hébert’s and Lecoq’s teaching: Jacques Lecoq used the Hébert method in his school in Paris: ‘pull, push, climb, walk, run, jump, lift, carry, attack, defend, swim. These actions trace a physical circuitry in sensitive bodies in which emotions are imprinted.’ Lecoq himself came from a sporting background, and his is perhaps a larger claim for the potential of the method than Copeau would have believed possible. (Rudlin in Hodge 2000: 68) It is impossible to underestimate the signifcance of the insight that movement can nurture the capacity for play for generations of – selected – theatre-makers and trainers from Copeau’s time to the present. It is certainly a most important dimension of Lecoq’s pedagogy and practice at the Paris school. However, the extent to which Lecoq also shares this ‘primitivism’ and distaste for the ‘modern’ with early twentieth-century members of the cultural avant-garde such as Copeau, Artaud and Hébert is open to debate. . . . For some commentators, Lecoq’s use of the neutral mask and his preoccupation with the apparently uncluttered innocence of childhood is misconceived and philosophically dubious territory. On the other hand, the lengths to which Lecoq goes to circumscribe and contextualise the use of, for example, the neutral mask suggest that – on this score – he self-consciously distances himself from those avant-garde primitivists within the modernist movement. Beyond the centrality of movement and play to both Copeau and Lecoq’s pedagogies, the other main territories of shared interest lay in mask work, commedia dell’arte and Greek tragedy. Copeau introduced mask work in the early days of Le Vieux Columbier, but it rapidly became a critical element of his teaching. Instead of Lecoq’s neutral mask he employed the term ‘noble’, after the expressionless masks worn by the aristocracy until the eighteenth century in an attempt to remain anonymous. Working with these masks became central to his major project of 122

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achieving simplicity and neutrality in his students. In this condition they could fnd a fresh and intuitive relationship with objects, and execute actions which, Copeau argued, articulated the authenticity he sought in acting. The mask as a training tool had the potential of representing ‘the quintessence of theatrical transformation and provided the key to the actor’s approach to the role’ (Felner 1985: 42). When comparing the goals, strategies and techniques of both Copeau and Lecoq, it is tempting to overstress the common features of their work. Both identifed movement and play as a central conceptual and practical element to their teaching; both focused on the mask, the chorus and the commedia dell’arte as instruments for educating the modern actor, and – in the case of Greek tragedy and the ‘Italian Comedy’ – as a vehicle for theatrical innovation and renewal. Both, too, were committed to wider educational goals beyond a narrow and vocational training, believing that one could not make efective and creative actors without also educating them ‘for life’. Both, in other words, seem to share a common humanism that extends well beyond the stage itself. However, it is a great oversimplifcation to reduce Lecoq’s work to a late twentieth-century version of Copeau’s. In one crucial way, at least, there is a signifcant diference between the two men and their vision of training for theatre. While Copeau was certainly a radical in the sense that he almost single-handedly introduced the notion of an in-depth and continuous training for young actors at a time when French theatre was artistically and culturally bankrupt, the progressive innovations in pedagogy he ofered in his schools were designed to return theatre to the classics. Unlike Lecoq, his experiments in training were not directed towards a ‘new’ theatre. Essentially, Copeau was trying to discover fresh ways to do justice to the traditional repertoire of European theatre. By ‘purifying’ French theatre of its tricks and by shedding it of cabotinage – the phoney gimmicks of nineteenth-century performance – Copeau believed he was preparing theatre for a return to its imagined past. Thus, although Copeau remained one of Lecoq’s main ‘reference points’, there were, nonetheless, signifcant diferences between their practice, overall aspirations and objectives. In an interview with Jean Perret in Le Theatre du geste Lecoq acknowledges the infuence of Copeau in the early stages of his career: ‘it’s true that the proximity of Jacques Copeau and the Copiaux afected me and had a direct infuence’ (Lecoq 1987: 109). However, a little later in the same interview, when asked whether he was more infuenced by Copeau or Artaud and Dullin, Lecoq replies ‘much more by Artaud and Dullin’ (1987: 109). Thus, by the time of this interview – 1986/7 – it seems that it is the spirit of Artaud rather than Copeau which resonates most strongly. Clearly Lecoq and Artaud share a commitment to a dynamic visual theatre where movement and physicality are the primary motors of dramatic expression. Inevitably, perhaps, Artaud also connects with Copeau through Louis Jouvet who had set up his own school after a year at Le Vieux Columbier. Artaud attended Jouvet’s school and spoke passionately of the experience: We act with our deepest hearts, we act with our hands, our feet, all our muscles, and all our limbs. We feel the object, we smell it, we handle it, see it, hear it . . . all to fnd there is nothing there, no accessories. (cited in Bradby 1984: 5) In this comment we can fnd echoes of Lecoq’s own commitment to acting as primarily a corporeal and physical project, and to neutral mask exercises in which students are invited to experience the material world in ‘a state of receptiveness to everything around us, with no inner confict’ (Lecoq 2000: 36). What perhaps is more surprising – given his reputation as a wild 123

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and visionary seer – is that, for a period of his life, Artaud worked on a disciplined and rigorous physical training scheme for actors, believing, like Lecoq, that his vision of theatre could only be realised by performers with sharp movement skills and sensitivities. Where, one imagines, Lecoq might have had reservations about Artaud’s ideas is with the latter’s mission to rediscover the primitive ritual function of theatre. Artaud’s absolute rejection of logic and reason and – in their place – his advocacy of irrational spontaneity, delirium and the generation of trance-like states among actors and spectators alike contrasts strongly with Lecoq’s suspicion of the overly mystical or therapeutic aspects of theatre. The use of trance and delirium do not fgure in an inventory of teaching techniques employed at Lecoq’s school! It would be possible to devote considerably more space to teasing out connections between Lecoq’s ideas and those of other major thinkers and practitioners of twentieth-century theatre. However, the danger in such a project is that it becomes a purely academic exercise that loses touch with the reality of how Lecoq actually worked, both as pedagogue and researcher. The argument forcibly put to me by a number of the people interviewed for this work was that, while Lecoq was, of course, very aware of particular historical traditions of theatre practice – the dramatic territories of tragedy, commedia and melodrama, for example – the pulsating heart of all his work was the human body and its movement in space. David Bradby makes this point very clearly: He was not primarily interested in making connections with historical fgures. He was really interested in the body and how it moved, and that was the centre of everything. To ask if he was more infuenced by Copeau or Artaud, or whoever, is missing the point: missing the centre of his own natural passion and the way he developed his own teaching. (Bradby 2002a)

Jacques Lecoq: the body and culture This section . . . attempts to do two main things: 1 2

to trace the contours and details of Lecoq’s working life; and to look briefy at the bigger historical and cultural picture that frames this particular life.

The assumption here is that to attend to the wider context of a body of work helps to bring focus and perspective upon that work itself. Having identifed a relationship with the practice of two of Lecoq’s historical forebears – Copeau and Artaud – this section is concluded by briefy investigating two contemporary phenomena, an understanding of which helps to provide context to Lecoq’s life and work. Lecoq’s school has thrived at a time when we can observe two features of Western culture: one concerns the increasing production of – and demand for – theatre which has a strong visual dimension and where the actors’ bodies deliberately signify as much as words spoken; the other connects to wider preoccupations with the body in both intellectual enquiry and in many aspects of popular culture.

Physical and other theatres At the beginning of this account I noted that Lecoq was a central fgure in a loose movement of theatre artists, academics and teachers who, towards the end of the twentieth century, proposed – through theory and practice – that it is the performer’s live body more than the spoken text which gives theatre its defning identity in an age dominated culturally by flm, 124

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television and digital media. To put it another way, it is the body and its movement through and in space that is the crucial generator of meaning and signifcance in contemporary theatre. Performance work that foregrounds these features seems to have drawn its infuence from dance, theatre and the visual arts. Indeed, one of its important qualities is that it is work that apparently cares little for the traditional boundaries between diferent art forms. Over the last two decades, much of this practice has come to be labelled ‘physical theatre’ or ‘visual theatre’. By and large, the term is more of a marketing tool than a useful framework for analysing new developments in theatre practice. Lecoq himself gives little evidence in his writing of bothering with the term physical theatre – or its equivalents – preferring instead to reclaim mime from pantomime and the limitations of white-faced illusion. Although lacking analytical rigour, physical theatre is still a useful term to signpost a signifcant increase in performance work that privileges the actor’s body rather than the spoken word. Ana Sanchez-Colberg ofers a way of delineating this loose body of work: The term itself – ‘physical theatre’ – denotes a hybrid character and is testimony to its double legacy in both avant-garde theatre and dance. . . . The locating of physical theatre within the avant-garde means that attention must be given to issues of anti-establishment within the context of alienation and transgression common to both forms. . . . This body focus needs to be seen as arising from a progressive devaluation of language and a move towards a non-verbal idiom. (Sanchez-Colberg 1996: 40) While Sanchez-Colberg’s account is helpful in interrogating aspects of physical theatre as a cultural phenomenon, the picture she paints is a partial one. If we consider the range of theatrical forms which privilege the visual and movement dimensions of the language of performance, we discover a rather wider diversity of practice than she suggests. In addition to the legacies of modern dance and the theatrical avant-garde we should recognise other traditions that have also fed and shaped the contemporary phenomena of physical or movement theatres. To dance and the avantgarde we should add performance or live art, popular theatre, which includes circus, vaudeville and street performance, Eastern dance theatre and, of course, the French mime tradition. The conventions of the latter divide, in the two decades following the end of the Second World War, into the tightly codifed movement ‘grammar’ of Étienne Decroux, and Lecoq’s own physical preparation for a ‘new theatre’ or modern mime. A superfcial interpretation of this ‘explosion’ of physical theatres across Europe and North America since the early 1980s is to regard these simplistically as a direct expression – or outcome – of cultural formations which have increasingly demoted the value of the spoken word. Consequently – so the rhetoric goes – contemporary Western cultures seem to have downgraded the literary, and thus the cannon of great European playwriting has been usurped in favour of a visual, sensual and muscular form of new theatre. Seductive as such a reading might be to the afcionados of physical theatre, it is an unhistorical interpretation and infates the supremacy of this mode of theatre production over more traditional writer-dominated forms. In his introduction to replace with his book of essays – Jacques Lecoq and the British Theatre – Franc Chamberlain reminds the reader that, notwithstanding the significance of Lecoq’s teaching for contemporary Western theatre, and the rise of other forms of physical performance, devised theatre practice is still largely ignored and marginalised in most accounts of modern drama. Chamberlain’s point is reinforced by the 2001 edition of The New Penguin Dictionary of Theatre which succeeds in omitting any reference to Lecoq at all. Thus, the picture is inevitably more complex than a cursory glance might suggest. While since the early 1980s in Britain there has certainly been a signifcant increase in work that one 125

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might wish to label ‘physical theatre’, to suggest that before this period text-based literary theatre was monolithic in its domination is to ignore historical evidence. Although working from the play-text has been the overriding paradigm for British and – to a lesser extent – European theatre, other forms that challenge this hegemony have consistently intervened and nagged away throughout the twentieth century. Within the traditions of popular theatre, mime, performance art and the numerous, but sporadic, incursions of the avant-garde, the visual and physical languages of theatre have been in the ascendant. In conclusion, although we are forced to note the increasing popularity of theatre forms that privilege movement and performer physicality, particularly in Britain, but also in Europe and North America, empirical evidence alone does not answer to the question of ‘why such an increase at this historical juncture?’ Lecoq, however, ofers one kind of explanation: Mime becomes popular in a transitional period when theatre is in decline and is moving towards renewal. Theatre needs a heightened sense of movement because when the spoken word cannot express itself fully, it returns to the language of the body. (Vidal 1988) Here, Lecoq is suggesting the presence of a cyclical pattern where, at certain historical junctures, ‘speaking theatre’ exhausts itself and can only be replenished by returning to the ‘language of the body’. This kind of explanation has perhaps a particular appeal in Britain, where one is bound to note the weight on mainstream theatre practice – and on drama training – of a literary dramatic tradition going back at least to Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson. That an upsurge of physical theatres is particularly evident in the UK is sometimes explained as a long overdue reaction to the dominance of text based theatre – a much needed ‘catching up’ with the practices of continental Europe and beyond. The problem, however, remains of explaining why such a significant increase should occur at this particular historical moment. There is, too, a concern that all-embracing explanations which rest upon the notion of ‘cycles’ of cultural behaviour ignore the specifcs of historical circumstances in diferent countries. Below, I consider another factor: the almost obsessive concern with the body in popular culture and as an object of scrutiny in a wide number of academic disciplines.

The rise – and rise – of the body in contemporary culture Often, developments in drama are analysed as if theatre as an art form stood outside – and independent of – society: a model that speaks of theatre and society rather than theatre in society. In fact, theatre – like any artistic practice – has an intimate, though complex, relationship with wider socio-historical, political and cultural circumstances. Maria Shevtsova, writing about the sociology of drama, likens theatre to a seismograph: ‘it picks up tremors below the social surface, alerting audiences to dangers which may remain latent or actually erupt’ (Shevtsova 1989: 184). Cultural theorist Raymond Williams argues that trends and movements in theatre cannot simply be explained by individual choices and decisions, but that they are also an expression of wider cultural shifts in feeling and thinking. The essence of Williams’ cultural materialist analysis of theatre is neatly summarised by Stephen Regan: The methods or conventions of drama are not just technical preferences; they are, at the same time, ideas of reality and ways of seeing life that have been shaped by the interests and assumptions of a particular culture. (Regan 2000: 50) 126

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So, in fact, theatre is not merely a ‘seismograph picking up tremors . . .’, but at the same time is actually one of those tremors. It follows, therefore, that if we are to try to understand why, for example, there has been a dramatic increase in forms of physical theatre in certain countries of the West over the last two decades, at least part of that account will take us into territories outside theatre itself. It is an inadequate explanation to suggest that the physical theatre phenomenon is simply the coincidental consequence of all the autonomous choices of performers and theatre-makers predisposed – for whatever reasons – to give pre-eminence to performers’ physical and movement qualities. What distinguishes this particular period is that – outside the arena of theatre and drama – the human body has become central to the enquiries of other disciplines, many apparently quite unconnected to theatre practice. Since the 1970s, the body has become pre-eminent in social thought, and often remorselessly examined in subjects such as sociology, economics, cultural studies, psychology, health studies and sports science. Beyond purely academic concerns, within the territory of ‘popular culture’, interest in personal health, beauty, diet, sexual attraction, ftness and ageing has reached near obsessive proportions. As early as 1970, cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard was observing that: At the present time everything would seem to indicate that the body has become an object of salvation. It has literally replaced the soul in this moral and ideological function. (cited in Featherstone et al. 1991: 393) Why, then, this interest in the body? Broadly, there are two kinds of argument put forward to explain the trend. One concerns human identity, and the other capitalism’s need to turn the body into a marketable commodity so that money – profts – can be made from it. In his introduction to The Body and Social Theory (1993) Chris Shilling argues that the pre-eminence of the body within contemporary thought and popular culture is rooted in the elusive quest to discover the nature of personal identity. Here, it is argued that, in contemporary Western societies, declining religious and political beliefs have encouraged people to look elsewhere for those meanings that help to defne personal identity and selfhood. In these societies – variously described as ‘late capitalist’, ‘post-industrial’ or postmodern – it is the body in consumer culture which becomes the main bearer of symbolic value for our identity and, therefore, needs to be engaged in all manner of ways. Working on the body, dressing the body, decorating it, altering its shape, keeping it ft and in good health, disguising it or reinventing it where necessary – all these become activities for people concerned with defning and sustaining a sense of self and personal identity in late capitalist societies. If this hypothesis is even broadly correct, then a large variety of contemporary cultural activities – from keep-ft to fashion, from sports science to plastic surgery, from the club scene to physical theatre – can be given an overall explanatory context. The rise of various types of physical theatre, it might be argued, refects and shadows this wider trend. Concern with identity is, of course, but one explanatory proposition among others that claims to help clarify reasons for the pre-eminence of the body within contemporary social thought and popular culture. However, for cultural theorist, Fredric Jameson (1991), any explanation of late capitalism’s love afair with the body has to be rooted in ideas concerning commodifcation. Here the argument is that capitalism, in its unquenchable thirst to make profts, is driven to fnd more and more things to sell, to make money from. If, therefore, we can be persuaded that our identity is bound up with the way our bodies are perceived in society, then there is money to be made – there is a market – out of altering those bodies and/or the perceptions 127

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that surround them. From this perspective, concern for the body and how it looks becomes less of an innocent and harmless preoccupation, and rather more tainted by the potentially murky world of markets and fnance capital. What connections are there – if any – between these social and cultural theories, Jacques Lecoq’s school in Paris and the phenomenon of physical theatres? The reason for this short diversion into cultural theory is to suggest that we need to look both within and outside the structures of theatre-making in order to understand why a particular trend establishes itself at any given moment. Is it merely coincidence that, at a time of considerable growth in what has popularly been labelled physical theatre, there has also been a startling increase in our preoccupations with the body? To propose that this is more than mere coincidence is not to suggest that all those involved in the cultural practices of physical theatre are simple dupes, driven by forces they are neither conscious of, nor understand. Rather, it is to propose the notion that at least part of the reason for the growth of physical theatres – and associated institutions like Lecoq’s school in Paris – is that they resonate with the ‘temper of the times’. To put it slightly diferently: the phenomenon of physical theatre articulates and expresses in all sorts of complex ways a wider interest in the human body and its signifcance in the world. A presupposition that these various cultural theories share – and one which is particularly relevant to all forms of artistic activity – is that the human body is not a fxed biological, anatomical or ‘god-given’ entity. Rather, the body carries the traces of its own history – it ‘speaks’ of who we are. When we look at bodies – including our own – we see more than just fesh, hair, blood, muscles and so on. We see personal biography, the marks of sufering or happiness, and the imprint of class, gender, race and all those other characteristics and dispositions that make us who we are. This is an insight – an understanding – that lies at the heart of any theatre which chooses to foreground bodies, gestures and movement in its practice. Here, perhaps, a connection between the growth of physical theatre and those wider cultural forces identifed above is most transparent. It is no coincidence, therefore, that the body has become a focus of attention in the work of, for example, certain black, gay or female theatre practitioners as a way of exploding and critiquing cultural preconceptions and prejudices. In live art and certain types of physical theatre, the body is regularly used to investigate the unspoken, the forgotten and the silenced, thus bringing marginalised or hitherto excluded experience to the foreground of the performance arena. This section of the chapter has invited the reader to speculate momentarily upon theatre in society, and to consider some of the possible relationships between wider social forces at work in the contemporary world and physical theatre as one form of cultural production. The intention here has been temporarily to divert our focus away from the fgure of Jacques Lecoq and to dwell briefy on a bigger picture in the hope that, by so doing, we have a clearer sense of the context into which his work needs to be located. To venture briefy down this avenue is not to diminish Lecoq’s status within modern theatre, but to place his contribution upon a broader canvas so as to understand it better.

Summary and conclusion In this section I have attempted to map out the defning features of Jacques Lecoq’s life and work in theatre, and to place it historically and culturally within a larger context. I have suggested that, while his research and teaching into actor training and the role of movement within theatre have made a radical and particular contribution to twentieth-century Western performance, his practice can only be fully understood by locating it historically within other signifcant developments, and laterally in contemporary cultural thinking on the body. 128

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Without proposing that there is an uncomplicated relationship between broader cultural thinking and specifc artistic practices, I have argued that it is helpful to locate the physical theatre phenomenon, and hence Lecoq’s contribution to these innovations in form and style, within that matrix of social and cultural thinking which has given pre-eminence to the body. Following Raymond Williams, I have indicated that a cultural materialist approach to understanding the phenomenon of body-based theatres is an essential accompaniment to a close ‘textual’ investigation of the forms themselves. I have argued that Lecoq – sometimes explicitly, often implicitly – was responding to many of the same sorts of questions that other key fgures engaged in twentieth-century actor training were also tackling. I have suggested, too, that, while Lecoq was clearly infuenced by the practice of Copeau and Artaud, it is ultimately unhelpful to search for a ‘defnitive’ legacy inherited from other earlier theatre practitioners. It is always important to recall Lecoq’s background in sporting activities, and as a physiotherapist, when struggling to understand how he perceived the human body and its movement. His defning and abiding curiosity was always anchored in these two issues.

13.2 Traces of Jacques Lecoq: Théâtre de Complicité’s Street of Crocodiles and the work of Mummenschanz For most of the titles that fgure in the Performance Practitioners series, . . . [M]ost of the titles . . . in the Performance Practitioners series . . . focus on one production directed by the theatre pracititoner in question. Although Lecoq certainly directed professionally when working in Italy between 1948 and 1956, and did so again sporadically in Europe for television, flm and the stage up until the 1980s, there is little documented evidence from which to study such work. More importantly, however, it would seem strange to focus on Lecoq as director when the overwhelming thrust of this account has been to consider his contribution to world theatre as teacher and theorist of actor training. Here, I direct my attention towards tracing Lecoq’s infuence through the work of two very diferent companies, most of whose founder members trained at his Paris School. As Franc Chamberlain explains in Jacques Lecoq and the British Theatre, detecting his infuence upon the theatre of Britain, or indeed any country, is a difcult and risk-laden task. Chamberlain observes: There is no ensemble with whom Lecoq is uniquely associated, no performer who is the Lecoq disciple par excellence. Lecoq ofers a method of working, what the students do with it is up to them. He does not direct them. He does not tell them what to say. . . . Lecoq’s work cannot be ‘diluted’ or ‘polluted’ by graduates developing it in their own way; there is no pure Lecoq form. (Chamberlain and Yarrow 2002: 4) The risks in examining the work of two companies in order to identify the traces of Lecoq’s teaching are several. First, there is the danger of reducing a complex relationship to a crudely mechanical and deterministic one. Second, the possibility exists of rendering a disservice to such companies by ignoring other infuences that have shaped their work, and the extent to which participants have forged their own collective creative identity over the course of time. Finally, there is the hazard of imposing a stifing post-hoc academic framework on to a relationship that is, in fact, fuid, organic and endlessly under negotiation. In public statements, interviews, programme notes and flm credits, both companies are ready to acknowledge Lecoq’s infuence and what follows takes such willingness at its face value. 129

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The choice of Théâtre de Complicité’s director, Simon McBurney, to write a foreword to the English translation of Lecoq’s book speaks of a warm relationship between the two men, and of a debt the former is happy to acknowledge to his old teacher. Similarly, Bernie Schürch, one of the founders of Mummenschanz, is featured in the 1999 profle of Lecoq, Les Deux Voyages de Jacques Lecoq, shown on French television. Here, Schürch talks of Lecoq opening up their preconceptions of mask work, and of his encouragement ‘to go towards the unreasonable, to go beyond the conceivable’ (Roy and Carasso 1999). However, it is twenty years since the founder members of Complicité trained with Lecoq and over thirty since Bernie Schürch and Andres Bossard of Mummenschanz left the Paris school. During the intervening period, the possibilities for these artists to revise, reject, forget, embellish, distort and reconstruct the principles and practices of what they learned with Lecoq are considerable. Moreover, the desirability of any mature artist seeking renewal and change through alternative sources of infuence and inspiration over such a time can neither be denied nor disparaged. The purpose, therefore, of this account is not to construct a rigid framework which identifes in the work of Mummenschanz and Complicité a Lecoq injunction here, or a specifc teaching exercise there – a checklist of Lecoq precepts which when found to be present in the work of these two companies ‘proves the case’ of his infuence and legacy. To frame the task in this way would be to diminish and fundamentally misunderstand what his teaching represented. Rather, it is to scan this work, so as to trace where the spirit of Lecoq – his principles, passions, preoccupations, discoveries, insights, prejudices and idiosyncrasies – apparently live on and are being reinvented or discovered afresh by those who once trained with him.

The case of Théâtre de Complicité Théâtre de Complicité was launched in 1982 by Simon McBurney, Marcello Magni and Annabel Arden. Magni and McBurney had met at Lecoq’s school in 1980 and McBurney and Arden had been students together at Cambridge. For much of the 1980s, Complicité made comicdevised work and, like many young companies, toured extensively on the small-scale theatre circuit, initially in Britain, but increasingly throughout Europe. While the founding trio had imagined they might locate themselves in France, it was, in fact, London where the company established its base. Complicité has always operated as a loose international ensemble of performers, designers, administrators and musicians. However, what unites most of the actors who have performed with the company is that they have either trained with Lecoq, or undertaken a variety of workshops with Philippe Gaulier and Monika Pagneux. Hence, most Complicité performers have been exposed – with varying degrees of immersion – to a common lexicon of precepts and practices from these three renowned teachers of theatre, movement and acting. Complicité actors can therefore draw upon a shared basic vocabulary when tackling any new theatre project. At the centre of this lies, one imagines, a rooted belief and confdence that the actor’s job is a creative one in the plural authorship of the piece in question, and not merely one of interpretation. Throughout much of the 1980s Théâtre de Complicité’s work was devised from the ideas, preoccupations and passions of the ensemble. Confdence bred from Lecoq’s weekly auto-cours fed the company’s founder members with a belief that, rather than having to rely on existing play scripts, they could collectively create their own texts for theatre – a tendency shared with many other small companies emerging from the Paris school. Almost all of Complicité’s early work was comic, though often bleakly and mordantly so. Preoccupation with the tragic has rarely been far from the narratives constructed by the company.

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A Minute Too Late (1984) was inspired by funeral parlours, a cemetery and the death of McBurney’s father; More Bigger Snacks Now (1985) featured four men on a grimy sofa fantasising about friendship and consumerism; Please, Please, Please (1986) revealed the wreckage of a family Christmas; and Anything for a Quiet Life (1988) chillingly explored the banalities and submerged hysteria of ofce life. It is less well known that, during this period, the company not only created a number of solo shows with Tim Barlow, Linda Kerr Scott and Celia Gore Booth, but also experimented in music theatre with Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot, Escape for Tuba and The Phantom Violin. Conventional wisdom sometimes suggests that, after six or seven years, Complicité fnally ‘grew up and got serious’, abandoned devising comedy and started doing ‘signifcant’ plays. This change of direction was either to be deplored or celebrated according to one’s disposition. Reality, of course, was more complex and such accounts gloss over the tragic dimension of much of the company’s early work, and ignore the inventive devising qualities that were later applied to plays (The Winter’s Tale, The Visit and The Caucasian Chalk Circle) and stories adapted for the stage (Out of a House Walked a Man . . . , Street of Crocodiles and The Three Lives of Lucy Cabrol). With Mnemonic (1999) the company has apparently returned again to the devising process. However, to suggest that the categories of devised work, play script and adapted story are each mutually exclusive, demanding totally diferent approaches to theatre making, is fundamentally to misunderstand the way Complicité works. Regardless of a project’s starting point, the company harnesses the same commitment to the visual and corporeal dimensions of performance, and an inventive and collaborative approach to authorship. This much remains constant.

The Street of Crocodiles Having seen many of Complicité’s productions since the mid-1980s, I had – in theory – a wide range of choices upon which to construct this case study. I have chosen The Street of Crocodiles (hereafter merely Crocodiles), because it seemed the best exemplar of Complicité’s work from the late 1980s through the 1990s for this particular purpose. Rehearsed and premiered in partnership with London’s National Theatre in 1991, and based upon the short stories of Polish writer, Bruno Schulz (1892–1942), Crocodiles was relatively early in the company’s exploration of the theatrical large-scale, following critical afrmation it had received for the production of Durrenmatt’s play, The Visit. Writing in the preface to the script for Crocodiles published in 1999, Simon McBurney and Mark Wheatley noted that ‘eight years after the journey began, it is still migrating, developing and changing’ (Théâtre de Complicité 1999). On and of for over eight years Crocodiles toured the world, receiving awards and accolades. I saw the production early in its history at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre and, by chance, on a day that marked the fftieth anniversary of the Nazi’s destruction of the Warsaw ghetto. This coincidence added an extra degree of poignancy to what was already a highly emotionally charged piece of theatre. In the account that follows, I shall devote relatively little space to describing or analysing Crocodiles as such. Rather, my concern here is to identify those qualities within the piece that seem to articulate and resonate with some of the key principles embodied in Lecoq’s teaching. As well as considering the company’s strategies in rehearsal, I shall look at a number of the dramaturgical devices employed in the piece – for example, the life of material objects, the physicalising of text and the harnessing of individual performers into an ensemble. In addition, I want to propose that there is an intriguing congruence between some of Lecoq’s own preoccupations and Complicité’s choice of Schulz’s stories as the driving impulse behind this particular production.

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Pretty much born for each other: Schulz and Complicité Complicité’s production draws upon two collections of Schulz’s stories: The Street of Crocodiles (1934) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (1937). The stories, although fantastical and dreamlike – or nightmarish – seem to capture an extraordinary level of detail about human foibles in small town Poland between the wars. Often peopled by members of his own family, Schulz’s fctions are at times closely biographical, although never in a literal manner. Madness, ill health and eroticism thread their way through the narratives, coexisting with bizarrely sumptuous descriptions of matter and animal life. The writing is deeply sensual; at one moment conveying the scents of a hazy summer’s afternoon, at another, the emotional anguish of loneliness born from an inability to make real contact with other human beings, especially women. Schulz writes of a material world constantly in a state of fux and instability, where boredom is the main driving force of curiosity, and where joy of the erotic is to be derived from punishment and guilt. Schulz’s writing has been compared to Proust (‘infation of the past and ecstatic reaches of simile’) and Kafka (‘father obsession and metamorphic fantasies’) (Updike 1988: 118).

Schultz and Complicité •

Schulz and Théâtre de Complicité are pretty much born for each other, because there is a complete inter-connectedness of character, object, music, sound, image . . . it’s completely illogical and it’s desperately searching for some sort of poetry. (Théâtre de Complicité [Annabel Arden] 1992)

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The Complicité players are natural Schulz interpreters. Like him they transmogrify life, grotesquely changing forms and appearances . . . they see visual reality as unstable, the way Schulz sees narrative reality. (Fulford 1988)

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[Théâtre de Complicité] is attracted to the marginalized and the dispossessed, and takes them into the centre: the writings of the Polish Jew, Bruno Schulz, snufed out by the Holocaust, in The Street of Crocodiles, say. (Gardner 1997)

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Schulz’s writing provides no obvious key to dramatisation. It embodies the elastic, unmanageable and adhesive qualities of time. . . . There is little dialogue, no enticing narrative in the ordinary sense and not a hint of the conventional satisfactions of dramatic structure. (McBurney 1992)

Like all Complicité’s work, Crocodiles was never ‘fnished’ and, perhaps, experienced more revisions over eight years than many of the company’s other productions. The piece of theatre I witnessed in Edinburgh in the early 1990s would have looked diferent in signifcant ways to a performance of Crocodiles I might have seen at London’s Queen’s Theatre during January 1999. Making little attempt either to communicate Schulz’s life in any chronological sequence, or to retell his tales, Complicité’s Crocodiles jettisons the normal rules of linear narrative, placing elements, themes and curious details from the stories within a larger personal and historical 132

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frame. Through selected fragments of Schulz’s fction, we begin to construct a picture of his life and the times in which he lived. The outer frame of the drama exposes the personal tragedy of Schulz’s life – shot by a Gestapo ofcer in the Drohobycz ghetto in November 1942. But this in turn is placed within the larger picture of central European history during the 1920s and 1930s, culminating in the rise of Nazi Germany and the ensuing Holocaust and World War. In notes at the beginning of the script’s 1999 publication, McBurney and Wheatley convey something of how the company worked in creating Crocodiles: Our process involved not only the writing of original dialogue (as with any play) but also the lifting of text direct from the stories (and from Schulz’s letters and essays). We used descriptions of him given to us by Jacob. We worked on improvisations in which the actors played out the process of memory which lies at the heart of all his stories. We created the atmosphere of his times and the mechanism of his dreams. We investigated the rhythm of his nightmares and his intense engagement with his beloved and despised solitude. (Théâtre de Complicité 1999) Jacob Schulz was Bruno’s nephew. He worked closely with the company throughout the devising process and as the work began to tour. Jacob died in 1997 and both text and the fnal performances of Crocodiles were dedicated to him.

Preparation, devising and rehearsal One of the defning features of Lecoq’s teaching was a refusal to separate physical preparation – or training – from dramatic creation. . . . From the BBC2 Late Show profle of Complicité in rehearsal for Crocodiles, we catch glimpses of how stuf – theatrical material – was created. Early in the process we watch members of the cast working in pairs, sitting back-to-back on the foor. Here, as one slowly leans backwards the other curls forward, so, like Siamese twins, their backs appear joined from pelvis to neck. Exploring their backs they stretch and push: no great physical exertion, rather a gentle discovery of each other’s spines, leading into imbalances and sometimes to a position of standing – bodies opening and preparing. Now, we have a brief glimpse of actors trying out simple lifts and carries. ‘We’re looking for that little moment’, says McBurney, ‘which might get into the show’ (The Late Show 1992). A little later, we watch director McBurney inviting the pairs to roll together ‘just a couple of yards across the foor’. Developing the exercise further, two actors gently engaged in a rolling embrace are helped on their way by a third. ‘Tu le pousse’ (‘you push him’), says the director. So far there is no obvious sense of any dramatic business in the making, but several things are happening: bodies are preparing themselves, Lecoq’s basic motors of dramatic creation – pushing and pulling – are being explored, although at this stage without context or specifc theatrical purpose, and all the while a slow and hidden nurturing of complicité and ensemble is being physically constructed among the performers. In a moment, the camera pans across the rehearsal studio to reveal what we later recognise as the opening sequence of the show. From the clever editing of a television documentary it is impossible to know how many actual days or weeks have elapsed since the frst back-to-back exercise, or indeed how close to opening night is this point in rehearsal. Nonetheless, we watch: •

Annabel Arden (The Mother) shufing forward on her knees, carrying a huge book on her left shoulder; 133

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Cesar Sarachu (Joseph – the fctional representation of Schulz himself) sensually smelling and stroking a book; Clive Mendus (Uncle Charles) and Hayley Carmichael (Maria) locked together, rolling slowly and lyrically across the foor; Matthew Scurfeld (The Father) walking deliberately, but lightly, across the space with Lilo Baur (The Maid) draped over his shoulders; Antonio Gill Martinez (Cousin Emil) searching through the pages of a book, and crossing the space with Joyce Carmichael (Agatha), similarly draped over his shoulders; Stefan Metz (Leon) bent double, slowly ‘stepping’ a pair of heavy boots, which he is holding by their heels; and the legs of Eric Mallett (Theodore) descending a ladder. In performance he will ‘walk’ down the back wall, suspended by a (concealed) rope.

As the documentary reaches its conclusion, we watch the opening few minutes of Crocodiles on its frst night, and here the fruits of this journey from frst movement exercise to fully realised dramatic material are made explicit. Of course, from the scenario detailed above there have been further revisions. Notably, actor Scurfeld has replaced Mendus in the rolling sequence with Carmichael, and now, holding a book, he reads: ‘once early in the morning towards the end of winter I visited such a forgotten chamber. From all the crevices in the foor, from all the mouldings, from every recess there grew slim shoots’ (Théâtre de Complicité 1999: 7). I have traced this progression of events in some detail, as in a graphic way it feshes out a central principle of Lecoq’s teaching. Apart from the precept identifed above of not isolating physical preparation from dramatic creation, the sequence also illustrates another fundamental dimension of Lecoq’s thinking, namely that motion provokes emotion. To put it another way, one can begin to construct characters – and the meanings for which they are a vehicle – by working physically rather than through psychological motivation. While this is not an insight unique to Lecoq (cf. Meyerhold, Grotowski and Barba), it is a critical element in his approach to theatre dramaturgy. McBurney encapsulates the devising and creative process deconstructed above: The structure is much more one of a cross between a sculptor and a football team where I will simply be trying to lead people from a game into an exercise – a physical exercise to build up their strength – into another game, which leads into a scene, and from out of the scene . . . so they hardly know when they are in a scene or not in a scene, (The Late Show 1992) For Lecoq the term preparation – rather than notions of training, skills, techniques, etc. – captured the essence of his project. Of course, students acquired new skills during their time at the school, but this was almost as a by-product of something more important, namely a confdence to play imaginatively and creatively. It was also, I suggest, a confdence to be open to all creative possibilities and the corollary of this: enough personal and collective strength to admit to not knowing answers and solutions. While Lecoq’s pedagogy, as we have seen, was built upon some unyielding principles, within this framework he frmly believed in the notion that uncertainty leads to discovery. For any artist, too much certainty closes shut the possibility of creative discovery. I have reiterated these points because they seem to capture the spirit of Complicité’s journey through a typical rehearsal process, and particularly as they approached Crocodiles. 134

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In The Moving Body, Lecoq writes about the ‘ricochet efect’, that is to say, an approach that welcomes the unexpected and the unanticipated as triggers for creative discovery. McBurney acknowledges something similar when tackling a new show: I often ask myself what the origin is for doing a piece and I have to conclude that there is no origin: if you start looking for a single point of departure you will never fnd it. . . . I’ll have an impulse and during rehearsals I’ll go miles and miles away from it only to return to it, to revisit and refnd the point of departure. (McBurney 1999b: 67) However, the crucial point here is that a director can only really have confdence to ride with so much uncertainty and fuidity in a rehearsal period if the ground has been prepared in advance. For Complicité, part of this ‘ground preparation’ has already been achieved, because almost all the actors have experienced the teaching of Lecoq, Gaulier and Pagneux at one time or another, and hence arrive at the frst day of rehearsals with a ‘common language’. This, says McBurney, means a ‘physical, vocal, musical and architectural language: all those elements which make up a theatre language’ (1999b: 75). The preparation, however, continues into rehearsal and becomes contextualised by the ‘collective imagining’ of the cast around the impulse or theme of the project. It is important to stress again that this preparation does not isolate the purely physical or technical from the creative. It is a linked preparation for a state of mind and for the musculature, of the individual actor and of the ensemble – none separated from the other. An approach, it is salutary to note, that is peculiar neither to Lecoq’s teaching nor to McBurney’s directing, but one which links them laterally both to Peter Brook, on the one hand, and Joan Littlewood, on the other, and historically back to Meyerhold and Copeau. McBurney encapsulates the process of preparation like this: The value in preparation, other than facilitating greater communication between people, is again to do with the unexpected. I do not prepare people so that they know about where they are going. I prepare them so that they are ready: ready to change, ready to be surprised, ready to seize any opportunity that comes their way. (1999b: 71)

The life of material objects In these stories, Schulz’s vision – his obsessive preoccupation – is with the existence of matter. From the stultifying boredom of daily life in Drohobycz and from the loneliness he managed to both cherish and loathe, Schulz constructed an imaginative world ‘in which human beings, objects, spaces take on temporary unstable shapes and forms before metamorphosing into new ones. The accent is always on transformation’ (Croft 1992). In an interview with his friend, Polish playwright Stanislaw Witkiewicz, Schulz writes that matter is: In a state of perpetual fermentation, germination, potential life. There are no dead, hard limited objects. Everything spreads beyond its own boundaries, remains but a moment in its given shape, only to abandon it at the frst opportunity. (Schulz 1980) Earlier I quoted Annabel Arden as saying that Schulz and Complicité were ‘born for each other’, and to this one might take the liberty of adding Lecoq’s name as well. Throughout his 135

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working life, Lecoq was preoccupied not only with the human body and its movement, but also with matter – its texture, its movement and its relationship to the surrounding space. Both with the neutral mask and through LEM, Lecoq invited his students to explore the properties of life and matter. In the case of neutral mask teaching, this was as a tool of transformation towards dramatic character, while in LEM, however, his attention was focused upon the relationship between objects or bodies and the space they create and disrupt. Lecoq himself might well have spoken The Father’s words when he says to Charles: ‘I am concerned with this section of space which you are flling’ (Théâtre de Complicité 1999: 32). Lecoq brings both the aesthetic concern of a visual artist and the pragmatic interest of the theatre-maker to this preoccupation with space, objects and materials – their form, movement and texture. On a number of occasions he talked of his Paris establishment as more of an art than a theatre school. We must remember, too, that, until the Nazis banned him from teaching, Schulz had taught art at the local high school in Drohobycz. At one level, Crocodiles seems a celebration of the mysteriously unstable and ever-changing nature of matter. While Schulz’s writing invites this, it is clear that Lecoq’s legacy provided both McBurney as director and the Complicité actors with a theatre language that gave them the wherewithal to render Schulz’s imagery into dramatic form. ‘I am fascinated by the movement of things. The whole nature of the way that you integrate the movement of everyday life with action on stage I fnd obsessively interesting’, says McBurney in the Late Show documentary. Here, the connection between Lecoq, Schulz and Complicité becomes manifest. These Schulz stories are an obvious, but nonetheless challenging, vehicle in which a company such as Complicité could test Lecoq’s ideas and extend some of his teaching principles into the practice of constructing a piece of theatre. I am not suggesting that this was ever a conscious strategy on the part of McBurney and his colleagues when working on Crocodiles, but it does not seem too fanciful to propose that, de facto, this is what was happening as they collectively created the work. Notions of transformation, metamorphosis and mutation are the currency of acting, but Lecoq’s interest, as we have seen, extends well beyond the representation of role: the actor’s metamorphosis into character. For Lecoq, and for those who choose to embrace his principles, the scope of the actor’s job is much wider and extends into the imaginative – rather than purely mimetic – representation of life. Here, actors must have the skill, confdence and imagination to transform themselves into objects, materials and any non-human life form that the texts of the piece require. Complicité’s work has long been associated with this quality and in Crocodiles the scope for such mutation is considerable. The following represent some examples of script and action from the production: • •

•

As school chairs are raised above the actors’ heads a classroom becomes a forest. In a scene recalling Joseph’s early days as a teacher of carpentry, blocks of wood become alive, taking on a life of their own as these stage instructions reveal: ‘Emil’s wood which he has dropped on to the foor, leaps back into his hands. Everyone wants to try this out. Wood and tools and chairs fall everywhere’ (Théâtre de Complicité 1999: 15). A scene entitled Father’s Beautiful Shop physically engages the performers in the textural qualities of the cloth to be found in this draper’s business. Two staging instructions make the point: ‘The cloth begins to move. Emil, Charles, Agatha and Maria move with it, apparently knocked of balance by its beauty. This rapidly leads to a dance.’ And: ‘He passes his hand over the cloth. It makes a ringing sound’ and the Father says: ‘If you fold the cloth according to the principles it will emit a sound like a descending scale’ (Théâtre de Complicité 1999: 25). 136

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• •

Books apparently being read by the characters, undulating from their spines, become fapping birds. At a dinner table, spoons, forks and plates begin to vibrate and jump, animated playfully by the actors, but as if they had suddenly acquired a life-force of their own.

My argument here is that we can detect overlapping preoccupations between Schulz, Lecoq and Complicité in relation to objects and bodies and their movement in space. Notwithstanding McBurney’s protestations about how ‘utterly ridiculous’ (Late Show) it was to make theatre from Schulz’s stories, there is something strongly theatrical in Schulz’s ideas and their articulation through his fctions. Writer, Jonathan Romney, ofers a link to Artaud and the avant-garde: The reason Schulz’s stories lend themselves so brilliantly to the stage is because they ofer . . . [a] manifesto of theatre practice – take his key passages about objects, append them to everything Artaud has to say about human actors, and you have the heart of 20th century avant-garde in a nutshell. (Romney 1999)

Sharing a politics of the imagination: Lecoq and Complicité In the inextricable journey from the physical to the creative; in considering how Complicité prepares for work; and in the piece’s preoccupation with objects and matter, we have identifed clear links with Lecoq’s thinking and teaching practice. There are other connections, too, which suggest themselves from looking closely at Crocodiles. Here, we are investigating an imaginative landscape and theatrical territory where, one supposes, there would have been a strong empathy between Lecoq and Complicité over what the latter was trying to achieve. As analysis of his writing reveals, Lecoq believed unambiguously that a theatre school should have a ‘visionary aspect, developing new languages of the stage and thus assisting in the renewal of theatre itself ’ (Lecoq 2000: 162). More specifcally, the ‘new theatre of tomorrow’ was for him a theatre that did not try to ape the realism of cinema and television. Lecoq was not interested in a theatre which aspired to reproduce – mimetically and literally – the actual conditions of life, rather that, by studying ‘life’, theatre-makers are in a position to transform it creatively for the stage. A vital clue to this ‘visionary aspect’ is revealed when he writes about his approach to improvisation: We always try to push the situation beyond the limits of reality. We aim for a level of aesthetic reality which would not be recognisable in real life, in order to demonstrate how theatre prolongs life by transposing it. This is a vital discovery for the students. (Lecoq 2000: 34) Schulz’s writing ‘transposes reality’ for the page and in turn Complicité has transposed this reality a second time for the stage. I believe Lecoq saw Crocodiles, but I have no knowledge of his reaction to the piece. I imagine he would have afrmed what he witnessed. For Lecoq and McBurney, the business of transposing reality for theatrical purposes is a celebration of ‘collective imagining’ and a process of harnessing some very elemental human desires and needs. The ‘collective imagining’, which transposed the very particular reality of Schulz’s world, produced books transformed into birds, school desks as trees, a character who becomes a fy with two forks as antennae, and cloth – ‘pure white calaphony from Malabar’ – which dances with mysterious power and beauty. And behind these transformations and the words from Schulz’s text are the bodies of the performers. The potential for imaginative transformation of these bodies has been 137

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prepared – directly or indirectly – by the creative pedagogy of Lecoq and his teachers. McBurney links this to the latent power of theatre: If theatre is to have power it is when it manages to touch on what is a primal and universal human need. Words emanate from a physical act in the body, and for me the body is where you begin in the rehearsal room. (McBurney 1999b: 70) Complicité shares with Lecoq a willingness to invoke a spirit of universality. When Lecoq talks of a ‘universal poetic sense’ (2000: 46) and McBurney of a ‘universal human need’ and ‘unifying people through a common language’ (1999b: 75), we sense that they may inhabit the same territory. This is a dramatic landscape constructed upon common principles – or in Lecoq’s words ‘driving motors’ – and which has an ethical preoccupation with the power of theatre to break down barriers, to act as a unifying force. While one senses that neither Lecoq nor McBurney are disposed to employ the language of universality with the same fervour as, for example, Peter Brook, they all broadly share the same humanist concerns. . . . Regardless of the debate around universalism, what Crocodiles embodies in particular, and what Complicité’s work seems to represent more generally, is a fusion between the politics of internationalism and the politics of the imagination. Thematically, much of Complicité’s recent work seems – at one level – to have explored diferent elements of the European experience. Crocodiles, The Visit, Out of a House Walked a Man, The Three Lives of Lucy Cabrol and – most recently – Mnemonic, in varying degrees, have all used the mechanics of memory to explore how the imagination can be harnessed to explore this history. Lecoq is not particularly interested either in the veracity of memory or in his students using memory to dredge up personal histories. However, where memory plays a crucial part in his teaching is as a trigger for the imagination – a spur towards improvisation and as an impulse for play. It is here that there is evidently common ground between his pedagogy and the strategies Complicité used to create Crocodiles. Crocodiles, The Three Lives of Lucy Cabrol and Mnemonic are very diferent pieces of theatre, but, apart from the same rigorous attention to the physical language(s) of performance, they also share a concern with the particularities of ‘ordinary’ lives. Perhaps one consistent concern with most of Complicité’s work from the early 1980s to the present has been to play with the internal imaginations of apparently mundane lives. Crocodiles seems particularly to delight in rendering the ordinary, extraordinary and the extraordinary, ordinary. Probably, Lecoq never used the phrase ‘the politics of the imagination’, but that seems as good a way as any of identifying the spirit of much of what he aspired to let loose in the lives of his students. In an interview for a book of essays investigating the ‘spirit of innovation’ within British theatre in the 1990s, McBurney identifed the particular things he learned from Lecoq: There are two things really. One is an analysis through the use of movement of how a piece of theatre works: how it actually functions in terms of space, in terms of rhythm, almost like music in terms of counter point, harmony: image and action, movement and stillness, words and silence. And having clarifed the scafolding of the building of theatre, he was a wonderful teacher in the stimulation of his pupils’ imaginations and the celebration of their individual diferent imaginations within the context of theatre. (McBurney 1994: 18) Crocodiles seems to have been constructed in a manner which harnesses many of these qualities. 138

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The case of Mummenschanz Mummenschanz – meaning literally ‘a play with masks, a play with coincidence’ – was established in 1972, becoming publicly visible with its frst show at the Avignon Festival. Mummenschanz’s founder members were Bernie Schürch, Floriana Frassetto and Andres Bossard. Confronted with the tragedy of Bossard’s early death in March 1992, the other two had serious doubts about whether the work should continue. However, after considerable turmoil, Schürch and Frassetto decided to rebuild the company, and in due course recruited John Charles Murphy and Rafaella Mattioli as additional performers. Bernie Schürch and Andres Bossard met at Lecoq’s school in 1967 and until 1972 performed together, initially as clowns and then with a show entitled ‘Masks and Bufooneries’. Performing in Rome in 1971, they met Floriana Frassetto, who soon joined them to create Mummenschanz. Frassetto had trained at an acting academy and with the Roy Besier mime school in Rome between 1968 and 1970. While from 1978 until the early 1990s Mummenschanz consisted of several touring troupes, the permanent creative centre of the company was always Bossard, Frassetto and Schürch. Mummenschanz is now over thirty years old. Remarkably, during this period the basic dramatic structure and frame of their work – using everyday materials as ‘masks’ – have remained unchanged. A Mummenschanz show in 2003 is as instantly recognisable – in terms of its form and style – as the work produced in the early 1970s. This is not to suggest that there are no changes, but clearly the company’s core members believe that they have yet to exhaust the creative and theatrical potential of the form they frst chose to explore in 1972. What exactly this form is and how it works dramatically will be investigated later in this section. In terms of dramaturgical choices, subjects explored and the theatrical languages employed, Théâtre de Complicité and Mummenschanz could hardly be more diferent. That both companies can trace an inheritance to Lecoq’s school graphically illustrates the argument proposed throughout this account, namely that Lecoq never taught a style of theatre, rather that he ofered a basic lexicon of dramatic possibilities for would-be actors on the one hand, and, on the other, a set of dispositions – or attitudes – that he believed were essential for successful theatre making. Moreover, like the founder members of Complicité, Bossard, Schürch and Frassetto were always ready to acknowledge a debt to Lecoq and talk of his infuence. Schürch neatly summarises Lecoq’s powers of observation: He could somehow scan the students by looking at them, seeing them for a short while and already knowing which way they would react best. Often, his criticisms were just two words and you went home to fgure out what you did wrong. . . . He would never show you how things were to be done, and he always addressed ‘your work’. He never said ‘you’ as a person. . . . He never came close. He never praised you: just gave you a push in the right direction. That was his genius as a teacher. (Schürch and Frassetto 2002) Bossard and Schürch were in Paris during the tumultuous years of 1968 and 1969: a time when, for a feeting moment, one could dream – or dread – that an anti-capitalist revolution was on the verge of taking place in some leading Western countries. In France there was a general strike and students occupied the Sorbonne and other universities in Paris. As we have seen, this was the period when, as a response to the demands of his own students, Lecoq introduced the auto-cours. It was evidently a measure of the afection and respect his students held for him that Lecoq’s school continued to function throughout the upheavals. Schürch recalls the atmosphere: The spring of ’68 had a great impact on the school. We were questioning everything. . . . Why do you teach this? What does it mean? Why do you think we should learn this? We took 139

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advantage of the situation to look for new ways of addressing problems. . . . We were engaged in many activities during that time – also pushed and supported by Lecoq – like going to entertain factory pickets. We supported them morally with entertainment. (Schürch and Frassetto 2002) Bossard and Schürch had entered the school already with an interest in mask work, but the experience there allowed them to leave not only with enhanced skills, but with confdence to feel that they must continue to develop this practice: ‘What mask has not yet been seen? What mask can we propose?’ (Roy and Carasso 1999). Comments like those above hint at that undemonstrative radicalism which Lecoq occasionally allows us to glimpse. In Roy and Carasso’s flm, Schürch suggests that Lecoq was happy to allow his politics to speak through the work of the school: We wanted to abolish the monopolies, the statutes, the institutions. We wanted to take them down from their pedestal, and say, now this is another world. Now it’s us! I strongly believe that this was due to Lecoq’s infuence: to go towards the unreasonable, to go beyond the conceivable. (Roy and Carasso 1999) I will consider below some of the more specifc infuences on Mummenschanz’s work which may be identifed from Lecoq’s teaching. However, the relationship between the two is well encapsulated by Schürch’s observation in conversation with me: ‘my impression is that Lecoq has greatly infuenced not what we do, but how we go about it. What you do, you fnd out on your own’ (Schürch and Frassetto 2002).

Sculptors of the imagination: the work of Mummenschanz Essentially, Mummenschanz has made three shows in three decades: one new piece of work every ten years. While this is a very misleading statistic, because it does not account for teaching, extensive worldwide touring, collaborative theatre or opera projects and work for television and flm, it does reveal the company’s refusal to be forced into the normal commercial cycles of theatre production. It also indicates Mummenschanz’s demand for a lengthy period of gestation – research and development – for each new major project. Sometimes – unsatisfactorily – labelled mime or pantomime, Mummenschanz’s work is difcult to defne within the normal terminology of performance. Moreover, it fts very uneasily into the fashionable idioms of physical or visual theatre. It is mask work, but unrecognisable from the traditional forms of expressive, commedia or Greek chorus masks. What its more recent work certainly provokes is a redrafting of the boundaries between masked performance and puppetry. Prosaically, one might choose to say that all its productions are an investigation – and subsequent animation – of the properties and performative qualities of everyday materials and objects. Such a dry description, however, ofers little sense of what is actually happening on stage during a Mummenschanz performance. The starting point for all their live performance work is the material world – no desire to tell a story, engage with a topical issue or theme, no play script, poem or novel as frst impulse, and no apparent interest in displaying that kind of muscular physical theatre for which some contemporary companies are renowned. One writer summarised elements from the company’s frst production thus: ‘it is a curious blend of masks and body-disguising costumes, anthropomorphic creatures, human abstractions and symbolic confrontations’ 140

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(Cocuzza 1979: 4). For each new project there is a lengthy and unhurried period of preparation, during which materials are gathered from markets, skips, department stores and industrial suppliers, their properties explored and potential for dramatic expression considered. Lycra, foam rubber, styrofoam, plastic tubes and membranes, putty and dough have all regularly been used to create malleable masks, huge balloon-like objects, grotesque body suits and silhouetted body shapes held in front of the performer. Materials and objects are played with endlessly until a theatrical idea begins to take shape. If this pleases the company a prototype is then constructed, so that the feasibility and logistics of the idea can be tested on stage. At this point it may be found that the object or material is in fact impossible to control with any confdence or clarity, and it is consequently rejected. If, however, it passes this ‘test’, then the Mummenschanz performers will start to play again with their creation and slowly map out a sequence of moves and emotional states or relationships which they feel have theatrical potential. Each Mummenschanz show contains a number of scenes or sequences lasting up to seven or eight minutes. These are self-contained and could – apparently – be presented in any order. Although each sequence may contain a simple narrative structure, there is no thematic connection between them. In terms of formal structure, one can begin to identify patterns and dramatic shapes common to a number of the sequences. While every subsequent Mummenschanz show presents unseen materials and fresh configurations of objects, some have been performed before and now are simply modified and taken further for the latest project. The giant ‘slinky’ tube, for example, has gone through various stages in its life history and remains one of the company’s most powerful creations. Similarly, the soft masks made of dough or putty that are reconfigured by the actors in performance first appeared in the early 1970s. The first major show contained many constructions which masked the face, or head and shoulders. The second programme, first performed around 1984, was characterised by larger masks or disguises in which the human frame could hardly be identified at all. Sometimes these were enormous baggy balloons propelled around the stage by the performer inside, but unrecognisable as masks in the conventional sense. Some sequences were content to be pure abstractions with no attempt to convey meaning or story line, while others played with emotional content and offered very simple narrative structures. Even here, however, the dramatic structure was deliberately open to interpretation and reading. The company’s latest project, which has been performed for over two years, contains recognisable elements from previous work, but with new departures – for example, into rubber or foam whole-body masks which are held by the performers in front of their bodies. These then are some of the contours of a Mummenschanz performance. In terms of audience relationships and theatrical purpose, what is the company hoping to achieve? At the centre of their practice lies the belief that this wordless play with objects and materials is infnitely communicable, and their continuing popularity around the world gives some credence to such a claim. While Schürch and Frassetto are clearly fascinated by the form and texture of materials, they are not content simply to construct work that communicates itself purely on an aesthetic level. On one hand, they aspire to identify and reveal certain ‘universal truths’ through their manipulation and animation of the objects and, on the other, they strive to inject an emotional charge into the space created between performers, materials and their audience. Threading through all this is the potential the performers hope they have created for humorous and comic recognition among spectators. In Kamal Musale’s flm, The Musicians of Silence, Schürch comments that the ‘secret of Mummenschanz is that we open up the total truth of the moment’. Later he adds: ‘we want to entertain people and make them happy. It’s the joy of playing’ (Musale 141

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2001). These claims and aspirations will be considered in more detail, and in relation to Lecoq’s infuence, in the sections that follow. There are at least four areas of Mummenschanz’s practice, where either a Lecoq imprint is still visible, or where connections in terms of disposition and stance can be identifed. As with the case of Théâtre de Complicité, these links are not reducible to ‘cause and efect’ relationships, but must be regarded as either a degree of shared orientation, or where a particular Lecoq attitude can be traced within the practice: 1 2 3 4

A consistent preoccupation with creating a theatre vocabulary based upon movement, masks and the manipulation of objects. A commitment to play as the motor of creativity. An unapologetic afrmation of popular theatre forms. A willingness to invoke a belief in the possibility of creating universal theatre languages that transcend diferences of class, culture and race.

masks and movement Bossard and Schürch had already started to explore mask work before joining Lecoq’s school in 1967, but as the latter recorded in an interview for the Mime Journal in 1974, ‘the real fip’ happened there. Clearly, whatever else they achieved at the school, the experience of being taught by Lecoq gave both men the confdence and passion to commit themselves to decades of working only with masks. Although they will have learned the principles of diferent forms of mask work from Lecoq, it is the larval mask that seems to ofer the most obvious connections with a style of performance we associate with Mummenschanz. Unlike the neutral mask, the larval mask is a performance tool which – coincidentally – was invented for the carnival of Basel in Switzerland during the mid-1960s. John Wright succinctly identifes the properties and dispositions of the larval mask and considers how Lecoq used it: The larval mask discovers the world but does not necessarily make any sense of it. . . . [It] can be mercurial and potentially anarchic in a most endearing way, but the outstanding characteristic of this mask is its insatiable appetite for play. With the larval mask Lecoq confronts his students with the task of fnding the corporeal impression from a shape. . . . The larval masks require sensitivity rather than precision, and games rather than accuracy. (Wright 2002: 79) Although many of the masks and disguises used by the company over three decades look nothing like the larval masks pictured in The Moving Body, many of the properties ascribed to it by John Wright seem perfectly to ft the behaviour of the objects and materials in a typical Mummenschanz show. Mummenschanz has taken the spirit of Lecoq’s original larval mask and invested it in the eclectic range of materials and constructions created since 1972. The questions Lecoq asked of these larval masks in the Paris school concerning movement, space, rhythm, speed and direction are of the same order as those posed by Bossard, Frassetto and Schürch to the tubes, beanbag balloons, cardboard boxes, foam rubber full-body masks, putty masks and toilet rolls, which have formed just part of the Mummenschanz repertoire over thirty years. Clearly, too, the company’s process of research and devising has always paid heed to Lecoq’s dictum that ‘masked performance requires an indispensable distance between the mask and the actor’s face. For that reason the mask must be larger (or smaller) than the actor’s face’ (Lecoq 2000: 55). 142

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The starting – and often fnishing – point for a sequence with, say, a very large bag with a mischievous propensity to foat is a controlled exploration of its movement properties. These scenes seem to be at their most efective when the performers inject as little narrative as possible on the apparently abstract movement dynamics of the material in question. Where the performers impose a self-conscious personality – or romantic narrative – on the business, there is a danger that the spectator’s interpretative options are closed down, and the anthropomorphism becomes unduly sentimental. The movement and rhythmic dynamic imposed by each of these various masks makes considerable physical demands on the performers, involving their whole bodies. Members of the company organise their own physical preparation – there is no attempt to impose a Mummenschanz movement ‘technique’ class, although in the early 1980s, at the behest of Frassetto, a dance choreographer was brought in to tackle what the performers admitted was a ‘nonchalant’ approach towards physical preparation. Today, although in their ffties, the performers keep in good shape, but largely follow their own routines of movement preparation. Bossard echoes Lecoq’s insistence that movement preparation remain linked to creative work in a comment: ‘when I exercise, I fnd plenty of inspiration. Movement is a source of ideas. I learned that from Lecoq’ (Bührer 1984: 65). Arguably, the Mummenschanz project for thirty years has been an undeviating exploration and application of the principles of Lecoq’s larval masks – disguises that ofer almost unlimited possibilities for fantasy and imaginative reveries. Lecoq writes about two dimensions of research into larval masks. Following work on characters and situations, the dimensions of animality and fantasy are investigated: ‘this research leads to the discovery of a strange, undefned and unknown population. This exploration of the incomplete body, inevitably diferent, opens up the imaginary realm’ (Lecoq 2000: 59.) Just such ‘a strange, undefned and unknown population’ seems to have colonised every Mummenschanz show.

play Like Théâtre de Complicité and numerous performers who trained with either Lecoq or Gaulier, Mummenschanz invokes the crucial importance of play. For Frassetto and Schürch, play or playfulness not only drives their creative journey in the devising and rehearsal process, but also defnes the actors’ relationship to their masks in performance. It signals, too, the kind of relationship the company hopes to achieve with its audience: The playfulness of human beings seems to be inherent. We always like to be playful – it is the common denominator around the world. We often say that the stage is our playground. We play with these shapes and objects, and the audience is invited to join us on stage and play with these fgures too, adding their own stories and associations. (Schürch and Frassetto 2002) While Schürch is usually speaking metaphorically about the audience joining them on stage, that spirit of collusion between artists and spectators is clearly very important to the company. Despite the strangeness of the objects, the often abstract nature of dramatic material, and that this work is far removed from the conventions of naturalism and realism, Mummenschanz is seeking a sense of empathy and identifcation from its audiences. This – they hope – will happen partly through humorous recognition, and partly through a loose emotional correspondence between spectator and the circumstances in which the masks fnd themselves. Clearly, for Frassetto and Schürch, if their work is to attain a universal level of communication, then it must possess the 143

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quality of play and playfulness. Play therefore is a necessary – almost a sufcient – condition for the achievement of such a state. One senses that, for Mummenschanz, play assumes a greater importance than for many companies infuenced by the teaching of Lecoq. Given, at one level, the simplicity of its work – no complex narratives, no subtle psychological characterisation and no intricate sound or lighting technology – one might wish to summarise its form as: play + masks = Mummenschanz. While this understates the level of skill and research that is invested in each project, such a formula perhaps encapsulates the essential qualities of how they work, and what we see during a Mummenschanz performance.

popular theatre Although Lecoq never explicitly made it his political mission to advocate ‘popular theatre’, any close reading of what he said suggests sympathy in this direction. He was impatient with what he called ‘intellectual theatre’, and it is hard to know how he might have reacted to what might be described as postmodern deconstruction in contemporary performance practice. . . . [S]uch a stance should not be read as anti-intellectualism, but more a manifestation of his lifelong commitment to rediscovering, and placing in a contemporary context, the essential corporeal motors of theatrical expression and exchange. In some ways Mummenschanz’s work provides a curious paradigm for ‘popular theatre’. It would be possible – and not entirely inappropriate – to locate the company’s practice historically in the high modernist tradition of the visual arts avant-garde. One could look at a Mummenschanz performance and identify the play of abstract shapes and sounds with the forms one associates with Futurism, Dada, Surrealism and the Bauhaus. Perhaps, too, in its yearning for a simpler, more emotionally truthful and less complicated world, the fantastical imagery conjured up by the Mummenschanz performers speaks of aspirations similar to those articulated by the enfants terrible of early twentieth-century avant-garde movements. However, if Mummenschanz has a mission to subvert, it is as a result of liberating the imagination of its audiences through play and the pleasures to be derived from visual stimulation. Tom Leabhart neatly maps the transition of imagery from modernist avant-garde to popular visual theatre on Broadway or in Zurich during the fnal decades of the twentieth century: ‘it is as if, suddenly, ffty years of rather difcult material, research that had a dangerous edge, had been rendered respectable, amusing and even appropriate for children . . . . Most audiences recognise and respond to the anecdotal dynamism beneath the abstracted forms’ (Leabhart 1989: 105). Whatever politically agitational ideas the founder members of the company harboured in the late 1960s and early 1970s, today their ambitions are simpler. Schürch and Frassetto summarise what their current hopes are in terms of audience response: You start of by wanting to change the world, but then slowly you come down to saying if we can give the audience something that they can feel – whether it is happiness or sadness – that’s good enough. Laughter is the reason to go on. To hear children laughing. I am not going to change anyone’s life and point my fnger and say ‘think this or that’. Just trying to awaken the pureness of those emotions is enough. (Schürch and Frassetto 2002) Although children fgure signifcantly within their audiences, the Mummenschanz performers believe that their work communicates itself efectively to any adult who is open enough to embrace its playful spirit. A Mummenschanz show is not ‘popular theatre’ in the particular 144

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sense of being both popular and possessing a sharp political perspective. However, the longevity of the company, and its ability still to play to capacity audiences in middle- or large-scale theatres in Europe and North America attest to another kind of popularity – a popularity which acknowledges the entertainment value of the work and its ability to spark and liberate the imagination.

Universal communication •

You present the truth of movement, (Rolfe 1974: 3)

•

The interesting work is always to fnd this basic language – really to get down to the essence so that it is understandable. (Schürch and Frassetto 2002)

•

When you play you work on a communication level that is common to all human beings. (ibid.)

•

It all comes down to basic feelings and emotions which are understood worldwide so they don’t need the word. (Musale 2001)

•

The language of Mummenschanz is universal: the unique language of gesture. (ibid.)

universal communication The observations quoted in the box below represent a range of claims made by the Mummenschanz founders, or – as in the case of the comment by Bari Rolfe – a quality ascribed to them. If one attempts to distil these various statements, it seems that the company’s ability to reach a universal level of communication through its work rests on a number of propositions (listed below). • • • •

Human movement has the potential to communicate itself universally. It is possible to fnd – or create – a fundamental language of theatre that can be understood anywhere. Certain emotions and gestures have the power to be understood universally. An instinct – or a disposition – for play is a phenomenon that exists across diferent cultures.

Some or all of these claims have been common currency for a significant number of artists or theatre-makers throughout the twentieth century. While such issues have particularly been on the agenda for disciplines such as anthropology, sociology and cultural studies, they have – by and large – been ignored within theatre studies and drama until relatively recently. It is beyond the scope of this account to investigate the validity of these ideas 145

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in any depth. . . . As summarised above, they seem to embody a more extensive and unambiguous series of beliefs than those articulated by Lecoq in his writing. The extent to which Lecoq might put his name – without qualification – to these ideas is debatable. Here, the point is to signal these claims, both as questions for reflection and further discussion, and as markers that situate Mummenschanz’s work in relation to that of other companies in time and place.

Lecoq and Mummenschanz: afterthoughts The relationship between Mummenschanz and Lecoq continued to be a signifcant one until his death. He is invoked regularly throughout Bührer’s book on the company, and at one point is quoted at length. Characteristically, he mixes praise for the originality of their work with an honest and sharp observation about the dangers of their considerable success at the end of their frst major project: With them, there are no set characters; it’s something else, a silent poetry, with humour besides . . . a very personal sense of humour. When those two grey putty heads join and become one, it says so much, the impossibility to break of after coming together. It’s extraordinary poetically speaking. . . . Their success is quite unique. To succeed on Broadway can be dangerous. They were almost too successful; they didn’t know what to do about it. I often advised the Mummenschanz: do another show, a diferent one; don’t be scared, even if it’s not as good as the frst one. . . . It’s very hard to stop and question oneself when things are working well. (Bührer 1984: 40) Quoted at some length, this comment illustrates Lecoq’s continuing concern for his ex-pupils, afrming some particularly efective dimensions of the work, but then jolting them with a warning about complacency. There is no record of how Lecoq responded to Mummenschanz’s second major project, and whether indeed he thought it was ‘diferent’ and ‘as good as the frst one’. Regardless of his actual feelings, that he chose to identify Mummenschanz with only a few other companies in ‘New perspectives’, the fnal chapter of The Moving Body evidences his high regard for the innovative quality of its work. He writes that ‘looking back, I recall especially the work of the Mummenschanz whose research into masks and forms has been far-reaching’ (Lecoq 2000: 161).

Further reading Books, journals and interviews Auslander, Philip (1997) From Acting to Performance, London and New York: Routledge. Barker, Paul (1994) ‘Inside Story: Théâtre de Complicité’, Independent on Sunday, London, 5 November. Baudrillard, Jean (1970) La Société de consummation, Paris: Gallimard. Berkof, Steven (1999) ‘Obituary of Jacques Lecoq’, Total Theatre 11(1): 5. Bradby, David (1984) Modern French Drama 1940–1980, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ——— (2002a) Unpublished interview with author, London, 23 May. ——— (2002b) ‘Jacques Lecoq and his École Internationale de Théâtre in Paris’, in David Bradby and Maria Delgado (eds) The Paris Jigsaw: Internationalism and the City’s Stages, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.

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Lecoq (1921–1999) Bührer, Michel (1984) Mummenschanz, Altstätten: Panorama Verlag. Callery, Dymphna (2001) Through the Body: A Practical Guide to Physical Theatre, London: Nick Herne Books. Chamberlain, Franc and Yarrow, Ralph (eds) (2002) Jacques Lecoq and the British Theatre, London and New York: Routledge. Cocuzza, Ginnine (1979) ‘Review of Mummenschanz’, Mime News (May/June). Counsell, Colin (1996) Signs of Performance: An Introduction to Twentieth-century Performance, London and New York: Routledge. Croft, Susan (1992) ‘Transforming Schulz’, essay in programme for The Street of Crocodiles, London: Théâtre de Complicité. Crook, Andy (2002) Unpublished interview with author, Dublin, 3 May. Dasté, Jean (1977) Voyage d’un comédien, Paris: Stock. Decroux, Étienne (1985) ‘Words on Mime’, trans. Mark Piper, in Thomas Leabhart, (ed.) Mime Journal, California: Pomona College Theatre Department. De Marinis, Marco (1995) ‘The Mask and Corporeal Expression in Twentieth Century Theatre’, in Thomas Leabhart (ed.) Mime Journal, California: Pomona College Theatre Department, pp. 14–37. Dennis, Anne (1995) The Articulate Body: The Physical Training of the Actor, New York: Drama Book Publishers. Drijver, Rieks (1998) ‘Theatre of the Imagination’, Total Theatre 10(2): 14–15. Eldredge, Sears A. and Huston, Hollis W. (1995 [1978]) ‘Actor Training in the Neutral Mask’, in Philip B. Zarrilli (ed.) Acting (Re)Considered, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 121–8. Eldridge, John and Eldridge, Lizzie (1994) Raymond Williams: Making Connections, London and New York: Routledge. Etchells, Tim (1995) Play On: Collaboration and Process, unpublished draft version presented in Wolverhampton, England. ——— (1999) Certain Fragments: Contemporary Performance and Forced Entertainment, London and New York: Routledge. Evans, Mark (2002) Unpublished interview with author, Coventry, 9 July. Evans, Mark and Kemp, Rick (eds) (2016) The Routledge Companion to Jacques Lecoq, London and New York: Routledge. Featherstone, Mike, Hepworth, Mike and Turner, Bryan (eds) (1991) The Body: Social Process and Cultural Theory, London: Sage. Felner, Mira (1985) Apostles of Silence: The Modern French Mimes, Cranberry and London: Associated University Presses. Freshwater, Helen (2001) ‘The Ethics of Indeterminacy: Théâtre de Complicité’s Mnemonic’, New Theatre Quarterly 67: 212–18. Frost, Anthony and Yarrow, Ralph (1990) Improvisation in Drama, London: Macmillan. Fulford, Robert (1988) ‘Deep into Private Mythology with Bruno Schulz’, Globe and Mail, Toronto, 22 July. Gardner, Lyn (1997) ‘The Face of the Future’, Guardian, London, 19 November. Garduño, Flor and Lyr, Guyette (1997) Mummenschanz 1972–1997, Altstätten: Tobler Verlag. Hiley, Jim (1988) ‘Moving Heaven and Earth: Interview with Jacques Lecoq’, Observer, London, 20 March. Hodge, Alison (ed.) (2000) Twentieth Century Actor Training, London and New York: Routledge. Innes, Christopher (1993) Avant Garde Theatre 1892–1992, New York and London: Routledge. Jameson, Fredric (1991) Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, London and New York: Verso. Jenkins, Ron (2001) ‘A Prophet of Gesture Who Got Theater Moving’, New York Times, 18 March. Johnson, Mark (1987) The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination and Reason, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Kalb, Jonathan (1989) Beckett in Performance, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Keefe, John (1995) ‘Dramaturgy and Structure: Looking with Knowledge’, Total Theatre 7(3). —— (2002) Unpublished interview with author, London, 23 May. Keefe, John and Murray, Simon (eds) (2007) Physical Theatres: A Critical Reader, London and New York: Routledge. Kustow, Michael (2000) theatre@risk, London: Methuen. Leabhart, Thomas (1989) Modern and Post-modern Mime, London: Macmillan. Lecoq, Fay (2001) Unpublished interview with author, Paris, 27 October. Lecoq, Jacques (1973 [1972]) ‘Mime – Movement – Theatre’, trans. Kat Foley and Julia Devlin, Yale Theatre 4(1).

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Simon Murray ——— (1987) Le Théâtre du geste, trans. Gill Kester (2002), Paris: Bordas. ——— (2000) The Moving Body, trans. David Bradby, London: Methuen. ——— (2006) Theatre of Movement and Gesture, David Bradby (ed.) London and New York: Routledge. ——— (2009) The Moving Body (le Corps Poetique): Teaching Creative Theatre, London: Methuen. Lecoq, Pascale (2001) Unpublished interview with author, Paris, 26 October. Lecoq, Patrick (2016) Jacques Lecoq, un point fxe en movement, Paris: Actes Sud Editions. Lepage, Robert (1992) ‘In Discussion with Richard Eyre’, in Platform Papers, London: Royal National Theatre, pp. 23–41. Marshall, Lorna (2001) The Body Speaks, London: Methuen. McBurney, Simon (1992) Programme for The Street of Crocodiles, London: Théâtre de Complicité. ——— (1994) ‘The Celebration of Lying’, in David Tushingham (ed.) Live: Food for the Soul, London: Methuen, pp. 13–24. ——— (1999a) ‘Obituary of Jacques Lecoq’, Guardian, London, 23 January. ——— (1999b) ‘Interview’, in Gabriella Giannachi and Mary Luckhurst (eds) On Directing: Interviews with Directors, London: Faber and Faber, pp. 67–77. McCaw, Dick (2002) Unpublished interview with author, London, 22 May. McCullough, Christopher (ed.) (1998) Theatre Praxis: Teaching Drama Through Practice, London: Macmillan. Milling, Jane and Ley, Graham (2001) Modern Theories of Performance: From Stanislavski to Boal, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave. Mime Journal (1993/1994) ‘Words on Decroux 1’, Thomas Leabhart (ed.), Claremont, Calif.: Pomona College Theatre Department. ——— (1997) ‘Words on Decroux 2’, Thomas Leabhart (ed.), Claremont, Calif.: Pomona College Theatre Department. Murray, Simon (2002) ‘Tout bouge: Jacques Lecoq, Modern Mime and the Zero Body’, in Franc Chamberlain and Ralph Yarrow (eds) Jacques Lecoq and the British Theatre, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 17–44. ——— (2010) ‘Jacques Lecoq, Monika Pagneux and Philippe Gaulier: training for play, lightness and disobedience’ in Hodge, A. (ed.) Actor Training. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 215–236. ——— (2013a) ‘Fields of association: W.G. Sebald and contemporary performance practices’ in Baxter, J., Hutchinson, B. and Henitiuk, V. (eds) A Literature of Restitution: Critical Essays on W.G. Sebald, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 187–202. ——— (2013b) ‘Embracing lightness: dispositions, corporealities and metaphors in contemporary theatre and performance’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 23(2), pp. 206–219. ——— (2015) ‘Contemporary collaborations and cautionary tales’ in Colin, N. and Sachsenmaier, S. (eds) Collaboration in Performance Practice: premises, workings, failures, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 27–50. ——— (2016) ‘Dear Jacques . . . Lecoq in the twenty frst century’ in Evans, M. and Kemp, R. (eds) Routledge Companion to Jacques Lecoq, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 292–300. Murray, Simon and Keefe, John (2016) Physical Theatres: A Critical Introduction, second edition, London and New York: Routledge. Pavis, Patrice (1998) Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts and Analysis, trans. Christine Shantz, Toronto and London: University of Toronto Press. Prattki, Thomas (2001) Unpublished interview with author, Paris, March. ——— (2002) Unpublished interview with author, Paris, 26 October. Regan, Stephen (2000) ‘Critical Theories and Performance: Introduction’, in Lizbeth Goodman and Jane de Gay (eds) Politics and Performance, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 49–54. Rolfe, Bari (1972) ‘The Mime of Jacques Lecoq’, Drama Review 16(1): 34–8. ——— (1974) ‘Masks, Mime and Mummenschanz’, in Thomas Leabhart (ed.) Mime Journal 2, Claremont, Calif.: Pomona College Theatre Department, pp. 1–6. Romney, Jonathan (1999) ‘Even Tables and Chairs have Souls’, Guardian, London, 29 January. Rudlin, John (2000) ‘Jacques Copeau: The Quest for Sincerity’, in Alison Hodge (ed.) Twentieth Century Actor Training, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 55–78. Rufni, Franco (1995) ‘Mime, the Actor, Action: The Way of Boxing’, in Thomas Leabhart (ed.) Incorporated Knowledge: The Mime Journal, Claremont, Calif.: Pomona College Theatre Department, pp. 54–69. Sanchez-Colberg, Ana (1996) ‘Altered States and Subliminal Spaces: Charting the Road Towards a Physical Theatre’, Performance Research 1(2): 40–56. Schulz, Bruno (1980) ‘Interview with Bruno Schulz’, in Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz Beelzebub Sonata: Plays, Essays, Documents, ed. and trans. Daniel Gerould and Jadwiga Kosicka, New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications.

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Lecoq (1921–1999) ——— (1988) The Fictions of Bruno Schulz: The Street of Crocodiles and Sanatorium under the Sign of the Hourglass, London: Picador. Schürch, Bernie and Frassetto, Floriana (2002) Unpublished interview with author, Biel, Switzerland, 22 June. Shevtsova, Maria (1989) ‘The Sociology of the Theatre, Part Two: Theoretical Achievements’, New Theatre Quarterly 18: 180–94. Shilling, Chris (1993) The Body and Social Theory, London: Sage Publications. Sklar, Deirdre (1995) ‘Étienne Decroux’s Promethean Mime’, in Philip Zarrilli (ed.) Acting (Re)Considered, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 108–20. Taymor, Julie (1999) ‘From Jacques Lecoq to The Lion King’, The Drama Review 43(3) (T163): 36–55. Théâtre de Complicité (1999) The Street of Crocodiles, London: Methuen. Updike, John (1988) ‘Introduction’, in Bruno Schulz The Fictions of Bruno Schulz: The Street of Crocodiles and Sanatorium under the Sign of the Hourglass, London: Picador. Valdez, Carolina (1999) ‘Obituary of Jacques Lecoq’, Total Theatre 11(1): 8. Vidal, John (1988) ‘Opening Moves: Interview with Jacques Lecoq’, Guardian, London, 22 March. Ward, Nigel (1996) ‘“Théâtre Populaire’: Ideology and Tradition in French Popular Theatre’, in Ros Merkin (ed.) Popular Theatres?, Liverpool: Liverpool John Moores University, pp. 172–82. Williams, David (ed.) (1999) Collaborative Theatre: The Théâtre du Soleil Sourcebook, London and New York: Routledge. Williams, Raymond (1976) Keywords, London: Fontana. ——— (1989) The Politics of Modernism, London: Verso. Wright, John (2002) ‘The Masks of Jacques Lecoq’, in Franc Chamberlain and Ralph Yarrow (eds) Jacques Lecoq and the British Theatre, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 71–84. Zarrilli, Philip (ed.) (1995) Acting (Re) Considered, New York and London: Routledge.

Videos and DVDS Kauz, Magdalena (2000) Mummenschanz 1972–2000, Altstätten: Mummenschanz Foundation. The Late Show (1992) ‘Théâtre de Complicité, profled in rehearsal for The Street of Crocodiles’, BBC2, September. Musale, Kamal (2001) Mummenschanz: The Musicians of Silence, Altstätten: Mummenschanz. Roy, Jean-Noel and Carasso, Jean-Gabriel (2006) Les Deux Voyages de Jacques Lecoq, Paris: La Septe ARTE– On Line Productions–ANRAT.

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14 BOAL (1931–2009) Frances Babbage1

14.1

Biography and context

Augusto Boal (1931–2009) is unquestionably one of the most important and infuential of contemporary theatre practitioners. Early in his career he achieved critical recognition for his innovative work as playwright and director at the Arena Theatre of São Paulo. His now classic text Theatre of the Oppressed, written when the repressive political climate of Brazil in the late 1960s and early 1970s had forced him into exile, could be considered essential reading for anyone engaged with the question of whether theatre might be able to efect transformations in people’s lives. The fexibility and accessibility of Boal’s methods have encouraged widespread dissemination. Theatre of the Oppressed techniques have been applied, adapted and reinvented by practitioners all over the world. Directly and indirectly, his practice has entered contexts as diverse as political protest, education, therapy, prison, health, management and local government, as well as infltrating the mainstream theatre establishment – and the list goes on. This chapter provides an introduction to Boal’s work in its various manifestations. The principal focus is upon the Theatre of the Oppressed, since it is this above all which has established his reputation. This frst section outlines Boal’s life and career to date, contextualising Theatre of the Oppressed’s birth and subsequent developments. . . . Section 14.2 focuses on the direct application of Theatre of the Oppressed, . . . through analysis of Forum Theatre as practised by two companies. . . .

Context for a Theatre of the Oppressed In stable countries, artists know where they stand – serene and unperturbed. They know what they want and what is expected of them. In a Brazil cast adrift, everything was and is possible: we asked where we were, who we were, where we wanted to go. (Boal 2001: 264)

It is always helpful to know something of the context in which artists have developed their practice. Sometimes, however, it is essential. Boal is one such case. The body of ideas and techniques that constitutes the Theatre of the Oppressed was not born from purely, or predominantly, 150

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artistic decisions and experiences, but grew out of a determined battle to make socially engaged, life-afrming theatre in a climate of extreme repression. The history of Brazil in the twentieth century is one of economic chaos, instability and unrest. Brazil is a huge country, occupying almost two-thirds of South America, and supporting a population of over 170 million; São Paulo, centre of the manufacturing industry, is the second largest city in the world (after Tokyo). Within Brazil, the gap between rich and poor is immense. Nowhere is this refected more clearly than in the pattern of land distribution. A 2000 statistic indicated that around 1 per cent of the population owns half the agricultural land (much of it bought for speculation and left unplanted), a glaring inequity which contributes to the country’s extremes of poverty and wealth and has long been a source of violent confict. For much of the century, Brazil has been ruled by a series of military dictatorships. While some of these governments introduced measures intended to redress economic imbalance, the tension between social reform and the need to increase production and maximise proft means that these have frequently been unsuccessful, with the initiatives of one government abandoned by the next. The theatre practice of Boal and his contemporaries must necessarily be understood in relation to this context. It is possible to identify a series of distinct periods within Brazil’s recent history, each with their consequences for the country’s cultural development. The 1950s and early 1960s were a time of economic instability, with ambitious plans for industrial development – supported by large foreign loans – foundering on sinking cofee prices. This, coupled with chronic infation, provoked unrest resulting in strikes and riots from workers and students. The artistic activity of this time was marked by a critical, reformist consciousness, and strongly nationalist sympathies. My discussion of Boal’s years at the Arena Theatre of São Paulo shows how the company attempted to produce artistically innovative and politically radical theatre, and especially to foster the work of Brazilian playwrights and establish a genuine ‘Brazilian aesthetic’, all the while struggling against heavy fnancial constraints. The military coups of 1964 and 1968 were key points in a period of severe repression that continued, with fuctuations, throughout the 1970s. The power of the (military) government increased with civil liberties correspondingly restricted; oppositional parties were outlawed or refused to participate in the corrupt electoral process. All forms of cultural expression came in for heavy censorship. However, while this period saw the arts under attack, it also witnessed the rise of a theatre actively opposed to the dictatorship in the work of such groups as Arena and Teatro Ofcina, both based in São Paulo, and Opinião, based in Rio de Janeiro. The process of redemocratisation began in the late 1970s, with civilian government restored in 1985 and a new constitution formed in 1988. (This was by no means the end of Brazil’s economic problems; indeed the late 1980s saw the country’s worst recession in years.) Boal was invited back to Brazil in 1986 after ffteen years in exile, during which time he had consolidated the techniques now famous as the ‘arsenal of the Theatre of the Oppressed’ (Boal 1992: 60). Although censorship had considerably relaxed by the late 1970s, it has taken some time for Brazil’s theatre to recover from its efects. Writing in 1989, Severino João Albuquerque describes a situation whereby older playwrights such as Boal and his contemporary Plínio Marcos (1935– ), both of whom sufered the full harshness of the authoritarian regimes, were still recovering from the impact of years in exile. At the same time a younger generation of writers, who grew up in an atmosphere of oppression, had yet to make a distinctive contribution (Albuquerque 1989). In 2001 Weinoldt refects on the 1980s and 1990s as a period of artistic diversity marked by a shift away from overt political commitment towards a focus on individual experience, evident in the work of Maria Adelaide Amaral (1942– ) and Luís Alberto de Abreu (1952– ), among others. Weinoldt considers that cultural resistance remains an important feature of the Brazilian theatre, most notably in the continued eforts to develop genuine alternatives to mass-mediated 151

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culture. The ambitions of Arena, Ofcina and Opinião in the 1960s to create a theatre rooted in Brazilian culture for a popular audience are carried on by now well-established groups such as Tá na Rua (You in the Street) and Teatro União e Olho Vivo (Union and Live Eye Theatre), both of which seek audiences in the poorest areas (Weinoldt 2001).

Augusto Boal: early years Augusto Boal was born in Rio in 1931, son of José Augusto Boal and Albertina Pinto Boal. His parents were Portuguese, his father exiled from his homeland in 1914 following his refusal to support Portugal’s involvement in the First World War. José Augusto went back briefy in 1925 to marry his fancée and take her to Brazil, but the Boals never returned to Portugal as a family. When Augusto Boal grew up, Brazil was under the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas. The Vargas government, ofcially styled Estado Novo (New State), was totalitarian in character yet maintained friendly relations with the United States and other democracies (Bethell 1994: 7–11). Diplomatic relations with Germany were broken of in 1938 when evidence was uncovered of Nazi involvement in an earlier revolt against the Vargas government by Brazil’s ultra right-wing Integralista organisation, and once the Second World War had been declared Brazil came down frmly on the side of the Allies. But whatever the country’s declared allegiances, Boal recalls inconsistencies of behaviour among adults he knew; he notes that many members of the violent movement Justiceiros Contra O Nazismo (Upholders of Justice Against Nazism) were formerly active within Integralista, switching their loyalties to ensure they were ‘always on the side of the strong’ (2001: 91). Boal’s early years were happy ones. His parents were economically comfortable and their attitudes liberal. Boal’s love of theatre found expression in shows staged in the family dining room by the ten-year-old Boal, his siblings and their cousins, and in the frst plays he wrote, using his mother’s sewing machine as a table. As Boal represents it, his attitude then was characteristic of the approach he would later adopt as an adult practitioner. In the staged shows, no individual ‘owned’ their character; whoever was available to take on a role at the critical moment would do so, interpreting it as they saw ft. On his childhood literary eforts, he comments: ‘When I read a story and did not like it, I would rewrite it’ (2001: 89), hinting at the philosophy he would later develop in the Theatre of the Oppressed. From the practice of Simultaneous Dramaturgy, where the audience have the power to propose developments away from a given script that the actors then concretise, through to Forum Theatre, where they can intervene at any point in the drama, Theatre of the Oppressed emphasises that that which is prescribed – literally, already written – is always open to interrogation. In 1948 Boal began studies at the National School of Chemistry, University of Brazil. His choice arose from a wish to gratify his father, and an impulse to stay close to a current girlfriend who intended to pursue the subject – a plan foiled when he passed the entrance exam, but she didn’t (Boal 2001: 105). At no point did Boal abandon his theatrical ambitions. While doing enough to pass his degree, much of his time was absorbed by his duties as director of the School’s Cultural Department, a post entitling him to free tickets at local theatres and opportunities to meet writers, actors and directors. In this way Boal broadened his experience of performance, seeing productions by foreign practitioners as well as the work of Brazilian companies. Equally importantly, he made contacts that would crucially shape his later career. He met Nelson Rodrigues (1912–80), a playwright widely credited with having revolutionised the Brazilian theatre by his experiments in dramatic form and style. Rodrigues introduced Boal to the prestigious critic Sábato Magaldi (1927– ), who in turn would recommend Boal to José Renato (1926– ) of the Arena Theatre. 152

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In New York Following his graduation in 1952, Boal undertook a further year’s study at Columbia University in the US. Seeking to please both his father and himself, he pursued courses in chemistry and theatre simultaneously. New York was attractive to Boal because it presented the opportunity to study playwriting with drama critic, historian and artist-producer John Gassner (1902–66), whom he greatly admired. Initially, Boal’s engagement with both New York and his studies was overshadowed by overwhelming feelings of cultural dislocation, but involvement in the University’s cultural programme and organisations such as the Writers’ Group in Brooklyn helped overcome this. Since many of the artists Boal knew from his time at the University of Brazil were highly regarded in America, he was able to forge further connections. Through his friendship with the playwright Abdias Nascimento (1914– ) – founder of the group Teatro Experimental do Negro (Black Experimental Theatre) – Boal met author and activist Langston Hughes (1902–67) and discovered the black literature and theatre of Harlem. The year ended but Boal was not ready to leave, and with his father’s support embarked on a further year of study. If the frst had been dominated by new experiences, the second allowed Boal to pursue specifc ambitions. He combined what he had been learning in playwriting and directing by staging two of his own plays in 1955 – The Horse and the Saint and a comedy, The House Across the Street – at the Malin Studio in New York, assisted by a group of friends. In characteristically provocative mode, Boal champions the uninhibited creativity of the inexperienced: ‘As I was not a director, I had no fear of directing. . . . And as the actors were not actors, they were not afraid to act: they were great’ (Boal 2001: 136).

Theatrical infuences While in New York, Boal had the opportunity to see an immense variety of plays and production companies. Given the experience already gained in Brazil, there can be no doubt that by this point he had been exposed to a wide range of artistic infuences. It is always problematic to trace the efects of ‘infuence’ on an artist, however. The playwright for whom Boal has probably expressed admiration most frequently is William Shakespeare. As for practitioners, Boal’s most evident debt is to Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956). Theatre of the Oppressed makes frequent reference to Brecht’s proposals for an Epic Theatre; Brecht’s political themes and anti-illusionist, ‘critical’ production style have found renewed expression in Boal’s practice. But, less obviously, his work is also infuenced by Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863–1938). Given that Stanislavsky’s theatre is generally associated with realism, the combined inspirations might seem mutually contradictory. To bring these diverse expressions of theatricality into a coherent framework, it is helpful to consider the education Boal would have received while in New York from the man to whom he had come to study playwriting: John Gassner. In 1956 Gassner’s important study Form and Idea in Modern Theatre was published. Gassner’s range of reference is broad, as in his other writings. From this, and from Boal’s autobiography, it is plain that Boal engaged with work by virtually all major modern European and American dramatists, as well as Shakespeare and the Greeks, and the broad dramatic ‘movements’ of realism, symbolism, surrealism and expressionism. Equally signifcant is Gassner’s interpretation of the condition of mid-1950s theatre, which he depicts as unstable and eclectic, a crisis born of an unresolved confict between realism and what he termed ‘theatricalism’, or anti-realism. Gassner recognised realism as a hugely important and largely positive infuence in the modern American theatre, arguing that learning the principles of realistic playwriting – for example, that the main function of dialogue is to advance action rather than be quotable as ‘literature’ – would lead to 153

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better drama. He abhorred ‘naturalistic clutter’, advocating instead a sharper-edged, selective realism of the kind he observed in director Elia Kazan’s 1955 production of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which Boal also saw and admired (Gassner 1956: 124–5; Boal 2001: 128). But too often, suggests Gassner, the imitative qualities of realism are adopted by playwrights without the driving force of ideas and commitment. In an essay two years earlier he comments that writers were understandably disenchanted with both society and theatre but had ‘not yet learned to make anything out of their disbelief’ (Gassner 1954: 25). The principal alternative to realism available at this time was theatricalism/anti-realism, but this appeared equally problematic. Gassner applauds the Brecht-inspired rejection of bland realism, which ofered no more than a refection of contemporary life, but argues that the antirealists had as yet found little of substance to ofer in its place. The dramatic forms explored to date seemed to him ‘tentative, elusive, or fractured’ (Gassner 1956: 141). Theatricalism had most efectively been deployed in the contexts of music hall, musical comedy and vaudeville, he considered; it was least successful when departures from realism became freakish for the sake of it, pompously self-conscious, or too playfully arch. For Gassner, the necessary invigoration of the contemporary theatre was therefore to be achieved by moving beyond false perceptions of realism and theatricalism as opposed polarities towards an integration of the two in ‘active and secure partnership’ (Gassner 1956: xiii). In his fnal chapter, ‘The Duality of Theatre’, Gassner argues that theatre by its nature exploits both illusion and anti-illusion. Audiences need not, therefore, be given either realism or theatricalism, but can enter into a performance’s sense of reality at one moment and, at the next, appreciate an efect that they know to be ‘theatrical’ rather than lifelike. Equally, audiences can experience something as simultaneously ‘theatrical’ and ‘real’. Gassner sought a creative synthesis. He urged playwrights to consider the full vocabulary available to them, and in so doing to challenge the assumption that certain types of dramatic subject belonged to specifc theatrical forms. It is illuminating to consider Boal’s work, in New York and afterwards, in the light of this debate. Certainly, Boal was deeply infuenced by realism and impressed by the detailed and disciplined approach to rehearsal demanded by the Stanislavsky System, which he saw practised at the Actors’ Studio in New York. He watched some of the Studio’s rehearsals as well as public performances and comments: Since those Actors’ Studio sessions, I have had a fascination for actors who truly live their characters – rather than those who pretend to. To see an actor transforming him/ herself, giving life to his/her dormant potentialities, is marvellous. It is the best way to understand the human being: seeing an actor create. (2001: 129) The valuing of a broadly Stanislavskian process is very evident here. It is useful to remember this, for while Theatre of the Oppressed is heavily informed by the anti-illusionist principles of Brechtian dramaturgy this does not mean that all tenets of realism are rejected. Far from it: like Gassner, Boal does not make a case for either/or but aims to combine both. The observation quoted is also of interest for the emphasis placed on seeking the ‘other’ within oneself (‘giving life to his/her dormant potentialities’), a principle that would become fundamental to the Theatre of the Oppressed. Finally, if watching an actor create is ‘the best way to understand the human being’, the Theatre of the Oppressed proposes, by extension, that participation in the creative processes of theatre is the best way to reveal the human being, and through this to understand one’s self and one’s society. Theatre of the Oppressed does not use performance to investigate 154

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matters of social or personal concern simply because it is Boal’s preferred medium. Rather, the method is founded on the belief that theatre encourages this investigation because of its inherent duality. Boal’s position is close to Gassner’s, even though the latter could not have anticipated the direction Boal’s work would take. Boal returned to Brazil from New York with a developed awareness of theatre’s potentiality, a broadened theatrical vocabulary and an approach to theatre-making informed by principles of actor creativity, detail and discipline. All this is evident in his early work at Arena, and specifc aspects would later be adapted in necessary response to an increasingly repressive political situation and as part of his own maturing development as a practitioner.

At the Arena Theatre of São Paulo, 1956–71 Boal returned to Brazil in 1955 and was quickly hired by José Renato, artistic director of the Arena Theatre. He spent the next ffteen years working at Arena as director and playwright, a hugely important period in his career abruptly concluded by enforced exile in 1971. The years were also marked by signifcant personal events; Boal married twice, frst – briefy – to Albertina Costa, and then to Cecília Thumim, with whom he still lives today.

Early years of the Arena theatre To understand Boal’s distinctive contribution to Arena it is necessary to know something of that company’s pre-history and particular ambitions. The importance of Arena’s role in the development of Brazilian theatre has been widely recognised (Milleret 1987; George 1992 and 1995; Anderson 1996). Arena was founded in 1953 by José Renato. His intention was to provide São Paulo with a professional company which would emulate the ensemble playing, high production standards and commitment to serious drama he admired in the Teatro Brasileiro de Comédia (1948–64), but which – lacking the TBC’s fnancial resources, and having no dedicated performance space – would necessarily operate at a more modest level. Having already staged a production in the arena or theatre in the round style, Renato decided that his new company would adopt this for all their performances. Use of the arena would reduce the necessity for expensive sets, and would mean that touring productions could easily adapt to whatever space (for example schools or factories) was available. Within the context of Brazilian theatre at the time, the introduction of playing in the round was a genuine innovation. Stage design in professional theatre had tended to emphasise artistry, detail and display; Arena’s work shifted attention to the organisation of stage space, demonstrating that visually stunning performance was not dependent on high fnance. Positive reactions to Renato’s early productions of Brazilian and foreign plays (and corresponding improvement in Arena’s fnances) led to the establishment in 1955 of the frst permanent theatre in the round in South America, located in downtown São Paulo, as the company’s home.

Boal at Arena: the ‘four phases’ Boal’s directorial debut was a critically acclaimed staging of John Steinbeck’s 1937 novella Of Mice and Men. According to David George, the production was characterised by ‘social consciousness, “gritty” photographic realism, and Actors’ Studio methods’, all of which became Arena trademarks (George 1992: 44). Nevertheless, this ‘gritty realism’ was taking place on a small stage, with an audience on all sides, in a 150-seat theatre. This implies that the style was, of 155

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necessity, one of selective realism – as advocated by Gassner – since full scenery could not be used even if desired. Additionally, the close proximity of audience and actors suggests an intimacy of detail equivalent to the flm close-up, a strategy entirely appropriate to the ambitions of realism yet one which ‘realist’ productions on a more conventional end-on stage, in a larger auditorium, can rarely adopt. Boal emphasises the capacity of theatre in the round to stage realism, despite the apparent contradiction that ‘the circular stage always reveals the theatrical character of any performance: audience facing audience, with the actors in between, and all the theatrical mechanisms bared, without disguise’ (1979: 160–1). In this way, it seems that the Arena Theatre was already fnding a concrete expression for Gassner’s vision, whereby realism and ‘theatricalism’ would successfully co-exist. Boal’s description of Arena’s activities during his time there demarcates four theatrical phases. These are referred to as ‘realist’, beginning 1956; ‘photographic’, from 1958; ‘nationalisation of the classics’, from 1962; and ‘musicals’, from c.1964 (1979: 159–66). His account commences with Arena’s realist stagings of foreign plays, a repertory explained both by the seeming shortage of texts by Brazilian dramatists and the general, deeply entrenched view that the latter spelled box ofce disaster. Then, in the late 1950s, the decision was made to produce plays by national authors, many of whom were emerging in the context of the Arena’s own Dramaturgy Seminar (Seminário de Dramaturgia), initiated for that purpose. The term ‘photographic’ refers to Arena’s continued use of selective realism, but now in a context where the lens turned on the realities of Brazilian life. According to Boal, this second phase – successful in the development and support of new playwrights – was superseded by another in which Arena again staged foreign plays, but ones chosen for their relevance to the concerns of contemporary Brazil and slanted in production to reveal parallels to their audience. The progression from second to third phase was a shift of emphasis from ‘singularities [to] universalities’, with the fourth phase, of musicals, uniting both (Boal 1979: 165). The most successful production of this fnal phase, by all accounts, was Arena Conta Zumbi (‘Arena Tells of Zumbi’), which mediated a historical theme through overtly theatricalist devices, contemporary social commentary and Brazilian popular music. However, the four-phase account does not tell the whole story. David George’s detailed documentation of Arena’s output during these years reveals numerous instances that blur the neatness of supposed divisions. For example, the only truly realist production of the ‘frst phase’ (other than Of Mice and Men) was Boal’s staging of Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock, with various comedies and farces making up the bulk of the repertory. Second, the direction taken in the photographic or Brazilian dramaturgy phase was perhaps more fortuitous than planned. The major success of this phase was undoubtedly Gianfrancesco Guarnieri’s Eles Não Usam BlackTie (‘They Don’t Wear Black-Tie’), which opened in 1958 and ran for over a year. According to George, the astonishing popularity of this play, which focused on the lives of peasant-class Brazilians, saved Arena’s fnances at a moment of near disaster. The decision to produce national writers was taken subsequently in order to capitalise on the success of Guarnieri’s play, and the Dramaturgy Seminar launched as a result. Third, although Arena’s musicals are designated by Boal as the fourth phase, the company began staging musical shows as early as 1960 with Um Americano em Brasília (‘An American in Brazil’) (George 1992: 45–7 and 1995: 47–9). The point of making clarifcations of this kind is to draw attention to the way in which histories are – necessarily – produced after the event. The four-phase version of Arena’s development implies strategic progress through a sociotheatrical experiment, whereas other accounts stress the company’s recurrent fnancial difculties as the motivation behind many of its decisions. This does not undermine the very real signifcance of Arena’s work, which achieved greatest impact with Arena Conta Zumbi. 156

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Arena Conta Zumbi (1965) Although Arena had indeed been ‘nationalising the classics’ in the early 1960s, the company’s attention was forced back onto the immediate reality of contemporary Brazil when in 1964 President João Goulart was overthrown by an army revolt. If Goulart had liberal sympathies, his successor, General Humberto Castelo Branco, had not. As increasingly restrictive measures were introduced by the new regime, Arena had to reorder its priorities. It now seemed imperative to return to explicitly national subjects, so that recent events could be evaluated and the possibilities of resistance explored. But since realistic dramatisation of the military’s activities would attract immediate censorship, an alternative theatrical language was needed. The form Arena developed was a new type of musical, combining Brazilian history, Brechtian distancing and realism (Milleret 1987: 19). In taking this direction the company drew on the success they had already achieved with musical shows, the most important of which had been Opinião in 1964 (directed by Boal and written by Oduvaldo Vianna Filho). The concerns of the working class formed the subject matter of this show, expressed through the popular music of the samba and bossa nova (George 1992: 49–50). Arena Conta Zumbi was written by Boal and Gianfrancesco Guarnieri (1934– ) and directed by Boal, with music by Edu Lobo (1943– ). It was the frst in a series of ‘Arena tells of . . .’ shows, followed by Arena Conta Tiradentes in 1967 and Arena Conta Bolívar in 1971. Zumbi is based on an episode in seventeenth-century Brazilian history when a colony of escaped slaves at Palmares was attacked by federal troops, by order of a joint Portuguese–Dutch force, aiming to dissuade further attempts at rebellion. The ex-slaves resisted fercely but were all eventually slaughtered. With this episode as the musical’s basis, Arena was able to recount and celebrate a past struggle against despotism and, through this, ofer implicit condemnation of the new dictatorship. Furthermore, the focus on a historical and ostensibly patriotic subject largely protected the play from the attentions of the censor (Anderson 1996: 23). Ideologically and aesthetically, Arena Conta Zumbi was an ambitious production. Arena aimed to reinforce the broadly shared identity of its regular audience – young, idealistic and politically left of centre – by means of historical allegory. Zumbi drew vivid parallels between the attacks on the colony and the tactics of the Brazilian military at the time of the coup and later, and by celebrating rebellion in the past sought to stimulate resistance in the present. The aesthetic aims were equally bold. Boal has stated that fundamentally Zumbi attempted to destroy all the stylistic conventions which were inhibiting theatre’s development as an art form and clear a space for a new system to emerge (1979: 166). This process employed four principal techniques: 1 2

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a break with actor/character correspondence, achieved by having all the actors play all the characters; the use of shared narration – implied by the ‘Arena tells of . . .’ formulation – to emphasise collective ownership of the history, a collectivity which potentially extended to the audience as well; stylistic eclecticism, drawing on farce, melodrama, music and docudrama, designed to keep the audience entertained and critically engaged; and use of music for its atmospheric and emotional powers, which were then harnessed to reinforce ideological meaning.

Certainly, these techniques were not new in themselves, nor were they presented as such. Boal acknowledges the infuence of Brecht, and – less obviously – the drama of classical Greece (1979: 168–71). What was innovative was the specifc combination and political application that together made Zumbi the frst ‘Brazilian protest musical’ (George 1992: 51). 157

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Critical opinion is divided over Zumbi’s achievement. The show was certainly Arena’s biggest popular success, initially running for a year and a half and remaining within the company’s repertoire throughout the rest of the 1960s and early 1970s, and touring to Europe and the US. The show was well received by critics, though some complained that the mixture of styles created an incoherent and ‘chaotic’ whole. This charge can be countered, if not dismissed, by recalling that Boal’s intention was to destroy existing theatrical codes: thus ‘chaos’ would be a necessary and expected result (Anderson 1996: 22–6). However, Zumbi did not aim to be aesthetically destructive for its own sake but so that a new order could emerge. The production had its own goals but was importantly a means to an end. What came out of the experiment was the Joker (or Coringa) system, described in detail in Theatre of the Oppressed (1979: 167–90). Essentially, this was conceived as a means of presenting a story while simultaneously examining its implications and relevance. Using the stylistic techniques employed in Zumbi, the system proposed to use a ‘wild-card’ fgure who could mediate between characters and audiences, comment critically on the narrative and, at certain points, intervene directly in the action. As it turned out, this elaborate and carefully theorised proposal was not wholly successful in practice, possibly because it was too rigid. It was fully realised just once, in Arena Conta Tiradentes (1967), a production David George considers ‘unwieldy, overly cerebral, and schematic’ (1992: 52). But if Arena’s aesthetic aims for Zumbi were only partially achieved, what of their ideological ambitions? This is almost impossible to measure. As Milleret notes, there exists ‘no documentation to confrm that members of the audience really walked out of the performance and engaged in revolution’ (1987: 26). She comments that, while it was unlikely the show made a direct impact on political events, it nevertheless contributed importantly by sustaining a belief in the possibility of resistance among the students and intellectuals who formed the majority of its audience. Anderson agrees, noting that, although Zumbi’s optimistic tone might today seem incongruous or naive given the subsequent tightening of the dictatorship’s hold, it chimed powerfully with the mood of the time which perceived the 1964 coup as a setback but not a defeat (1996: 26).

Last years of the Arena theatre As the political situation worsened in the years following 1967 it grew harder to voice any form of protest. Arena’s activities became increasingly threatened, frst by censorship, then by the physical aggression of the military and its ultra right-wing supporters. Boal comments on the impossibility of avoiding partisanship in that climate, even if you were not afliated to a political body: You would be involved in a furtive conversation and before you knew it you had slipped into the armed struggle. A meeting, a secret, and soon the person already felt committed: . . . you had already become a militant before you noticed how it had happened. (2001: 251) All cultural activities of the radical intelligentsia were targeted by the dictatorship, but the theatre particularly so, since the alliance between theatre groups and university students had been identifed as a dangerous oppositional force (Albuquerque 1989: 87). While modest censorship had always operated in the Brazilian theatre to some degree, it now intensifed sufciently to provoke the theatre community of São Paulo into declaring a general strike (George 1992: 109). In 1968 Arena staged Feira Paulista de Opinião (‘São Paulo’s Fair of Opinions’) in the Teatro Ruth Escobar, in outright defance of the censor’s ban. Opinião was a show for which local artists had 158

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been invited to use their preferred medium to express opinions about contemporary times and debate the role of art in society. It was at this time that the dictatorship adopted more violent measures of control, which took the form of bombs, raids and kidnappings. Boal recalls: ‘At the end of a show, actors prepare themselves for the applause. We prepared ourselves nervously for invasion’ (2001: 268). Playing concurrently with Opinião in the same building was Roda Viva (‘Live Wheel’) by popular singer-composer Chico Buarque (1944– ); controversial play in which a pop star is murdered by obsessive fans and the actors pass lumps of his ‘fesh’ (actually chicken meat) to the audience to eat. In a notorious incident paramilitaries burst in on one performance, destroyed the scenery and beat up the cast (George 1992: 53; Boal 2001: 267). By 1971 the aggression had reached its peak. The police began to arrest and torture numerous people, including infuential theatre practitioners such as José Celso (1937– ) of Teatro Ofcina, set designer Flávio Império (1935–85) and Boal himself. For three months Boal was held in the Department of Political and Social Order, accused of crimes against Brazil. Boal’s rage and anguish during this period of confnement and torture are vividly described in his autobiography (2001: 284–98). The imprisonment attracted widespread attention, nationally and internationally. In America playwright Arthur Miller (1915– ) wrote a letter calling for his release, supported by signatures from hundreds of artists from all over the world. The appeal was successful in that Boal was freed shortly afterwards and acquitted of all charges; he was nevertheless sent into exile and, together with his wife Cecília and son Fabián, left Brazil for Argentina. Without Boal, Arena did not survive. For some years it continued to operate as a venue, but the company soon dispersed.

In Exile, 1971–86 Development of a theatre of dialogue While Boal was in exile he consolidated the principles and practice which together constituted the Theatre of the Oppressed. Several of his important theoretical texts were published during this period: Teatro del oprimido (‘Theatre of the Oppressed’), Técnicas latinoamericanas de teatro popular (‘Techniques of Latin American People’s Theatre’), Doscientos ejercicios y juegos para el actor y el no actor con ganas de decir algo a través del teatro (‘Two Hundred Exercises and Games for the Actor and the Non-Actor Wishing to Say Something Through Theatre’) and Popular Theatre Round Tables (a collection of discussions Boal had participated in around the world) were all produced in 1974. Boal’s work in Argentina and Peru during these years, and – crucially – his engagement with the educational theories of Paulo Freire, signifcantly informed his pedagogy and hence shaped these writings. Before examining this period, however, it will be useful to summarise the ways in which his time with Arena had prepared the ground for a new synthesis of ideas. The ffteen years Boal spent at Arena were formative in his development as a practitioner. He had matured as a writer and director; he had experimented – out of necessity as well as by inclination – with numerous strategies in theatrical communication within a context where provocative content had increasingly to be relayed by covert means. These experiments were not always conducted within theatre buildings, or with an educated public. An important dimension of Arena’s work – one somewhat marginalised by the four-phase history – was the efort to develop popular audiences among the disempowered sectors of the population. The campaign to ‘take theatre to the people’ was not unique to Arena, but was associated with the wider Movimento de Cultura Popular (Movement of Popular Culture or MCP), an important initiative launched in the early 1960s during the populist presidency of João Goulart and backed by the National Students’ Union. Numerous Centres of Popular Culture (CPCs) sprang up in cities 159

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and the countryside (the CPC in Rio was founded by Oduvaldo Vianna Filho (1936–74), one of Arena’s best-known dramatists). The CPCs’ shared aim was one of ‘consciousness-raising’, but using popular art forms which, it was hoped, would make the educational content of the work understandable and entertaining (Milleret 1990a: 19–21). It was a short-lived experiment – since one of the frst laws of the dictatorship that followed the 1964 coup was to outlaw the CPCs (Taussig and Schechner 1990: 52) – and only partially achieved its aims. While the energy that drove the groups made these two years highly productive of publications, flms and performances, the CPCs did not ultimately manage to secure their desired audience. An unresolved problem remained in the disparity between theory and practice, manifested in the authoritarian relationship between those who worked for the CPCs (intellectuals, artists and students) and the disadvantaged classes they sought to reach. Relative ignorance about the lives of their proposed audiences, coupled with a failure to appreciate the true extent of their own privilege, meant that frequently ‘the famous “message” came accompanied by a great simplifcation of political and social reality’ (Boal 2001: 192). The story Boal uses frequently to illustrate the contradictions revealed when one community attempts to solve the problems of another in this way is of his encounter with peasant farmer Virgílio (1995: 2–3; 2001: 194). In the early 1960s, Arena toured an agitational play to the poorest villages of northeast Brazil, one condemning the conditions the peasants in that region were forced to endure and encouraging rebellion against the landowners. The show ended stirringly, with the actors (in character as peasants) singing of their readiness to shed blood for the revolution. As Boal recounts, cast members were subsequently embarrassed and humbled when Virgílio, powerfully moved by the performance and taking their seeming commitment at face value, urged them to fght alongside the peasants that very day. As the actors ofered awkward excuses – their guns were props that would not fre, they did not know how to fght, they were not true peasants but just pretending – they were made forcibly aware of the hypocrisy of inciting action from a position of personal security. Boal writes: Before that encounter we were preaching revolution for abstract audiences. Now we met ‘the people’. Virgílio was the ‘people’ we had been looking for. The peasant farmers of the Northeast were that ‘people’. We had fnally found the ‘people’! Viva the people! How should we speak to this real people? How could we teach them what they knew better than us? (2001: 194) The fast-moving events of the late 1960s, and the struggle Arena faced in mounting theatre of any kind, provided little opportunity for extended refection on such questions. It was in exile, approximately ten years after this encounter ‘which traumatised but enlightened’ (Boal 1995: 3), that Boal found himself working in a context where he could re-examine the diffculties it had illustrated so starkly and propose a series of strategies which might be used to surmount them.

The ALFIN project and the infuence of Freire In 1973 Boal left his new home in Buenos Aires to teach on a literacy programme being launched in Peru, sponsored by Velasco Alvarado’s revolutionary government. The programme, run by Alicia Saco, was known as the Operación Alfabetización Integral (or ALFIN). Its principal objective was to eradicate illiteracy in Peru – a problem which it was estimated afected roughly 35 per cent of the population (Boal 1979: 120). The ALFIN project aimed to teach literacy 160

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(1) in the ofcial language of Spanish; (2) in the frst language of the participants (in a region where a vast number of diferent languages and dialects were spoken); and (3) in a range of ‘artistic languages’ such as photography, puppetry, journalism and theatre. Based in the small town of Chaclacayo, near Lima, Boal organised the theatre strand of the project. His experience is described in detail in Theatre of the Oppressed (1979: 120–56). . . . The pedagogic principles embodied in the ALFIN project had great impact on Boal’s practice. ALFIN’s methods were derived from the theories of Brazilian educationalist Paulo Freire (1921–97), though Freire himself was not involved in the programme when Boal was employed there. Boal frst met Freire in 1960 when touring with Arena in the northeast of Brazil (the poorest region, where Freire grew up). The older man powerfully infuenced Boal’s thinking and, indirectly, his practice. Boal has always acknowledged this, and recently paid this tribute: ‘With Paulo Freire’s death I lost my last father. Now I have only brothers and sisters’ (1998: 129). The originality of Freire’s work arose from his growing awareness of the disconnection between elitist educational methods and the reality of the lives of the working classes. He rejected absolutely the ‘top down’ approach to teaching, then favoured by the Brazilian education system, which treated illiterate adults as though they were children. He exposed the power structures at the heart of a system within which students were considered ‘empty vessels’ waiting to be flled by the knowledge of the teacher. He famously termed this ‘the “banking” concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, fling, and storing the deposits’ (Freire 1972: 46). By contrast, Freire advocated an approach based on the assumption that those being taught were intelligent human beings who deserved respect, not patronage. In his view, the students were not ignorant but simply lacked the linguistic tools needed for reading and writing. He proposed a method based on dialogic exchange, whereby the literacy trainers would learn from the peasants about their lives and through this process the concepts and language that critically informed their reality could be mutually established. His methodology was based on conscientização (broadly, consciousness-raising), a process that emphasises the ownership of knowledge. Freire argued that knowledge comes from learning to perceive social and economic contradictions and feeling empowered to take action against elements of oppression (McCoy 1995: 11). His methods proved hugely successful and the Goulart government approved the setting up of programmes all over Brazil, in association with the Movement of Popular Culture. These were considered a serious threat to the old order and were immediately halted following the 1964 coup, with Freire imprisoned as a traitor. He was released after seventy days and ‘encouraged’ to leave Brazil. He travelled between countries in Latin America and then to Europe, as Boal would do a few years later, disseminating his methods as he did so.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Theatre of the Oppressed The ALFIN project was driven by Freire’s argument for the necessity of conscientização. The aim was to enable communication in a range of languages – artistic as well as linguistic – without hierarchising one above another, and respecting the knowledge participants already had. The theatre strand of ALFIN adhered to the same principles. In practice this meant that participants would need to learn to ‘speak’ theatre for themselves, rather than be content to watch plays written and performed by acknowledged experts. They would learn theatrical language based on the need to express their own reality, in order to engage with the contradictions of that reality. Finally, the trainer would be motivated by a genuine desire for dialogue – a belief that in this process the ‘students’ have knowledge which the ‘teacher’ needs to learn. This was the approach Boal adopted. Just as Freire had outlined the methods whereby students within the educational 161

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process could make the transition from seeing themselves as objects (unconscious and acted upon by others) to subjects (capable of self-conscious action) Boal identifed stages by which the spectator – in his view fundamentally a passive being – could become an actor. The proposed steps are as follows: (1) knowing the body; (2) making the body expressive; (3) the theatre as language; and (4) the theatre as discourse. The frst two stages are not simply preparation for the more developed dialogue and ownership of the third and fourth stages, as essential principles are embodied from the beginning; the very act of recognising how human physicality is afected by social and economic conditions is one of conscientização. In developing this process, Boal had moved signifcantly beyond Arena’s ‘agit-prop’ theatre of the early 1960s. In presenting plays designed to rouse working-class audiences to rebellion, the company had adopted an equivalent of the ‘top down’ process that Freire criticised: they sought to enlighten their audience with ready-made answers, failing to recognise that their behaviour was as manipulative, in its own way, as that of the landowners. Freire comments, in words which recall Boal’s refection on his encounter with Virgílio, that those who support the oppressed but are themselves from a privileged class must recognise and overcome the temptation to fall into patterns of patronage: ‘They talk about the people, but they do not trust them; and trusting the people is the indispensable precondition for revolutionary change’ (Freire 1972: 36). In his work with Arena, Boal had presented theatre for and about the oppressed; he had not created a method that would transfer ownership of the theatrical process. The fully participatory approach he now developed aimed to do this. According to Boal, all the major techniques which form the ‘arsenal’ of the Theatre of the Oppressed were established during this period: Simultaneous Dramaturgy, Image Theatre, Forum Theatre, Invisible Theatre. Other techniques, such as Newspaper Theatre, had originated at Arena, but were now re-presented as part of the Theatre of the Oppressed system. In his writing, lectures and interviews, from that time and since, Boal has suggested that each technique was invented out of necessity, in creative response to situations for which existing methods had proved inadequate. Invisible Theatre provides a ready example. Here, actors present scenarios based on pressing social problems in contexts where these might actually occur, such as restaurants, shops or public squares. The intention is to provoke spontaneous reactions and stimulate debate among members of the public, who should be convinced of the reality of the event throughout. Boal states that the method was developed because it became too dangerous – not least for himself, since he had already been arrested once – to present controversial material explicitly within the public theatre. The idea was born therefore that issues could be raised ‘invisibly’, without pre-advertisement and its resulting police presence, and without it being evident who was an actor and who was not (2001: 303–4). Invisible Theatre bears some similarity to the kinds of theatrical experiments taking place in the US in the 1960s, although Boal has been concerned to distinguish his technique from ‘a “happening” or the so-called “guerrilla theatre”’ (1979: 147). However, it is likely Boal was at least infuenced by exposure to such experiments, and possible he reshaped what he saw for a Latin American context, with added ideological infection. It should be remembered that at the time Theatre of the Oppressed was published Boal’s sympathies were strongly nationalist, and he was thus keen to emphasise the cultural authenticity of his developing practice. Perhaps here, as occasionally elsewhere, it is useful to look beyond Boal’s own account to consider the possibility of a reality that might be less clear-cut, though no less interesting.

Argentina, Portugal, Paris The early 1970s was a very active period for Boal. As well as developing Theatre of the Oppressed techniques within ALFIN, he continued to work more conventionally as a teacher, playwright 162

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and director. He staged his own plays, including Torquemada, written while in prison in Brazil, and a rewritten version of Revolução Na América Do Sul (‘Revolution in South America’), frst presented by Arena in 1960. He continued to travel widely, using Argentina as a base, giving lectures, workshops and attending festivals in Latin America and the US. By the middle of the decade, however, the political situation in Argentina had worsened considerably. Following the death of President Juan Peron in 1974, terrorist activities (by right-wing and left-wing groups) escalated, the cost of living soared and there were frequent strikes and demonstrations for higher wages. Boal’s activities were increasingly constrained. He waited over two years for his passport to be renewed, in a climate that became steadily more dangerous: ‘When the doorbell rang, I used to tremble until I saw a friendly face’ (2001: 312). Eventually the passport arrived, and in 1976 – the same year a military junta seized power in Argentina – Boal and his family, which now included their baby son Julián, departed for Portugal. There they spent the next two years. The political climate in Portugal – in contrast with Argentina – initially seemed to support Boal’s work. In 1975 the military government had moved to the left and 1976 saw the frst free elections in the country for ffty years. Boal was appointed artistic director of the highly regarded theatre group A Barraca (The Hut) and among other shows produced A Feira Portuguesa de Opinião, following the same principles as the ‘Opinion’ show he had directed in São Paulo. He carried on teaching, now at the National Conservatory in Lisbon. However, there were continual setbacks. The Ministries of Culture and Education praised the work and promised support, but later withdrew fnances and terminated contracts. It was a static and disheartening period. There was still no possibility of returning to Brazil, where the political situation had undergone fuctuations but not substantially improved, and in Latin America generally conditions were little better. Boal’s attention turned elsewhere; he accepted several invitations to teach in Scandinavia and Central Europe, but the turning point in his career came in 1978 when he was ofered a lectureship at the renowned Sorbonne in Paris.

Cop on the Street to Cop in the Head While the previous two years had produced no real developments in the Theatre of the Oppressed, the move to France marked the beginning of an important new direction. The enthusiasm with which Boal’s teaching of Theatre of the Oppressed methods was received at the Sorbonne led to the creation of the frst centre dedicated to its development and dissemination: the Centre d’Étude et Difusion des Techniques Actives d’Expression or CÉDITADE. The Centre trained up teams of facilitators to run Theatre of the Oppressed workshops and conduct Forum Theatre sessions. The techniques began to spread and in 1981 the frst International Festival of Theatre of the Oppressed took place in Paris. It was inevitable that as more people began to practise the method, diverse interpretations should enter in. In addition – and crucially, in informing subsequent developments – techniques that had been designed to combat oppression in a ThirdWorld context were now being applied to a First-World reality. While economic inequality and deprivation existed in Europe too (and the Centre continued to work with the poor of Paris), the experiences middle-class participants brought to the sessions were very diferent in character. Boal was initially sceptical of oppressions which included ‘loneliness’ and ‘fear of emptiness’: For someone like me, feeing explicit dictatorships of a cruel and brutal nature, it was natural that these themes should at frst seem superfcial and scarcely worthy of attention. It was as if I was always asking, mechanically: ‘But where are the cops?’. Because I was used to working with concrete, visible oppressions. (1995: 8) 163

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Recognition that these internalised oppressions could impact severely on individual freedom – for example leading to depression, physical illness and suicide – persuaded Boal of their importance. At the beginning of the 1980s he began running workshops together with Cecília – now trained as a psychoanalyst – to explore the nature of these feelings and ways they could be ‘treated’ using Theatre of the Oppressed techniques. These workshops were titled La Flic dans la Tête (‘The Cop in the Head’); the implication was that the old oppressors associated with the dictatorships were not absent from this context of relative privilege, but were operating undercover, subtly and internally. Throughout the 1980s Boal continued to develop these Cop in the Head techniques, adapting Theatre of the Oppressed methods to meet the needs of the changed situation. The modifcations were not slight; the term ‘cop’ might suggest continuation of previous practices, but when the cop was metaphorical rather than actual, it could not be approached in the same way. The established method of Forum Theatre required a concrete oppression, familiar to the whole audience, which could be tackled through a series of spectator interventions. In the western European context the nature of the oppression often proved elusive, or its existence was denied by the individual it seemed to afect most. Such situations demanded methods less public (and potentially invasive) than Forum and increasingly processes, rather than performances, were emphasised. Boal began to acknowledge this new direction as therapeutic. The work has been compared with that of Jacob Moreno (1889–1974), founder of psychodrama, though there was no direct infuence (see Feldhendler 1994). In 1989 in Amsterdam, Boal gave the keynote speech at the International Association of Group Psychotherapy’s tenth convention. He had renamed the adapted techniques by this time, and in 1990 brought out a new book, Méthode Boal de théâtre et de thérapie: l’arc-en-ciel du désir (published in English as The Rainbow of Desire: The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy, 1995). Critical opinion continues to be divided on the implications of adapting Theatre of the Oppressed in this way. Not surprisingly, the severest challenges came from Latin America where Boal’s shift of attention to the ‘softer’ oppressions of Europe and seeming embrace of individualism was regarded by some as an abandonment of the revolutionary class struggle. David George is unequivocal: ‘[F]orum theatre now amounts to politically correct psychodrama (US/European style) for privileged groups (e.g., university students and professors) in the “imperialist” countries, who are ofered this comforting illusion: all inequalities are equal’ (1995: 45). While recognising the force of such criticisms it is nevertheless possible to ofer counterarguments. That Boal should adapt the methods upon fnding himself in a new context with diferent problems is both unsurprising and entirely in line with the way he has always worked: experimenting, inventing, transforming. The creation of the Rainbow of Desire techniques marked a new direction in Boal’s work, certainly, but one that could be interpreted as an expansion of original Theatre of the Oppressed proposals rather than an abandonment of principles – a defence further supported by his work on returning to Brazil (discussed in the next section). But it is undoubtedly true that his attitude to his country and its problems underwent a change. Boal was forced out of Latin America. He acknowledges that the extended absence altered him irrevocably: ‘No one returns from exile, ever. My country was no more, neither were the people the same people, nor I, Augusto’ (2001: 326). This is more than a statement of personal disafection; it is a recognition of transformed conditions, perceptions and relationships. Silvia Pellarolo interprets Boal’s reinvented practice as a positive and creative response to new circumstances. She argues that adaptations of this kind constitute necessary acknowledgements of the changes in sociopolitical structures, in First and Third Worlds, triggered by the shift of late capitalism towards globalisation of the economy. The concept of a class struggle, and belief in its possibility, have been destabilised within both contexts and to an extent replaced by wider discontent 164

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among all marginalised sectors of society. The expansion of Theatre of the Oppressed, which from the mid-1980s forged connections with many varieties of community activism, such as social work, special education, health and human services professions, is arguably a refection of ‘this new geopolitical and demographic picture’ (1994: 204). However, any assessment of Boal’s work must consider a further direction taken by the Theatre of the Oppressed, and one which reafrms its claim to political efcacy: Legislative Theatre.

The 1990s: developments in Rio Return from exile The year 1979 had seen a liberalisation of military rule in Brazil; the abertura (amnesty) marked the beginning of the country’s return to an elected government. This change brought with it some loosening of censorship controls and freedoms in daily life but did not represent a fullyfedged democracy (Bethell 1994). The abertura allowed exiles and political prisoners to return to Brazil without legal consequences; it also essentially pardoned those who had participated in the repressive practices of the dictatorship, such as torture and kidnappings (Milleret 1990b: 213). Boal was thus legally free to go back to Brazil from 1979, but chose not to return until 1986. He explains the seven-year gap pragmatically: his family had made a home in France, they had fnancial stability, and the children were settled in school (Heritage 2002: 157). After so many years of being forced by circumstances to move in a hurry, leaving so much behind, this time they preferred ‘to do things at a more measured pace’ (Boal 1998: 7). But, such reasons aside, going back to Brazil was not easy for Boal. The treatment he had received under the dictatorship could not quickly be recovered from. Milleret notes that the extreme censorship enforced by the regime was not limited to the cutting or banning of work, but ‘could annihilate people’s existence or actions by simply not allowing information about them to be published in newspapers and books, or performed on stage’ (1990b: 216). Boal had been erased in just this way. How should he reinvent himself after such treatment? Before his exile Boal had been known in Brazil as a leading director and playwright of the Arena Theatre. He could not have taken up his former position again even had he wished, since the company had long since disbanded and the theatrical climate changed. An invitation from Darcy Ribeiro, then Vice Governor of Rio, led him to return instead as a facilitator to introduce at home the techniques he had developed abroad. Boal was employed to organise the theatrical component of a new programme – called Integrated Centres for Public Education (CIEPS) – directed towards school children from the Rio slums. The programme was one of a number of initiatives launched by the Brazilian government in 1985 under newly elected civilian president José Sarney, designed to improve living conditions for the country’s poor. The CIEPS programme provided the children with meals and baths each day, as well as with cultural activities such as music, dancing and theatre, plus their ordinary classes. Boal undertook the work in collaboration with Cecília, using Theatre of the Oppressed techniques with students, teachers and cultural animators working across Rio state. The programme was potentially revolutionary, Boal believed, ‘because if a child leads a human life for a few years she will never accept going back to living the inhuman life that most Brazilians live today’ (Taussig and Schechner 1990: 50). But, to the bitter disappointment of all involved, the project ran only a few months. Once re-elected, Sarney imposed a stringent austerity plan and cancelled this and other similar initiatives. Without subsidy CIEPS could not be maintained. But although the programme was ofcially dropped, the work had taken root. Many animators had started theatre groups in the communities they had visited, and these continued to operate. There was a hunger to 165

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take it further. A variety of small projects were undertaken in the next few years. Boal and his colleagues worked hard to establish a permanent Centre for Theatre of the Oppressed (CTO) in Rio, but since they lacked secure funding it seemed that this would have to be abandoned.

Legislative theatre The turning point in the CTO-Rio’s fortunes came in 1992, an election year in Brazil. It was agreed that the CTO as an independent organisation would not carry on. Its members threw in their lot with the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores or PT), which under the leadership of Lula (Luis Inacio da Silva, 1945 – ) had been gaining in popularity, ofering to ‘theatricalise the campaign’ (Boal 1998: 12). The story of how Boal was persuaded to run as one of the PT’s candidates for vereador (member of the council) believing his candidature to be purely nominal but being ultimately elected – to everyone’s great surprise – is humorously related by him in Legislative Theatre (1998: 11–18). In the past Boal had sought to avoid party politics, even when the dictatorship had forced its opponents into a political position by default. Nevertheless, his election provided an opportunity. Now, when the CTO groups uncovered problems in their communities that were unhelpfully perpetuated by current laws, a line of communication could be pursued directly to the legislative chamber. Boal could put himself at the service of the citizens, using his political mandate to back changes to the law, or new laws, that they wished to see enacted. Boal argues that, in this way, the citizen is transformed into a legislator – much as Theatre of the Oppressed transforms spectator into actor – and the law-making process returned to the people, no longer the property of an elite. Like the Theatre of the Oppressed, Legislative Theatre is founded on the belief that marginalised and exploited classes desire change. The former aims to reveal and explore these desires and rehearse ways of acting upon them, but the latter ‘seeks to go further and to transform that desire into law’ (1998: 20). The CTO-Rio found a new lease of life. Instead of disbanding, it expanded its operations, developing a network designed to spread Legislative Theatre strategies as widely as possible. While Boal has argued that Legislative Theatre, as an essentially transitive process – one based on intercommunication and transfer of knowledge between legislator and citizens – is supported by Freirean principles, critics have not universally found its propositions convincing. Baz Kershaw, for example, rejects Boal’s claim that in this process the citizen is transformed into legislator as ‘manifestly untrue’, commenting that the closest the citizens of Rio seem to have got to the actual making of laws was to suggest, through his Council-funded forum theatre groups, that some laws might be more welcome than others, and to sometimes contribute to the framing of them. But to state that this makes them into legislators is like proclaiming that a net-maker is a fsherman even though he never goes to sea. (2001: 219) From this perspective, Legislative Theatre represents not an advance from Theatre of the Oppressed’s early radicalism but a regression. Twenty years earlier Boal criticised Brecht’s theatre because, although the spectator ‘does not delegate power to the characters to think in his place, . . . he continues to delegate power to them to act in his place’ (Boal 1979: 155). Arguably, Legislative Theatre proposes something similar. The Rio citizens are engaged in a thinking process – albeit on their feet – but ultimately ‘the power to act’ has been delegated elsewhere. Boal’s counter-argument is based on his belief in the inherent radicalism of active participation in the theatre process. ‘Acting’ has always held a double meaning in his work; she who fnds the courage 166

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to take the space (physical, temporal, mental) to express her reality and rehearse alternatives will see herself as instigator of change rather than victim of circumstances. Equally, according to Boal, legislators have no power of their own but only that which has been invested in them by the citizens; they are no more than vehicles through which the desires of the people can be channelled. Readers of Legislative Theatre can consider for themselves how far this method, which claims to use ‘performance to make politics’ (the book’s subtitle), is genuinely subversive. It is perhaps more fruitful here to ask what the impact of Legislative Theatre has been, within Brazil and elsewhere. The energy and commitment the CTO-Rio brought to the Legislative Theatre project is unquestionable. During the period Boal held ofce – from 1992 to 1996 – nineteen theatre groups were organised which operated in diferent parts of the city. Through the work of these groups, with Boal as legislative channel, thirteen laws were passed covering issues from sexual discrimination to the protection of crime witnesses (Boal 1998: 102–13). This is no mean achievement, especially given the political context. From its earliest stages of inception the Legislative Theatre project encountered deep resistance from the right, a reaction that arguably might itself testify to the work’s potency. This opposition at frst took the form of several attempted legal actions – all insubstantial and ultimately rejected by the chamber – against Boal himself, together with a prolonged and violent campaign attacking the CTO-Rio in the right-wing newspaper O Dia in the autumn of 1993. All this is charted in the regular newsletters sent out internationally by the CTO-Rio. A letter dated June 1994 records that Boal’s desk had twice been ransacked, his car sabotaged and the group’s van stolen. But the letter goes on to recount much more serious events which reveal the wider pressures under which Boal and his groups were forced to work. Two of their colleagues from the Workers’ Party had been assassinated in Rio the previous week. At about the same time in São Paulo, two militants from a coalition Party were also killed. In Mato Grosso and Acre, two more supporters had been kidnapped. Subsequent letters report further attacks – physical, verbal, legal – against the political left in general and the Legislative Theatre project in particular. The twelfth and fnal letter of the series records Boal’s failure to be re-elected, in a context where, for the frst time in the history of Rio’s mayoral elections, no leftwing candidate had passed through to the second round. This turn of events was a major setback to a project that had been considered a success, with fnance and political infuence swept away at a stroke. In a letter frst published in The Drama Review Boal described his initial bitterness, but also the determination of the CTO-Rio to continue the work: At frst we were very sad, discouraged, disappointed, melancholic. Ungrateful population!!! Unattentive voters!!! Alienated citizens!!! We had ofered our work, our sacrifce, our talent, and we were rejected! Better stop. They don’t deserve us. . . . But we are not used to giving up. We decided to go on, to go further! (1998: 114) This it has managed to do – at the time of writing, it still operates – despite problems in being once again thrown into a situation of trying to maintain a strategy from short-term contract to short-term contract. The single, direct link to the legislative chamber that existed when Boal was in ofce disappeared, but was replaced, perhaps positively, by the multiple connections which were forged as CTO-Rio sought the backing of diverse institutions and foundations. Like other Theatre of the Oppressed techniques, Legislative Theatre has travelled far beyond Latin America. Sometimes, surprisingly, it is even staged in contexts where there is no direct connection to a legal process. On these occasions the outcome of a Legislative Theatre session is the production of purely symbolic laws – unless individuals with legislative powers have been persuaded to attend and can take these proposals from the theatrical to a legal forum. This might 167

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seem an extraordinary delusion of empowerment, but perhaps symbolic authority should not be so quickly dismissed. The strategies of Legislative Theatre – some of which are not obviously theatrical, such as the ‘interactive mailing list’ and the ‘participatory budget’ (Boal 1998: 93, 115–16) – help to bridge the gap between government and citizens; a gap both actual (when MPs operate without accountability) and metaphorical (for example when voting at all seems futile). If Legislative Theatre changes the way participants see their society and their own role within it, and then – crucially – begin to act from that changed position, then symbolic power might yet have real consequences.

Theatre of the Oppressed in the twenty-frst century International impact At the time of writing – after more than fve decades of Boal’s working life – it is clear that the Theatre of the Oppressed’s infuence has been far-reaching. There is scarcely a country it has not touched, whether through Boal’s own travelling and teaching or via facilitators trained in the techniques. Theatre of the Oppressed has been translated into at least twenty-fve languages. In the UK, Adrian Jackson has been a particularly important disseminator of this work; as translator of several of Boal’s books and director of Cardboard Citizens (see Section 14.2), he has done much to popularise the methods. Paul Heritage is another who has helped broaden and deepen understanding of Theatre of the Oppressed, refecting critically on its application both in Brazil and in the UK. Since the frst Festival of Theatre of the Oppressed in 1981, such events have occurred regularly. The seventh International Festival was held in Rio in 1993 (for accounts see Heritage 1994; Paterson 1994; Campbell 1995), and others have since taken place, for example in Toronto, Vienna, Minnesota and Nebraska. There are Theatre of the Oppressed centres, groups and organisations in every continent – such as Jana Sanskriti (Calcutta), Headlines Theatre (Vancouver), Giolli (Italy), ATB (Burkina Faso), TOPLAB (New York), Formaat (Rotterdam) and Ashtar (Ramallah) – which use techniques directly or in combination with other strategies. They have been applied in every conceivable community context to address oppressions of all kinds, and have been adapted and reinvented in ways Boal could never have anticipated (see Schutzman and Cohen-Cruz 1994; Babbage 1995).

The CTO-Rio: recent developments The political climate in Brazil feels more hopeful at the time of writing than in a long time. Earlier this year Lula was elected, making him the frst working-class president in Brazil’s history, with the famous popular musician Gilberto Gil (1942– ) appointed Secretary of State for Culture. Alex Bellos comments that the latter’s new position in the government ‘personifes the arrival of the 1960s counter-culture as the establishment’ (2003: 10). Metaxis, launched in 2001 as the journal of the CTO-Rio, fairly buzzes with excitement at recent, current and planned developments. While Boal continues to travel the world, directing in mainstream theatre (recently working with the Royal Shakespeare Company) as well as teaching and practising Theatre of the Oppressed, he still works in Brazil with the CTO-Rio. By this, as by much else, he demonstrates a commitment to conditions in his own country that refutes criticisms that he has lost touch with the realities of Latin America through ‘Westernisation’. Alongside continued practice of Legislative Theatre, the Centre has most recently focused attention on two projects: the frst with the Brazilian penitentiary system, the second with the Movement of 168

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Landless Rural Workers (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra or MST). The former (run in partnership with FUNAP, the organisation which manages the São Paulo prison’s education system, and London-based People’s Palace Projects) principally involves staging Forum scenes on human rights issues within the prisons themselves, in an attempt to examine the problems that beset the system and explore possible solutions. It is an ambitious task, especially since gaining access to the institutions has proved problematic, quite apart from the challenge of enabling interventions from the prisoners (Heritage 2001: 32–3). The second project seeks to tackle rural poverty in Brazil by backing the MST in their fght for land reform. The MST is a grassroots movement that started in southern Brazil in the mid-1980s and increased in scale and dynamism over the 1990s. In the twenty-frst century it has continued to fght attempts to introduce market-led policies that implicitly or explicitly favour landowners. This application of Theatre of the Oppressed is based more on facilitation. The CTO-Rio is working in partnership with the MST to train large numbers of militants throughout Brazil in Boal’s ‘Jokering’ techniques, so that the method can be used by the MST to produce Forum scenes on themes relevant to its members (Santos 2001: 7–9).

The nature of the achievement While it is self-evident that Theatre of the Oppressed has survived the test of time and gained international recognition, as both a theory and a set of techniques, this does not in itself testify to its efcacy or originality. My discussion of Boal’s developing work has identifed elements that link his practice to that of others. My impression is that, in the early years of his career, Boal’s nationalist sympathies led him to a perhaps over-emphatic denial – conscious or unconscious – of theatrical infuences that might have been perceived as ‘imperialist’. It is clear, however, that Theatre of the Oppressed techniques are not uniquely Latin American but bear resemblance to diverse practices elsewhere. There are overlaps with Brecht’s Epic Theatre, with ‘happenings’ and the Depression-era Living Newspaper in the US, and with the Psychodrama of Jacob Moreno. Boal’s thinking is broadly informed by classical Greek drama, by Shakespeare, Stanislavsky, Marx and Freud, among others. Given Boal’s training and travelling, it would be surprising if it were otherwise. In recent years Boal has been ready to explore connections with diverse practices and celebrate what Adrian Jackson describes as his ‘magpie-like’ attitude to the games and exercises he encounters in other countries (Boal 1992: xxii–xxiii). In this sense the Theatre of the Oppressed – like so many theatrical ‘systems’ – represents an innovative assembly of ideas from a variety of sources, its distinctiveness principally in Boal’s ability to apply, reinvent and codify. But, beyond this, his is a charismatic presence; his writings are lively and persuasive enough, but on hearing him speak or working with him directly it is hard not be won over by his passion, dedication and warmth. Paul Heritage sums this up well: ‘His work is valued because it is utilitarian, but it is loved because it promises a heroic vision of what theatre could achieve’ (1998: 174). This leads us to the more complex issue of efcacy. Quite simply, do the techniques work? To answer this in any way satisfactorily, it is necessary to do more than refer to any or all of the numerous anecdotes provided in Boal’s books (or in the documentations of other practitioners) of instances where participants learned to see themselves and their world with diferent eyes. First, the question itself must be examined. What criteria should be used to judge ‘efcacy’? What does Theatre of the Oppressed attempt to do? It does not claim to provide answers or solve problems; indeed, it refuses to do so, since this would contradict the democratic principles that inform the practice. Its aim is rather to facilitate dialogue by ofering a series of structures that can help make that possible. The Theatre of the Oppressed is intended as a key, but 169

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as Boal insists: ‘The key does not open the door. It is he or she who, with the help of the key, opens the door’ (Ganguly 2001: 35). But for many this is still too abstract a response; the concrete results of the techniques remain in question. How might such results be assessed? To judge the ‘success’ of a Forum, for example, it might be necessary to take account of the number of people who had the opportunity to witness it; the proportion who ofered physical interventions in the action, or who joined in verbally; and who if any learned something from the experience, or modifed their behaviour after the Forum as a result. Such an assessment would be beset with problems too obvious to mention, and much of this is in any case unquantifable. But, even if it could be produced, it would not reveal whether Forum itself ‘works’, but only how far it made an impact with those people, at that time, in that place. It is more productive to ask in what circumstances, under what conditions, the techniques work best. Theatre of the Oppressed is not one approach but several and this is part of its strength. As the development of Boal’s practice reveals, one size does not ft all – the practitioner of this work must make choices at every stage about the situation they are dealing with and the appropriateness of any technique, all the while interrogating those choices.

14.2

Forum Theatre in production

As we have seen, productions are not the be-all and end-all of Theatre of the Oppressed but only one possible outcome of an exploratory process. Moreover, those that are created are constantly changing and open to change. This is more than a matter of staying alive and fresh – a quality of all good theatre. A Theatre of the Oppressed production is essentially a starting point, a proposition an audience is invited to contest. In this work, writes Boal, ‘we desecrate the stage, that altar over which usually the artist presides alone. We destroy the work ofered by the artists in order to construct a new work out of it, together’ (Boal 1995: 7). From this perspective the production is the whole event, encompassing both planned and unplanned elements. Could any one production, with one audience, perfectly illustrate Boal’s theories in practice? Probably not, since at the heart of the work is the ambition of far-reaching social transformation; no individual event, however well conceived, executed and efectively provocative, could realise this. Furthermore, while one audience might be livelier and more responsive than another, a performance that is slower, its spect-actors reluctant or resentful, can be equally revealing about the nature of the oppression being addressed. For all these reasons this section focuses principally on the method of Forum Theatre, using two productions for illustration. Did Boal invent Forum? He is regularly credited with having done so, but it is possible to fnd related practices elsewhere. The British Theatre in Education (TIE) movement is one such area. While some TIE companies have made self-conscious use of Theatre of the Oppressed techniques since encountering the work in the 1980s, others used methods akin to Forum Theatre years earlier. The ambitions of Theatre of the Oppressed and TIE are similar: both aim to activate their audiences, creating structures that will facilitate spectators’ participation within the drama as makers of meaning and agents of change. Comparison can also be made between Forum Theatre and the ‘Confict Theatre’ of Jacob Moreno, creator of psychodrama and group psychotherapy. Moreno identifed a four-stage process towards a fully therapeutic theatre: Dogmatic Theatre (the conventional tradition within which the audience remains passive); Confict Theatre (which combines the actors’ play with audience intervention); Theatre of Spontaneity (here theme, plot and development of the piece are agreed collectively and there are no ‘spectators’); and Therapeutic Theatre (a cathartic ‘theatre of the private sphere’, focused on traumatic life moments of participants). As Feldhendler observes, Confict Theatre corresponds closely to Forum Theatre (just as Therapeutic Theatre resembles Boal’s Rainbow of Desire techniques): 170

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both forms begin with conventional divisions between actor and spectator, stage and auditorium, and then disrupt these by making space for personal responses and physical intervention (1994: 90–3). The point of these comparisons is not to imply lack of originality on Boal’s part but to place Forum Theatre within a wider context. Boal arrived at the method as the next logical step beyond the purely oral participation ofered by Simultaneous Dramaturgy. Other practitioners follow diferent routes, but fnd the combination of observation and participation, action and discussion, production and process, similarly suited to their needs. Forum Theatre is probably the most well known and widely practised of all Theatre of the Oppressed techniques. Its popularity might partly be explained by the superfcial resemblance it bears to aspects of more conventional forms of theatre. Forum Theatre moves from the familiar to the unfamiliar. Whereas the process-based techniques of Image Theatre or Rainbow of Desire require a commitment to participation from the outset, Forum Theatre initially allows audiences the security of distance and then invites, inspires or provokes them to abandon this in favour of full involvement in the ‘theatrical game’ (Jackson, in Boal 1992: xxi). Forum is competitive in that it presents its audience with the challenge of an unsolved problem; one that will matter to them since it impacts on their own lives, directly or indirectly. Its principles are simple. The play – or ‘anti-model’, as it is sometimes termed – is performed once, so the audience can observe the oppression it illustrates in action, and then repeated. On the second showing, the play will follow the same course until interrupted by a member of the audience, who takes over the role of the protagonist and attempts to redirect the action and ultimately to defeat the oppressors. The rules are explained by the Joker (facilitator), whose function is to invite interventions, assist the transition from spectator to spect-actor, and encourage the audience as a whole to assess the action unfolding before them. The evaluative process is continuous, for rather than any single intervention being judged ideal by the audience the tendency in practice is for one proposed strategy to suggest others, allowing a multitude of ideas to emerge; a range of tactics tested out at diferent points in the original scenario. Forum Theatre is playfully combative: the spect-actors, taking the part of the oppressed protagonist – literally or metaphorically – pit themselves against the actors playing the oppressors. The former work together, experimenting with all possible manoeuvres to break the pattern of oppression that the Forum play has dramatised, evaluating the success of each in turn, and adding modifcations. The latter tend to operate more as individuals, their inventiveness tested as they improvise responses to whatever the spect-actors throw at them, doing all they credibly can to maintain their own power. These elements of unpredictability and creativity make Forum Theatre at its best highly entertaining and challenging, as Adrian Jackson comments giving rise ‘to many diferent kinds of hilarity – laughter of recognition at the tricks of the oppressors, laughter at the ingenuity of spect-actors’ ruses, triumphant laughter at the defeat of oppression’ (Boal 1992: xxii). At the same time, spontaneous and playful developments occur within a clearly established and essentially simple structure that should ensure that the process – overseen by a careful Joker – remains understandable and accessible to all. Many questions can be asked about Forum Theatre. For example, should the initial play be simple or complex? Are all interventions valuable, regardless of content? Has the Forum fallen short of its ambitions if some spectators will not participate? Boal examines these and other issues in his useful essay ‘Forum Theatre: Doubts and Certainties’ (1992: 224–47) and I address them here through a discussion of specifc examples of Forum Theatre in practice. While many instances of Boal’s own Forum work are documented in Theatre of the Oppressed and Games for Actors and Non-Actors these are often somewhat briefy outlined and rarely give information about the process which might have led up to or succeeded the Forum itself. I have chosen instead to focus upon two pieces created by two companies based in the UK, and in what follows 171

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I examine in detail both Forum as event and the place of this event within the companies’ wider programmes. Names of spect-actors have been changed to preserve anonymity.

Case studies Cardboard Citizens: Going . . . Going . . . Gone . . . Company background Cardboard Citizens is a London-based theatre company, the majority of whose work is directed to audiences of homeless and ex-homeless people, and deals with issues immediately relevant to those audiences. (They are the only professional company in the UK who do this.) The performing company members have all experienced homelessness at some time in their lives, a factor which goes some way towards bridging the distance between the actors and their audiences – a distance likely to be present in any theatre event to a degree, but which may be more noticeable in a context where the latter are justifably suspicious that the promised entertainment is simply a means by which yet another group of people will advise them how to solve their ‘problems’. Cardboard Citizens was founded in 1991 by Adrian Jackson, at the time associate director of the London Bubble Theatre. The company grew out of an initial venture whereby fyers were distributed around London inviting anyone who was homeless or had experienced homelessness to participate in a series of free workshops. The remit of Cardboard Citizens’ activities today is wide: they produce touring theatre productions for, by and with homeless people and more general audiences; provide programmes of training in theatre and related skills; and organise opportunities for employment and education. The company’s work thus extends far beyond theatre-making; nevertheless this remains central. They strongly uphold the belief that human beings need creativity, entertainment and communality, aware that such needs will almost always be considered secondary to the need for shelter and basic subsistence, if considered at all. Theatre ofers a way to meet these needs and more, and Forum Theatre is the method that has been most persistently practised by the company. Cardboard Citizens’ connection with Boal’s work is direct. Jackson is English translator of Boal’s more recent books and was instrumental in bringing him over to the UK in the late 1980s. Since then, Cardboard Citizens have hosted Theatre of the Oppressed workshops, lectures and training programmes, with Boal and Jackson frequently sharing the facilitation role. Forum Theatre as a model suits the company well. First and foremost, it necessarily presents a story or stories with which the audience can identify, and does so in an entertaining manner. Second, it directly acknowledges issues of power and powerlessness, but suggests that these dynamics are changeable. Third, it is not didactic but rather founded on the belief that audience members themselves have at least some of the answers to the problems enacted. Fourth, it provokes responses from spectators which may be partially or fully theatrical, or may remain at the level of discussion, but which in any case are interactive and critical of the initial, ‘authoritative’ narrative. Fifth, this activity is contained within a safe space – a ‘rehearsal for reality’ in which participants can practise and refect upon possible strategies for change (Boal 1992: xxi). To see how this operates in practice I focus here on one of Cardboard Citizens’ Forum Theatre productions, Going . . . Going . . . Gone . . . , presented as part of their 2002–3 Engagement Programme.

The Engagement Programme The Engagement Programme is one of Cardboard Citizens’ long-term projects, originally created in 1999. The Programme uses the interactive method of Forum Theatre, seeking to inspire homeless people to make changes in their lives by encouraging them to take up any of 172

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the opportunities for training, education, guidance and employment the company promote or provide. The 2002 Programme ofered courses in computer skills, ‘life skills’, multimedia, confdence building, and support with job hunting and preparation for work, as well as contact numbers of employers and agencies; arts workshops range from theatre skills to samba. The actors in the Forum also serve as mentors, prepared for this by means of two weeks’ training following the four-week period in which the production itself is created and rehearsed. This means that once each Forum has concluded and the company have presented the range of opportunities on ofer to the audience, the actors can spend time talking to people one-to-one, discussing possibilities and arranging appointments. Often these result in follow-up meetings and other forms of assistance, such as accompanying individuals on their frst engagements. The mentoring concept is especially important to the Engagement Programme; this is the vital link that attempts to ensure that audience members who express the desire to make positive changes in their lives are supported while services are found that can provide longer-term help. This framework of opportunities and care might help to address the concern that Forum Theatre can only ofer temporary, illusory empowerment, encouraging spectators to enact alternatives within a fctional context that will never be transferred to reality. However, the strategies adopted by the company do not imply that they consider that concern to be unfounded. Rather, they acknowledge its legitimacy, recognising that, while the performance itself may have an immediate, galvanising impact, more than this is needed for deeper changes to be efected. It is clearly not possible to produce conclusive statistics detailing how many people have been reached by the Engagement Programme since its inception, and assess what proportion of these were positively or permanently infuenced by it. The company operate an extensive tour schedule. Thirty-fve performances of the play A Ridge Too Far were presented in hostels, day centres and shelters for the 2001–2 Programme; this resulted in 142 engagements (homeless people who went on to engage with a new opportunity). The 2002–3 fgures are similar, with the 32 performances of Going . . . Going . . . Gone . . . presented as part of the Programme leading to 114 engagements. Of course these fgures are small in relation to all the homeless people in London or the country as a whole, but they are substantial enough to have an impact (especially since the Programme constitutes just one of a series of projects the company organises). Nevertheless, any wider changes that might occur could only do so as the cumulative result of individual decisions and actions. Every performance matters and everybody counts: this remains very apparent whether there are 30, 300 or 3 spectators on any one occasion.

Going . . . Going . . . Gone . . . Cardboard Citizens’ Going . . . Going . . . Gone . . . is a sequence of three short plays, each dealing with a distinct theme relating to homelessness, presented on a single fexible set, together making up a continuous piece of theatre of about half an hour. Having seen the whole, the audience are invited to vote for the individual play they want to see again, which will be interrogated through Forum. There are three principal actors – in the production I saw, Sharon Kirk, Nick Payne and Freddie Still – assisted by Aelaf Agonafr who takes on smaller roles while simultaneously serving as stage manager. There will also be another member of Cardboard Citizens present to perform the Joker function. The company greet each audience, introduce the actors and their roles, refer to the Engagement Programme and hint at how Forum Theatre works before the performance proper begins. Going . . . Going . . . Gone . . . presents pressing and self-evidently serious issues in a lively, accessible, cartoon-like style. The production demands a high level of energy and concentration from the actors, which helps build audience interest and enjoyment. There are repeated 173

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role changes, signalled by the use of selective props or items of costume which complement the actors’ physical and vocal characterisations, and the cast frequently rearrange the screens – painted to suggest walls of a room – and blocks that constitute the set. The performance is framed by the metaphor of an auction, implying that the lives of the homeless are disposable or, alternatively, that these are people who are treated as objects rather than human beings. Additionally the pressure of an auction suggests that, for those whose lives are dramatised here, time is running out; if anyone wants to intervene they must do so quickly. The prologue to the performance, shared between the actors, runs as follows: What is a life worth? Three lives, three stories What am I bid? Going, going, gone True stories, difcult lives Anyone interested? The frst story, the story of a man in a hostel – Going quietly of his head? The second story, the story of someone trying to start over, in their own fat – Going of the rails? The third story, the story of a woman on the street, and she thinks she’s stuck there – too far gone? Going, going – gone (Auctioneer hits block with hammer) This poses a challenge to the audience. These stories are ones which the spectators know already, or if not these then others which are similar. These lives are their own lives, or those of friends or people they’ve encountered. What are they worth, not simply in the eyes of ‘society’, but in their own eyes? How much are they prepared to risk to change their own situation? The emphasis is implicitly shifted away from outsiders who may or may not care about homelessness as an ‘issue’, to the attitudes of homeless people themselves. From this opening, the actors begin the frst short play.

‘going quietly off his head?’ Payne plays Brian, a man who has recently moved of the streets and into a hostel. His keyworker, Tony (Still), gives him a lightning tour of his new home, pointing out the lounge, the ofce where he can be found at any time ‘but not between fve and seven, when we’re doing the handover’, and fnally Brian’s own room, where Tony reels of a list of ‘dos and don’ts’ – which are all ‘don’ts’. But at least now he has a room of his own: ‘He should be happy – shouldn’t he?’. However grateful Brian might be for shelter, he is painfully lonely and isolated. He rings old friends, but fnds that one’s number has been changed, and another is going on holiday and too busy to see him; life has moved on. He heads out to buy a bottle of whisky with money borrowed from loan shark Lush (Kirk), then takes it to his room ignoring shouts from Lush whose demands had included a share. Once alone, Brian hears nagging voices in his head (Still and Kirk, wearing devil’s horns). He fnds Tony, but is summarily dismissed since it is ‘handover’ time. Brian’s need to talk to someone becomes urgent. He arranges to meet a friend from the streets, but the latter is too drugged up to listen. In desperation Brian enters a hospital where he is regarded with suspicion and quizzed about his drinking. He tries to explain about the voices, and the feeling that his room is pressing in on him, but is referred to an addiction clinic. Something snaps. Brian pours the remains of the whisky around his bedroom and strikes a match, then watches the blaze from the street. He demands attention from a policeman: ‘I started 174

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the fre.’ Immediately the scene shifts to an interview room. Brian explains: ‘No one would listen to me, so I burned down my fat.’ Kirk, as narrator and judge, responds: ‘And listen they did, and then a court listened, and a judge listened, everybody was listening now.’ Brian is sentenced to fve years in prison. He’s not alone any more – another man shares his cell. There follows a musical interlude of perhaps half a minute, in which the actors prepare themselves and the set for the next play:

‘going off the rails?’ (a version of the three little pigs) The theme of this play is resettlement and its problems, and, while as serious in subject as the preceding and subsequent plays, it receives a more comic treatment. We are introduced to ‘three little homeless piggies’, each wearing a snout held on by elastic: Dopey, a blissed-out druggie (Kirk); Psycho, red-faced with permanent rage, and a hammer inside his bomber jacket (Payne); and fnally Sensible (Still), the play’s optimistic but naive protagonist. The style is close to farce: extreme characterisations, fast pace and comic business as the actors change places, line up, fall over each other. Sensible is the least caricatured; this feels deliberate, since the comedy must not prevent the audience caring about his eventual plight. The mismatched three looked after each other in the hostel, we’re told, despite not really being friends. They are bound together by a shared ethos, which initially seems positive: ‘“We’re all in the same boat” . . . “unity in adversity”’. The frst scene shows the three receiving keys to their new homes from the ‘resettlement piggy’ (Agonafr). Dopey and Psycho grab theirs and go. Sensible is excited about his new-found freedom, and unworried by the resettlement piggy’s comment that, although he will try to visit within six months, his heavy workload may delay this longer. The screens and blocks are quickly shifted to represent three fats, side by side. Dopey, says the narrator (Agonafr), built his new life ‘on a foundation of grass’: we see him happily drawing on a splif. Psycho – who emerges from behind a screen emptying a handbag and pocketing the money – builds his ‘on a foundation of sticks’: he brandishes the hammer. By contrast, Sensible follows the approved path: on the government’s ‘New Deal’, he has got himself a job on a deli counter. He is content – if a little lonely. Problems quickly develop for Dopey. As in the fairy tale, he is visited by a wolf (Agonafr), here ‘Mr Wolf, from the Utilities Company’, who has a court warrant to disconnect Dopey’s trough for non-payment of bills. Dopey resists, but Wolf ‘hufs and pufs’ and ‘blows the house down’. The change to the set is swift and graphic: the walls of the fat are pulled away, and Dopey is left clutching his ‘trough’ – the wooden block that symbolises the entirety of his possessions. He begs for shelter from Psycho, fnally buying his way in with ‘uppers, downers and . . . Es’. Psycho’s ‘sty’ now has two troughs in it. A comic mime shows what life with Dopey is like: a haze of drugs and drink, funded by the thefts and muggings that Psycho is more than ready to carry out. It is not long before the two are visited by Detective Sergeant Wolf (Agonafr again), since the police believe the premises are being used for illegal activities. As before, he blows the house down. Now there are two homeless piggies and only one place they can think to go. When Dopey and Psycho turn up at Sensible’s fat they give him little option, playing heavily on the ‘All for one and one for all’ ethos of the hostel inmates. Against his instincts, Sensible lets them in; after all, he has missed companionship. The play hastens to its climax. Predictably, Dopey and Psycho take advantage of Sensible’s generosity. He works to support all three of them, while the others lounge around drinking, smoking and failing to pay the rent. They also ‘forget’ to mention to their host that a housing association representative, concerned about the rent and suspecting multiple occupancy, has visited once already. All three are at home when Dennis Wolf the bailif (Agonafr, in a third guise) turns up. Dopey and Psycho forcibly prevent 175

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Sensible answering the door and set up a barricade. As in the fairy tale, this time the Wolf can’t blow the house down so tries instead to come down the chimney. Psycho lights a fre – ‘Anyone fancy roasted wolf?’ – and the bailif descends amidst audience laughter, abruptly cut of when Agonafr as narrator remarks in matter-of-fact tone that he ‘sufered third degree burns to his whole body, and never worked as a bailif again’ and for the last time lets out the wolf ’s howl which has punctuated the play: ‘Aaaaawwoooooo!’. Dopey and Psycho get fve to seven years for GBH; Sensible gets four, for aiding and abetting.

‘too far gone?’ The third and fnal play is possibly the bleakest, perhaps because its main protagonist is barely an adult yet has so little hope. Kirk plays Jennifer, a nineteen-year-old drug addict and prostitute living on the streets. The frst image sees her standing on a block centre stage, approaching passing men: ‘You looking for business, darling? . . . Do you want business, love?’. Things are alright, she insists; we needn’t interfere, because she’s not bothered. But it hasn’t always been this way. To the tinkling sound of a music box Jennifer turns, and as she does so the actors remove her jacket and rucksack, wind a grey school uniform skirt around her waist and put an orange baseball cap on her head. She is transformed into a cheerful child in a ‘normal’ home, with a loving mother (played by Nick Payne, to the amusement of spectators) who buys her whatever she wants, and a father (Agonafr) who may or may not love her but is too busy with his mysterious ‘business’ to pay her any attention. The audience realises he is dealing dope when Jennifer is discovered selling squares of chocolate to other schoolchildren: Teacher (Still): Why do you do that, Jennifer? Jennifer: That’s what my Daddy does, he gets a big bar of stuf and he cuts it into little squares and he wraps it tight in clingflm. Teacher: And then? Jennifer: I don’t know – I think he gives them to people. Narrator: The teacher didn’t get it. And nothing was said, and nothing was done. Then Jennifer’s father disappears – just like that. She begins playing truant from school. At night she hears men’s voices along with her mother’s from below, and strange sounds whose signifcance she doesn’t understand until another child taunts her for having a mum ‘on the game’. After an angry confrontation, Jennifer – age thirteen – runs away. A pattern develops, as she is caught and put in a home, runs again, and is caught again (signalled by forcing her onto stage blocks, one by one). But time passes; now she is sixteen, an adult in her own eyes, at least. She has a boyfriend (Agonafr) who she says takes care of her, but seemingly serves as her pimp; he pockets her money, promising to ‘sort her out later’ with heroin. We see how one thing leads to, or depends on, another: prostitution provides money; money provides drugs. She must look good to attract punters, so that requires shoplifting or other small thefts. We see only one attempt by someone to help her break this cycle. Gordon, a care worker (Agonafr) tries talking to her. Wouldn’t she like to change? Take a course, maybe? She ridicules his ofers, snapping viciously: ‘I’ve never had anyone’s help in all my life, piss of and leave me be!’. The situation worsens. Jennifer’s drug habit intensifes and health deteriorates, which makes it both harder and simultaneously more imperative that she fnd punters. In the play’s fnal scene we see a man (Still) persuading her to bend her rules and give him ‘sex without a condom, for £10 and a rock’. She wants to refuse, but weakens – and the play ends with the narrator asking: 176

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‘Does she say yes, or does she say no? . . . Should she say yes, or could she say no?’. Leaving this hanging in the air, the play concludes by repeating the invitation with which it began: Still: Three stories, three lives What am I bid? What’s a life worth? Going . . . Going . . . All: Gone.

The play as forum Going . . . Going . . . Gone . . . is short – each narrative approximately ten minutes long – but densely structured. The questions it raises are clear. How could Brian have made himself heard sooner, and less violently? How could Sensible have resisted the insistence of his ‘friends’ and kept his fat? The third play invites us to look forward, as well as back: can anything improve for Jennifer? It takes considerable skill to reveal problems so starkly, in a manner that entertains yet avoids reductiveness. Theatrical stylisation assists this: it keeps us engaged as an audience because we admire the cast’s ingenuity and dexterity; it allows the narrative to shift location and across time, and thus indicates the development and impact of damaging actions on perpetrators and those around them; yet for all this, it is not so extreme as to be alienating. Each play incorporates likely moments when intervention can occur, and others that are less obvious. The focus of Forum is always – at least initially – on how the protagonist herself could efect change, rather than how other characters might ofer help. What could these three have done diferently? In order to examine how Going . . . Going . . . Gone . . . works as Forum, I will discuss its reception in two contexts: with young residents at a YMCA and with the adult residents of a hostel.

earls court ymca, west cromwell road, earls court (2 december 2002) Earls Court YMCA provides accommodation for about thirty young people (ages sixteen to twenty-fve). The average length of stay is six months, though in some cases it is as short as a few weeks or as long as a year. Ideally residents depart because they are moving into housing or a longer-stay hostel, but on occasion they will be asked to leave because of ‘anti-social’ behaviour, or may simply remove themselves and disappear from the system. Going . . . Going . . . Gone . . . was performed in a basement room, normally used by the residents for playing pool. The space would have been small even if the pool table were removed altogether, but instead it was pushed into the bay window and covered with props and costumes. The modest set almost flled the room, leaving room for only about twelve chairs. As it turned out, this was plenty. At the time the performance was due to start the only spectators – other than me – were two hostel staf, and it seemed likely that the company would cancel. But then three lads appeared, which decided it. Dave, the most talkative of the three, announced that someone else was defnitely coming: Julie would ‘be down in a bit’. They should not wait, he added, since he himself had to leave in twenty minutes’ time. The company were uncertain, knowing that the play on its own lasts half an hour, Forum aside, and if one spectator leaves early the others may be less inclined to stay or participate. Tony McBride, as Joker, proposed they do just one of the playlets, but Dave would not accept the compromise. The company should hurry up and start, and do what they normally do; despite his own unwillingness to ofer more than a partial attendance, he would not hear of them presenting a partial performance. At this point Julie arrived, and in the buzz around her entrance the company decided to go ahead with the piece as usual. There 177

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was a brief false start when Dave’s mobile phone rang during McBride’s introduction and he took the call unperturbed, but after this there were no further interruptions. The performance was positively received by the tiny audience, with appreciative laughter and frequent comments throughout. At seven o’clock the actors were about halfway through, and although this was the time Dave had to ‘be somewhere’ he didn’t move, despite nudgings from his friend. In fact he stayed for the whole performance, as did they all. The play over, the audience applauded and made moves to go but were halted by McBride who asked them to stay for ‘just a couple of minutes’. They did – and two minutes became fve, then ten, then twenty, as they were drawn into participation almost without realising it. McBride skilfully handled the Joker’s role: ‘I know you have to leave in a minute, but which story would you choose to look at if you did have time?’. They agreed it would be Jennifer’s story – signifcantly, the one with the youngest protagonist. ‘What we would normally do, if you had time, would be to ask what you thought were Jennifer’s problems. Out of interest, what do you think they were?’. The answers came readily enough. Jennifer’s troubles began in her family: her parents’ separation was one factor, and the lack of a positive role model was seen as another. Jennifer’s boyfriend was a problem, suggested Julie, since he was efectively her pimp. Kirk chipped in from where she was sitting, in character: ‘But he takes care of me – I love him!’, to which Julie retorted: ‘You love him, but he’s bad for you.’ McBride pushed the discussion further, using the same tactics to forestall the young people’s departure. ‘Normally we’d see if you thought it was possible to change anything – do you think it is? And if there was one scene you’d choose where things could be changed, which would it be?’. They agreed on an early moment when Jennifer still lived at home, not so far back that everything was good, but nevertheless before problems have really developed. This is hard to pinpoint, but eventually they settled on the image of Jennifer sitting on the sofa watching television with her mother, immediately after her father’s disappearance. The actors set it up. Some of the usual rituals of Forum were bypassed in this process. It was more a still image than a scene, and no one called ‘stop’ – McBride simply asked the audience whether Jennifer could do anything to improve things. There was some hesitation; although not articulated directly, the spectators clearly understood that Jennifer’s serious problems – prostitution and addiction – had not yet emerged and that they couldn’t reasonably anticipate this later development from the evidence before them. Julie proposed that Jennifer try talking to her mother properly, confronting the situation rather than avoiding it and cosily watching television. She was invited to enter the scene and replace Jennifer, which perhaps surprisingly she did immediately. But once ‘onstage’, even though this was only three steps from her chair, she lost confdence – ‘I don’t know what to do, what am I supposed to say – I can’t believe I’m doing this’ – but regained it when Dave got up to go; she told him smartly to sit back down, and he did. Julie tried to play the scene but seemed nervous about ‘acting’ and instantly froze, yet this was seized on by McBride as an opportunity to draw other spectators in to assist. This worked wonderfully. When Julie, as Jennifer, said to her mother that she wanted them to do things together, as a family, Dave instructed her to take away her mother’s magazine: ‘She’s not really listening to you!’. Julie twitched it from Payne’s grasp, and tried again. Another comment came from the audience: ‘She’s still looking at the telly . . .’. Julie turned Payne’s head towards her: ‘Mum, look at me when I’m talking to you!’. In the event, this was the extent of the Forum process. But despite its brevity the perceptiveness shown by the spectators was startling. They had not chosen an obviously dramatic scene. They recognised instead that an interpersonal dynamic could be subtly shifted by addressing small details, and that the changes were worth making since they could alter the course of someone’s life. The tiny audience worked collectively: Julie was their representative 178

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onstage, but the strategies she adopted were proposed by the group. And around three-quarters of an hour after he ‘had’ to have left, Dave was still there, taking a leading role in discussion. It seemed he enjoyed the performance too much to leave before seeing how it concluded, and once lured into the debate he couldn’t bear not to have his say. He still stayed, half in the doorway and half out, while McBride outlined the Engagement Programme and the kinds of opportunities that could be taken up. He showed some interest, took a leafet and at last made his exit, though not before he had shaken everybody’s hand and kissed Kirk on both cheeks. After this, the atmosphere quieted. The other residents read the company’s cards and leafets while the actors dismantled the set (two minutes) and then, almost invisibly, the mentoring process began. Suddenly the advantages of such a small audience were obvious; actors and spect-actors chatted one-to-one, with nobody waiting around or, equally likely, slipping away without returning. Obviously, these discussions were private, but it was evident that their individual situations and desires varied signifcantly. One wanted a job (any job); another wanted to be apprenticed to a decorator; a third thought he might try out a theatre or singing workshop. All pairs made follow-up arrangements: exchanging phone numbers, agreeing times to call, making dates to meet for cofee. The actors’ friendliness and evident familiarity with the kind of situations the young people had to deal with were clearly crucial to the success of the contact.

st martin of tours hostel, new north road, islington (10 december 2002) St Martin of Tours is a long-stay hostel providing accommodation for adult men with mental health problems, the majority of whom are ex-ofenders. Cardboard Citizens performed in the lounge-cum-pool room, a larger space than that used in Earls Court, but equally informal. There was an audience of about twelve men, ranging in age from twenties to perhaps late ffties, plus two hostel workers. The atmosphere before the actors began was muted; the audience hardly spoke to each other but just sat, waiting. Some, perhaps, were not even doing that; they were sitting in their lounge, as they would do normally, as if the company were not there. Adrian Jackson was the Joker, and in the generous pause the company allow to see if anyone else will appear he moved around the room chatting to residents: asking names, how long people have been there, what they thought of the hostel. He maintained this gentle, low-key style in the ofcial welcome and introduction, leaving it to the actors to provide the upbeat energy and provocation in the show itself. It is not easy to judge what the St Martins residents thought of Going . . . Going . . . Gone . . . . They were quiet, largely attentive, seemingly less amused than the YMCA audience (perhaps more pessimistic). They were certainly passive, at least initially; when Jackson tried to begin the discussion he had to work hard to draw out any reactions at all. But then one man – Richard – started talking, and once one had said something a couple of others were prepared to, but as it turned out Richard was so articulate it was hard for anyone else to get a word in edgeways. All in all, it took a good twenty minutes of questioning, jokes and other stratagems to arrive at a point when the audience had voted – after a fashion – for the third narrative: Jennifer’s story. ‘Gone Too Far?’ was replayed from the beginning. The action was stopped simultaneously by Richard and another resident, Matthew, at the point when Jennifer is discovered selling chocolate. Both were concerned, not so much by Jennifer’s behaviour, as by the teacher’s failure to recognise its signifcance; there was agreement that he ‘should have done something’. Jackson asked how the teacher ought to have behaved. It was clearly too soon to expect either of them to enter the performance space – and Richard, anyway, was adamant he would not act – so 179

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Kirk, as Jennifer, simply came into the audience. Matthew was prepared to adopt the teacher’s role from where he sat: Teacher (Matthew): Jennifer: Teacher:

Jennifer, why are you doing this? It’s what my Dad does – and he has loads of mates, so I thought that if I did it, I’d have loads of mates too . . . . Am I in trouble? No, you’re not in trouble. But will you ask your Dad to come in to see me, please?

As sometimes happens in Forum, the focus shifted away from the capabilities of the protagonist towards the responsibilities of other fgures within the drama. It is possible to question the validity of this move – as Boal has done elsewhere – on the grounds that turning unhelpful antagonists into caring and attentive supporters is in a sense to ofer ‘magic’ solutions (1992: 239). But the intervention was more complex than this analysis would suggest. We applauded Matthew’s transformation of the teacher into a more proactive fgure, but recognised that the problem had not been solved. Kirk and Agonafr briefy improvised a scene at home between Jennifer and her father, the former confused but standing her ground, the latter angry about the interference. He gave her reassurances – and money for more sweets – but evidently had no intention of making the appointment. Discussion followed about what would happen next: the father’s failure to show up might set alarm bells ringing; alternatively, the opportunity might slip away with Jennifer becoming more secretive about her home life. Boal has stated that ‘it is more important to achieve a good debate than a good solution’, a view I have doubted in the past but the truth of which now struck me (1992: 230). Matthew’s intervention did not in itself ‘save’ Jennifer but stimulated others to engage with the issue of how she might be saved, or might save herself. He did not replace the protagonist, but did participate. He did not leave his seat, but, since the performance extended to include him where he was, the actor-spectator divide was equally brought into question. From these small beginnings developed a surprisingly lengthy Forum session. Of all the residents, Matthew was the most willing to engage actively with the performance, and as the evening proceeded he directed all his energies into exploring strategies for change. He was supported by Gerry, a hostel worker, who became very involved once reassured that he was ‘allowed’ to participate. Richard was most ready to pursue issues through discussion, though at times he struck a bitter, fatalistic note. I was aware that his contributions frequently pulled against those of others, questioning the worth of individual changes and, by implication, of intervention itself. But it remained a ‘good debate’, since Jackson did not deny Richard’s pessimistic vision but simply refected it back to the rest of the audience: ‘Is this how you see the world?’. And if it wasn’t, they were the more encouraged to show alternatives. The Forum turned to later scenes, where Jennifer has left home and is efectively living on the streets. By this point, several residents were talking – and they were unanimous that what Jennifer needed was support, if she was to change anything. Gerry stopped the scene in which the care worker ofers help but is rebufed. He took over the role, participating physically, pulling on Jennifer’s backpack as a signifer (the frst time ‘classic’ Forum procedure had been followed). The scene went very diferently, since this Jennifer admitted that she did need help. Discussion broke in immediately. Was this realistic? Would Jennifer even know the kind of help she needs? They agreed she must have a mentor, though whether this should be a social worker, doctor or simply a friend was uncertain. Matthew accepted the role, and this time came onstage and stayed there, even when Gerry returned to his seat. A scene was improvised in which Matthew accompanied Jennifer to meet a social worker. Kirk, as Jennifer, barely spoke, so it was left to Matthew 180

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to take charge – which he did, pressing for increased commitments for Jennifer’s support. As with the Earl’s Court Forum, whenever there was doubt about how to proceed, suggestions were invited from the foor. The residents knew what Jennifer needed, from their own experiences: how to avoid relapses; an emergency contact number; a change of environment; friends, a social life; someone to help her process feelings about her childhood. Eventually Jackson had to bring things to a close. One resident asked for a ‘happy ending’, and in this hopeful spirit we were asked to imagine what progress Jennifer might make over the next few years, based on the changes implied by preceding interventions. We proposed that Jennifer had completed detox; was sharing a fat with a friend who was not yet a boyfriend but might become one; he had a job and she was studying at college with a view to a career in social services. Jackson asked for suggestions of a future event that could be enacted, and before anyone else could speak Richard brightly ofered ‘her mother’s funeral’. We accepted both this and the idea from Paul that Jennifer’s father might be there too. Jennifer’s reaction to her Dad, says Paul, should be ‘angry at frst, then resigned, then she should give him a hug’. This was idealistic, in the circumstances, but we were giving ourselves permission for idealism. The scene was set; Jackson drew in two others, casting them as mourners with the assurance that they wouldn’t have to speak. Payne played the Vicar, Still the boyfriend-in-waiting. Jackson inserted additional theatrical touches, giving the mourners a box to represent a cofn, directing them to make an entrance and help establish the solemn atmosphere; they ended up doing more ‘acting’ than they had intended, and seemingly enjoyed it. The encounter between Kirk and Agonafr was tense, had few words and felt awkward both emotionally and from an acting viewpoint. They embraced, as instructed, but it was an uncomfortable ‘happy ending’; whatever the intention, no escapism was possible here. A couple of residents disappeared immediately after the Forum but others hung around, looking as if they wanted to be spoken to even if they would not make the frst move. While the actors talked with them about the Engagement Programme I overheard Benny, who had watched the event without comment, complimenting Jackson on the work. He remarked that, while plenty of people only know what they’ve read in books, ‘you lot seem to understand what you’re talking about’, and was regretful about the turn his own life had taken. He had a good job as a security guard, with ‘a uniform, the works’, but lost it all through a drug habit that became an addiction. ‘It wasn’t worth it.’ Then he laughed, adding: ‘but life’s not over yet . . .’.

Mind the Gap and SFX Theatre Company: Never Again! Company background Mind the Gap is a professional theatre company of charitable status based in Bradford, dedicated to making work with learning disabled artists. Since 1988, when it was founded by Tim Wheeler and Susan Brown, Mind the Gap has created regular national touring, regional and local productions, both devised and of pre-written texts, alongside an ever-expanding programme of workshops, education and development projects. The company policy derives from a belief in quality, equality and inclusion. They aim to ‘dismantle the barriers to artistic excellence so that learning disabled and non-disabled artists can perform alongside each other as equals’ (www. mind-the-gap.org.uk). Perhaps the most ambitious undertaking of recent years towards this end has been the design and implementation of an accredited theatre-training programme for young adults with a learning disability. Initially a three-year National Lottery-funded apprenticeship titled Making Waves, the scheme has now been relaunched as a condensed one-year programme, 181

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Making Theatre, accepting around twelve students per year. Like Cardboard Citizens, Mind the Gap recognises that, if the impact of their work is to be long-term and far-reaching, theatrical practice can only be one strategy among many. Thus students on the programme learn skills in marketing and management as well as performance, and take up placements at local arts and other cultural organisations. A primary aim of Making Waves was realised when in the autumn of 2001 six of its graduates formed their own user-led theatre company, SFX, with Mind the Gap’s support. Mind the Gap has a long association with Boal and his work. Wheeler frst encountered him in the late 1980s and Boal has worked directly with the company on several occasions since, most recently in 1999 when he served as guest tutor to the Making Waves apprentices. Theatre of the Oppressed’s fexible and interactive methods have served the company well. Since the company’s inception it has produced around twenty Forum Theatre events, and Forum as a devising and performance mode is an integral part of the Making Theatre training programme. The method suits their purposes, since the ‘dismantling of barriers’ is inherent in its very structure. Additionally, the spirit of playful competition in which Forum ideally operates can prove particularly liberating for participants with learning difculties. As Ann Cattanach observes, ‘much time is spent by those who care in exhorting them to be responsible and sometimes this external pressure to achieve some kind of independence makes people with learning difculties afraid to play and have fun’ (Cattanach 1992: 89). Forum Theatre is one means by which participants can recover their capacity for play and give it expression. But Mind the Gap has also discovered other ways in which Forum can be useful to the company, as demonstrated by its role within their recent audience development project, Incluedo.

Incluedo Incluedo is an action research project designed by Mind the Gap aiming to identify and overcome the barriers which inhibit the involvement of young people – especially young people with a learning disability – in the arts. The company is concerned to facilitate the watching of theatre, as well as direct participation in its creation. However, it is one thing to advocate that the arts should be accessible to all but quite another to develop a climate of equality whereby this is truly possible. With Incluedo, a three-year programme launched in 2000 and funded by Yorkshire Arts, Mind the Gap took decisive steps towards achieving this. The project incorporated fve key stages. In Stage One, the company ran a series of workshops with learning-disabled students on the Making Waves Apprenticeship together with non-disabled young people from Bradford, the aim being to explore prevailing attitudes to the arts in general and theatregoing in particular. This led to Stage Two, in which the participants went as undercover agents to three West Yorkshire arts venues, to judge the professional theatre’s ‘accessibility’ frst-hand. The data gathered through this process was used by the Making Waves students in Stage Three: the creation of a Forum play, Never Again!, presented in schools for disabled and non-disabled audiences (reaching around 250 young people in total at these events). Stage Four was a half-day conference that ofered up the project’s fndings for debate, run by the company and disability access organisation ADA Inc. and attended by arts personnel working in programming, front of house and marketing across the region. An additional, tangible product has just been created in Stage Five: a CD-ROM, designed primarily for use by arts organisations as a training resource to help them widen access and hence improve their service. For Incluedo, Mind the Gap used Forum Theatre both conventionally and unconventionally. The method provided a creative means of sharing and structuring young people’s diverse experiences and taking these to a wider audience, which in turn led to further expansions and 182

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refnements. The Forum demanded research, as is typical, but additionally the Forum was itself research for a further collective project, the CD-ROM (launched in 2004). The marriage of Forum with CD-ROM technology may be initially surprising, yet is in many ways an appropriate and promising partnership. Both forms readily employ ‘graphics’ alongside text, frequently discovering that a simple, almost cartoon-like style best suits their needs; evidently both must entertain in order to engage and educate; both set up scenarios/images but allow the user to pursue diferent pathways through these as they choose. Possibly as yet Forum Theatre allows greater freedoms, but both provide an experience that is interactive rather than essentially a fxed product. Like Cardboard Citizens, Mind the Gap has chosen to include Forum as a central component of a wider and more ambitious programme. The Forum process of Going . . . Going . . . Gone . . . seeks to stimulate the participation of homeless people in a theatrical debate around issues of immediate relevance to them, and from there to facilitate their engagement with other services. Mind the Gap’s Never Again! is aimed both at young people – especially those with learning difculties – and at professional arts providers, and attempts to bridge the two, in conscious recognition that substantial change is most likely to be achieved through collaboration. As Incluedo’s 2001 progress report emphasises, it is now unlawful for organisations not to take ‘reasonable steps’ to ensure their services can be accessed by those with disabilities. This implies that a Forum Theatre project on this issue can and should go only so far in exploring the means by which the protagonist herself could shake of oppression. Of course this investigation is valuable, in terms both of its efect upon individual participants and for the ideas it might provoke. But the fact that Never Again! is incorporated as part of a complex and far-reaching project is an acknowledgement that the problem of exclusion is not one which those who are discriminated against must solve unaided, on the basis of their individual capacity for self-assertion.

Never Again! SFX Theatre Company’s Never Again! is a ffteen-minute Forum play dramatising the experience of a young adult with a learning disability when she goes to see a performance at a nearby theatre. Never Again! opens with a family – mother (Lynn Williams), father (Kevin Pringle), sons (Alan Clay and Neil Heslop) and daughter (Susan Middleton) – sitting around the kitchen table playing Cluedo. The set is simply a table and chairs; the costumes ordinary everyday clothes with the addition of specifc items as conventional signifers: an apron for mother, a newspaper for father. The edges of the acting area are defned by two hat stands draped with coats and other props for later use. A broadly realistic opening sequence is disrupted by the entrance of a second daughter (Anna-Marie Heslop), aged nineteen, who speaks to the audience directly: Hello everybody. I’m Anna, and this is my family. As you can see I’ve got Down’s Syndrome, and sometimes people treat me diferently. . . . Anna has a special request. She has been reading the local theatre’s brochure and is desperate to go, but needs someone to accompany her. She overrules her mother’s initial objection on the grounds of cost, since according to the brochure ‘carers go free’. Her mother then vetoes Anna’s choice of play, judging Death of a Salesman too morbid on the basis of its title and instead recommending The Phantom of the Opera. But mother won’t go too; father grunts and disappears deeper into his newspaper; brothers are otherwise engaged. This leaves Anna’s older sister who gives in grudgingly, making it clear she would rather spend the evening with her boyfriend. Mother gives her £10 for a ticket and strict instructions not to let Anna out of her sight. 183

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Scene two takes place at the theatre’s box ofce. Within a minute the stage is transformed, the table framed in purple velvet, gold fringe and tassels. Anna and her sister are uncertain at frst where to fnd the entrance to the building; there are no clear signs. Once inside, Anna goes up to the booth in some confusion: Anna: Receptionist (Williams): Anna: Receptionist:

Excuse me, where do we buy a ticket? (condescendingly) This is the Box Ofce. Yes, but where do we buy tickets? (louder, irritated) This is the Box Ofce! This is where you buy a ticket!

Anna proceeds with the purchase but runs into difculties almost immediately, since the receptionist knows nothing about the carers scheme and insists they buy a ticket each. Anna shows her the small print, but she remains obstructive: ‘You’re not in a wheelchair . . .’. Meanwhile, a queue has built up behind Anna, and there are weary sighs and irritated mutterings. Anna’s sister has had enough; giving Anna the £10 note, she departs to fnd her boyfriend. Anna tries to get a seat near the front since her eyesight is not good, but none are available. Ten pounds can only buy her one where the vision is partially obstructed, but after all, as the receptionist informs her, ‘we do recommend that people with special needs book in advance’. As this is Anna’s frst visit the receptionist asks for her details in order to put her on the mailing list, but since she doesn’t explain that this is what she’s doing, Anna is further puzzled on being asked her name, address and postcode. ‘DO-YOU-KNOW-HOW-TO-SPELL-YOUR-NAME?’ presses the receptionist impatiently, provoking further grumblings among those queuing. Anna obligingly provides the required information; within this encounter it seems as if she alone is able to be tolerant and patient. Clutching her ticket she asks where she should go next but is dismissed with the injunction to ‘Follow the signs!’ as the receptionist turns to greet a comical series of ‘important’ theatre-goers: Ah, Councillor, have you come for your complimentary ticket? Ah, it’s Barry Normal! Ah, Lord Chumleigh – and Lady Chumleigh! Thank you very very very very very much for patronising us. . . . Anna is left staring up at a signpost with arrows in all diferent directions, suggesting multiple possibilities but not one telling her straightforwardly what she needs to know. Suddenly Anna is surrounded by the rest of the cast. She has wandered into the bar, ignored and talked over by a crowd of noisy theatregoers elbowing each other out of the way as they demand to be served. She stands no chance of getting a drink, and visibly panics on hearing the announcement over the tannoy that the performance will begin in ‘fve minutes . . . three minutes . . . one minute . . .’, still unsure where it will take place. She does fnd it, but the rest of the spectators are already seated and the show started – ‘Latecomers!’ mutters one. She asks for help fnding her place and in response the usher virtually carries her to it, asking: ‘Where’s your Mum?’. Although Anna is now in the theatre and in her proper seat, the difculties are not over. She cannot see properly, but is reproved by the other spectators when she shifts around to get a better view. She is confused about the action onstage, turns to her neighbour for an explanation but is hushed, asks to borrow her programme and is told sharply to buy her own. When the Phantom appears she boos enthusiastically, and the exasperated spectators call the usher to complain. She is told to leave if she can’t be quiet. She protests – ‘I’ve paid to be here like everyone else!’ – but is soon driven to depart, distressed: ‘That’s it – never again!’. The stage audience agrees, echoing her words back to her: ‘Never again!’. 184

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There is a small coda to the play. With no one to accompany her and no money left for a bus, Anna nervously walks home alone. She is shaken by her experience at the theatre, and bitter too: ‘Mum was right – what a waste of a good ten quid!’. When she fnally gets back, an hour and a half later, she fnds her mother anxious and cross: ‘You could’ve been murdered! I can’t let you out on your own again . . .’.

The play as forum Never Again! lasts just ffteen minutes but, like Going . . . Going . . . Gone . . . , is tightly constructed to incorporate a range of issues and multiple opportunities for audience intervention. The prior experience and active research of the young people involved in the Incluedo project helped to identify a whole series of ‘barriers to inclusion’ which are woven into the play. Never Again! highlights difculties around economic access to the arts, drawing attention not only to high ticket prices or inadequate concessionary schemes, but to the additional and often forgotten expense of an accompanying carer. Physical access is another problem, but as the play reveals this is not necessarily overcome by ensuring that ramps, lifts and so on are installed. Anna is confused by the theatre’s appearance and layout, and has trouble just locating the entrance; this moment distils the comments of the researchers that performance venues today are as likely to resemble ‘museums, swimming pools, car parks and restaurants’ as conventional theatre establishments. Once inside the building, information still may not be easily accessible. Theatre staf watching Never Again! are provoked into thinking afresh about their own venue: heights of counters, systems of signage, lighting, seat numbers. Third the play considers attitudinal access, and tackles the problem of discriminatory behaviour from arts employees and other spectators. It might be thought that Never Again! paints a deliberately negative picture in order to provoke, but on the basis of the Incluedo ‘undercover’ research it is discouragingly accurate, albeit comically heightened. Young people were ‘ignored, patronised and made to feel as if they shouldn’t be there’, staf were thought ‘unsmiling’, and one or two visitors with a learning disability had problems being understood and felt that box-ofce personnel would have preferred to deal with a non-disabled adult rather than with them directly. Williams’ receptionist character makes false assumptions about the nature of Anna’s disability on the basis of her physical appearance and ignorance of theatregoing conventions, and has not been informed about the scheme her employers have instigated. Both characters are additionally pressured by those others impatiently waiting in the queue, and this question of spectator attitudes is perhaps even more problematic since particularly difcult to tackle. Anna is received with hostility by her neighbours because – in their view – she speaks when she should be quiet, moves when she should be still, cheers and boos when she should adapt her responses to ft a polite, middle-class consensus. It is a provocative sequence and one likely to produce mixed reactions among Forum spectators: who should adapt to whom? As noted, Incluedo aims to create bridges between arts organisations and new potential audiences. It is recognised that both parties may have to change their past practices to some degree for this to happen. Never Again! is evidently designed to draw attention to the limitations within existing arts provision and expose the need for further reform; these are not problems which the protagonist is likely to be able to solve on her own. But it is perhaps unwise to take this line of reasoning too far, since it could mask a position of unconscious patronage. It should not be assumed that people with a learning disability are incapable of standing up for their rights and that this must therefore be done on their behalf. Certainly, any such misapprehension was overturned by seeing Never Again! in performance. What follows is an account of the play in Forum with Mind the Gap’s own Making Theatre students, and then at a Bradford school when it toured again the following year. 185

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queen’s house, queen’s road, bradford (26 november 2002) When I frst saw Never Again! performed live, it was at Mind the Gap’s own building and in somewhat unusual circumstances. It had already been presented several times in schools and colleges in the Bradford district to audiences of learning-disabled and non-disabled students but on this occasion was being flmed by Yorkshire Television, who were compiling a feature on actress Anna-Marie Heslop for their magazine programme Same Diference (broadcast 26 February 2003). Diverse, and potentially conficting, agendas were in operation: the TV team were focused on Heslop rather than the play as such, whereas the Making Theatre students who formed the audience were concentrating on the Forum, a mode they had not previously encountered but would themselves be studying later that year. Wheeler was uncertain how efectively these ambitions would come together: the cameras might prove inhibiting for the spectators; the crew could have trouble establishing ‘continuity’ flming an event which, of necessity, would never be the same twice running. Never Again! was presented to audience of about ffteen, of whom nine were Making Theatre students. There was a good deal of laughter and pretended fear around the presence of cameras and crew, but all things considered they were relatively unfazed. In many respects there was a striking lack of inhibition – a characteristic Never Again! directly dramatises in Anna’s unselfconscious reactions to the performance she sees. When Wheeler said he was going to introduce Anna, a student responded matter-of-factly: ‘I know her already – she’s a friend of Ben’s.’ As with Cardboard Citizens, the aim and rules of Forum were explained as straightforwardly as possible without any references to ‘oppressors’ or ‘protagonists’. It was presented as a kind of game that could be used to help people solve some of their problems. This premise was readily accepted – though the students decided to adopt ‘Cut!’ rather than ‘Stop!’ as more appropriate to the occasion – and Heslop stepped forward to outline the history of the Incluedo project and Never Again!’s place within it. The audience clearly enjoyed the play and appreciated its relevance. The students frequently talked to each other while it was going on, usually to check that they had heard or understood correctly. Elements of direct audience address proved popular although, understandably, these were treated as opportunities to talk back to the actors. (SFX’s performers could easily accommodate this since it was to a degree anticipated by them, but with diferent actors the evident one-sidedness of this convention could be comically exposed.) Afterwards, Wheeler invited the audience to discuss the play in detail. They were encouraged to identify the kinds of problems that Anna encounters and to share suggestions as to how her experience might be improved. As obvious as this procedure might sound, it is not always adopted in Forum. The wish to emphasise active intervention (Boal 1992: 19–21) has led some practitioners to limit or exclude initial discussions, not least because the desire to achieve maximum theatrical impact seems to imply that spectators’ interventions should ideally come as a complete surprise. But to adhere to this strictly is to underestimate the nature of the challenge Forum can present. In practice, a discussion stage can help build confdence within an audience that they have something to ofer and thus stimulate rather than repress the desire for physical participation. In this particular context, it worked to galvanise the spectators into action. One student summarised for the rest: ‘Our mission – should we choose to accept it – is to change the course of the play so it doesn’t end up the same way, with Mum going ballistic . . .’. Meanwhile, the cameras had been rearranged in order to re-shoot the play from a diferent angle. The actors began Never Again! a second time, the tension in the audience palpable. After a minute Wheeler interrupted the action himself, to joke: ‘Isn’t it odd having a flm crew in your home?’, which eased this a little. The frst intervention, from Lucy – one of the more obviously 186

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confdent students – came in the scene where family members try to push onto each other the responsibility of accompanying Anna to the theatre. Lucy/Anna tried to combat Anna’s relative isolation and sense of herself as a burden by suggesting they all go as a family, making it clear how much this would mean to her. But the characters – as always in Forum – were resistant. Williams as mother was a particularly tough customer, insisting that this would be prohibitively expensive and, moreover, Anna’s father would undoubtedly fall asleep ‘and I don’t want to listen to him snoring!’. Wheeler invited the audience to evaluate the intervention. They considered that although not ultimately persuasive it had some efect, if only in making the family members feel guilty; it also inadvertently stimulated a brief and useful discussion about the availability of discounts on group bookings. No further interventions were made within this scene. The next came during the box ofce sequence. This new Anna, a tall man squeezed into the diminutive character’s dufel coat, adopted an assertive approach. Jack/Anna stood up for herself in the encounter with the receptionist, criticised the latter’s unhelpful attitude and eventually asked for the manager. Such a meeting could be improvised, but on this occasion Williams told her fatly that it was impossible as he was away. The actors forming the queue built up the pressure with complaints and pushing, and at this point Anna’s sister decided to leave, as in the original. But before she could depart, Lucy leaped up from the audience again and joined her fellow student to make a sort of double Anna: ‘Don’t go!’, she pleaded, ‘Don’t leave me! I’ll let you wear my favourite T-shirt – I’ll give it to you!’. There was a lot of laughter at this new strategy, but a degree of disapproval as well: surely Anna shouldn’t have to beg? A new spect-actor tried a strategy. Michael/Anna made no attempt to forestall the sister’s exit but held her ground and was, quite simply, very insistent on her rights – a tactic that resulted in a standof with little evident progress for either party. This stalemate was only broken when Pringle, waiting in the queue as ‘Lord Chumleigh’, experienced a moment of role confusion and mysteriously reverted to being Anna’s Dad, ordering her to go back home immediately. . . . The audience were delighted by this bizarre turn of events, despite their recognition that its defance of logic hardly constituted playing by the rules. A fourth student asked to replace Anna, in the same scene. Once onstage he appeared to lose confdence and had almost nothing to say, but whether intentional or not this behaviour efectively presented the other actors with a new type of problem to deal with. Williams used the fact that this Anna was struggling to make herself understood as evidence that she could only go in if accompanied by a carer – and by this time the sister had already left. But to everyone’s astonishment Lucy interceded yet again, this time appearing next to Anna in the queue to announce that she was the carer, and that the ticket purchase could now go ahead: ‘And don’t forget, my ticket is free!’, she added. Wheeler interrupted this cheerful anarchy to challenge the credibility of what was arguably a somewhat magical innovation – ‘Just who are you supposed to be?’ – and was told that she was another sister, ‘or brother, or auntie, anyone trying to help her, or just somebody trying to get in on a free ticket . . .’. There was no opportunity for further evaluation or, to the students’ obvious disappointment, further interventions, since we were already over time. They did not want to stop, and I was very aware of those others who were just getting to a point where they could fnd the courage to enter the performance space. But they were happy to be reminded that they would soon be creating their own Forum play. The members of the flm crew were impressed and in some cases evidently taken aback by both the quality of the play and the ability of the spectators to engage with it. Perhaps initially somewhat disconcerted that Heslop – their main object of interest, after all – was so frequently removed from the scene, they became thoroughly absorbed in the improvised dramas that unfolded before them. 187

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haycliffe school, bradford (14 july 2003) Hayclife is a co-educational secondary school for pupils with learning difculties, emotional and behavioural difculties and physical disabilities. Mind the Gap has successfully worked there in the past, and on this occasion were collaborating with SFX to use Never Again! as a starting point from which pupils would create their own Forum play later in the year. Hayclife has been particularly supportive to the arts; the school received a three-year award from the Arts Council of England under their ‘Artsmark’ scheme to help develop arts provision and demonstrate, as Education Bradford’s website puts it, that ‘there is more to life than SATs [Scholastic Assessment Tests]’ (www.educationbradford.com). Artsmark aims to foster community links as well as support activities within a school; this partnership project with Mind the Gap and SFX, examining issues of access to theatre, fts the remit ideally. Never Again! was performed in Hayclife’s drama studio-cum-sports hall, to an audience of twenty-four pupils aged about sixteen, with two teachers also in attendance. The pupils were evidently excited by the prospect of a play, and a few eagerly reintroduced themselves to Mind the Gap as students who had participated in previous summer schools or other projects. The performance itself was entertaining and energetic, and incorporated a number of slight modifcations from its version the previous year: in some cases, particularly efective lines which derived from Forum interventions had been introduced into the actors’ standard script. Once the piece had been played through, the Joker – on this occasion, Emma Gee – prepared pupils for the Forum. They were the most immediately forthcoming of any audience I saw, perhaps refecting the school’s enthusiasm and support for arts projects. Gee only needed to ask ‘What kinds of things made life difcult for Anna?’, to receive a barrage of responses and suggestions as to how to tackle them. The interventions focused around three areas: home; the box ofce; the auditorium itself. First up was Ricky, an enthusiastic actor; his frst intervention of many was to have Anna climb out of her bedroom window and go on her own – a plan applauded for bravery but problematic since it resulted in Anna being grounded for the foreseeable future. Salim’s strategy, which followed, was subtler. He told Mother not to snatch the brochure, which Williams had been doing as part of her character’s bossy persona. We waited to see how Salim/Anna would attempt to get her way, but then understood that challenging Mother’s manners was the intervention. This family had been represented as noisy and competitive; Salim’s contribution, slight as it was, shifted the dynamic. This stimulated further ideas. Ricky tried extreme politeness, and Clare asked if she could go with a friend; both got their way. Salim gave further lessons in manners, once at the box ofce, to Williams’ patronising receptionist: ‘What are you shouting for?’. This produced a spontaneous apology, a small but genuine triumph. Meera tried next, combating unhelpfulness with the demand to see the manager. On this occasion the scene was improvised, with Clay in role. When the receptionist’s attitude became obviously impertinent he took evident pleasure in fring her, to audience cheers. This decisiveness infected later interventions in the auditorium scene. Ricky, irrepressible as ever, told the complaining spectator loudly to shut up; this led to Anna being asked to leave by the usher. Salim intervened for the third time, with his – now trademark – appeal for tolerance; when the spectator continued to grumble, the usher asked her to leave. Finally in this scene, Joe/Anna and the spectator launched into a heated argument, whereupon the usher (Heslop, enjoying new-found power) ejected them both. Gee had to interrupt at this point as time had run out, even though there were at least fve hands in the air from pupils desperate to contribute; these last suggestions were shared in discussion. It was evident, from other interventions I’ve not described, that some pupils did not have a clear idea of a change to make but simply wanted to be in the scene. Once 188

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or twice a spect-actor went onstage and essentially replicated an earlier intervention rather than adding something new. This does not seem to me to undermine the Forum. Not everyone was ready to rewrite the play; but most, if not all, could rewrite their relationship to the play.

Conclusions Going . . . Going . . . Gone . . . and Never Again! are self-evidently very diferent projects in terms of context, issues examined and target audience. As pieces of Forum Theatre, however, their structures and ambitions are broadly comparable. Both creative processes begin with the realities of oppression as experienced by a specifc social group. The oppression is then examined in all its complexity, by exploring immediate personal experience and by undertaking wider research appropriate to the subject. Next the fndings are transformed into a theatrical fction that seeks to demonstrate that oppression to an audience who are themselves directly or indirectly afected by it. Crucially, the audience must recognise the action as both true – although dramatically mediated – and urgent. This achieved, the Joker, actors and audience discuss together what must be changed in order that the oppression be overcome and begin the process of transforming the fction by introducing alternative possibilities. These theatrical explorations are not the conclusion of the event, since the ultimate aim is the transformation of the oppression in reality. Boal states that the Forum method stimulates energy for change and that ‘afterwards, catalysed [the oppressed] can immediately apply this new energy to their real lives’ (1992: 246). But Cardboard Citizens and Mind the Gap do not assume that this transition will occur unaided. Rather, both companies put in place mechanisms designed to foster and support the energy generated by the Forum and help channel it into permanent reform. While Image Theatre and especially the Rainbow of Desire techniques encourage participants to engage with their own experience very directly by means of images, dynamisations and transformations, Forum Theatre operates more efectively with a degree of distance: it is a social rather than an individual process. In practice this means that when a participant makes an intervention she is not necessarily rehearsing a strategy that she will specifcally take forward into her reality. She may stand up to a tyrannical boss in a Forum, for instance, but have no need to do this in daily life. It is possible to view the intervention as a metaphor, ‘the boss’ representative of any oppressive fgure or social force; from this perspective she is not fghting an individual but testing and developing her powers of resistance in a wider sense. But my experience of watching Going . . . Going . . . Gone . . . and Never Again! seemed to suggest that the value of Forum was more fundamental than this, that the very fact of making interventions is in some ways more important than their actual content. Both Cardboard Citizens and Mind the Gap practise Forum in contexts where oppression, discrimination and inhibition are starkly evident. That these spectators were prepared to participate at all felt like an achievement. This is in no way to underestimate the capacities of the target audiences; it is rather to acknowledge the power of the forces – mental, physical, social – which mediate against participation. Some of Cardboard Citizens’ spectators represented themselves as too cynical, weary, bored, uneducated or simply too cool to participate. By contrast, Mind the Gap’s audiences were clearly keen, but either were or pretended to be too shy, anxious, inarticulate or physically awkward to do so. In both cases, these forms of resistance were overcome: not by everyone present, and not to the same degree, but sufciently for a lively and broadly collective exploration of the plays’ issues to be possible. Both companies’ actors and Jokers were prepared to modify the Forum process to meet the needs of their audiences. The terms used to introduce the event could be simplifed or problematised; a seemingly passive audience could be teased, fattered or provoked into identifying oppressions and the possibility of combating them; reluctance to participate physically could be 189

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tackled by extending the discussion phase, or by bringing the ‘characters’ directly into the audience’s own space. What mattered was that the spectators were actively involved in the process. However, there is a need to strike a balance. The rules of Forum are there for a purpose, and if they are too readily abandoned there is a danger of the task becoming blurred, the goals unclear. The instance of spectators replacing characters other than the protagonist provides a useful example. Adrian Jackson commented to me that, while in general he would resist this for fear of the Forum becoming a ‘wish-fulflment fantasy’, exceptions could sometimes be made. The real question is what, if anything, might be learned by such a move. He explains that in his view Forum is not, nor ever should be, a doctrinaire process – the mediators of it, Joker and actors, should be sensitive human beings responding to the needs of a particular group. Yes, there are a number of important rules, from which if you diverge you may lose sight of the point of the exercise, and you may indeed lose the whole shape of the event; but equally, the reality is that you respond to whoever is in front of you, you work with whatever tools you have in your repertoire. (Emailed comments, 6 July 2003) In the example suggested, it is true that if a spectator plays out a more positive interpretation of a care worker role, for instance, this efectively removes difculties that the protagonist had previously experienced as a stumbling block. On the other hand, the new scene might well reveal something important to all present – not least, to the care workers in the audience – about the way this individual might hope to be treated in a similar situation. In other words, it is still possible to learn from this. It has been suggested by some commentators (for example George 1995: 45) that Forum Theatre, particularly as practised in the West, has lost any radical edge it initially possessed and become more about helping individuals adapt to a social system – which is itself left unchallenged – than urging a ‘rehearsal of revolution’. The two projects discussed in this section show Forum used neither for adaptation nor revolution as such, but towards creative and critical engagement. Cardboard Citizens’ own Engagement Programme exemplifes this. Their aim is not to persuade those who have ‘dropped out’ of society’s institutions to ft back into them, but rather to show that disengagement is not their only possibility. They ofer a variety of opportunities and alternatives to homeless people, but beyond this issue an invitation: are these useful to you? If not, what would be? What would make a positive diference to your life? In this way, their audiences can be shapers of genuine change. The Forum of Never Again! discussed above took place in a diferent context and had a diferent purpose, but like Going . . . Going . . . Gone . . . this project aimed to exert a concrete efect on social systems as well as to develop the capacities of individual audience members to recognise and demand their rights. Never Again! was distinctive in that it consciously targeted two audiences: young people, especially those with learning difculties; and the managers and personnel of arts venues. In line with Mind the Gap’s consistent company policy, the Incluedo project sought to achieve a bridging between these groups in order to reach a better understanding of a shared problem and ways to address it. To this end, both parties have to accept responsibility: neither one can resolve the issue in isolation.

Note 1 This chapter by Frances Babbage has not been updated since the death of Boal in 2009. Please note that the dates and details refect the circumstances at the time of publication of the frst edition of the Routledge Performance Practitioners volume on Boal.

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Further reading Works by Boal Boal, Augusto (1979) Theatre of the Oppressed, trans. C. and M.-O. Leal McBride, London: Pluto Press. Boal, Augusto (1992) Games for Actors and Non-Actors, trans. A. Jackson, London: Routledge. Boal, Augusto (1995) The Rainbow of Desire: The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy, trans. A. Jackson, London: Routledge. Boal, Augusto (1998) Legislative Theatre, trans. A. Jackson, London: Routledge. Boal, Augusto (2001) Hamlet and the Baker’s Son: My Life in Theatre and Politics, trans. A. Jackson and C. Blaker, London: Routledge. Boal, Augusto (2006) The Aesthetics of the Oppressed. Trans. Adrian Jackson. New York & London: Routledge.

Interviews Driskell, Charles B. (1975) ‘An Interview with Augusto Boal’, Latin American Theatre Review 9(1): 71–8. Heritage, Paul (2002) ‘“The Crossing of Many Cultures”: An Interview with Augusto Boal’, in David Bradby and Maria Delgado (eds) The Paris Jigsaw: Internationalism and the City’s Stages, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 153–66. Paterson, Douglas and Weinberg, Mark (1996) ‘In His Own Words: An Interview with Augusto Boal about the Theatre of the Oppressed’. Online, available at: www.artswire.org/Community/highperf/ hp/hpmags/HP72texts/Boal1.html (accessed 28 March 2002). Taussig, Michael and Schechner, Richard (1990) ‘Boal in Brazil, France, the USA: An Interview with Augusto Boal’, The Drama Review 34(3): 50–65.

Audio-visual resources Boal, Augusto (2017) ‘Interviews with Augusto Boal: From 1971–2009’, Digital Theatre +. www.digitaltheatreplus.com/education/plays-and-productions Boal, Julian, Howe, Kelly and McElvany, Scot, eds. (2015) Theatre of the Oppressed in Actions: An AudioVisual Introduction to Boal’s Forum Theatre. New York and London: Routledge. DVD-ROM.

Criticism On Boal and Theatre of the Oppressed Anderson, Robert (1996) ‘The Muses of Chaos and Destruction of Arena conta Zumbi’, Latin American Theatre Review 29(2): 15–28. Babbage, Frances (ed.) (1995) Working Without Boal: Digressions and Developments in the Theatre of the Oppressed, special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review 3(1). Babbage, Frances (2010) ‘Augusto Boal and the Theatre of the Oppressed’, in Alison Hodge (ed) Actor Training (revised edition). New York and London: Routledge, 305–323. Bauer, Brigitte (2010) Augusto Boal und Christoph Schlingensief: Zwei Rebellen in her Theaterlandschaft, Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag. Campbell, Ali (1995) ‘Questions from Rio’, Contemporary Theatre Review 3(1): 109–19. Cohen-Cruz, Jan and Schutzman, Mady (eds) (2006) A Boal Companion: Dialogues on Theatre and Cultural Politics, New York and London: Routledge. Davis, David and O’Sullivan, Carmel (2000) ‘Boal and the Shifting Sands: The Un-Political Master Swimmer’, New Theatre Quarterly 16(3): 288–97. Emert, Toby and Friedland, Ellie (eds) (2011) “Come Closer”: Critical Perspectives on Theatre of the Oppressed, New York and Oxford: Peter Lang.

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Frances Babbage Feldhendler, Daniel (1994) ‘Augusto Boal and Jacob L. Moreno: Theatre and Therapy’, in Jan CohenCruz and Mady Schutzman (eds) Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy, Activism, London: Routledge, 87–109. Fritz, Birgit (2012) InExActArt – The Autopoietic Theatre of Augusto Boal: A Handbook of Theatre of the Oppressed Practice. Trans. Lana Sendzimir and Ralph Yarrow, Stuttgart: Ibidem. Ganguly, Sanjoy (2001) ‘From the Battlefeld’, Metaxis: The Theatre of the Oppressed Review 1(1): 34–5. George, David (1995) ‘Theatre of the Oppressed and Teatro de Arena: In and Out of Context’, Latin American Theatre Review 28(2): 39–54. Heritage, Paul (1994) ‘The Courage to be Happy: Augusto Boal, Legislative Theatre, and the 7th International Festival of the Theatre of the Oppressed’, The Drama Review 38(3): 25–34. Heritage, Paul (1998) ‘The Promise of Performance: True Love/Real Love’, in Richard Boon and Jane Plastow (eds) Theatre Matters: Performance and Culture on the World Stage, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 154–76. Heritage, Paul (2001) ‘Theatre in Prisons’, Metaxis: The Theatre of the Oppressed Review 1(1): 32–3. Jackson, Adrian (2009) ‘Augusto Boal: A Theatre in Life’, New Theatre Quarterly 25(4): 306–309. Kershaw, Baz (2001) ‘Review of Legislative Theatre’, Theatre Research International 26(2): 218–19. Luzuriaga, Gerardo (1990) ‘Augusto Boal and his Poetics of the Oppressed’, Discurso: Revista de Estudios Ibero-Americanos 8(1): 53–66. Malzacher, Florian (ed) (2015) Not Just a Mirror: Looking for the Political Theatre of Today. Berlin: Alexander Verlag. McCoy, Ken (1995) ‘Liberating the Latin American Audience: The Conscientizaçâo of Enrique Buenaventura and Augusto Boal’, Theatre Insight 6(2): 10–16. Milleret, Margo (1987) ‘Acting into Action: Teatro Arena’s Zumbi, Latin American Theatre Review 21(1): 19–27. Milling, Jane and Ley, Graham (2001) Modern Theories of Performance, Houndsmill: Palgrave. Paterson, Doug (1994) ‘A Role to Play for the Theatre of the Oppressed’, The Drama Review 38(3): 37–49. Pellarolo, Silvia (1994) ‘Transculturating Postmodernism? Augusto Boal’s Theater Practice Across Cultural Boundaries’, Gestos: Teoria y Practica del Teatro Hispanico 9(17): 199–212. Plastow, Jane (2009) ‘Practising for the Revolution? The Infuence of Augusto Boal in Brazil and Africa’, Journal of Transatlantic Studies 7(3): 294–303. Santos, Barbara (2001) ‘The CTO-Rio: A Diferent World is Possible’, Metaxis: The Theatre of the Oppressed Review 1(1): 6–10. Santos, Bárbara (2016) Teatro do Oprimido: Raízes e Asas – Uma Teoria da Práxis. Rio de Janeiro: Ibis Libris. Scheer, Anna (2011) ‘Challenging Theatre’s Hidden Hierarchies: A Comparison of Christoph Schlingensief and Augusto Boal’, Australasian Drama Studies 58: 228–244. Schutzman, Mady and Cohen-Cruz, Jan (eds) (1994) Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy, Activism, London: Routledge. Young, Lee (2015) ‘Theatre for the Less Oppressed Than I: Reconsidering Augusto Boal’s Concept of the Spect-Actor’, Theatre Research International 40(2): 156–169.

General Albuquerque, Severino João (1989) ‘From “Abertura” to “Nova República”: Politics and the Brazilian Theater of the Late Seventies and Eighties’, Hispanofla 96: 87–95. Andersen, Øivind and Haarberg, Jon (2001) Making Sense of Aristotle: Essays in Poetics, London: Duckworth. Aristotle (1995) Politics, ed. R.F. Stalley, trans. E. Barker, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Aristotle (1996a) Poetics, ed. and trans. M. Heath, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Aristotle (1996b) The Nicomachean Ethics, ed. and trans. S. Watt, Ware: Wordsworth. Bellos, Alex (2003) ‘Everybody Wants a Brazilian . . .’, Observer ‘Review’, 6 July 2003, 10. Belsey, Catherine (1985) The Subject of Tragedy, London: Methuen. Bethell, Leslie (1994) On Democracy in Brazil Past and Present, London: Institute of Latin American Studies. Cattanach, Ann (1992) Drama for People With Special Needs, London: A & C Black. Eagleton, Terry (1976) Marxism and Literary Criticism, London: Methuen. Esslin, Martin (1980) Brecht: A Choice of Evils, London: Eyre Methuen. Fortier, Mark (1997) Theory/Theatre: London: Routledge. Freire, Paulo (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Harmondsworth: Penguin.

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Boal (1931–2009) Gassner, John (1954) ‘Modern Playwriting at the Crossroads’, in A.L. Bader (ed.) (1965) To the Young Writer, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 17–32. Gassner, John (1956) Form and Idea in Modern Theatre, New York: Yale University Press. George, David (1992) The Modern Brazilian Stage, Austin: University of Texas Press. Halliwell, Stephen (1986) Aristotle’s Poetics, London: Duckworth. Happé, Peter (1999) English Drama Before Shakespeare, London: Longman. Hegel, Georg W.F. (1920) The Philosophy of Fine Art: Vol. 4, ed. and trans. F.P.B. Osmaston, London: G. Bell & Sons Ltd. Honderich, Ted (ed.) (1995) The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Macfarlane, Alan (1978) The Origins of English Individualism, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Machiavelli, Niccolò (1979) ‘The Mandrake Root’, in The Portable Machiavelli, ed. and trans. P. Bondanella and M. Musa, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 430–79. McLellan, David (ed.) (1977) Karl Marx: Selected Writings, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich (1992) The Communist Manifesto, ed. D. McLellan, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Maus, Katharine Eisaman (1995) Inwardness and Theater in the English Renaissance, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Milleret, Margo (1990a) ‘Pedagogy and Popular Art for the Masses from the CPC’, Brasil/Brazil 3(3): 18–31. Milleret, Margo (1990b) ‘(Re)Playing the Brazilian Dictatorship’, Discurso: Revista de Estudios Iberamericanos 7(1): 213–24. Mind the Gap and ADA Inc. (2001) Incluedo: Audience Development Programme Report (Spring 2001), Bradford: Mind the Gap. Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg (ed.) (1992) Essays on Aristotle’s Poetics, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Singer, Peter (2001) Hegel, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Walker, Greg (ed.) (2000) Medieval Drama: An Anthology, Oxford: Blackwell. Weinoldt, Kirsten (2001) ‘Stage Struck II: Milestones of Brazilian Theater in the 20th Century’, Brazzil. Online, available at: www.brazzil.com (accessed 23 May 2002). Willett, John (ed.) (1964) Brecht on Theatre, London: Methuen. Williams, Raymond (1977) Marxism and Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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15 GROTOWSKI (1933–1999) James Slowiak and Jairo Cuesta

15.1

Biography and context

A group of excited young South American theatre artists gather at a small airport in the coffee-growing region of Colombia. It is late summer 1970. The brisk mountain air makes them shiver, adding to the tense aura of expectation. These representatives of the International Theatre Festival of Manizales, one of the oldest on the continent, await the arrival of the Festival’s honorary president, Jerzy Grotowski. Grotowski’s company, the Polish Laboratory Theatre, is at the height of its fame. Paris, Edinburgh, and New York have sung Grotowski’s praises, and the Latin American artists are eager to share in the euphoria of this theatre revolution. Some of them attended performances of The Constant Prince at the Olympic Arts Festival in Mexico City in 1968. Others have seen only photos of the company’s groundbreaking productions and of the portly man in dark glasses and black business suit who directs the group. All of them have been warned of Grotowski’s severity and his caustic critiques of avant-garde theatre and amateur training methods. The group shivers again with anticipation and cold as the plane approaches. Upon landing, the door opens, and to everyone’s surprise, out steps a thin, bearded wanderer, dressed in fimsy, white cotton, wearing sandals on his bare feet, and carrying a knapsack. Grotowski had transformed himself. As the shocked Colombians run to fnd him a woolen poncho to protect him from the chill, the theatre world holds its breath.

The enigma Grotowski was always an enigma. He has been called a master and a charlatan; a guru and a sage; a myth and a monster. Throughout his relatively brief career (he died at the age of 65), Grotowski went through numerous permutations, often catching his critics, and even his friends, of guard. Spending his childhood under Nazi domination and maturing during the darkest days of Stalinism, he learned at a young age how to use the system in order to seek the best conditions for his work – and always without compromise. He knew that fame was necessary to reach his

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goals. He knew that fame outside his home country of Poland would be far more benefcial than fame inside Poland. But he also knew that fame was feeting and that it would be dangerous to succumb to its intoxication. When the time was right, Grotowski turned his back on fame. He transformed himself. He was able to do this because he always had a plan, a parallel objective to his creative work, a “hidden agenda.” This hidden agenda guided many of his choices throughout his career as a stage director and even after he left the arena of public performances.

Grotowski’s formative years Jerzy Marian Grotowski was born in the small town of Rzeszow in southeastern Poland on August 11, 1933. His mother, Emilia (1897–1978), was a schoolteacher and his father, Marian (1898–1968), worked as a forest ranger and painter. An older brother, Kazimierz, was born in 1930. When Hitler’s Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Grotowski’s father escaped to France and then England, fghting as an ofcer in the Polish army. After the war, Marian Grotowski, a strong anti-Soviet, refused to return to Poland and immigrated to Paraguay. From the age of six, Grotowski never saw his father again. He was nourished by his mother’s strength and afection. When war broke out, Emilia Grotowska moved the family to a small village, Nienadowka, about 12 miles north of Rzeszow. Here they lived meagerly on her teacher’s salary. These formative years colored many of Grotowski’s perceptions and interests throughout his life. In this tiny village, among peasants, he frst confronted tradition, folk beliefs, and ritual, while Grotowski’s mother introduced her sons to the spectrum of religious thought.

Early infuences One day Grotowski’s mother brought home Paul Brunton’s A Search in Secret India, a curious volume about an English journalist’s contact with the mysteries of India. Around the same time, the village priest secretly gave the young Grotowski a copy of the Gospels to read alone. In those years, the Polish Catholic church required the presence and interpretation of a priest to read the Gospels, but Grotowski frst encountered Jesus, by himself, in a hayloft above the pigpen of the farm where he lived. These books – along with Renan’s The Life of Jesus – plus The Zohar, The Koran, and the writings of Martin Buber and Fyodor Dostoevsky, served as the foundation for the questions Grotowski pursued during each phase of his creative investigations. But it was Brunton’s book that afected Grotowski most profoundly.

Martin Buber (1878–1965): Jewish philosopher, infuenced by Jewish mysticism, who believed that one’s relation with God could be a direct, personal dialogue. His writings include I and Thou (1923), Gog and Magog (1953), and Tales of the Hasidim (1908). Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–81): Russian novelist. His masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov, includes a parable about “The Grand Inquisitor” who arrests Jesus when he returns to earth. Grotowski included this text in his play Apocalypsis cum fguris.

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Through Brunton’s writings, Grotowski discovered the teachings of the Hindu mystic Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950). Ramana Maharshi believed that a deep investigation of the question “Who-am-I?” would cause the socialized, ego-oriented, limited “I” to disappear and reveal one’s true, undivided being. When pilgrims asked Ramana Maharshi to clarify the meaning of life, the wise man would respond with the statement: “Ask yourself who-am-I.” The young Grotowski reacted strongly to these ideas and his pursuit of the question, Who-am-I? developed into one of the chief threads of his life and work. Already at the age of 10, people with a special kind of wisdom, like Ramana Maharshi, fascinated Grotowski. Later in life, he called such people by the Russian word yurodiviy, “holy fool,” and he dedicated one aspect of his investigation to making contact with such yurodiviy, directly. Actual transmission of knowledge, whether received or stolen, through real confrontation with a master, became a special feld of interest for Grotowski. In fact, transmission became the main thrust of the last period of his work and defned his relationship with Thomas Richards (b. 1962), an American actor who, since Grotowski’s death, directs his research center in Pontedera, Italy.

Theatre school In 1950, Grotowski’s family moved to Krakow where he fnished his secondary studies. He had missed a year of school due to illness, the beginning of serious health problems that would plague Grotowski throughout his life. Undecided as to which discipline he should choose for a career, Grotowski sent out three applications for advanced study: one to the medical school for psychiatry; one to the program in Oriental Studies; and, fnally, one to the Acting Department of the State Theatre School in Krakow. The Theatre School was the frst to respond and Grotowski’s destiny was determined. On the entrance exam he received only “satisfactory” grades for his practical work, including an “F” for diction. However, his essay on the topic, “How can theatre contribute to the development of socialism in Poland?” received an “A” and he was accepted into the program on probation. Grotowski often said that theatre studies appealed to him because, although performances themselves operated under strict censure by the Polish government, rehearsals were unregulated. He believed that the rehearsal process might provide a fertile feld to seek answers to his questions. While in theatre school, Grotowski continued to develop his interest in Asia. He studied Sanskrit and met with specialists. He also published several articles forming the basis for his future theatre pronouncements: one article included a call for more government support of young theatre artists; another article envisioned a “theatre of grand emotions,” in which action is structured consciously and real-life details are used only when “absolutely necessary to evoke the emotions or to clarify the action . . .” (cited in Osiński 1986: 17). Upon graduation with an actor’s certifcate in June 1955, Grotowski was assigned to the Stary Theatre of Krakow. His contract was delayed, however, when he received a scholarship to study directing at the State Institute of Theatre Arts (GITIS) in Moscow.

The Russian connection When Grotowski left for Moscow in August 1955, he was known as a “fanatic disciple of Stanislavsky” (Osiński 1986: 17). Stanislavsky’s system was the “ofcial” curriculum of the Polish theatre school, but most students regarded the Russian’s contributions to actor training with 196

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disdain. Grotowski, however, saw the seeds of truth in Stanislavsky’s system of physical actions, and he went to Moscow to study the system at its source. Russian actor and director Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863–1938) established the Moscow Art Theatre with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko (1858–1943) in 1898. The system of physical actions, one of his fnal innovations, highlights doing rather than emotion as the actor’s fundamental tool.

During his year at GITIS, Grotowski studied with Yuri Zavadsky (1894–1977). Zavadsky, an actor who had performed under Stanislavsky and Evgeny Vakhtangov, now directed theatre productions that followed the strict socialist-realistic style. Zavadsky observed that Grotowski instinctively worked with actors in a manner similar to Stanislavsky himself. One day Grotowski visited Zavadsky’s apartment. The teacher showed the student his awards, his passport (unusual under Soviet socialism), and the two limousines and chaufeurs at his disposal. Zavadsky whispered, “I have lived through dreadful times and they have broken me. Remember, Jerzy: nie warto, it is not worth it. This is the harvest of compromise” (cited in Barba 1999: 24). Years later Grotowski revealed that this episode touched him deeply and gave him the strength to resist the pressures of compromise during his years of working under an oppressive political system. Grotowski considered Zavadsky as one of his great masters (Barba 1999: 24–5). Evgeny Vakhtangov (1883–1922): student of Stanislavsky who directed the Moscow Art Theatre’s First Studio and developed his own creative style of production called “fantastic realism.” Grotowski was especially infuenced by his playful production of Turandot (1922). Socialist-realism was the predominant art form in the Soviet Union under the rule of Joseph Stalin (1879–1953). Its goals were to realistically and heroically depict the aspects of revolution and the common worker’s life in an optimistic fashion, while educating the public in the principles of communism.

In Moscow, Grotowski also discovered the theatre experiments of Stanislavsky’s protégé, Vsevelod Meyerhold (1874–1940). Meyerhold’s innovative staging techniques, actor-training methods, and dramaturgy led him into direct confrontation with the Soviet authorities. In 1939, he was imprisoned and then executed for his refusal to submit to the artistic homogeneity required during Stalin’s regime. Meyerhold’s name and contributions were erased from historical records and he had yet to be “rehabilitated” by the post-Stalin authorities during Grotowski’s stay in Moscow. The curious Polish director, with the aid of a kindly librarian, would sneak into a locked section of the library after-hours and pore over the forbidden documents describing Meyerhold’s groundbreaking theatre work. Grotowski said that from Stanislavsky he learned how to work with actors, but it was from Meyerhold that he discovered the creative possibilities of the stage director’s craft.

First travels Upon completion of his one year of studies in Moscow, with his health in a precarious state, Grotowski embarked on a two-month trip to Central Asia. This trip, his frst direct encounter with the East, further stimulated his interests in Asian philosophy and the practical aspects of Asian traditional and classic performing arts. He often spoke of a special meeting with one of the holy fools (yurodiviy) that occurred on this trip: “I met an old Afghan named Abdullah who 197

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performed for me a pantomime ‘of the whole world’, which had been a tradition in his family” (cited in Osiński 1986: 18). Grotowski saw his own questions embodied in the gestures of the old man: could the actor incarnate the whole world, nature itself? And could nature itself, with all its unpredictability, uniqueness, and constancy, reveal itself in the actor? Throughout his career, Grotowski showed little interest in actors who behave “naturally” on stage. Instead he sought those actors who reveal nature – their own personal nature as well as that of all humanity. Eventually, he would call this phenomenon organicity, one of the enduring searches of Grotowski’s career.

The political game When he returned to Poland in autumn 1956, Grotowski found the country embroiled in workers’ riots. These protests, supported by many intellectuals and artists, came to be known as the Polish October and Grotowski, for the only time in his life, actively and publicly worked in a political forum. He became a leader of the youth movement calling for reforms and published several provocative articles. His activity stopped abruptly, however, in early 1957. It’s possible the decision to halt his political activity was made under a certain amount of pressure, and even threats, from the authorities. Eighteen years later, when he spoke about this period of his life, he ofered some insight: “I was so fascinated with Gandhi that I wanted to be like him. I found out that’s impossible for objective reasons, and besides it would be against my nature, which is capable of fair play but cannot fully believe that everyone has good intentions” (cited in Osiński 1986: 20).

Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948): India’s spiritual and political leader who developed the practice of nonviolent civil disobedience in the country’s struggle for independence.

As a theatre artist, Grotowski seemed to stay away from politics. In a country riddled by corruption and sufering under oppression, he steadfastly called his theatre work “apolitical.” However, after his emigration from Poland in 1982, following the imposition of martial law in December 1981, Grotowski admitted, “I had to say I was not political in order to be political” (cited in Findlay 1986: 180). It’s difcult now not to see the political overtones of The Constant Prince or Apocalypsis cum fguris. One could even go so far as to say that his work in and around theatre had major political repercussions for Poland. During the 1970s, Grotowski’s paratheatre activities ofered one example of freedom within the tyranny of the surrounding society. Many young Poles focked to Grotowski’s laboratory to taste something that was forbidden to them elsewhere. In his article “You are Someone’s Son,” composed in 1985, Grotowski speaks clearly of his politics: I work, not to make some discourse, but to enlarge the island of freedom which I bear; my obligation is not to make political declarations, but to make holes in the wall. The things which were forbidden before me should be permitted after me; the doors which were closed and double-locked should be opened. (Grotowski 1989: 294–5) Is it possible to call such an attitude apolitical? Although his foray into active politics was brief, one of Grotowski’s greatest legacies is precisely an example of a life lived toward freedom. 198

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Early theatre work (1957–9) After the Polish October, Grotowski worked in Krakow as an assistant professor in the Theatre School, directed productions for several repertory theatres, completed his master’s project, won an award for his radio production of Sakuntala (based on the ancient dramatic poem by Kalidasa), and organized a series of public lectures on Asian themes. Grotowski also took two trips to France during these years and was strongly infuenced by a meeting with mime master Marcel Marceau (1923–2007). Grotowski’s early theatre work included productions of Eugene Ionesco’s The Chairs and Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. Both garnered mixed reviews from Polish critics. One can imagine the existential aesthetic of these early productions from the following description of Grotowski’s master’s project, Prosper Mérimée’s The Woman is a Devil: The play was performed by a quartet of actors against a backdrop of black curtains. The costumes were limited to black sweaters and street clothes. A student . . . provided guitar accompaniment. The entire set consisted of four classroom desks and a colorful poster upstage saying “Kill Rats.” (Osiński 1986: 24)

Existentialism: a movement in literature and philosophy that emphasizes the individual’s isolation in a hostile world and taking responsibility for one’s actions.

Grotowski directed two other productions during these Krakow years, both based on the same contemporary play, The Ill-Fated Family. The playwright described his play as a “good-natured, realistic comedy . . .” (cited in Osiński 1986: 24). Grotowski’s two versions, on the other hand, were noted for their indebtedness to Meyerhold and Vakhtangov. From his early theatre productions and writings, one can sense the burgeoning of Grotowski’s ideas and ideals, his dissatisfaction with the state of theatre, and his commitment to artistic responsibility and ethics. During these years, he was shaping both the form of his future creative explorations and the objectives of his parallel agenda: I have chosen the artistic profession because I realized quite early that I am being haunted by a certain “thematic concern,” a certain “leading motif,” and a desire to reveal that “concern” and present it to other people . . . I am haunted by the problem of human loneliness and the inevitability of death. But a human being (and here begins my “leading motif ”) is capable of acting against one’s own loneliness and death. If one involves oneself in problems outside narrow spheres of interest, . . . if one recognizes the union of man and nature, if one is aware of the indivisible unity of nature and fnds one’s identity within it, . . . then one attains an essential degree of liberation. (cited in Osiński 1986: 26–7) In 1958, Grotowski plainly states his reasons for work in the theatre and clearly articulates his search for liberation. His quest, one of the most fascinating artistic journeys of the twentieth century, would last for more than 40 years through fve distinct phases named by Grotowski himself: Theatre of Productions, Theatre of Participation (or Paratheatre), Theatre of Sources, Objective Drama, and Art as Vehicle (or Ritual Arts). 199

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Theatre of Productions (1959–69) A chance meeting Ludwik Flaszen (b. 1930) was already a well-known literary and theatre critic when the city authorities from Opole, a small town in southern Poland, asked him to revitalize the tiny Theatre of 13 Rows. The theatre occupied a low-ceilinged room with a small proscenium stage and thirteen rows of seats. Flaszen felt incapable of assuming the role of director himself. He needed a collaborator more skilled in the practical aspects of theatre. One day while Flaszen was sitting in the journalist’s club in Krakow contemplating his dilemma, Grotowski happened to walk by the window and Flaszen thought: “Why not?” (Barba 1999: 29). In May 1959, Flaszen invited Grotowski to join him in Opole. They hardly knew each other, but together they forged a plan for a new theatre.

The Theatre of 13 Rows The conditions in Opole included the establishment of the post of Literary Director (to be flled by Flaszen), unlimited freedom in choice of the group and the repertoire, and adequate subsidy to work without interruption. Grotowski and Flaszen selected nine young actors to form the ensemble. Grotowski called them renegades and said that each one had a particular explosive quality. Among them were: Rena Mirecka (b. 1934), a graduate of the Krakow Theatre School, Zygmunt Molik (1930–2010), and Antoni Jahołkowski (1931–79). When Grotowski spoke of “renegades,” he was referring as well to other actors who joined in later seasons: Zbigniew Cynkutis (1938–87), Ryszard Cieślak (1937–90), Stanisław Scierski (1939–83), Maja Komorowska (b. 1937), and South American actress Elizabeth Albahaca (b. 1937). These eight actors formed the core group that would be associated with Grotowski’s work for the next 25 years. The Theatre of 13 Rows began its frst season in much the same manner as any repertory theatre operating in Poland at the time. The actors were given scripts for Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus and told to have their lines memorized before the frst rehearsal. Zygmunt Molik once commented that he was the only actor who arrived to that frst rehearsal prepared. Rehearsals lasted three weeks. The length of the rehearsal periods, however, grew incrementally with each new production: the second production, six weeks of rehearsal; the third, three months; the fourth, six months; until the fnal theatre production, Apocalypsis cum fguris, which had 400 rehearsals over a three-year period. Besides Orpheus (premiere October 8, 1959), in the frst season, the troupe produced Byron’s Cain (premiere January 30, 1960) and Mayakovsky’s Mystery Boufe (premiere July 31, 1960). Grotowski also directed Goethe’s Faust (premiere April 13, 1960) at the Polski Theatre in Poznan. This was the only production he directed away from the Theatre of 13 Rows after founding the group. The second season in Opole consisted of Kalidasa’s Sakuntala (premiere December 13, 1960), a brief montage of World War II images titled The Tourists, and Grotowski’s frst experiment with the Polish Romantic tradition, Adam Mickiewicz’s classic text, Forefather’s Eve (Dziady) (premiere June 6, 1961). During these frst two seasons, the productions were not kept in repertory long. Program notes and random photographs give the only indication of the productions’ qualities. But from these early sources, the major themes and contributions of Grotowski’s research during Theatre of Productions can be discovered, including the concepts of poor theatre, montage, the use of space, and the holy actor.

Poor theatre The term most commonly associated with Grotowski’s work during Theatre of Productions is poor theatre. Poor Theatre can best be understood in relation to Rich Theatre. Rich and poor 200

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have little to do with economics, but refer instead to the number of other artistic disciplines and elements involved in a theatre production. When Ludwik Flaszen frst coined the term “poor theatre,” in writing about the company’s production of Akropolis in 1962, he described a theatre where “it is absolutely forbidden to introduce into the play anything which is not already there at the very beginning” (Flaszen in Grotowski 2002: 75). Grotowski took up poor theatre as a slogan and used it as the title of his seminal article “Towards a Poor Theatre” in 1965. . . . Grotowski asserts that theatre can exist without any accoutrements, needing only the live communion between actor and spectator, and he applies the term to all the practical work then taking place at the Theatre of 13 Rows. Grotowski’s manifesto establishes poor theatre as an emblem for one of the twentieth century’s most extensive theatre revolutions.

first experiments In the beginning of his work at the Theatre of 13 Rows, Grotowski experimented to discover a new theatrical form. The resulting productions looked strained and stilted. Eugenio Barba, who at the time was a scholarship student studying stage direction at the Theatre Academy in Warsaw, attended Forefather’s Eve (Dziady) in 1961 and remarks how the performance struck him as “unpolished,” dependent on university theatre conventions like direct contact with the audience, overacting, parody, and audience participation (Barba 1999: 20).

Eugenio Barba (b. 1936): Italian-born stage director and theorist. He founded Odin Teatret (Denmark) in 1964 and conducts research under his International School of Theatre Anthropology (ISTA).

In these early productions, Grotowski often imposed style and mannerisms on the actors. Later, he realized that directing a production is a process toward awareness and knowledge and not merely the chance to demonstrate things the director already knows. With each new production, Grotowski rigorously put aside the directorial concepts, scenic tricks, and other gimmicks that only served to clutter and confuse the scenic space, dramatic action, and, most importantly, the actor’s personal process. He began to work systematically to build the actors’ physical strength, stamina, and fexibility, while learning to pinpoint and nurture those aspects of the work that stemmed from his own creative consciousness and that of his actors. Step by step, Grotowski refned his concept of poor theatre, and the actor became more prominent in the director’s lifelong search for liberation. However, there were several other areas of investigation simultaneously driving him in the same direction. The frst of these is the treatment of the text.

Treatment of text (Montage) During the Theatre of Productions, all of Grotowski’s performances, except his fnal one, Apocalypsis cum fguris, were based on established dramatic texts, especially those of the great Polish Romantic writers: Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855), Juliusz Słowacki (1809–49), and Stanisław Wyspiański (1869–1907).

Polish Romanticism emerged during the period between 1795 and the end of World War I (1919) when Poland was removed from the map of Europe, divided among Austria, Prussia, and Russia. While contemporaneous with French and German Romanticism, the Polish version owes little to

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their infuence. The dramatic works of the Polish Romantic writers lyrically acclaim “the heroism of Polish patriots who, assuming the destiny of their oppressed people, rise to play witness to a subjected humanity which is promised happier days” (Temkine 1972: 67). These plays (e.g. Dziady, Akropolis, Kordian, The Constant Prince, Samuel Zborowski) remain regular features in the repertoire of Polish theatres even today.

Grotowski’s relationship with these texts was not as an interpreter but more like an excavator, like someone digging for a secret. He freely adapted the texts of the Polish Romantics and reassembled them to convey a powerful message to his own time. He viewed the script in a very cinematic fashion and sometimes would insert texts from other sources into the play. He referred to this process as montage. However, his real innovation was to use the reworked text as a pretext for the actor’s personal work. The playwright’s words served as a runway for the actor to bring potent, personal images to life, authentically and with technical virtuosity. But before we discuss Grotowski’s contributions to the art of the actor, let’s examine his role in the transformation of the theatre space itself.

Actor/spectator/space In the frst years of the Theatre of 13 Rows, Grotowski was obsessed with the relationship between actor, spectator, and space. Of course, other directors and theorists before him had proposed innovations in the theatre space or manipulated the actor–audience relationship, but Grotowski did not stop with the idea of a fexible performance space. Grotowski explored how space itself can become a part of the dramatic action and he strove to rid the theatre of illusory settings. He viewed each new production as a fresh experiment in the actor/audience spatial relationship and united all aspects of the production to create a living, dynamic space that functioned only for that particular work. Many of his ideas now defne what we call environmental theatre and immersive theatre.

Environmental theatre and immersive theatre: terms used to describe performances in which the traditional separation of actors and spectators does not exist. The audience is “immersed” in the performance sharing the same space with the performers. These terms are connected to “site-specifc performance.” While Grotowski’s Theatre of Productions always took place in precise performance spaces, he created specifc actor-spectator relationships for each production. In later phases of his work, the sharing of space and the lack of distinction between actor and spectator were more prominent.

Grotowski’s theatre frees space from the limitations of design, concept, illusory efect, and convention. The space is what it is. The theatre as a safe, familiar place no longer exists and the participant (both actor and spectator) is forced into a new mode of awareness. American theatre critic Eric Bentley captures Grotowski’s genius in his description of the three performances he viewed in New York in 1969: I very much admire the way in which each of your evenings was a separate exploration. I understand “environmental theatre” now, just as I now see what intimacy means. In 202

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The Constant Prince, we were medical students looking down on an operating table or a bullfght crowd looking down on the fght. In Akropolis, we were inside the world of the play and the players – within the electrifed barbed wire of an extermination camp. In Apocalypsis, we were a small group of onlookers, small enough to feel ourselves disciples of the disciples. . . . These events are planned as a whole: such and such actors to be seen by so and so many spectators from such and such an angle at such and such a distance, (Bentley 1969: 169–70) Grotowski’s companion in this actor–spectator–space exploration was often scenic architect Jerzy Gurawski (b. 1935). Gurawski designed the sets for Dr. Faustus, Kordian, and The Constant Prince, among others. In their work together, they explored the actor/spectator/ space relationship using many of the devices that now permeate contemporary theatre. They changed the play’s setting, placed audience members in direct contact with the actors, and even tried including spectators in the action of the play. But they soon gave up these ideas. Grotowski realized that coercing the audience to participate in the rehearsed actions of the performers only leads to more alienation, not authentic participation. Grotowski was seeking a very special spectator. Personally, I am awaiting a spectator who would really like to see himself, see the true aspect of his hidden nature. A spectator willing to be shocked into casting of the mask of life, a spectator ready to accept the attack, the transgression of common norms and expectations, and who – thus denuded, thus disarmed, and moved by a sincerity bordering on the excessive – consents to contemplate his own personality. (cited in Kumiega 1985: 145–6) Eventually, Grotowski realized that the fragmented aspects of contemporary society do not allow for actors and spectators to enter the theatre space with a common set of beliefs and, therefore, a psychophysical awakening and liberation on the part of the spectator cannot be guaranteed. The actor, however, might achieve the desired state of heightened sincerity. Thus, while the director could not determine the spectator’s responses, the spectator could witness the actor’s accomplishment and react to its reverberation: “If the actor, by setting himself a challenge publicly challenges others, and through excess, profanation, and outrageous sacrilege reveals himself by casting of his everyday mask, he makes it possible for the spectator to undertake a similar process of self-penetration” (Grotowski 2002: 34). Finally, Grotowski did not propose any rules for the actor–spectator–space relationship. In fact, with The Constant Prince and Apocalypsis, he even returned to placing the spectators in a voyeuristic relationship to the production. What was essential in Grotowski’s research was not the elimination of the stage or the mixing of the actors and spectators, but casting the spectator in a precise role in the production and determining the spectator’s function in the space. Only then might the chasm between spectator and actor vanish. Grotowski listened to the astute observations of companions like Barba, Flaszen, and Gurawski. He stimulated his actors to seek their own creative solutions to problems and rigorously critiqued them and himself. Slowly, Grotowski’s vision of the theatre space and the actor’s distinctive place in that space emerged.

The laboratory theatre: the research deepens In 1962, the Theatre of 13 Rows ofcially changed its name to the Laboratory Theatre of 13 Rows. This shift occurred just after the company’s premiere of Kordian by Juliusz Słowacki on 203

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February 13, 1962. The new production and name change signaled the group’s inclination toward disciplined research. Eugenio Barba arrived in Opole for a 30-month-long apprenticeship in January 1962. His impressions of Kordian difer radically from his review of Dziady several months earlier: I perceived a paradoxical logic which emphasized the text as though it were speaking of me and of the present. The way in which actors and spectators were distributed in the space was profoundly coherent. I was full of admiration for the dramatic solutions, the interpretation of the text and the actors’ performance. (Barba 1999: 28) In August 1962, Grotowski traveled to the People’s Republic of China. In Shanghai, he met Dr Ling, a voice expert. They discussed respiration techniques and the use of the various vocal resonators, and Dr Ling taught Grotowski how to check if an actor’s larynx is open or closed during voice production. Grotowski made other discoveries in China. For example, he observed how the actors of the Peking Opera begin each action with a distinct movement in the opposite direction from where they want to go. He used this tool with his actors in Poland, where it came to be called “the Chinese principle” (Barba 1999: 53). Upon his return to Opole, Grotowski continued rehearsals of Stanisław Wyspiański’s Akropolis . . . , which had begun in March 1962. The frst version of this performance opened on October 10, 1962 and was immediately recognized as a landmark production. Akropolis remained in the company’s repertory for almost eight years in fve diferent versions. After Akropolis, the company began work on Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, which premiered April 23, 1963. During the work on Dr. Faustus, the company’s daily training and research into vocal and physical exercises intensifed. While rehearsing Akropolis, exercises were undertaken to resolve particular technical and aesthetic problems the actors encountered in their struggle to embody the reality of a concentration camp in an unsentimental manner. After Akropolis premiered, the actors continued to meet daily for training. They eliminated those exercises directly linked to the needs of a specifc performance and selected psychophysical exercises that had creative value on their own. Grotowski now established a way of working with the actors that he would use throughout his career. He assigned each actor to become expert in a particular kind of exercise. As the actor struggled to master the exercises and teach them to the others, Grotowski served as observer and critic. In time, the exercises of the Laboratory Theatre began to function on two levels: as basic work on elements of craft and as spiritual work on oneself. Grotowski carefully hid this aspect of his work, even though Stanislavsky had used similar terminology, because such a “mystical” attitude did not curry favor with the government authorities and the Laboratory Theatre’s continued existence was precarious.

seeking allies Grotowski always believed in the importance of allies. He was expert at meeting people on their own terms and convincing them to support his mission. Whether it be singing Polish Christmas carols all night with a censor in Opole, sharing a bottle of vodka with an immigration ofcer while being held in a Miami airport, or waxing poetic to Soviet agents on the importance of “beauty” in the theatre – Grotowski did what he needed to do to keep the authorities at bay and continue the ever-increasing momentum of the performance work and research. Once he put the whole company on vacation in the middle of winter in an 204

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efort to outfox the authorities that were threatening to close the theatre. In Poland, at that time, nobody could get fred while on vacation. He patiently sat through endless bureaucratic meetings and had the company keep a weekly log of their communist party meetings. It was entirely fabricated. He once revealed, “I have often lied, but I have never compromised.” He built many alliances, friends, and supporters, both in and out of Poland, but the general public, the theatre establishment, and many critics failed to recognize the relevance of Grotowski’s research theatre. During the Tenth Congress of the International Theatre Institute (ITI) held in Warsaw in June 1963, Eugenio Barba “borrowed” a state-owned bus and transported approximately thirty of the most prestigious conference participants to the city of Lodz where they attended a performance of Dr. Faustus, barred from the “ofcial” program of the conference as planned by the Polish authorities. The next morning there was a huge commotion on the convention foor as those who had seen the performance lauded Grotowski and his collaborators. They returned to their home countries and wrote fervent articles about Grotowski’s laboratory. Barba’s escapade garnered the company unprecedented international attention. During work on the next production, The Hamlet Study, based on Stanisław Wyspiański’s version of Shakespeare’s play, the crisis with the authorities reached its peak. The company’s subsidies were cut and everyone worked without assurance of being paid. There was no money available to even print programs or take photographs for The Hamlet Study, which premiered in March 1964. Presented as an “open rehearsal,” there were only about twenty performances, and it is often cited as Grotowski’s one “failure.” However, he contended that the process of collective creation explored during rehearsals for The Hamlet Study was fundamental in determining the future path of the group and led directly to the way of developing Apocalypsis cum fguris some years later. In summer 1964, an event occurred that forged the company’s future. The two directors of the Laboratory Theatre of 13 Rows accepted an invitation to relocate their activities to the city of Wroclaw, a large industrial and university town in southwestern Poland. On January 1, 1965, the Laboratory Theatre ofcially moved to a three-story building in Wroclaw’s central marketplace. Everything was now in place for Grotowski and his company to meet the world.

The holy actor Grotowski aimed to “rediscover” the elements of the theatre by eliminating everything superfuous and focus on the very essence of the art form: the actor. He makes the distinction between the “courtesan actor” (who exploits his body for money and fame) and the “holy actor” (who undertakes a process of self-penetration, sacrifcing his body, not selling it). The courtesan actor works through the accumulation of skills and efects; the holy actor’s process of self-penetration involves a via negativa, a “technique of elimination,” ridding the organism of its resistance to the psychophysical process of playing a role. For one, the body becomes dense – for the other, the body becomes transparent. With his next production, The Constant Prince, Grotowski, together with actor Ryszard Cieślak, accomplished this aim. The actor’s performance became a vehicle for self-study and self-exploration, a feld for work on one’s self and individual transcendence. Most descriptions of Cieślak’s performance in The Constant Prince communicate with amazement and deep respect his radiance, agility, simplicity, technical mastery, and complete commitment to each moment of the psychophysical score. This is how the role penetrates the actor: through continuous work on the technical elements until all physical and psychological obstacles dissolve. Sacrifce occurs 205

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when the actor reveals something precious and personal as a gift to the audience through detailed work on structure and self. Ryszard Cieślak exemplifed the holy actor. He let fall the mask of daily life, penetrated his own experience, and stripped himself bare – Grotowski called this “the total act”: At the moment when the actor attains this, he becomes a phenomenon hic et nunc; this is neither a story nor the creation of an illusion; it is the present moment. The actor exposes himself and . . . he discovers himself. Yet he has to know how to do this anew each time . . . This human phenomenon, the actor, whom you have before you, has transcended the state of his division or duality. This is no longer acting, and this is why it is an act (actually what you want to do every day of your life is to act). This is the phenomenon of total action. That is why one wants to call it a total act. (cited in Osiński 1986: 86) After The Constant Prince premiered in Wroclaw in April 1965, Grotowski focused even more on via negativa and poor theatre – those principles which guided Cieślak’s liberated and luminous performance. As the company commenced an extended period of travel and international acclaim, inside the Laboratory Theatre’s walls, in the privacy of their studio, Grotowski was determined to create the conditions for each actor to accomplish the total act.

Grotowski meets the world At the Second World Festival of Student Theatres in Nancy, France (1965), Grotowski led seminars and, along with Ryszard Cieślak and Rena Mirecka, conducted demonstrations of the Laboratory Theatre’s physical and vocal exercises. Similar seminars were held in Paris, Padua, Milan, Rome, and London. Also in 1965, Eugenio Barba’s book, In Search of the Lost Theatre, was published in Italian and the American theatre journal, Tulane Drama Review, edited by Richard Schechner, dedicated a large part of one issue to the Laboratory Theatre’s achievements. Richard Schechner (b. 1933): director of the Performance Group and a major fgure in the founding of the Performance Studies program at New York University. As editor of Tulane Drama Review (now The Drama Review) he was one of the leading exponents of Grotowski’s work in the English-speaking world.

In February 1966, the Laboratory Theatre began its frst foreign tour. The Constant Prince was performed in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. The second foreign tour took place in the summer when performances of The Constant Prince in Paris and Amsterdam caused a great sensation. In August 1966, Peter Brook invited Grotowski to conduct a course for the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. According to Brook, this encounter provoked a massive creative shock in the British-trained actors (Brook 1968b: 11). Peter Brook (b. 1925): theatre director. In 1970, he founded the International Centre for Theatre Research in Paris. His productions, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Marat/Sade, Conference of the Birds, and The Mahabarata, have been acclaimed around the world. He remained always a profound friend and supporter of Grotowski’s work.

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Prior to the ofcial opening of their next production in 1969, the Laboratory Theatre performed The Constant Prince and/or Akropolis throughout Europe and in Mexico. Workshops, seminars, and conferences were often presented in association with these performances. In November 1967, Grotowski and Cieślak conducted a four-week seminar for advanced acting students at New York University. During these years of travel and international acclaim, Grotowski had several important meetings. He frst met American director Joseph Chaikin (1935–2003) in London in 1966. Chaikin and his Open Theatre claimed to be infuenced greatly by Grotowski’s work. Grotowski admired the group’s discipline, integrity, and personal response to the Laboratory Theatre’s methodology. “They [the Open Theatre] do not ape us in anything. They seek their own way and at their own risk. Only this form of reference to our experiences with method can have any meaning whatsoever” (cited in Osiński 1986: 109).

grotowski and artaud Comparisons are often drawn between Grotowski and French actor, poet, director, and theatre theorist Antonin Artaud (1896–1948). Artaud’s “theatre of cruelty” ideas, conceived to provoke the audience’s complacency, had gained much popularity in avant-garde theatre circles in the 1960s. However, Grotowski always claimed that he didn’t read about Artaud until very late in his own explorations and he preferred to place himself in Stanislavsky’s line of technique and thought. Notwithstanding, in 1967, upon publication of the Polish edition of Artaud’s book, The Theatre and Its Double, Grotowski wrote a beautiful homage to Artaud. In the article, “He Wasn’t Entirely Himself,” Grotowski challenges Artaud’s contributions as a theatre practitioner, but recognizes his importance as a visionary and a “poet of the possibilities of the theatre” (Grotowski 2002: 125).

Another name change In September 1966, the Laboratory Theatre of 13 Rows formally changed its name to the Laboratory Theatre Research Institute of Acting Method, marking the group’s interest in pursuing their research aims and the dissemination of their fndings concerning actor-training techniques. While in residence in Wroclaw, the actors performed, trained, worked with a growing number of foreign students, and prepared their new production. The new production was based on Słowacki’s Samuel Zborowski. Rehearsals, which began in December 1965, extended over a three-year period. During that time, the premiere was postponed several times and the title of the piece changed to The Gospels and then fnally to Apocalypsis cum fguris. After an open rehearsal on July 19, 1968, the performance ofcially premiered on February 11, 1969.

A crisis of creation 1968 – the world is in chaos. In Prague, Baghdad, Montreal, Lima, Paris, and Chicago, students and the oppressed rebel, wars escalate, regimes fall, and leaders are assassinated. In Poland, the government initiates a campaign of anti-Semitism, following the 1967 Arab–Israeli war, which results in “ousting over nine thousand people from positions of authority, all of them either Jews or revisionists” (Halecki cited in Ciof 1996: 96). Persecution of Jews in Poland attains an intensity not seen since the Nazi occupation. The climax occurs in August when Poland joins 207

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in the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia to quash the political reforms and liberalization that came to be called the Prague Spring. The turmoil around the world, especially Poland’s descent into its anti-Semitic habits, touched Grotowski in a deeply personal way. He even appealed to Eugenio Barba to send him some poison because he feared arrest and imprisonment and wanted a means to retain his dignity if danger threatened (Barba 1999: fn. 171). The events of 1968 corresponded to a time of intense change in Grotowski’s creative process and his chosen path. Apocalypsis cum fguris, Grotowski’s masterpiece and fnal theatre production, had a difcult birth. At one point, the group had over 20 hours of material. The actors became nervous and overacted. They were repeating what they already knew how to do. Grotowski reduced the number of actors. He changed the source material from Samuel Zborowski to The Gospels. Still the performance remained unborn. Finally, in one rehearsal a mistake was made: Anton Jahołkowski, in his role as Simon Peter, chose Zbigniew Cynkutis to be the Christ fgure instead of Ryszard Cieślak. Suddenly, the dynamics of the process crystallized. Something unspoken had been made fesh. The solution was not to illustrate the myth, but to bring it into reality, here and now. Grotowski began to ask the actors for a more personal response to the material of the Gospels. Each actor confronted a series of essential questions: “What would have happened to Christ if he revealed himself nowadays? In a literal way. What would we do with him? How would we see him? Where would he reveal himself? Would he be noticed at all?” (Flaszen cited in Kumiega 1985: 91). Rena Mirecka recalls being told, time after time, “I don’t believe what you’re doing.” She returned to her room to dig deeper, to reveal more. More than 30 years later, tears still came to her eyes as she remembered the difculty of this process. Grotowski tried diferent tactics to bring forth the life of the new performance. For almost one year, he gave no notes to the actors. Finally, he decided to leave the rehearsal hall and let the actors work without the pressure of his presence. After one month, he came back to the theatre and saw that the actors, while still nervous, now “dared to do” and what he saw them doing showed signs of life. Then the problem of “the true and only the true” appeared. Grotowski admits that in previous performances there had been elements that were not true, where the truth had remained hidden behind the structure. This time Grotowski refused to pretend. He wanted each actor to reveal his/her mystery. And he, as director, approached his own mystery. As he whispered to the actors, “Do!,” he drew closer to his own nature. Apocalypsis, Grotowski’s fnal theatre production, was also his most personal. When rehearsals entered their fnal phase, the company felt itself on the threshold of a new possibility. Each transmutation of Apocalypsis was like an old skin falling of, revealing a performance farther and farther from theatre and nearer and nearer to something other – still unnamed.

Apocalypsis cum fguris Apocalypsis cum fguris (the title stems from Thomas Mann’s novel, Doctor Faustus) demonstrated Grotowski’s principles of poor theatre, total act, and the possibilities of the actor–spectator relationship and extended them in a whole new direction. In an empty room, only the spectators and the actors defned the space. Stage objects were reduced to a loaf of bread, a knife, a white cloth, candles, and a bucket of water. Two spotlights, positioned on the foor and focused toward the walls, achieved all the lighting efects. At one moment, the room was plunged into darkness and only candles, precisely positioned, lit the actors’ radiant bodies. The actual text 208

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was selected and put together only during the fnal stages of rehearsal. The dialogue was drawn from the Bible, Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, T.S. Eliot, and Simone Weil. Witnesses of Apocalypsis speak of the quality of the vocal work in the production – its power, precision, and musicality.

Thomas Mann (1875–1955): German writer whose work often dealt with the artist’s role in society. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. His most famous works include The Magic Mountain (1924) and Death in Venice (1912). T.S. Eliot (1888–1965): American-born poet who lived in England for most of his life. His poem “The Wasteland” is considered one of the masterpieces of the twentieth century. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. Simone Weil (1909–43): French philosopher and mystic. She viewed sufering as a bridge to God. Her works include The Need for Roots (1952) and Waiting for God (1951), both published posthumously.

After its ofcial premiere in 1969, Apocalypsis toured the world and fueled the reputation of Grotowski and his actors. What made this production so important? Apocalypsis can be viewed as a contemporary passion play. In a brutal and blasphemous manner, Grotowski’s actors incarnate the Christ myth before the spectator’s eyes. However, Grotowski made no attempt at universal meaning or catharsis which might result in the conventional reactions of empathy or emotional release in the spectator: His aim, therefore, is to bring us momentarily into contact with the deepest levels within ourselves, deeper than those engaged within the order of forms, through incarnate mythic confrontation. If we succeed, through the shock of exposure, in touching those depths, we are changed forever. The process does not involve release; it is rather a re-awakening, or a re-birth, and in consequence potentially painful. (Kumiega 1985: 97) Grotowski never stopped believing in the possibility of change, both within the actor and the spectator. If he rejected the concept of catharsis it was because he believed that such an overtly emotional response actually prevents real change from occurring. Eric Bentley’s reaction to Apocalypsis reveals the true power of what was happening in the space between the actors and the spectators during the performance and why, as a theatre event, it remains a profound accomplishment: During the show Apocalypsis, something happened to me. I put it this personally because it was something very personal that happened. About halfway through the play I had a quite specifc illumination. A message came to me – from nowhere, as they say – about my private life and self. This message must stay private, to be true to itself, but the fact that it arrived has public relevance, I think, and I should publicly add that I don’t recall this sort of thing happening to me in the theatre before . . . (Bentley 1969: 167) Apocalypsis cum fguris was performed until 1980, undergoing several major transformations. The actors’ symbolic white costumes eventually were replaced with their own clothes. The benches were removed and spectators sat or stood around the periphery of the space. At one point in the work on the production, spectators were even invited to participate in the action. 209

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This was a very brief experiment. However, the real innovation in Apocalypsis was the aspect of not-pretending. The themes of personal honesty and renunciation were made palpable in the theatre space and a new relationship between actor and spectator, one based on sincerity, not illusion or pretence, was able to occur. When Apocalypsis fnally was born, it formed a perfect bridge into the next frontier of Grotowski’s research: The Theatre of Participation or Paratheatre.

The peak of success From 1968 to 1970, Grotowski traveled extensively. He made four solitary trips to India: at the end of 1968, in the summer of 1969, at the end of 1969, and in the summer of 1970. From late August through late November 1968, the company toured to the Edinburgh International Festival, the Cultural Olympics at the Olympic Summer Games in Mexico City, and to France. It was also during this tour that Akropolis was flmed in London. Peter Brook provided an introduction and Grotowski himself oversaw the fnal editing. Shown on American television on Sunday evening, January 12, 1969, the flm was “received coolly” (Anthony G. Bowman cited in Osiński 1986: 116). Grotowski was invited to Belgrade as honorary guest of the International Festival of Research Theatres in September 1969. While there, he cemented his reputation for severity. Grotowski leveled harsh criticism at the performances he saw, including some of the world’s most significant experimental companies, and dismissed the vapid imitations of the Laboratory Theatre’s training methods. “These were four hours of unending public confessions and analyses of world theatre. The Polish director settled accounts with the entire avant-garde . . .” (Franco Quadri cited in Osiński 1986: 117). He then traveled with the troupe to the United States with three productions: Akropolis, The Constant Prince, and Apocalypsis cum fguris.

Grotowski meets the United States The Laboratory Theatre had planned to visit the United States the previous year, but the group was denied entry after the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia. A petition protesting the State Department’s decision signed by sixty high-profle representatives of the American theatre, including Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, Ellen Stewart, and Jerome Robbins, was published in the New York Times on September 18, 1968. Eventually, permission was granted for a fveweek stay in New York. This stay ended up lasting more than two months, from October 12 to December 17, 1969. Forty-eight performances of the three productions were given at the Washington Square Methodist Church in Greenwich Village, and four public meetings were held with Grotowski at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. In New York, Grotowski and the Laboratory Theatre attained the pinnacle of their success. Tickets to the performances, each with a strictly limited number of seats, were hard to come by. Grotowski was ruthless with the lackadaisical American audience: no latecomers, no standing room, no exceptions! Despite the hoopla, the majority of American critics saluted the Polish Laboratory Theatre’s presence as the most important theatre event of the year, and Time magazine selected the performances as the most important of the decade. Ryszard Cieślak was awarded two 1969 Obie (Of-Broadway Theatre) awards for his work in The Constant Prince: Best Actor and Most Promising Newcomer. He was the frst actor to win both awards simultaneously and the frst winner to act in a language other than English. Apocalypsis won the Drama Desk award for Best Production 1969–70.

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Grotowski’s arrival in the United States had been well prepared. The Drama Review had devoted several issues to analyzing the Polish company’s work. Peter Brook’s book, The Empty Space, published in 1968, contained a chapter entitled, “The Holy Theatre,” in which he paid homage to Grotowski’s endeavors. At the same time, Grotowski’s own book, Towards a Poor Theatre, appeared in print. Published in English under the editorship of Eugenio Barba, the book gathered together several of Grotowski’s major pronouncements, interviews, articles by Flaszen and Barba, descriptions of the company’s exercises, and notes on workshops and classes. The book was translated into numerous languages and rapidly became a manual for experimental groups around the world. Grotowski’s various travels and meetings, the world’s disorder, and his personal crises were manifestly leading him to a drastic decision. In late February 1970, he met with the editors of various Polish publications. At this point, when the Laboratory Theatre and Grotowski himself were at the top of their success, he said: We live in a post-theatrical epoch. What follows is not a new wave of theatre but rather something that will replace it . . . I feel that Apocalypsis cum fguris is a new stage for me in my research. We have crossed a certain barrier. (cited in Osiński 1986: 120) But what lay on the other side of the barrier?

Theatre of Participation/Paratheatre (1969–78) Away from theatre Grotowski was at a crossroads – personally and professionally. He began to ask himself: “What does one do in such a case? One can force oneself to continue, but one must have a very strong character, because there is something wretched in that; . . . you can seek refuge in illness . . . or become a professor or rector and create some sort of extra-special theatre school, which I thought about for awhile . . .” (cited in Osiński 1986: 122). Grotowski often advised others to travel when they faced major life questions and so, taking his own advice, he began a period of wandering: “It was, quite literally, a ramble through the continents involving direct meetings with people and places. Also, in a diferent sense, it was a journey away from the theatre to the roots of culture, to essential communication and perception” (Kolankiewicz 1978: 1). Who did Grotowski meet and what did he do “on the road?” There is some speculation that Grotowski met Carlos Castaneda (1925–98), an anthropologist who wrote about a Yacqui shaman named Don Juan. His writings detail an apprentice’s initiation into a traditional and mystical feld of knowledge. Grotowski certainly read these books and even referred to them often, but he maintained that he never met Castaneda. He did, however, visit the Esalen Institute, a center of the “human potential movement” in California. He hitchhiked incognito across North America, read Jack Kerouac, and listened to Bob Dylan. He even ventured cautiously into the realm of the New Age and the books of scientist John C. Lilly. Later, in the early 1980s, he encountered the work of Jungian Arnold Mindell. What Schechner refers to as “The American Connection,” however, never exerted as much infuence on Grotowski as India.

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Jack Kerouac (1922–69): American writer of the Beat Generation. His books are often autobiographical and include On the Road (1957) and The Dharma Bums (1958). John C. Lilly (1915–2001): an important member of the California counterculture group of scientists, mystics, and scholars of the 1960s and 1970s. His research into the nature of consciousness involved such tools as the isolation tank, dolphin communication, and hallucinogenic drugs. Arnold Mindell (b. 1940): American psychotherapist who founded process-oriented psychology. His books include Dreambody: The Body’s Role in Revealing the Self (1982).

In India, Grotowski traveled to the shrine of Ramakrishna, the Himalayas, and Bodh Gaya, where the Buddha received enlightenment. He met spiritual teachers, like the famed Mother of Pondicherry, and a Baul master with whom he exchanged ideas about the objective elements of the anatomy of the actor (Barba 1999: 169). Grotowski found his bearings in India. After six weeks in India and Kurdistan in 1970, Grotowski reencountered his Polish colleagues at the airport in Shiraz, Iran, and nobody recognized him. He had grown a beard and lost more than 80 pounds. While the company performed throughout Iran and Lebanon, Grotowski few to Colombia where the anxious group of Latin American theatre artists awaited his arrival on the tarmac in Manizales.

Ramakrishna (1836–86): Hindu mystic who believed that all religions are pathways to approach freedom. Mother of Pondicherry (1878–1973): Paris-born Mirra Alfassa, assisted spiritual teacher Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) and supervised their ashram in Pondicherry, India.

The transformation The culmination of Grotowski’s transformation took place in Colombia. There he speaks for the frst time of theatre in the past tense and articulates the new direction his work will take: “This is a dual moment in my life. That which is theatre, ‘technique’, and methodology is behind me. That which has been reaching for other horizons within me has fnally resolved itself . . .” (cited in Osiński 1986: 123). He discloses in a personal tone what was essential in his experience with theatre – the technique, the professionalism, the vocation itself. But the end result is that the vocation “has led me out of the theatre, out of technique, and out of professionalism.” In Colombia, Grotowski redefnes theatre as “a group and a place.” He continues: “And, yes, it [theatre] can be indispensable to life, if one seeks a space where one does not lie to oneself. Where we do not conceal where we are, what we are, and where that which we do is what it is and we do not pretend it is anything else . . . And this, in time, will lead us out of the theatre . . .” (cited in Osiński 1986: 123). After moving “Towards a Poor Theatre,” Grotowski was now moving away from theatre entirely.

The day that is holy At the same time Grotowski was in Colombia articulating his new direction, a public call went out to young people in Poland to come to Wroclaw to work, not on theatre but beyond it. 212

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Grotowski had composed this request, entitled “A Proposal for Working Together,” in June, prior to leaving Poland for his six weeks in India and Kurdistan. This sequence of events demonstrates that Grotowski’s transformation was not the direct result of some sudden illumination during his sojourn in India. In fact, Grotowski frst spoke of the need to enlarge the company in February 1970. He was seeking young people who could assimilate themselves into the workings of the Laboratory Theatre easily. More than 300 responded. Grotowski constructed the paradigm for this new period of work during a series of meetings in New York in December 1970. It had been one year since the Laboratory Theatre’s triumphant New York tour, and hundreds of curious actors, directors, students, and professors crowded into Town Hall to hear Grotowski talk about theatre and question him about his group’s controversial methods. Instead, the bearded wanderer stunned the group, talking seriously and openly, until four o’clock in the morning, about his concept of “Holiday.” The Americans wanted to talk about practical things: nudity on stage, responsibility to the audience, methodology, and talent. Grotowski tolerantly answered their queries, always framing his answers in his new language. Armed with the foundation of craft and with his ever-present “hidden agenda” guiding him, Grotowski commenced the second major period of his research: Theatre of Participation or Paratheatre (1969–78). In Poland, Grotowski wanted a complete change of atmosphere. The Laboratory Theatre acquired an abandoned farm about 40 kilometers from Wroclaw. After some structural reparations, the group’s new activities were moved to this isolated, rural setting called Brzezinka, the name of the village nearby. Prior to moving, however, Grotowski began to work with a group of ten people in the Wroclaw space in order to establish a common meeting ground with the older members of the company. The original group of ten was soon reduced to four who were joined by three new arrivals. The selection period and initial preparation ended in November 1972, when a group of fourteen went to work in Brzezinka for three weeks. Seven of this group were new members and included Włodzimierz Staniewski. The other seven were old members of the Laboratory Theatre, including Grotowski himself.

Włodzimierz Staniewski (b. 1950): founder and director of the Center for Theatre Practices “Gardzienice” in a village in eastern Poland, as important experimental company, founded in 1977, whose work gained world renown in the post-Soviet period.

What is paratheatre? Paratheatre means, literally, alongside theatre, on the borders of theatre, or expanding its limits. It is sometimes paired with Active Culture. Active Culture, Grotowski says, is commonly called creativity. It is action “which gives a sense of fulfllment of life, an extending of its dimensions, is needed by many, and yet remains the domain of very few” (cited in Kumiega 1985: 201). To put it simply: Paratheatre/Active Culture seeks to extend the privilege of creative action to those not usually involved in theatre production. In a series of lectures at the University of Rome more than a decade later, Grotowski remarked that his initial interest in paratheatre began at the end of the 1960s when a diferent kind of spectator appeared at the performances of the Laboratory Theatre – a more active spectator, more alive and engaged in the performance. From this point, the performances began to function 213

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as a “situation which gave us the possibility to meet other people who shared our nostalgia or our needs (or what we considered our needs)” (Grotowski 1982: 156). The problem then arose how to involve this new spectator-friend directly in the process of sacrifce and stripping away long practiced by the actors of the Laboratory Theatre; to involve the spectator-friend, not as a witness, but in an equal and reciprocal manner. Little is known about the period of closed work from 1970–3. Grotowski states that “In the frst years, when a small group worked thoroughly for months and months, and was later joined only by a few new participants from the outside, things happened which were on the border of a miracle” (Grotowski 1995: 120). There were never observers in the paratheatre work, only participants. Grotowski and his young group tackled the problem of how to involve these participants directly in the creative process; how to release in each one a fow of energy and arrive to a more authentic spontaneity. In order to accomplish this, there had to be a period of disarmament – a confrontation with one’s social masks, personal clichés, and a ridding of fear and distrust to reveal a state of vulnerability. This period was followed by a release of simple, human expression – the meeting. It can be said that this process of disarmament and meeting was ever-present in the Laboratory Theatre’s work. However, now theatre itself was eliminated. The upkeep and renovation of Brzezinka and its surrounding felds and forests created a rhythm of work diferent from the more harsh life in the city. The alternation between work in the country, work in the city, and periods of time free spent with family and friends ofered the possibility to develop a new relationship to nature (not to be understood as a return to nature or a romanticization of nature), which would become an integral aspect of Grotowski’s continuing research. The company’s old hierarchy disintegrated and the new members often led the paratheatre activities. The closed work continued in Wroclaw and Brzezinka until June 1973, when the frst paratheatre meeting was organized with selected guests. It lasted for three days and three nights. The event, initially called Holiday, was eventually referred to as Special Project. It was during this period that Jacek Zmysłowski (1953–82), who participated in these frst public sessions and would become an important leader in the later phases of the research, was added to the paratheatre team.

Paratheatre abroad During summer 1973, Grotowski traveled to the United States, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, and Japan. He gave lectures and planned the company’s frst major paratheatre tour. In Japan, he met Tadashi Suzuki. They attended a Nô Theatre rehearsal and visited Tokyo by night.

Tadashi Suzuki (b. 1939): Japanese director who developed the Suzuki Method of Actor Training, a strenuous, physical approach.

In September–October 1973, the Laboratory Theatre presented fourteen performances of Apocalypsis in Philadelphia and theatre workshops at the University of Pittsburgh. The group then retreated to a rural campground near Pittsburgh to conduct a Special Project which lasted eight days. The company repeated this format (with some variations) in France in November 1973 and in Australia from late March through mid-June 1974. In Australia, the paratheatre 214

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events were divided in two diferent projects: Narrow Special Project (devoted to the individual work of participants and of particular interest to Grotowski) and Large Special Project (focused more on group work). During the 1974/75 season, the company stayed in Wroclaw and opened the paratheatre work to an increasing number of participants. Members of the Laboratory Theatre led a variety of workshops, for example, Acting Therapy, which focused on the Laboratory Theatre’s vocal work and the elimination of psychophysical blocks; Meditations Aloud, conducted by Flaszen, which were more theoretical and intended to liberate the participants’ ability to listen; International Studio, primarily involving non-Poles; and Special Project, where “The aim was Meeting, conceived of as an inter-human encounter, where man would be himself, regain the unity of his being, become creative and spontaneous in relation to others” (cited in Kumiega 1985: 176).

The University of Research (1975) In June–July 1975, the University of Research of the Theatre of Nations was held in Wroclaw, under the sponsorship of the Laboratory Theatre. Over 4,500 people participated in a variety of classes, seminars, workshops, performances, public meetings, flms, demonstrations, and paratheatre events. A host of theatre royalty attended, including Peter Brook, Joseph Chaikin, Eugenio Barba, Jean-Louis Barrault, Luca Ronconi, and André Gregory. The premise was “to seek a basic ground of understanding between people . . . a new form of encounter with mankind,” and for theatre professionals “to seek a new vital base for practicing one’s profession” (cited in Osiński 1986: 151).

Jean-Louis Barrault (1910–94): French actor and director who worked with Antonin Artaud and trained under mime master Etienne Decroux (1898–1991). Famous for his role in the flm Children of Paradise (1945). Luca Ronconi (1933–2015): Italian stage director whose production Orlando Furioso (1969) brought him to international fame. André Gregory (b. 1934): American actor and director. He founded The Manhattan Project and has appeared in numerous flms, most famously My Dinner with André (1981), which discusses his work in Poland. André and his wife Mercedes (Chiquita) (1936–92) were two of Grotowski’s closest friends and supporters.

Paratheatre events organized for the University of Research took two basic forms: General Laboratory, open to anyone willing to participate, and including daily workshops as well as a nightly worksession called Ul (Beehive) . . . ; and specialized workshops, requiring a direct invitation from Grotowski, organized by individual members of the paratheatre team. The specialized workshops lasted up to 48 hours and took place in various locations – Brzezinka, the countryside around Wroclaw, or in the Laboratory Theatre building. The University of Research was an ambitious and pioneering event, but its signifcance has never been assessed. For three weeks, Grotowski’s laboratory became the Mecca of the theatre world and the nature and meaning of the art form was analyzed, questioned, and dreamed. Peter Brook discussed his company’s trip to Africa and Eugenio Barba shed light on Odin Teatret’s stay in southern Italy. Both of these directors had begun a period of experimentation in intercultural exchange, stimulated by Grotowski’s research, which would reverberate across world theatre for the next 25 years. Gregory and Chaikin lamented the state of American 215

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experimental theatre and relished the optimism and boldness of the Polish meeting. Gregory stated, “It seems to me that this is a kind of revolution – not political, but creative. A kind of revolution because it says ‘yes’ to life and ‘no’ to death” (cited in Kolankiewicz 1978: 45). After the University of Research, the Laboratory Theatre took its program to the Venice Biennale. In Italy, Grotowski engaged in several analysis sessions of the paratheatre activities, while the debate about this new phase of his work burned up the Polish press. At home, Grotowski was accused of guruism, mystic murkiness, and succumbing to what is fashionable. He seldom responded to such attacks. His response was in the work itself and the reactions of the numerous participants.

Toward the mountain In 1976, the Laboratory Theatre instituted Otwarcia (Openings) in Wroclaw. These experimental workshops were structured in a similar manner to Beehives and were open to anyone capable of active participation. From the beginning of May to the end of July, the company moved its projects to an historic monastery and rundown chateau near Saintes in southwestern France. This was the frst time the Laboratory Theatre toured abroad without a theatre production. After Grotowski announced the project in an interview in the French newspaper, Le Monde, over 2,000 applications came in from around the world. Grotowski selected approximately 200 persons to participate in workshops and paratheatre events. Jairo Cuesta (b. 1951) was among those selected by Grotowski to begin work with him on a new, unnamed project. In autumn 1976, plans were in full swing for The Mountain Project, the next major paratheatre event. Jacek Zmysłowski had accomplished a breakthrough with a small international group of non-professional young people in France: We led highly intensive open-air work which lasted several days and consisted – to put it simply – of movement, of the perception of space through movement, being in space in continual movement . . . It became possible to eliminate everything artifcial and leave the most simple of relationships: an individual/space . . . (cited in Kumiega 1985: 193) Grotowski, who had envisioned a mountain-themed project even before the University of Research, placed the entire project under Zmysłowski’s direction. The Mountain Project was organized in three parts: Nocne Czuwanie (Night Vigils), Droga (The Way), and Góra Plomienia (Mountain of Flame). Following The Mountain Project, Jacek Zmysłowski organized an event simply called Czuwania (Vigil). . . . In May 1978, the Laboratory Theatre went to Gdansk. This was the company’s frst paratheatre tour within Poland and it is signifcant that it happened in the birthplace of the Solidarity movement (see later). The next major development in the paratheatre work was the opening of an event called Tree of People in January 1979. By this time, however, Grotowski’s involvement in paratheatre activities was minimal. Since the University of Research, Grotowski’s interests had begun to shift and in June 1978, he mentioned his new project by name for the frst time – Theatre of Sources.

Paratheatre: some conclusions It is easy to criticize the Laboratory Theatre’s foray into paratheatre by pointing out its naïveté and mysticism; formlessness and retreat from reality; and amateur techniques and lack of analysis. 216

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However, the reverberations from the experiment on a generation of young people cannot be denied. Participants, such as Margaret Croyden (Croyden 1993) and Steven Weinstein (cited in Kolankiewicz 1978: 77–82), reported a heightening of awareness, a harmony of efort and energy, a seldom-experienced vitality, a deep connection to nature, and the tangible stripping away of social and personality masks. Richard Mennen wrote in his journal after a Special Project: “I felt in my body . . . something strong, hidden, like birth, like sex, like death; frightening and necessary. I do not know what it was, but it was something. It was also like a source” (Mennen 1975: 69). Critics, such as Antoni Słonimski (cited in Osiński 1986: 156) and others who attended a symposium on paratheatre in Wroclaw in 2002, indicate that while participants often experienced something extraordinary, there was no reintegration process when they returned to their everyday lives. (This was especially strong for the Polish participants who had to go back to a harsh political and social reality.) Reports of depression and helplessness after a paratheatre experience bring up the question: Wouldn’t it be better for young people to occupy themselves in the political or social felds rather than escape to the forest for a week? However, perhaps the glimpse of something “beyond” that Grotowski’s paratheatre experiments ofered is exactly what everyone, and especially Grotowski’s fellow Poles, needed in order to challenge themselves to efect change. Many participants kept the experience their hearts as a precious memento, a utopian Mean momentarily made concrete and possible to work towards again. In this sense, as the experience of a generation, Grotowski’s Theatre of Participation accomplished a great deal.

Theatre of Sources (1976–82) From 1971 to 1976, Grotowski devoted much of his time to traveling around the world. Simultaneously, he was dealing with the developments of the paratheatre experiences led by diferent members of the Laboratory Theatre, with the controversies aroused by his “exit” from the theatre, and with his own deep intuitions. The next phase of his research, Theatre of Sources, grew out of Grotowski’s nomadic experience and his personal search for cultural and spiritual roots. In 1974, in Paris, he delivered an address entitled, “The Theatre of Contact, Meeting and Roots.” Roots is a term in Grotowski’s lexicon that is synonymous with the words source and origin. Roots should not be understood as simply one’s ethnic or cultural background, bat its meaning goes beyond those limits to the roots of humanity itself: the true origin. Grotowski’s paratheatre period was dedicated to the investigation of contact and meeting, bat the principle of roots becomes essential in the development of Theatre of Sources. Grotowski’s agenda was no longer hidden.

The art of the beginner/techniques of sources Grotowski conducted his research with a small, international group at Brzezinka through summer 1979. For the Theatre of Sources team, Brzezinka’s workspaces, both outdoors and indoors, became a “theatre.” Bat it was a theatre where only action took place, not acting. “In our investigation the orientation is naturally performative, active, looking for and not at all cutting the contact with what is around as or face to as” (Grotowski 1997b: 261). The work was very solitary, working “alone together,” and in relationship with the natural environment. Grotowski’s search with this transcultural group was for how to transform solitude into energy or force. They tried to develop personal techniques of sources, techniques of the beginning. They looked for those simple actions or doings that precede the diferences of tradition, culture, or religion. If 217

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one considers yoga, Native American shamanism, or Dervish whirling techniques of sources, then Grotowski was seeking the sources of techniques of sources. Often the doings were very simple and unsophisticated: to walk slowly, to run, to climb a tree. For Grotowski, temporarily suspending the body’s daily-life habits often meant a return to simple, childlike movement. This movement is accomplished in a high state of attention: the organism is awake, alert, and the senses of seeing and listening function in conjunction with moving. In fact, moving itself becomes perceiving. Grotowski calls this state “movement which is repose.” The term comes from the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas and is also mentioned in certain Tibetan yoga texts (Grotowski 1997b: 263). Grotowski believed that the movement which is repose may be the vital point where diferent techniques of sources begin.

Gnosticism is the doctrine of a wide range of religious sects in the early Christian era which teaches that freedom from matter (the body) comes through attainment of spiritual truth or gnosis (knowledge). The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of sayings of the resurrected Jesus, discovered in 1945, that have a distinct Gnostic point of view.

The Theatre of Sources team worked from what Grotowski calls their personal preferences, not the preferences of a particular tradition. This is true even though several members of the Theatre of Sources team were masters of a particular technique and everyone maintained strong links to their cultural heritage. The initial doings or propositions were then tested by other members of the group who approached them with diferent mind structures, diferent conditionings. If the proposition functioned for these others, the action would continue to get worked until something even more elementary appeared. In time, the simple doing would develop into a technique. Grotowski was applying many of the same principles of elimination as in his theatre work.

Expeditions Part of the Theatre of Sources research involved making contact with authentic techniques of sources. Between July 1979 and February 1980, Grotowski and his Theatre of Sources team took a series of fve expeditions to places where cultures still practiced techniques of sources: Haiti, Nigeria, Eastern Poland, Mexico, and India. Each expedition had its own unique qualities and organization. For the team members who participated, they were life-changing and life-afrming experiences. The frst step on the expedition was to make contact with people from the host countries and to select local participants for the team. The next step, the expedition itself, was to fnd a relation with the traditional practitioners or, in some cases, only their place of practice, their natural environment. Each expedition included Grotowski himself and a diferent constellation of team members. The frst expedition traveled to Haiti, the home of the voodoo cult in its purest form.

Voodoo: the ancient religion brought from Africa to the Americas. In its Caribbean form it mingles animism and Christian elements. Voodoo permeates all aspects of life in Haiti – its art, politics, education, and religious rituals.

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In Haiti, Grotowski says the emphasis was on “witnessing some performative approaches [to ancient tradition] and on possibilities for entering into direct contact with the strong human examples of the holders of ancient tradition” (Grotowski 1997b: 269). Grotowski stresses that they did not go to Haiti to participate in voodoo, although the group did witness several authentic voodoo rituals. Grotowski’s main contact was with the artistic community Saint-Soleil.

Saint-Soleil was a commune of peasant artists, created under the direction of Jean-Claude (Tiga) Garoute (1935–2006) and Maud Robart (b. 1946). The group’s unique primitive style of painting dazzled French writer André Malraux (1901–76) when he devoted a chapter to them in his memoirs, bringing them to world attention. Saint-Soleil disbanded after several years, but the artistic style and movement continues. Tiga Garoute and Maud Robart worked with Grotowski over a period of years in Theatre of Sources and Objective Drama. Maud Robart continued her collaboration until 1993, assisting Grotowski in Italy during the fnal phase of his research.

Grotowski then traveled to Nigeria accompanied solely by a Haitian colleague, a hougan (a voodoo priest). Together they visited Ifé, the cradle of the voodoo tradition. The third expedition journeyed to several remote villages in eastern Poland on the border with Byelorussia. The team then went to Mexico where the work “concentrated on psycho-ecological aspects of Huicholes culture: the notion of ‘sacred, charged spots’, and on performative possibilities related to these kinds of places” (Grotowski 1997b: 269).

The Huicholes are a tribe that has lived for centuries isolated in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico. They have no word for “god,” but worship the wonders of their natural environment. They believe that when humans destroy nature, they destroy the fnest part of themselves. The Huicholes are a peyote-smoking tribe, but Grotowski and his group strictly avoided any involvement with this aspect of their culture.

The fnal expedition was to India, primarily the Bengal region, where the team made contact with members of the Bauls.

The Bauls are a cult of minstrels known for their ecstatic worship and unconventional modes of behavior. The word baul is derived from batul, meaning “beaten by the winds” or “mad.” A clear representative of Grotowski’s yurodiviy (holy fools), the Bauls belong to no caste and wander freely. The simple language of their songs, fervent rhythms, and sensuous dances are actually “a technique for seeking God in oneself by using the instrument of the body that God gave us” (Reymond 1995: 294).

On each expedition, Grotowski’s Theatre of Sources diligently avoided exploiting these traditional cultures or appropriating elements of their rituals. Instead, the group simply made contact, kept a natural distance, and worked “next to” or in some relation with the traditional practitioners or 219

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their natural environment. Some individuals from the local cultures did eventually join Grotowski’s team, and members of the Bauls and Saint-Soleil traveled to Poland in the summer of 1980 for the next phase of Theatre of Sources, which involved opening the work to the public under the title Mysteria Originis. Over three months, approximately 220 people participated in the activities of Theatre of Sources and the visiting traditional practitioners at Brzezinka and another nearby rural setting. Occurring at the same time, but separate from Mysteria Originis, were presentations of Tree of People and the fnal performances of Apocalypsis cum fguris. At the end of the summer, Grotowski disbanded the Theatre of Sources team and the members returned to their home countries.

The Polish crisis While Grotowski conducted his feldwork around the world and in isolation in Brzezinka, Poland was in turmoil. In October 1978, Karol Wotyla (1920–2005), a Polish cardinal, was elected Pope. He took the name John Paul II and triumphantly returned to Poland in June 1979. His trip ofered a whif of hope to the oppressed Polish population. Poland’s economic problems worsened. The country was mired in debt and sufered severe food shortages and workers’ protests throughout 1980, the year of the Theatre of Sources public opening. At this time, Lech Walesa (b. 1943), a shipyard worker, cofounded the labor union Solidarność (Solidarity), with some fellow workers. Soon the organization numbered 10 million members. In August 1980, Walesa led the Gdansk shipyard strike which gave rise to a wave of work stoppages across much of the country. Pope John Paul II sent a message of support to the workers and the government authorities were eventually forced to relent. The Gdansk Agreement, signed on August 31, 1980, gave Polish workers the right to strike and to organize their own independent union. In early 1981, General Jaruzelski (1923–2014) came to power. The tensions in Poland escalated and the unstable economic situation deteriorated. Solidarność made further demands, including democratic local governments. Soon after, the Soviet Union sent troops to begin training exercises inside of Poland. It seemed that Poland’s attempts at reform would be quashed before they had even been born. On December 13, 1981, Jaruzelski imposed martial law and Solidarność was declared an illegal organization. Walesa and other union leaders were arrested and imprisoned and Poland descended into a dark winter of despair.

Grotowski’s dilemma During the period prior to martial law, Grotowski traveled throughout Poland, often incognito, talking to people, taking the pulse of his country. Meanwhile, the Laboratory Theatre opened a new performance in February 1981. Thanatos Polski, directed by Ryszard Cieślak and featuring actors from the original ensemble as well as members of the paratheatre team, unabashedly alluded to Poland’s precarious political situation. In early spring, Grotowski called certain members of the Theatre of Sources team to resume work, and a major Laboratory Theatre project was carried out in Sicily. When they returned to Poland, Thanatos Polski, Tree of People, and Theatre of Sources (II) were presented throughout the crisis summer of 1981 in Wroclaw and Brzezinka. The Theatre of Sources team also toured to several Polish villages during this period. The new version of Theatre of Sources included both indoor and outdoor work. The indoor work took the form of individual actions . . . performed by several members of the transcultural group and organized by Grotowski to be witnessed by the people of each village. 220

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There followed a series of major personal and historic events which infuenced Grotowski’s future plans. Antoni Jahołkowski, one of the founding members of the Laboratory Theatre, died in September 1981 after a long illness. When martial law was declared in December, Grotowski was in Brzezinka working with the Theatre of Sources team. Ludwik Flaszen informed them of the crisis and the entire group immediately relocated to the theatre building in Wroclaw. The international participants were given the option to leave Poland. The few who stayed spent a meager, surreal Christmas garrisoned with Grotowski in the Wroclaw space, standing in long lines for the rationed food and supplies, dancing to the music of Supertramp, and watching with dread the tanks in the town square. Grotowski prepared himself to be arrested. Other members of the intelligentsia and artistic community had already been incarcerated, and although he had not joined Solidarność because of his position as director and administrator, he knew that his activities were always under suspicion by the authorities. Each knock on the door set of a wave of reactions in the small group. The police, however, never came. Theatre companies from around the world ofered their help and sent care packages to the Laboratory Theatre. Eventually, Grotowski was able to negotiate a trip to Denmark in January 1982 to visit Eugenio Barba. On February 4, 1982, Jacek Zmysłowski died in New York City. He had become ill after the expedition to Mexico and was diagnosed with leukemia. His death hit Grotowski hard. They had developed a strong master–apprentice bond and Zmysłowski had become a vital part of Grotowski’s continuing research. Grotowski changed radically after Zmysłowski’s death. A new openness and softness appeared in his relations with others. He became more tolerant – and sad. Perhaps it was during this series of crises in 1981 and 1982 that Grotowski enacted another transformation. At the age of 48, he suddenly became an old man.

Farewell to Poland By spring, Grotowski was able to arrange for the Theatre of Sources team to leave Poland. They installed themselves in Italy. From March through June 1982, Grotowski delivered a series of lectures about the organic process at the University of Rome and conducted practical work at a farm in Umbria. In the summer, Grotowski returned to Poland with several members of the Theatre of Sources team. Although there was a faint-hearted efort to continue working, the situation in Poland proved impossible for Grotowski. The Jaruzelski government tried desperately to use artists to curry international favor. Grotowski, however, saw a big ethical diference between directing plays for a national audience under an oppressive regime, as many of his contemporaries chose to do, and using that same regime’s money to operate a closed, international laboratory as was his wont. He knew that he could not maintain the work’s pureness and his own integrity under the conditions of martial law. In September 1982, the Theatre of Sources group left again for Italy. In October 1982, Grotowski went to Haiti to ponder his dilemma. By December 10, he had taken up residence at the home of his close friend, André Gregory, in New York. When he was certain that each of his Laboratory Theatre colleagues was out of Poland and safe from retaliation, he ofcially requested political asylum in the United States. On December 31, 1982, Jairo Cuesta locked the door of the workspace in Volterra, Italy, where the Theatre of Sources team had continued its activities, and terminated the project. The Laboratory Theatre in Wroclaw continued to operate for several years, but the actors worked primarily outside of Poland. Finally, the founding members, with Grotowski’s consent, formally suspended operations in 1984. Amid little fanfare, a major chapter of twentieth-century theatre ended. 221

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Objective Drama (1983–6) An American adventure The termination of the Polish Laboratory Theatre did not mean the demise of its ringleader and creative force. Grotowski, fnding himself in strange new circumstances and unsure as to how to proceed, managed to arrange an optimum situation in order to continue his work. After a year of teaching at Columbia University in New York City, he was invited by Robert Cohen to join the faculty of the University of California-Irvine. UC-Irvine ofered him a professorship, research monies, exclusive use of an old barn situated on the campus, and the promise of three years of work without interference. Funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as other individual donors, was also forthcoming. After several meetings with students and appeals for interested participants in the Los Angeles area newspapers, Grotowski began work in UC-Irvine’s Studio Theatre. In the fall of 1983, the Focused Research Program in Objective Drama, Grotowski’s brief American adventure, was initiated.

Robert Cohen (b. 1938): American educator and director. He has written numerous books on theatre and acting and was founding Chair of the Drama Department at UC-Irvine.

Grotowski regarded Objective Drama as a transitional period. After leaving Poland, he felt alienated and cut of from his roots and most of his long-time collaborators. He had been through several major personal losses and his own health was again causing him anxiety. So he decided to put his attention to small details and began to work on certain elements of craft that had been neglected during Theatre of Sources and Paratheatre. The three years of the Objective Drama program at UC-Irvine proved to be a valuable training ground in the fundamental principles of professional performance work. The term Objective Drama can be traced to two separate sources. The frst is a distinction made between objective art and subjective art by G.I. Gurdjief: Subjective art relies on a randomness or individual view of things and phenomena, and thus it is often governed by human caprice. “Objective Art,” on the other hand, has an extra- and supra-individual quality, and it can thereby reveal the laws of fate and the destiny of man. (Osiński 1991: 385–6) Gurdjief ofers the pyramids as one example of objective art.

G.I. Gurdjief (1877?–1949): Armenian-born spiritual leader who eventually settled in France and taught a system of attaining awareness and control over one’s life. His writings include Meetings with Remarkable Men (1963).

The second source for the term “objective drama” was a notebook kept by Juliusz Osterwa where he discusses the relative “objectivity” of the various arts, placing architecture above music, 222

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painting, and literature. Osterwa then speculates: “Suppose theatre is like architecture. . . . Architecture is the most refned . . . moves the experts and the observers to a state of rapture – while it afects everyone in such a way that they are not even conscious of it” (cited in Osiński 1991: 386).

Juliusz Osterwa (1885–1947): renowned Polish actor and director who founded the Reduta Theatre, a model for Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre.

With these two great thinkers as his impetus, Grotowski began to formulate his new research question: What are the structures or tools that have an objective impact on the performer? Are there certain techniques, spaces, movements, vocal vibrations that afect the performer, transform his/her energy, allowing him/her to enter an organic stream of impulses, of life?

Practical work in Irvine At UC-Irvine, the work began in late October 1983 with Tiga Garoute and Maud Robart from Haiti. They taught a small group of university students, including James Slowiak (b. 1955), and several community participants, a cycle of Haitian songs and dances that included the yanvalou. The yanvalou is a ritual dance with a strong rhythm that incorporates a subtle undulation of the spine and a bending forward from the hips. All songs and movement structures were learned solely by imitation. There were no explanations or translations given. The two traditional practitioners would sing and the group would repeat, for hours at a time. Eventually, these songs and movement structures were organized into an activity named The River. Initially, Grotowski also conducted several voice work sessions and the group began to learn The Motions exercise. . . . These early Irvine sessions took place on weekends and usually began in the evening until early morning. By January 1984, the old barn had been renovated, with a sprung wooden foor installed and pale blue walls. A wooden yurt, a modern adaptation of a circular shelter used by Central Asian nomads, was constructed nearby. These two buildings stood adjacent to an open feld on the outskirts of Irvine’s campus. Once activities moved to the new site, outdoor work commenced. Grotowski initiated several of the participants in some of the “actions” developed during Theatre of Sources. These included The Slow Walk and The Fast Walk. Eventually, each day’s work consisted primarily of The River, The Motions, Watching . . . , and work on individual actions. The Haitian practitioners left Irvine after the frst year. Other traditional specialists worked with the Irvine group for shorter periods of time. They included a dervish (who taught whirling) and a Japanese Zen priest (who taught karate). The group was soon joined by a Korean performer, a Balinese actor, a dancer from Taiwan, and Jairo Cuesta. In summer 1984, students arrived from Yale University and New York University for two 14-day workshops. Among the students was Thomas Richards. In the third year of the Irvine project, Grotowski selected a performance team for more intensive work. Thomas Richards, Jairo Cuesta, and James Slowiak were part of this team. The result was an elementary performance structure called simply Main Action, which incorporated some of the Haitian songs, individual actions, and texts from ancient sources. Main Action told a simple story of initiation and served as a challenge to the team’s capacity to work craft elements on a professional level. 223

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Objective drama: some conclusions During the three years of the Objective Drama program at UC-Irvine, there were a number of open sessions for interested participants. Several of these lasted at least 36 hours. In May and June 1986, witnesses observed the work of the performance team, including Main Action, in a session lasting about eight hours. Robert Cohen, André Gregory, and Jan Kott were among the witnesses. Jan Kott (1914–2001): a renowned Polish theatre critic and theoretician who lived in the United States since 1966. His book Shakespeare Our Contemporary (1965) infuenced a generation of stage directors.

In the three years of Objective Drama, several aims were accomplished: The Motions and Watching were structured and refned as signifcant new exercises; the Haitian songs and yanvalou became important tools for Grotowski’s continuing research; and a young generation of actors and directors were introduced to the rigors of work on craft. But perhaps the most signifcant accomplishment of the Objective Drama program was that Grotowski met Thomas Richards and began a work of transmission that carried on until the end of his life.

Objective drama: addendum Objective Drama was only one part of Grotowski’s work in Irvine. During the school year 1985–6, Grotowski conducted an acting class for UC-Irvine students, assisted by James Slowiak. The class was completely outside of the parameters of the Objective Drama program and focused on the playing of a precise score of physical actions, establishment of a creative and personal framework for each scene, and tempo-rhythm. Each year between 1987 and 1992, Grotowski returned to Irvine for two-week sessions with UC-Irvine students, always assisted by James Slowiak. In 1989, James Slowiak worked for fve months with a group of students prior to Grotowski’s arrival. In 1992, he and Jairo Cuesta worked with students from Irvine and The University of Akron as well as members of New World Performance Laboratory. The work from these sessions was witnessed and analyzed by Grotowski each time. New World Performance Laboratory: an ensemble and research theatre located in Akron, Ohio and codirected by James Slowiak and Jairo Cuesta. The group presents performances and workshops internationally.

Grotowski made clear that this more performance-oriented aspect of his work was completely separate from his personal research and did not in any way indicate his return to theatre. He regarded these Irvine sessions as “lessons in theatre craft – the work of the stage director with the actor – ‘in the old, noble sense, as in the remote times of Stanislavsky’” (cited in Schechner and Wolford 2001: 293). Grotowski had been diagnosed in 1985 with cancer. From that point on, his mission to transmit his knowledge and fnish his work took on an urgent dimension.

Ritual arts or art as vehicle (1986–99) When Grotowski began to feel pressure from his American allies to turn out a product, he moved his main activities to Italy at the invitation of Roberto Bacci and Carla Pollastrelli. Accompanying him as assistants on the new project were Pablo Jimenez (b. 1956), Thomas Richards, and James Slowiak. In August 1986, they took up residence in Pontedera, in the heart 224

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of Tuscany, where a new workspace was prepared for the group on an old tobacco farm and vineyard about fve kilometers outside of town.

Roberto Bacci (b. 1949) and Carla Pollastrelli (b. 1950): Italian theatre impresarios who often ofered refuge to Polish groups during the 1980s. Their center in Pontedera continues to host the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards.

Selection sessions for long-term participants were held throughout August and September. Hundreds of young artists streamed to Pontedera over the next few years to participate in this new project. Grotowski and his team met them with a violent force. Grotowski informed his team that since they lacked any real professional skills, they must attack the participants like kamikazes. The three assistants took him at his word. Work sessions often lasted until dawn. Singing, physical training, and exercises on the fundamentals of craft were all part of the regimen. Grotowski had a vendetta against dilettantism and knew that he could not pursue his goals until the group could work at a high professional level. Grotowski watched the work and then met with each of the three assistants, coaxing them toward more precision and more quality in everything they did. Meanwhile, he continued to work in private sessions with Thomas Richards. Grotowski was entering what he would call Art as Vehicle or Ritual Arts, the fnal phase of his research. This phase had two primary themes: transmission and objectivity of ritual. Transmission revealed itself most strongly in Grotowski’s relationship with Thomas Richards. After a bumpy trial period, which he describes in his book At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions, Richards dedicated himself to the tasks Grotowski set for him and met each challenge. Ultimately, Grotowski entrusted to Thomas Richards the heritage of his research. “Objectivity of ritual” describes Grotowski’s attempt to create a performative structure that functions as a tool for work on oneself. This structure is not aimed at a spectator, but is only for the persons doing it. The structure provides a detailed key for energy transformation – to ascend toward more subtle energy and reach a state of organicity: “the elements of the Action are the instruments to work on the body, the heart, and the head of the doers” (Grotowski 1995: 122). Grotowski and Thomas Richards accomplished this goal in the creation of an opus titled simply Action. . . .

Another beginning Throughout the 1990s hundreds of theatre groups and other specialists journeyed to Pontedera to witness the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski’s work and share their own productions and methods. These meetings occurred without publicity and resulted in discreet, informal exchanges about craft with Grotowski and the members of his research team. Included among these visitors was famed Russian director Anatoly Vasiliev (b. 1942) who, after witnessing Action, claimed Grotowski as his spiritual and professional father. Hundreds of young people have traveled to selection sessions and other encounters conducted by Thomas Richards and the Workcenter’s Associate Director Mario Biagini (b. 1964). Today, the Workcenter tours the world to present its work in the feld of Art as Vehicle as well as more spectator-oriented performance structures.

Anatoly Vasiliev (b. 1942): Russian stage director whose productions stirred Europe in the 1980s and 1990s. He directs a theatre school and performance center in Moscow.

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Grotowski spent the 1990s in a swirl of new activity. He returned briefy to Poland to receive a special honor in 1992. He organized a major project in Brazil in 1996 and made several trips to the United States, including residencies at NYU, Northwestern University, Fordham University, and Bennington College. He also received several other honors including a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship (1991). In 1996, he was appointed the frst Chair of Theatre Anthropology in the prestigious Collège de France. He delivered ten lectures in Paris between March 1997 and January 1998 on the subject of “The organic line in theatre and ritual.” All of this work was accomplished while battling his debilitating health. Grotowski spent the last year of his life in seclusion in his apartment in Pontedera under the care of Thomas Richards and Mario Biagini. He died on January 14, 1999. Several months later, Grotowski’s ashes were strewn on Mount Arunachala in his beloved India.

15.2

Grotowski as director

Grotowski ranks with Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, and Brecht as one of the four great stage directors of the twentieth century. But while it is generally understood that Stanislavsky transformed acting, Meyerhold, directing, and Brecht, playwriting, Grotowski’s infuence on the craft is not so instantly recognizable. A more detailed analysis of Grotowski’s work as a director will clarify his key contributions to the feld of theatre.

Grotowski in rehearsal During Theatre of Productions, Grotowski always dealt with established scripts. Even his fnal theatre production, Apocalypsis cum fguris, began rehearsals as a version of a conventional play. He stated time and again that he had no method, but approached each play in a diferent manner. Nor did he direct a play in order to make a point or teach a lesson. Grotowski directed plays to look for the unknown and to seek answers to his personal questions – and the questions usually involved looking for the meaning in human existence. Although he had no recipe for directing, one can formulate some basic principles concerning archetypes, scenic equivalents, improvisation, and montage from Grotowski’s theatre work.

Archetypes During the early period of Theatre of Productions, Grotowski frst would try to identify and confront the archetype in each text he directed. Recall that archetype, for Grotowski, is the myth itself and refers to the basic human situation in the text. Barba gives several examples of archetypes: Prometheus and the Sacrifcial Lamb correspond to the archetype of the individual sacrifced for the community. Faustus and Einstein (in the imagination of the masses) correspond to the archetype of the Shaman who has surrendered to the Devil and in exchange has received a special knowledge of the universe. (Barba 1965: 74) In Kordian, Grotowski worked with the archetype of the hero who tries to save the world by himself. In Akropolis, the archetype is what the playwright Wyspiański refers to as the “cemetery of the tribes,” the place where Western civilization reaches its summit. 226

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Scenic equivalents After identifying the archetype in a text, Grotowski and his actors constructed what Barba calls “scenic equivalents” (Barba 1999: 39). These scenic equivalents (also sometimes called etudes, sketches, or propositions) were often developed directly from the text. But the actors never merely illustrated the scene from the play. In collaboration with Grotowski, they freely altered the form in a variety of ways. For example, Kordian is a play about a young nineteenth-century Pole who wants to free his country from Russian rule. He tries to assassinate the czar, is committed to an asylum, eventually declared sane, and executed. When analyzing the play, Grotowski decided that any person who tries to save the world by himself in today’s society is either insane or a child. He saw the asylum as the key to the play and so he set his production in a mental hospital. The various scenes and characters in the play took on the form of a madman’s hallucinations. In Słowacki’s play, Kordian delivers a patriotic speech on a mountain ofering to sacrifce himself for Poland. Grotowski’s Kordian delivered this soliloquy while an evil doctor drew blood from his arm. The scenic equivalents served two purposes. First, as he attempts to incarnate the myth, the actor can connect to the “roots” of the myth and perceive those roots while taking into account his own experience. If this happens, then something in the life-mask of the actor splits and falls away, revealing a deeper, more intimate and human layer. This revelation, a kind of confession, came to be called the total act. (See Section 15.1) Second, in this act of exposing herself, the actor reveals herself as a human being: “even with the loss of a ‘common sky’ of belief and the loss of impregnable boundaries, the perceptivity of the human being remains” (Grotowski 2002: 23). In this moment, the actor returns “to a concrete mythical situation, to an experience of common human truth” (Grotowski 2002: 23). When this happens, performance, for Grotowski, becomes an act of transgression: Why are we concerned with art? To cross our frontiers, exceed our limitations, fll our emptiness – fulfll ourselves. This is not a condition but a process in which what is dark in us slowly becomes transparent. In this struggle with one’s own truth, this efort to peel of the life-mask, the theatre, with its full-feshed perceptivity, has always seemed to me a place of provocation. It is capable of challenging itself and its audience by violating accepted stereotypes of vision, feeling, and judgment – more jarring because it is imaged in the human organism’s breath, body, and inner impulses. This defance of taboo, this transgression, provides the shock which rips of the mask, enabling us to give ourselves nakedly to something which is impossible to defne but which contains Eros and Caritas. (Grotowski 2002: 21–2)

Grotowski and improvisation How did the scenic equivalents come into being? In his book Theatre Trip, Michael Smith describes what he observed at several rehearsals in Wroclaw in the late 1960s. Grotowski felt that Smith’s version of events conveyed accurately one aspect of the rehearsal process at the Laboratory Theatre. He underlined, however, that there were other rehearsals which were never open to observation and that those rehearsals took on other dimensions. Michael Smith was invited to attend an early rehearsal of what eventually became Apocalypsis cum fguris. He describes the church-like atmosphere, the silence, and whispered tones. Grotowski in dark glasses, sitting at a small desk in the corner, began the rehearsal by reading a 227

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selection by Dostoevsky about witches to the twelve actors. The actors were then sent to prepare themselves and returned sometime later in costume to begin the improvisation. We use the term “improvisation” reluctantly. Grotowski rejected this term in relation to his work because of its association with an undisciplined and chaotic way of working. He often searched for another word to replace improvisation. (In later years, the word “rendering” was proposed, but Grotowski himself never accepted this word. Rendering has, however, become an important term in New World Performance Laboratory’s work process.) Improvisation, in Grotowski’s theatre, was an extremely rigorous activity that demanded the actor and the director to engage creatively in a personal confrontation with the core material. As the improvisation proceeded, Grotowski sometimes called “Stop!” and the actors would freeze while he whispered or shouted new instructions or stimulated them physically. Other times he would enter the action without interrupting and physically move the actors in the space. The actors never cut their fow, stopped to ask questions, or surrendered to confusion. They uttered no words. Instead, they hummed, sang, and vocalized with gibberish or abstract sounds. Sometimes Grotowski would join the cacophony, singing or laughing, and wave his arms to encourage them further. He also might stop everything and have an actor repeat an action. After the long, complicated improvisation, the actors wrote down everything they could remember about what they had done. They would divide the pages in their notebooks into two columns: one for actions and one for associations. This took about 30 minutes. Then they began a discussion amongst themselves in which they each talked about the improvisation. Grotowski mostly listened and watched. The next day began the work of reconstruction. The majority of work in rehearsals consisted of “reconstructing” improvisations. Once the frst improvisation was accomplished, the actors were responsible for remembering it in complete detail. Small bits of the improvisation might be isolated and worked and then put back into the whole. Other fragments might eventually be cut or the order of the events changed. Material for the performance is slowly gathered. In league with the director, the essential points are identifed and repeated many times. Everything that is not essential is eliminated. The exterior response is scored and fxed as the sign. The impulse fows through the sign. In this way, the montage is created and the actors’ score is built from the fow of living impulses.

Grotowski and montage Grotowski usually made an initial adaptation of the script before rehearsals began. He called this reworking of the script a textual montage. Most of the time, roles were cast and even the spatial relationship for the production already decided. Grotowski often reprimanded young directors who try to develop a theatre piece without the structure provided by a script. He pointed out that it was only his fnal production that might be considered a collective creation, starting from zero, and he stressed how much one learns as a director and actor from working within the limits set by the great dramatic texts. When he worked with a script, Grotowski structured the textual montage so that a meeting could take place, a confrontation. He did not seek to illustrate the text or even identify with it. He eliminated anything that was not important for him and selected those words that could function with regard to his own experience or that of the actors. He might change the order of scenes or rearrange sentences, but he seldom added text from other sources. In Akropolis, though, he did add some text from the playwright Wyspiański’s letters and also from a review of the dramatic text. Ludwik Flaszen, writing in his initial notes about the production, said that “Of all the plays Grotowski directed, Akropolis is the least faithful to its literary original” (Grotowski 228

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2002: 61). However, in a personal conversation almost 30 years later, Flaszen stated that he felt Akropolis was a masterpiece in editing and in its faithfulness to the spirit of the original. During rehearsals, the montage would continue to change and take on its new form. However, no matter how many changes Grotowski might make in a text, he felt he treated the playwright’s work with respect and retained “the inner meaning of the play” (Flaszen in Grotowski 2002: 99). Eric Bentley takes umbrage with this presumption: In your notes on The Constant Prince you congratulate yourself on catching “the inner meaning of the play.” Cool it. The inner meaning of a three-act masterpiece cannot be translated into any one-act dance drama. Its meaning is tied indissolubly to its threeact structure: otherwise Calderon himself would have reduced it to one act – he was a master of the one act. (Bentley 1969: 169) Bentley makes his point. He goes on to say that what Grotowski has accomplished with his montage is another play, his own, not Calderon’s. Grotowski refashioned dramatic texts to ft his own “here and now.” The works (especially Akropolis, Dr. Faustus, and The Constant Prince) became organic frameworks for a particular group of actors living in Poland at a particular moment in the country’s history to confront questions from their own lives. This is not new in the theatre. Even Shakespeare did it all the time. The principle is the following – it is very clear if you understand the creative situation of the actor – one asks the actors who play Hamlet to recreate their own Hamlet. That is, do the same thing that Shakespeare did with the traditional Hamlet . . . Every great creator builds bridges between the past and himself, between his roots and his being. That is the only sense in which the artist is a priest: pontifex in Latin, he who builds bridges . . . It’s the same with the creativity of the actor. He must not illustrate Hamlet, he must meet Hamlet. The actor must give his cue within the context of his own experience. And the same for the director. I didn’t do Wyspianski’s Akropolis, I met it. I didn’t think or analyze Auschwitz from the outside; it’s this thing in me which is something I didn’t know directly, but indirectly I knew very well. (Grotowski cited in Schneider and Cody 2001: 245) What Grotowski describes here is one aspect of what some critics called the dialectic of apotheosis and derision, an abiding principle throughout the Theatre of Production phase of his work. It was also referred to as “collision with the roots” or “religion expressed through blasphemy; love speaking out through hate” (Grotowski cited in Schechner and Wolford 2001: 22). Raised on the works of Marx and Hegel and strongly infuenced by his personal fascination for Asian philosophy, Grotowski naturally leaned toward a dialectic structure in his work. This means that he often examined ideas by trying to reconcile the opposites of the argument. In the company’s practice, this principle came to be called the conjunctio-oppositorum and this conjunction of opposites eventually found its way into all aspects of the company’s training and production work.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831): German philosopher, perhaps best known for his concept of dialectic, which can be summarized in three phases: thesis (e.g. the French Revolution); antithesis (the reign of terror which followed); and synthesis (a constitutional democracy).

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Karl Marx (1818–83): German philosopher and political economist whose writings, especially The Communist Manifesto (1847–8), infuenced much of the twentieth century’s politics, philosophy, and economic theory.

conjunctio-oppositorum Conjunctio-oppositorum is a term used by Grotowski to illustrate the basic dialectic between rigor and life in the work of an actor. On one hand, Grotowski was always looking for very spontaneous impulses to free the way toward the interior core from where great acting arises (hic et nunc), while at the same time, demanding the most precise structure possible. When dealing with the mystery of “time” in theatre, actors encounter the difculty of being in the present moment, in the transitory “now” Actors fnd themselves in the dilemma of trying to escape from the nagging question: “What next?” In order to free oneself from this pesky question, Grotowski always demanded a very clear structure or score of actions from the actor. Precision and organicity form the two opposing poles of Grotowski’s paradoxical conjunction. Grotowski was always pointing out the precision in the “artifcial.” He used the word artifcial in its most positive sense, meaning a structure of formal details and signs. Then he would contrast this structure (artifciality) with the organicity of the impulses from which these details or signs emerged. At diferent moments in his creative life, Grotowski revisited this dialectic. He found it in the basic conjunction of the word hatha (in hatha yoga) – where the energy of the Moon (ha) and the energy of the Sun (tha) are in complete balance. He also found this conjunction of opposites in observing the artifcial process of the actors of the Peking Opera where the organic process is integrated through very small pauses in the centuries old scores of the diferent characters. On the other hand, he observed the phenomenon as well in the ceremonies of the Voodoo tradition where the apparent spontaneity of the “possessed” is supported by a very clear and long-established ritual structure and by the lucid doings of each loa (or spirit) from the Afro-Caribbean pantheon. The dialectic between rigor and life is at the core of the principle of conjunctio-oppositorum and permeates all of Grotowski’s work as a director – both in and out of the theatre.

Other aspects of montage Montage does not only concern the editing work on the text, however. It also functions in another way in Grotowski’s work. The term montage can be traced to Russian flm director Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948). For Eisenstein, montage refers to the fow of assembled images that create an understandable whole. These images may move rapidly and even seem disconnected, but when viewed together in sequence, they lead the spectator to comprehend a story or theme. Montage, used in this sense, remained an important concept for Grotowski through the fnal period of his work, Art as Vehicle or Ritual Arts. In his article “From the Theatre Company to Art as Vehicle,” Grotowski discusses the seat of the montage, and makes the distinction between the seat of the montage in the perception of the spectator and in the doer (Grotowski 1993: 124). To make his point, he gives the example of The Constant Prince where Ryszard Cieślak, in the leading role, developed a score of action based on a sensual memory, an erotic experience, from his early youth. The moment of which I speak was, therefore, immune from every dark connotation, it was as if this remembered adolescent liberated himself with his body from the body 230

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itself, as if he liberated himself – step after step – from the heaviness of the body, from any painful aspect. And, on the river of the memory, of its most minute impulses and actions, he put the monologues of the Constant Prince. (Grotowski 1993: 123) However, while Cieślak was engaged in remembering his “carnal prayer,” everything around him, the mise en scene, was organized to make the spectator comprehend the story of a martyr sufering unspeakable tortures for his beliefs. The content of Calderon/Słowacki’s play, the structure and logic of the written text, the narrative elements around and in relation to what Cieślak was doing (especially the actions of the other actors), all suggested to the spectator that the story of a martyr was being played out in front of them. The story of the play appeared in the perception of the spectator. The actors were doing something else. Essentially, Grotowski was directing two ensembles. To make the montage in the spectator’s perception is the task of the director, and it is one of the most important elements of his craft. As director of The Constant Prince, I worked with premeditation to create this type of montage, and so that the majority of the spectators captured the same montage: the story of a martyr, of a prisoner surrounded by his persecutors, who look to crush him, but in the same time are fascinated by him, etc. . . . All this was conceived in a quasi-mathematical way, so that this montage functioned and was accomplishing itself in the perception of the spectator. (Grotowski 1995: 124)

The principle of no-character Grotowski believed that human beings play so many roles in their daily lives that the theatre should be the place where the actor does not play a character, but tries to seek a more authentic self. This principle was revolutionary. In working with the actors of the Laboratory Theatre, Grotowski often directed them not to play “characters.” Each performance became a challenge for the actors to strip of their own masks, to uncover themselves, and demonstrate the truth. They were able to do this behind the protection of the mise en scene. They were playing themselves, but through the mise en scene, the audience understood them as characters. The audience understood one thing, but the actors were actually doing something else. Perhaps it will be easier to understand this principle by describing Grotowski’s work with Ryszard Cieślak in The Constant Prince.

Grotowski and the actor Grotowski’s role in giving birth to Cieślak’s performance in The Constant Prince cannot be underestimated. When Cieślak frst arrived to work with the group he was full of blocks – psychologically, physically, and vocally. Cieślak’s liberation was only possible because it was accomplished in tandem with Grotowski himself. It might even be said that the two of them – actor and director – liberated each other. In a 1975 interview, Grotowski spoke frankly, yet obliquely, about this period of his life. He framed it as a transition from someone who depended on domination to prove his existence to someone capable of opening himself to another human being. JG: Most likely the central problem of my non-existence was that I felt a lack of relationship with others, because any relationship I had was not completely real. And the more domination there was on my side, the more it had to be unreal. 231

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AB: You were afraid of people? JG: Yes, AB: You were afraid of people, you didn’t love them or yourself? JG: I loved them so much it sometimes seemed to me that I would die – from despair. Then again I didn’t love them and was afraid. Occasionally, there was aggression: since you don’t love me, I will hate you. I want to stress that this trismus had already passed away before the satiation with public opinion and prestige. I have heard it said that prestige subdued me, and that’s an attractive alternative, but it’s not the case. Human relations brought about the change. What appeared to be an interest in the art of acting proved to be a search for and discovery of partnership (and the trismus faded when I was able to grasp this) – with Someone, someone else – and someone who, in the moment of action, at the time of work, I defned then in words used to defne God. At that time this meant, for me – the son of man. Everything was transformed, became dramatic and painful, and there was still something of a predatory nature. But it was already something very diferent. And then there was a fading away. (Grotowski 1975: 219–20) Grotowski’s honesty here is striking. In the work accomplished with Cieślak, he reached a remarkable point, a kind of symbiosis with another human being. The “leading motif ” he spoke of previously – the question “who-am-I?” and the problems of human loneliness and the inevitability of death – are put into practice, are made fesh, in the director–actor relationship forged with Cieślak. Grotowski said their connection went “beyond all the limits of the technique, of a philosophy, or of ordinary habits” (cited in Richards 1995: 16). People have remarked that it was difcult to speak about one without the other. The being performing was more like Cieślak–Grotowski, not just Cieślak. Grotowski himself said it was not like two human beings working, but a double human being (cited in Richards 1995: 16). We believe that the essence of Grotowski’s theatre does not lie in the actor–spectator relationship as many suppose nor in his dramaturgy or mise en scene, but in the relationship between the actor and the director that reached its frst fruition in the work on The Constant Prince. In the safety and privacy of rehearsal, Grotowski realized that a real meeting can take place between two people and it was this discovery that formed the basis for all of his future work inside and outside the theatre. During the preparation of The Constant Prince, Grotowski and Cieślak worked for many months together alone, without the rest of the company, meticulously constructing the physical score, Cieślak’s “re-membering” of his adolescent ecstasy. The text was worked separately. First, Cieślak memorized it precisely to the point that he could begin at any spot without a mistake. Grotowski would appear at Cieślak’s bedside in the middle of the night, wake him up, and make him recite the text word for word. Once the text was well memorized, it was placed in relation to the physical score. Once the physical score was clearly delineated, it was placed in relation to the work of the other actors. The result of this unique creative process was a performance lauded throughout the world and the heralding of a new acting method. But any attempts to imitate Grotowski–Cieślak’s creation failed miserably. To copy the externals of the performance and ignore the essential aspect of the phenomenon, the actor–director relationship, often led to grotesque interpretations of the new so-called Grotowski method and missed the underlying principle at play in the work. There is something incomparably intimate and productive in the work with the actor entrusted to me. He must be attentive and confdent and free, for our labor is to explore his possibilities to the utmost. His growth is attended by observation, astonishment, and desire to help; my growth is projected onto him, or, rather, is found in him – and our common growth becomes revelation. This is not instruction of a pupil 232

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but utter opening to another person, in which the phenomenon of “shared or double birth” becomes possible. The actor is reborn – not only as an actor but as a man – and with him, I am reborn. It is a clumsy way of expressing it, but what is achieved is a total acceptance of one human being by another. (Grotowski 2002: 25) What Grotowski describes here is a kind of sublimation of the self. Often, this aspect of egolessness gets missed in discussing Grotowski’s theatre. Some scholars, such as Timothy Wiles (1980), have criticized Grotowski’s via negativa by asking, “What does the actor do when all the blocks have been eliminated?” Grotowski laughed after reading one such article. “To be empty is exactly the point,” he said. How does one become liberated from the ego? By arriving to the point of emptiness, the Void. Barba makes the connection with this crucial aspect of Grotowski’s work and the Hindu doctrine of Sunyata: Sunyata, the Void, is not nothingness. It is non-duality in which the object does not differ from the subject. The self and belief in the self are the causes of error and pain. The way to escape from error and pain is to eliminate the self. This is the Perfect Wisdom, the enlightenment that can be attained through a via negativa, denying worldly categories and phenomenons to the point of denying the self and, by so doing, reaching the Void. (Barba 1999: 49) One of the best descriptions of Cieślak’s performance is by Stefan Brecht writing, brilliantly yet often critically, after the Laboratory Theatre’s New York tour in 1969. He clearly depicts Cieślak as an illustration of the via negativa, as an empty vessel through which “emotional and volitional states of the spirit” are expressed. “The Grotowskian actor actualizes spirit for us by difusing his ego through his body. However shitty its nuance, this approach is a theatrical revolution. It opposes ego-theatre” (Brecht 1970: 128). This “no-ego theatre” seems even more revolutionary today than it did 40 years ago. As young actors on the fast track to Broadway or Hollywood revel in the cult of personality that show business engenders, today’s theatre moves farther and farther from its spiritual foundations. Grotowski, however, ofers another possibility. He assumes that the boundaries of the ego can be transcended (or dissolved) and he accomplished it, for the frst time, in his work with Ryszard Cieślak.

Ryszard Cieślak Many consider Cieślak the best actor of his generation. Anyone who witnessed his performance in The Constant Prince never forgot it. He played a major role in Grotowski’s fnal production and acknowledged masterpiece, Apocalypsis cum fguris, and was an important collaborator in the paratheatre period of research. After the dissolution of the Laboratory Theatre in 1984, Cieślak conducted workshops and directed productions with various groups around the world. But he never again reached the heights of his work on The Constant Prince. However, in the 1980s when he appeared on stage and on flm as Dhritarastra, the blind king, in Peter Brook’s epic production of The Mahabarata, Cieślak demonstrated his skill like an aging samurai who never forgets the nuances of battle. Years later, in 1990, speaking at the “Homage to Ryszard Cieślak” in Paris, after his death from lung cancer, Grotowski referred again to what they accomplished together: We can say that I demanded from him everything, a courage in a certain way inhuman, but I never asked him to produce an efect. He needed fve months more? Okay. Ten 233

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months more? Okay. Fifteen months more? Okay. We just worked slowly. And after this symbiosis, he had a kind of total security in the work, he had no fear, and we saw that everything was possible because there was no fear. (cited in Richards 1995: 16) Everything was possible. In retrospect, one wonders about the power dynamics between Grotowski and Cieślak and the repercussions of their intimacy on the rest of the ensemble. Certainly jealousies fared and petty diferences arose, but it was always left out of the workspace. Grotowski knew how to defate potentially explosive situations and the actors trusted him implicitly. Grotowski never ascribed to the romantic concept of “group,” so often associated with the 1960s and 1970s experimental theatre. He preferred the word “team” where each member knew his/her job and could perform it impeccably. He made his team believe that everything was possible and from this brink of possibility, Grotowski led his actors to the highest heights of their craft and eventually beyond the boundaries of theatre.

Analysis of a key production: Akropolis As an example of Grotowski’s work as a director of theatre productions, we have selected Akropolis. When Grotowski began work on Akropolis in 1962 he knew he needed a “hit.” The production was constructed, more than the previous works of the Laboratory Theatre, to illustrate the work being done in Opole and to garner international attention. It worked. Akropolis was performed to acclaim throughout the world for approximately eight years. It is arguably the production most commonly associated with Grotowski and his theatre and is the only production readily available on video. Grotowski actually had a hand in editing the video document and it demonstrates clearly many of the principles of the Theatre of Productions period of his work. Furthermore, the renowned Wooster Group revisited Grotowski’s production of Akropolis in recent years in a performance entitled Poor Theatre, a simulacrum and homage to the technical mastery and emotional impact of the Polish Laboratory Theatre’s accomplishment as well as a testament to its continuing importance in the history of theatre.

Wooster Group: New York based avant-garde theatre company, under the direction of Elizabeth Lecompte (b. 1944). Operating since 1975, founding members include Willem Dafoe (b. 1955) and Spalding Gray (1941–2004).

Grotowski and the play Akropolis by Stanisław Wyspiański is a classic Polish play, frst published in 1904 and frst performed in 1926. Its style and form ft securely into the Polish Romantic tradition as a highly poetic, religious, and political statement to the Polish nation. In the cathedral in Krakow, where many of Poland’s kings, poets, and heroes lie buried, hangs a series of tapestries from the sixteenth century depicting scenes from ancient mythology and the Bible. The play turns around the folk belief that on the eve of Christ’s Resurrection, the characters from these tapestries come to life. Wyspiański hoped to depict the sum total of Western civilization’s contributions to humanity and juxtapose that with the Polish experience. He called the Polish cathedral the cemetery of the 234

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tribes, “our Acropolis,” and his characters reenact key moments from the Mediterranean cradle’s cultural history, heroically celebrating human accomplishment. For Wyspiański, “Acropolis” is the symbol of any civilization’s highest achievement. Grotowski, in deciding to mount Akropolis, asked himself one question: What is the cemetery of the tribes for us today in Poland in 1962? What is our Acropolis, the symbol of our generation’s highest achievement? Applying his dialectic of apotheosis and derision, Grotowski cruelly and ironically places the poet’s drama in the twentieth century’s most horrible invention: the concentration camp – a place where human values reached both their lowest and highest point. Another source of inspiration for the production was the words of Polish poet Tadeusz Borowski, a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp: It’s just scrap iron that will be left after us And a hollow, derisive laughter of future generations. (cited in Kumiega 1985: 60) Armed with this framework, and with the collaboration of prominent Polish designer and Auschwitz survivor, Josef Szajna (1922–2008), Grotowski set out to bring to life onstage the brutal truth of the concentration camp. In the video presentation of Akropolis, Peter Brook refers to the international contest that was held to fnd a work of art that might symbolize the tragedy of the concentration camps. It was fnally decided that nothing could do justice to the camp’s horror except the camp itself. So the authorities left the concentration camp at Auschwitz intact as a reminder for future generations of a terrible moment in humanity’s history. Brook then discusses the problems of staging the concentration camp’s terror. He mentions Peter Weiss’s play The Investigation which takes a documentary approach in dealing with the events. But Grotowski and his actors found another way. Brook states that Grotowski’s production actualized once more the essence of the concentration camp in space and time in the theatre. Grotowski was very careful to approach the material without any kind of sentimentality. It was to be a merciless depiction and the prisoners would not be glorifed or descend into emotional soup. But how could they accomplish this?

The space In conceiving the actor–spectator relationship, it was decided that there would be no direct participation from the audience. Grotowski cast the two ensembles, actors and spectators, in two precise roles: the actors became the dead and the spectators the living. The actors, as the resurrected inmates of the concentration camp, carry out their actions in such close proximity to the spectators that their presence gives “the impression that they are born from a dream of the living” (Flaszen 1965: 63). The dead perform for the living and the spectators witness (or dream) humanity’s nightmare. The space designed for Akropolis consists of a huge box in the middle of the room with a variety of metal junk piled on top of it. Stovepipes of various sizes, two old wheelbarrows, a bathtub, hammers and nails will be used by the actors to build their own crematorium. They hang these rusty elements from wires or pound them into the foor throughout the hour-long performance. These highly rhythmic moments of building activity are interspersed with periods of “daydreaming,” in which the inmates reenact their own versions of the biblical stories and myths from Wyspiański’s play. Grotowski touches here the phenomenon of prisoners who 235

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fashion their own reality when under the pressures of violence and incarceration. The prisoners are their own torturers, betraying each other, struggling for a moment of respite or beauty, as they build this fantastic and cruel community – a community that becomes more real than any theatrical illusion of the real things itself could ever hope to be. Grotowski created Akropolis with his actors in Opole, only 60 miles from Auschwitz, one of the Nazi’s most notorious extermination camps. The nearness of the camp exerted a heavy infuence on the company’s work. Grotowski fought against any kind of theatrical compromise of the material. In a 1968 interview he said: “We did not wish to have a stereotyped production with evil SS men and noble prisoners. We cannot play prisoners, we cannot create such images in the theatre. Any documentary flm is stronger. We looked for something else . . . No realistic illusions, no prisoners’ costumes” (cited in Kumiega 1985: 63).

The costumes and props Josef Szajna designed the costume and properties for the production. The costumes consisted of old burlap potato sacks. The sacks were cut full of holes and then lined with fabric to suggest torn fesh. The actors wore heavy wooden soled shoes and dark berets. Eugenio Barba, who served as assistant director for Akropolis, describes watching Szajna cut up the burlap and sew each garment by hand “with his shirt sleeves rolled up over his Auschwitz tattoo” (Barba 1999: 34). Szajna designed a poetic version of the concentration-camp uniform that eased all outward indication of gender, age, and social class. Anonymity reigned. The spectator saw only the tortured bodies of community of the dead. It is in his notes to Akropolis that Ludwik Flaszen frst develops his defnition of “poor theatre”: “It is absolutely forbidden to introduce in the play anything which is not already there at the very beginning” (Flaszen 1965: 75). Given this rule, each object on stage fnds various uses throughout the performance. For example, the very normal bathtub represents the tubs used in the concentration camps to boil human bodies to make soap and process leather. Turned upside down the same object becomes an altar where an inmate prays; in another moment it becomes the Biblical hero Jacob’s wedding bed. The wheelbarrows are used for transporting corpses, but also become angelic wings in Jacob’s fght with an angel or the Trojan king’s throne in the story of Paris and Helen. In one brilliantly grotesque moment, Jacob transforms a stovepipe into his bride, Rachel, and leads her in a joyous procession through the cramped space. This scene is particularly interesting because, in an early version, Rachel was played by actress Maja Komarowska. When she left the company, the stovepipe was substituted for her in this key moment in the play. This is a fne example of Grotowski’s ability to turn a misfortune into a magic moment. In his rehearsal room, there were never problems only creative solutions. In Akropolis, the actors fashion a myriad of worlds with a small number of ordinary objects. The result sometimes reminds one of children innocently playing. All of this produces a grotesque juxtaposition with the stark brutality of the concentration camp itself.

The facial mask During early rehearsals, Grotowski realized that some of the actors easily slipped into an emotional attitude when confronted with the concentration-camp material. He devised a special training for the group. In Rainer Maria Rilke’s essay about the sculptor Rodin, he describes the artist’s ability to read a person’s past and future from the wrinkles on his face. Grotowski took this suggestion literally and began to ask the actors to recreate facial masks based on photographs 236

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of actual concentration-camp inmates. Grotowski guided the actors to select and freeze sneers, scowls, frowns, and other expressions. He sought expressions that connected as well to each actor’s own personality and typical reactions.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926): Often considered Germany’s greatest twentieth-century poet. His collections include: Duino Elegies (1912/1922) and Sonnets to Orpheus (1922).

Grotowski understood that the human mask is often formed by one’s habitual thoughts and intentions in life. If someone is constantly repeating, “Everyone’s against me!” or “I’ll never get anywhere!” these phrases leave traces on our bodies and faces. He asked each actor to choose a “slogan,” a personally appropriate phrase that could be repeated silently over and over. In this way, each actor’s mask was slowly constructed, without the use of makeup or prosthetics, only by mastery of facial muscles, the repetition of a slogan, and a truthful response to the director’s proposals. The actor’s face stayed frozen in this mask throughout the performance, providing a strong emotional impact which transcended the obvious artifciality of the efect. The mask, with lifeless eyes that looked beyond the spectator, jarringly duplicated the single expression (or expressionlessness) apparent in the photographs during the last stage of survival prior to extermination. But each mask also was unique to the individual actor and mysteriously revealed something essential about each of the actors, perhaps linked to their personal attitude and reactions face to the Holocaust material, Europe’s history of anti-Semitism, and Wyspiański’s nationalistic Polish drama. Grotowski’s work on the facial mask was used only during Akropolis. It was not a method that he applied, like a recipe, in other performances. In Akropolis, it served a clear purpose and proved to be a creative solution to a practical problem of craft.

The actor’s body: is it formalism? Eric Bently found Grotowski’s Akropolis overly aesthetic and formal (Bentley 1969: 166). This was intentional. Grotowski was seeking a “non-emotive form of expression” (Flaszen cited in Kumiega 1985: 63). Another way he formalized the acting in Akropolis was through pantomime. The actors began to work with elements of classical pantomime and borrowed certain techniques to apply to the creation of their physical scores. This formed the beginning of the work on the famous plastique exercises. . . . As you watch the actors working in the video, you can see them applying precise physical/movement principles. They often play with their equilibrium, throwing themselves of-balance or creating moments that are quasi-balletic in how they change weight, use gesture, and hold positions. Flaszen points out that each actor “has his own silhouette irrevocably fxed” (Flaszen 1965: 77). The actors incorporate many stops into their scores – both as a group and individually. Zygmunt Molik recounts how Grotowski would often call out “Photo!” during rehearsals and the entire group would freeze, fxing the composition. These compositions were sometimes awkward statuesque poses, giving the impression of heroic monuments. The actors also apply “the Chinese principle,” beginning a movement with a slight impulse in the opposite direction, and other aspects of opposition, creating tension by consciously engaging opposing vectors in their bodies and the relation with the space and each other. Years later at the Collège de France 237

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in Paris in 1997, Grotowski recalled: “[In Akropolis] everything was formal, but at the same time nothing was formal – everything was alive” (Grotowski 1997d, June 16, authors’ translation).

The soundscape While the textual montage and physical composition of Akropolis are certainly remarkable, a contemporary witness is even more awed by the actors’ vocal skills and the director’s ingenious editing of a soundscape that accompanies each visual moment of the performance. The soundscape includes singing, chanting, roars, purrs, and a myriad of inarticulate sounds uttered by the actors, as well as the rhythmic clomping of the wooden shoes, a melancholy violin, and the harsh metallic clang of hammers and nails. Each sound, spoken or otherwise, was precisely coordinated with the physical action. Flaszen explains how “The sounds are interwoven in a complex score which brings back feetingly the memory of all the forms of language.” He refers to the Tower of Babel efect, a “clash of foreign people and foreign languages meeting just before their extermination” (Flaszen 1965: 77). In Akropolis, voice becomes more than a means to communicate intellectually the meaning of words. It functions as “pure sound” and viscerally and emotionally afects the spectators even if they don’t understand the Polish language. Robert Findlay describes in detail how the actors brought to life Wyspiański’s complex poetic text: Sometimes it was intentionally mumbled or occasionally spoken as if by children. At other times it was stated in a peasant dialect. There were liturgical incantations as well as very sophisticated and melodious recitations. Most striking were those periods in which the performers used the artifcial intonations of the traditional Nô actor. (Findlay 1984: 8) Findlay goes on to state that the production was almost operatic because of the strong musical elements throughout the piece. This kind of musicality was a feature of all of Grotowski’s production work. In fact, while the fnal stages of his research clearly were devoted to the investigation of song and vibration, this stream of inquiry was apparent from the early years of his work with actors. One could even say that all of Grotowski’s performances were sung.

Description of key scenes from Akropolis The Prologue and frst scenes Grotowski’s Akropolis begins with Zygmunt Molik clomping into the space carrying a limp, headless dummy. Molik climbs to the top of the junk pile in the space, lays the dummy gently on the bathtub, and spews out a prologue that summarizes the action of the play. The words come from a letter by Wyspiański and a review of the play when it was frst published. “I am reading scenes from Akropolis. I am pleased with them, and I have the impression that each scene has a breath of fresh air” (cited in Findlay 1984: 8). At this point, the other six actors (Ryszard Cieślak, Zbigniew Cynkutis, Rena Mirecka, Stanisław Scierski, Antoni Jahołkowski, and Andrzej Paluchiewicz) enter, marching, their wooden shoes mark the precise, rhythmic beat. They carry two wheelbarrows above their heads. Molik continues: Action: the night of Resurrection at Wawel cathedral, our Acropolis. It starts with the angels, who have come down to the foor, carrying the cofn of St. Stanisław. Figures 238

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and statues from the cathedral tombstones coming alive. Jacob’s dream, Jewish. Heroes of Troy, Helen and Paris, have come down from another tapestry [two male prisoners who will play Helen and Paris strike awkward, statuesque poses]. Conclusion: resurrected Christ the Saviour comes down to the foor from the main altar. (cited in Findlay 1984: 8–9) Molik fnishes his text in a quiet voice: “More fantastic and symbolic than any other play to date, this drama depicts the progress of the human race through its warlike and pastoral stages, with the power of song dominating throughout.” He immediately places his violin under his chin and begins to play a strident, sentimental tune. The other prisoners snap to attention and start to assemble the pieces of stovepipe while chanting phrases from Wyspiański’s play: CHORUS: On the cemetery of the tribes They come here for the day of sacrifce, On the cemetery of the tribes. ONE VOICE: Our Acropolis. CHORUS: Only once a year They come only once a year On the cemetery of the tribes. ONE VOICE: Our Acropolis. CHORUS: They read the words of judgment On the cemetery of the tribes. ONE VOICE: Our Acropolis. CHORUS: They’re gone and the smoke lingers on. (cited in Findlay 1984: 9–10) The focus shifts to two prisoners (Cieślak and Jahołkowski) carrying a stovepipe on their shoulders. In Wyspiański’s text, they are angels. They walk in place, a stylized mime-type walk. They raise and lower the heavy load, and talk of the many corpses and interminable sufering. When they discover the headless dummy tossed aside, they realize there is one body still alive among the corpses: “Do you hear his groaning? Do you see his black face? Do you see his crown of thorns?” (cited in Findlay 1984: 10). When the body dies, the two prisoners hang the limp fgure on one of the ropes stretched across the space – a shocking image of a prisoner gunned down while trying to climb the barbed wire – or is it Christ crucifed? The violin plays and a second work period of rhythmic building and pounding begins. The performance continues: short scenes of dialogue and striking imagery intermingled with the precisely orchestrated and choreographed work sequences. There is a scene where two prisoners are sorting the corpses’ hair. They caress a large sheet of plastic and the scene transforms into Rena Mirecka performing a strange, puppetlike dance. There is a brutal scene of interrogation where two guards mechanically push a prisoner back and forth between them before hanging his exhausted body on the ropes and a grotesque scene where a female prisoner (Mirecka) forces another inmate to make love to her while she perches over him in the bathtub, laughing maniacally. After the sexual orgasm, she rejects him by violently pushing him back into the bathtub three times. Each of these scenes corresponds to a scene in Wyspiański’s play.

The story of Jacob Molik then announces that they will begin the “old Jewish story of Jacob,” and he tells the basic plot points. Findlay says that “The Laboratorium’s version of the biblical story followed generally 239

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the sequence of Wyspiański’s text, but with considerable internal cutting and the elimination of Jacob’s and Esau’s fnal reconciliation” (Findlay 1984: 11–12). One of the most memorable moments in this part of the performance is the marriage of Rachel and Jacob. Jacob and his uncle Laban have fought a tug-of-war over the worthless piece of plastic that represents Rachel. After Jacob kills his uncle, he takes possession of the plastic and sings a love song in which he calls her his bird of paradise. Another prisoner lying amidst the junk speaks Rachel’s text: “Let’s go to my father . . . I love only you” (cited in Findlay 1984: 13). Jacob drapes the piece of plastic on one of the stovepipes like a bridal veil. The prisoners form a procession behind Jacob and his stovepipe Rachel and sing a Polish wedding song. Mirecka rattles two nails to signify the ringing of the church bells as the procession winds its way toward the marriage bed, the bathtub. The story continues with a long speech about Jacob’s old age and his homesickness. He wrestles with an angel (Cynkutis) who lies in one of the wheelbarrows which Jacob takes on his back. Jacob asks: “Who are you who is stronger than all living men?” The angel replies: “Necessity” (cited in Findlay 1984: 13). After another frenzy of activity, the crematorium is completed and the prisoners, at a standstill, gaze upward, searching for the sun and moaning softly. Jahołkowski suddenly interrupts this ghostly reverie. He moves from stovepipe to stovepipe, tapping each one with a nail, and speaking into the tubes to amplify his voice like a camp loudspeaker. He announces that a blackbird, a spy, has been captured. “The blackbird came to listen to our souls.” He then proclaims: “The ice on the river is breaking. The frst fowers are for Paris and Helen” (cited in Findlay 1984: 14). We are now transported to the landscape of Troy.

Paris and Helen During this part of the production, the actors put their arms inside their costumes. This simple transformation gives the impression of prisoners fghting the cold, while also suggesting the ruins of ancient Greek statues. Grotowski boldly casts a man to play the role of Helen. Scierski has played various women’s roles throughout the piece, but in a simple love scene between Helen and Paris, where the other inmates, as guards, laugh and mock them, we are reminded that homosexuals, too, sufered in the Holocaust. When Paris tells Helen that it is time to go to bed, the others explode with vulgar hoots. This enactment of homosexual love was extremely bold for the time. At each moment in this production, Grotowski challenges his own culture’s bigotry and reveals humanity’s hypocrisy. Through constant repetition of the phrases, “our Acropolis,” and “cemetery of the tribes,” Grotowski and his actors refect the evil and intolerance inherent in each person – inmate, guard, patriarch, matriarch, hero or goddess, as well as each spectator.

The end of the performance Wyspiański ends his drama with the resurrection of a Christ/Apollo fgure. In typical Polish Romantic fashion, this messiah bears the nation’s hopes toward the future. But in Grotowski’s Akropolis, there is no hope. Molik, as King David, lists the accomplishments of his tribe. He raises his voice, crying, “When will God come?” and bursts into song. His voice vibrates through the space in a stupendous demonstration of the use of resonators. He sings using overtones – engaging both high and low resonators – like two diferent voices simultaneously. He raises the headless dummy above his head. Grotowski’s Savior is an emaciated corpse from the concentration camps. The prisoners ecstatically sing Apollo’s words from Wyspiański’s’ text to the tune of 240

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a traditional Polish Christmas carol and begin a torturous procession toward the oven they have built themselves. Robert Findlay describes the fnale: The procession evokes the image of ecstatic, self-abusing medieval fagellants. Continuing to sing fanatically, the group circles the black box several times. Finally the small cover of the box is removed and bright light shines up from the open pit. Each of the singing prisoners following Molik and the headless dummy leaps in frenzied fashion into this pit. Mirecka is the last, and she pulls the cover closed. There is sudden silence, and a voice from the box says simply the words from Wyspiański’s prologue: “They’re gone and the smoke lingers on.” The performance is over. The audience typically does not applaud; it simply leaves the theatre. (Findlay 1984: 16) Grotowski’s vision was total. Akropolis functions on so many diferent levels that it is almost impossible to comprehend fully the piece in one viewing. The layers of meaning, metaphor, powerful images, and technical virtuosity of the ensemble might be perceived as too challenging for today’s spoon-fed audience. However, after seeing the performance in New York in 1969, American writer J. Schevill wrote: “I know now why there is a strange joy as well as terror in crematories, and I will never escape this revelation” (cited in Kumiega 1985: 65). This kind of deep response remains the promise of the theatre – and it is Grotowski’s Theatre of Production models that continue to point the way toward a theatre that is creative, challenging, masterful, and ultimately rich in its own poverty.

Paratheatre events Grotowski only spent the frst 12 years or so of his professional career directing theatre productions. Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, he conducted other research. It would be a gross error to omit a description of some of these paratheatre activities in this discussion of Grotowski’s signifcance as a director. Although this later work cannot be regarded as theatre production per se and it was often placed under the supervision of younger members of Grotowski’s research team, his guidance is apparent and it continues to infuence theatre training and thought throughout the world.

Beehives During the University of Research in 1975, one of the paratheatre activities open to all participants was called Beehives. Beehives were usually conducted in the main room of the Laboratory Theatre in Wroclaw, the same room where Apocalypsis cum fguris was still being performed. Seventy-fve to two hundred people participated in each Beehive, packed into the relatively small (25 feet by 40 feet) theatre space. Several personal accounts exist about Beehives – especially detailed is André Gregory’s account in Louis Malle’s flm, My Dinner with André (1981). The Beehive was usually led by a member of the Laboratory Theatre working with a small team who guided the participants through a prearranged sequence of events. Sometimes the structure was very obvious – the participants knew exactly what to do and when to do it. Grotowski always made it clear that in any participatory event the public must frst be put at ease. They should never feel coerced or confused. They must know that someone is in charge and that they will be taken care of. The so-called rules of the game must be evident to all so that the event can unfold on a fair playing feld. Grotowski always looked suspiciously on attempts 241

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to fool the public into participating or on any kind of abuse of the public. For him, the more clear things were, the better the quality of participation. Again one is reminded of the conjunctiooppositorum: spontaneity cannot exist without structure and to look for spontaneity without structure results in chaos and banality. Of course, even with structure, the Beehives and other paratheatre activities often resulted in artifcial excesses and banal behaviors. If songs were shared, participants would immediately resort to handclapping and fnger snapping. They would begin to hum or sing loudly, without even hearing the song, without truly being present and receiving it. The participants often looked for a sentimental connection with the others, a group experience. All of this was too easy. The real work, in a paratheatre encounter, only began after the participants vomited these easy reactions. When people start to look for something else, a real disarmament can occur – and after that – a meeting. Grotowski and his collaborators were aware of these problems. Applying the principle of via negativa, they slowly stripped away the excesses, just like they had in their theatre work. Props were eliminated. Fire, water, and other elements that were often part of the early paratheatre activities and led the participants toward clichéd behavior, were put aside. Grotowski began to envision a diferent kind of meeting, a meeting where nothing false gets in the way. When we reach the point where, in a certain space someone is drinking water, because he is thirsty, a second is singing, because he really wants to sing, a third sleeps because he really wants to sleep, a fourth is running, because something drives him to, and a ffth is fooling about, because of an interest in the others – then we are dealing with the phenomenon of the present. There is no being ahead of oneself, or behind oneself. One is where one is. This is only a frst step, but it is a frst step towards being what one really is . . . In a theatrical language we may describe this by saying that action is literal – and not symbolic, there is no division between actor and spectator, space is literal – and not symbolic. (Grotowski 1979: 227) It was in his work with Jacek Zmysłowski, who directed The Mountain Project and Vigil, that Grotowski arrived closer and closer to his notion of literal action where the contradiction between presence and representation, action and repetition, is abolished.

The Mountain Project The Mountain Project consisted of three parts: Night Vigil, The Way, and The Mountain of Flame. The frst Night Vigil took place in September 1976 in the Laboratory Theatre’s performance space. This segment functioned as a practical method to determine the participant’s readiness to undertake the next phases of the project. Kumiega says, “If the Night Vigil can be seen as an awakening, the awakened are recognized, and the sleepers, untouched, sleep on” (Kumiega 1978: 242). The next two phases of The Mountain Project unfolded through the end of July 1977. Upon the completion of The Mountain Project, Zmysłowski selected an international team to continue working on a variation of Night Vigil, simply called Vigil (Czuwania). Jairo Cuesta was a member of this group and presents his recollection of the project here.

Czuwania (Vigil): a recollection The path of the project of Czuwania was simple. First, we needed to confront silence, let movement arise from this silence, and only then, through this movement, meet the others. It seems 242

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simple, but on the path we had to overcome many obstacles. Silence was not just to avoid talking. It became a way to communicate with the others, to communicate the sense of the experience of the here and now. Perhaps we can talk about it more like a sense of complicity. For example, when you are on an expedition in the forest or high in the mountains, you don’t need to be called. You are there when the others need you. During the preparations for Czuwania, Jacek [Zmysłowski] was able to create a space of silence, where each team member found the freedom to connect with the core of silence in him- or herself. Once that was accomplished, a kind of simplicity and heightened state of attention arose in each of us. I still remember the taste of the Polish bread, the sound of a guitar, the smiles of my companions in repose, and someone uttering the name of an old friend who appeared at the door. Only when this level of silence and attention was attained did we descend to the room below – the old, empty room of the theatre. And there, patiently, we let the movement arise from our own silence. Each of us had his or her own way. We were all so diferent from each other – Japanese, American, French, Colombian, German – even the six Polish members of the team were diferent from each other. Perhaps we can say it was like a fre built of diferent pieces of dried wood found in an old forest: some will burst into fames, others will fght the humidity before beginning to burn, and others will emanate some scent before any combustion is observed. In the same way, to begin the Vigil, some of us would just breathe or walk; others stay lying on the foor or start a series of very delicate rolls. Some of us would fnd a continuous fow in their movements or change from sitting to other positions of the body, testing each one as if experiencing it for the frst time. Sometimes we were predictable in our reactions and other times the surprise of seeing someone go through a very strange fow of movements made us react with an even more surprising experience of our own movements. When this chain of surprising fow of movement appeared in the room, we knew we were ready for the next stage of the action: to meet the others. Outside participants joined us in the already found space of silence. Each group of new participants had its own nature and the path toward movement was always diferent. Jacek [Zmysłowski] was aware of that and he was able to lead the team through diferent strategies of working in the space that would allow for the participants to join organically the road to movement. This process could take a lot of time – sometimes several hours – because the participants were often surprised or even scared of this non-habitual space of silence. They needed frst to trust the group and then to trust themselves. When this happened they could do extraordinary things, knowing that the group was always there to support them. And when all the conditions were in place, the meeting could occur. Grotowski found Zmysłowski’s work on Czuwania to be a fundamental part of the paratheatre experiment: Jacek always insisted on the fact that what counts in the work are the extremely simple things: the movement and the space – the body and the space – the body and the movement. Nothing more, really nothing more, no miracle, no mystery, no metaphysics, no spirits, only the most simple things. In his explanations to his collaborators he always underlined the fact that it is necessary to accept certain limits and especially physical limits; for example we know that we cannot fy, so we don’t speak about how to fy. (Grotowski cited in Kahn 1997: 230) Grotowski drew much from the Czuwania experiment. It became an essential part of his work during Objective Drama and infuenced the development of the exercise Watching. . . . Vigil also 243

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served to verify many of Grotowski’s ideas about disarmament, fow, meeting, and untaming. It remains one of the best examples from the paratheatre research of an activity that functioned on the level of action is literal.

Action: the fnal opus It is impossible to write about Grotowski as director without some mention of the opus Action. This work was developed inside the project Ritual Arts or Art as Vehicle, the fnal phase of Grotowski’s research. In the beginning of his career as a stage director, Grotowski was very upfront about his desire to create new rituals in the theatre. However, he soon abandoned that notion and decided that it was impossible to create a ritual that literally involved the spectators. He rejected theatre production and began to test his ideas in a broader arena. But even in his paratheatre experiments he discovered how difcult it is to avoid the clichés of spontaneity when working with uninitiated participants. The endpoint of the arc of his research was a structure created solely for those doing it – a structure that functioned as a vehicle for work on oneself. Lisa Wolford points out that: Art as vehicle is not a mimetic enactment of ritual performance; it is ritual . . . For the performer, the inner process (if, by an act of grace, it should appear) is actual. It is a manifestation of Grace. (Schechner and Wolford 2001: 15–16) Just as his theatre production of Akropolis actualized the essence of the concentration camp in the here and now, it can be argued that in Action Grotowski’s main collaborator, Thomas Richards, actualizes ritual. Action is a ritual for those doing it: a structure in which – through a cycle of ancient songs – the doer enters into a process to transform his vital, coarse, daily-life energy to a fner, more subtle energy. It is a journey in verticality, moving upward and then back down. Because, once the energy has been transformed, the doer attempts to bring this subtle energy back into the reality of the “density” of his body and physical surroundings. It becomes, as Grotowski describes it, “All like a vertical line, and this verticality should be held taut between organicity and the awareness. Awareness means the consciousness which is not linked to language (the machine for thinking), but to Presence” (Grotowski 1993: 125). Thomas Richards later refers to this process as the “inner action” (Richards 1997: 39). But the question for those of us working in theatre might be “So what?” Why do this ritual, why go through this process? How is it going to help me be a better actor, play Hamlet or sing an aria? For the doer, Action functions as a way of working on oneself – in the true Stanislavsky meaning of the term. But for those of us in the theatre, just to witness this work can also be meaningful. It can serve as a demonstration of what is possible. Grotowski, working much like the monks in the Middle Ages copying ancient texts, has kept a fame of knowledge alive. In witnessing this work, either in person or in a flmed version, we are reminded of the craft tradition, the importance of precision, the diference between artifciality and organicity, the actualization of Presence. Here James Slowiak recalls his own confrontation with Action: On a trip back to Pontedera several years after I had begun my own work, two things confronted me: Truth and Deepness. There is no masking in Grotowski’s work. One faces reality, the hard, practical questions. You can’t hide behind beauty, aesthetics, symbolism, or philosophy. In the Workcenter’s opus, Action, there is no spectacle. It is pure 244

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work – work with the essentials, distilling, and deepening, a demonstration of the human spirit in action. Yes, it’s not just about the body. There is that other element. But how do we approach it? How do we unblock it? How do we let it fow? That is our work, that is our craft. And frst, yes, it must be approached through the body, through technique and precision – through clean action – and then perhaps it can arrive. But after this precision is achieved, something else takes over – one could call it no-precision and this is the Act. Call it Theatre of Sources, Objective Drama, Ritual Arts, Art as Vehicle, call it what you will, but the fact is that Grotowski, with the collaboration of Thomas Richards, accomplished it. It is not something that all of us need to run out and do. Grotowski never preached that his way was the only way to approach theatre. But the fact that he accomplished his goals will reverberate throughout our profession for years to come. (Slowiak 2000b: 40) In a text written during the last year of his life, Grotowski emphasizes Thomas Richards’ exclusive authorship of Action (Grotowski 1999: 12). He concludes that the collaboration between them can only be understood in the sense of transmission – “to transmit to him [Richards] that to which I have arrived in my life: the inner aspect of the work” (Grotowski 1999: 12). Grotowski identifes himself as the heir of a tradition and feels a duty to transmit his knowledge to a new generation. His fnal questions are: “What part has research in a tradition? To what extent should a tradition of a work on oneself or, to speak by analogy, of a yoga or an inner life be at the same time an investigation, a research that takes with each new generation a step ahead?” (Grotowski 1999: 12). He considers Thomas Richards’ work in the domain of art as vehicle (Action) to have surpassed already his own. In this fnal text, we are confronted once more with many of the topics that absorbed Grotowski throughout his career – from his early fascination with yurodiviy (holy fools) to his thorough inquiry into the nature of acting; from his wanderings through traditions and cultures to his monastic seclusion in Italy; from his radical explorations inside his laboratory to his far-reaching search beyond the borders of theatre – Grotowski never stopped asking “who-am-I?”

Further reading Books and journals Allain, Paul (ed.) (2009) Grotowski’s Empty Room, London: Seagull Books. Allain, Paul and Grzegorz Ziolkowski (eds.) (2015) Voices from Within: Grotowski’s Polish Collaborators, Wroclaw, Poland: Polish Theatre Perspectives. Banu, Georges (1996) “Grotowski – the Absent Presence,” in Intercultural Performance Reader (ed.) Patrice Pavis, New York: Routledge. Barba, Eugenio (1965) “Theatre Laboratory 13 Rzedow,” in The Grotowski Sourcebook (2001) (eds) Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford, New York: Routledge, 73–82; frst printed in The Drama Review, 9, 3:153–71. ——— (1999) Land of Ashes and Diamonds: My Apprenticeship in Poland, followed by 26 letters from Jerzy Grotowski to Eugenio Barba, Aberystwyth: Black Mountain Press. Beckett, Samuel (1984) Collected Shorter Plays, New York: Grove Weidenfeld. Bentley, Eric (1969) “An Open Letter to Grotowski,” in The Grotowski Sourcebook (2001) (eds) Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford, New York: Routledge, 165–70; frst printed as “Dear Grotowski: An Open Letter,” in The New York Times, November 30, 1969: 1, 7. Blonski, Jan (1979) “Holiday or Holiness?: A Critical Reevaluation of Grotowski,” trans. Boleslaw Taborski, in Twentieth Century Polish Theatre (ed.) Bohdan Drozdowski, trans. Catherine Itzen, London: John Calder; Dallas, TX: Riverrun Press. Braun, Edward (1982) The Director and the Stage: From Naturalism to Grotowski, London: Methuen; New York: Holmes & Meyer.

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James Slowiak and Jairo Cuesta Braun, Kazimierz (1996) A History of Polish Theater, 1939–1989: Spheres of Captivity and Freedom, London, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Brecht, Stefan (1970) “The Laboratory Theatre in New York, 1969: A Set of Critiques,” in The Grotowski Sourcebook (2001) (eds) Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford, New York: Routledge, 118–33; frst printed in The Drama Review, 14, 2: 178–211. Brook, Peter (1968a) The Empty Space, London: McGibbon & Kee; New York: Atheneum. ——— (1968b) “Preface,” in Jerzy Grotowski, Towards a Poor Theatre (2002) (ed.) Eugenio Barba, New York: Routledge, 11–13; frst published New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968. ——— (1995) “Grotowski, Art as Vehicle,” in The Grotowski Sourcebook (2001) (eds) Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford, New York: Routledge, 381–4. ——— (2009) With Grotowski: Theatre is Just a Form, Wroclaw, Poland: The Grotowski Institute. Burzynski, Tadeusz and Osiński, Zbigniew (1979) Grotowski’s Laboratory, trans. Boleslaw Taborski, Warsaw: Interpress. Campo, Giuliano with Zygmunt Molik (2010) Zygmunt Molik’s Voice and Body Work: The Legacy of Jerzy Grotowski, London: Routledge. Christof, Catharine (2017) Rethinking Religion in the Theatre of Grotowski, London: Routledge. Ciof, Kathleen (1996) Alternative Theatre in Poland 1954–1989, Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers. Croyden, Margaret (1969) “Notes from the Temple: A Grotowski Seminar,” in The Drama Review, 14, 1, Fall: 178–83. (1993) In the Shadow of the Flame: Three Journeys, New York: Continuum. Cuesta, Jairo (2000) “On His Way,” in Slavic and East European Performance, 20, 2, Summer: 26–7. ——— (2003a) “Sentieri verso il Cuore: In forma di contesto,” in Culture Teatrali, 9, Autumn: 25–30. ——— (2003b) “Ritorno alle ‘Sorgenti’, in Culture Tatrali,” 9, Autumn: 31–6. Cynkutis, Zbigniew (2015) Acting with Grotowski: Theatre as a Field for Experiencing Life, translated by Khalid Tyabji, edited by Paul Allain and Khalid Tyabji, London: Routledge. Czerwinski, Edward J. (1988) Contemporary Polish Theatre and Drama (1956–1984), New York: Greenwood Press. Dunkelberg, Kermit (2008) Grotowski and North American Theatre: Translation, Transmission, Dissemination, New York University: ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. Eckhart, Meister (1991) Breakthrough: Meister Eckhart’s Creation Spirituality in New Translation/Introduction and Commentaries by Matthew Fox, New York: Image Books. Findlay, Robert (1980) “Grotowski’s ‘Cultural Explorations Bordering on Art, Especially Theatre’,” Theatre Journal, 32, 3, October: 349–56. ——— (1984) “Grotowski’s Akropolis: A Retrospective View,” in Modern Drama, 27, 1, March: 1–20. ——— (1986) “Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre: Dissolution and Diaspora,” reprinted and revised in The Grotowski Sourcebook (2001) (eds) Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford, New York: Routledge, 172–88; frst printed in The Drama Review 30, 3: 201–25. Flaszen, Ludwik (1965) “Akropolis: Treatment of the Text,” trans. Simone Sanzenbach in Jerzy Grotowski Towards a Poor Theatre (2002), New York: Routledge, 61–77. ——— (2010) Grotowski & Company, translated by Andrzej Wojtasik with Paul Allain, edited and with an introduction by Paul Allain with editorial assistance of Monika Blige and with attribute by Eugenio Barba, Wroclaw: Icarus Publishing. Flaszen, Ludwik and Grotowski, Jerzy (2001) I1 Teatr Laboratorium di Jerzy Grotowski 1959–1969 (eds) Ludwik Flaszen and Carla Pollastrelli, Pontedera, Italy: Fondazione Pontedera Teatro. Grimes, Ronald L. (1981) “The Theatre of Sources,” in The Grotowski Sourcebook (2001) (eds) Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford, New York: Routledge, 271–80; frst printed in TDR: A Journal of Performance Studies, 35, 3: 67–74. ——— (1982) Beginnings in Ritual Studies, Landham: University Press of America; 2nd expanded edition: Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. Grotowski, Jerzy (1965) “Towards a Poor Theatre,” trans. T.K. Wiewiorowski in The Grotowski Sourcebook (2001) (eds) Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford, New York: Routledge, 28–37; frst published in Odra, volume 9, Wroclaw, 1965; English translation frst published in Tulane Drama Review, 35, New Orleans, 1967. ——— (1971a) “Les Exercises,” in Action Culturelle du Sud-Est, supplement 6, 1–13; “Esercizi,” in Sipario, 104, 1, 1980; in Il Teatr Laboratorium di Jerzy Grotowski 1959–1969 (2001) (eds) Ludwik Flaszen and Carla Pollastrelli, Pontedera, Italy: Fondazione Pontedera Teatro, 184–204; unpublished translation from French and Italian by James Slowiak.

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Grotowski (1933–1999) Grotowski, Jerzy (1971b) “La Voix,” in Le Theatre, 1:87–131; “La Voce,” in Il Teatr Laboratorium di Jerzy Grotowski 1959–1969 (2001) (eds) Ludwik Flaszen and Carla Pollastrelli, Pontedera, Italy: Fondazione Pontedera Teatro, 154–183; unpublished translation from French by James Slowiak. ——— (1973) “Holiday: The day that is holy,” trans. Boleslaw Taborski, The Drama Review, 17, 2(T58), June 1973: 113–35. ——— (1974) “Ce qui fut,” in “jour saint” et autres textes, Paris: Gallimard, 43–72. ——— (1975) “Conversation with Grotowski,” interview with Andrzej Bonarski, in Jennifer Kumiega, The Theatre of Grotowski, London, New York: Methuen, 217–23. Text published in abridged version. ——— (1979) “Action is Literal,” in Jennifer Kumiega, The Theatre of Grotowski, London, New York: Methuen, 224–8. Text published in abridged version. ——— (1982) Tecniche originarie dell’attore, Rome: Istituto del Teatro e dello Spettacolo, Universita di Roma. ——— (1988) “Performer,” in The Grotowski Sourcebook (2001) (eds) Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford, New York: Routledge, 376–80. ——— (1989) “Tues le fls de quelqu’un [You are someone’s son],” English version revised by Jerzy Grotowski, trans. James Slowiak, in The Grotowski Sourcebook (2001) (eds) Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford, New York: Routledge, 294–305. ——— (1995) “From the Theatre Company to Art as Vehicle,” in Thomas Richards, At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions (1995), London: Routledge, 115–35. ——— (1996a) “A Kind of Volcano,” trans. Magda Zkotowska, in Jacob Needleman and George Baker, Gurdjief: Essays and Refections on the Man and His Teaching, New York: Continuum, 87–106. ——— (1996b) “Orient/Occident,” trans. Maureen Schaefer Price, in The Intercultural Performance Reader (ed.) Patrice Pavis, New York and London: Routledge. ——— (1997a) “Holiday [Swieto]: The day that is holy,” (revised version)in The Grotowski Sourcebook (2001) (eds) Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford, New York: Routledge, 215–25. ———. (1997b) “Theatre of Sources,” in The Grotowski Sourcebook (2001) (eds) Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford, New York: Routledge, 252–70. ——— (1999) “Untitled Text by Jerzy Grotowski, Signed in Pontedera, Italy, July 4, 1998,” in The Drama Review 43, 2(T162), Summer 1999: 11–12. ——— (2002) Towards a Poor Theatre (ed.) Eugenio Barba, New York: Routledge; frst published New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968. ——— (2014) Testi 1954–1998, Volume I—La possibilità del teatro (1954–1964), translated from Polish by Carla Pollastrelli, Florence, Italy: La Casa Usher. ———. (2015) Testi 1954–1998, Volume II—Il teatro povero (1965–1969), translated by Carla Pollastrelli and Mario Biagini, Florence, Italy: La Casa Usher. ——— (2016) Testi 1954–1998, Volume III—Oltre il teatro (1970–1984), translated by Carla Pollastrelli and Mario Biagini, Florence, Italy: La Casa Usher. ——— (2016) Testi 1954–1998, Volume IV—L’arte come veicolo (1984–1998), translated by Carla Pollastrelli, Mario Biagini, and Ugo Volli, Florence, Italy: La Casa Usher. Harrop, John and Epstein, Sabin R. (1982) Acting With Style, Englewood Clifs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Hillman, James (1996) The Soul’s Code, New York: Random House. Innes, Christopher (1981) Holy Theatre: Ritual and the Avant Garde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ——— (1993) Avant Garde Theatre, 1892–1992, New York: Routledge. Kahn, Francois (1997) The Vigil [Czuwanie] trans. Lisa Wolford, in The Grotowski Sourcebook (2001) (eds) Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford, New York: Routledge, 226–30. ——— (2016) Le Jardin: Récits et réfexions sur le travail para-théâtral de Jerzy Grotowski entre 1973 et 1985, Torino: Accademia University Press. Kolankiewicz, Leszek (ed.) (1978) On the Road to Active Culture: The Activities of Grotowski’s Theatre Laboratory Institute in the Years 1970–1977, Wroclaw: Instytut Aktora-Teatr Laboratorium. Kott, Jan (1984) The Theater of Essence and Other Essays, Evanston: Northwestern University Press. ——— (1992) Memory of the Body, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Kumiega, Jennifer (1978) “Grotowski/The Mountain Project,” in The Grotowski Sourcebook (2001) (eds) Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford, New York: Routledge, 231–47; frst printed Dartington Theatre Papers, series 2, number 9, Dartington Hall. ——— (1985) The Theatre of Grotowski, London, New York: Methuen. Laster, Dominika (2016) Grotowski’s Bridge Made of Memory: Embodied Memory, Witnessing and Transmission in the Grotowski Work, London: Seagull Books.

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James Slowiak and Jairo Cuesta Lendra, I. Wayan (1991) “The Motions: A detailed description,” in The Drama Review, 35, 1: 129–38. Magnat, Virginie (2014) Grotowski, Women, and Contemporary Performance: Meetings with Remarkable Women, London: Routledge. Martin, Jacqueline (1991) Voice in Modern Theatre, New York: Routledge. Mennen, Richard (1975) “Grotowski’s Paratheatrical Projects,” TDR: A Journal of Performance Studies, 19, 4, December: 58–69. Milling, Jane and Ley, Graham (2001) Modern Theories of Performance: From Stanislavsky to Boal, Hampshire: Palgrave. Mindell, Arnold (1982) Dreambody: The Body’s Role in Revealing the Self, Boston, MA: Sigo Press. Mitter, Shomit (1992) Systems of Rehearsal: Stanislavsky, Brecht, Grotowski and Brook, New York: Routledge. Molinari, Renata M. (2006) Diario del Teatro delle Fonti: Polonia 1980, Florence, Italy: La Casa Usher. Needleman, Jacob and George Baker (eds) (1996) Gurdjief: Essays and Refections on the Man and His Teaching, New York: Continuum. Newham, Paul (1994) The Singing Cure: An Introduction to Voice Movement Therapy, Boston, MA: Shambhala. Ortega y Gasset, José (1972) Meditations on Hunting, New York: Scribner. Osiński, Zbigniew (1986) Grotowski and His Laboratory, trans. and abridged by Lillian Vallee and Robert Findlay, New York: PAJ Publications. ——— (1991) “Grotowski Blazes the Trails,” in The Grotowski Source book (2001) (eds) Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford, New York: Routledge, 385–400; frst printed in The Drama Review, 35, 1: 95–112. ——— (2014) Jerzy Grotowski’s Journeys to the East, London: Routledge. Pierce, Alexandra and Pierce, Roger (1989) Expressive Movement: Posture and Action in Daily Life, Sports, and the Performing Arts, New York: Plenum Press. Reymond, Lizelle (1995) To Live Within, Portland, OR: Rudra Press. Richards, Thomas (1995) At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions, London, New York: Routledge. ——— (1997) The Edge-point of Performance, an interview with Thomas Richards by Lisa Wolford, Pontedera, Italy: Documentation Series of the Work center of Jerzy Grotowski. ——— (2008) Heart of Practice: Within the Work center of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards, London: Routledge. Rilke, Rainer Maria (1986) Rodin and Other Prose Pieces, London: Quartet Books. Romanska, Magda (2012) The Post-traumatic Theatre of Grotowski and Kantor: History and Holocaust in Akropolis and The Dead Class, London: Anthem Press. Ronen, Dan (1978) “A Workshop with Ryszard Cieślak,” TDR: A Journal of Performance Studies, 22, 4, December: 67–76. Roose-Evans, James (1989) Experimental Theatre, New York: Routledge. Rudakova, Irina (1999) “‘Action is Literal’: Ritual Typology and ‘Ritual Arts’,” in Theatre and Holy Script (ed.) Shimon Levy, Brighton, Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press. Salata, Kris (2013) The Unwritten Grotowski: Theory and Practice of the Encounter, London: Routledge. Schechner, Richard (1985) Between Theater and Anthropology, Philadelphia, PA: University of Philadelphia Press. ——— (1988) Performance Theory, revised and expanded ed., London, New York: Routledge. ——— (1993) The Future of Ritual, New York: Routledge. Schechner, Richard and Wolford, Lisa (eds) (2001) The Grotowski Sourcebook, London, New York: Routledge; frst published 1997. Schneider, Rebecca and Cody, Gabrielle (2001) Re-Direction: A Theoretical and Practical Guide, New York: Routledge. Shawn, Wallace and Gregory, André (1981) My Dinner with André, New York: Grove Press. Slowiak, James (2000a) “Grotowski: The Teacher,” in Slavic and East European Performance, 20, 2, Summer: 28–30. ——— (2000b) “Ondas en el estanque [Ripples in the Pond] trans. Carlota Llano in Grotowski: Testimonios (ed.) Fernando Montes, Bogota: Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia, 34–43. Smith, Michael (1969) Theatre Trip, Indianapolis, New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company. TDR: A Journal of Performance Studies (1991) (ed.) Richard Schechner, 35, 1: whole issue. Taviani, Ferdinando (1988) “Commenti a ‘Il Performer,’” in Teatro e Storia, 5, Anno III, n. 2, Ottobre 1988, Bologna: Il Mulino, 259–280. ——— (1992) “In Memory of Ryszard Cieślak,” in The Grotowski Sourcebook (2001) (eds) Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford, New York: Routledge, 189–204. Temkine, Raymonde (1972) Grotowski, New York: Avon Books. Turner, Victor (1982) From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play, New York: PAJ Publications. Turner, Victor (1986) The Anthropology of Performance, New York: PAJ Publications.

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Grotowski (1933–1999) Wangh, Stephen (2000) An Acrobat of the Heart: A Physical Approach to Acting Inspired by the Work of Jerzy Grotowski, with an after word by André Gregory, New York: Vintage Books. Wiles, Timothy (1980) The Theater Event: Modern Theories of Performance, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Wolford, Lisa (1994)“Re/Membering Home and Heritage: The New World Performance Laboratory,” TDR: A Journal of Performance Studies, 38, 3: 128–51. ——— (1995) “Approaching Grotowski’s Work-Without-Witness,” Slavic and East European Performance, 15, 3, Fall: 16–25. ——— (1996a) Grotowski’s Objective Drama Research, Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. ——— (1996b) “Action: The Unrepresentable Origin,” in The Grotowski Sourcebook (2001) (eds) Richard Schechner and Lisa Wolford, New York: Routledge, 409–26; frst printed in TDR: A Journal of Performance Studies, 40, 4, Winter: 134–53. ——— (1996c) “Ta-wil of Action: The New World Performance Laboratory’s Persian Cycle,” New Theatre Quarterly, 46: 156–76. ——— (1998) “Grotowski’s Art as Vehicle: The Invention of an Esoteric Tradition,” Performance Research, 3, 3, Winter: 85–95. ———. (2000) “Grotowski’s Vision of the Actor: The Search for Contact,” in Twentieth Century Actor Training (ed.) Alison Hodge, London, New York: Routledge. ——— (2001) “Ambivalent Positionings: Grotowski’s Art as Vehicle and the Paradox of Categorization,” in Performer Training: Developments Across Cultures (ed.) Ian Watson, Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers. Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski (1988) Pontedera, Italy: Centro per le sperimentazione e la ricerca teatrale.

Video Akropolis (1971) directed by James Mac Taggart, produced by Lewis Freedman, New York: Arthur Cantor, Inc. Grotowski: A Practical Guide (2015) United Kingdom: Pumpkin Interactive. Jerzy Grotowski (1997) directed and produced by Merrill Brockway, Kent, CT: Creative Arts Television Archive. My Dinner with André (1981) directed by Louis Malle, produced by George W. George and Beverly Karp, New York: Fox Lorber Home Video. The Constant Prince by Jerzy Grotowski: Reconstruction (2005) Reconstruction of the original text of the performance: Leszek Kolankiewicz, Project Director: Ferruccio Marotti, Translation of texts: Marina Ciccarini (Italian version), Paul Allain (English version), Luisa Tinti (French version), Rome: University of Rome. Training at the “Teatr Laboratorium” in Wroclaw (1972) directed by Torgeir Wethal, Holstebro, Denmark: Odin Teatret Film. With Jerzy Grotowski: Nienadowka 1980 (2008) directed by Jill Godmilow, Chicago: Facets.

Audiotapes Grotowski, Jerzy (1997c) Anthropologie théâtrale. Inaugural lesson for College de France at Théâtre des Boufes du Nord, March 24, 1997, Paris: Le Livre qui parle. ——— (1997d, 1998) La lignée organique au théâtre et dans le rituel. Series of seminars for Collège de France, October 6, 13, 20, June 2, 16, 23, 1997 and January 12, 26, 1998, Paris: Le livre qui parle (14 cassettes).

Useful websites www.tracingroadsacross.net www.grotcenter.art.pl www.nwplab.org www.theworkcenter.org www.britishgrotowski.co.uk

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16 BARBA (1936–) Jane Turner

16.1

Building a ‘small tradition’

Eugenio Barba is a theatre director, an actor trainer and a writer. With his actors in the Odin Teatret, Barba has developed a distinct approach to actor training and making theatre performances. He has written detailed books, essays and papers on his work and many other aspects of theatre. As well as being a co-founder of Odin Teatret, he is also a founder of the International School of Theatre Anthropology (ISTA), where the craft of the actor is examined and explored. A large amount of his work with Odin Teatret and ISTA has been documented both in writing and on video. Therefore, it is important to note that this chapter sits within a web of writings and other documentary materials that you might be interested in consulting to gain a fuller understanding of Barba’s work and ideas. In partnership with the writings and video material, it is essential also to have a practical understanding of Barba’s theatre work. A key experience that informed Barba’s attitude in both life and theatre comes from his leaving Italy as a teenager and going to Norway. In Norway he had a variety of menial jobs and frst discovered and experienced two aspects of human behaviour that were to have a profound infuence on him. While in Norway he experienced both generosity and rejection because he was a foreigner. These two experiences created what he now calls ‘two wounds’, and they have infuenced the way in which he has gone on to make theatre. Although there is no ‘common philosophy’ in his work that Barba would acknowledge, he says that the ‘two wounds’ have constituted Odin Teatret’s professional identity.

The beginning of the journey Eugenio Barba was born in southern Italy in October 1936. His father was an offcer in the Italian army, who died from an illness when Barba was ten years of age. At 14, in 1951, Barba was sent to military college to follow in his father’s footsteps and train for a career in the army but the regime was repressive and Barba rebelled against it. More signifcantly, this was also the year that he recalls frst going to the theatre. The production was of Cyrano De Bergerac and the most notable aspect of the production for Barba was the presence of a live horse on the stage. In comparison with the horse the actors’ gestures were like pantomime and their characters were crude caricatures. The actors merely pretended to laugh, cry, be surprised or out of breath; they 250

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lacked energy and conviction. The horse was not acting. The horse was not pretending to be something else but was playing an important role. The actions of the horse were not imitation or afected like in pantomime but were what Barba considered ‘real’ actions. As a consequence, the energy or presence exuded by the horse was what continually attracted Barba’s attention, not the acting by the human beings. Although it was not innovatory to have live animals onstage, there was a quality in the literal presence of the horse that excited Barba and led him to embark on his theatrical journey. His intention has been to create theatre where the presence and actions of the actors can be as exciting as those he identifed in the horse and these ideas have continued to intrigue him and have informed his research into the presence of the actor on the stage. Three years later in 1954, when Barba fnally graduated from military college, he chose to travel to Norway. In Norway he took a job as a welder, then as a sailor in the merchant navy on the freighter Talabot, which enabled him to travel to many parts of the world, most notably to India (later in his career Talabot was used as the title of an Odin performance). At 20 he enrolled at the University of Oslo and gained a degree in Norwegian, French and the History of Religion. It was at this point that Barba determined to embark on a theatrical journey. In the video documentary A Way Through Theatre, Barba explains, perhaps a little sardonically, that his choice of a career in theatre at this time was so that his temperamental behaviour could be explained as artistic temperament and, therefore, interesting rather than diffcult. With the aid of a scholarship from UNESCO, Barba spent a year studying directing at a theatre school in Warsaw, Poland. He notes that it was seeing a flm by the Polish flm director Andrzej Wajda titled Ashes and Diamonds that inspired him to go to Poland (again, as with the title Talabot, it can be noted how this particular flm that so infuenced his life was later used by Barba as the title of his book about his years in Poland).

In search of a lost theatre Poland at this time was staunchly socialist and strictly patrolled by a censorious police regime but it had a cultural policy that supported artistic practices, including theatre. Barba took every opportunity to see theatre, travel the country and to meet and talk with actors, directors and writers. On several occasions he met with a young Polish director named Jerzy Grotowski. Their long, hard talking about life, politics and theatre led Grotowski to invite Barba to come and be his assistant at the Theatre of Thirteen Rows in Opole. Barba had begun to feel depressed and sufocated by Poland but the meetings with Grotowski and the bond of friendship that had begun to develop between them led Barba to accept the invitation. He announced to his tutor at the university that he intended leaving and completing his work for the diploma in directing at the Theatre of Thirteen Rows. The oppressiveness of the society at the time makes the work that emerged from theatres, especially from the tiny theatre in Opole, even more remarkable. Barba suggests that a part of what drew him and Grotowski together was a shared ‘fght against adverse circumstances, indiference and solitude, with the need to invent a home – a theatre – for themselves on their own terms’ (Barba, 1999a: 11). For the next three years Barba observed and learnt his theatrical craft from Grotowski. Although he did not complete the work for the diploma, he wrote and published articles about Grotowski’s work that gained the work an international audience. He is noted as being the associate director on Grotowski’s production Akropolis, now considered to be one of the most important theatre productions of the twentieth century. In Search of a Lost Theatre (1965) was written by Barba and published in Italy and is the frst book written about Grotowski’s work. Later, other early articles were collated and edited by Barba under the title Towards a Poor Theatre (see Grotowski, 1969), generally regarded to be one of the most important books written about theatre. 251

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Barba notes that Grotowski’s theatre productions were limited by the demands of the censors working for the socialist regime. As long as a theatre production was based on a literary text that the censors considered acceptable, they would allow the work to go ahead. For example, Wyspiański’s’ play Akropolis was acceptable to the censors and so, although Grotowski was intending to do a version of the play set in a concentration camp, he was given permission to perform it. For both Grotowski and Barba this was a time when they learnt to fght against ‘adverse circumstances’ and began to build a theatre ‘on their own terms’. The formalisation of the acting style that Grotowski’s actors worked with attracted Barba because here was something that could compete with the live horse that he had seen on the stage in Cyrano De Bergerac. Barba learnt from Grotowski what it is to create a tradition and how an actor might then go on to embody and transform that tradition, that is, train so the body understands the approach to performing and then make the approach her or his own. The same exercises can be used for diferent purposes and for diferent individual needs. For example, Barba used the same exercises that Grotowski used with his actors but for diferent reasons. We can see from the video on Physical Training at the Odin Teatret (1972) that some of the exercises are similar to those described in Towards a Poor Theatre. Exercises, Barba says, are like bricks that can be used to build whatever we want; they serve the context in which we work. You are invited to try Barba’s exercises as they ofer you an alternative way of understanding the work that Barba has developed with his actors. The exercises see Chapter 4 of Turner, Eugenio Barba, Routlege Performance Practitoners Series, 2018 are derived from Barba’s and the Odin actors’ work and, having tried them, you can then transform them to your own individual context to make them work for your own individual needs. The important point is that, whatever the method of training or performing that an actor chooses to explore, it must always be embodied, that is the actor needs to take the approach and make it his or her own, both physically and mentally. The experience of working with Grotowski made a distinct impression on Barba. It showed him that the theatre he sought to make would be a struggle against the dominant ideas of the time and that he would need to build his own space of ‘freedom and diference’. He also learnt from Grotowski that a theatre group should never give up on, or be deterred from, what it believes and that theatre’s function is essential to the health and well being of society. This often means that theatre asks diffcult questions about the way people live their lives and the rules that are imposed by people on other people. Grotowski lived in Poland at a time when people did not tell others what they could and should do; the people who represented the political regime did that. As a consequence, Barba states that neither he nor Grotowski became didactic teachers like the Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavsky, who, as well as directing, developed his approach to the training of actors in Russia at the turn of the twentieth century. Vsevolod Meyerhold, who was also an actor trainer and director and worked in Russia, developed a less didactic approach with his actors, arguably because he was working under a more repressive political regime than Stanislavsky. As well as theatre needing to work with the ideas of ‘freedom and diference’, Barba says we all need to fnd our own ‘moment of truth’. By this he means that each of us needs to build our own ‘home’, our own theatre, and fnd our own way to act and make theatre, although, he adds, we can always use the advice from those we encounter on our journey, who have already built their own ‘home’. Before Barba returned to Norway, he again travelled to India, where he was introduced to the training and performance practices of Kathakali. After six months travelling in India, Barba was able to return for a short time to Poland, despite his visa having expired. However, the authorities then refused to renew the visa and Barba was forced to return to Norway to fnd 252

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work in the theatre there. His intention was to work as a director in the traditional theatre, but not being a native speaker of Norwegian, Barba was not considered a suitable candidate. As theatre in Norway at that time was very traditional, subsidised and commercial, Barba determined to set up his own company based on the principles that he had learnt from Grotowski and the Kathakali tradition.

Building his own ‘home’ In 1964 Barba, at the age of 27, founded the Odin Teatret in Oslo. The name Odin comes from the name given to the Norse god of war. The story of the god Odin depicts a god who, in addition to representing war, is also considered to be the god of ‘light through darkness’ and a god of wisdom. According to the Norse myth, his wisdom is derived from having travelled towards death and darkness but by cutting himself free and being flled with light he was able to return to life. Thus it is that he understands how to transform the destructive elements of the darkness into light (see Taviani in Barba, 1986a: 237). From the founding of Odin Teatret, Barba’s work and that of the Odin Teatret are almost inseparable. Although this is a chapter about the theatre work of Eugenio Barba, from this point on Odin and the Odin actors will be substantially referred to and should be read as including Barba, unless otherwise stated. The original theatre company of 11 or so were gathered from aspiring actors who had all failed to get a place at the Oslo Theatre School. They all had jobs of work during the day and so were only able to train at night. Quickly their number dwindled to fve and then to four. The training was arduous and for many of the would-be actors it appeared to be pointless, as they were not rehearsing for a performance. Barba would not compromise his work: he believed that the actors should aim ‘to live as an actor without living for performance’ (Taviani in Barba, 1986a: 246). Using exercises, experimenting with theatrical forms that were only partially understood, and training for the sake of training, were all ideas virtually unheard of in Europe in the early 1960s. However, the conventional theatre of Scandinavia was soon to become far more diverse and inclusive of such unusual approaches to theatre. Of the four original actors who frst joined Odin Teatret in Norway, Else Marie Lauvik and Torgeir Wethal remain in the company to this day. Ornitoflene was the company’s frst performance, performed 50 times from October 1965. As with the other productions that Odin has subsequently created, the performance was improvised through rehearsal. Unlike many of their later performances, Ornitoflene followed Grotowski’s approach of working from a literary text that the company transformed into a dramatic text. This approach to making theatre was only used for the frst three of their productions, although the idea of improvising did set the beginnings of their style and approach to making theatre that they still use today. One critic’s comment, recorded in The Floating Islands (1979), describes the performance of Ornitoflene as ‘a strange experience’ which was impossible to talk about (Barba, 1979: 15).

Politics and resisting the ‘spirit of the times’ Although many of the young theatre companies in Europe and North America were making theatre that confronted the politics of their time, Odin resisted making overtly political work and, as a result, has often been considered to be apolitical. Barba and Odin may not have made theatre that was specifcally opposed to the Vietnam War, for instance, but this is not to say that their work is, or was, not political. Their work has always refected the 253

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deep concerns and issues that exist between human beings, questioning institutions and the implications of their governing of peoples’ lives. But rather than making theatre located in a particular space about particular political or social issues, the company have chosen to work with myths and stories that transcend a particular time and place. Stories, myths, fables and folklore from all around the world have often been used as the bedrock of Odin’s performances. One reason for this may be that from the earliest times people have told and listened to stories. As people travelled and found new homes, so stories also moved from place to place and this is very much like the experience that Barba and Odin have had. There are many shared histories and experiences mixed up in the stories that we tell and listen to, these stories are often not fxed in any one particular time or space but can be adapted and re-adapted to diferent times and spaces, and so stories have the potential to reach a very wide audience. Working as an ensemble has meant that Odin has been able to resist the temptation to make work for other people, or work in a style that is fashionable. Odin’s theatre work aims to fght what Barba calls the ‘spirit of the times’, that is, an agenda imposed by a political regime or ideology. Barba learnt early on that working as an ensemble gave the company strength; there could be shared aims, shared emotional ties, shared experiences and, most of all, a shared habitat. Their work has often been described as being like a ritual but Barba has resisted this label, partly because in the 1960s this represented a trend. ‘Ritual’ became a fashionable label to give young and emerging theatre companies at the time. Spectators favoured theatre that accepted the label of ritual because it refected the ‘spirit of the time’. Barba suggests that this tells us more about the needs of the spectator than about the Odin Teatret work. Arguably, the description is not without validity as there are qualities in the work that may evoke a sense of ritual.

A side-step look at ritual Ritual events often entail communication with another dimension, for example with a god or gods who are above the earth. Rituals can also confrm a sense of collective identity for a particular group and involve the participants in some sort of a transformation. The aim of the event is that it must be efective, or effcacious, in its intention whether that is making the gods happy, for instance, or driving sickness from a community, or transforming two people into a husband and wife. A wedding is a ritual. When it takes place in a church, or other place of worship, a wedding would be considered sacred; however, a wedding can also be secular, that is, not religious. Whether it is sacred or secular, it gives those people involved a sense of a collective identity and transforms the two people named the bride and groom into husband and wife. Theatre can also be considered a ritual as it gives the spectators a collective sense of identity and both the space and the participants (or actors) are transformed for the duration of the event. Whereas sacred, or religious, ritual communicates on a vertical plane with a god or gods, theatrical ritual, like other secular rituals, is more earthbound and communicates on a horizontal plane. This might be understood simply as ritual entailing some form of belief from the participants whereas theatre entails the use of the participants’ imagination. Theatre primarily aims to communicate to spectators and does not aim to be effcacious in the same way as ritual, although, as was stated earlier, theatre is important to the well being of individuals and society. Ritual, as a type of formalised behaviour, shares many common features with theatre and these commonalities have been studied and written about by academics and theatre practitioners, most notably, Victor Turner and Richard Schechner. 254

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Theatre as an ‘empty ritual’ More recently Barba has said that he believes theatre to be an empty ritual, ‘not because it is futile and senseless, but because it is not usurped by doctrine’ (Watson et al., 2002: 255). In the Odin Teatret’s performance work the energy, actions and precision used in the re-enactment of a story, although divorced from a belief system, can be compared to the precision of actions used in rituals. Another similarity is the power of the performer’s presence to conjure images and transport the spectator from their everyday existence to an extra-daily dimension. A particular performance that most notably demonstrates these similarities between ritual and Odin’s performance work is In the Skeleton of the Whale (1997). The spectators, or witnesses, to this theatrical event are sat at long trestle tables down the two lengths of a studio space. The tables are covered with fne white linen cloths and have candles burning on them. Bowls of olives and bread, wine glasses and bottles of red wine are also set on the tables for the spectators. Other members of the company, often Barba himself, serve the wine to the spectators as the performers come into the space. The wine, food and candlelight create an atmosphere that, as spectators, we can connect with rituals and special events we have previously experienced. The event creates a very profound experience for many of the spectators of the performance: it is as if the performers are sharing something of themselves with us, a modern secular ritual perhaps. The performance creates a sense of what is called communitas, a collective experience, and it is the experience of the event that is important rather than what we think it might mean in concrete terms. All theatre is performed in the here and now and, therefore, will always have connections with a time and space. Diferent associations will emerge for each spectator depending on the time and space in which the theatre piece is performed. As a spectator we do not always know the point of departure for the actor’s performance: the logic or coherence of an Odin performance may not be immediately clear to us. But there are many moments that will resonate for a spectator, that might appear familiar, and we make our own associations with these moments and build our own dramaturgy for the performance. . . .

Actors as Floating Islands As with much of Barba’s writing about theatre, the content of the performances resounds with many potential interpretations and readings. For example, in the title In the Skeleton of the Whale there is the fgurative idea that the spectators, sitting down the sides of the space, are like the ribs of the whale. We, the collective audience, form the skeleton of the whale, which could be read fguratively as having consumed the Odin performances and performers. The spectators are presented with fragments from previous Odin productions that have been subtly woven into a new performance. A diferent reading is that the whale is a foating island that contains traces of all the performers, productions and spectators; the foating island is an image, or metaphor, used by Barba to describe the actor. His frst book about the work at Odin was titled The Floating Islands (1979) and the second was titled Beyond the Floating Islands (1986a). One of the texts in Beyond the Floating Islands is titled ‘A Premise on Written Silence’ and here he explains the use of the term in relation to his and the company’s necessity to work as they do: ‘the desire to remain foreign . . . the awareness that our action through theatre springs from an attitude towards existence that has its roots in one transnational and transcultural country’ (Barba, 1986a: 10). This ‘country’ is envisaged by Barba as an archipelago, a group or chain of islands, of foating islands not rooted in any one place. We can see how the metaphor of the foating island has evolved from Barba’s experience of being a foreigner in Norway and his aim that their work should not be rooted in the ‘spirit of the time’, that is, fxed in one time and place. 255

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Working in Norway, without a space that was theirs and without any grant from the authorities, was very diffcult to sustain despite the fact that their work was beginning to attract a following. They had toured Ornitoflene to other Scandinavian countries including Denmark. A nurse who lived in Holstebro, a northern town in Denmark, saw the performance. She, knowing that the city council were looking to implement a new cultural policy to develop and support the arts, talked to the mayor about the company and persuaded him to invite them to become the city’s resident theatre company. A small grant of money was ofered to them and an old farm was given to them as a base to work. Odin gratefully accepted the ofer to move to Holstebro and slowly, over many years, have transformed the farm buildings into theatres and workshop-spaces, and put Holstebro frmly on the international theatre map. On moving to Holstebro in 1966, Odin chose to defne itself as an ‘Inter-Scandinavian Theatre Laboratory for the Art of the Actor’ (Barba, 1979: 15). This title was to ensure that people outside the company understood that they were not merely a theatre company that produced performances. Better known as Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium, or NTL, the organisation incorporated Odin Teatret and was concerned with providing a research space in Scandinavia for the study of theatre training and the actor in performance, both European and non-European, historic and contemporary.

A ‘small tradition’ and NTL The Odin Teatret has been resident in Holstebro for over 37 years. During this time the company have created what Barba calls a ‘small tradition’ that has become interwoven into theatrical genealogy: a theatrical family tree. All around the world there are theatre companies that make theatre work in a similar way to Odin; their ambition is to make the work that they believe is important and they have continued to work at their craft for many years, hence creating a ‘small tradition’. One of the consequences of moving to Holstebro was that the work that the company produced had to resolve the problem of once again being considered foreign. The members of Odin Teatret itself were without a common culture or spoken language and Holstebro presented yet another cultural and linguistic obstacle for them to negotiate as none of the company spoke Danish. For this reason they had to build a diferent sort of dramaturgy, one that would inter-weave events, characters and song to make what Barba calls a ‘theatre that dances’. Barba says theatre dances not only on the level of energy but also on the semantic level: ‘It is its meaning that dances, sometimes explicitly, other times covertly’ (Barba, 1990: 97). Having moved to Holstebro, the company recruited new members, including Iben Nagel Rasmussen, who is still performing with the company. The newly expanded company prepared their second production, titled Kaspariana, which was performed in 1967. (For detailed accounts of all the Odin Teatret performances, see Barba, 1979, 1999b; Christoferson, 1993; and Watson, 1993.) The third production, Ferai (1969), was considered by audiences and critics to have been highly successful in Europe and Latin America but was stopped abruptly by Barba after 220 performances. Barba dissolved the company, concerned that the success of Ferai would distract the actors from training and developing their skills and understanding of theatre. Barba was concerned that the actors would only live for performance rather than live for theatre. He set out new contracts for the actors that emphasised the training aspects of the work and some of the performers did not rejoin the company. During the frst ten years in Holstebro the emphasis of the Odin activities was on converting the farm buildings into performance and training spaces, training themselves and organising seminars and workshops from guest performers. Many of these practitioners, such as Jerzy Grotowski, Dario Fo and Jacques Lecoq had international reputations while others like I Made Djimat from Bali and Sanjukta Panigrahi from India were 256

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scarcely known outside their own countries. NTL was, and is, very much involved with documenting the work: editing and publishing material about theatre and the art of the actor in magazines, books and on video. The work that they have been involved in and organised has always been eclectic and drawn on the skills and expertise of practitioners from many parts of the world and from many genres of performance: clowning, mime, political theatre and dancedrama. As well as using the exercises that Barba had seen Grotowski’s actors using in Opole, he sought advice and prompted his actors to read and research widely. Examples of approaches to acting from books by the great European theatre practitioners such as Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Craig and Copeau were studied. The actors were also encouraged to work from pictures of Kabuki performers and Beijing Opera in their training, as well as listen to vocal music from around the world. All of this research was part of their dramaturgy and helped them to develop physical and vocal exercises that challenged their understanding of the potential of the voice and body, beyond its everyday use. By the early 1970s the Odin had an established reputation in Europe for its innovative repertoire and developing style of performances, but Odin was also considered to be an important site of cultural debate across many areas of theatre. The practitioners, who came to the Odin Teatret to perform and give demonstrations of their craft, enabled the actors to directly experience the many forms of theatre practice that, previously, they had known only from pictures. As part of NTL the members of the company have continued to develop their own interests alongside the theatre work. For example, the actors Julia Varley, Torgeir Wethal and Iben Nagel Rasmussen have all developed their own projects in addition to the work they do as part of the Odin Teatret. Varley has been part of a women’s performance collective called The Magdalena Project since 1986, and developed two additional branches of the work called Transit and The Open Page (a journal that actively encourages women theatre practitioners to write about their work). Wethal is a flm-maker and has directed and edited a range of short flms documenting the training and performances at Odin Teatret, and Rasmussen has set up her own theatre training school, Farfa.

A ‘small tradition’ and training As you can see from the account so far, training has always been central to the Odin practice. Training is considered to be a lifetime’s pursuit whereby each member must identify, discover and surmount ‘obstacles that hinder communication’ (Barba, 1979: 35). What the company discovered was that this journey was diferent for each individual. There may be collective points of departure and a shared route, but each of us will fnd our own way. For the frst 12 years, Barba observed and directed the actors’ training each morning but, after this time, each actor trained alone. When Barba handed over the responsibility of training to each individual actor, the actors began to take on their own apprentices and became responsible for the training of new members, and so the company began to grow. Training as an apprenticeship is usually concerned with learning skills and following an established tradition, but for the early Odin actors the apprenticeship was about fnding their own way as they were making a tradition. The experienced actors in the company now have their ‘small tradition’, which they use as a basis for the initial training of their apprentices. Barba describes Odin as an endogamous tribe, that is, an organism that grows from the inside. For example, Tage Larsen joined the company in 1972 and initially taught Julia Varley when he adopted her as his apprentice in 1976. They worked very hard training early each day before the Odin workday offcially began. Barba was very clear that the Odin members were expected to work every day from seven in the morning, so if they wanted to train apprentices it must be 257

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in their own time. Tage worked with Julia for two years before Julia was fully adopted into the Odin tribe. Latterly, Barba has discussed at length the development of the Odin’s training in relation to learning the actor’s craft in diferent cultures. When the company began they did not have a teacher or a prescribed approach or style to their craft. Initially, they needed to share what skills they had. In many cultural practices the performer chooses to train within a particular performance genre, for example ballet, commedia dell’arte or Kathakali, and he or she will often specialise in a particular role. The apprentice begins by learning to stand, sit, walk, use facial expression and their hands according to the particular discipline in which they have chosen to work. In life we learn these behaviours through a process known as inculturation, which is according to the necessary requirements or demands of our particular cultural context (people in colder climates, for example, occupy space and behave diferently from people in hotter climates). The process of learning a particular mode of behaviour that is not everyday, for example ballet, is referred to as acculturation. The frst phase of learning can often be very painful, physically and mentally. The body is forced into all manner of seemingly impossible positions that, at this stage, are also inexplicable. As Barba says, ‘[t]hey collide with the normal behaviour of the pupil’s culture, biography, family circle, and experiences, deforming everything s/he has learned “naturally” through the painless process of inculturation’ (Barba, 2000a: 264). For the Odin actors the process of learning was further complicated by the fact that there was no model to aim towards: no perfected result to look up to. How would they know if they had achieved an appropriate level of competence to move onto the next stage of learning? For this reason the early years of their work are often referred to as a ‘Closed Room’ (see Christoferson, 1993), that is they trained behind closed doors. When a performer chooses to learn ballet s/he is joining a tradition, a collective identity. In contrast, Odin Teatret needed to create a collective identity and invent their ‘small tradition’. A performer joining the company now, should they be invited, has many examples and a wealth of experiences to draw on from the older actors. Paradoxically, the Odin approach to actor training teaches that there is no single way to train, each of us must fnd our own way. What we can learn are the principles of learning and how we might best develop our learning. In an article titled ‘Tacit Knowledge’ (2000a), Barba defnes small traditions as those that are based on research at a ‘trans-stylistic’ level, a style that transcends any specifc style or tradition. This idea of the ‘trans-stylistic’ connects with what Barba said earlier about the actor and the company both aiming to be a foating island by being trans-national and transcultural, that is, not fxed or rooted in one cultural tradition. As we can begin to see, Odin’s work corresponds to the defnition of trans-stylistic, transnational and transcultural because, as Barba says: [t]hey do not try and pass on a style which corresponds to the tastes of the founders, or a new and original codifcation, but the roots of the craft, those principles of scenic behaviour which permit choices in the most diverse artistic directions. (Barba, 2000a: 273)

Odin and the idea of ‘Third Theatre’ Odin has developed a particular way of making and performing theatre derived from their wide range of experiences and research. Barba states that while the company has lots of advice that it can ofer, Odin does not hold itself up as a model. However, Odin is a concrete example of how, through passion, commitment and discipline, a group of people can make theatre work. 258

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Through theatre they have built a small society of people with diferent social and political views but who all share a deep respect for their craft. Even in their early stages, Barba referred to the company as a ‘little society’, what he now refers to as their ‘small tradition’, or ‘Third Theatre’. By ‘Third Theatre’ he means that their theatre is neither what might be called avantgarde or experimental, nor traditional, that is, part of a cultural institution. While their training has always been concerned with experimentation it is not experimental, in the sense that it is not concerned with challenging the boundaries of what might be considered acting. Its aim is to research, consolidate and refne the actor’s craft. Similarly, the approach to the performance work was established very early on in the life of the company. Subsequently, although spectators not familiar with the style might fnd the performance work challenging, the company would not consider the work to be experimental. The company sets itself very high standards for both their training and performance work, which are consistently rigorous and demand a discipline that is exacting. Barba states that the company’s aims were to fnd a new theatrical language, new forms of contact with the spectator (Barba, 1979: 29) and to develop a theatre not rooted in one cultural tradition but a ‘theatre that dances’, that is, a theatre not wholly dependent on spoken text but employing dance and song. The developments in the theatre performance, like the developments in the training, work within a framework of existing knowledge. The aim is to develop that knowledge, not to create new knowledge.

‘Third Theatre’ as a global network ‘Third Theatre’ is a term that Barba uses to describe those theatre companies around the world that choose to do things diferently from the mainstream, the traditional and the institutional. He frst began to use the term in 1976 at a conference in Belgrade. That conference also served as a meeting point for theatre groups that Barba had met on his travels. What emerged from this meeting was that there were shared traits among these and other groups around the world. These theatre companies exist outside of the mainstream, they are often formed by people who do not have a formal training so, although they are not amateurs, they are not considered professionals. These theatre groups would not defne themselves as avant-garde or experimental, as their intention is not to ‘make it new’. These companies are not fed on large subsidies and have to fght to fnd audiences for their performances. They are often based outside of large metropolitan areas. Their work is often devised, created by the group of performers, not scripted by a playwright outside of the company, and is not work that might be seen performed by other companies in later years. They make theatre for themselves, not for trends or fashions, and develop a style that is recognised as their identity. These companies exist everywhere, for the most part unnoticed by critics and academic scrutiny. Their work is fuelled by necessity and abhors indiference, and resists incorporation to the centre of what Barba refers to as ‘planet theatre’ (1991: 5). Early papers on the subject of ‘Third Theatre’ warned that it was not a category and that its only defning feature was ‘recognition of discrimination that many theatre groups live under’ (Barba, 1999b: 176). Barba recounts the beginnings of Odin Teatret to illustrate what he means by discrimination. The founding members of Odin were a group of young people without experience or training, who had been refused entry to the legitimate theatre school and, by necessity, had to start out alone. In addition, they could not fnd a permanent space to work until, after several years, an ofer came from a small town without a theatre in a foreign country. We had to succeed in living this situation not as an impairment. We had to fnd a way of not yielding to the two handicaps that irredeemably prohibited us from doing a kind 259

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of theatre that, in those years, was recognised and accepted: the handicap of language, that prevented us from expressing ourselves theatrically through texts, and the handicap of our lack of theatrical education. (Barba, 1999b: 184) What can emerge from those groups that survive and build a following, a small tradition, is a sense of independence that, later, Barba called a kind of resistance. By the 1990s Barba had re-evaluated what it was to be a ‘Third Theatre’ and considered the search for meaning to be a defning characteristic, rather than the experience of discrimination, as identifed in papers and meetings in the 1970s and 1980s. ‘Meaning’, here, alludes to the search for a performance language that communicates to the spectator. The ‘Third Theatre’ may be defned precisely by its lack of a shared meaning: ‘each [theatre company] defnes its meaning and legacy by embodying them in a precise activity and through a distinct professional identity’ (Barba, 1991: 7).

The travelling time During the latter part of the 1970s the company took the opportunity to travel, meet with theatres working in a similar way to them, and observe and learn diferent performance practices, music and dance. The second period of Odin’s development began in 1974, when the company went to stay for fve months in the rural village of Carpignano in Southern Italy. They went to the village to work on a new production that was to become Come! And the Day will be Ours. The landscape and remoteness of the community worked as a stimulus for them, but it also confronted them with questions as to their professional identity and purpose. They did not have a performance to perform for the local residents of the village, so when the inhabitants asked them who they were and they replied ‘actors’, they were not able to prove their identity. The dilemma of what they could ofer the villagers of Carpignano led to the frst barter, or performance exchange. From the experience in Carpignano, Odin have continued to develop many street performances, clowning, parades and many barters with the communities that they have visited. To this day, barters and street performance remain a central aspect of the company’s work wherever they go (Negotiating Cultures (2002), edited by Ian Watson, has a very informative and interesting section on the barter work developed by Barba and Odin). Anabasis (frst performed in 1977) is a good example of a street performance; the performance later provided characters and material that were developed further as a part of the indoor production The Million. The outdoor performances and parades are highly organised works that look to theatricalise public space. They are structured as a series of scenarios that can be experienced and made sense of as individual sections but each section also connects to the other scenes and the whole performance; what might also be understood as a montage. . . . Barba is still very much the director of the fnal performance although, as the actors have said, the outdoor performances often need a higher degree of organisation by the whole team. This is because there are so many more variables when working outside than with the indoor events, for example, their performances are constantly shifting from free improvisation with a score to a fxed rehearsed score. The aim is to transform the public space and invite spectators to see their environment in a new and diferent way. The work uses many diferent levels from the street to balconies and the rooftops of buildings. Street performance will also seek out and use unfamiliar places that, maybe, the spectator does not usually look at. The characters Odin developed are larger than life, often walking on stilts; they are noisy, colourful and always entertaining. The performances are not stationary and the audience is all around, often not knowing where the front or the back 260

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of the performance might be. The spectator can be on the edge of the action one moment and in the midst of the action the next. Some of the action is performed up close to spectators and some at a distance but all the spectators must feel included all of the time; for the actors this has entailed them having to learn particular skills and techniques to engage the spectators. Characters that the actors have created for the outdoor performances have also travelled indoors, for example Anabasis, Geronimo and Mr Peanut are all characters who began ‘life’ in street performances but who have also appeared in indoor theatre performances. These characters have grown with the actors who created them and are still being adapted for performances in the Odin repertoire. As a consequence of the experiences of performing in public spaces, the company re-evaluated where the audience should be seated for their indoor performances: the audience is now usually positioned on two sides of a space, sitting opposite each other. This seating arrangement makes particular demands on the actor. The actors, says Barba, must be like Egyptian friezes or cubist art, directing communication in more than one direction and ensuring that the actor is focused and ‘alive’, otherwise the spectator will become more interested in the opposing spectators who are ‘really’ reacting! Barba says that the actor should be omnipotent, one who gives the illusion that they can be everywhere and anywhere, seemingly invisible to the audience but actually always present. This aim has infuenced the scenic decisions and lighting – for example, only a part of the performer’s body might be illuminated, like in a Rembrandt painting. The lighting design also allows the actor to move around in darkness as though invisible. Usually Odin does not work with a scenic designer, as the emphasis for the design is always that it should be effcient: functional, easy to transport, set up and dismantle. Their aim is always to have a show that the company can set up in eight hours.

ISTA: the International School of Theatre Anthropology Barters, the emerging idea of the ‘Third Theatre’, and the concept of the foating islands were ideas that were all brought together and formed the initial idea for theatre anthropology in 1979. Barba had observed, while they had been travelling and performing, that a major aspect of their work was concerned with how to transmit an experience from life to performance. This issue led to Barba’s involvement with theatre anthropology and to the formation in 1980 of ISTA, the International School of Theatre Anthropology. ISTA is defned as, ‘a multicultural network of performers and scholars giving life to an itinerant university whose main feld of study is Theatre Anthropology’ (Hastrup, 1996: 7). ‘Theatre Anthropology: First Hypothesis’ was a paper presented by Barba at a conference in Warsaw in 1980. In this frst paper, Barba defnes theatre anthropology as ‘the study of human behaviour on a biological and socio-cultural level in a performance situation’ (Barba, 1986a: 115). The defnition has since been altered and refned in relation to the research undertaken under the auspices of ISTA (see Chamberlain, 2000). To date, the defnition stands more simply as a comparison of working processes outside of the performance situation. . . . The frst meeting of ISTA was in Bonn, Germany, in October 1980, and lasted four weeks. There have been 13 ISTA sessions to date, the last held in Germany in 2000. Each session focuses on a specifc area of study. For example, the 1986 session, held in Holstebro, was titled ‘The Female Role as Represented on the Stage in Various Cultures’. The 1995 session held in Umeå, Sweden, was titled ‘Form and Information’ (see Hastrup, 1996, for a complete list of the frst ten years). The sessions have been reduced from the four weeks of the frst session to approximately two weeks. The frst section of the session is closed to the public and is for those invited artistic 261

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and scientifc staf, and a selection of participants who applied and were selected to attend. The fnal three or four days are usually an open public symposium of discussions, work demonstrations and performances. The work conducted at ISTA will be looked at in more detail in Section 16.2 in relation to the Theatrum Mundi Ensemble’s performance Ego Faust. For the frst few sessions of ISTA the fnal performance was known as Theatrum Mundi. The performance has had many diferent guises and is refned and developed each time it is performed. Members of the Odin Teatret and many of the performers and musicians who have contributed their expertise as artistic staf at ISTA, all perform together in a piece directed by Eugenio Barba. The work undertaken at ISTA has often led to controversy, most notably at the session held in 1986 titled ‘The Female Role as Represented on the Stage in Various Cultures’. Here, many of the women attending the event as participants were very concerned that predominantly male performers were demonstrating the female roles. Critics such as Erica Munk (1986), Phillip Zarrilli (1988) and Marco De Marinis (1995) have questioned many aspects of theatre anthropology and the research status of ISTA, even going as far as accusing Barba of ‘cultural imperialism’ by way of imposing his ideology and training methodologies on other cultures. Barba refutes the accusations made against him, saying that he has sought to depersonalise his observations of the performance work and training, both at Odin and in theatre work he has encountered on his travels. This refective position, he says, has guided him towards developing the concept of theatre anthropology through the research undertaken at ISTA. The techniques encountered in other cultural practices have, for example, led Barba to re-evaluate his thinking and understanding of scenic behaviour. Scenic behaviour is a term adopted by Barba and Odin to describe the work and techniques of the performer’s extra-daily behaviour, an acculturated behaviour that constitutes their ‘small tradition’ and performance practice. The idea that theatre is an expression of cultural identity has been a problem for Barba, as he does not wholly agree with the idea that performance is culturally bound. He believes this idea is too generalised and assumes a cultural homogeneity, that is, it suggests that members of a culture, and their cultural practices, are all the same and this is not what he has observed in his research. However, what Barba has observed are common underlying principles, at what he calls a pre-expressive level, that are evident in performance practices from many diferent cultures, for example the use of energy. For Barba, performance and actors should be transcultural and transnational, so not rooted in a particular culture. Theatre anthropology tries to fnd neutral territory to discuss performance processes. Too often, he says, we look to comment on form and content when we should focus on form and information. The evolution of the term pre-expressive came from the form of the work that the ‘artists’ at ISTA produced and what Barba noticed in the performers’ scenic behaviour, exercises and demonstrations. Barba also noticed that a student attending the ISTA as a participant often appeared to fnd the learning environment very diffcult, especially when trying to learn another cultural practice, for example Noh Theatre, and this was because s/he was looking at the content and not the form. In an attempt to solve the problem of how we learn, Barba identifed three principles that appeared to underpin what he called extra-daily behaviour and they are: alteration of balance, the law of opposition as refned in art, and incoherent coherence or equivalence. These three principles, Barba argues, are common to all forms of scenic behaviour. . . . Barba uses the metaphor of the police investigator at the scene of a crime to illustrate the use of theatre anthropology. He says that although the investigator will not know who the criminal might be, they will know how to investigate; so, theatre anthropology allows a concrete process of investigation for the performer. Barba and Odin have travelled extensively and worked with a wide range of performers from many diferent performance practices. All this experience has led to the development of Third Theatre, ISTA and, more recently, Eurasian Theatre. At the gatherings of these diferent groups the intention is not to compare results but the processes of working. 262

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Eurasian Theatre As an ofshoot of ISTA, Eurasian Theatre is a summer school founded in collaboration with the University of Bologna, Italy, in 1990. The school meets annually in Italy and holds practical/ theoretical sessions for participants to explore and discuss specifc aspects of theatrical practice. Similar concerns are explored in the Eurasian Theatre sessions to those identifed through the ISTA research: what lies beneath the surface of a performance practice? what constitutes the ‘tradition of traditions’? (Barba, 1999a: 251). Barba defnes Eurasian Theatre as exploring ‘the movement between East and West’ (1995: 42). He had noticed that although the Odin Teatret had developed their theatre identity from an autodidactic basis, from a basis of being self-taught, their work had not fallen into many of the conventional theatrical expectations that other European theatres have had. For example, European theatre has separated out dance from drama, whereas many non-European theatres do not recognise this as a divide, and Barba was interested in why this should be the case. The function of Eurasian Theatre is to create a space where, from what Kirsten Hastrup calls a ‘zero point of perception’ (Hastrup, 1996: 95), we can explore our professional theatre identity in the context of the complex root system that is theatre. Again, like ISTA, the study has not been developed to reinforce a value system that one practice is better than another but to encourage a better understanding of diferent practices, so that we can appreciate the diversity of theatre practices from around the world. The name Eurasian Theatre references those theatre traditions from Europe and Asia that have had a signifcant impact on our theatre today, for example Artaud was infuenced by what he saw of Balinese theatre, Brecht was infuenced by Japanese theatre and Stanislavsky was infuenced by Chinese theatre. There are particular genres of performance from Asia that have, through history, shaped theatre in Europe. Eurasian Theatre creates a space where these genres can be studied, not only historically or as traditions but, as already said, for what lies beneath the surface of the tradition.

Festuge The necessity to remain foreign, to be a foating island that does not put down roots in a particular culture, may suggest that Barba is not interested in culture. Although he advocates a theatre that transcends cultural specifcity and encourages the development of an identity that is formed from living in the theatre rather than a society, he also celebrates cultural diversity. The move to Holstebro foregrounded the problems of making theatre as foreigners and, fundamentally, how, as performers, they engage the attention of the spectator. Meaning and literal understanding have never been the basis of the relationship between spectator and performer in the Odin Teatret. Throughout the 36 years that Odin have been resident in Holstebro they have always considered the local community to be of the utmost importance. They have been sensitive to the fact that the theatre has attracted many overseas visitors who have, at times, overwhelmed the community. Despite the Odin’s international reputation and gruelling schedule of overseas tours, the group, when at home, takes performances and workshops out to local schools and groups, and in more recent years they have become involved with the annual Festuge. The Festuge was frst held in Holstebro in 1989. It is a festival organised by Odin involving many community organisations, participating and collaborating together with members of Odin Teatret and international performers, friends of Odin, invited to come and contribute performances for, and with, the residents of Holstebro. Barba describes it as ‘an orgy of barters’ (1999b: 97). A centrepiece of the third Festuge held in September 1993 was a production of the Sanskrit play Shakuntala. This intercultural production was directed by Barba and involved the Odin actors, Sanjukta Panigrahi and her musicians from India, members of the Holstebro 263

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Music School, Danish Opera singers, guest appearances from the Peruvian theatre company Yuyachkani, and the Italian company Teatro Tascabile. Each evening of the Festuge an episode of the story would be performed in the town’s library. During the day there would be numerous events, performances, parades and exhibitions taking place all over the town.

What is it to be an actor? Already, the map of Eugenio Barba and Odin Teatret’s career is complex. The map embraces many parts of the world, many people and many events. The journey so far has merely marked the route and needs now to consider how the work functions. During the Odin Week in March 2001, Barba identifed four questions that a performer needs to ask, stressing that there are no formulaic answers. He ruled that it was for each individual to make his or her own response. The questions are: How do I become an efective actor? Why make theatre and not something else? Where are you going to do the theatre? For whom are you doing the theatre – who are your spectators? (Odin Week, 2001) Historically, the actor has worked to develop characters from stock characters: archetypes that are not psychologically motivated. Western theatre, at the beginning of the twentieth century, began to disrupt and subvert the archetypal notion of character. Theatre, along with many other traditional forms of art at this time, was challenged in the modernist cry of ‘make it new’. In the theatre this was urged on by what Barba argues was a reaction to the mediocrity of theatre at the time. The new exponents of European theatre believed in a theatre that could transcend what they saw as the banality of society. Signifcantly, it was at this point that theatre shifted from being considered merely as a form of entertainment to being an art form. Theatre was changing and demanded a new style of actor. The new breed of actor was required to start with the self at a point of zero in order to transform her or himself into an imitation of the playwright’s character. Barba has not been seeking to reverse this trend but he does approach the actor’s craft with a diferent set of principles. The precision of exercises, performances and terminology has always been vitally important. Part of Barba’s and the Odin actors’ research has been focused on fnding terms that will communicate their experiences and observations, both to other practitioners and outside observers, thus facilitating discussion and debate about the craft of the actor. The following part of this section will introduce particular terms used by Barba in relation to the Odin approach to training and dramaturgy.

Training seasons and scores At the Odin Teatret, as with the Russian theatre practitioner Meyerhold’s theatre and Grotowski’s laboratory, there has always been a clear distinction between the function of exercises in training and in the work of the rehearsal. The function of exercises, and what we understand improvisation to mean, are areas that will be explored in Section 16.2. The point to be noted here is that Odin made a virtue out of not knowing how to train or rehearse and, as a consequence, they have learnt to refect, research and evaluate every step that they have taken. They have developed an informed understanding of their craft; nothing that the actor does is taken for granted, everything is observed and refected upon. Barba has been adamant that the craft of 264

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the actor should not be veiled in mystique but should be worked at and discussed, always in concrete terms. Barba acknowledges the major infuence both Meyerhold and Stanislavsky have had, not only on his work as a director but also on the development of the actor’s craft. Notably, both practitioners identifed that the smallest perceptible phrase visible to the spectator is always a reaction and must be consciously performed. A performance should always engage the whole body of the performer, as even the smallest action has the potential to change the perception of the spectator. The early training undertaken at Odin is illustrated in the two flms directed by Torgeir Wethal, Physical Training at Odin Teatret and Vocal Training at Odin Teatret, both made in 1972. Commenting on the flms, Barba notes that training by repetition can be in danger of creating mannerisms in the actor. Having observed the actors repeating exercises daily, Barba saw that what was needed was to teach them not to act but to refect and think. He emphasises the work on ‘real’ actions based in fction. It is the quality of the action that makes it ‘real’; Barba uses a boxing exercise to demonstrate what he means. By boxing with an actor using only illustrative movements, or pantomime, the quality of the movements and the energy is empty. The other actor has nothing to react and respond to. In order for the action to be ‘real’ there must be, what Barba calls, sats, which is an impulse to move. An action that is real forces the actor to react with their whole body. The action does not begin when the punch lands on the opponent but the action begins in the readiness and alertness of the opponent. If the action is not precise and clearly indicated, the other actor cannot respond or react, and then the performance cannot be real. In pairs, try the boxing exercise that Barba discusses above. First, pretend with your partner that you are in a boxing match and play it in a pantomime style. You have no intention of hitting each other but give the illusion that you are fghting. Refect on where your energy has been focused and whether you had both been totally engaged with the exercise. Where were you looking? Were you well balanced on the ground? Who was leading the boxing? Now try to use real actions; you will need to be very alert and take care, otherwise you will actually be hit! Note how this time you need to be well balanced, you need to be looking at your partner all the time, you need to be thinking ahead. You need to use sats to prepare to respond to your partner. Now refect on what you need to do to keep the quality of energy, spontaneity and alertness in the performance of this action. As performers, we are often required to choreograph our moves and fx them precisely. This technique can dull an actor’s senses and consequently lead to a dull performance. Technique can be a problem for the actor when it is treated like armour, or something we hide behind. The actor’s story is expressed through the actions that he or she makes, so if they are hiding behind an armoury of technique their story and actions will be dulled. They must melt the armour to penetrate beyond it and make real actions and fnd real responses to impulses, like with the boxing exercise. The same alert relationship that occurs between two actors should also be present between an actor and a spectator. Barba describes this sense of alertness demanded of actors as, ‘being decided’. Although we began this section indicating that there is a distinct diference between training and rehearsal, the actor participates in both activities. A central dilemma that Barba has identifed through the years of his work, but has not been able to fully resolve, is that some actors are not good performers but are very good in training, and some actors are very bad in training but good performers. He has concluded that, although there appears to be no connection between the quality of performance and the quality of training, the emphasis for all actors must be on training his or her potential scenic presence. Training scenic presence requires working on exercises that engage the whole body and that will serve both the body in exercise and the body in performance. For Odin actors, a key question in their training is how to give the impression 265

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of life in their work – as demonstrated in the boxing exercise – and how they can continue to develop their scenic presence. Odin actors look to make action extra-daily, that is, separate their everyday behaviour from their performance behaviour. The behaviour they each develop is formalised and codifed, which means that each action they make is precise. Precision is determined and recorded as a score by the actor and will include the size of the action, the position of the body, the breathing, the focus of the eyes. In many ways, the actor’s score is similar to a choreographic score or a musical composition but, unlike most choreographies, the movements are not abstract and the score is not just a physical score; most importantly it is also a mental score. Score is a term frequently used by Barba and the Odin actors to describe a sequence of actions. Montage is another term that they use to describe the way in which scores might be developed and put together. There are various terms that are used frequently by Barba when he is talking about actor training. . . . As noted previously, Grotowski’s work initially informed the training at Odin but after a couple of years the exercises no longer functioned as a challenge to the actors and had to be transformed by the actors into part of their personal training. As Barba said earlier, exercises are like bricks and can be put together to build diferent things. Meyerhold’s advice and approach to actor training was also infuential, not only on the Odin approach to training but also on the way that they prepared for performance. Meyerhold states that the spoken score should be prepared and worked on separately from the physical score. This has the efect of creating two diferent logics or narratives that will both correspond to a central theme but not necessarily explicitly to each other, except on the level of the actor’s internal score. The following exercise may serve as an example of how an internal score works. In a group of three, choose a fairy tale that you know. Your task is to physically construct an account of the fairy tale using only your hands to tell the story. As a group, agree on the key actions that you each will use to tell the story. Next, construct your version of the story using these actions. Ensure you engage your whole body physically in the task, although it is only your hands that are telling the story. Even if the actions are very small they should be precise and engage the whole body. Once this task has been achieved separate out the group, and make three new groups. Repeat your actions in your new group. This time each individual is performing their actions dissociated from the rest of the story but each individual has an internal score, which means that each person knows what they are doing and why they are doing it. Meyerhold’s approach to constructing a performance score is key to understanding how the Odin actors create and perform characters. The characters are not psychologically motivated, in the Stanislavskian sense, but are governed by the physical, vocal and internal scores created by the actors. . . . The seminars and work demonstrations that the actors have developed for other student actors refect their own personal experiences and are often autobiographical and anecdotal in presentational style. They do not teach techniques in a didactic manner but invite participants to refect on their own experiences and evaluate what they have learnt and how they have chosen to train and perform. ‘Why act?’ has always been the starting point for Barba. Roberta Carreri, an actor with Odin since 1974, has created a work demonstration called Traces in the Snow that documents how her training has developed (see also Carreri, 2000). She is now in what she calls her ‘third season’ of training. For her this meant that she could begin to develop her own physical scores: make her own solo performances. A solo performance ofered Roberta Carreri a new set of challenges in both her training and performance work. Incorporating performance practices from Japan, China, Bali and India determined the agenda for her ‘third season’ of training. The ‘frst season’ of training involved being taught by older colleagues 266

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in the group. For Carreri, her frst season lasted for three years. Kai Bredholt, who is at present the newest member of the company, has been in his ‘frst season’ of training for 11 years but now is moving into his ‘second season’. His ‘second season’ entails working with other performers and practitioners outside of the company in order to develop his own style of performance. It is important to stress that, although the Odin actors all work very closely together, they each have a very diferent style of performance, and this is very evident in their work demonstration Whispering Winds. When the actor takes responsibility for her/his own training s/he moves into the ‘second season’. S/he needs to identify particular principles that will be central to her/his work. Inspiration for the work may be found in the work of other practitioners, in books, in paintings, or in photographs, as we have already noted. All the time the composition of the body needs to be fully understood so that it may be constantly challenged. Roberta Carreri notes that it is important to have constructed a fxed frame of rules that will govern practical exercises and training each day that you work. Often, we experience an overwhelming sense of fatigue when exercising. An exercise can quickly become dull, not because the body is tired but because the brain is not being engaged. We need to constantly seek out new stimuli and challenges within exercises, both for the mind and the body. Chemicals released in the body, such as endorphins, enable us to overcome the obstacle of tiredness that the body sets up. We each need to explore the well of energy that is our body so that we can engage the endorphins and overcome fatigue and, consequently, achieve a greater depth in our training work. In the work demonstration, Traces in the Snow, Carreri shows how an exercise can be changed through intensity, size and direction. Focusing on specifc parts of the body, for example, the eyes, hands, or feet can give us an awareness of how diferent body parts can be articulated separately. Carreri has worked in this way to identify how the spectator’s attention may be directed in specifc ways: the feet may be doing one thing and telling one story while the eyes may be doing something contrasting and diferent, that is, telling a diferent story. You might try this as an exercise using two diferent fairy tales. In a similar way that you told the story of a fairy tale using only your hands, in the exercise above . . . , choose a second fairy tale and build a way of telling the story using only your eyes. When you have done this, try performing both stories at the same time. It is imperative that the beginning of an exercise is marked, that it has a developed form and a precise end. For Carreri, training has frequently involved improvising with exercises that she has created or adapted from other exercises that she has seen. These improvisations, although initiated in training, can also be useful when preparing for a new performance. Through improvisation, images can be spontaneously generated that can later be developed into a montage or form the basis of a score. Rather than sitting and talking about an improvisation, this approach entails working and playing spontaneously. The actor’s imaginative internal stories, or internal score, that enable the actor to recall his or her external actions with precision, are one way of fxing the images evolved from improvisation. Even if the director changes the external context of a montage, the actor is able to keep the actions precise, as his or her internal story will remain the same. For example, the actor may present a sequence of action and the director might ask the actor to perform the sequence as though they are in the midst of a wild storm. The action would need to be modifed but the internal story, that is invisible to the director and spectator, remains the same. Once you have a fxed score of actions you can colour the actions in many and varied ways. If you return again to the sequence of actions that made up your score for the fairy tale you can see how this sequence is precise and fxed. You can now colour the score in any way you choose. For example, try performing your score with diferent colours, or qualities: as though in a wild storm, as though you are trying not to be caught moving, or as though trying 267

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to communicate with someone a long way away. Each time it is only the outer actions that are modifed but your internal story should remain the same. When discussing the building process of a performance Barba is careful to always begin with the spectator. He says that although there can be no general message contained within a performance, as each spectator hears something diferent, there are key ideas and realities that are embodied by a culture in a particular time and space, and these ideas and realities might constitute a shared understanding on a general level.

Dramaturgy The term dramaturgy is applied in diferent ways in diferent theatrical contexts. Barba refers to the dramaturgy of the actor, the dramaturgy of the director and the dramaturgy of the spectator. The term is defned as deriving from the Greek, drama-ergon, and ‘refers to the inner or invisible energy of an action. An action is a work, an activity. The dramaturgy of a performance is the way an action is told or shown and becomes functional as dramatic energy’ (Christoferson, 1993: 125). For the actor, the dramaturgy may be the necessary research that has informed and prepared an action or sequence that gives it an ‘inner or invisible energy’. Dramaturgy is a term that is common to the theatres in many parts of Europe and America but is not so well known in Britain. Brecht, for example, worked with a team of dramaturgs at the Berliner Ensemble. These people were not performers but were researchers and produced materials that aided the actors and director in their work during the rehearsal process. Often, the term references the literary text alone but, in the case of Odin Teatret, dramaturgy operates as an ‘organic or dynamic dramaturgy’ (Barba, 2000b: 60). This ‘organic or dynamic dramaturgy’ is not directed at the spectator’s ability to understand a performance in terms of its meaning but the range of experiences it might ofer using all the theatrical elements, from the vocal and physical score, the costumes, the music, through to the props. The spectator’s dramaturgy is constructed through the experience of the performance, the connections that each individual makes in relation to the many threads that are woven together by the performers to create a sense of coherence. A performance should not intend to make a meaning explicit but should intend to create spaces where the spectator may question the potential and available meanings in the performance. Barba sees the performance as ‘the beginning of a longer experience’ (Barba, 1990: 98) for the spectator. As spectators, we may not have been able to follow all the possible readings available in a performance in the moment of its performance, but we may refect on it for months, even years, after the performance. In his article ‘Four Spectators’ (1990) Barba considers his role as director to be that of the frst spectator. Barba identifes diferent modes of response and interpretation that the spectator may experience. Barba calls these ‘four “basic” spectators’: the child who perceives the actions literally; the spectator who thinks s/he doesn’t understand but who, in spite of her/himself dances, that is enjoys the performance; the director’s alter-ego; the fourth spectator who sees through the performance as if it did not belong to the world of the ephemeral and of fction. (Barba, 1990: 99) The director’s task is to recognise the needs of each spectator and weave a performance that will embrace each of their positions. 268

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In Barba’s theatre all the participants fulfl the role of dramaturg. From the beginning, performances at the Odin Teatret have been developed through the use of improvisation, even in the very early performances when they were working from a literary text. The mainstay of the group’s work has been developed from ideas, themes and stories initially provided by Barba. The actors’ dramaturgy is the score and subscore built through their response to the director’s initial material using improvisation. The process of generating material for a performance has been developed to allow the actor to individually create their physical score separately from their vocal score. The materials used to build the physical score may be very diferent from material that builds the vocal score and this can lead to the actor’s score appearing disjointed or disjunctive. Even in performance, the individual scores may still appear to be ambiguous or incoherent to the spectator, as energy appears to shoot of in diferent directions. The actors work on their improvisations alone, as Barba believes that their focus should be on their particular response to the material that has been presented and not on how they might work with the other actor(s) in the space. Barba comments that when improvising with a partner you have to work in real time and the work can often be merely illustrative. When working alone, time and reactions often appear to work diferently; the actor can go much further alone as he or she inhabits what Barba calls the realm of ‘dreaming awake’ (Odin Week, 2001). At a later stage, when each actor has constructed her/his score, s/he will then begin the process of weaving their scores together under the direction of Barba. The score must be embodied – another term often used by Barba – so that it can be repeated without having to think what comes next. Every detail of the score must be embodied, not just as a series of moves but also in terms of where the action comes from, how it is expressed, how the energy is being controlled and directed, where the breath comes, the size, tempo and rhythm of the action. Barba begins to work with the actor’s score, modifying it in terms of space and articulation. For example, he might change the order in which the actions are expressed or the spatial dimension. He will also ensure that all unnecessary movements or gestures have been eliminated from the composition and that the actor’s daily mannerisms have been removed. The score must be made up of actions not movements. Barba explains: a ‘physical action’ is the ‘smallest perceptible action’ and is recognizable by the fact that even if you make a microscopic movement (the tiniest displacement of the hand, for example), the entire tonicity of the body changes. A real action produces change in the perception of the spectator. (Barba, 1997: 128) For Barba, the most essential aspect of the actor’s craft is the way in which they are able to continually attract the attention of the spectator. The dramaturgy of the director constructs sequences of actions woven from the performance scores prepared by the actors. For Barba, as the director, an important question to ask is how the performance might problematise the experience for the spectator. One way in which this might be done is by disrupting the viewing position for the spectator, and this is evidenced in the productions Mythos (1998) and Kaosmos (1993) where many things are happening simultaneously, forcing the spectator to create their own montage by choosing what they will give their attention to. Simultaneity is a particular device used by Odin and many other contemporary theatre companies. Simultaneity occurs when the actor can represent several things at the same time; diferent actors occupying diferent fctional spaces within the same performance space can present many aspects of a story at the same time. Another way in which the normal viewing position can be disrupted in performance is illustrated in a solo performance by Roberta Carreri 269

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titled Judith (1987). Here, diferent areas of the stage represent diferent parts of Judith’s mind and the balance of the objects in the space are intentionally asymmetrical, so that we as spectators are disorientated and are invited to question, or alter, our perception of what is in the space. The dramaturgical process in Judith is described as dynamic and not narrative (this is illustrated in the work demonstration Whispering Winds). As a director who has to prepare actors, Barba states that he must be interested in process. As a director he is dependent on what the actor proposes from the given materials, he is not like the American director Robert Wilson, who is renowned for his clear formalised vision of the performance before rehearsals have begun. Barba builds a pathway through the performance materials ofered by the actors. He then sculpts the actors’ work for the spectator. It is important to note that there are essential diferences between the dramaturgy of the actors and the dramaturgy of the director that continue through the rehearsal process to the fnal performance. Barba’s role is to protect the performance text but not the means by which it was constructed by the actors. The dramaturgy that he constructs should be viewed as a succession of events that can be built separately and then placed within a structure that fows for the spectator. The performance text, although made up of many diferent parts, each contributed by one of the performers, must always have a clear context and Barba provides that. The relationship between the actors’ diferent texts or scores might be considered as contiguous, that is the actors have a closeness in space and/or time to the theme, and sometimes actual contact with each other, but at the same time remain separate, thus creating layers and textures in the performance. The actors do not illustrate the theme or the characters but respond to them with their own associations. Barba will often begin work on a new performance by meeting with the actors and giving them a theme that will act as a framework for them to improvise within. The theme needs to be concrete for them, something they can explore rather than illustrate. Barba gives an example of improvising with an idea, suggesting the theme for an improvisation as ‘The man who knows there are no walls behind him’. Barba warns that we should not begin with the idea that there are walls behind. First, what needs to be explored is the idea of what is behind the walls, but not like in pantomime with a mimed illustration of the walls, but as real actions and reactions. Improvisation has always been a mainstay of the Odin toolbox. Improvisation is used to generate material in the preparation of all their new work. Barba collects materials that he considers to have a relationship to the ideas and themes he wants the production to explore, and some of these he will share with the actors. Barba would not give an improvisation specifcally themed to the production, but one that has a lateral or enigmatic relationship to the theme, an emblematic image. His role as director is to seek out inner information that will give the actors a precise impulse to express the outer action. He needs to fnd improvisations that will lead him indirectly towards the theme. If ‘uprooting’ is the theme then he may request that the actors prepare an improvisation around the stimulus of following a map. The actors prepare work for maybe a year on both their invisible, personal subscore and the visible score. Barba comes in to see the work, the visible score, and maybe he likes the work, maybe he does not. The actor continues to work until Barba sees something that he is interested in and then they will both work on developing the score. The fnal phase brings the whole company to work together in the performance space. The performers’ invisible subscores operate through the music, the costume, but mostly through ‘a set of mental and kinaesthetic constructs, that form the preconditions which stimulate plausible responses made by the performer to fctitious situations’ (Pavis, 1996b: no page numbers). This might be understood to be the images and associations stimulated for the actor by the source materials, that the actor has then structured together into their own personal narrative or 270

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score. The actors’ actions, both physical and vocal, are intrinsically tied to their personal narrative and prevent the actions from being empty and mechanical.

To recap So, we can see that for the Odin actors the process of constructing a performance entails creating a score drawn from many diferent stimuli, and that in order for the actor to fx the score, so that he or she can repeat it precisely each time with life and energy, the actor needs to have a means whereby all the associations, images, sounds, etc. can be re-gathered and remembered; this is the subscore. The subscore may have little, if any, literal relationship with the performance witnessed by the spectator. The other actors and Eugenio Barba do not need to know what constitutes the subscore or what it means; it is personal to the actor. The subscore does not need to have a rational logic but might have logic similar to dreams, coherent to the actor, although seemingly incoherent to anyone else. As we have noted earlier, the process of fxing the performer’s score is similar to the process undertaken by a dancer learning a piece of dance choreography, but it entails not just a dilation of outer physical energy but also an internal mental dilation, referred to as embodying the score. The notion of embodying the score is a term frequently used by Barba and the Odin actors and refers to the level of knowing, again not solely on a mental level of knowing, but a level attained where both mind and body ‘know’. Embodied is defned as being able to give expression to, or give tangible or visible form to, something abstract, and this is precisely what the actor is doing to their subscore. The score is embodied with the help of fxing the subscore; the actor’s thoughts, actions and reactions can be refned in their expression of scenic presence. The performer, says Barba, needs to escape merely representing him or herself: ‘a man is condemned to resemble a man, the body imitating itself ’ (Barba, 1995: 30), and this is not suffcient to be considered art. Scenic presence is the actor’s craft of refning mundane, everyday behaviour into something that transcends mere imitation into theatrical art. The approach to role at Odin might be better understood in terms of what it is not. It is in contrast to that which was sought by Stanislavsky’s methodology: an interpretation of the motivations and psychology of a character. For the Odin actors, their response to a text is founded on their own associations; often the performances use objects and music that they have been given as gifts on their travels, so there is a sense that their theatre refects an aspect of themselves as well. The director, says Barba, can manipulate an emotionally efective impulse for the spectator, not in terms of a specifc reading, but by enhancing or establishing a tone or emotional colour. The individual actor’s score, as has been established, is a series of dynamic changes that, on its own, is not telling anything, not communicating anything for the audience yet and so can be treated as an exercise, although it has an internal narrative inscribed by the actor. The rehearsal process provides numerous diffculties for the Odin actor as, having fxed her or his score and subscore, Barba’s role as director is to weave all the diferent scores together and create his own score. Barba’s score constitutes the fnal performance. The actors will need to continually amend and adjust their scores as the fnal performance takes shape, this may entail reducing a sequence to the action of the eyes alone, or extending the score into a diferent spatial plane, reversing or reordering parts of the score; whatever the external changes might be, the actor needs to make corresponding adjustments to their internal score or subscore. The process of elaboration of the actor’s initial score demands very detailed and precise work in order that the fnal score refnes and synchronises the vocal and physical score in a negotiation between the actor and Barba. Barba uses the metaphor of a perfume to illustrate the function of the performer’s score. A perfume is made up from over 80 ingredients, some alone smell bad, some do not smell at all 271

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but together they create a perfume. The fxer used in perfume-making to enhance and fx the fragrance is like the score that can help all the other ingredients to mature over years.

The present Barba has refected that the Odin Teatret was built out of the ruins of Europe, that their innovative approach to training and performing developed, in part, because of the social and cultural disruption in Europe following the Second World War. Barba describes himself and his actors as autodidactic, that is self-taught, and they have given, and continue to give, a life-long commitment to research into the art and craft of performing. On the frontispiece to Beyond the Floating Islands Barba quotes Niels Bohr: ‘[w]hatever I say should not be taken as an assertion but as a question’ (Barba, 1986a). This quotation is a useful key to accessing Barba’s writing and his approach to theatre practice and research. Barba is vitally important to continuing developments in performance practices because he ofers the performer advice on how to transform him/herself beyond the merely representational. At the beginning of the section we spoke of Barba’s metaphor of ‘two wounds’; Odin has always been aware of its status as a migrant company and the rejection that it might encounter. They needed to fnd, in this potential exclusion, a value and dignity through knowledge and technique. Barba has said that the excluded often accept their position, and he has shown that it needs courage to keep fghting, but it is essential to ‘resist the grey routine as it kills’ (Odin Week, 2001). The Odin Teatret as it is now has been together over 40 years. When they started, the actors knew what it was to be hungry, as they had literally experienced rationing and the ruin of Europe and, metaphorically, the ruin of theatre. The young now, argues Barba, do not know hunger, they do not work, they do not prepare. They are like vampires who feed of their elders for short-term gain and would drain the life-blood from the Odin actors were it not for the fact that they no longer recruit and train apprentices. He has also said that he does not want to expand the company because the construction of the performances is a complicated process and when the ‘tribe’ increases its number from six to ten even, there are implications for Barba’s work in the space, and the space the actors have to work in. Theatrical tours of their work have, from an early period, included workshops and seminars; the Odin year is structured around periods of touring, periods of research, training, rehearsing and organising other events including seminars, Work Weeks, etc. They have always operated as a collective, whereby each member of the company earns the same wage and all contribute to the maintenance and cleanliness of the work-spaces; however, Barba is the leader and observers of the company may identify strong diferences among the members of the company. As much as their work thrives as an example of ensemble practice, each individual asserts a strong individualism that is apparent in their work beyond the company, in their approach to training and their contribution to the performance style. The approach of this ensemble is not to make everyone the same but to celebrate each member’s individualism. Being autodidactic, Odin members have each developed their own individual approach to training. They consider themselves, by necessity, foreigners and, as a consequence, and most importantly, have become, as Barba says, ‘loyal to our diversity’ (1988c: 128). Odin will disappear in its material form when Barba and the actors leave but the work is already interwoven into the fabric of western theatrical genealogy. It is not that this ‘small tradition’ will be lost, but Odin Teatret is particular to Barba and cannot be replicated. It can be invented anew by directors and actors who may have been touched by the ideas and practices 272

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encountered at ISTA, in Holstebro, at an Odin performance, and intend to make their own way and create their own ‘small tradition’, contiguous, maybe, to the Odin Teatret. The ideas and practices that have been explored may, on the surface, appear to be formulaic but Barba’s approach comes with over 40 years’ experience and Barba would want it stressed that we consider the ideas and approaches in this chapter as their way, and not a blueprint that if learnt and followed will reproduce the same results. The company are clear that they have no encompassing theory of the theatre, or the craft of the actor, just experiences and advice to share.

A fnal thought It can sometimes make sense to confront a theory with a biography. My journey through cultures has heightened my sensorial awareness and honed my alertness, both of which have guided my professional work. Theatre allows me to belong to no place, to be anchored not to one perspective only, to remain in transition.

(Barba, 1995: 8)

16.2 A spectator’s view of Ego Faust Barba has directed over 20 productions with the Odin Teatret and the Theatrum Mundi Ensemble. The performance we are going to specifcally explore is Ego Faust (available on video from Odin Teatret Film) performed at the XII session of ISTA held in Germany in 2000 by the Theatrum Mundi Ensemble. The ensemble is a transient company made up from the artistic staf, musicians and Odin actors attending the ISTA session. At the end of the session the ensemble present a performance as a gift or barter for the local community who have hosted the school. A Theatrum Mundi performance has been performed at the close of most of the 12 ISTA sessions. The form and content, while remaining similar, have progressively been refned and further developed with each performance. We are now going to explore the way Barba creates a performance and how we as spectators might fnd levels of readability, or meaning, in the work. Ego Faust, like the other ISTA performances, difers from the Odin performances because the dramaturgy is not as complex or as complete. This is because the performance at ISTA is constructed in a matter of days, rather than Odin performances, like Mythos and Kaosmos, which are worked on for many months. However, the ISTA performance is particularly interesting because it contains elements of practice derived from ISTA research and demonstrates some aspects of Odin’s approach to performance. Ego Faust, despite only having been worked on for a few days, does illustrate a complex dramaturgy because it has been developed over the 12 previous ISTA sessions; however, it remains incomplete. The storyline, on which Barba’s Ego Faust is based, is derived from two main sources, one by the English playwright Christopher Marlowe and the second by the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Both the stories tell of a man, Doctor Faustus or Faust, a philosopher and scientist who, bored with his lifetime of academic study, uses his knowledge to conjure up an evil spirit. The spirit comes to him in the form of the devil’s servant Mephistopheles. In return for Mephistopheles working to increase Faust’s knowledge and power, Faust signs a pact selling his soul to the devil when he dies.

Synopsis of the Ego Faust performance In order to follow the analysis of Ego Faust you will need to imagine, from the details that follow, that you are a spectator at the performance. The stage has been erected outside a large public 273

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building and an auditorium for the spectators has been specially erected for the occasion. The frst event that takes place involves a young girl running down the central aisle of the auditorium, up some steps, onto the stage, crying ‘mama’, and into the arms of a woman. The woman, who stands at the front of the stage, rejects the girl and throws her to the ground. Both fgures are wearing contemporary western dress. This event is set apart from the theatricality of the rest of the performance: it is lit diferently and the clothing is everyday. We need to carefully consider why it is there, and its implications, at a later stage in our analysis. Our attention is then directed to a level above the stage. A spotlight picks out an elderly male fgure dressed in a dressing gown. He directly addresses the audience in Italian. We become aware, from what he says, that this fgure is the central character of Faust. Two fgures emerge onto the stage into a pool of light. One fgure is male and dressed in top hat and tailcoat and the other fgure is female, dressed in a long black coat and hat with a veil shrouding her face. The two fgures meet on the stage and slowly dance around each other; there is a mixture of eerie musical and vocal sounds accompanying them in their strange dance. Faust enters onto the stage followed closely by a huge, grotesque fgure, with a skull for a head and wearing evening dress; this is an Odin fgure named Mr Peanut, created and performed by Julia Varley. The Mr Peanut fgure, we are told in the programme, represents ‘Death’. Death is accompanied by a masked fgure in a richly coloured costume; the programme tells us this is ‘Old Age’ further research shows that this fgure comes from the Balinese tradition of Topeng and the character is called Tua or ‘old man’. The fgure of Faust appears to be oblivious to the presence of these two fgures. Slowly, as all the fgures move about the stage, drapes covering the back of the stage are raised up to reveal the splendid façade of an actual building, various musicians and other performers. Faust, addressing the audience, introduces the two fgures in black as Mephistopheles. Other colourful fgures enter the space: a Balinese clown, a Balinese assistant to the witch Rangda known in Bali as Pangpang and another Balinese fgure, the Garuda bird. The male Mephistopheles tempts Faust by showing him what he desires; in this instance beautiful young women. Faust can have everything he wishes if he signs over his soul to the devil. The female Mephistopheles pulls a quill from her hat for Faust to sign the pact and, with only a slight hesitation, Faust signs. As he signs, the male Mephistopheles holds Faust’s hand and the tip of the quill is forced through the paper and into his hand like a dagger. The music breaks into upbeat rhythms and as the party begins Faust is in agony. We then see Faust being rejuvenated: the dressing gown is removed to reveal a very smart evening dress suit and the shabby grey hair is replaced by smartly groomed hair. Faust’s whole demeanour becomes more agile and youthful. Hovering behind him, like a shadow, is the fgure of Mr Peanut representing Death, who is also dressed in a version of Faust’s evening dress. The fgure of Death hovers behind Faust throughout the performance. Faust is presented with a bell that will grant him whatever he wishes. The beautiful women are led away by Rangda, the witch fgure from Bali. Research indicates (see Bandem and de Boer, 1995) that Rangda is reputed to gather together young women at night in the graveyard, corrupt them and teach them the dark arts, and turn them into witches. The suggestion here might be that these beautiful young women shown to Faust may not be what they seem. Faust calls for entertainment and he and Mephistopheles go and sit with the audience. Two grotesque Balinese clowns enter with a large sign announcing the presentation of ‘The Tragedy of Gonzalez’ by ‘The Royal Danish Players’. This is a reference to the dumb show and play-within-a-play from Hamlet. Indeed, we see the same scenario enacted. We see a young queen with her elderly husband dancing together formally, until he feebly lies on the ground to sleep. The queen takes the opportunity to poison him, he dies and she fakes her grieving until another, younger man enters. At this point she removes her black widow’s clothing to reveal a seductive, silver and 274

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scarlet gown and they dance a tantalising dance together. His dance is similar to that of ‘the foreign king’, a villain from the Balinese Gambuh and her dance is derived from the Spanish Flamenco. Faust has learnt nothing from the pantomime performed for him and goes in search of a beautiful woman among the audience. He soon fnds his ideal, his ‘Helen’ as she is named in Marlowe’s version of the Faust myth; here she is named Margherita. It is Goethe’s version of the story that is being enacted here as Margherita parallels his character of Gretchen, a shortened form of the name Margherita. The character of Gretchen was based on a woman known to Goethe named Susanna Margherita Brandt, who was executed in 1772 for killing her illegitimate baby. As we will see, as the story unfolds, it is by no accident that the character is named Margherita. The role here is performed by an onnagata, that is, a male performer who, in Japanese Kabuki, specialises in female impersonation. The female role, as performed by the onnagata, is considered to be a feminine ideal; she is graceful, delicate, submissive and demure. This woman, Margherita, entrances Faust and waits on his every need. Behind Margherita and Faust, the fgures of Death and other demons playfully mock the lovers’ scene and, in the background, the female Mephistopheles sings a beautiful-sounding song. In a solo spotlight the male Mephistopheles enters and conjures two young girls to play. Faust is distracted from his love-making with Margherita by the girls, suggesting that he might move on to seduce them. Margherita tries to persuade him to stay with her until eventually he rejects her, pushing her to the ground. Death has taken on the form of a bride, wearing a white veil and garland of dead fowers on the skull head, and takes Margherita to one side. Death gives her something wrapped in a cloth; we are invited to read this as a baby from the way the bundle is held. Margherita lays the small bundle on the ground and, with great anguish, takes up a stone and strikes the bundle and then makes as if to bury it. A peasant woman appears scattering seed and planting out rice. Faust goes from one woman to another and then decides to ring his bell at the peasant woman. She attends him and he lies with his head in her lap as they tease each other playfully. Margherita looks on and there is a great confusion of characters in the space, many diferent voices singing and music playing. Margherita is distraught and is being shadowed by Death, still dressed as a bride. The programme informs us that there are three performers on stage who all play Mad Margherita. The three Mad Margheritas, Margherita, and a variety of demons, dance in confusion around the stage with a cacophony of music accompanying them. The confusion of fgures, movements and sounds indicates that Margherita has been driven to distraction, having submitted to Faust’s seduction and then killed her illegitimate child. An important element of the onnagata’s performance is his skill in transforming his costume on stage, as though by magic. The costume change occurs at this point of high dramatic tension and Margherita, now all in white, sails of through the audience. Although we might not know whether this is a typical moment in Kabuki, and what the sign means, we have enough information to read Margherita’s exit as her death. Mephistopheles and Faust fnd the bundle of cloth. Wrapped inside the cloth is a child’s shirt. The shirt is stufed into the mouth of the Garuda bird, also known as the bird-of-ill-omen, who carries it away. There is now a change in scene, pace and dynamic, indicated by two performers creating a banqueting table, by holding a long piece of white cloth on the stage. Faust enters and appears to sit at the table. Various comic characters from diferent cultural traditions enter and perform for Faust’s entertainment. From the audience a Japanese fgure appears, perhaps the ghost of Margherita, or an avenging demon. Two additional Japanese male warrior fgures enter and enact a sword fght. Shishi, a Japanese lion fgure, Barong, a Balinese animal fgure, Mr Peanut as the fgure of Death and the Balinese witch fgure, Rangda, all enter, followed by various other fgures. The music builds and chaos and confusion envelops the stage. Amid the chaos and confusion, Faust is de-robed and dressed in female attire. His behaviour becomes wild and 275

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demented. The drapes covering the back of the stage are lowered, as red glowing smoke rises from behind the building into the night sky. All the characters leave the stage through a central doorway in the façade of the building, into the red glow. This we understand to represent Hell. The peasant woman and Mr Peanut as Death remain and he begins to transform into a woman, who then nurses the skull-head and torso, dressed like Faust in an evening jacket. Julia Varley, who created and plays Mr Peanut, carries the puppet-like skull and torso and this moment of separation is skilfully and theatrically achieved. The peasant woman continues with her everyday work, quietly singing. As she sees the remains of Mr Peanut (or perhaps it is now Faust) in the woman’s arms, she begins to grieve and takes the fgure into her own arms. A child’s voice is heard calling ‘mama’ and a young girl appears running down the centre aisle, up onto the stage, into the arms of the woman (also played by Julia Varley). The woman rejects the girl, pushes her to the ground, takes her belt and beats the child. The performance ends. During my description of Ego Faust you may have noticed that some of my comments have been informed by my understanding of theatre from diferent cultures. By contextualising the work we begin to fnd our way through the experience. To further develop our understanding of the performance we need to fnd an appropriate and useful form of analysis to apply to the performance. Analysis will help us to unpack and reveal the many associations, details and possible meanings available in the performance.

Purpose of analysis There are many diferent ways in which we might analyse a theatre performance. Analysis is not an end in itself but enables us to develop an understanding or reading of a theatre performance, both as a creative act and in terms of meaning(s). The analytic method we use, or the questions that we ask, will be determined by the sort of information we want to fnd out. An analysis can only ever give us a partial reading of a performance, in that it will only provide us with a framework to the questions that the analysis poses. The analytic framework that we will apply in this section is based on a model devised by the French semiotician Patrice Pavis (2003). What is particularly useful about Pavis’s model is that it combines four stages, each of which asks particular questions and gives us substantial information, that when combined work towards giving us a reading of the production. One of the frst questions we need to ask ourselves is, ‘what is the purpose of the analysis?’. Is the intention that it should serve us as a spectator or as a maker of theatre? If we are working from the position of a spectator we may begin with a descriptive analysis. Descriptive analysis requires us to look at the content: characters, props, costumes, set, actions, music, speech, in fact all those aspects that contribute to our understanding of what happens in the performance. At a basic level, a descriptive analysis will enable us to identify whether there is a narrative and what that narrative might be. When we develop the descriptive analysis further to look, beyond narrative, at the possible meanings being generated in a performance, we interpret what we see, hear and experience in relation to who we are and what we know. Interpretation raises the complex issue of plurality; this means that there can be many diferent readings of a single performance, each of which can be equally valid. If we are analysing a performance from the perspective of a theatre-maker then we may be more interested in structural analysis: not what happens but how it happens. For example, we might look at whether there are patterns, themes, motives or other structural devices being used in the performance and how they relate to each other to give a coherent structure to the performance. This structural approach can give us more fxed or concrete information. The four stages in Pavis’s model combine both descriptive and structural readings along with a fnal stage where the information from the previous three stages is brought together to give us what he calls 276

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an ‘ideological’ reading. In addition, theatre anthropology ofers us another way of developing a reading of performance work, in terms of the pre-expressive. Theatre anthropology gives us insights into the structural aspects of a performance and we will use our understanding of it in our analysis of the performance. Pavis’s analytic method has been constructed with Odin and ISTA’s work in mind and certainly levels 1 and 3 are derived from ideas drawn from theatre anthropology. . . . Barba discusses some of the problems inherent in searching for meaning and explanation in theatre, in chapter six of The Paper Canoe. From what he writes, we know that we need to approach their theatre work from a diferent perspective from one which we might be familiar with for traditional, narrative structured plays, from the European theatre tradition. For one thing, the experience that is stimulated for us by a performance may be far more important than a search for meaning or explanation. Barba suggests that as spectators we tend to try to predetermine meaning rather than allowing meanings to emerge from the play of ideas and associations that a performance might ofer. It may be useful to see Barba’s theatre work on a kind of continuum where we might have, for example, a soap opera from television at one end and, at the other end, the experience of sitting watching people go about their business in a market. The soap opera is structured to have several story lines running at the same time in an episode, some may be concluding, others may be being introduced, while others may be reaching a climax. If we are familiar with the soap opera and the characters, then we will be used to the process of reading across the various stories and will not be concerned when, at the end of the episode, we do not know what the conclusion to all the stories might be. At the other end of our continuum, we have the market place, where there are lots of people coming and going who we do not know, each has their own particular intention, which we also do not know, only the space and activity gives us a sense of structure and time. Barba’s work falls nearer to the market place end of the continuum.

Initial response As with any analysis, we should begin by recording our frst impressions of a performance. My frst impression of the Ego Faust performance was similar to the experience I had when I frst saw Odin Teatret perform a piece called Anabasis in Wales when I was 18. Although I did not know what was going on, I was deeply afected by the performance. Initially, I found both performances to be chaotic, loud, colourful, confusing, sometimes funny and sometimes very haunting. I noticed that they referenced or included diferent cultural practices but I did not know what these were. It is a typical feature of Odin and Theatrum Mundi performances that they use little spoken language and often when they do speak it is not in English. The actors are encouraged to use their native language when speaking in a performance. As Barba has said, the aim is to create a ‘theatre that dances’. Both Anabasis and Ego Faust have used a great deal of song and dance, but much of it was unfamiliar to me. Although the performances were vibrant, colourful and included wonderful and delightful characters, I sometimes felt excluded because I did not know who or what they were; this sometimes left me feeling bored and disafected. In Anabasis I thought that there might be a narrative driving what happened in the performance and became anxious that I was not able to understand it. When I gave up trying to fnd a narrative I discovered that I was able to create my own and that this was far more fun. In Ego Faust, I was aware that there were interesting juxtapositions being made between the diferent cultures represented in the performance but I did not know why this might be, whether it was intentional, or signifcant, or whether it was successful. Structurally, I noticed that there were moments in both performances of high activity followed by quiet solo moments. The use of 277

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music was often unexpected in relation to what was happening in the performance. Despite my confusion, many of the images from the Anabasis performance have stayed with me and have continued to inspire, delight and intrigue me. I have seen two versions of the Theatrum Mundi performance, and the video version numerous times, and still fnd the experience enchanting and fascinating.

Questions we might ask Having recorded our frst impressions we now need to draw up a list of questions from these impressions that will help us to better understand the performances and develop an analysis of the work. The questions may be diferent if we are starting from the point of view of a spectator rather than a theatre-maker. Here is a list of possible questions we might begin by asking from the point of view of a spectator: • • • • • • • • • • • •

• • •

What is happening? Who are the characters being represented and why have they been selected? What does the title of the performance mean? The performance works as spectacle but is it theatre? Why do they use so much music and dance? What music, songs and dances are being used? Is the selection signifcant? What do the diferent cultural references mean? Why do they interweave so many diferent cultural references? Were some moments in the performance unsatisfactory because I did not understand them or was this problem to do with the composition of the performance? Does the performance have a narrative structure or is it structured in a fragmentary manner from lots of images, like a montage? With the performance of Ego Faust, I could recognise some sections as being a part of the Faust story but other sections were unfamiliar and I did not understand them, so were they from another story or version of Faust? What function did the music play? Did the music enhance a sense of disruption and fragmentation in the performance? Was the performance coherent and if so how was it?

In addition to the above questions, these are questions that we might ask from a structural point of view: • • • • • • • •

Is there a pattern in the way in which the scenes are structured? Are sounds connected to particular characters or fgures: leitmotiv? Is there a relationship between the pattern of dance moves and the music being played? Is there a relationship between the chords and harmonies we hear and the action and number of performers in the space? Is the music being used as an adhesive, sticking the performance together, or is it being used to heighten the disjunctive relationship between what we hear and see? How are time and space established in the performance? Are there patterns in the spatial relationships of the performers on the stage? Does the performance set out to create an example of intercultural theatre and if so what does it tell us about the classifcation of intercultural performance? 278

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The questions that have been posed here have arisen from my frst impressions of the performance. Having drawn up a list of questions from our frst impressions, the next stage is to see what answers we can fll in without doing any further research. In this instance, the title Ego Faust suggests that the performance is based on the well-known European story of Faust. The term Ego comes from the Latin for ‘I’ and can also be found in the work of the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Freud uses the term ‘Ego’ to defne the conscious part of our personality that we show to the world. At this stage it is not clear why the two words have been put together so we might need to read the story of Faust, and undertake some research into Freud’s ideas on personality, to look for possible connections. The performance runs for just over an hour and does not have an interval. There is no formal narrator fgure in the performance telling the story, but the character of Faust does directly address the audience in a similar way to a narrator. The performance does not use blackouts to indicate a change of scene or place. The performance runs continuously and any changes to the direction of the story, or shifts in mood, are indicated by the actors and musicians. Scenes involving several performers and a fast pace are often followed by a change to the pace and a scene involving one or two performers. Time and place are not established as being fxed, suggesting that this is not an important question and that perhaps the performance aims to transcend both time and space. The programme gives us some information about who the characters are in Ego Faust but some of these characters are still unfamiliar. For example, Faust and Mephistopheles are both characters from the Faust story but who was Kleist’s bear? At this point it may be useful to introduce the Pavis model and overlay the questions on to the frst three sections of his model.

Pavis’s model In his model Pavis describes a structure by which, he says, we are able to fnd a level of readability of the intercultural performance score. The structure incorporates four levels that are laid out as follows: Condensation

Displacement

(Accumulators) (1) Formal readability Linear progression Accumulation of forms, techniques that are condensed and fltered.

(Connectors) (2) Narrative readability Images progress conjunctively Images explicitly connected.

(Shifters) (4) Ideological readability Performance can be read despite previous disruptions to consensual ideology: a meeting or recognition.

(Secators) (3) Anti-narrative readability Ruptures in linear progression Montage Disjunctive relationship of signs due to theme, rhythm, geography Fragmented reading. (Pavis, 2003: 281)1

The four levels of readability that constitute the model are: (1) formal, (2) narrative, (3) anti-narrative and (4) ideological readability, or consensus. Pavis’s approach might be most clearly understood as a development of a semiotic analysis, that is the study of signs, but incorporating the principles of the pre-expressive from theatre 279

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anthropology. The spectator’s aesthetic experience, or frst impressions of the performance as spectacle, is important and should not be dismissed as unimportant but we need to recognise that this frst level indicates a surface response to a sense of the beauty, delicacy or grotesqueness of a performance. Conversely, unless we undertake specifc research into Japanese Kabuki theatre or Brazilian Orixa theatre, we are not going to be able to access the specifc details of a performer’s behaviour from those traditions.

First thoughts on Pavis’s model In the model you will have noticed that Pavis uses two headings, condensation and displacement. Freud uses these two terms in his book The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). For the dreamer, like the artist, the dream or work of art is constructed from a series of associations, whereas for the critic or analyst, the process is to decode the event or dream by trying to retrace and unravel the associations. Due to the ephemerality of theatre work, the task for the analyst who is a spectator is diffcult but can be seen as a parallel to a person trying to retrieve their dream and make sense of it. The performance, once performed, cannot be returned to in its exact form, unlike a compact disc recording, a video, a novel or a sculpture. The dream stories are created from the dreamer’s memory and it is here that representations can be abbreviated, translated or substituted. A signifcant aspect of this method of analysis is that both the actors and the spectators individually create a dream-like score to fx their experience and understanding of the performance.

Condensation This part of the model explores the ways that we flter, edit-out and organise those aspects of a dream or performance that are unfamiliar. We condense the material into sequences that are logical and knowable to us. Pavis uses the term condensation in conjunction with ‘formal readability’ (1) and ‘ideological readability’ (4) on the diagram. As we will soon see, the frst level, ‘formal readability’, involves accumulating fragments of material that have been selected by the actors for their score, that have then been combined by Barba and now represent the Theatrum Mundi Ensemble’s particular performance practice. The composition of what is shown may draw from more than one tradition, as well as from unconnected parts of any single tradition. An example of this in Ego Faust is demonstrated during the play-within-a-play scene. Here, a Balinese performer plays the ‘old king’ using the Topeng fgure of Tua. The queen, when seducing her new lover, dances in the Spanish Flamenco style and the new lover is a Balinese performer performing the ‘foreign king’ fgure from the Gambuh tradition. If, at this stage, we were to try to encapsulate the whole performance by reducing it only to selected references that were familiar and made logical sense to us, we would be leaving out most of what was performed. The performance remains confusing because there are so many cultural references that are unfamiliar to us. By the fnal section of the model (‘ideological readability’: level 4) we are able to construct a reading of the performance from the accumulation of material that we have acquired from the previous levels of reading. The seemingly unconnected nature of the parts of the performance can be understood to reveal a sense or meaning, even if that meaning is that it does not have one single meaning. Using the example of Ego Faust, we will see that the performance is not a single dream but an ensemble of dreams that have already been fltered and re-dreamt by Barba before they reach the spectator. The spectator will then flter the accumulation of images and associations that he or she receives. However, each time the performance is received it is not only fltered but also elaborated upon. For example, in the game 280

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‘Chinese whispers’, each time the phrase is passed on it is slightly changed. Similarly, when the performance or dream is fltered through someone’s interpretation, it becomes elaborated and potentially more distorted. At some point, for example in the process of analysis, the event, or dream, will be verbally recounted and structured as a narrative. This is seen as the last distorting stage of the dream-work, or performance.

Displacement Displacement occurs in Pavis’s model in relation to connectors (narrative readability) and secators (anti-narrative readability). This part of the model explores the ways that we focus on an unfamiliar aspect of a performance and replace it with something familiar. What is evident in the dream, or in this case the performance space, may in actuality have been processed by both the actor and Barba, and developed on from the initial logic of an actor’s individual physical and vocal score. The process of displacement enables the spectator, via the levels identifed as ‘narrative readability’ (2), and ‘anti-narrative readability’ (3), to achieve a level of understanding, or readability, either based on similarity or proximity. This understanding is based on what was actually seen or experienced in the performance. In other words, what we as spectators see and experience, that appears as unconnected and unfamiliar, we displace or substitute with a series of our own associations and connections. These associations and connections give the performance a level of narrative readability that makes sense to us. Of course, it can be misleading to reconstruct the experience of dreams in an intelligible and logical structure, as certain aspects of a dream will, by necessity, be ignored or repositioned to create a coherent logic. There will inevitably be a level of distortion. For each cultural group meanings are consensual, which means that we adopt particular behaviour and symbols and form an agreement on what they mean. These meanings are passed down from generation to generation. An example of an aspect of our culture that is consensual is the language we speak. It is important to note that meanings are not always reliant on language but can also be reliant on symbols, for example the image of a man being crucifed is a symbol of the Christian religion. With the examples we are analysing we may recognise an aspect of the performance as symbolic but not know what it symbolically represents. For example, before the character of Margherita in Ego Faust exits she is transformed by the means of an extremely quick costume change on stage; we recognise this moment as signifcant but without detailed knowledge of how signs operate to give meaning in Japanese Kabuki theatre we can only guess at what the moment means. The seemingly bizarre representations included in the performance of Ego Faust conjure up a fantasy that is both exotic and disturbing. Confronted with such fantastical and colourful fgures the danger is that we as spectators suppress what they might represent in their cultural context and allow them to remain as strange, foreign and other. In the performance there is a dissociation of the object from its function so we do not only see a human being in the space behaving as a human being but also as a vessel for ideas and symbols, or a hieroglyph (a description Artaud gave to the performer after he had seen Balinese performers at the Colonial Exhibition, in Paris, in 1930). As a hieroglyph, the performer has the ability to explode our sense of ourselves. This is challenging, exciting and scary, a step into the unknown for most of us spectators who are used to watching actors only representing other human beings.

Level 1: formal readability (accumulators) At the frst level of the model we are looking for clues in the performances given by the actors that will give us information concerning the way that they use energy and physicalise the 281

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narrative, and play a role or character in the performance. One way of assessing the kind of fctional world that is being represented is to look at how the actors behave in the performance space. In Ego Faust there is no theatrical set to give us clues as to where we are and so it is quickly apparent that where we are might not be important and that the focus of our attention should be on the actors/characters. In Ego Faust there is always a fracturing of the actor’s body that has the efect of drawing the spectator’s attention to a specifc part of the performance space. As spectators of western theatrical traditions we are most familiar with the narrative coming from a spoken text, but in the example we are looking at there is very little spoken text so we need to look for clues in the physical gestures and actions used by the performers. Each of the actors in Ego Faust uses energy diferently to construct diferent performance styles, and we can identify this by focusing on an aspect of their performance behaviour. For example, how they use their hands, facial expression and feet; also the dynamic of the movements gives us information that indicates mood, nuance or emotion. At this frst level, as Pavis says, we accumulate the many forms of performance by isolating each one and follow the ways in which each performer uses energy, constructs role and narrative, physically and vocally. We then begin to organise the specifc movement vocabulary used by an actor in order to identify how he or she constructs scenic presence. These events are processed sequentially and become part of the spectator’s developing, cumulative understanding of the diferent performance styles presented in the performance. We then look for, and make connections across and between the diferent forms of, scenic presence to create our own reading of the performance. Level 1 investigates the performance from a structural perspective and does not consider the reading in relation to any narrative aspects. The reading that we develop at level 1 is fragmented but we recognise that the fragmentation is due to a lack of specifc knowledge of the diferent cultural performance practices. Level 1 remains a partial reading as those aspects that we do not understand due to unfamiliarity, be it culturally, thematically or geographically, have yet to be explored. Some of the information we identify as clues we might consider to be self-evident but what we need to be aware of is that it is we as readers of the performance who are sophisticated. We are able to read and formulate understandings about behaviour, both in life and theatre, at a high level because we are so used to interpreting signs in advertising, in flms and on television. However, the danger inherent in our sophisticated reading is that we refute or dismiss the value of unfamiliar signs and view them as merely foreign and, therefore, odd. Within Ego Faust there is such a density of signs from diferent cultures that our job of decoding them is complicated. At level 1 we flter signs to just those that are familiar to us. We can see that a number of our questions fall into the frst section of Pavis’s model. Part of our confusion may arise from us not being able to identify or separate out the diferent performance styles so that the performance appears to be lots of people in colourful costumes rushing around at the same time. As an initial part of the process, Pavis suggests that the spectator makes a ‘systematic fragmentary’ observation of a performer, which would begin to open up the way in which the performer manages his or her energy, structures movement and, thus, is able to direct the spectator’s gaze. For example, we might observe the male Mephistopheles, performed by the Brazilian Orixa performer, Augusto Omolú. Initially, his movements may appear strange to us but, by following him through the performance of Ego Faust, we can see that his actions are consistent in relation to everything else that he does. He has few spoken lines so his movements denote his character and the narrative that he tells. He moves fuidly from warrior-like movements, to seductive movements, to drunken movements. We are informed by the programme note that he plays the role of Mephistopheles but it is not a taking on of the character in a European sense: the way in which he has constructed his score is by assembling fragments from the many Orixa roles that exist into a score that depicts his responses and associations to the needs of the Faust narrative. 282

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Augusto Omolú uses energy very diferently to the Japanese performer, Kanichi Hanayagi, who plays Margherita, although again by following this performer we can identify that what the Japanese performer does is also coherent and consistent. It is as though each performer demonstrates an individual ‘incoherent coherence’ and that Barba, as the director, provides a framework or fctional space that, in turn, creates coherence to these seemingly diferent or incoherent theatre practices. The ability to shift the spectator’s gaze from one part of the body to another is referred to as vectorising the body (Pavis, 2003: 125–127). Pavis’s point is that the performer can perform in such a way as to draw attention to a particular part of their body, or that the analysis can focus on a particular vector of the performer’s body and be able to draw conclusions about the way in which they use energy and create a character. By concentrating our attention on one fragment of a performer’s body, a framework of analysis emerges that allows for a level of readability. We can see evidence of this in the Odin character of Mr Peanut. The performer inside the costume only has her hands visible to the audience as the giant puppet’s skull head and torso that she carries hide her face. Her feet are also covered as she wears a long frock under the dress shirt and tailcoat worn by the puppet. However, although she can only communicate with her hands, she is skilfully able to suggest a range of emotions and behaviours in the character. It appears that the skull head is laughing, teasing, tormenting or firting and this is a result of the actress being able to draw attention to a part of the body to communicate an action. By exploring the role of the peasant woman, who features for a short time in Ego Faust, we can observe how the energy of one performer contributes to our understanding of the performance. The noisy and often confusing mixing of characters and music that occurs in Ego Faust is ofset by the consistency of the role of the character of a peasant woman, performed by Ni Wayan Sekarini, one of the Balinese troupe. When she frst comes on stage she is cleaning, gathering and sowing rice. Occasionally, she crosses the performance space and sings as she scatters the rice, a symbol of the earth’s replenishment and fecundity. Her actions are pedestrian, domestic, everyday but very closely observed. The action of scattering and cleaning the rice works as a counterpoint to the seemingly abstract physical codes, or codifed vocabulary, used by the other performers and the simplicity and ‘naturalness’ of the activity becomes a strong focus in this otherwise elaborate spectacle. The world she inhabits is not flled with music; she is, in one sense, on the margins of the performance but she also represents a fgure that celebrates, on a local level, human endeavour. In the same way in which we can look at the performers separately and identify their consistency of style and then re-evaluate the way in which the diferent performers work together, we can take the same approach with the musicians and identify that there is a particular rhythm and sound generated by the Brazilian drummers that is very diferent from the sounds of the Balinese Gamelan. Rather than hearing the mass of sounds as cacophonous, we can separate them out and then begin to hear them anew when they are playing together. What may have initially sounded and looked like a confusing and chaotic muddle of movements and sounds begins to exhibit a dialogue and patterns of harmonious communication existing between the disparate styles. Pavis’s frst level of readability is described as ‘formal’ and reveals a structured and linear progression of what emerges as recognisable signifers and signifed, even though we may not comprehend what they might mean or represent. This level immediately highlights the way in which the example selected for analysis operates at the margins of western mainstream theatre practice as the performance uses signifers that are not immediately apparent to a western spectator. The example has some recognisable elements but also includes many ambiguities. For example, in Ego Faust we learn from the programme that the character of Margherita is signifed, or represented, by a Japanese performer who, in the performance, we identify as the character wearing a traditional Japanese dress, a Kimono, but the performer is male. Why is the main 283

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female character played by a male actor? Why are there two actors, one male and one female, playing Mephistopheles? Each example requires a certain level of interpretation and this initial level of the model can cause anxiety in us as spectators because of our desire to impose a coherent meaning by translating all the signifers into recognisable material. A problem with this initial part of the process is that it can lead to a reduction and exclusion of material that does not ft a familiar, recognisable pattern. It is inevitable that as a consequence of the theatre that we have seen previously, we develop expectations. These expectations can cloud our judgement. We need to resist being bound by our cultural expectations and try to approach performances with an open mind and enjoy the play of possible meanings that we might identify in a performance. It is also important that we record the further questions that arise as we begin our analysis, as although some of these questions may be answered further on in our journey, many will inevitably demand specifc research before they can be answered.

Level 2: narrative readability (connectors) The second level of readability covers building a narrative frame from the seemingly disparate fragments of the performance. We might understand this second level to be like a descriptive analysis. The narrative level is constructed by creating a reading from the connections that we can make between one moment and another. Another tool we might use here is the continuity of gestural signs used by a performer or character and how they relate to other actions in the performance space. For example, in Ego Faust we see a Balinese dancer wearing a costume with wings, she appears at intervals throughout the performance, she dances like a bird and is often given an article of clothing to carry away. We might read the connection between what she wears and how she behaves as representing what the programme names as Garuda, a bird-of-ill-omen. The signifcance of the clothing being taken away can be read, at a narrative level, as indicating death. This reading is supported by the repetition of her actions, which we can understand as a theatrical convention that denotes ‘ill omen’. This convention is established early in the performance, although the spectator may not immediately understand the full signifcance of her actions. As spectators we try to make sense of what we see by forming connections between one moment and the next. This is, perhaps, the most diffcult level to negotiate due to the fact that a characteristic of intercultural material can be that a performance does not always create a straightforward, developing narrative. Performances will often contain references and characters that are unfamiliar in our culture but are central to another culture’s performance traditions. There are some sections where it is evident that a story is being told in Ego Faust and further research will immediately help us to make appropriate and meaningful connections between these sections and other non-narrative, or challenging, moments. Finding out what the story of Faust is about is an essential starting point. As we read at the beginning of this section, Ego Faust is based on two versions of the Faust myth: that of Marlowe, in his English version dated between 1588 and 1593, and part of the story used by Goethe in his German version of the myth published in 1808. The account at the beginning of this section was composed in response to the descriptive level of Pavis’s analysis. Initially, the account was very rudimentary and, although it gave a level of readability, it was generalised and would not have withstood close analytical scrutiny. For a more informed reading, the reader would need to undertake further research to discover why certain characters behave as they do, and whether certain actions have a particular signifcance within diferent cultural practices. An analysis of the relationship of the music to the performance is excluded at this level of the model, as, in many instances, it does not have a conjunctive relationship to the action. Pavis says that the materials used in a performance are 284

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constructed in a linear fashion that allows each piece to be seen as a separate moment. Observing and analysing these separate moments, he argues, allows for diferences to be appreciated. Within this section of the analysis, Pavis suggests that Barba does not propose ‘a reworking and a creolisation of traditional forms . . . dancers are being confronted with other traditions, improvising in their own style while being infuenced by their “foreign” partners’ (2003: 283). For example, in Ego Faust we see the Japanese onnagata performer improvising a scene of love and betrayal, derived from his repertoire of roles in Kabuki theatre, performing a dialogue with the Odin actor playing Faust (Torgeir Wethal), who is also improvising but drawing on information that he has developed as an Odin performer. It may be useful at this point to consider the question of how an audience might view and interpret the complex dramaturgy of a performance such as Ego Faust, without the specialised knowledge that we have accumulated. Would an audience be able to see the performance as more than a spectacle of colourful and exotic cultural highlights? If this is not the case, then does that merely reaffrm the cultural diferences as odd and strange? Although the intention may be to celebrate cultural diferences is this what is achieved and if not is it a problem? At the end of this second level of Pavis’s model we have begun to resolve some of the questions that emerged from our frst impressions. We have begun to construct a fuzzy narrative, a network of evident (or surface) narratives and narratives that are working below the surface narrative. We are clearer about why specifc characters are involved in the performance, and what they represent. We understand that the interplay of diferent cultural performances has been selected for more than just an aesthetic reason. They contribute to the many levels of meaning that make the performance a richer experience, both at the level of surface narrative and deeper less evident narratives.

Level 3: anti-narrative readability (secators) The third level of the model introduces the idea of anti-narrative aspects of readability (secators). We can tackle this level from both a structural and descriptive perspective. At this juncture, attention is focused on those aspects that either disrupt the idea of a linear narrative or the spectator’s sense of familiarity with the material. Here, we are looking at those aspects that we previously left out, either because we did not understand them, or because they appeared not to ft the coherent descriptive and narrative level. The traditions, as was noted at the end of level 2, although disrupted and fragmented, always remain intact; they have not been fused together to create a hybrid but hold resolutely to their own sense of proxemics and kinaesthetic practices. The Theatrum Mundi Ensemble brings together performers from Bali, India, Japan, Brazil and the Odin Teatret. All of the performers have acculturated, or specifcally learnt, performance techniques to contribute to the Theatrum Mundi work. Let us now focus on some of the moments that remain unresolved following level 2. Pavis refers to these moments as ruptures and they are usually of a thematic, geographic or rhythmic type (Pavis, 2003: 281). In Ego Faust the musicians from India play while we see the Japanese onnagata performing stylised movements from the Kabuki tradition, this creates a rupture that is both geographic and rhythmic. These ruptures have the efect of dislocating the spectator’s sense of time and space. Because the performance is not fxed in a time and space, we are invited to view the performance material transculturally, that is, not historically or merely as exotic spectacle. Barba develops ruptures as a compositional strategy, exploiting the relationships between the performers, the musicians, as well as between performers and musicians. We might say that 285

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the geographic and rhythmic ruptures are central to the composition because the disjunctive relationships created between music and performance traditions invite the spectator to create and develop new ways of reading. What has emerged from the theatre anthropology research at ISTA is that, while there are many diferences in cultural performances on a surface level, there are fundamental similarities at a deeper level. We might liken the composition process to the way in which jazz music works. For example, a jazz musician is able to improvise at a surface level within predetermined harmonic structures. The Theatrum Mundi performers are also able to improvise, using material drawn from pre-existing structures that they have accumulated, or acculturated, as part of their cultural practice. On frst hearing music from the diferent cultures being performed simultaneously in Ego Faust, I could only hear a cacophony of sounds. As I became more familiar with the diferent musical textures, I was able to equate particular sounds with particular instruments and, subsequently, I began to hear the diferent musical traditions at work. As we look and listen more closely, and become more familiar with the performance, we can identify that, in fact, the rhythms are creating dialogues between the diferent performers, as well as the performers and musicians. Earlier in the analysis, we raised the question, ‘why is there a male and a female Mephistopheles?’. This question can now be explored as a thematic rupture because it breaks with the traditional convention of one actor playing one character. There is no obvious resolution to this question but one reading might be that Barba wanted to make an intertextual reference to another production of Dr Faustus, directed by Grotowski in 1963. Although not directly involved in the production, Barba saw and wrote about it in an article that is attributed to Grotowski (1964). In this production, Grotowski employed both a male and female Mephistopheles. Another example of a thematic rupture concerns the presence of Kleist’s bear at the banquet in Ego Faust. Initially, we might see the bear as another of the comic characters entertaining spectators in the auditorium, and Faust at the banquet. Who is Kleist’s bear? Research reveals that Heinrich von Kleist wrote an essay called On the Marionette Theatre in 1810 and the essay contains the story of a bear. There is no direct connection between Kleist’s essay and Faust, but several aspects of Kleist’s essay provide some comment on themes found in the Faust myth. For example, both texts deal with themes such as, ‘The Fall of Man’ from innocence, as recorded in the book of Genesis in the Bible, human consciousness and the search for total knowledge. Faust signs away his soul to the devil in exchange for 24 years in which he wants to learn the secrets of life and death. Knowledge would give Faust power, perhaps the power of eternal life. With the power of eternal life, he would not need his soul. Faust has been described as a man who loves knowledge but hates learning. He consumes knowledge greedily but appears to learn nothing. He consumes the earthly pleasures of desire and lust but is not satisfed. For Faust, ultimate knowledge and pleasure remain elusive and the search for them leads to his demise. The paradox for Faust, and all other human beings, is highlighted in Kleist’s essay. In the essay Kleist tells of a young man who is physically beautiful. One day he catches sight of himself in a mirror. He recognises how similar his image is to a much-acclaimed statue, renowned for representing masculine perfection. From that moment, the young man becomes obsessed with trying to recapture the moment when he frst considered his own beauty. In his innocence he was beautiful but when he consciously became aware of himself, desire for perfection drove him further and further away from being able to achieve it. The essay continues with an account of a bear, which is able to defect every thrust of a fencer’s foil. The man fencing with the bear becomes more and more frustrated as the bear knows when an attack is real and when it is a feint, or mock. At the core of Kleist’s essay 286

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is the idea that total knowledge can lead to harmony and completeness but that, paradoxically, being human means that we think, and to think means to have knowledge. Knowledge merely serves to remind us that there is always so much more to know. Therefore, we experience our selves as never knowing enough. We cannot be content with just being in the world because we are conscious of our past and our future – what we have had and what we want. The story of Kleist’s bear is recounted by Barba in The Paper Canoe (pp. 60–61) and is used to illustrate sats, the premise being that understanding and knowledge come from experience, and being connected to the world: being in the moment and able to react. The question of why the performance is titled Ego Faust fnds a level of readability here at level 3. The human desire for pleasure that drives Faust is contained in Freud’s term Id. Counter to the Id is the Ego, that part of us that is conscious, that rationally questions our desires. In life we experience a perpetual tension between the demands of the Id and the Ego. In Torgeir Wethal’s performance of Faust we can physically see this tension in his physical actions and movements. There is a distinct diference between the movements of his head and the top part of his body, which remain thoughtful and more introvert, from the bottom part of his body, which is more dynamic and extrovert. The relationship identifed here between Faust’s desire for pleasure and his Ego indicates why the performance is called Ego Faust. From a seemingly innocuous moment in Ego Faust we are now developing a signifcant network of communications. Another moment that is worth exploring in more depth occurs when Margherita’s ‘ghost’ appears to Faust, towards the end of the performance. The culmination of this scene has Faust being led of into Hell. In Part 2 of Goethe’s Dr Faustus, Margherita makes an appearance in the fnal scene of the play as ‘The Penitent’. The scene takes place in the heavens and Faust’s soul has been saved from the devil and is redeemed. ‘The Penitent’ asks that she might be his guide and the fnal lines of Goethe’s epic drama tell us: All things corruptible Are but a parable; Earth’s insuffciency Here fnds fulflment; Here the inefable Wins life through love; Eternal Womanhood Leads us above (Goethe, 1959: Part 2, Act 5) In a commentary on Goethe’s play written by Walter Arndt (Goethe, 2001) these fnal lines are analysed; Arndt suggests that our will and desires, which are in opposition on earth, can be united through experience in Heaven, and allow us to fnally achieve contentment. The dichotomy between our conscious rational self and our irrational self is transcended. As an additional note, it might be useful to remember that traditionally, in western thought (certainly since the philosopher Descartes said ‘I think therefore I am’, a statement that defned being human as primarily having to do with reason and thought, and not experience), the masculine has been equated with reason, knowledge and logic, and the feminine has been equated with the irrational, the emotional and experience. The union of the mind and body, or logic and experience, of the male and female is perhaps what brings us contentment. In Ego Faust we see Mephistopheles as both male and female and Mr Peanut dressed in male clothes on the upper body and female clothes on the lower body. In a similar way that the cultural, or geographic, 287

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ruptures open up dialogue between diferent cultural practices, so the gender ruptures open up dialogue between male and female. In Barba’s performance, Faust is not redeemed but he is stripped of his clothes and dressed in female attire. As he becomes more and more demented he is eventually led of into Hell. We might read Faust’s female clothing as referencing woman being no less innocent than man. Certainly, the scene between the woman and child that frames the performance would suggest that woman, like man, has fallen from grace. Equally, men and women have learnt nothing from history and repeat the same mistakes and the same acts of violence and cruelty every day. Another reading of the fnal scene picks up on an intertextual reference. The reference draws on another production by Odin Teatret titled Kaosmos: here, Torgeir Wethal (the actor playing Faust) plays a man who has spent his life waiting to be allowed past a door. At the end of Kaosmos he is dressed in the same female clothing as we see in Ego Faust. Humiliated by the end of the play, he is forced to take on the role of ‘The Bride of the Village’ as a grotesque parody of a marriage event earlier in the performance. European Medieval plays often included a subversion of the marriage to Christ, and the inclusion of this scene in both Kaosmos and Ego Faust could be read as a marriage to the devil. Arguably, in Ego Faust, this is an apt punishment for a man who had treated women so carelessly. The fgure of the peasant woman causes a different kind of rupture in the performance. Whereas the other performers are using an acculturated, codifed performance style, she performs everyday, menial actions. She returns to the stage towards the end of the performance, once the other characters have left and Faust is taken through the door to Hell. Julia Varley has emerged from the Mr Peanut costume and gently holds the skeletal fgure, dressed like Faust, in her arms. The peasant woman takes the skeletal fgure in her arms and weeps. The peasant woman’s everyday mode of performance bridges the gap between the fctional world depicted on the stage and the everyday. As she grieves for her lost love, the young girl again comes running onto the stage, from the audience, towards the woman. The woman once again rejects the child and beats her. The actions of the woman are horrifc, performed in silence, without emotional response. The woman and girl are, again, dressed in everyday western clothes. The scene presents the audience with a dilemma, as it does not ft with the rest of the performance. It is a thematic rupture, but as a frame to the Faust story, it invites us to read the event as a potential metaphor of power, exploitation, human tragedy and vulnerability. Faust is a myth and this act has the quality of the everyday. As an action it could be read as a bridge between the world of the myth and the world of the everyday. Barba has said that this coda is still in a very raw form but he wanted the audience to enter and exit the experience of the performance via the same scene, which for him demonstrates an act of absolute evil.

Level 4: ideological readability (shifters) The fnal vector of the model, (4), is referred to as the level of ‘ideological readability’, or consensus. It is at this point that emphasis is put on the spectator’s creative and interactive role having proceeded through levels 1, 2 and 3 and gathered information. Pavis acknowledges that the consensus or reading is based on the individual’s experience, mediated through a core of cultural knowledge inherent in the performance. Therefore, even if the spectator does not have a specifc understanding of the cultural tradition being performed, knowledge will have been gained through the experience of the performance, and this will have permeated through to the spectator’s perception. In our adaptation of Pavis’s model, we have already taken the 288

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analysis further by undertaking research into some of the diferent cultural practices and textual references, to develop our understanding of the performance. In his analysis, Pavis focuses on the ISTA performance of The Island of Labyrinths, a previous ISTA version of Ego Faust, and concludes that the performance is not a hybrid but a federative example of intercultural work. The notion of ‘federative’ demonstrates how the diferent cultural practices from Brazil, Bali, India and Japan are not merged into something diferent. They remain intact and are viewed equally, rather than in a hierarchical order, whereby one might be suggested as being better than another. The diferent performance styles are, however, all part of an encompassing frame, like the federation of nation states in Europe, and are governed by the same network or framework of rules. The same idea of ‘federative’ can be used to describe Ego Faust. The framework here is the coherent narrative that follows the Faust myth and this holds the diferent performance practices together. As well as encouraging us to develop our thoughts on some of the aspects of the performance, this fnal section also invites us to pose further questions. We might now read the performance space as a metaphor for the world, with the fragments of the cultural practices creating a world of disorder and diversity, although we might also argue that this reading appears essentially reductive and overly simplistic. As Pavis has said of the work by the Theatrum Mundi Ensemble, it only brings the performers together spatially, in actuality it refects a sense of disquiet for the spectator, in terms of how we can and should view any cultural product. Not only are the performers and performances dislocated from their culture, but so, too, are the spectators. As spectators we are transported into a fctional space that is not wholly familiar to us. As an example of intercultural performance, Ego Faust can be argued as highly successful because the disjunctive relationships created between the performers and musicians from different cultural practices create gaps or ruptures. These ruptures disorientate, or alienate, the spectator and so we become active makers of meaning, rather than passive receivers. A counter argument might say that for the spectator, who has little familiarity with diferent cultural practices, the performance will remain a colourful spectacle, where the unfamiliar antics are typical of strange, foreign people. Rather than being empowered by the unfamiliar, the spectator becomes disafected. Intercultural performance can create new cultural territory where the cultural diversity in the world is celebrated, but this territory must be accessible to the spectator. In an interview, Patrice Pavis commented that there is a level of naivety about the work (1995). He suggested that some critics might argue that the performance is irresponsible in its refusal to be didactic, and that its lack of commitment to a moral or political ideology is unacceptable at this point in history but, as has already been discussed, Barba believes that theatre should resist the temptation to be swayed by the ‘spirit of the times’. Theatre does not necessarily resolve problems and issues but should raise an awareness that they exist. Certainly, Ego Faust, as an ISTA performance, has moved on from when Pavis was asked about the work and clearly raises many issues regarding greed, the power of corruption, exploitation of women and the idea that things are rarely what they seem. We are invited to make connections between old stories and our lives now. The performance invites us to make connections with diferent associated narratives. For example, the playing of Margherita by a Japanese performer might remind some of us of the story of Madame Butterfy; subsequently, this association leads us to consider issues regarding the colonial aspects of history. One of the initial questions considered concerned itself with the interplay of cultural references and intercultural performance. Each session of ISTA has initiated changes to the Theatrum Mundi performance score and the Italian academic, Ferdinando Taviani, notes that in 1987, ‘Barba fused these scenes into a unitary framework, giving them the rhythm 289

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and energy of a homogeneous performance, something carnivalesque, funny and ritualistic’ (in Hastrup, 1996: 72). In a conversation with Taviani, he pointed out that there are certain features of the performance that now have a regular place. These features include the singing of a song, which has now become an anthem for ISTA, titled ‘Subo al Triquete’. The words come from a Walt Whitman poem sung in Spanish, to a melody composed by an ISTA participant; here, the composer sought to compose a work that suited both western and eastern voices. Another feature that has been incorporated into the fabric of the ISTA performance is the inclusion of a Bob Dylan song. Both the Whitman and Dylan songs accompany the moment where Margherita becomes maddened by her actions and as a consequence ‘dies’. In some versions of the Theatrum Mundi performance the participants at ISTA sing the ‘Subo al Triquete’ anthem from the auditorium. At this point the confusion on the stage spills out into the audience. Both songs are beautiful, lyrical songs but in the context of the chaos and confusion of the scene, they become haunting and melancholic. For the spectator who is confused by the cultural references, this moment does not alleviate that confusion but does ofer them an opportunity to be a participant in the carnivalesque world of the performance. The ‘consensus’ at level 4 is not a resolution of all the questions that have been posed but a bringing together of what we know from the diferent levels of readability, to construct a level of what Pavis refers to as ‘cultural readability’. The montage of scenes woven together by Barba to create the performance is as intertextual as it is intercultural. At this fnal level of the model we can refect on how we have created a specifc framework of analysis for this performance.

Final thoughts Barba identifes three diferent dramaturgies in the construction of a performance, which all occur simultaneously, and do not only involve the text or the story. Observe how the three compositional strategies used by Barba in a performance equate to the four levels of Pavis’s model for analysis. Barba’s dramaturgies are: 1 2 3

An organic or dynamic dramaturgy which is in the composition of the rhythms and dynamisms afecting the spectators on a nervous, sensorial and sensual level; A narrative dramaturgy, which interweaves events and characters, informing the spectators on the meaning of what they are watching; [A] dramaturgy of changing states, when the entirety of what we show manages to evoke something totally diferent. (Barba, 2000b: 60)

The performance progresses in a linear fashion but there are numerous ruptures woven into the texture of the performance from the diferent threads of logic provided by the performers. Each performer demonstrates a diferent ‘dynamic dramaturgy’ that can be identifed by isolating and observing the way in which a specifc performer uses energy to create their scenic presence. A ‘narrative dramaturgy’ is clearly located as the performers in Ego Faust play fgures that are not derived from the same fctional world. For example, we have the character of Faust but also Mr Peanut, Barong and Kleist’s bear. Through the process of interweaving the performers’ individual narratives, Barba constructs a frame, or world, that holds all the threads or stories and characters together. In this fctional world there are moments where the characters come together, their narratives may collide or there may be feeting physical or musical 290

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encounters that resonate outwards to afect other characters or actions and, most of all, afect the sensibilities of the spectator. A ‘dramaturgy of changing states’ is more diffcult to defne but equates to Pavis’s level of ‘ideological readability’. During the performance the spectators are held in a transitory state, a space that Victor Turner refers to as a liminal space (see Turner, 1986, and Schechner, 1985). A liminal space is a place between one place and another. The spectators are actually seated outside a public building in Germany but have been theatrically transported from that everyday world to another fctional world, peopled with many strange but engaging characters. Their perception of the space around them and the world they live in has been disrupted. Theatre engages us in a vibrant colourful world where we are ofered the opportunity to ‘experience the experience’ (Barba, 1990: 100), that is, go beyond our experience of the everyday and be challenged by a heightened sense of experience. Barba tightly choreographs the performance from the material sequences proposed by each of the actors. The spectator’s ability to read, or follow, the performance is challenged because the characters and/or narratives are dislocated, or defamiliarised, from their usual context by, for example, disrupting the relationship between performers and musicians. As a director, Barba considers himself to be the frst spectator and it is the spectator who is at the core of his theatre. Spectators are an integral part of the creative celebration and we also have a dramaturgical role to perform, as Barba has outlined in his article ‘Four Spectators’ (1990). Here, he says that it is necessary to assume how at least three spectators will react, and to imagine a fourth (the three reactions are listed in Section 16.1). My frst reaction as a spectator was what Barba describes as ‘the spectator who thinks s/he doesn’t understand but who, in spite of him/herself, dances’ (Barba, 1990: 99). Performance is set apart from our everyday lives; it is something that is to be shared by those participating and those witnessing the event. Although there may be no defnitive meaning for the performance that will be taken away by each and every spectator, the shared experience of having been present is potentially collective, what Victor Turner would describe as ‘communitas’ (see Turner, 1974: 202). The understanding, derived from the Odin actor’s training over 30 years, and the research from ISTA, constitutes a particular notion of how theatre does and can work, and this has been made concrete in their theatre practice. Barba says that for theatre to be creative it will weave a ‘labyrinthine path between chaos and cosmos, with sudden swerves, paralysing stops, and unexpected solutions’ (Barba, 2000b: 60). What we are presented with is a style that both references established performance practices but also disrupts these references, as, in their reconstituted and distorted forms, they become new: something that is simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar. As spectators we can delight in what we experience, recognising a multitude of moments while the whole may remain elusive. For Barba, the intention is to create a harmony between the experience and the theatre that will lead to ‘an impulse to change oneself ’ (1986a: 15). Barba admits that the actor’s process of transformation is diffcult to explain, as the essence is buried beneath methodology; that the very necessity of trying to teach, to transmit knowledge, is reductive and is unable to communicate the essential. Yet, this process has become as important as the work itself: ‘it is one’s duty to speak precisely because the essential is mute’ (1986a: 17). Ego Faust can be described as spectacle as it employs music, dance and elaborate and colourful costumes. At this superfcial level of spectacle, the performance is entertaining as it includes moments of humour and pathos. Although we may not be sure of what precisely is going on, we can still respond on an emotional level to the music and movement of the performance. However, the spectacle, or entertainment, level is a surface level of receiving a performance and, as developing scholars of theatre, we need to be exploring the network of communications that 291

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take us beyond the surface level of the work. The network of communications employed by the performance forms the networks of meanings that we interpret according to our own experiences. These can be broken down into further sub-divisions, for example individual readings and cultural codes: shared understandings that we have as a result of being a part of a particular cultural group. As we have seen in our analysis of the Ego Faust performance, the dramaturgies are very complex and invite spectators to delve more deeply. If you are a spectator who did not think you understood the performance, enjoy the freedom that the performance ofers you ‘to dance’.

Note 1 The Pavis model is derived from a draft English version, which was kindly sent to me by Pavis.

Further reading Andreasen, John and Kuhlmann, Annelis (eds) (2000) Odin Teatret 2000, Acta Jutlandica: Aarhus University Press. Allen, Graham (2000) Intertextuality, London: Routledge. Aston, Elaine and Savona, George (1991) Theatre as Sign System: A Semiotics of Text and Performance, London: Routledge. Bandem, I Made and de Boer, Fredrik Eugene (1995) Balinese Dance in Transition: Kaja and Kelod, 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Barba, Eugenio (1965) Alla Ricerca del Teatro Perduta, translated as In Search of Theatre, Padova: Marsillo Editore. ——— (1979) The Floating Islands, Holstebro: Drama. ——— (1982) ‘Theatre Anthropology’, Tulane Drama Review 26(2) (T36): 5–32. ——— (1985) ‘The Dilated Body: On the Energies of Acting’, New Theatre Quarterly, 1(4), November: 369–382. ——— (1986a) Beyond the Floating Islands, New York: PAJ. ——— (1986b) ‘ISTA: Between the Face and the Mask’, in Village Voice, 25 November: 96 and 98. ——— (1987) ‘The Actor’s Energy: Male/Female versus Animus/Anima’, New Theatre Quarterly 3(11): 237–240. ——— (1988a) ‘The Way of Refusal: The Theatre’s Body in Life’, New Theatre Quarterly 4(16): 291–299. ——— (1988b) ‘About the Visible and the Invisible in the Theatre and About ISTA in Particular’, Tulane Drama Review 32(3) (T119), Fall: 7–14. ——— (1988c) ‘Eurasian Theatre’, Tulane Drama Review 32(3) (T119): 126–130. ——— (1990) ‘Four Spectators’, Tulane Drama Review 34(1) (T125): 96–100. ——— (1991) ‘The Third Theatre. A Legacy from Us to Ourselves’, New Theatre Quarterly 8(29): 3–9. ——— (1995) The Paper Canoe: A Guide to Theatre Anthropology, London: Routledge. ——— (1997) ‘An Amulet made of Memory. The Signifcance of Exercises in the Actor’s Dramaturgy’, Tulane Drama Review 41(4) (T156), Winter: 127–132. ——— (1999a) Land of Ashes and Diamonds, Aberystwyth: Black Mountain Press. ——— (1999b) Theatre: Solitude, Craft, Revolt, Aberystwyth: Black Mountain Press. ——— (1999c) ‘My Grandfather Konstantin Sergeyevich: An Interview with Eugenio Barba’, Mime Journal edition ‘Transmission’, Winter: 28–51. ——— (2000a) ‘Tacit Knowledge: Heritage and Waste’, New Theatre Quarterly, 16(3) (NTQ 63), August: 263–276. ——— (2000b) ‘The Deep Order Called Turbulence’, Tulane Drama Review 44(4) (T168), Winter: 56–66. ——— – and Savarese, Nicola (1991) A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology: The Secret Art of the Performer, London: Routledge. Calvino, Italo (1997) Invisible Cities, London: Vintage. Carreri, Roberta (2000) ‘Traces in the Snow’, in John Andreasen and Annelis Kuhlmann (eds) Odin Teatret 2000, Acta Jutlandica: Aarhus University Press. Chamberlain, Franc (2000) ‘Theatre Anthropology: Defnitions and Doubts’, in Anthony Frost (ed.) Theatre Theories from Plato to Virtual Reality, Norwich: Pen and Inc. Chekhov, Michael (2002 [1953]) To the Actor, London: Routledge.

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Barba (1936–) Christoferson, Erik Exe (1993) The Actor’s Way, London: Routledge. De Marinis, Marco (1995) ‘From Pre-Expressivity to the Dramaturgy of the Performer: An Essay on The Paper Canoe’, in Mime Journal edition ‘Incorporated Knowledge’: 114–156. Drain, Richard (ed.) (1995) Twentieth Century Theatre: A Sourcebook, London: Routledge. Elam, Keir (1988) The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama, London: Routledge. Freud, Sigmund (1991 [1900]) The Interpretation of Dreams, trans. James Strachey, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1959) Faust: A Tragedy – Parts One and Two, trans. Philip Wayne, Harmondsworth: Penguin. ——— (2001) Faust: A Tragedy: Interpretive Notes, Contexts, Modern Criticism, trans. Walter Arndt, A Norton Critical Edition, London: Norton and Company. Grotowski, Jerzy (1964) ‘Dr. Faustus: Textual Montage’, Tulane Drama Review 8(4) (T24), Summer: 120–133. ——— (1969) Towards a Poor Theatre, edited by Eugenio Barba, London: Methuen. Hastrup, Kirsten (ed.) (1996) ‘The Making of Theatre History’, in The Performer’s Village, Holstebro: Drama. Hodge, Alison (ed.) (2000) Twentieth Century Actor Training, London: Routledge. Huxley, Michael and Witts, Noel (eds) (1996) The Twentieth Century Performance Reader, London: Routledge. Ibsen, Henrik (1993 [1879]) A Doll’s House, London: J.M. Dent. Jung, Carl (1972) Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (translated from Uber die Psychologie des Unbewussten, Zurich: 1943, and Die Beziehungenzwischen dem Ich und dem Unbewussten, Zurich: 1928). Kleist, Heinrich von ([1810]) ‘On the Marionette Theatre’, trans. Idris Parry for Southern Cross Review. Available at: www.southerncross review/9/kleist.htm Koestler, Arthur (1959) The Sleepwalkers, New York: Macmillan. Komparu, Kunio (1983) The Noh Theatre: Principles and Perspectives, New York: Weatherhill/Tankosha. Marlowe, Christopher (1996) Dr. Faustus, London: Nick Hearn Books. Munk, Erika (1986) ‘Roles and Poles Apart’, in Village Voice, 11 November: 89–90. Odin Week (2001) Spoken quotations taken from the proceedings of this week. Ortolani, Benito (1990) The Japanese Theatre: From Shamanistic Ritual to Contemporary Pluralism, revised edition, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pavis, Patrice (1982) Languages of the Stage, New York: PAJ. ——— (1992) First Statement Regarding ‘Underscoring’, ISTA. ——— (1996a) The Intercultural Reader, London: Routledge. ——— (1996b) ‘A Canoe Adrift’, unpublished review. ——— (2003) Analyzing Performance, Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan University Press. Schechner, Richard (1985) Between Theatre and Anthropology, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Shakespeare, William (1997) Othello, edited by E.A.J. Honigmann, Walton-on-Thames: Nelson (the Arden edition. Third series). Sim, S. (ed.) (2001) The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism, London: Routledge. Turner, Victor (1974) Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ——— (1982) From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play, New York: PAJ Publications. ——— (1986) ‘Dewey, Dilthey, and Drama: An Essay in the Anthropology of Experience’, in Victor Turner and Edward Bruner (eds) The Anthropology of Experience, Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press. Watson, Ian (1993) Towards a Third Theatre, London: Routledge. ——— et al. (2002) Negotiating Cultures: Eugenio Barba and the Intercultural Debate, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Wright, Elizabeth (1984) Psychoanalytic Criticism: Theory and Practice, London: Routledge. Zarrilli, Phillip (1988) ‘For Whom Is the “Invisible” Not Visible’, Tulane Drama Review 32(1) (T117), Spring: 95–106. ——— (2000) Kathakali Dance Drama: Where Gods Come to Play, London: Routledge.

Video list Physical Training at Odin Teatret (1972) Directed by Torgeir Wethal. Produced by Odin Teatret Film. Vocal Training at Odin Teatret (1972) Directed by Torgeir Wethal. Produced by Odin Teatret Film.

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Jane Turner The Million (1979) Directed by Torgeir Wethal. Produced by Odin Teatret Film. The Gospel According to Oxyrhincus (1991) Directed by Torgeir Wethal. Produced by Odin Teatret Film. The Dead Brother (1993) Produced by Claudio Coloberti for Odin Teatret Film. The Echo of Silence (1993) Produced by Claudio Coloberti for Odin Teatret Film. Traces in the Snow (1994) Directed by Torgeir Wethal. Co-produced between Document Films, Athens, and Odin Teatret Film. Whispering Winds (1997) Produced by Claudio Coloberti for Odin Teatret Film. Kaosmos (1998) Directed by Peter Sykes. Co-produced between Peter Sykes Associates, Statens Filmcentral and Odin Teatret Film. Ego Faust (2001) Directed by Luigi Rossini. Produced by Cometa Film for Odin Teatret Film. Doña Musica’s Butterfies (2002) Produced by Lars Arnfred flm/Jan Rüsz.

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17 MNOUCHKINE (1939–) Judith G. Miller

17.1

Intellectual and artistic biography: Nomad of the imagination

Ariane Mnouchkine cultivates obvious paradoxes. Too many women are mixed up in her: the leader of a theatre company who founds with her student pals from the Sorbonne in 1964 the workers’ cooperative of the Théâtre du Soleil and the writer-poet of sweet and luminous phrases; the famboyant flmmaker of Molière and the meticulous caretaker of the Cartoucherie who can’t delegate anything; the visionary director and the actors’ nurse-confessor; the educator and the gourmande; the general and the little girl; the militant and the hedonist; the saint and the adventuress. . . . a character out of the ordinary for a company out of the normal! An out-of-the-ordinary story. (Pascaud 2005: 211–12)

Fabianne Pascaud’s robust description of French director Ariane Mnouchkine sums up not only the paradoxes Mnouchkine herself cultivates but also hints at the contradictions through which she has lived. For the last half of the twentieth century and beginning of the twentyfirst have seen both the heights of entrepreneurial artistic possibilities combined with utopian social dreams, and the dizzying multiplication of military aggression, internecine warfare, political exile, and genocide. In the especially sensitive way of most artists, Mnouchkine has resonated with all these historical moments, demonstrating, moreover, in her work with the Théâtre du Soleil a dedication to engaging with history that has never wavered. She has also evinced an extreme vulnerability and the potential for rough and tumble leadership, a selfess commitment to political militancy, and a desire for complete immersion in the creative realm. What has been constant is her unassailable practice of theater as an act of faith in humanity, gifting audience and actors with something “so incredibly rare” (Féral 1998: 159) that she has become France’s most celebrated contemporary director. Given the exceptionally male-dominated milieu of French theater, the story of her success is all the more compelling. A part of the generation that was born into the Second World War, Mnouchkine began her life with the defeat of France by German forces and in the moral quagmire which

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ensued when Germany occupied the country. She came into adulthood, however, in the midst of “Les trente glorieuses,” or the greatest stretch of prosperity and growth in French history. This halcyon period also came with attendant anxieties, notably the complications of transforming a mostly rural France into a suburban nation. She saw the decline of France as a world power with the end of French colonization and the ugliness of two colonial wars in the 1950s (Indochina and Algeria). But she also saw France become a key player in the European Union, striving toward European independence from American economic and cultural hegemony. To come to grips with Mnouchkine’s interconnected creative genius and political activism, it is crucial to examine her life, the life of her split centuries, and the theatrical currents within which she has situated and distinguished herself, becoming with the Théâtre du Soleil what critic Denis Bablet already saw in 1979, “the most important adventure in French theatre since Jean Vilar and his Théâtre National Populaire” (Bablet 1979: 88). In the following sections, we will endeavor to capture the way in which familial, political, and intellectual contexts have acted upon Mnouchkine, the artist, while sketching how she has also acted both upon and with her times.

Beginnings Her father’s daughter Ariane Mnouchkine came into the world and into a cosmopolitan and artistic household on March 3, 1939. Her father, Alexandre Mnouchkine, who was born in Russia and exiled with his family to Paris in 1925 as a consequence of the Russian Revolution, was to become one of France’s most important post-war flm producers. Her mother, the actor Jane Hannen, hailed from a British family of diplomats and performers, her own father having acted at the Old Vic with Lawrence Olivier. Although Mnouchkine speaks rarely of her mother, she credits her with great storytelling skills, fueling the young Ariane’s imagination by her ability to conjure up a perfectly credible fantasy world of Celtic spirits. Her father, on the other hand, clearly holds pride of place in her personal development: “At every moment of my life the only thing of which I was entirely certain was that my father loved me” (Pascaud 2005: 26–7). The mainstay of her life until his death in 1993, Alexandre Mnouchkine, with his production partner Georges Dancigers, helped fnance the beginning eforts of the Théâtre du Soleil, produced the flmed version of the Soleil’s frst international theatrical triumph, 1789 (1974), and contributed the last necessary funding for the expressionistic Molière (1976) – Ariane Mnouchkine’s only feature-length fction flm and one that can be read as a meditation on the glory of a theater company’s itinerant life and the inevitable intensity of a creative community. Alexandre Mnouchkine did far more, however, than support her eforts fnancially. He placed her at the heart of his own work by naming his company, “Les flms Ariane,” gave her a role in several of his ventures, including asking her to collaborate on the screenplay for The Man from Rio (1964), and became her best friend and most cantankerous sparring partner. From her frst contact as an adolescent with her father’s colorfully melodramatic and adventureflled flm work, a case in point being the swashbuckling Fanfan la Tulipe with Gérard Philippe (1952), it would seem that Mnouchkine developed an afnity for larger than life gestures and sumptuous and physically arresting images. She, herself, tells the family story that has haunted her since childhood and imprinted her aesthetic with her father’s experience. In 1919 and 1920, her father and his sister Galina spent two years endlessly zigzagging across Russia’s great north in an attempt to escape the ravages of the Russian Revolution. One night, from the window of the train in which they were riding, the two children saw an entire army frozen to death but still moving. Wrapped in 296

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the splendid golden vestments they had pillaged from a monastery, the dead soldiers advanced on small horses that would not stop trotting. Mnouchkine comments, “I think that that vision inscribed itself in [my father] and then in me forever. Revolution. War. Apocalypse. The mystery of those Asian faces” (Pascaud 2005: 45). In her assessment of the importance of this story, already fltered through her father’s imagination, we see how Mnouchkine thinks in images, how the visual world captures the emotions and concepts she holds dearest and most wishes to communicate. Mnouchkine also inherited from her father the courage to innovate and switch gears, as he did when he moved from producing surrealist fantasies (Cocteau’s The Eagle Has Two Heads, 1948) to crowd-pleasers (Cartouche, 1962) to the New Wave-afliated flms of Claude Lelouche, Live for Life, 1967. Like her father, Mnouchkine has been able to push the limits of what she knows about her art, in her case, recalibrating space, form, and time, without agonizing over whether or not the work will “sell.” Like him, Mnouchkine discovered from her work with flm technicians how much she loved laboring over details, becoming expert in all aspects of production, and working tirelessly wherever needed. Alexandre Mnouchkine’s world of writers, poets, arts’ entrepreneurs, creative and gutsy performers, and thinkers became hers forever. Indeed, the flm director Claude Lelouche, whose flms Alexandre Mnouchkine also distributed, joined Ariane Mnouchkine as partner in forming in 1979 the pressure group AIDA (l’Association Internationale des Droits d’Artistes) to call attention to dissident and radical artists silenced or jailed by repressive political regimes. Although her parents divorced when she was thirteen, Mnouchkine recalls a spirited and united young family defying the powers of destruction all around them. Hiding out in the early 1940s in Bordeaux from the German occupying forces, father, mother, and children watched from their yard the spectacle of falling bombs, rather than cowering in their basement. Destruction, nevertheless, engulfed her Jewish grandparents still living in Paris. Denounced by their concierge, they were deported and gassed, their story emblematic of some 83,000 Jews living in France at the time, victims of the Holocaust. Their fate haunts many of Mnouchkine’s later productions, either overtly – as in her only authored play, Méphisto (1979), adapted from Klaus Mann’s novel castigating the rise of Nazism in Hamburg in the 1930s, and in Les Éphémères (2006), a semi-autobiographical study of family memory and history – or covertly – as in the melancholic and eerie cemetery setting of Hélène Cixous’ AIDS-play The Perjured City (1994), or in the focus on other genocidal situations in productions such as The Terrible But Unfnished Story of Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia (Cixous 1985), l’Indiade (Cixous 1987), and Le Dernier Caravansérail (2003). Of her own Jewishness, Mnouchkine allows that she was never educated in a Jewish tradition, a lack of structure she found liberating. Yet, she also identifes with being Jewish: “I didn’t and still don’t have any Jewish culture. But the only problem is I feel Jewish every time a Jew does something terrible or when someone does something terrible to a Jew. That means almost all of the time” (Pascaud 2005: 38). Her frustration is yet another indication of her deep empathy for victims of discrimination, political violence, and marginalization, a sensitivity that manifests itself both in the subjects of her plays and in her activism. More concretely, she fnds herself evoking her Jewishness since the late 1990s, along with her support of Palestinian rights, as a response to the meanness contaminating the social feld in France over the Israeli–Palestinian situation.

Theater as a calling As much as being involved in the cinema work of her father helped educate and form her tastes, the compromises necessary to realizing a flm repulsed her. She had, however, long thrilled to the richness of the international theater productions she had experienced as a girl in the late 1950s at 297

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Paris’ Théâtre des Nations. She indeed went there to see Giorgio Strehler’s version of Pirandello’s Giants of the Mountain eleven times, as well as to have her frst taste of kathakali theater. Strehler’s precision choreography and luscious color sense and the physical mastery of the kathakali performers she had seen had already begun to have an impact on her own aesthetic when the choice of theater as a vocation hit her as a veritable coup de foudre during a study-abroad year at Oxford University. Working on several productions in 1957, under the direction of fellow students Ken Loach and John McGrath (later, a fervent partisan of the Théâtre du Soleil), convinced her that a life in the theater could provide the focus for her burgeoning desire to defne creativity as a collective efort and to use this creativity to afect some kind of change in the world. To these ends and while still a student of psychology at the Sorbonne, she founded ATEP (l’Association Théâtrale des Etudiants Parisiens) in 1959, under the patronage of Roger Planchon. A rival theater group to the much longer established student association for classical theater (Le Théâtre Antique de la Sorbonne), Mnouchkine’s group, which would later form the core of Le Théâtre du Soleil, sought to explore the contemporary rapport between theater and society. In the thick of the Algerian War, ATEP sponsored incendiary lectures by Jean-Paul Sartre and on Jean Genet’s dramas. It produced, in 1961 in the Arènes de Lutèce, Genghis Khan written by Mnouchkine’s early mentor Henri Bauchau. This was Mnouchkine’s frst and untutored attempt at a grand scale historical epic with outsized historical fgures. Of this period, the most signifcant and unquestionably life-changing experience was Mnouchkine’s decision at age twenty-three to take a year of and explore Asia. What she saw in 1962–3 would orient, especially after 1980, her approach to theatrical form. Hélène Cixous, company author and principle collaborator, thinks that Mnouchkine’s trip “was an initiatory voyage, [which] stayed with her as a book of images” (Prenowitz 2004: 19). The trip, the frst of many in years to come – improvised, serendipitous, sometimes frightening, always stimulating – brought her in contact with what she has come to believe are the roots of true theater: powerful iconic visual imagery, physical acumen based on intensive training and imitation of master players, joyous and direct contact with an audience for whom the experience of theater is as necessary to life as water. Traveling alone most of the time, she took some astonishing photos of people and performers in Japan, India, Pakistan, Cambodia, Taiwan, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Iran. She would meet up occasionally with her friend Martine Franck, who was to become a lifelong artistic partner and the ofcial photographer of Le Théâtre du Soleil. Perhaps their aesthetic complementarity – Mnouchkine’s opulent costuming and vibrant colors and Franck’s chiaroscuro lighting efects and dramatic framing – derives from that time.

The rising of the Théâtre du Soleil Like many other European theater companies emerging in the 1960s, the Théâtre du Soleil was created in reaction to what was felt to be a hyper-commercialization of theater and thus a loss of theater’s ability to move and instruct audiences. Many youthful artists believed that theater had become, on the whole, just another object of consumption: “Theatre can’t make up its mind what it is. It’s boring. It has nothing more to say. It’s lost the audience” (Carré 1985: 147). However, unlike most of its sister companies in France, the Soleil set out not only to shake up the themes but also to revolutionize the institutional and creative aspects of French theater. The members were indeed laughed at when explaining what they wanted to do, even charged by the actors’ union with amateurism. Nevertheless, in 1964 they forged ahead with plans to establish a workers’ cooperative and to create texts adhering to the actors’ real-life engagement with society and politics. Formed as a cooperative by the original nine members, with each member contributing 900 francs, the Soleil practiced (and still practices) the same salary for each member – in 2017, 2,000 298

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euros a month – regardless of the kind of work done, with apprentices making 1,650 euros. In the frst phase of their creative research during the summer of 1964, they traveled to the rural Ardèche region of France to raise sheep and do theater, experimenting with a Stanislavskian approach to characterization. They returned to Paris for their frst production, Gorki’s The Petty Bourgeoisie (1964–5), a kind of exorcism of what they might have become had they hewed to the expectations of their social class. Moving toward championing a collective approach to creating texts, they turned to Gautier’s Captain Fracasse in 1966, with Mnouchkine and company member Philippe Léotard writing scenes based on improvisations culled from specifc moments in the novel. Life was still stressful. Despite the success of the boldly performed, cabaret-like Fracasse, actors and technicians had to have day jobs to survive. They could only rehearse at night. Nevertheless, given the French government’s exceptional interest in theater in the 1960s, it was relatively easy in terms of bureaucracy for the Soleil to get launched. The climate created by Culture Minister André Malraux, who encouraged the arts as crucial to national prestige, meant that there was a cadre of professional experts ready to see all new young companies’ work and promote it. If deemed worthy, as was the Soleil, a young company was modestly subsidized. The Soleil thus received enough money from the government in 1967 to pay for sets and costumes, and eventually in 1970 a leg up when the time came to fnd a permanent home. Mnouchkine and the Soleil also benefted in their frst years from generous godfathers, most of whom would later appear in cameo roles in her flm Molière. Seasoned theater men who believed in the company and helped with moral support, theater space, and advice (Jean Vilar, Jean-Louis Barrault, Paolo Grassi of Milan’s Piccolo Theater, Roger Planchon, and theater critic Alfred Simon, among others) remained unwavering in their enthusiasm for the new vision of theater the company represented.

evolution within the théâtre du soleil From this early period, Mnouchkine’s role within the company has evolved. She has held the Soleil together, weathered the departure of all the other original members, and emerged as the teacher, inspirer, and “mother.” From 1980 on, she has regularly sponsored free workshops to keep her own actors growing and also to discover new talent for the next production. She has also spearheaded the transformation of the Soleil’s theater and the complex which houses it, the Cartoucherie de Vincennes, from an abandoned armaments factory into a principal site for experimental theater in France. Hers has been a reclamation project that has given back to Paris, through an enormous investment of manual labor and artistic meaning, a wondrous space on the city’s eastern fringes that had been scheduled in the early 1970s to be destroyed. In 1970, when the Soleil, with the complicity of Paris’ municipal council, squatted their three-hangared locale, the members were alone with their problems of plumbing, heating, infrastructure, and transportation. Today the Cartoucherie comprises fve fully functioning and cooperating theaters in a vast, welcoming, and bucolic park, and a theater training school, ARTA, L’Association de Recherche de Traditions de l’Acteur, that Mnouchkine founded in 1989 to ofer workshops in non-Western theater techniques.

Mnouchkine and her times Mnouchkine, the Soleil, and sociopolitics To recount the history of the Théâtre du Soleil is to take note of many of the major political upsets and events of the 1960s to the present. The company has evolved in symbiosis with, and in reaction to, the so-called Revolution of May 68; the coming to power of the Socialists with 299

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the government of François Mitterand (1981–95); the fall of the Berlin Wall and the decline of communism (late 1980s); and the end of colonialism and the rise of postcolonial geopolitical turmoil (1970s to the present). The latter includes the formation of a new Europe, a forced and often illegal immigration that is shifting the cultural boundaries of peoples and nations, and a fear of terrorism that is warping the world’s imagination. Of these enumerated events, it was undoubtedly the upheaval of May 68 that crystallized the early mission of the company.

May 68 and the Théâtre du Soleil Just four years old, the Théâtre du Soleil was performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream when a combined student and worker social-action movement shut down universities, factories, state transportation and communication systems, and theaters – and nearly toppled the conservative government of the Second World War hero, General Charles De Gaulle. France, already in diffculty over its inadequate educational system, and in the throes of an identity crisis over its role in a world dominated by an economically voracious United States, erupted in a series of strikes, rallies, and demonstrations. Students, in particular, were incensed over the atrocities of the war in Vietnam. Protests ranged from serious and volatile discussions between diferent Marxist factions in designated open forums to anarchist performances and acts of “liberation” (from wildcat postering to torching cars) in the streets. Like other Left-leaning theater groups (most of France’s theater world at the time, in fact), the Soleil participated in the events of May through what was termed an “active strike.” Closing down its performances of Shakespeare, it chose to restage in striking factories Arnold Wesker’s The Kitchen – its 1967 production that had proven to be a watershed experience in developing physical discipline, in part thanks to lessons learned from Mnouchkine via her classes with Jacques Lecoq. The tightly choreographed movements of the kitchen workers had brought critics and spectators in droves to the Cirque Médrano, making The Kitchen one of the most remarked upon productions of the 1967 season and alleviating some of the company’s fnancial worries. In committing to the May 68 movement, the Soleil’s goal was twofold: entertain the striking workers of Citroen, Kodak, and Renault – the factories where the company deployed its talents – and animate discussions about working conditions in highly stressful situations. The big commercial kitchen of the play provided an analogy with assembly-line work. Through performing, the Soleil helped the workers maintain their strike action in three weeks of direct contact. The company not only entertained but also listened to workers’ concerns. The Soleil’s generally positive experience during May resulted in an awareness of the benefts of including members of the public in the process of creative work and an enthusiasm for delving into the political conundrums of the times. However, in the wake of the failure of May 68 to afect any concrete political change, the company, like many progressive arts groups, also felt it had to confront the impotency of the artist’s role in society. Thus, in its immediate post-68 production, Les Clowns (1969), the Soleil – then some twenty-three members strong – self-consciously explored forms of individual creativity through improvised physical comedy. Mnouchkine led the way, selecting the fnal improvisations, and establishing the order of what became a satirical collage. The resulting production was polemical and only moderately successful. On the other hand, the profoundly meaningful sojourn that had preceded the show in the summer of 1968 and that had taken place in the abandoned salt works built by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux at Arc-en-Senans had allowed the company to explore some of the ideals of the 68 revolt, notably communal existence and collective creation. By inviting local people to 300

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rehearsals, Mnouchkine had also experienced frst hand the pleasure of improvising before a specifc audience. Moreover, she retained from this experience the responsiveness of audience and actors to commedia dell’arte masks, and the possibility of letting go of detailed control to observe quietly and later comment on the actors’ creativity. The lessons of Arc-en-Senans contributed to the realization of what are still among the most acclaimed and infuential of the Soleil’s productions, 1789 and 1793 (1970–3), the two-part collective rewriting of the French Revolution meant to help grasp the functioning of politics and economics through a deconstruction of the reigning myth of an egalitarian French nation. Responding to the debates unleashed during May 68, these two pieces denounce the rise of the bourgeoisie and the squelching of the popular classes after the French Revolution and explore the process by which a popular democracy might be able to take place.

long-term effects of may 68 on mnouchkine May 68 can be understood as a point of coalescence for a number of important ideas alive in the French (and more generally global) intellectual frmament of the late 1950s through at least the late 1970s. We can posit certain of these as having a crucial impact on Mnouchkine’s thinking and thus on the functioning of the Théâtre du Soleil. In the ubiquitous idea of process becoming more important than product, a notion that critic Roland Barthes would formulate as “writing replacing literature,” we can see Mnouchkine’s ability to spend months of rehearsal time improvising a production, putting of a start date, and even jeopardizing the fnancial health of the ensemble. This led her, for example, to produce a collective work in 1975 which she characterized as a “draft” (L’Age d’Or: “première ébauche”). Furthermore, to this day, Mnouchkine does not see her productions as “packages,” but rather as encounters between two creative groups in a process of exchange. Basic to Mnouchkine’s approach to theater is the sense that theater work should not be alienating: It should insert the individual into a social whole, with everyone, and especially every artist, given the opportunity to speak out, to become a force for social change. This striving resonates with the hold that Brechtian theory had in the late 1950s and 1960s on the thinking of French theater people. The utopian thrust of a fully egalitarian society, including the new activist spectator theorized by Louis Althusser’s writings on Brecht’s theater, permeated the way in which the Soleil structured itself and imagined its public. Nevertheless, Mnouchkine, all the while positioning herself on the Left, never proclaimed herself as part of a specifc political movement nor has she ever cited Bertolt Brecht as a primary inspiration for her work. At the beginning we were “leftish,” we knew we were, but we were not Brechtian nor communist. We were just looking for progress, freedom, and justice. We didn’t have an ideology as such. But we were idealists. That means that we were not taken very seriously because we did not pretend to have a very strict Maoist, Trotskyte or Stalinist ideology. We were not leftists, just “de gauche,” and we still are. We never obeyed any dogma. (Delgado and Heritage 1996: 184) While on the “Left,” Mnouchkine has held fercely onto her political autonomy and individualism. In this, we might also see the call for liberation from all dogma that underscored the events of 1968. The events of May 68 and the ambient progressive climate that continued to dominate the world of French arts in the 1970s and 1980s encouraged the Soleil, with Ariane Mnouchkine 301

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in the leadership role, to activate a desire for commitment to community, to work toward a form of coherency between artistic production and self-defnition, and to conduct itself so as to insert its productions into the fabric of sociopolitical reality. Despite her musing about not being taken seriously as a young artist, Ariane Mnouchkine, in the French tradition of a Zola or a Sartre, emerged after May as a public intellectual, and thus a force with which to reckon. These days, everyone pays attention to her pronouncements on world politics as well as on art.

Political activism From the 1970s onwards, Mnouchkine and the Soleil have been on board with other activists for a range of social actions and street theater performances. For example, in 1973 the company created a sketch on behalf of the prison support group headed by Michel Foucault (Groupe d’Informations Prisons) seeking better conditions for prisoners. In 1981, the Soleil demonstrated for the Polish liberation movement, Solidarity. With AIDA, the international pressure group for artists’ rights, Mnouchkine and the company have produced statements, sit-ins, and public spectacles in support, to name a few instances, of the then dissident Czech playwright Václev Haval (1981), Argentinian desaparecidos (1981), and Algerian artists caught up in civil war (1991). In 1971, Mnouchkine herself signed the now famous petition for legalized abortion sponsored by Simone de Beauvoir, among others, in which over 300 prominent French women declared they had undergone illegal abortions. In 1995, she went on a thirty-day hunger strike to protest France’s non-intervention in the ethnic killings in Bosnia. In one of the Soleil’s most sustained actions, the company ofered refuge in 1996 to 382 mostly Malian illegal immigrants who had been expulsed from the St Bernard Church in Paris where they had sought asylum. The company’s collective production, Et soudain des nuits d’éveil (1997), mirrors this experience by confronting the characters of theater-makers with the characters of illegal immigrants who invade the formers’ theater, only to eventually return home. The Soleil’s 2003 collective piece, Le Dernier Caravansérail resulted from Mnouchkine’s personal investigations, while on tour with her production of Hélène Cixous’ Drums on the Dam (1999), into the stories of Central Asian refugees and their lives in holding camps. Mnouchkine has integrated into her company as administrators, technicians, actors, and builders, political exiles from nearly every corner of the Earth, thus living the international camaraderie and understanding she promotes in her activism. In 2017, the company included refugee or exiled artists from Cambodia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Tibet, and Argentina.

Mnouchkine in the 1980s and beyond The long-awaited victory of the French Left in the presidential elections of 1981 helped foreground the cultural importance of Ariane Mnouchkine and the artistic worth of the company. Socialist President François Mitterand named Jack Lang to head the Ministry of Culture, which meant for the arts in general, and for the Soleil in particular, a major boost in state subsidies. The Socialists, like almost all French rulers since at least Louis XIV, believed that investing in the arts would enhance France’s prestige in the world. Lang accordingly doubled the Soleil’s subvention to 4,000,000 francs. Today, the Théâtre du Soleil is one of the most heavily subsidized private theater companies in France, receiving funds from the Ministry of Culture, the regional government of Ile-de-France, and from the city of Paris, which owns the Cartoucherie and heavily subsidizes the rent paid by the Soleil. The government’s largesse allowed the company to breathe a little easier: It no longer needed to resort to as many periods of unemployment benefts nor to selling tickets to loyal spectator/ 302

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sponsors several months before productions began. The company was also increasingly invited to prestige international arts festival, to cite a few: Avignon (Méphisto 1980, The Shakespeare Cycle 1984, Le Dernier Caravansérail 2003); Jerusalem (l’Indiade 1988); the Brooklyn Academy of Music (The House of Atreus Cycle 1992); the Los Angeles Olympics’ Arts Festival (The Shakespeare Cycle 1984); Lincoln Center (Le Dernier Caravansérail 2005), (Les Éphémères, 2009); and The Park Avenue Armory (Une Chambre en Inde, 2017). Since 1970, the Soleil has, in fact, been involved in major touring, primarily throughout Europe and North America. During 1992–3, for example, The House of Atreus Cycle went to Germany, Sicily, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, as well as the United States. With Drums on the Dam, the troupe took on a long tour of Asia, and traveled in Australia and New Zealand for almost a year (2001–2). Such movement meant, and will continue to necessitate, supervising and accommodating over ffty people and several tons of scenery and costumes for each production. As much in political harmony as Mnouchkine may have felt during the relatively long tenure of the Socialist Party (until 1995), she did not let down her guard in terms of political scandal or international outrage. In 1994, for example, in an angry and contentious mood, she and author Hélène Cixous in their production, The Perjured City, gave dramatic form to the accusation against the government of trafcking in tainted blood. From 1980 on, she has, moreover, enlarged her concerns from the French sphere to a much larger geopolitical arena. Her productions have thus encompassed war-torn Cambodia (Sihanouk 1985); postcolonial India and Pakistan (l’Indiade 1987); and North Africa – in a redrafted Tartufe (1995). This last production, with its warnings about Islamic fundamentalism, also hints at a France that can no longer be defned in outmoded nationalist and cultural terms. In Le Dernier Caravansérail, which continues the theme of exile found in Et Soudain des nuits d’éveil, Mnouchkine represents the slippery boundaries of refugees on the move. From Central Asia en route toward Europe and Australia, characters in Le Dernier Caravansérail display one of the prominent faces of humanity in the twenty-frst century: the political and economic migrant. Other facets of this ailing contemporary humanity are foregrounded in Les Éphémères’ concern with dysfunctional families and loss of family memory and in Une Chambre en Inde’s depiction of potential ecological and geopolitical apocalypse.

mnouchkine: spokesperson for cultural regeneration Through the expansion of her subject materials, Mnouchkine indicates how in tune she is with the shifting contours of geopolitical reality. Her theater now re-situates France within a globalized network: Her questions no longer focus on the distance between social classes in a relatively comfortable world (1789), or even the integration of former colonized immigrants into a French context (L’Age d’Or), but rather on the unpredictable and uncontrollable fow of human beings from feuding, repressive, and transitioning regions into the so-called developed world. In Le Dernier Caravansérail and Une Chambre en Inde, Mnouchkine even decenters what is most crucial to French identity, the French language. Actors speak in Farsi, Dari, and pidgin in the former, while the play is supertitled in French. In the latter, they speak in Tamil, 5 Arabic, English, Russian, Japanese, and also, in French: Non-French languages are supertitled. The make-up of the company refects this widening geopolitical reach. As of 2017, there were some seventy members from twenty-fve countries, speaking nineteen diferent languages. Eight Afghan actors, formed through diferent workshops given by the Soleil in Kabul and Paris, ofcially joined the company in 2016. Mnouchkine situates her international company within her understanding of France today: “[Having] so many nationalities in the troupe comes from the fact that it is French theatre and thus a direct refection of what France is now” (Féral 2001: 98). Mnouchkine’s France, like 303

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her company, is cosmopolitan, open to a multitude of cultures, and unconstrained by aesthetic tradition. In this, she straddles a current divide in French political thinking. Unquestionably, in the camp of Republican France, committed to democracy, equality, and the separation of church and state, her work and her outlook are, nonetheless, infected with the possibility of multiculturalism, even a sort of utopian inclusiveness, a vision permeating the creation of her 2010 Les Naufragés du Fol Espoir. This vision is already evident in the flm she made with Hélène Cixous for French television in 1989 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of The Declaration of the Rights of Man. The flm, La Nuit miraculeuse, in a kind of apotheosis of the progressive humanist dream, places delegates to the eighteenth-century Revolutionary Assembly in conversation with Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr, hassidim, disabled people, sign language interpreters, and many more representatives of particular social groups. Aware of the changing demographics and demands of recent immigrants who do not want to assimilate to “Frenchness” that is defned and naturalized as white, Christian, or European, Mnouchkine performs in recent pieces the tensions inherent not in the clash of cultures, but rather in the morass of fundamentalist nationalist and religious thinking. Her Théâtre du Soleil constitutes the kind of association of likeminded peoples that, since 1992, has largely replaced clearly defned political parties in France.

Theatrical infuences and affnities Mnouchkine has mainly absorbed her training as a theater director through what she has read and what she has seen. This includes, especially throughout her adolescence, the great melodramatic novels of the nineteenth century: Hugo, Dickens, Verne, and Hardy, and the epic Japanese flms of Kurosawa and Mizoguchi. She claims as her only masters the extraordinary experiences of seeing, as a girl, kathakali and Balinese dancers in Paris and, later, her 1962 pilgrimage to Asia, where she reveled in bunraku, Noh, and kabuki, among other performance styles: “Without knowing it, without even wanting it, I was amassing the treasure that would change my entire way of seeing, of living” (Pascaud 2005: 51). With the notable and important exception of a year-long series of classes with Jacques Lecoq (1966–7), Mnouchkine has had little formal theater education. She became a director by directing. From her pungent discussions of theater, it is, however, clear that she has garnered vast personal resources from voracious readings in classics of the stage. Insatiably curious and entrepreneurial, she has also invited frequently, both in the cadre of the school she founded, ARTA, and outside of it, numerous international masters of theatrical and performance techniques to perform and run workshops at the Cartoucherie. Under ARTA’s patronage and through the coordination of its co-directors Jean-François Dusigne and Lucia Bensasson, both former actors with the Soleil, professionals of kathakali, Topeng, Amerindian dancing, Indian martial arts, Chinese opera, and other traditional forms have been coming to the Cartoucherie four times a year for four-week stints since 1989. Mnouchkine has clearly profted from interactions with these professionals, as they have benefted from seeing her work. What has emerged as Mnouchkine’s aesthetic in her productions since 1980 is a blending and reinterpretation of Asian techniques with the physical discipline and mask work she has always practiced. Her “style” is, consequently, very much her own, a theatrical language both transporting and empowering, but not easily reproducible.

Mnouchkine’s European genealogy Despite, or perhaps because of this mixing and interculturalism, we are able to suggest a European theatrical genealogy for Mnouchkine. To do so, we must return to the early part of the 304

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twentieth century – with its somewhat contradictory quests for new forms to achieve a sense of aesthetic transcendence and also new means to bring theater to society’s less privileged. Mnouchkine can thus be placed within the double heritage of thinkers and practitioners such as Artaud (1896–1948), Craig (1872–1966), Meyerhold (1874–1940), and later Lecoq (1921–99), on the one hand – with their emphasis on formal experimentation – and, on the other, within the popular theater movement, especially the eforts of Jean Vilar (1912–71) and his commitment to theater as education. Jacques Copeau (1879–1949), with a foot in either camp, will become for Mnouchkine a kind of idealized mentor, someone she begins citing as early as 1975. She prefers, nonetheless, to classify herself and her generation as children of Jean Vilar, heeding his call to make theater a public service in order to secure the world’s future: “We were born from that post-war spirit, those people who thought about peace after victory” (Pascaud 2005: 27).

“primitivism,” formal experimentation, and the search for theater From the end of the nineteenth century, and in sync with a generalized European arts movement, part of the French art world has sought a way to uncover what the veneer of civilization has potentially hidden. To put this another way, many artists have hoped to re-fnd the soul of art they believed buried by bourgeois and industrialized society. Some perceived this soul in what was considered to be “primitive” art from non-Western countries. The opening of the Far East to trade and the colonial conquests of major European powers brought cultural forms to Paris that were to have a profound impact on arts practitioners. For example, the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris focused attention on the Japanese performer Sadda Yacco, whose kabuki-inspired movements suggested a whole other way of performing in space, a means of inscribing emotion and meaning through focusing energy and attention on the body. Searching for “reality” beyond the commitment to reason and logic, which the Enlightenment project had privileged, suspicious of the construction of a real which did not include dream states and intuition, theater-makers pursued contact with arts from Asia as a means of inventing a theater both multi-layered and emotionally truthful. Antonin Artaud, once considered a holy pariah and now the best-known among those artists enthralled by the Paris-based Colonial Exposition of 1931, interpreted the Balinese dancers he saw there as possessing the secret of what theater had to become if it were to be true again: emotionally contagious, physically communicative, even ecstatic, and estranging – that is, liberating the actor and the spectator from quotidian reality. His essays, collected in The Theatre and Its Double (1938, translated into English in 1958), found a receptive audience among major experimental theater people in the 1960s. Directors such as Peter Brook and Jerzy Grotowski, in their respective laboratory theaters in London and Wroclaw, developed approaches to making theater that incorporated Artaud’s stress on the actor as a medium and that, under Artaudian promptings, placed the dark side of the human psyche onstage. Although Mnouchkine only began to read Artaud after several years of doing theater and has never claimed him as a source, we can fnd Artaudian echoes throughout her work, as, indeed, throughout the experimental work of countless companies formed in the 1960s and 1970s. To cite the most obvious, we note parallels between Artaud’s emphasis on sensory stimulation in order to engage fully one’s public with Mnouchkine’s kaleidoscopic use of music, color, lighting, and movement: This is constant throughout her mises-en-scène. Moreover, Artaud’s exhilarating and confounding writings underlie and bolster theoretically her move away from textual centeredness to performances that take their meaning notably through gesture, sound, and spatial 305

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confgurations. Mnouchkine has firted with bracketing texts and giving them secondary status during her entire career. She has also refned her physical work to promote a kind of actor-athlete-dancer reminiscent of Artaud’s “athlete of the heart.” Mnouchkine’s stunningly ft and balletic actors are not without recalling Edward Gordon Craig’s fascination with the marionette – an iconic form intriguing to Artaud, as well. What better vehicle for exteriorizing psychic states and focusing on myths and magic, for reinforcing a ritualistic pattern of performance, for taking distance from the everyday, for heightening the sense of “presentness?” Mnouchkine’s work with actors, especially since The Shakespeare Cycle (1990–2), would seem to realize a dream of theater evoked by the multitalented director Craig, in which the focus on discipline and performance prevents the actors’ egos from permeating the characters. Actors become, instead, part of a semiotic language wherein space, volume, lights, symbolic movements, and music are the central sense-givers. Like Craig, Mnouchkine would evacuate domesticated acting conventions to install creation and invention in their place. She would go after “universal” meaning rather than portray individual psychological trauma. In her emphasis on light and shadow, on mass and absence, we also see suggestions of the expressionist flms Mnouchkine so loved as a child. We might also locate here certain afnities with Vsevolod Meyerhold’s principles of biomechanics – a coded system of movements and gestures meant to elicit certain specifc emotional reactions from the public. Mnouchkine, indeed, acknowledges a certain interest in Meyerhold’s theories, taking inspiration not only from his physical work but also in 1789 from his thoughts on street theater production and in Le Dernier Caravansérail and Les Éphémères from his use of glides and stage wagons. Of this associative genealogy, the only person with whom Mnouchkine actually worked and whose training, as mentioned earlier, she carried back in the evenings to sessions with her own actors during rehearsals for The Kitchen (1966–7) was Jacques Lecoq. She credits him with being a major modern infuence in re-situating theater within the actor’s body: More than anyone else, Lecoq understood what a body was all about. Before he taught in France, very many [theatre] people still believed that an actor’s only instruments were memory, voice, and words. (Pascaud 2005: 25) More of a teacher than a theoretician or practitioner, Lecoq, from his school in Paris (1956–99), has oriented the work of some of the most important theater artists and companies of contemporary times, including Théâtre de Complicité in the United Kingdom. Mnouchkine would seem to have borrowed from Lecoq a training vocabulary used consistently in her workshops and rehearsals (e.g. “corporeal writing,” “playing v. interpreting,” a “state” – or the character’s on-stage emotional being; . . . .). She has also adopted his passion for improvised mask work. Her commitment to group improvisations and to involving all actors in the process of seeing and selecting are also techniques we can locate in Lecoq’s training repertory. Unlike Lecoq, Mnouchkine has never trained her actors in neutral masks, fnding rather, in the commedia dell’arte forms she studied with him in the late 1960s, or in the Balinese forms adopted later on, a better approximation, from the outset, for the models of the modern human comedy she has always sought to create. Individuated masks are also, she feels, a better prompt for the narratives she builds: Commedia masks in particular make evident the truths about life’s hierarchies that people do not readily see. Reverberations of what can be thought of as Lecoq’s universe can be gleaned most clearly in early Soleil productions: 1789 and l’Age d’Or, most particularly – especially in the latter’s elaborate mask work, in which actors developed modern 306

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characters (an immigrant construction worker, a capitalist, a feminist) on frames of Harlequin, Pantaloon, and Pulchinello.

theater as public service and educational tool Theater’s impetus to instruct is as old as theater itself, an impetus, however, frequently taking a backseat to entertainment. At the beginning of the twentieth century, French theater-makers from political and educational backgrounds sought to wrest theater from what was considered to be the dominant production mode: self-involved and superfcial divertissement – vaudevilles, triangular trysts, and operettas. Moreover, this theater targeted only one kind of spectator: someone with the leisure time and money to be able to aford an evening out. Ideologically oriented theater-makers, such as the pacifst Romain Rolland, endeavored as early as 1907 to bring theater to “the people” as a way of including the working classes in the artistic celebrations of French culture and identity. This strand of support for what was called “popular theater” led, eventually, to the creation of the frst Théâtre National Populaire (1920) in an efort to help build the nation by democratizing culture. Later championed by the government of the Popular Front in 1936, the popular theater movement culminated in two related actions: the reincarnation in 1951 of the Théâtre National Populaire under Jean Vilar in Paris’ Palais de Chaillot, and the post-war push for decentralized and subsidized theaters and maisons de la culture throughout France. Vilar devoted his considerable talents to creating a theater that would bring both the greatest theater classics and the best new theater to a broad swathe of France’s population. To achieve this result, he practiced reduced prices, close cooperation with union-afliated cultural committees in various factories, inexpensive meals in the theater itself, programs which also included theater texts, and talk backs with actors and directors. He expanded the reach of his work by initiating, with the help of local Provençal political authorities, the Avignon Theater Festival – a remarkably successful move that, since its inception in 1947, has helped ballast the project to create subsidized theaters throughout the French provinces. Growing up in the efervescence of Vilar’s passion and artistic benchmarks, Mnouchkine inherited from him a blueprint on how to best reach non-elite audiences. She also claimed for her own Vilar’s efort to make theater part of every citizen’s right to culture as well as his dedication to theater as part of a national conversation. Mnouchkine had always admired Vilar and the feeling was mutual: He even considered her a promising candidate to direct, after his retirement, the Avignon Festival. His was, however, a theater of reconciliation. As Mnouchkine developed, faithful, too, to her generation and its enthusiasm for the Brechtian-inspired and infuential theater review, Théâtre Populaire (1953–64), she leaned, at least in the frst phase of her work, toward a more overtly politicized theater, one that would hold up to inspection the capitalist system, one that would involve “the people” in its creation. In addition to incorporating in her institutional practice many of Vilar’s techniques for building new audiences, Mnouchkine has also, like Vilar, revisited from time to time great classics of the Western theater, recasting them in light of the contemporary scene (The Shakespeare Cycle; The House of Atreus Cycle; Tartufe; Macbeth, 2014). Mnouchkine and Vilar intersect also in the use of a vast, empty playing space in which the geography of the staging and the physical virtuosity of the actors bear the weight of meaning. In this latter similarity, we also see the shadow of Jacques Copeau, whose vision of theater has been, to a certain extent, realized in the work of Ariane Mnouchkine. He, too, before Vilar and before Mnouchkine, invented a fxed theatrical space that in its emptiness could become the site of all possibilities. And in the short run of his innovative Vieux Columbier (1913–14), and his long experimental phase in the Burgundian 307

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countryside (1924–36), he was able to put into practice exercises for creating a modern commedia dell’arte form. Part of the group of innovative artists and intellectuals connected to the literary review La Nouvelle Review Française (NRF), Copeau, and Copellian ideas, have played since 1910 a central role in orienting the direction of French theater – and this despite how frequently his own career was interrupted by the vicissitudes of war and politics. His disciples and students have included such noted interwar directors as Charles Dullin and Louis Jouvet. His descendants – relatives, such as Jean Dasté and spiritual sons, such as Jean-Marie Serreau – have been mainstays in the decentralization movement, a movement Copeau foresaw in his Burgundian workshops in the 1920s. Indeed, today there is a remarkable family of theater workers, all in some way descended from Copeau – still administering, acting, and directing in decentralized theaters throughout France. With the NRF team, adepts of the modernist spirit, Copeau sought to make the arts a means for transcendent understanding and pleasure, a principle key to discovering cultural “others,” including the others inside each human being. His project was visionary, featuring the creation of a fellowship of actors dedicated to working together – exquisitely physically trained in order to build collectively a new, modern comedy with symbolic characters capturing the major conficts of the times. Copeau’s central position as director and guru shored up the role of the theatrical director in France and helped pave the way for the kind of director’s theater that has emerged since the 1970s. Mnouchkine fts into these patterns while infecting them. Fiercely committed to theater work which grapples with the most urgent social and political questions, she also will not work without a collective. But Mnouchkine is much less the guru than was Copeau. She connects symbiotically with her actors. Nevertheless, her collective would not exist without her authority: She is not only the sole theater director, but also both the artistic and administrative director, involved in all processes of decision-making at all levels.

Mnouchkine, contemporary French theater, and visionary peers It is not an exaggeration to say that of the several fourishing art forms in France, theater has been especially crucial since the Second World War to the country’s understanding of itself and articulation of its values. The extraordinary formal experimentation that took hold of the French theater world in the 1950s expressed as well as anything the existential anguish of the post-war period and demonstrated France’s fecund reception of exiled or wandering artists and intellectuals. Almost simultaneously, Brecht and Brechtian theatrical ideals found enthusiastic audiences and adepts for political speculation and activism in order to promote democracy and reign in capitalist expansion. The several new venues for broadening notions of what theater might be – the Théâtre des Nations (1957–75), The Festival d’Automne (1972–), the Théâtre de l’Europe (1981–) – have welcomed companies from around the world and have had a profound impact within France on intercultural collaboration, multicultural perspectives, and the modeling of what a fully integrated European cultural and political scene might be. At the beginning of the twenty-frst century, theater in France is still thriving, grandly supported by state cofers in the provinces as well as in Paris, well represented in prestigious international festival circuits, and newly claiming a place as a disciplinary concentration for secondary students. The debate launched by Director Antoine Vitez in the 1980s on just what constitutes theater has also pitted directors against authors against actors, choreographers, and devisors, as each stretches conventions and attempts to posit new rules for what makes up a theatrical text, a theatrical performer, or a theatrical act. Meanwhile, the intellectual passion for “theatricality” as a concept has led to myriad meditations on performance and performativity as the only ways of 308

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grasping reality. Theater as material construction has thus given way in some circles to “theater” as a set of structures for understanding communication. Within these debates and experimentations, Mnouchkine has remained remarkably true to her earliest sense of theater as a service to a community – a forum for justice but also a reconnection to the universe. Hers has always been a dual commitment to regenerate theater and society, while the “masked bodies” of her actors have signaled a genuine breakthrough in the development of Western performance practice, the culmination of something desired but never fully realized by Artaud and Copeau. Through her focus on actors and her penchant for theatrical allegory, she has broken completely with the remnants of European theater’s dependency on realism, privileging a total theater experience. She also continues to feed an immense ambition which is no less than to capture the world by feshing out in metaphorical form patterns of struggle that mark our times. Consequently, her work, as discussed earlier, has evolved thematically and structurally in response to the acute crisis of identity experienced by France and, beyond that, by human communities caught in the shifting tides of new geopolitics. No one in France is working as Ariane Mnouchkine does today, although some directors, Joël Pommerat being a case in point, sometimes create their shows through improvisations with long-term companion actors. Of the older generation, Peter Brook, who promotes interculturalism as Mnouchkine does, has reduced the scope of his productions. Her much admired contemporary, Patrice Chéreau, who shared an aesthetic of trembling intensity, turned his talents primarily to flm and opera. Until 2013, only a handful of women, Brigitte Jacque-Wadjman, Julie Brochen and Macha Makeïef among them, have run grand scale theatrical institutions. In 2013, the French government began to make an efort to appoint more women to the some forty centres dramatiques it subsidizes, but Mnouchkine is alone in terms of the sheer weight of responsibility she shoulders. Mnouchkine can certainly be linked to Peter Brook in terms of the inter- and transcultural experimentation she undertakes, in terms of her multicultural company, and in terms of the mythic opulence of her productions. Brook’s work, however, has a mystical edge that keeps it hovering, in most cases, beyond the immediately political. Of the younger generation of international directors whose work bears comparison with Mnouchkine – either because of its grandeur, its creative impetus and history, or its visual excitement – most, such as Robert Lepage, Simon McBurney, and Peter Sellars, are more theoretically anchored and technologically savvy. They foreground their incorporation of video, electronics, and mixed media, while asking how humans construct the real. Mnouchkine emphasizes elements of epic storytelling and dance theater, with the actor as linchpin of the experience, pushed to his or her creative acme. Nevertheless, she, too, fascinates her audiences, especially recently, with meditations on the complex relationship between representation and reality. A notable example of this was her 2010 production, Les Naufragés du Fol Espoir, in which a mid-century socialist-leaning collective makes a silent flm based on a Verne novel that rehearses both the values they abhor and those they admire. The fction they create both endangers and enriches the life they share. One can ascribe to Mnouchkine several direct artistic descendants in France, notably Philippe Caubère, who has made his career in part by parodying her in cabaret numbers, or other Soleil actors, such as Simon Abkarian, Hélène Cinque, Georges Bigot, and Jean-Claude Penchenat, who, upon leaving the Soleil have created their own companies, inevitably colored by their experience with Mnouchkine. Her infuence is felt everywhere there are students of theatre, including among the some 2000 people she has trained in her free workshops. In 2013, she was named the ofcial godmother of the entering class to ENSATT, the prestigious national theatre school in Lyon. She frequently addresses, with the ferceness that characterizes her own commitment, emerging French actors 309

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and directors, encouraging their craft and their responsibility to the world as artists. Her legacy will clearly continue to permeate the spirit not only of theatrical production in France but also throughout the world, especially given the ongoing initiative of l’Ecole Nomade, a traveling Soleil workshop that has since 2015 trained actors in Chile, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and India. Furthermore, Mnouchkine and members of her company have worked closely and tirelessly with aspiring theatre professionals in Afghanistan, Cambodia, and India, helping to create the Théâtre Aftaab (or Sun Theater) in Kabul in 2005, sponsoring and mentoring an art school’s production of Cixous’ Sihanouk in the Khmer language in Battambang in 2008–13, and teaching the Soleil’s acting and improvisational techniques in Battambang as well as to actors in the Pondicherry company, Théâtre Indianostrum, which takes its inspiration directly from the work of the Soleil. As citizen-artist, Mnouchkine will be known for keeping history theatrically alive for public and company members alike in a conscious process of witnessing and debating. As aesthetic experimenter, she will be celebrated for incessant and untiring exploration, blending, and invention of theatrical forms – from clowning to cabaret, from commedia dell’arte to Asian martial arts and ritualized performance traditions. As company leader and institutional innovator, she will be admired for creating a joyful, if demanding, communal – even tribal – experience where, as she puts it, you can “have your friends and your lovers in the same place and you can still be a nomad” (Pascaud 2005: 9).

17.2

Four key productions: Mnouchkine’s “fanatically theatrical”

I’m not someone who believes in a tabula rasa. It’s true we’ve spent a lot of time looking for our sources, sources that make us rich. Nothing is invented, nothing is created, everything is transformed. That goes for art as well. There’s what we might call a great ancestral river which thousands of actors navigate, inventing the theatre each time. I always want to swim in the currents of that stream. (Lecoq 1987: 128)

Ariane Mnouchkine’s theater work can be examined as an ongoing efort to experiment with and synthesize traditional theatrical forms in order to create something entirely new – and often totally astonishing. As she has frequently indicated, and as we have seen, she likes to dive into the diverse currents that have defned theater, especially European popular forms and Asian traditions, in order to reinterpret and recombine them, shaking up and in the process viscerally connecting actors, audience, and critics. This section explores the movement and the continuity in her innovative theater work by in-depth analyses of four productions: the Théâtre du Soleil’s collective creation – 1789 or The Revolution Must Only Stop at the Perfection of Happiness (1971–2); Shakespeare’s Richard II (1981); Hélène Cixous’ l’Indiade (1987); and fnally Cixous’ Drums on the Dam – In the Form of an Ancient Puppet Play Performed by Actors (1999). Each of these productions, which altogether cover some thirty years of Mnouchkine’s career, has been hailed as a theatrical milestone, resulting in Mnouchkine’s workshops being the most sought after of any in Europe by young actors from all over the world (Bradby and Delgado 2002: 130). Each, also, speaks cogently to more generalized tendencies in contemporary theater and theatrical development.

1789: collective creation, audience involvement, and comedic form Of the Théâtre du Soleil’s thirty theatrical productions since its founding in 1964, 1789 remains the most celebrated, achieving legendary status as the kind of production that marks theater 310

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history, signaling a major change in how the doing of theatre can be both thought of and accomplished. Critic and teacher Bernard Dort in 1973 already understood how the production and its sequel 1793 or La Cité Révolutionnaire est de ce monde (1973) had galvanized French theater when he commented: “For almost three years now, the center of gravity of French theater has been called 1789–1793” (Dort 1973: 9). Some 250,000 spectators (a record number for French productions) participated in the theatrical experience that was 1789 (which also traveled to Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, Yugoslavia, Switzerland, and Martinique). Thousands more have seen the Mnouchkine directed flm of the production (1974) that successfully captures the feel of a high energy, kaleidoscopic, visual, and emotional romp through the events of the frst year of the French Revolution. Of all the ways that we might examine this piece to establish its centrality in the development of theater work in the last half of the twentieth century, the most fruitful assess three related aspects: (1) the ways in which Mnouchkine and the company pursued a collective approach to creating the work, (2) the inventions which led to a new positioning and new role for the audience, and (3) the eforts to multiply comedic forms as tools of criticism.

An overview of the production’s argument While several versions of the script of 1789 have been published (see Further Reading), none includes every textual moment, nor does the flm (compiled from thirteen diferent evenings in June 1973) capture the entire piece. This would, in any case, be impossible, as improvisation was built into performance. Hence the production varied slightly from evening to evening and indeed evolved over the three-year performance period. Furthermore, the simultaneity of action created an experience that changed considerably depending on where audience members were located and where they concentrated their attention. Nevertheless, it can be asserted that the piece was successfully structured to say: “You have received one image of the French Revolution, but we are going to suggest another way of understanding what happened.” Indeed, 1789 was conceived as a questioning of the founding myth of the French Republic with all theatrical elements tuned to contest the notion of “the victory of the French People,” as well as to clarify the process underlying the formation of modern social classes in France. One of the frst sketches of 1789 brought to life a famous cartoon etching from the revolutionary period in which “the People” (represented as a donkey or beast of burden) rises up and bucks of the King, while keeping at bay “the Aristocracy” (a gander) and “the Clergy” (a crow). The message is clear: the People will no longer stand to be ridden. From that point on, however, through juxtaposition, characterization, careful editing of documentary material and other means, 1789 demonstrates that this iconography of the “victory of the People” obfuscates how the Revolution ushered in a new power structure in which the landholding bourgeoisie and professional classes replaced the monarchy, the nobility, and the clergy as rulers, leaving behind the rural and urban poor. Such an interpretation gives the lie to the myth of the revolutionary success of a unifed “Third Estate” (often understood synonymously as “the People”) or the 98 per cent of the population purportedly set equally on the path to liberty and fraternity after the celebrated taking of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. This lesson builds on sketches loosely organized to follow the revolutionary events from Louis XVI’s convocation of the Estates General (January 1789) to the sale of the Catholic Church’s properties and goods (November 1789). It fgures such key historical moments as the Tennis Court Oath; the storming by the Parisian populace of the political prison, the Bastille; the process of drafting the Declaration of the Rights of Man by the Constitutional Assembly; and the establishing of martial law and empowerment of a National Guard to keep order. 311

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Internal commentary and criticism is afected by replaying the same event in two complementary ways, by juxtaposing radically diferent perspectives and by opposing contrary versions of the same situation. For example, to reinforce the centrality and crucial importance of the storming of the Bastille, actor/revolutionaries told in a 30-minute segment to small groups of audience members the story of the taking of the prison, after which a carnival show depicted the rationale for the events through illustrations of royal oppression (a game of targets and a wrestling match) and through a burlesque of the Comédie Française portraying the emigration of the King’s brother, the Count d’Artois. This doubled segment illustrated both the empowerment of the Third Estate and the “People’s” own pleasure in their newly recognized strength. Earlier, however, the impoverishment and hardships of the rural peasantry had been represented by a chilling sketch in which four fathers, placed around the playing space in kneeling position besides their wives and babies, strangled their children in order to put an end to their starvation. While the fathers wailed and the mothers stretched out their arms in a desperate search for some form of help, a resplendent King Louis XVI – one of many images of a feckless ruler – promenaded onto the playing area to Handel’s Royal Fireworks music, blithely ignorant of the sufering around him. This type of juxtaposition, multiplied many times over, articulated the absence in the political arena of the concerns about and voices of the poorest people. The real fate of the poor after the Revolution was again illustrated in a spaced replay of “the fight of King Louis and Queen Marie-Antoinette to Varennes.” In the frst moments of the play, the Royals, after Louis’s failure to maintain foreign troops in France, sneak away in a melodramatic pantomime to supposed safety in Varennes; but a representative of “the People” victoriously unmasks them. In the second version, near the play’s end, the King and Queen are protected by a group of bourgeois citizens, costumed in anticipation of the gaudy splendor of the new industrial class that will govern France after 1830. This reinterpretation supports the Marxist thesis orienting the production that the real benefciary of the Revolution was the rising bourgeoisie. To give an overall rhythm to the production, the string of vignettes lead to points of explosion (such as the contagiously happy celebration of the taking of the Bastille) or to points of halt, which underlie the near impossible quest for equality. Notably, in Part II, which follows the raucous Bastille celebration, each of the three times the leitmotiv “the Revolution is fnished” is pronounced (in segments: “Two Episodes of the Celebration,” “Parliamentary Debate,” and “The Auction”), the actors freeze. At each junction, a self-impressed, recently tapped member of the emerging power structure (the National Guard, the Constitutional Assembly, a Bourgeois Deputy), calls for “law and order” as means to stop the revolutionary process and the dreams of the working classes. The only stable character in the production – that is, the only character portrayed nonironically and consistently by one actor rather than by a host of actors, Marat – pronounces the play’s democratic message at its close: “Citizens, what have we gained by destroying the aristocracy of the nobles, if it is replaced by the aristocracy of the wealthy?” (p. 42).

Collective creation By the time the Théâtre du Soleil emerged in 1970 from its improvisational approach to Les Clowns, it had arrived at an understanding of what collective work should and should not be. Dissatisfed with the way Les Clowns atomized the group and emphasized individual talent, seeking a more direct way of commenting on the state of France after the shake-up of the events of May 68, the company (now twenty-six actors, fourteen technicians, and Ariane Mnouchkine) agreed to explore the French Revolution. Mnouchkine had suggested this topic because of its central place in the French imaginary and thus its place as part of the patrimony of all members 312

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of the company. The actors agreed that while they “knew” the Revolution, they really did not know it in detail or in its complexity: “The Revolution we learn about in primary school has become a kind of fairy tale that sticks in your memory as a series of Epinal images” (Mnouchkine and Penchenat 1971: 123). The Soleil set out to learn how the Revolution might have been stolen from the People. They began by setting up study groups and attending lectures by Professor Elisabeth Brisson, contracted exclusively for them. They read classical political analysts, such as Alexis de Tocqueville and the historian Jules Michelet. But they also delved into more contemporary analyses of class struggle during the revolutionary period by Daniel Guérin, Albert Soboul, and Georges Lefebvre. They read the revolutionary theorist and propagandist Marat, pored over the rich collection of political cartoons from the period, watched flms on the French Revolution by Jean Renoir (La Marseillaise) and Abel Gance (Napoleon), as well as viewing Grifth’s silent melodrama, the classic Orphans in the Storm. Nurtured and inspired by these images and perspectives, they began the process of collective improvisations at the Palais des Sports, an immense sports arena in southwestern Paris. Mnouchkine divided the actors into fve groups, which would be recomposed from time to time, each one working on one of the fve platforms set up in a rectangular pattern (26 meters long by 14 meters wide) that was being developed as the playing area. From the outset, a consensus had been reached that the company would create an environmental piece that could be moved from one basketball court to another, in anticipation of traveling throughout France. The Soleil wanted the work to have the popular aspect and excitement of a sporting event but also to recall the popular fairgrounds theater during the Revolutionary period. Mnouchkine’s proposition accepted by all was that the actors would play eighteenth-century fairground players performing for a popular audience the events of the French Revolution. This choice immediately suggested an atmosphere and tone that would combine satire, farce, physical theater, caricature, and mime – harking back to performance traditions of open-air theater. This “theater-in-the-theater” approach also aforded the Soleil another means and dimension of commentary. Actors frequently introduced sketches through a microphone – an anachronism suggesting that the criticism vested upon the protagonists of the Revolutionary drama could also be levied at contemporary power plays. Through the shifting temporal perspective and the multiplication of layers to each characterization – that is, contemporary actors, acknowledged as such, performing itinerant open-air actors of the eighteenth century, themselves performing constantly changing characters in the Revolutionary drama – the fesh and blood actors of the Soleil chastised the unsuccessful social revolution of 1968. Their sketches about the Revolution of 1789 touched by analogy upon the failure of trade unions to seize the opportunity opened up by the May 68 revolt, the draconian rules imposed by the government to stop public meetings during the period, and the menacing force of the riot police. At the beginning of each rehearsal, Mnouchkine would usually suggest the theme around which actors would improvise. As many as ten or ffteen feshed-out sketches were proposed toward the end of each day; and these were critiqued by the entire group. Some were immediately thrown out. Most improvisations were eventually recombined. Sparked by the improvisations, Mnouchkine would generate more suggestions for improvisations for the next day. Bits of as many as seventeen sketches, culled from four months of improvisations from July to October 1970, would eventually make up a single segment of the dozen segments of the fnal production. Mnouchkine attended to the coherency of the approach, supervised the articulation between sketches, and fxed the fnal ordering of the segments. Sophie Lemasson, Mnouchkine’s assistant, annotated each day the work deemed worthy of 313

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being kept. With actor Jean-Claude Penchenat, Lemasson also assembled the fnal text that served as the theater program. The Soleil’s improvisatory method meant that actors had to give up in the frst phase any notion of owning a role or even an improvised moment – a moment that would often be slipped into another actor’s repertory. On the other hand, because actors were personally in harmony politically and socially with their work, because they were committed to the play’s lesson, they experienced little discomfort in terms of self-expression and performance. Furthermore, engaged as they were in the creation of their own costumes and make-up, in building the trestle tables on which they performed (even using authentic eighteenth-century carpentry techniques), and in cleaning up and painting the theater when they eventually moved into the Cartoucherie (September 1970), they lived fully within the collective sphere. Indeed, when they began improvisations for 1793, the sequel to 1789, they were so attuned to each other’s skills that they could improvise in groups of twenty or more.

Audience involvement Moving into the nineteenth-century Cartoucherie de Vincennes four months before the Parisian premier of 1789 was a form of poetic justice for the pugnacious Théâtre du Soleil. That this former armaments factory, once also an army barracks, should become the site of a theater company intent on decrying war and applauding the potential for social harmony also signaled the company’s distance from other French theatrical institutions, most still located in Italianate spaces. Without performance rules, without hierarchical seating in place, without inscribed codes of audience conduct, a new playing space – and all that entails in terms of a new form of spectator – was ripe for invention. This freedom to create a new experience of theater, thanks to a completely undetermined space, has been a major spur to Mnouchkine’s creativity ever since. Already conceived for a sports arena, the scenographic design of 1789 ft readily into the vast second and third hangars of the cast iron, brick, and stone Cartoucherie structure. What had to be determined was how to position the audience in that space and how to utilize the frst, or entrance hangar. In line with their goals of demystifying the process of both history and theater-making, Mnouchkine and members of the company turned the cavernous entrance into a combination exhibition space (on the French Revolution), welcome hall (for mingling and chatting between company and audience members), and orientation foyer to the work of the Soleil (presenting the history of the company and its costume collection). The front of the house was, in this way, partially shadowed by the backstage operations of theater-making, putting the public immediately into contact with theater work. Spectators’ involvement in the process continued in the combined second and third hangars, where they could converse with performers, watch them put on costumes and make-up, and ready themselves for performance. The dressing areas were located behind the fve rectangular trestle tables that designated the playing area. Ushered into the combined hangar early – and with a lighting plan that illuminated brightly the whole area – the spectators had time to wander, look around, and take in not only the preparing actors but also the four towers from which the spot operators worked, located on the four corners of the rectangle formed by the trestle tables. The public could easily see also the extensive light grid suspended from the 20-foot high ceiling, and the light and sound boards located within the audience’s spaces. Spectators had also to decide where to position themselves, in what was one of the most remarked upon and exciting elements of this production. For 1789 ofered two potential spaces to the audience: They could choose to sit on bleachers (about 800 places) to the left of the tables 314

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and looking down at the action, from which they could see the 5-feet high trestle platforms connected by walkways and rigged for backdrops. Or they could become part of the action by standing in the foor space in the middle of the platforms (about 200 places). This latter choice conferred upon the public the status of actor, as, depending on where a sketch was taking place, standing spectators had to rush from trestle table to table, jockeying for good viewing positions. They had to make way for the actor/characters who sometimes strode arrogantly through their midst, as did the “Constitutional Assembly delegates.” They had to squeeze together to avoid clashes with the giant marionettes representing the King and Queen that were paraded through the audience by “the joyous women of Paris bringing the Royals back from Versailles.” Standing spectators thus became, within the logic of the production, eighteenth-century fair spectators watching and responding to the Revolution played out before their eyes – their own status as actors confrmed by the seated audience watching them, as well as the company, “perform.” On only a few occasions was the house darkened to isolate, through spots, certain sketches. One instance was the harrowing infanticide, mentioned earlier, in which four peasant fathers on four diferent platforms strangled their starving babies. Such occasions threw the piece momentarily into a gripping melodramatic mode. Most of the time, however, the lighting encompassed and held together as one body – albeit with difering roles – audiences and actors, allowing for both identifcation with the group experience and the possibility of taking some distance from the action. Such distance was enhanced by the estranging devices incorporated into the performance: bowing after certain sketches; anachronistic microphones into which actors announced what they would perform in the next sketch; replaying, as discussed, from a diferent perspective the same scene. This self-consciousness, fundamental to 1789, was signifcantly challenged only once. During the 30-minute “Storming of the Bastille” segment, the most meaningful for the play’s lesson and for the creative incorporation of the audience, a form of suturing took place. Each of the some forty members of the company drew to him or herself individual audiences from both the standing and seated publics. Each company member, now a “character” who had “been there,” narrated to increasing drum rolls the taking of the Bastille. Each of the groups – actors and spectators together – was ostensibly caught up in the momentous events of that July day, thrilling together to the voices rising in unison to proclaim: “And we took the Bastille. We took it!” (p. 30). Spectators willingly waltzed with a bear, chain danced, tossed rings, and applauded the acrobats and wrestlers celebrating the “People’s victory” in the following street festival segment. When the frst haughty and violent declaration of the “end of the Revolution” by General Lafayette of the National Guard put a sudden and unexpected stop to this adrenaline rush, the Soleil’s point about who really won the Revolution was introduced with brio. Audiences of 1789 were so hooked on the show that they had difculty leaving the theater at the end of the performance. In fact, when the company performed free after the frst six months, 2,000 spectators showed up and the performance spilled out into the park in front of the theater, lasting well into the night. 1789 struck a chord that resonated with the political moment: The production spoke deeply to a particular generation about its most serious questions. It was both a celebration and an exorcism.

Multiplication of comedic and other forms Peter Brook’s concept of “rough theatre” comes to mind when describing 1789: a very broad, physically based comedy meant to shake up and critique the status quo. The production indeed echoed such “rough” celebrations as the formerly well-attended and socially all-encompassing Fête de l’Humanité, the French Communist Party’s annual fair, a civic outing that bestows upon 315

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the public a role of good fun, playfulness, and carnivalesque behavior – at once subversive and contained. However, 1789 was a good deal more complicated than a pastiche or parody of political or cultural power, although it was that too. Within the conceit of the theatrical mise-en-abime (actors playing actors playing characters), the production also brilliantly reviewed popular theater forms, ranging from storytelling (the frame) to melodrama, commedia dell’arte, guignol, silent flm, slapstick, mime, cabaret, and even circus tricks. Frequently coupled, such as the silent flm cum striptease sketch of the Aristocrats’ renouncement of their privileges (“The Night of 4 August”), these dizzyingly merging forms demonstrated Mnouchkine’s and the Théâtre du Soleil’s extreme virtuosity and concern to keep the audience engaged, stimulated, and in a state of high expectation. In one such instance, “The Call for Petitions to the King,” a fairground actor become town crier, in direct address to the audience, transforms himself into the second of three successive petitioners to express his needs. The frst, a peasant, in a farcical mode, had earlier proclaimed that she wanted to write against the salt tax. But she failed because of not knowing how to form an “s” – even after having plucked for use as a pen, in an energetic mime, a feather from a chicken. The second petitioner, who can draw if not write, then portrays in commedia gestures a self-satisfed and wilier peasant hoping to show the king that his cow is lonely: He draws two happy cows. His petition is, however, also a failure, as the food-chain of petitioners (more variations on commedia schemers) continue devouring the previous petition – until a bourgeois deputy stops the movement: His petition will reach the King. This segment was followed immediately by a classic guignol, with puppeteers running through the audience to set their stage for a puppet show lampooning the power structure in which “Marie-Antoinette” conducts herself as an aggressive, unpredictable “Judy” and “Louis XVI” as an unbridled, if henpecked, “Punch.” The height of theater-in-the theater layering occurred near the end of the performance in which the fair actors (in a fantastic leap forward) play infantilized nineteenth-century bourgeois arrivistes watching with fear and then delight another guignol (with human marionettes this time) performing a vignette of the ultimate defeat of the “People.” Such rapidly changing and physically demanding performance modes kept spectators alert and energized, dazzled by the display of irrepressible talent. To the complex mixture of forms and internal commentary, Mnouchkine added a documentary element that grew in importance in the production’s second half. By selectively incorporating actual texts from the Constitutional Assembly, especially those focusing on the Declaration of the Rights of Man, 1789 commented on the constraints in thinking that prevented delegates from seeing lower classes as equals. In a particularly disturbing sketch following a historic assembly debate on the right to property that determined that “Inequality is . . . natural” (p. 30), fair comedians playing plantation owners in the colony of Santo Domingo (now Haiti) rejoice that Blacks are “property” and not “men.” The juxtaposition of this illustrative sketch with the preceding historical debate drove home the message about the insularity and self-serving policy-making of the bourgeois deputies.

1789 and related theater pieces “Rough” theater, 1789, can also be characterized as part of the environmental theater movement that reached a peak in the 1960s and 1970s. Environmental theater refuses the division between audience and actors, stressing the creation of a receptive community. Theater-makers, from American Richard Schechner and his Performance Group to Italian Luca Ronconi with his 1970 production of Orlando Furioso, thereby designed theatrical experiences that depended 316

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on the audience’s active, physical participation. Such projects, as we have seen with Mnouchkine’s, called on the spectators’ willingness to engage with, even absorb, the materiality of the theatrical work, accepting its more obvious theatricality but also experiencing its greater physical reality and more explicit sensuality. We can also place the work within the many collective denunciations of injustice, such as Le Théâtre de l’Aquarium’s satire of real-estate development in the heart of Paris, Marchands de Ville [Selling the City] (1972), that flled French theaters in the 1970s. Mnouchkine herself credits certain forms of collective street theater as inspiring her work, notably the eforts of the Bread and Puppet Theater, and especially their Cry of the People For Meat. She saw the production in Paris in 1969 and took from this experience, as an undergirding for 1789, the company’s highly poetic and oversized imagery and especially the piece’s earnest and joyous intensity. The Bread and Puppet’s commitment to a street theater of both beauty and fery political militancy and to a collective of artists and thinkers undoubtedly helped reinforce Mnouchkine’s sense that she, also, could be a player in the political debates of her times. 1789 launched the international reputation of the Théâtre du Soleil – and encouraged the creation of other theatrical collectives, such as the bilingual Jeune Lune Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States. It confrmed Mnouchkine’s belief in collective work and in participatory audiences. It was also the apogee of Mnouchkine’s experimentation with rough and tumble self-conscious forms of farce and parody, forms that made 1789 a theatrical echo of the social and political contestation out of which it grew. In most of her later productions, and especially since 1980, Mnouchkine has approached history obliquely and without the constant shifting of styles characteristic of 1789. This change in orientation has given to her later work a distinctive iconographic – we might even say ritualistic – coloration.

Richard II: Mythic storytelling, hybridizing Asia, and geometrizing power Created in 1981, Mnouchkine’s Richard II won French theater’s “Grand Prix” for best production (1982). Performed in tandem with two other Shakespearian works (Twelfth Night and Henry IV, Part I) of a projected but never realized six-part Shakespeare Cycle, Richard II was the kind of production that caused spectators at the Avignon Festival in 1982 and later at the Los Angeles Olympic Arts Festival, where it toured in 1984, to admit that experiencing Mnouchkine’s Shakespeares had metaphorically changed their lives – its shimmering opulence and entirely original formal aesthetic subjugating them (Quillet 1999: 88). After years of collective exploration and devising texts, Mnouchkine had returned to Shakespeare because she wanted to grapple with strong, dramatic architecture. She had a notion to build a single dramatic universe with certain gestures and character types appearing from one play to the next. She also had, at that point, a company with several exceptionally charismatic actors, physically and intellectually ripe to take on demanding Shakespearian roles, as well as an athletic host of younger actors recently culled from one of her intensive mask workshops. Finally, she sought out Shakespeare in order to delve into how his theater handles history, in an efort to prepare herself for what she hoped would be her own next phase of historical work. Typically, she was unsure of what form the work would take when rehearsals began. However, after a viewing of Kurosawa’s epic flm, Kagemusha, she saw the traces of the direction she wanted to follow: an emphasis on corporeal iconography and inscribed social codes, and a look and feel that would recall samurai warrior culture and Asian performance traditions, particularly kabuki, Noh, and Balinese dance. She accordingly had the actors study samurai flms and 317

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also the landscapes of the vast Mongolian steppes, in order to help them interiorize a sense of expansiveness. She set up a rigorous physical training schedule that included running 5 miles a day, paying close attention to nutrition, and taking lessons on projection from a vocal coach. The result was a production in which dramatic storytelling took on a mythic or ritual hue, based as it was in a tightly choreographed amalgam and reinvention of traditional Asian theater forms. The movement patterns that Mnouchkine imagined for Richard II etched on stage the functioning of power.

The work of mythic storytelling Shakespeare’s Richard II, like all his history plays, stages the history of medieval England, while also examining the complex emotional and psychological make-up of those to whom power falls and those who struggle to attain it. A more metaphorical reading of the play allows one to see how such stories of desire, struggle, winning, and losing – of the passing of time and of cyclical moments – also delve into the meaning of human life, a questioning both timeless and inescapable. King Richard himself recognizes the vanity of striving for power when death hovers always in the background, keeping “court,” and “grinning at [the] pomp” (III: 2 lines 160–3). Any director who tackles the rich interpretive possibilities of Richard II has to decide how to read this history play, where to put the emphasis that will speak to his or her audience, and how to save the production from becoming a museum piece, in which “what has always been done” gets done again. Richard II invites explorations into the eponymous protagonist’s vacillations between seemingly paranoid violence and lucid existentialism, between true patriotism and heartless imperialism, between passionate belief in his own divine right and shameful anguish at his overturning. By turns charming, sly, magnifcent, brutal, mystical, ambiguous, suicidal, Richard would seem to evolve into his own jester, perhaps a victim of fatterers, perhaps not a victim at all. Like Bolingbroke, his arch rival and eventual conqueror, Richard may be read as complex and conficted, a young ruler invested in power, while on the brink of recognizing the foolishness of mortal triumph – an almost wise, possibly Christic fgure. Theater people have been attracted to this play precisely to respond to the enigma of Richard and to that of his successor, Bolingbroke, who combines a sweet temperament with an unquenchable thirst for control. In directing Richard II in 1981, Mnouchkine had little competition from the ghosts of past French productions, the last staging of Richard having been done by Jean Vilar in 1947. Nevertheless, Shakespeare, with Chekhov and Molière, has been since 1960 among the most frequently performed playwrights in France. There are, then, certain preconceptions about how Shakespeare should be done, and especially a tendency to favor the sinister obsessive vision prevalent in France thanks to the popularization of Jan Kott’s psychoanalytical study, Shakespeare, our Contemporary (1964) – a vision that had, in fact, informed Mnouchkine’s frst unsettling Shakespearian production, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1968) (and that certainly nuanced, among other productions, Patrice Chéreau’s remarkable readings of Marivaux in the 1970s and 1980s). By the time of Richard II, however, Mnouchkine’s aesthetic had moved away from the compelling eroticism of her early Shakespearian work. Committed to physical theater – including seeing her actors as a choral body – intrigued by the call of social and political systems, repulsed by psychological realism that explores individual motives of characters to the detriment of a larger allegorical lesson, Mnouchkine refused the temptation to plumb the murky psyches of the two kings. She chose to see the play primarily as a series of confrontations in which feudal aristocrats plot against each other – with Richard and Bolingbroke occasionally refecting upon 318

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what happens as a result of such machinations. In keeping with her general directorial orientation, she set aside psychological probing to construct a lush pageant of raw ruling power at work, concentrating on how the newly powerful replace the formerly powerful in a cycle of cruelty, aggression, and coercion destined to be repeated ad infnitum. She took upon herself the translation and adaptation of the text, clarifying the Shakespearian language in free unrimed verse that communicates easily the negotiations of the courtiers and the strategies of Richard, Bolingbroke, and their supporters. She also frequently cut what might be considered redundant lines or moments (e.g. the Welsh encampment II: 4) to strengthen and intensify Bolingbroke’s drive toward destruction-tinged victory. She eliminated almost entirely the subplot of Aumerle’s family drama (V: 2), omitting the scene in which his father, the Duke of York, angrily discovers the latest scheme against Bolingbroke, now the new King Henry IV. By cutting also the sentimental groom who visits Richard in his last prison (V: 5), Mnouchkine focused attention in the last moments of the production on Bolingbroke’s reaction to the assassinated King Richard, setting up a parallel between their two destinies. Following Shakespeare’s lead, we might easily subtitle Mnouchkine’s production “a ritual of wrath-kindled gentlemen” (I: 1, line 151): For urgency, anxiety, and electricity characterized the staging and conferred, as Adrian Kiernander has remarked, an almost “hysterical intensity” on the perfectly balanced stage pictures and martial formations (Kiernander 1993: 113). To understand more precisely how Mnouchkine gave shape to this ritualized vision of Richard II, we will examine the production’s iconography, scenography, and choreography, paying particular attention to how Asia fgures in the work and how elements of theater – especially movement patterns – created an allegory of power.

A hybrid Asia Much has been made of Mnouchkine’s borrowing and blending of Asian elements and theatrical techniques in her Shakespeare Cycle, including her displacing the referential real of Richard II to a fantastical medieval Japan. From our perspective, the central and most important aspect of this turn to Asia in Richard II was the latitude it aforded her to create the feeling of staged ritual. Mnouchkine took from Asian theater a model that allowed her to perfect a gestic system and clarify physical lines. She refned and defned – with her actors and designers – set and costumes as a network of signs in order to ofer an onstage lesson. Her precision staging so transcended the ordinary that it attained the luminous power of the sacred – the sacred indeed being the impetus behind all traditional Asian performance styles. For Richard II, the stage, as in Noh, kabuki, and Balinese traditions, was a large, empty space – occupying the 14 × 14 square meters favored by Mnouchkine and her set designer, Guy-Claude François. The playing area was covered by hemp matting and fanked by two runways from which the actors could rush on and of, as in kabuki and Noh. Its emptiness conjured up a world both past and present. As in kabuki, small striped tents on the runways provided spaces for costume changes and for regrouping actors for entrances. Seven black vertical lines divided the playing space into eight 2-meter horizontal sectors, each sector bordering and containing the movements of individual characters during scenes of confrontation or judgment. The color scheme, like that of Japanese lacquered boxes, favored red, black, white, and gold. The lavish costumes, in rich variations of these hues, caught and refected the light easily: They were made of highly textured ecclesiastical cloth and combined many layers – some of which foated and shimmered with the constant movement of the actors. A collage of longskirted kimono, Elizabethan ruf and doublet, samurai head piece, and curved scimitar, each costume also communicated something of the temperament or position of the character. Richard 319

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– triumphant king – was all in white; Bolingbroke – on the way to kingship – threw of his black and gold raiment for one of white and gold. Sculpted white-face make-up for the younger characters (as in Noh) aided in the transformation of actors into signs, with red shadings under eyes, on cheeks and chins, and the side of the nose adding notes of anger or spleen. The older characters (Gaunt, York, Lady Gloucester) wore kabuki-inspired masks, demarcating them as a generation having already succumbed to the onslaught of the new power politics. Stage-helpers, costumed in black tunics, pants, and head gear (reminiscent of koken in Japanese bunraku) unostentatiously slipped on and of stage, placing and removing the few iconic set pieces. They also carried out the dead and held up the backdrops when entrances were made from back stage and not from the ramps. In contrast, the colorful, red-nosed, red-legged clowns occupied noisily the whole space of the playing area when it became the Queen’s garden. They bemoaned comically Richard’s fate, as the Queen hid behind branches held up to her face by discrete stage helpers. The set pieces, few in number, often lacquered in black, recalled Asian designs and bore signifcant symbolic weight: A low table was both Richard’s throne and his funeral bier; a black jungle gym pagoda – the tower sheltering him, a tower Richard scaled like a monkey in a cage; the prison – another cage – made of thin white rods was Richard’s execution chamber. In only a loin cloth and wrist bracelets, the humbled Richard meets his death, slowly falling to the cage foor with the waning sound of the wrist bells jingling mournfully. This is all we hear in the only blackout of the production. (Lighting, in general, varied with the action but remained basically warm and dreamy, seeping through the tented ceiling or glowing from the Japanese-style footlights.) Perhaps the most pregnant markers of the spectrally beautiful production – Asian-inspired as well – were the 14 × 14 square meter superposed backdrops, eleven in all, each rigged to fall at the end of a segment. Not only did these silken hangings establish structure by foating down to end a moment, but they also mimicked and exteriorized Richard’s mood and suggested a cycle of rising and falling power. Golden at the beginning – with a celestial globe fgured in Jackson Pollack-like drips of white and red – deep red during the mutual accusations of treason by Mowbray and Bolingbroke, the drop was black with a silver moon for Richard’s assassination. Earlier, when power was passed to Bolingbroke, the virgin king, the drop, as was his costume, was white with a golden sun. These drops, as economical as a Japanese pen and ink drawing in which the mere outline of a crane can suggest long life, helped place Mnouchkine’s interpretation of Richard within a cosmic vision. They hinted at how the universe endures, all in being seasoned by the individual’s passions and destiny.

Geometrizing power We have seen how the material elements of Richard II contributed to an Asian feel and to what we might call an Asian-inspired aesthetic goal: that is, the linking together, through potent signs, of diferent levels of existence, or the transcending of the here and now by giving form to the invisible and the abstract. Perhaps the most powerful aspects of Mnouchkine’s Richard II in conveying the abstract (in this case the workings of power, the rage to obtain it, and the fnal insanity of the chase), were the choreography and movement patterns. Mnouchkine’s vision was further enhanced by what, at that point in her career, was a radical departure in the use of music. In Mnouchkine’s staging of Richard II the actors hardly ever stood still. Connected to the earth as in kabuki, the actors – when not running or prancing – glided across the stage in semi-squat position, adjusting their movements to cues from the onstage musicians. For this production, Jean-Jacques Lemêtre, at that point the new musical director, assembled some 300 320

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percussion and drone instruments for his of-side orchestral space. He kept the beat, punctuated the movements, and created musical themes for the principal characters. Rather than a symphonic underscoring as in prior productions, the music thus helped transform the actors into dancing forms. Their constant up and down movement and exaggerated sighing or swooning created the illusion of an onstage, intensely connected breathing organism, an organism fully cognizant of the location of power. Hence, only Richard occupied center stage – until Bolingbroke took over. In Act I: 1, for example, the nobles rushed onstage in a spiral, positioning themselves as on a chess board, with King Richard in the middle. During his questioning of Bolingbroke and Mowbray, these courtiers, horizontally surrounding Richard, punctuated his speeches by movements and gestures signaling emotional leaps. Each courtier had his own set of striking or cocking motions, timed to make the whole pattern look like a highly regulated human machine, with King Richard as the energy source. For the precisely choreographed entrances, aristocratic courtiers, summoned by a gong, rushed onstage in a pack: During the battle scenes they resembled a troupe of centaurs (especially notable in III: 3). Stomping, snorting, trying to hold the line, the characters – half men, half horses, hit their thighs with riding crops. They projected stunning visions of military energy and battle passion, their voices pitched to the music, spitting out words at the audience. Aligned in spatial zones, they bumped into each other, foreseeing their own struggles for power to come – with Henry Percy, foreshadowing Henry IV, completely unable to control his horse from breaking rank. The fnal composition – the staging of Richard’s death – found Bolingbroke alone holding the broken Richard in his arms. He then placed him on the foor under the throne/bier on which he himself stretched out, taking the exact position of Richard’s corpse. In this doubled funeral portrait, Mnouchkine portrayed as enduringly as the brass rubbings in Westminster Abbey the ultimate absurdity of the struggle to the heights.

Richard II amidst other contemporary Shakespeares The cues taken from kabuki and Noh theater and from the dancing bodies of Balinese performance helped Mnouchkine devise for Richard II an aesthetic of such rigor, but also such unfamiliar and compelling force, that many critics speak of the experience as transporting. Richard II managed to realize a condensation of universes: at once mystical and material, strange and familiar, theatrical and grandly human. Mnouchkine’s production of Richard II thus conveyed us to that other pole of theater theorized by Peter Brook: the holy, in which a certain formal sensibility and aesthetic virtuosity creates an exceptional communal experience, thereby profering a sense of the divine and imbuing the public with positive energy, while transforming the actors into conduits of morality. This is quite another realm than that to which other recent celebrated contemporary French productions of Shakespeare have taken us. Mnouchkine’s heightened and drawn-out metaphors, for instance, distanced themselves from Peter Brook’s own stripped-down versions of The Tempest (1990) or Hamlet (2003). In both, while practicing the seamless movement from scene to scene and iconic simplicity characteristic of all his works, Brook foregrounded through his casting his multicultural acting community with their particular acting quirks. He also joyfully played with the tortured psychology of his protagonists. His goal – like Mnouchkine’s to unite – includes also, as hers does not, a dose of deconstructive self-refection. Brook is still asking from within his Shakespearian productions how theater can mean anything in a world so saturated with meaning systems that meaning seems to be lost. 321

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L’indiade ou l’inde de leurs rêves: the Cixousian partnership, aesthetics of the hyper-real, and border-crossers L’Indiade (1987), subtitled “the India of their dreams,” is the second text written specifcally for Mnouchkine and the Théâtre du Soleil by Hélène Cixous. Like the frst, her 1985 Sihanouk (The Terrible but Unfnished Story of Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia), whose production culminated in another major prize for the company (Prix Europe, Taormina 1986), this piece employs the recent history of the Asian continent as means to explore and image a pressing and ever-threatening world political situation. Here, the focus is on civil war and genocide, targeting for the larger allegory the independence and subsequent bloody partitioning of India. As in all of Mnouchkine’s and Cixous’ work, “Asia is [thus] not Asia. It is theatre Asia . . . , another world, a second world . . . , a reservoir, a gigantic cavern of images” (Prenowitz 2004: 19). It is consequently a place where archaic desires can be played out and examined. However, in this production, contrary to Richard II, the dream of Asia did not give rise to a hybridity of Asian forms, but rather to a rendering of Asia in such heightened realism that characters seemed both life-like and cartoonish – “real” Indians paradoxically haunting a symbolic stage. An epic theatrical journey alluding to Homer, 5-hours long, with forty-nine characters hastening on and ofstage, l’Indiade rehearses the fears and prejudices but also the bid for self-determination and love that intertwined in the immensely painful and still volatile dual birthing of India and Pakistan. The play roughly follows the historical period from 1937 to 1948 and depicts the liberation and also dismembering of Britain’s former colony, despite the dreams of unity of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawarharlal Nehru and their Congress Party – but in keeping with the more ferocious reverie of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Leader and strategist of the Muslim league, Jinnah directs his fury at the inequality of Muslims, a perception which casts Gandhi’s dream as a foolish nightmare: “In Indian country,” says Jinnah’s colleague Iqbal, “the table is not round” (p. 33). All these politicians dream a diferent India and they do so in debates among themselves and with the British colonial rulers. We hear also more colorful arguments about “India” from Dalit (untouchable) rickshaw drivers, ordinary soldiers, and peasants. “India” is also imagined in the lyrical musings of Gandhi, the theoretician of nonviolence, and in the pithy commentary of the Bengali pilgrim Haridasi, who bridges all the dreamers by her wandering. To elaborate her dream of India, Cixous traveled there, immersing herself in Indian literature and history – a process that helped her decide that Mnouchkine’s frst idea of forging a play around the leadership and assassination of Indira Gandhi would not work. She felt that the story of the frst female leader of India could not capture the passion of the new nations emerging and taking shape: Indira Gandhi did not speak to the passage from colonial to postcolonial with all its complexities. Cixous needed central characters with the charisma and panache of Norodom Sihanouk, the mythic fgure of her frst epic play for Mnouchkine. Her goal, consistent in all her theater work, was to fnd and confront “the angel” and “the beast” in the human heart (p. 25). She thus sought material that could take on the ritualized form we have seen in Richard II. She wanted to be able to place onstage, as in Sihanouk, the multifaceted, multilayered universe of a Shakespearian drama, with its potential for helping make sense of reality and with its capacity to include characters from all walks of life making leaps in time and space. She therefore latched onto the metaphoricity of the “knights of the Congress Party” (p. 15). Through them, she sought to teach her audience about Gandhi’s ideal of love: There’s no love without fear. And yes, sometimes, no love without a kind of disgust, even repulsion. We human beings, Hindus, Muslims, men, women, we’re so diferent, so strange. . . . If there are two leaves on a tree, they aren’t identical but they do dance 322

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to the same breeze – that’s true of the human tree too. Let’s allow time for human afairs to grow and ripen. (Cixous 1987: 81–2) Cixous wished to oppose this ideal to the West’s concentration on hate, embroiled as it was in the Second World War during the same period. Gandhi – with his generosity and acceptance of the other – represented for Cixous a choice maternal fgure, a Solomonic good mother in keeping with the Cixousian defnition of “the feminine.” His ability to partner the world, to give unselfshly of himself, and to meta-morphose, if necessary, in order to make space for a fuller community also merged with Cixous’ notion of what theater should be and with what she saw Mnouchkine’s theater work and Mnouchkine herself incarnating. She indeed fgures this conjuncture in Le Livre de Promethea, her tribute to the director: “[How curious it is that] my so pretty, so clever, so theoretical theories are now embodied by reality in the person of Promethea [Ariane Mnouchkine] herself ” (Cixous 1983: 12). Cixous’ and Mnouchkine’s complementarity resulted in a production that both kept the theatrum mundi aspects of a Shakespearian play while introducing original and compelling theatrical elements – notably hyper-real and “border-crossing” characters that contributed to the invention of a new and troubling aesthetic.

The aesthetic continuum The debt to Shakespeare in the fashioning of Cixous’ play is alluded to in one of l’Indiade’s more elegiac passages. Lord Mountbatten, who comes to orchestrate Indian independence, recognizes the portentous nature of the event by referencing the bard’s theater: “It’s on such nights that in Shakespeare’s plays, condemned lovers would kiss. On such nights, kings felt defeat approaching and queens sensed death’s arrival” (p. 147). In the play’s amplifed sense of moment, in its oscillation between historical event and individual tragedy, in the range of characters and linguistic registers which establish collective and individual levels of plot, in the juxtaposition of moods and temporal shifts, and in its chains of metaphors, we do, indeed, see something of Shakespeare in l’Indiade. In production, we see especially how Mnouchkine, in the efort to convey meaning, as she did in her reading of Richard II, emphasized the possibilities lodged in the Shakespearian universe of invigorating physical work and intensely focused choreography and of ritualized and highly symbolic spaces. In Mnouchkine’s staging, for example, Gandhi, the soul of the production, was never alone. Always accompanied, including by the specter of his dead wife, Kastourbai, he was prolonged in the bodies of those listening and touching him and by his theme music, composed to represent his sweetness and played by Jean-Jacques Lemêtre – positioned side-stage left within a Calderesque assemblage of some 100 musical instruments. Gandhi’s spirit infused the production, just as his always stage-center pleadings with Jinnah, or arguments with Nehru, or friendship duets with the Pathan, Badshah Khan, marked the emotional summits of the piece. In contrast to Gandhi’s physical and emotional centrality, each time the two opposing camps (The Congress Party and the Muslim League) met, they – in their all-white formal dress – occupied strictly delineated segments of the vast 14 × 14 square meter stage, each seated on separate carpets spread over the of-white marble foor by the “people” of India. Tinged by the melodramatic use of music, especially the “monsoon wind” to denote crisis, the production seemed to say that the rigid Hindi and Muslim politicians were destined to never meld into one. The “people,” on the other hand, formed an always energized, always moving vibrant mass, afecting the set changes, pulling and parading the leaders through the streets of Delhi in ochre 323

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rickshaws, confronting each other noisily and increasingly violently in quarrels marred by ethnic pride and dreams of vengeance. They fowed up onto the playing space out of the vomitorium located under the bleachers facing the stage, as though propelled by a nightmare they did not control. In the last and most startling of the three rickshaw parades, which created peaks of concentrated energy between political debates or Gandhi’s strategizing, rickshaw drivers dragged piles of undiferentiated corpses across the stage – Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, young, and old – in an apocalyptic vision of what civil war had wrought. This “united” India ironically commented on the failure of tolerance and the tenacity of Jinnah’s fundamentalist claims. From the urban sites of Bombay and New Delhi to the Punjab and Bengal and the mountainous borderlands between India and Afghanistan, the fctional places changed, but the physical space remained essentially the same, permeated by the warring dreams of India. As in Richard II, light was fltered from behind a gauze ceiling covering. “Doors,” which permitted entrances from outside the dream-like space, demarcated the magnifcent upstage expanse of brick-bordered marble. From “outside,” the heroes of history entered to take the political decisions which determined the people’s fate. Inside, the common characters were linked in swirling movement, by a constant musical underscoring, and through the witnessing and physical commentary of those people positioned on the brick borders. This vivid presence of a choral body: actors linked to each other as part of a many-headed, living, breathing organism – as already seen in the centaur scenes in Richard II (and later perfected in the choral groups of The House of Atreus Cycle, 1990–2) – externalized the emotional pulse of the community.

Infections: hyper-reality and border-crossers In the aesthetic invented by Mnouchkine for l’Indiade, the uncanny creation of an Indian world that confused the boundaries between theater and the “real” established a major diference from prior productions. From the moment the public entered the entrance hangar of the theater space, the smell of curry and Indian spices overwhelmed the senses. “Indians” (actors dressed and made-up to resemble the characters they played, based on observations made during their preparatory travels to the subcontinent), milled about smiling or selling sweetmeats and pastries from a cart. They would later sell food at intermission. Haridasi, the Bengali pilgrim improvising in Indian English, asked for names: “Who are you, please?”. She introduced spectators to each other, greeting them like old friends and telling her own story, wondering: “Do you believe in God?” “Do you know what is happening in India?” (Miller production notes, October 1987). When the public moved into the next hangar to take its place, “Indians” were sweeping and dusting the playing space. They helped spectators to their seats, shyly making eye contact with individual members of the audience, while Haridasi chatted about the confrontation to come. She would later usher in the second-half of the production with news of the massacres of some 5,000 Hindus and Muslims. Other “Indians” muddied the boundaries of this performance of “Indianness.” These were the actors visible in their open dressing-room space under the bleachers, putting the fnal touches on make-up and coifng themselves in golden or red-orange turbans or skull-caps, clearly in the act of becoming characters. Many spectators thus experienced the “schizophrenia” of knowing and not knowing that they were in the theater, positioned both as European interlopers or tourists ready to be taken on a voyage and as audience members complicit with a theatrical project of transformation (Quillet 1999: 64). The constant presence of Haridasi, storyteller, commentator, and witness, added yet another disconcerting layer to the performance, as she, border-crosser par excellence, spoke directly and throughout the play to the spectators – not as an actor of the company, but as a pilgrim on the same educational journey as the audience, as, indeed, its onstage partner. At the same time, she occupied, 324

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in a logical impossibility, all the fctional places in the play, being present for the debates of great and small, conversing with the Mahatma, dismissing Gandhi’s assassin as a “nothing” (p. 188) and responding, in the audience’s place, to Gandhi’s immortality: “He is not dead” (p. 190). Haridasi’s role as border-crosser was reinforced by yet another wanderer, Moona Baloo, a performed and performing female bear whose destiny in the production paralleled India’s. When she became contaminated by the violence all around her, she struck out – killing the guardian of the Muslim temple, hurting her trainer, and revealing the beast in the human heart. Mnouchkine made her reverberate with all the anger around her, only calming down in the presence of Gandhi whose innocence she echoed and parodied. Killed, like Gandhi, Moona Baloo also can be read as a sacrifcial victim. The presence of the bear, like that of Haridasi, linked the audience to yet another level of meaning, resonating with the generalized message of love. Moona Baloo pushed the production to a more enchanting level than that of the encounter with the hyperreal “Indians,” whose gestures and detailed costuming both signaled the “real” and the Théâtre du Soleil’s eforts to construct it.

Nostalgia for love As of all her plays, Cixous speaks of this one as ofering a balm to existentialist angst through its ability to connect the here and now with the cosmos. Theater has long been for her a laboratory for living diferently, for projecting alternative structures to the violence of the everyday, a “world that can tear itself away from the world as it is by becoming the sublime form of the world as it is” (Prenowitz 2004: 41). Gandhi, both wise and childlike, and his alter ego, the wondrous dancing bear, were meant to enliven this utopian vision and communicate the requisite mystery to capture the public’s fantasy, to bind them to a common faith. Nevertheless, the force of Mnouchkine’s staging of their devastating assassinations, combined with the 20-minute parade of corpses, situated as they were at play’s end, rather than shoring up belief in the possibilities of life, tended to confrm the cataclysmic fragility of the veneer of civilization. It is as if Mnouchkine’s gift for staging grand guignolesque melodrama and her explicit emphasis on people becoming killing machines undercut and put into question Cixous’ message of love.

l’indiade and contemporary epic theater L’Indiade can be compared with Peter Brook’s monumental epic production, The Mahabharata, Jean-Claude Carrière’s adaptation of the sacred text of Hinduism. Created within the same period of time (1987), The Mahabharata, an 8-hour extravaganza, did not shirk from a vision of life that includes war and avarice as part of an un-erasable reality. Brook’s work showed no nostalgia for a lost paradise but rather celebrated life with all its complications. Furthermore, Brook required his actors to claim and make their autonomy felt within the overall concept of the production. The site of emanation, theater, “came” from them. They did not function primarily as another aspect of a total aesthetic concept, of a dream of India. This personalization added a dimension to Brook’s work that Mnouchkine’s actors, for the most part, did not and were not meant to attain.

Drums on the Dam: in the Form of An Ancient Puppet Play, Performed by Actors: theatrical self-questioning and the actor as puppet In Drums on the Dam: In the Form of an Ancient Puppet Play, Performed by Actors, Mnouchkine created with her actors a replica or a fantasy of bunraku puppet theater which enclosed a second 325

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puppet theater – setting up an allegory encompassing puppetry and life. This 1999 collaboration with Hélène Cixous took the total body mask work with her actors in l’Indiade to new heights and also broadened and layered her theatrical questioning. For in this production, Mnouchkine and Cixous skewer the power and greed that inform the crucial life and death decisions determining the future of human kind and also ask how theater dare speak about life. They thus afrm their political agenda, focusing in particular on an imperiled earth. But they also wonder, through the marionette form of the piece and its embedded allegory, to what extent theater is not merely a game of shadows. In its mimicry of action, is not theater a display or echo of how life works, with forces outside of most people’s ken determining the truly earth-shattering decisions that kill of life and theater at the same time? Within Mnouchkine’s never-ending theatrical meditation on the functioning of democracy, Drums on the Dam is her most pessimistic production and also her most beautiful – a voyage, a meditation, a revelation, and an accusation. It won the admiration of the bunraku and kabuki masters who attended performances in Japan in 2001, seeing in this production the poignancy and yearning of much of Japanese art (personal communication from Charles-Henri Bradier, June 2005).

On the play’s argument: infuences and interpretations Hélène Cixous found the inspiration for her story of self-interest and greed in an ancient Chinese tale. She looked for her aesthetic to Noh master, Zeami, whom she admires for his ability to condense and at the same time expand a play’s universe. Inspired by Zeami, she crafted a timeless fable in which characters miss crucial clues of impending doom because they cannot or refuse to read the portents all around them. As in Zeami’s and other Noh pieces, her structure is episodic, neither driven by suspense nor by psychological investigation. Each sequence illustrates a facet of the parable of indecisive, narcissistic, and corrupt rulers bringing about and orchestrating an ecological disaster. Like Zeami, Cixous fashions a work in which the inanimate and the organic live and have a will seemingly independent of the characters: “My heart,” says heroine Duan, “wants to leave this story” (p. 71). Spirit is everywhere and when ignored, as it is so often in Noh, places human life in jeopardy. Such ignorance means that characters perform acts of compartmentalization and opposition (such as pitting the City against the Country or Art against Commerce) that lead inevitably to destruction. The mighty cannot hear, for example, the framing dream which announces the catastrophe. Cixous explains that the play is about the breakdown of the social “immune system” and about how this system begins to destroy itself through the emergence of the possibility of evil (Prenowitz 2004: 11). Characters succumb to evil because they fail to see the enemy within themselves, because they have lost touch with the interconnectedness of their universe, and because they have destroyed the necessary balance between aspects of the world one might differentiate as “natural,” “man-made,” and “spiritual.” In Cixous’ play, all is living; and everything living is given on-stage shape. The River/The Water proves the most devastating because it is the least listened to. Mirror of the future, water is never just “water,” but humans are too lazy to grasp the life in it and its potential for both supreme devastation and new beginnings. In Drums on the Dam, Cixous shows us a medieval and imaginary Chinese monarch, Lord Khang, who has ceded his forests and his moral compass to his rapacious nephew, Hun. In destroying the forest, Hun has laid the land open to massive fooding, fooding which turns into total havoc because the dams in place cannot hold, as in their construction they, too, have been subject to the cheating and dishonesty of their builders. In this malicious and egotistical world, a few characters have the vision or fnd the courage to attempt to save the populations at risk 326

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from the breaches in the dams. The Soothsayer and his daughter Duan, in particular – the latter transforming herself into a fervent warrior and leader of the sentinels guarding the countryside – try to prevent disaster from happening. The peasant sentinels, food drummers sutured to their drums on top of the biggest dam, also ofer an asylum of goodness, friendship, and safety. In contrast to the power structure, they keep watch over life, becoming a utopian destination, a potent haven for the “little people” – notably for the resolute noodle vendor, Mme Li, and her helper, Kisa, who were turned away from the closed doors of the City. All will nonetheless be swept away in the brutality and killing that accompany the food. In the end, only Bai-Ju, the highly metaphorical puppet master, is left to fsh out his puppets (smaller versions of the play’s puppet characters) from the waters that invade and submerge the playing space. Forlorn, the puppets saved on the lip of the stage stare out at the audience at the production’s close. This last pantomime suggests many possible interpretations of the interaction between theater and life. One might be that, as in a baroque aesthetic, theater represents a world always becoming and always ending at the same time – unable to change its own course, fated to be what it is (a representation of itself), a world in which the striving for solidarity of a Duan can signal a new path but not guarantee its creation, a world in which the play for power, as in Richard II, inevitably ends in the end of power, a world in which, as Cixous puts it, “Power thinks it rules, yet it is ruled. And it is ruled over by death” (Prenowitz 2004: 11). Another interpretation would imply that only theater (or art) is saved by the kind of food or purifcation vested on Lord Khang’s empire. Theater, then, can see, but a seeing theater does not necessarily mean a visionary world. Human beings can become unthinking “puppets” if they stop paying attention, if their eyes do not, in fact, see. Given this thickness of meaning, the fnal scene interpolates the public, asking it: Can we act at all? Are we only acted upon? Or is life but a matter of modulation and struggle? In our puppet-like fragility, is there also a kind of puppet-like eternal “being there?” Finally, are we not doubled “puppets”: a condensation and embodiment of something greater than ourselves but also only mere shells?

Mnouchkine’s bunraku vision Mnouchkine’s ongoing fascination with marionette forms led her to see the entire piece almost from the start as a puppet play, again paying homage to Asian arts. Bunraku, the near life-size Japanese puppet theater, provided her model; and as rehearsals developed with various actors trying out various roles – as is her practice – each one attempting to fnd a puppet form, it slowly emerged that some should also play the manipulators (or koken), the back-hooded puppeteers who had already infuenced the look of the stage hands in Richard II. This development put a new spin on Mnouchkine’s rehearsal practice of twinning, in which less experienced actors double master actors in the creation of a role. For in Drums on the Dam, the koken had to follow the movements being sketched out by the actor/puppets in order to ft themselves onto the stage and into the performance arc. At variance with bunraku practice, the actor/puppets were to speak their own lines, whereas in bunraku, narrators sit on stage and recite. The most crucial variance was, of course, the fact that actual human actors played puppets. Mnouchkine’s puppets were, thus, illusions of puppets. In this sense, the Soleil koken were both closer and farther away from their Japanese models; human, as well, they had to perform “control” when they were, in fact, more of an appendage or secretion of the human puppet than its master. They were indeed integrated into rehearsals at the point where the actor/puppets felt themselves too heavy to continue to work alone. In her contortion of traditional puppetry, Mnouchkine did observe the ritual of creating layers of death and resurrection, true of all great puppet theater. At ends of scenes and exits, 327

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for example, puppet bodies went limp and koken whisked them backwards ofstage over the two upstage bridges. At such points, identifying structures encouraged the public’s unsettling acceptance of “real” puppets and “real” puppeteers, the koken no longer seeming like doubled wraiths of the actor/puppets. Mnouchkine’s interest in actors as puppets and in the possibilities of the potent scenic alchemy of inorganic matter becoming organic through staged performance had been apparent long before Drums on the Dam. Starting with the key mise-en-abime scene at the end of 1789, in which human guignol puppets represent the equally wooden-headed bourgeoisie’s vision of the Revolution, she has created many sketches and vignettes with actors performing as puppets. To name another instance, in her 1989 collaboration with Hélène Cixous, La Nuit miraculeuse, a flm for television, she had the “wax” statuary of Deputies to the Revolutionary Assembly come alive with the jerky, disarticulated movements later prominent in Drums on the Dam. This animation intimates how wonder emerges when stasis makes way for movement, cadence, and rhythm in theater and also in the fundamental human choice to act, to build, or to advance the human community. With others, Mnouchkine has seen in the marionette the sublime extension of the actor’s art: In marionette work, aesthetic control is all powerful, mastery of form dominates, and form – balance, lightness, gravity, line, rhythm – communicates the message and the emotion. Vanity, self-consciousness, and fear vanish.

Staged human puppetry To set the stage for her illusory puppetry, Mnouchkine, as for l’Indiade, had her actors prepare by ofering them a loosely organized study trip to Asia (Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan) before rehearsals began. Actors knew only that they would be working on a basic story of avarice and ecological disaster and that they should pay attention to puppet theater. Many ended their trip in Korea visiting Han Joe Sok, a master drummer who had earlier come to the Cartoucherie’s ARTA to give a workshop: His son was later enlisted to train the puppet/ sentinels in drumming for the food-warning scene. From this initial trip, they gathered much of the iconic information that would help them develop their puppet/characters. During the six months of rehearsals, actors endeavoring to fnd their puppet form helped, through improvisation, shorten and rewrite Cixous’ text, seeking a more concise language appropriate to puppet expression. Mnouchkine slowed down their movement and set the gestures and stage pictures. Actors created rehearsal costumes as they worked along, taking their inspiration from a combination of Asian theatrical forms. These were eventually fxed and sewn by the Soleil’s costume team in Mnouchkine’s usual palette of red, black, and gold. Actors also imagined their own masks out of stockings – later perfected and improved by Erhard Stiefel – to fatten and distort their features and give them an impassive countenance. They wore half gloves to help them keep fngers fat and bound together in order to achieve the unarticulated look of puppet hands. They slowly developed other-worldly speaking voices, using a staccato rhythm and somewhat nasalized pitch. They learned to deliver their lines posed and frontally, “held up” by the puppeteers, who also often manipulated the recurrent hand props: fans, parasols, swords, lanterns for night scenes, and a noodle cart. In the production, stage pictures – as always well-balanced, almost sculpted – were set against twenty-two cascading silk backdrops, almost all evoking, in blue-gray pastels, landscapes and skyscapes. The backdrops gently located the place of action, while the black-clad koken helped indicate a time frame, fading in and out of vision, depending on the intensity of the lighting and the hue of the backdrops. The overriding sense was of a timeless watery dreamscape, with stage 328

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action happening in a temporary “safety zone,” a metaphorical dam breached at the play’s end by the always threatening water. (The flmed version of Drums on the Dam (2000) fgures this fooding by immense sheets of billowing blue silk, as Mnouchkine felt that the visual impact of the onstage food waters would not be the same on flm as in live theater.) With Jean-Jacques Lemêtre, Mnouchkine also established a multi-faceted musical accompaniment. Positioned stage right, Lemêtre created a constant musical underscoring using mainly Asian string, wind, and drone instruments. He also interjected an eerie vocalization. His instrumentation (minor chords and discordant sawing) also commented on the action, dialogued occasionally with the characters, and gave rhythm to their gesturing, underlining the puppets’ glide-walk during stage crossings. So as to always seem “animated,” the actor/puppets were never completely still, shifting hands and heads to help maintain a feeling of puppets searching for equilibrium. The most stunning moments of the production involved the combat and killing scenes with actor/puppets held aloft leaping and plunging, or rather, made to seem as if manipulated to leap and plunge. In these moments of prodigious physical action, the crucial ensemble work was undeniable. A form of non-individuated choral body emerged. “Blood” (strings of red yarn) circulated from the actor/puppets’ wounds to the actor/puppeteers’ hands, joining them in unquestionable communion. This mutual reliance echoed in form and function the meaning of the food drummers, the collective hero of the production. The latter – connected morally to the exposed populations – were also connected to each other and to their overhead puppeteers (in an ingenious variation of string puppets) by an elaborate system of pulleys.

The place of Drums on the Dam Drums on the Dam can be considered part of an important international theatrical movement which is rethinking puppetry and performance, indeed rethinking, since the 1960s, the boundaries of theater – between not only theater and puppetry but also between theater and dance and theater and sculptural form. This has led to experiments in size, as with the giant mobile shapes of the French company, Le Royal Deluxe, and to projections of the psyches of characters as forms accompanying their diferently composed exterior selves, as in Dario Fo’s staging of the opera, The Italian Girl in Algiers (1994), or as in all of Tadeusz Kantor’s work. Companies use all types of puppetry, as does the remarkable Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa, to foreground the diference between ideals and reality, to comment on and chastise contemporary demons of exoticism, racism, and exploitation. Modern puppetry extends the reach of actors by prosthetics, as in the case of Julie Taymor’s The Lion King (1997). Such rethinking of theatrical boundaries has also meant reconceptualizing the actor as puppet or puppet-like (as in most of the work of Robert Wilson) or theorizing the single actor as both puppet and puppeteer (as in the theory of Brecht). This theoretical movement refuses to limit puppetry to children’s art or to kitsch cabaret. We are, rather, in a realm of abstract symbolism, where the visual possibilities of animated objects onstage can be exploited in myriad ways – as, for example, in the expressionistic sculpted fgures of brain-dead humans in Kantor’s The Dead Class (1977). In the above examples, the puppeteer is not invisible, nor meant to be “unseen” as is the convention of bunraku. Rather, the puppeteer is part and parcel of the art of representation. This dual presence of puppet and puppeteer allows for a sophisticated probing of the nature of theater – placing onstage the inseparable connection between the work of art and the artist. Giving form to the work of creation, the new puppet theater, Mnouchkine’s work included, draws the audience into the richly suggestive space between animate and inanimate, where what is alive for sure is the act of theater itself. 329

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Conclusion Despite the diferences we have seen in the four productions analyzed here, we can confdently point to certain commonalities true of all of Ariane Mnouchkine’s productions. First and foremost is Mnouchkine’s dedication to the “fanatically theatrical”: “Neither journalism, nor television, nor cinema, [theatre] is not mere literature either. Theatre must remember that it is theatre [and thus must be] fanatically theatrical” (Lecoq 1987: 130). All of Mnouchkine’s work strives to create this alternative theatrical world which by its intense focus on form, on images, on bodies – even when texts are densely written, as with Cixous – makes spectators see what they ordinarily forget, or do not allow themselves to see. Her semiotically charged productions physically and sensually grab the public, putting it in touch with good and evil as though real forces in a melodramatic universe. Ironic detachment is not an option. Staged volumes, the rush of colors and textures, and music expand the contact and are integral to creating the mood and organizing the message. Every Mnouchkine production also bears witness to the past and to the most brutal lessons of political history: how power corrupts, how extremes of identity and compartmentalization lead to strife, even to genocide and civil war. Every production also speaks to the future: from projections of utopia positing love as a possibility to projections of apocalypse where hate must win. Her 2003 turn in Le Dernier Caravansérail to the contemporary situation of Central Asian refugees denotes a willingness to move from dreams and visitations of the past to poetic forms that interrogate the here and now. The characters in Le Dernier Caravansérail, recalling the hyperreal aesthetic developed in l’Indiade, urge us to look at the present directly in the face, absorbing the ghastly and tragically predictable grotesqueness of current geopolitics.

Further reading Theater texts Cixous, Hélène (1985) L’Histoire terrible mais inachevée de Norodom Sihanouk, roi du Cambodge, Paris: Théâtre du Soleil. ———. (1987) L’Indiade ou l’Inde de leurs rêves et quelques écrits sur le théâtr, Paris: Théâtre du Soleil. ———. (1994a) The Terrible but Unfnished Story of Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia (trans. Juliet Flower MacCannell, Judith Pike, and Lollie Groth), Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. ———. (1994b) La Ville Parjure ou le réveil des Erinyes, Paris: Théâtre du Soleil. ———. (2010) La Ville Parjure ou le réveil des Erinyes, with DVD of edited production by Catherine Vilpoux, Paris: Théâtre du Soleil. ———. (1999) Tambours sur la digue: Sous forme de pièce ancienne pour marionnettes, jouée par des acteurs, Paris: Théâtre du Soleil. ———. (2004a) “Drums on the Dam: In the Form of an Ancient Puppet Play Performed by Actors” (trans. Brian J. Mallet and Judith G. Miller) in Prenowitz, Eric (ed.) Selected Plays of Hélène Cixous, London: Rout-ledge, 191–221. ———. (2004b) “The Perjured City or the Awakening of the Furies” (trans. Bernadette Fort) in Prenowitz, Eric (ed.) Selected Plays of Hélène Cixous, London: Routledge, 89–190. Gorki, Maxime (1959) Les Petits Bourgeois (adaptation Arthur Adamov) in l’Avant-Scène Théâtre. Mnouchkine, Ariane (1979) Méphisto, le roman d’une carrière, Paris: Solin/Théâtre du Soleil. ———. (1990) “Méphisto” (trans. Timberlake Wertenbaker) in Theatre and Politics: An International Anthology, New York: Ubu Repertory Theatre Publications, 361–469. Shakespeare, William (1982) La Nuit des rois (trans. Ariane Mnouchkine), Paris: Théâtre du Soleil. ———. (1984) Henry IV, I (trans. Ariane Mnouchkine), Paris: Théâtre du Soleil. ———. (1984) Richard II (trans. Ariane Mnouchkine), Paris: Théâtre du Soleil. Théâtre du Soleil (1971a) 1789: La révolution doit s’arrêter à la perfection du bonheur, Paris: Stock. ———. (1971b) “1789” (trans. Alexander Trocchi) Gambit 5(20): 5–52.

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Mnouchkine (1939–) ———. (1972) 1793: La cite révolutionnaire est de ce monde, Paris: Stock. ———. (1975) L’Age d’Or: Première ébauche, Paris: Stock. ———. (1989) 1789 et 1793, Paris: Théâtre du Soleil. ———. (1989) 1789: Profle d’une oeuvre, Schwartz, Helmut and Wandel, Helga (eds), Frankfurt: Diesterweg.

Books, journals, and interviews Alter, Jean (1998) “Decoding Mnouchkine’s Shakespeares” in Issachar-of, Michael and Jones, Robin (eds) Performing Texts, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 75–85. Artaud, Antonin (1958) The Theater and Its Double, trans. Mary C. Richard, New York: Grove Press. Atack, Margaret (1999) May 68 in French Fiction and Film: Rethinking Society, Rethinking Representation, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bablet, Denis and Marie-Louise (1979) Le Théâtre du Soleil (Diapolivre), Paris: C.N.R.S. Banu, Georges (2000) “Nous, les marionnettes . . . le bunraku fantasmé du Théâtre du Soleil,” Alternatives Théâtrales 65(66): 68–70. Berger, Anne, Cornell, Sarah, Salesne, Pierre, Sandré, Marguerite, and Setti, Nadia (eds) (1984) “En plein soleil,” Fruits 2(3): whole issue. Bradby, David (1991) Modern French Drama 1940–1990, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bradby, David and Delgado, Maria (eds) (2002) The Paris Jigsaw, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Bradby, David and Williams, David (1988) Directors’ Theatre, New York: St Martin’s Press. Carré, Françoise (1985) “Les Rescapés du Soleil,” Autrement 70: 146–51. Celik, Olivier (ed.) (2010) L’Avant-scène théâtre: Le Théâtre du Soleil, notre théâtre (portrait, entretiens, textes, notes de répétitions), Paris: Les Editions l’avant-scène théâtre. Cixous, Hélène (1983) Le Livre de Promethea, Paris: Gallimard. Copfermann, Emile (1971) “Entretiens avec Ariane Mnouchkine et le Soleil: Diférent – Le Théâtre du Soleil,” Travail Théâtral Lausanne (La Cité): 3–33. Delgado, Maria and Heritage, Paul (eds) (1996) In Contact with the Gods: Directors Talk Theatre, Manchester, Manchester University Press. Dort, Bernard (1973) “l’Histoire jouée,” Avant-Scène Théâtre 526(7): 9–16. Double Page 21 (1982) Le Théâtre du Soleil: Shakespeare: photos de Martine Franck, Paris: Editions SNEP. Double Page 32 (1984) Le Théâtre du Soleil: Shakespeare 2: photos de Martine Franck, Paris: Editions SNEP. Double Page 49 (1987) Le Théâtre du Soleil: L’Indiade: photos de Martine Franck, Paris: Editions SNEP. Dusigne, Jean-François (2003) Le Théâtre du Soleil: Des Traditions orientales à la modernité occidentale, Paris: Centre National de Documentation Pédagogique. Féral, Josette (1998) Trajectoires du Soleil: Autour d’Ariane Mnouchkine, Paris: Editions Théâtrales. ———. (2001) Dresser un monument à l’éphémère: Rencontres avec Ariane Mnouchkine, Paris: Editions Théâtrales. Fischer-Lichte, Erika, Riley, Josephine, and Gissenwehrer, Michael (eds) (1970) The Dramatic Touch of Diference: Theatre, Own and Foreign, Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag Tubingen. Freixe, Guy (2014) La Filiation: Copeau-Lecoq-Mnouchkine, Paris: L’Entretemps. Hewlett, Nicholas (ed.) (2003) The Cambridge Companion to Modern French Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Innes, Christopher (1993) Avant-Garde Theatre 1892–1992, Paris: Routledge. Issacharof, Michael and Jones, Robin (eds) (1998) Performing Texts, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Kiernander, Adrian (1992) “Reading (,) Theatre (,) Techniques: Responding to the Infuence of Asian Theatre in the Work of Ariane Mnouchkine,” Modern Drama 35: 322–33. ———. (1993) Ariane Mnouchkine and the Théâtre du Soleil, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kuharski, Allen J. (2015) “Fifty Years of Ariane Mnouchkine and the Théâtre du Soleil: The Director as Dramaturge, Theater Historian and Public Intellectual,” in Herren, Graley (ed.) The Comparative Drama Conference Series 11, North Carolina: McFarland, 132–150. Labrouche, Laurence (1999) Ariane Mnouchkine: Un parcours théâtral (Le terrassier, l’enfant et le voyageur), Paris: l’Harmattan. Lecoq, Jacques (ed.) (1987) Le Théâtre du geste: Mimes et acteurs, Paris: Bordas. Les Voies de la création théâtrale V (1977) 1793, l’Age d’Or, Paris: CNRS Editions.

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Judith G. Miller Maranca, Bonnie and Dasgupta, Gautem (eds) (1991) Interculturalism and Performance: Writings from PAJ, New York: PAJ Publications. Miller, Judith G. (1977) Theatre and Revolution in France Since 1968, Lexington: French Forum Monographs. ———. (2011) “Mad Hope: Les Naufragés du Fol Espoir,” Theatre 41–2: 120–133. Mnouchkine, Ariane and Penchenat, Jean-Claude (1971) “L’Aventure du Théâtre du Soleil,” Preuves 7: 119–27. Nelson, Victoria (2001) The Secret Life of Puppets, London: Harvard. Neuschäfer, Anne (2002) De l’Improvisation au rite: L’ épopée de notre temps: Le Théâtre du Soleil au Carrefour des genres, Frankfurt sur Main: Peter Lang. Pascaud, Fabienne (2005) Ariane Mnouchkine: Entretiens avec Fabienne Pascaud, Paris: Plon. ——— (2016) Ariane Mnouchkine: Entretiens avec Fabienne Pascaud, revised and augmented, Paris: Plon. Pavis, Patrice (1992) Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture (trans. Loren Kruger), London: Routledge. ———. (ed.) (1996) The Intercultural Performance Reader, London: Routledge. Perret, Jean (1987) “Entretien avec Ariane Mnouchkine” in Lecoq, Jacques (ed.) Le Théâtre du geste: Mimes et acteurs, Paris: Bordas, 127–30. Picard, Anne-Marie (1989) “l’Indiade, Ariane’s and Hélène’s Conjugate Dream,” Modern Drama 32: 24–38. Picon-Vallin, Béatrice (2000) “Le Soleil, de Soudain des units d'éveil à Tambours sur la digue: Les longs cheminements de la troupe du Soleil,” Théâtre Public 152: 4–13. ———. (2009) Ariane Mnouchkine, Paris: Actes Sud. ———. (2014) Le Théâtre du Soleil: Les cinquante premières années, Paris: Actes Sud/Théâtre du Soleil. Prenowitz, Eric (ed.) (2004) Selected Plays of Hélène Cixous, London: Routledge. Quillet, Françoise (1999) L’Orient au théâtre du soleil, Paris: l’Harmattan. Richardson, Helen (1990) “The Théâtre du Soleil and the Quest for Popular Theatre in the Twentieth Century,” (PhD dissertation), The University of California, Berkeley. Salter, Denis (1993) “Hand, Eye, Mind, Soul: Théâtre du Soleil’s Les Atrides,” Theatre Magazine 24(1): 59–74. Samary, Jean-Jacques and Thibaudet, Jean-Pierre (1984) “l’Ombre d’Ariane dans le soleil: Entretien avec Philippe Hottier et Georges Bigot,” Libération 12(July): 28–9. Scheie, Timothy (1994) “Body Trouble: Corporeal Presence and Performative Identity in Cixous’s and Mnouchkine’s Indiade,” Theatre Journal 46(1): 31–44. Sellers, Susan (ed.) (1994) The Hélène Cixous Reader, London: Routledge. Shevtsova, Maria (1995) “La Ville Parjure: Entretien avec Ariane Mnouchkine,” Alternatives Théâtrales 48: 69–73. Stevens, Lara (ed.) (2016) Politics, Ethics, and Performance: Hélène Cixous and the Théâtre du Soleil, Melbourne: re-press. Tackels, Bruno (2013) Ariane Mnouchkine et le Théâtre du Soleil, Besançon: Les Solitaires Intempestifs. Tatlow, Anthony (2001) Shakespeare, Brecht, and the Intercultural Sign, Durham: Duke University Press. Théâtre du Soleil (1990) Les Atrides 1: photos de Michèle Laurent. ———. (1992) Les Atrides 2: photos de Michèle Laurent. Van Rossum-Guyon, Françoise and Diaz-Diocaretz, Myriam (eds) (1991) Hélène Cixous: Chemin d’une écriture, Paris: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes. Williams, David (ed.) (1999) Collaborative Theatre: The Théâtre du Soleil Sourcebook, London: Routledge.

Videos and flmography Bellugi-Vannuccini, Duccio, Canto Sabido, Sergio and Chevallier, Philippe (2009) Un Soleil à Kaboul, ou plutôt deux, Paris: Bel Air Classiques. Darmon, Eric and Vilpoux, Catherine with Mnouchkine, Ariane (1997) Au Soleil même la nuit, Paris: Agat Films/La Sept ARTE/Théâtre du Soleil. Mnouchkine, Ariane (1974) 1789, Paris: les Films Ariane. ———. (1976–7) Molière ou la vie d’un honnête homme, Paris: Les Films du Soleil de la Nuit/Claude Lelouche; 2004 DVD, Paris: Bel Air Classiques/SCEREN-CNDP. ——— /Théâtre du Soleil (1980) La Nuit miraculeuse (dialogues by Hélène Cixous), Paris: France Telecom/ La Mission du Bicentenaire/et al. ———. (2002) Tambours sur la digue: Sous forme de pièce ancienne pour marionettes jouée par des acteurs, Paris: Le Théâtre du Soleil/ARTE France/Bel Air Media. ———. (2006) Le Dernier Caravansérail (Odyssées), Paris: Bel Air Classiques/SCEREN-CNDP.

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Mnouchkine (1939–) ———. (2014) Les Naufragés du Fol Espoir, Paris: Bel Air Classiques. Vilpoux, Catherine (1999) Film d’après La Ville Parjure ou le réveil des Erinyes, Paris: Vidéo de Poche/Le Théâtre du Soleil. ——— (2009) Ariane Mnouchkine, l’aventure du Théâtre du Soleil, Paris: Agat flms/Le Théâtre du Soleil. Zitzermann, Bernard (2009) Les Éphemères, Paris: Bel Air Classiques.

Music Lemêtre, Jean-Jacques (1985) L’Histoire terrible mais inachevée de Norodom Sihanouk, roi du Cambodge: musique du spectacle, Théâtre du Soleil (tape recorded at La Cartoucherie). ———. (1987) L’Indiade ou l’Inde de leurs rêves: musique du spectacle, Théâtre du Soleil (tape recorded at La Cartoucherie). ———. (1991) Les Danses d’Iphigénie à Aulis d’Euripide et Agamemnon d’Eschyle, Les Atrides 1, Théâtre du Soleil. ———. (1992a) Musique du spectacle Agamemnon d’Eschyle, Théâtre du Soleil. ———. (1992b) Musique du spectacle les Choéphores d’Eschyle, Théâtre du Soleil. ———. (1992c) Musique du spectacle Iphigénie à Aulis d’Euripide, Théâtre du Soleil. ——— (1993) Musique du spectacle les Euménides d’Eschyle, Théâtre du Soleil. ———. (1999) Et Soudain des Nuits d’éveil: musique du spectacle, Théâtre du Soleil (CD recorded by Yann Lemêtre at the Cartoucherie). ——— (2000) Tambours sur la digue: sous forme de pièce ancienne pour marionnettes jouée par des acteurs: musique du spectacle, Théâtre du Soleil (CD recorded by Yann Lemêtre at the Cartoucherie). ——— (2004) Le Dernier Caravansérail (Odyssées), Théâtre du Soleil. ——— (2007) Les Ephémères Recueil 1 et 2, Théâtre du Soleil. ——— (2010) Les Naufragés du Fol Espoir (Aurores) CD 1 “Chez Félix” et CD 2 “Les Musiques du spectacle,” Théâtre du Soleil.

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18 BAUSCH (1940–2009) Royd Climenhaga

18.1 An artistic and contextual history The ground Pina Bausch’s piece Kontakthof (1978) begins with the performers all simply walking downstage. They move in a group, walking in rhythm with a purposeful hip thrust and slouch, reach the edge of the stage and return upstage to move toward the audience again. Then the group gathers, glaring out at us, before they begin coming forward one at a time. Each performer looks out at the audience, then turns and shows us his or her profle, then turns again to show his or her back. They bare their teeth, or pull up a skirt or pant leg to reveal a well-toned leg. The efect is oddly unsettling, a presentation of self as if for sale, calling attention to the engagement of self in the mating ritual to come and of the ground of the theater itself. We have, after all, paid our money to look at these people, to watch them display their wares for the next three-plus hours, and their looks back at the audience make us deeply aware of our own implication in the process. This moment from an early work by Bausch and her company, Tanztheater Wuppertal, is emblematic of a dramatic change of approach in the world of dance, and a great call toward new possibility in theater. Never before had someone so clearly and succinctly exposed the inner workings of the stage as a means of engagement and display, and used that uncovering for immediate visceral impact. It is a pure moment of performance that refects back upon the audience and makes us aware of our own complicity in taking in the worlds that are presented for us. Epic theater pioneer Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) had certainly played with the artifce of performance for efective purpose, and he drew on similar infuences in the dance world, where German expressionist dancers expressed that self-conscious presence through the performers’ bodies. But here we have a culmination of theatrical questioning posed against the physical dimensions of each performer’s presence. Dance is uncovered and theater is pushed in a new direction as the two forms are merged into a seamless whole. A new form is created, which critics begin to label “tanztheater” or dance-theater. No longer are we telling a theatrical story through dance movement or playing out characters in a drama through physical action. The theatricality of the moment is enacted on the bodies of the performers themselves. Just a year before the premiere of this piece, when asked how she selects dancers for her company, Bausch famously replied: “I’m not so interested in how they move as in what moves them” (quoted 334

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in Schmidt 1984: 15–16). It has become a defning statement for Bausch’s work. Here was work that was going to be based not in technique (although all of her performers bring years of training and often amazing technique to the process of creating her works), but on the emotional ground of the performers themselves, on what made them most human. This is a departure from conventional, movement-based dance forms, especially from the increasingly formalist stance of dance in America at the time, but not that out of line for someone who grew up in a German dance structure working to reconcile itself with its expressionist past. It also has within it traces of the more emotive dance structures Bausch had encountered in America along with combinations of German theatrical traditions going back to cabaret provocations from the early twentieth century, and the raw, visceral quality of experimental theater Bausch experienced in New York in the early 1960s. Bausch had begun to explore new ideas on stage in her frst pieces with Tanztheater Wuppertal in 1975 and 1976, but she realizes the diference of her approach while developing works like Kontakthof in the late 1970s. In an interview with Jochen Schmidt in 1978, she said: We’re still not doing what we really want to do . . . I think we’re all still holding back. It’s quite natural because after all we want to be loved and liked. And I think there is something that holds you back somewhere. You think that this is the point and if you go beyond then there’s no exact telling where it will lead. (Bausch 1978: 230) The need to move past previous forms, to fnd a new way of telling, is present here, but the real break from conventional dance may have come a few years earlier. Bausch was working on The Seven Deadly Sins and Don’t Be Afraid (1976), both based on material Brecht created with his frequent musical collaborator Kurt Weill (1900–50). In these early works, Brecht was experimenting with that self-conscious artifce that would seem to suit Bausch’s developing style. But in the middle of rehearsals, Bausch says, “something happened between the company and me. For the frst time I was afraid of my dancers. They hated the work. They would not understand or accept it. Once, at the end of rehearsal, Vivienne Newport shouted out violently, ‘Enough! I can’t take it anymore! All of this, I hate it!’” (quoted in Finkel 1991: 5). What happened in that moment? What were the dancers reacting against, and how did a response to that push the idea of both dance and theater in new directions? Answering those questions requires some understanding of the contextual ground on which Bausch stood, and which she was overturning. In this section, I will explore that process of transformation within the progression of Bausch’s own work, as well as tracing those infuences back into the motivating factors in both dance and theater that set the tone for the ground-breaking work to come. Finally, I will follow Bausch’s own infuence through the performance world and begin to trace the impact her work has had on a new generation of artists challenging the boundaries of performance practice.

Pina Bausch: life and work Bausch’s personal history and dance in Germany and America Pina Bausch was born in Solingen, Germany in 1940 and died in 2009, just a few weeks after being diagnosed with cancer. She appeared to glide through a room in rehearsals, often with a rather intense expression on her face. But she would quickly erupt into a broad smile when considering an idea before carefully choosing her words, hiding 335

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her intelligence and creativity behind an unassuming graciousness. Intensely curious, she always appeared to be looking at any situation she was in to try to find what was of most value. The moments she stopped to consider were most often small interpersonal connections; the little things that revealed a greater sense of the people she met. It was this driving interest in people, expressed in all their particularity, that funded both her personal interactions and her work. She was raised in her parents’ café, often playing underneath one of the tables and watching the patrons as they played out their social connections, and occasionally, their muted passions in front of her. After an early grounding in ballet, Bausch entered the Folkwang School in Essen in 1955. There she studied with Kurt Jooss, one of the seminal fgures in European modern dance. Jooss’ work at Folkwang after the war provided one of the few outlets to explore modern dance practice in Germany, and he drew on some of the primary energies that he helped foster in the fervent development of expressionist dance in the 1920s. This is the frst base on which Bausch’s work and the growth of tanztheater stands.

German expressionist dance: Laban, Wigman, and Jooss Rudolf Laban (1879–1958) is most often cited as the pioneer of modern dance in Germany. While the infuences of Mary Wigman (1886–1973) and Kurt Jooss (1901–79) were large, even they trace their roots to Laban’s creative presence. He was interested in the fow and rhythm of the body as a defning factor in dance, and specifcally how those elements connected to the spirit of the dancer. Mary Wigman became a major contributor and collaborator in Laban’s studies. Her interests always pushed toward the more personal entrance into the world of dance, while Laban looked for the next great unifying theorem. The goal of Wigman’s work, once she left Laban’s company to start her own, was to push toward individual expression, and to establish strategies for creating movement that directly evoked feelings rather than pointing at them from the outside. As she says, My purpose is not to “interpret” the emotions . . . My dances fow rather from certain states of being, diferent states of vitality which release in me a varying play of the emotions, and in themselves dictate the distinguishing atmospheres of the dances . . . Thus on the rock of basic feeling I slowly build each structure. (Wigman 1975: 86) In 1926, Kurt Jooss had just left Laban’s company and was asked to create a dance program for a new school in Essen that would combine dance, music and theater. The Folkwang School, as it was called, opened in 1927 with Jooss as director of dance. He instituted a program based on Laban’s theories where individual movement values were placed amid an established base in objective structures of presentation, and sought a balance between the grand structures of ballet and the free expression of modern dance. Jooss created his landmark anti-war ballet/dance-theater piece The Green Table in 1932 as an attempt to marry the two forms, and in response to the cultural conditions he saw around him.

Jooss’ teaching at the Folkwang School came out of his early work with Rudolf Laban. As opposed to a movement technique, Laban sought to uncover expressive potential in physical presence within groups of people. In reaction against the ornate surface of classical ballet and 336

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some of Laban’s group work with movement choirs, Mary Wigman looked toward “everyday” movements to develop a working method that might express personal experience. She emphasized individual expression through the “ausdrucks-gebarde” or expressive gesture, an evocative “everyday” movement, developed and stylized to recontextualize and heighten its original intent. The shift from the developed surface of the classical tradition to a probe into more interior depths brought with it a move from collective to individual experience. That redirection of expressive purpose was fully invested in Jooss’ work at the Folkwang School, and is the seed from which Bausch’s work and tanztheater grows.

Early experience in America After graduating from the Folkwang School, Bausch went to New York to study at the Juilliard School. Here she familiarized herself with the techniques of Martha Graham (1894–1991) and José Limón (1908–72), two of the seminal fgures in American modern dance. She was also infuenced by her work with Paul Sanasardo, a disciple of the expressive choreographer Anna Sokolow (1910–2000). But perhaps the most vital infuence on Bausch during this period was that of Antony Tudor (1908–87). Tudor was one of her instructors at Juilliard, and during the 1961/62 season she danced with the Metropolitan Ballet Theater, then under his direction. Tudor’s strongly psychological style, with its emphasis on character built upon emotive gesture, must have reawakened and reconfgured some of Bausch’s earlier experiences with emotive gesture in the German dance tradition. The worlds of American modern dance and ballet were often separate at this time, though Bausch was able to cross more easily between them. Within the modern dance world there were competing aesthetics as well. Graham was the reigning queen of dance at the time, and her technique based on weight and groundedness formed the base from which most American modern dance grew.

American modern dance Many of the pioneers of American modern dance had worked together in the 1920s and 1930s. Martha Graham had danced in the ground-breaking work of Ruth St. Denis (1879–1968) and Ted Shawn (1891–1972) in the Denishawn company, as did another innovator in American modern dance, Doris Humphrey (1895–1958). Both Graham and Humphrey left to develop their own work and provided one dominant infuence before the war. Their work emphasized grand story structures, although both choreographers were looking for ways to leave behind literal interpretations of their work and to push toward a more metaphoric means of presentation. Another infuential thread within the American modern dance mosaic before and immediately after the war was provided by the more emotive styles of dance that were at least partly spurred by energies coming from Europe. Wigman’s tours at this point had quite an impact and set the stage for Hanya Holm (1893–1992) to establish the Wigman School in New York. Especially after the war, José Limón and Anna Sokolow also provided new approaches to movement values. Limón had danced with Humphrey’s company and Sokolow had been a member of Graham’s. In creating their own work, both dancers emphasized more evocative movement patterns built on emotional structures and divorced from the mythic base of Graham or Humphrey. Sokolow’s most important work, Rooms (1955), incorporates everyday movements heightened and stylized to reveal psychological

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states. She developed the piece out of workshop sessions with actors at the Actor’s Studio, which was famous for its evocative style of training, and choreographed the movements out of questions she posed to the actors that might reveal inner states. “How does it feel to be near someone who is not there?” (quoted in Warren 1991: 119). Merce Cunningham (1919–2009), another Graham dancer, was also moving outside of the more mythic domain of dance of the 1930s. Graham’s own work in the late 1950s and early 1960s was already pushing more toward abstraction, but Cunningham’s early work during this period would prove to open the door for the anti-illusionistic post-modern dance to come. Cunningham had been working around boundaries between the arts, particularly in his collaborations with experimental composer John Cage (1912–92), that provided a new way to think about stage presentation based on pure elements of expression. Their pieces utilizing chance and indeterminacy, and their later work collaborating with visual artist Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008), provided one of the infuences that led to the wealth of performance experimentation in New York throughout the 1960s.

In addition to her exposure to Tudor- and Graham-based work, when Bausch arrived in New York in 1961 she also had the opportunity to experience a turning of the corner in American modern dance. A new spirit was unfolding away from the mythic infuence of the leading lights of the 1930s to new approaches and energies from the other side of the spectrum in more open and abstract work. Bausch was also witness to (or at least in the midst of) a groundswell of new ideas in performance practice and theater. Visual artists were experimenting in performance work called Happenings, and they often worked together with dancers whose formal exercises became the base of the post-modern dance movement. It is unclear how much of this activity Bausch actually saw or what its overt impact on her might have been, but she could not have helped but feel the spirit of revolution in performance practice that was going on around her. She has admitted to seeing a performance by the Living Theater, who were incorporating their own reimagining of presentational practice in challenging traditional dramaturgy. Many of the new energies that were taking shape in both the advent of post-modern dance and the growth of experimental theater involved tactics that called attention to the act of performance. The sheer visceral intent of performance, of placing yourself on display for an audience, was uncovered in an attempt to break through codifying structures we may feel inhibited by in everyday life. The experiments were raw and often openly confrontational. Bausch would later use that same uncovering of visceral presence for precise and subtle purpose. Her time amidst those radical ideas taking shape in New York must have at least opened that potential in her mind. But before Bausch had the opportunity to fully explore the quickly changing landscape of American dance and theater, she was asked back to Germany.

New possibilities in Germany In 1962 Bausch took her experiences in dramatic dance technique and experimental presentation back to Germany, where Jooss ofered her the position of leading soloist in his Folkwang Ballet. Her dancing with the Folkwang Ballet, under Jooss’ direction, was riveting and enigmatic. Hörst Koegler recalls that it was through no special will or efort, but just by her very nature that she stood apart from the rest of the dancers. She recalled the women Käthe Kollwitz has drawn; 338

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women carrying the burden of generations, who have been exploited through no fault of their own other than having had the misfortune of being born female in a male-dominated society. (Koegler 1979: 51) As Germany received support to rebuild its economy following the war, the re-established government invested in a repertory arts program. All cities were given resources to create theater, opera, symphony, art, and ballet centers. While this system ensured widespread development of arts programming throughout Germany, it also tended to emphasize more conservative practice. Modern dance was often overlooked in favor of ballet. German dance was at a crossroads, with the split between entrenched and established conventional ballet practice and a more upstart exploratory modern movement at its height. Jooss’ company provided a rare mixture of ballet structure and some modern technique, and the Folkwang School still ofered the most complete and yet progressive approach to dance training. Folkwang provided the means for modern dancers to begin to stake out a claim for their own interests, and to begin working within the repertory system. Bausch’s frst work as a choreographer and creator of new pieces began in 1968 after her mentor Kurt Jooss retired. Bausch had been the principal dancer in his Folkwang Ballet but now took over his position at the Folkwang Dance Studio where she began to work out a mixture of dance and theatrical technique. Bausch had worked closely with Jooss for the previous six years and during that time had begun to experiment with new choreography. But Bausch says that this early entrance into choreography came not so much from a desire to create things a certain way as from the simple need to dance. Though tightly constructed, what stood out in these early eforts was Bausch’s own emotionally charged attitude. Themes of gender construction and the opposition of the sexes were explored in Bausch’s early choreography, setting the tone for the work of her mature period. The dance world around her at this time was dominated by the parallel infuences of George Balanchine (1904–83) in ballet and Merce Cunningham in modern dance. Balanchine brought ballet to its most abstract, moving away from the story structures of earlier classical dance to rely on the power of developed technique and dramatic juxtapositions of formal elements. Cunningham was also concerned with formal values, drawing from the pared down spirit of the postmodern dance movement, and leading the charge away from mythic themes and emotive contexts and toward the potency of pure movement for movement’s sake. Certainly there were a variety of approaches at play in both ballet and post-modern dance, but the overwhelming presence of Balanchine and Cunningham carried considerable weight in America and in Europe, especially Germany, where artistic infrastructures were still recovering from both the physical and cultural devastation of the Second World War. Bausch’s early choreographic work recognized these infuences, but drew more heavily on the emotive work of her German predecessors. In 1972 Bausch was asked to choreograph the dances for a production of Tannhäuser at the Wuppertal Opera Company. The success of her unconventional staging led to her being ofered the position of director of the Wuppertal Ballet. She accepted the position on the condition that she could bring along many of the dancers with whom she was working at the Folkwang Studio in Essen. When Bausch frst arrived at the newly renamed Tanztheater Wuppertal in 1973, she developed pieces based on set structures. She created pieces based on two operas by Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–87) (Iphigenia on Tauris (1974), and Orpheus and Eurydice (1975)) and on Igor Stravinsky’s (1882–1971) avant-garde masterpiece from 1913, Rite of Spring 339

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(1975). But here, rather than following the linear pattern in the original opera or ballet, Bausch took the base condition operating in each story to act as an overriding metaphor from which movement and bodily attitudes grow. Her collage techniques surrounded the ideas to create a multi-faceted perspective of the story, re-creating the condition and mood of each story rather than telling it through a more conventional linear narrative. She drew on her own and her dancers’ personal experiences to create presentational movement patterns formed from emotive gestures and derived from a response to, rather than in service of, formal story structures. The stories are interpreted through present experience. As Bausch states in the yearbook Ballet 1986: “I only know that the time in which we live, the time with all its anxieties is very much with me. This is the source of my pieces” (quoted in “Bausch, Pina” 1986: 5). Rite of Spring, for instance, returns to Stravinsky’s root of a pagan fertility ritual, staging the action from the perspective of the terrifed young women who were the potential victims, thus lending it a measure of pity missing in other versions. Bausch is very aware of the plight of women in contemporary society, and the imagery she chooses refects that concern. In other words, the metaphor of a woman chosen as a sacrifce to the power and control of men is not lost on Bausch, but she is able to extend the metaphor through specifc concentration on the motivating impulse of the action, and, therefore, avoid falling into didacticism. Bausch reduces the ballet down to its most essential image, and concentrates on the depth and power of that motivating image. As she says: the most important thing to me was to understand what Stravinsky wanted. In Rite of Spring, there is nothing to add to what’s already there. There is a young girl, the Chosen One, and that young girl dances, all by herself, until she dies. (quoted in Finkel 1991: 5) Bausch continually returns to this technique of concentrating on one essential image or gesture and probing it until it reveals the depth of its associations, its claim to power within the cultural imagination. The initial idea is pushed until even the structural grid which supports it, the foundational impetus for the work, takes on metaphoric value. These early pieces act as extended explorations of a central idea within an established story and with everything that happens on stage, and the stage itself, working to explore the chosen base operating idea or image. In Rite of Spring the stage is covered with peat, which is kicked up lightly at the beginning of the piece but eventually covers the sweat-soaked bodies of the dancers, visibly muddying their white slips until everything is a murky brown. Simply and dramatically the theme of lost innocence slowly builds in the piece through this visual, physical metaphor. The overriding metaphor for each piece fnds expression by whatever means are necessary, whether they be movement based, imagistic, or dramatic, and by employing whatever forms and techniques are available. Bausch began, in this early work, to see the problem before her not as one of choreographing a dance, but as a group of people trying to interpret their experience of an opera or ballet in the rehearsal process and then presenting that experience within an aesthetic structure that develops along with the need to express. The goal of these early pieces remains, however, to uncover movement patterns that evoke and express the feeling of a piece, and in this way she does not move past more conventional, movement-based notions of dance. The movements she develops, however, draw on the roots of earlier expressionist dance’s formulation of the essential emotive gesture, but take on the source of that creation rather than adopting it as an established technique. Bausch returned to 340

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the source of everyday actions as they expressed a sense of ourselves as individuals and maintained that individualist stance in performance, rather than mining those actions for movement patterns that are then divorced from the subject to become formal expressions. In Rite of Spring, for example, the fnal sacrifcial dance of the virgin is a desperate expression of the fear of the woman going through this ordeal, and the physicality does not point at this fear, but uncovers it through gestural movement structures that begin to break down as the dancer violently throws herself into the exhausting ritual. Through all of this, while unquestioningly creating riveting pieces, Bausch had not yet ventured past the bounds of what most would frmly consider dance. Her dances were evocative, dramatic, and relied on metaphor and setting as extensions of feeling and character, but were still based squarely on movement as the central impetus of the work, even if that movement was addressed on diferent terms than other dance at the time. But something new was afoot. The dancers were asked to push beyond their accustomed role as impersonal movers to bring more of their individual lives to bear on the material and the means of expression. Especially as Bausch moved from the story ballets to the Brecht/ Weill material she drew from for The Seven Deadly Sins and Don’t Be Afraid (1976), the dancers were increasingly asked to put themselves in very demanding emotional situations. Bausch was beginning to uncover the very heart of the process of dance, the motivating impulse from which movement begins, and that impulse is always a person in a specifc situation. In Don’t Be Afraid, as in Rite of Spring, the woman who is the chosen victim constantly runs away from the man who pursues her, sweetly singing his song in what we come to understand is an attempt to assuage the rape that is to come. The performer herself is manhandled on stage and continually trapped in positions from which she fghts to escape. The physical action is specifc, but the expression comes from the performers’ entrance into the moment and engagement of the emotions at stake rather than their ability to execute the movement. The pieces as performed were becoming the arrangement of those moments as discovered in rehearsal out of the performers’ own experience and presented within physical and dramatic terms. The structure is still built upon a dance ground, but is starting to be expressed with the representational methods of the theater, and the dancer is allowed to show personal openness beyond the degree of her turnout. As Meryl Tankard recalled her response to the questioning mode of her audition for the company shortly after this period: It was the frst time a director had encouraged me to project my own personality on the stage, and it opened a whole new world. I had nothing against being a sylph in a tutu and toe-shoes, but the whole classical repertory suddenly seemed like a museum. (quoted in Galloway 1984: 41) It is this revelation of subjective experience in Bausch’s pieces – derived from and represented through the dancer’s body – that is the basis for tanztheater and that provides its break from dance. It is also what led to the crisis described earlier, and the revolt of some of her dancers. Bausch had pushed against the very support of what it means to be a dancer and was entering new territory. Engaging content through dance forms was not new in Germany, and the student revolts of the late 1960s had politicized many artists. Dancers felt the need to break with more conventional dance structures to try to be more culturally relevant. Out of this environment grew a group of young choreographers, most with ties to the Folkwang School, who reasserted some of the dramatic and expressionistic tendencies of Ausdruckstanz. They began experimenting 341

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with several dance infuences derived from their German past and many of their experiences in America. They sought a new way to approach the history and social value of their everyday experiences and to reassert the personal into the political sphere. Johannes Kresnik (b. 1939) worked as a reformer within the repertory system, frst as head of the Bremen Ballet and later as director of the Heidelberg Ballet. His work challenged the isolated world-view of the ballet tradition and opened up the possibility for young choreographers to address personal social involvement. Kresnik’s work showed the potential of working through the repertory structure in reimagining the ground of dance, and it was upon this base that the new aesthetic framework of tanztheater was built. Bausch’s early choreography during this period had begun to explore the nature of expression, and in so doing broke down the model of choreography as the arrangement of steps put forth by Balanchine and echoed by Cunningham, with the rest of the dance world following close behind. Rather than beginning with formal concerns of a body arranged under the governing ideas of an established technique, Bausch begins with the individual expression of her dancers who maintain their personal perspective in surrounding an idea with various approaches to its representation. Bausch took the same elements as those explored by American post-modern dancers of the time – collage techniques, pedestrian movement, repetition, and borrowing from other media – but maintained her interest in the subject to arrive not just at a new technique into which the dancer’s body as artistic material might be placed, but at a new form in which human experience is expressed in bodily terms. Tanztheater forms at the conjunction of these formal practices and more subjective concerns, where it attempts to create an expressive arena for the individual human subject. While dance critics debate if what tanztheater ofers is actually dance, theater critics are quick to point out its connection to theater history and the ideas of experimental theater artists from Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874–1940?) and Bertolt Brecht to Jerzy Grotowski (1933–99) and Antonin Artaud (1896–1948). Bausch simply took the methods of construction she knew best from her dance background and developed them through theatrical means. In so doing, she utilized those methods and techniques that best suited her ends, eschewing traditional narrative in theater to concentrate on the expression of the human subject, performed in imagistic moments choreographed into an interlacing feld of expression centered on a given topic or story.

Disruptive unity in Blaubart (1977) Without articulating a specifc agenda to remake dance in theatrical terms, Pina Bausch had begun to erode the base of dance as essentially the connection of movement patterns into an evocative whole. The alarmed reaction was not limited to a few of her dancers. While pieces like Rite of Spring had been widely admired by critics, they were only begrudgingly accepted by the more conservative audience back in Wuppertal. By the time Bausch was presenting the Brecht/Weill works in the mid-1970s, the public was not ready to accept these newer forms of presentation. Combined with the continued unrest in rehearsals, Bausch claimed she was ready to give up dance: “After the premiere, I had a terrible crisis. I wanted to give up, never work again. I decided to never set foot in a theater again” (quoted in Finkel 1991: 5). Jan Minarik (who began with the company in 1973 and continued to perform for over thirty years before acting as a consultant) convinced Bausch to come back and continue exploring in this new vein. He had his own studio and gathered a small group of dancers to begin experimenting with presentational strategies. They arrived at Bluebeard – While Listening to a Tape Recording of Béla Bartok’s Opera “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle” (1977). The program made no reference to dance, but listed simply scenes in which the solitary, brutal Bluebeard (Jan Minarik) 342

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plays out the scenario of the opera which he plays and replays from a tape recorder on a rolling stand. The music itself takes on the role of a character, interacting with the other characters as it moves around the stage on its rolling cart. It is as if Bluebeard the man and Blue-beard the opera act in violent collaboration against the other characters who are trapped on stage. The mode of presentation in the fnal version of the piece mixed forms, combining opera, physicalized theater, and dance, into an overarching visceral aesthetic. This piece marks Bausch’s entrance into a mature style and develops the form that helps to defne tanztheater. The work on Bluebeard disrupted the previous ground on which dance had stood by decentering movement as the primary means of expressive potential. The piece is physical in the extreme, but the physicality now serves the purpose of laying bare the inner dimensions of character and relationship. It brings together dance and theatrical energies to give us moments in which we are pulled beyond the surface of the movement and enter into the raw emotion underneath. In one chilling image, Bluebeard is seated at the small desk/tape recorder stand on which he continually re-enacts the violent struggle of the story through playing and replaying pieces of the opera. The current wife (originally played by Marlis Alt), who ultimately uncovers the brutal truth hidden in Duke Bluebeard’s castle, lies hidden at his feet. We see a hand emerge and move up Bluebeard’s body to caress his cheek. Bluebeard places his hand on top of her head and violently pushes her back down to his feet. The hand emerges again and again he pushes her down. Again and again, faster and faster, the hand traces its pathway across Bluebeard’s body to his cheek in a futile attempt to provide tenderness, to seek comfort, and each time it is met with a violent rebuf. The action, though repeated precisely, speeds up to the point that we begin to fear for the actual dancer’s safety. And then it stops for a moment and we take a breath, only to see the hand slowly make its way back up Bluebeard’s body to his cheek once more. The movement is precise and highly developed out of emotive gestural patterns, but the efect of the moment does not come wholly out of the quality of the movement, but in the context of both the moment and the sheer viscerality of the theater. We are brought into the vulnerability of the image in part because the performer herself is perceived to be at risk in some way (although the action is carefully developed in rehearsal to minimize any actual danger). We are able to see the tortured relationship of the characters, to feel the connection and desperation they feel, through the immediacy of their stage presence and the way in which we feel along with the woman in the moment. The specifcity of the moment opens up the interior dimensions of the characters and the story, but also moves us past Bluebeard itself and into a metaphorical connection to sexual relations in general. And the orchestration, or choreography of this and similar moments into a cohesive structure that continues to evoke that deeper metaphor is Bausch’s accomplishment in this piece.

A new approach – a new label: tanztheater The term “tanztheater” was perhaps frst used by Rudolf Laban in the early part of the twentieth century as a way to describe his choric dance rituals of that time (Partsch-Bergsohn 1987: 37). Kurt Jooss was the frst to use the term tanztheater in a formal and consistent manner. He sought a new term to diferentiate works such as his ground-breaking anti-war ballet/drama The Green Table from the overriding aesthetic of the more conventional story ballets presented throughout Germany at the time (Manning 1993: 246). Gerhard Bohner (1936–92) frst called his group “Tanztheater Darmstadt” when he was appointed ballet director of the Darmstadt Theater in 1972. Critic Jochen Schmidt points out that he was probably following the lead set by the “Nederlands Dans Theater,” which was infuential at the time. A year later Pina Bausch similarly called her 343

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company “Tanztheater Wuppertal,” and Bohner and Reinhild Hofmann (b. 1943) later called their company “Tanztheater Bremen” when they took over the direction of the Bremen Ballet. Amongst the newer generation of German choreographers, the transition from using the term “tanztheater” for a company to applying it to the performances of these choreographers is even more tenuous. Schmidt claims: Austrian Johannes Kresnik, whose works are the earliest this label would have suited, called his dance pieces “choreographic theater,” while Pina Bausch designated her productions “dance evenings” (Tanzabend), “dance operas” or “operettas,” before she used the term “piece” [stuck]. (Bausch frst used the term piece for her Kontakthof in May of 1977.) (Schmidt 1985: 59) It wasn’t until the late 1970s that “tanztheater” began to be broadly applied not just to many dance companies in Germany, but to the work they were presenting. Norbert Servos maintains: [T]he Wuppertal company, under Pina Bausch, was the frst to establish the term “tanztheater” – until then occasionally used in the names of dance companies – as a synonym for a new and independent genre. Tanztheater, a mixture of dance and theater modes, opened up a new dimension for both genres. Basically the term stood for a kind of theater that was aiming at something new both in form and content. (Servos 1984: 19) This change in nomenclature indicates a recognition amongst both the choreographers and the critics that the work being presented was quantifably diferent than what preceded it, and, as such, needed a new term, or in this case a revived old term now given new meaning through specifc application. Even while Bausch’s work was making that decisive move toward new means of expression in the late 1970s, others around her were similarly pushing boundaries and helping to defne new possibilities in performance. Gerhard Bohner re-created, and in the process re-established, some of the energy of the Bauhaus works by Oskar Schlemmer (1888–1943). Essentially formal experiments in space, shape, and time, Schlemmer’s works questioned the role of the human subject in performance. Johannes Kresnik had already begun exploring his own version of visceral politics in works often based on characters in extremis, from Romeo and Juliet (1975) to the poet Sylvia Plath at the brink of suicide (1985). William Forsythe (b. 1949), an American transplant, began working with the Frankfurt Ballet and created a series of pieces that pushed beyond more traditional ballet structures to reach toward more expressive internal truths. Susanne Linke (b. 1944) and Reinhild Hofmann, both coming out of the Folkwang School, also developed new approaches toward expressive possibility. Linke’s work contrasted the large-scale productions of other German choreographers, many working within the regional system, and often looked back toward more purely expressionist roots in her solo pieces or duets. Hofmann worked during this period as the co-director of Tanztheater Bremen where she created a series of large-scale imagistic pieces based on more mythic themes. A portion of the German dance world was reorienting itself toward this new form of expression, and many contributed to the emergence of the form of tanztheater. None, however, was to have the overall impact of Pina Bausch. Jochen Schmidt goes so far as to say: She not only deserves much of the credit for the unexpected ascent of West German dance theater to one of the three major forces of New Dance in the world – alongside America’s 344

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post-modern dance and Japan’s Butoh – she engineered it almost single-handedly. It’s not mere presumption to say that her aesthetic sway in the world of contemporary dance is greater than that of any other choreographer today. (Schmidt 1990: 40) Her impact has been far ranging, both for the many who follow in her footsteps and as it is felt in other dance and theater practices throughout the world. Whenever tanztheater is discussed, Bausch’s name inevitably follows. On another occasion Schmidt comments, “It was she who made tanztheater. Without her success, which was not an easy success, there would not have been tanztheater” (quoted in Daly 1986: 46). Beyond Schmidt’s ardent support, Bausch also generated the same response from other choreographers in the feld, most notably Reinhild Hofmann and Susanne Linke, who both credit her work as the break that allowed their own work to develop and be seen in a new light. (For specifc reference, see “Tanztheater,” an unpublished transcript from the discussion on tanztheater held at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, October 28, 1989.) All three were trained at the Folkwang School in Essen and credit Kurt Jooss with much of the work that set the stage for the development of tanztheater. But it was Bausch, both as a teacher – she took over the head of the Folkwang School from Jooss at the time when Linke was a student, just as Linke took over from Bausch when Hofmann was a student – and as a choreographer, who paved the way for others to fnd their own individual paths of expression.

The defning period for tanztheater, 1977–85 Bausch’s challenge and great innovation was to fnd a way to maintain a dance agenda through choreographic principles of construction while incorporating theatrical techniques of expressing individual subjective experience. This is the point at which dance and theater come together to form tanztheater. Her earlier pieces based on operas or ballets, like Orpheus and Eurydice and Rite of Spring, already showed that tendency toward subjective engagement through theatrical presence, even while they are still built on choreographed movement patterns established by Bausch as the dominant creator. With Bluebeard, she frst enters into the questioning process of construction that includes signifcant input from the ensemble, and that process simultaneously brings with it the subjective presence of the performer and fully integrates a more theatrical presentational structure within the dance form and physical emphasis. After Bluebeard, the company quickly works through several pieces that continue to push at this new formal structure. When she frst arrived at Wuppertal, Bausch created pieces more conventionally by developing movement patterns and crafting those on to her ensemble. With Bluebeard, she begins with a series of questions and asks the ensemble to fnd responses. Sometimes the responses take the form of a performed image, other times it might be a particular movement, and still other times it could be a story the performer might tell. She might ask the performers to describe something lost, or to bring in a precious object, or simply to dance their names. Once those elements are in the room, they may be explored in any way that is appropriate, through words, theatrical images, movement, and so on. The precious object, for instance, may elicit a story, or lead to a scene, or become the impetus for movement. Throughout rehearsals, Bausch watches and takes notes. She asks her performers to write down what they do so that they can remember it and do it again when asked. And she does ask, repeatedly. Moments are tried, expanded upon, linked to other moments, thrown away, and gradually a structure begins to emerge. Each individual response is tied to the underlying question that motivated the piece. Bluebeard starts this process, but here the performers are still responding to the cohesive ur-text 345

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of the opera. With the next piece, Komm tanz mit mir (Come Dance With Me, 1977), the base is the company members themselves. The structured exploration of questions takes shape as the underlying formal process of developing the new work and the results include physicality, text, images, sound, and the increasing importance of setting in creating the overall efect of the work on stage. Despite the time-consuming nature of the process, the company develops and presents two new pieces a year during this period. Bausch works with her partner Rolf Borzik (1944–80) as a designer/creator of the mise-en-scène throughout this time. Each new piece furthers the process and defnition of what tanztheater is and what it might be. Her piece based on Macbeth (He Takes her by the Hand and Leads her into the Castle, the Others Follow (1978) – the title is derived from a stage direction in Macbeth) includes actors in reimagining the presentation. Café Müller (1978) is more of a chamber piece for two couples and the lone fgure of Bausch herself as a kind of blind dreamer trying to hold on to the feeting images that are played out before her. In each piece, all the performers are put through the same questioning and rigorous physical process, and each is expected to fully invest in the moment on stage. The pieces develop through collaborative process and in response to the questions at hand. Kontakthof (1978) begins with the idea of tenderness. What are the limits of tenderness? When does it move into something else? And from there it moves through a catalogue of the sometimes humorous, sometimes desperate things we do to each other in our search for connection. The next phase of this defning period is shaped by two huge personal events in Bausch’s life. In 1979 Rolf Borzik is diagnosed with cancer and, early in 1980, dies. His energetic and eclectic personality had been a huge infuence on the company, and his personal relationship with Bausch a source of strength. His designs moved past traditional scenography to incorporate the ground of the operating metaphor of the piece, and his role in helping to create pieces would be hard to replace. Bausch begins her collaboration with designer Peter Pabst, with whom she has continued to work on every piece since. Pabst worked from a sketch by Borzik to complete 1980 – Ein Stuck von Pina Bausch (1980 – A Piece by Pina Bausch) (1980). The piece becomes a kind of requiem for Borzik, but it is as much a celebration as a remembrance. Built signifcantly out of images from childhood, there is a sense of lost innocence and a surprising amount of humor. That delicate combination will continue to be the reigning tenor in Bausch’s work throughout her career. The company continues to work, despite the tragedy. In addition to creating new works, they also reprise older pieces for tours and visiting engagements in Europe and Australia. They fnally take a break from creating new work in 1981, though their touring schedule at that time must have kept them busy. In the midst of all of this, Bausch gives birth to a son, Rolf Solomon. There is a progression in the work toward lighter material and new themes are explored, but it is too convenient to pin it to that singular event. When the work is built so strongly on the lives of the performers, there are bound to be periods of darkness and light. To me, what Bausch does so efectively is fnd ways to combine the two. Every moment of despair has room for hope and a bit of laughter, and every lighthearted romp has a serious undercurrent that grounds the work. The company continues its exploratory process, and continues to defne the boundaries of tanztheater. It settles into more of a routine of creating one new work each year and then keeping other works fresh for ever-increasing international tours. In the nine years after the crisis that led to Bluebeard, the company reforms and creates fourteen new pieces that establish the ground on which its reputation is based. Many of those early defning pieces are seen in the company’s international tours, and Bausch’s infuence can be felt in the four corners of the dance world. Dance companies throughout Europe are drawn to this new form of presentation, contributing to new energies in France and an explosion of new dance in Belgium. South American 346

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companies are also infuenced by a Bausch tour, and Britain gets its frst look at the new work in 1982. After an American premiere at the Olympic Arts Festival in Los Angeles in 1984 (to a mostly confused audience) Bausch does two successive seasons at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in New York in 1984 and 1985. This period in Bausch’s work starts with a hesitant attempt to reimagine what the company might do, and ends with a new form established and its impact felt around the world.

The collision of American and German dance As the formalist post-modern dance movement grew in America, German dance continued to develop along more emotive lines, with choreographers working alongside Bausch to help establish a new tanztheater aesthetic. This new group of German dancers infltrated the repertory system until, by the mid-1980s, a clear demarcation could be seen between the dominant formalist stance of the body as object and efcator of movement in American dance and the neo-expressionist development of the body as subjective presence in German dance. The expression of the body as either body-subject or body-object leading toward two distinct avenues of dance practice was perhaps nowhere so evident as in the Next Wave Festival of 1985 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. There, several tanztheater groups from Germany gave performances that contrasted greatly with the American choreography being presented at BAM and elsewhere in New York at the time. The diferences between the German and American work echoed a previous collision of aesthetics when Hanya Holm had brought Mary Wigman’s expressionist ideas about dance to New York in the 1930s. Holm explains: Emotionally the German dance is basically subjective and the American dance is objective in their characteristic manifestations . . . The tendency of the American dancer is to observe, portray and comment on her surroundings with an insight into intellectual comprehension and analysis . . . The German dancer, on the other hand, starts with the actual emotional experience itself and its efect upon the individual. (quoted in Partsch-Bergsohn and Bergsohn 2003: 57) The festival at BAM also included a few discussion sections where German and American critics and dancers debated their diferences in front of an audience. (For transcripts of these discussion sections, and a collection of other articles on German tanztheater see TDR, Spring 1986.) Anna Kisselgof, as moderator of one of the discussions, set the stage for the confrontation between the two groups by quoting German dance critic Jochen Schmidt: The New Dance [i.e. post-modern dance] choreographers as we have seen, are interested above all in movement. Pina Bausch, however, has expressly determined that she is less interested in how people move as in what moves them – and that applies, by and large, to her German colleagues Reinhild Hofmann and Susanne Linke. Whereas the young Americans – inasmuch as they are descendants of the Cunningham–Nikolais generation which defned dance as “motion, not emotion” – are fascinated by dance in itself, their German dance colleagues want to learn something and transmit something about their surroundings, about people’s daily lives, their cares, fears, problems and joys. (quoted in Daly 1986: 47) The distinction between the two aesthetics concerns the presence of the dancer’s body on stage. Either one works with the body as a formal element, to be moved and manipulated 347

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through various techniques; or with a body that is the subjective presence of the individual, expressing one’s involvement in society through cultural and acculturated images and attitudes. The critics involved in the discussion succinctly elucidate this point of divergence. Nancy Goldner of The Philadelphia Inquirer summarizes the American perspective: Very generally speaking, I think that the chief characteristic of American dance is that choreographers are interested in movement values. Every gesture and every step has an inherent validity, beauty, and expressiveness. It’s all there, all you have to do is use it. These American ideas come from two men in the warring camps of ballet and modern dance: George Balanchine and Merce Cunningham . . . I think younger choreographers – and some of them aren’t so young anymore – have always used the idea, frst, that movement is interesting in itself. That we dance so that we can express something but frst of all we dance so we can move. The idea is to move – how are you going to move, how many interesting ways can you do it. The second idea is that movements have in themselves an expressive quality. (quoted in Daly 1986: 48–49) In this scenario, it is the movement which is expressive, and the human body is a tool to elicit that movement. Jochen Schmidt calls on another tradition of American dance to counter this idea and hold up tanztheater as an example of dance where the human body as subject is expressive: I think there have been two lines in American modern dance: One is more realistic – Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, José Limón and Anna Sokolow. But it was lost after Graham. I see a lot of younger American choreographers now doing things which classical ballet can do better. They are always trying to become brilliant and fast. I ask: Why don’t they do ballet? For me, some of those dancers and choreographers are like hamsters. These little beasts in a wheel go around and around but always remain in the same spot. (quoted in Daly 1986: 49) The American critical response to the German dances ranged from revelatory and appreciative, to bemused, bafed, and downright angry. Sparks often arose from the friction of trying to force a subjective consideration of the body in German dance through the objective, formalist critical mind-set of American dance. Deborah Jowitt recognized the distinction between the two approaches to dance, but could not see these two perspectives merging into any kind of change in American dance practice. She said: I can’t imagine American choreographers wishing to imitate “Tanztheater,” no matter how much they are impressed by the work. It may be instructive to see that extremes of emotion can be dealt with on stage in innovative ways, but I think that American dancers still have faith in the expressive powers of dancing and form. (“What the Critics Say” 1986: 81) In this case “dancing” is considered as the formal expression of movement through a developed technique, or, as Nancy Goldner characterizes it: “American dance is about moving bodies – dance for dance’s sake, so to speak, and let the emotional chips fall where they may” (“What the Critics Say” 1986: 81). The purity of formal values was never quite so marked as this simple 348

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division of aesthetics would imply, but nonetheless the infuence of Bausch’s work, and its far-ranging impact on European work since then, has opened up new possibilities in American modern dance. And while Bausch’s work pushed open doors in the dance world (sometimes with some reluctance from the entrenched practitioners), theater artists were quick to embrace her large-scale imagistic works and claim their dream-like narrative structures as a continuation of theatrical experiments dating back to the turn of the last century. Despite American reluctance to fully accept the work at this point, Bausch’s reputation had been made, and her place in European dance solidifed.

Residency pieces as an expansion of form 1986–98 Bausch has taken advantage of her increasing reputation to establish residency periods in diferent cities to explore new ideas and to use those as the basis for new work. This process started with a residency in Rome, where the company developed Viktor (1986). They explore the city and come back to rehearsals with their impressions. The company returns to Wuppertal for the arduous process of sifting through their reactions and developing the shape of the work, and the fnal piece premieres at their home opera house before returning to the city that inspired it for a further run. Although there were other types of pieces generated during this period (including a break to create a flm, Die Klage der Kaiserin (The Plaint of the Empress, 1989)), the process increasingly becomes Bausch’s preferred way of working. She creates pieces based on residencies in Palermo (Palermo, Palermo, 1989), Madrid (Tanzabend II, 1991), Vienna (Ein Trauerspiel, 1994), the American West (Nur Du, 1996, created primarily out of the company’s residency in Los Angeles, but also with brief visits to San Francisco and Austin, Texas), Hong Kong (Der Fensterputzer, 1997), Lisbon (Masurca Fogo, 1998), and so on. In these residency pieces, which continued until her death, Bausch expands on her creative process of asking questions of the dancers and deriving material from their lives and past. She uses her company’s response to place to uncover something more than simply a tourist’s portrait of the city. She continually asks what makes the people who they are? What gives the city its vibrancy and character? And that comes more out of the way people inhabit their lives than any of the particular details of the city itself. The goal is to fnd something more universal underlying the expressive possibilities uncovered in any given culture. I was able to see some of this process in action when Bausch came to America to create what would become Nur Du. The company trained in the mornings at UCLA dance center, and rehearsed in the afternoons. They spent evenings exploring Los Angeles, visiting everything from a boxing gym to a UCLA basketball practice. They went on a whale-watching trip and bowling at Hollywood Bowl. They even saw popular 1970s television personality Florence Henderson receive her star on the Hollywood “Walk of Fame.” Over ffty sites and events in all were visited. Bausch was interested in a variety of events, but was particularly drawn to situations where people move. She and her company all still do come from a dance background, and are keenly attuned to the way people express themselves in movement. The company had hoped to wander the streets and mingle with the people, but the residents, spending most of their time in the world trapped in their cars, were not so easily observable. After their stay, Rainer Behr, one of the members of the company, commented: Los Angeles seemed very poor to me, although not in a material but in a spiritual sense. So full of illusions . . . These opinions, these mindsets, these lives – to be honest, it really blew me away. Right there, in your face, the situation of all those who can’t make 349

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it, who can’t function . . . There, they’ve got the freedom to really live out their dumb things, their lost ideals. Everything is lived out, without limits. (quoted in “Thoughts on the Creation of Nur Du and Bausch’s World” 1996: 30) When asked how this wealth of experience would fnd its way into a dance, Bausch responded: I am looking for something I felt, or touched, or saw, or somebody I met. It could be something very simple – what happens because of the people who are there and how they interact. I would like to see, to learn, to meet, and then see what happens. (quoted in Breslauer 1996: 3) The piece itself is a series of disconnected moments, epitomized for me by one simple image of presentation. Andrei Berezine enters with a rocking chair. He calls for Jan, and looks around, but Jan is not to be found. He sits in the rocker and lights a cigarette, and then, blowing smoke and looking supremely comfortable, he says: “Help.” His tone is playfully facetious. He continues, “If something happens to you, call 911. After, do something, jump, scream. When they come they can see you.” As opposed to many images from prior Bausch works that deliberately expose some element of the performers, all of these moments are performed as if there is a need to be seen in order to exist, that only in calling attention to yourself do you become yourself. When asked how she thinks the American audience will respond to the work, Bausch explains: what I try is to fnd the pictures, or the images that can best express the feelings I want to convey. And you have to fnd your own way to show these things. I am not telling a story in a normal way. Each person in the audience is part of the piece in a way; you bring your own experience, your own fantasy, your own feeling in response to what you see. There is something happening inside. You only understand if you let that happen, it’s not something you can do with your intellect. So everybody, according to their experience, has a diferent feeling, a diferent impression. (quoted in Meisner 1992: 15) Each moment in Nur Du has individual value, but the real strength of the piece comes in accretion. We are left with a feeling of isolation and desperate showcasing, of arrogance and resiliency, and a surface sheen that is hardened and shined to mirror-like quality, but that does not permit entry into any interior world (actual mirrors, from hand-held compacts, to full-length mirrors, appear frequently in the piece). Although some of the California critics were reluctant to see this as a portrayal of the American West, for me the overall efect transcends specifc references to address deeper connections that are particularly American. And, as usual in Bausch’s pieces, there was room to derive from the evening whatever you were willing to put into it. If you came looking for some entertaining moments, they were there to be had, and if you invested more of your own place in the world, you might fnd a way to approach the surface values we all confront in our daily lives. Throughout this period, Bausch is still working within the same basic conceptual frame she established in that defning period described above. The ground of the work is a physical entrance into inner dimensions through highly crafted sequences of evocative images. The pieces are built like dreams, with seemingly unrelated moments actually showing an internal consistency of underlying intent. The motivating impulse for the work shifts during this period, 350

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however. It started as the lives of her dancers themselves, but now moves toward a kind of cultural anthropology. Bausch asks how we perform ourselves, and shows the results of her and her company’s exploration, carefully crafted into cubist portraits that present multiple perspectives that all adhere to an inner logic. If anything, the work during this period is more refned, settling into a groove as both Bausch and the company (and the audience) become accustomed to this type of work. But I fnd the work losing some of the vitality of that early creative period. It feels to me to be one step removed from the immediacy of those early works, and the step back gives the audience a bit more room for comfort.

Returning to dance, 1999–2009 Nur Du is punctuated by several solos done in more of a conventional movement-based dance idiom. The men in particular shine through these isolated moments, all of which incorporate a certain degree of dramatic gesture pushed toward full body swoops and collapses to the foor. The piece ends with one fnal solo, done by Dominique Mercy, a brilliant dancer who continues to amaze even as he approaches sixty. He hurls his graceful body into the space and fails his arms with abandon. This fnal dance appears to be a dance of death, where we witness the last gasps of a dying bird, like the death of the swan in Swan Lake, done double time. I left feeling that after all the surface gloss we have been shown, and the many humorous moments, we are left with the fragility of one individual confronting death. A solitary man, out of context, going through his fnal attempts to hold on to life. Bausch had included more movement-based prompts in the rehearsal period for this piece. The company is in transition, as well. Some of the old stalwarts have moved on, and a new crop of younger dancers takes their place. Bausch’s reputation ensures that she is able to recruit the best the dance world has to ofer. The company had always been international, but by this point it is pointedly so, with a few representatives from every continent. Bausch had said that she needed to leave dance aside for a time in the 1980s, and here now in the mid-1990s, she begins to re-approach ideas of movement. There had always been moments of movement in the work, but the combination of the changing composition of the company and Bausch’s own comfort in her style allow those moments to become more prominent. But even as she re-establishes a base in more conventional movement phrases, the process remains that probing exploration of self and place. In the early work, many of the company members were ready to move outside the boundaries that dance created. The newer company members don’t feel the same restrictions through dance, in part because of Bausch’s infuence in opening up possibility in the frst place, and so are ready to express their ideas and emotions through movement. Bausch takes what the company ofers and responds to what they need and what the piece demands. In no other company is the work such a refection of individual company members. Seeing successive pieces, you come to know the diferent dancers and recognize their contributions to the work, and this transition in the work can be mapped on the changing composition of the company. I hadn’t realized, for instance, quite how important Jan Minarik’s infuence had been until he retired. He still works with the company as a consultant, but his forceful presence is no longer felt on stage. Minarik had been uncompromising in his push of the boundaries of expression to uncover the subtlety of character, often exposing his own fragile vulnerability in the process. Other dancers fll in for the older pieces in repertoire, and are able to bring out this reverberant quality of performance, but the new pieces are constructed along diferent lines. We frst start to see that transition with Nur Du, and its return to dance. But that piece is still very much built on the imagistic ground of the earlier work, and many of the older company 351

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members still hold considerable sway, even as the new recruits start to fnd their voice. Masurca Fogo (1998) is the most buoyantly gleeful mix of the old and the new. There is still a mixture of imagistic structures and more movement-centered passages, but whether because of the infuence of the new company members, or the passion of Lisbon on which the piece is based, there is a youthful energy and sensuality to the piece that points us in a new direction. The next several pieces Bausch completes are still based on residencies in various cities, with a similar anthropological approach, but there is a diferent feeling to the work. Part of it is the increase of more traditional dance-centered movement sequences. More apparent, however, is the ease with which the company moves through the work. The early work had a defant quality, as if we were witness to an event, and not always a willing witness, as we were being shown how we are in the world and how we treat each other. The results were not always comfortable, but always revelatory. Now, I enjoy the pieces and marvel at the craftsmanship in both construction and performance, but I no longer feel my life is being ripped from my own protective cloak, laid bare and strewn across the stage. Despite the lasting impact of Bausch’s incorporation of theatrical presentational infuences into a dance-centered dramaturgical structure and visceral physical presence, her more recent work returns to dance, but now having passed through the transformative atmosphere of theatrical consciousness and carrying the weight of a new way of approaching an audience and creating work in a radicalized world. The ground-breaking expansion of form came from a desire within her and her company to fnd a new means of expression, one that captured the immediacy of their concerns. They explored new ways of being on stage, and subsequently opened the door for other choreographers and theater artists to explore a new means of representation, one that accounts for and utilizes the real presence of the performer’s body, without attempting to push his or her body through an objective technique, and without trying to make his or her body stand for something else in the presentation of character within a dramatic story. Once that door had been opened, Bausch and her company set about charting the limits of the world on the other side. They respond more to their own needs during this period – as performers, as people – rather than to the dictates of convention, or to an audience that might want to see more of the same, and continue to ask that question from which Bausch started: “What moves you?” Throughout this time answers came in the shape of new pieces, responding to new residencies, and to an increasingly younger core of dancers and an aging Bausch. The tensions of placement in a hostile world become the satisfed but slightly rueful look back at the struggles of youth. And there is a comfort in the work, in having achieved a place from which to say that which before was not possible to be said. Bausch created the possibility to say it.

Bausch’s work and contemporary theater Even as Bausch returned to a more movement-based dance idiom, her impact on theater continued to expand. The initial impulse for the change in Bausch’s work and the transition to Tanztheater came out of a fervent reimagining of theatrical potential. Experimental theater in the 1960s, often working from the prophetic ideas of theatrical rebel Antonin Artaud, initiated a process of redefning subjectivity and visceral presence on stage. It became possible, through the experiments of a variety of theater artists, to create a world of the stage rather than a world on the stage, and the human relation of the performer shifted from one absorbed in character to one as elemental and actual. It is this kind of energy from which Bausch draws, and in which she fnds herself enmeshed during her time in New York in the 1960s and as she begins her own work in Germany in the 1970s. 352

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The theater world of Bausch’s educational years was one of increasing physicality and immediacy, a natural bridge from her dance background and growing frustration with formalist tendencies in dance. The importance of recognizing Bausch’s placement within this theatrical continuum lies in the energy from which she drew. She found ways to engage that energy within her own means, and, I think, can easily be counted as one of the major contributors to theater practice of the late twentieth century. Her grand schemes and epic works are often placed alongside similarly grand work by theatrical legends like Peter Brook (b. 1925) or Ariane Mnouchkine (b. 1939). In addition to Bausch’s connection to theatrical pioneers like Artaud and Grotowski, more recently Bausch’s work has been compared to a wide range of theater artists and styles. Her use of imagistic structures has been compared to several directors, with critics drawing parallels to the precise visual language employed by Robert Wilson (b. 1941), or the narrative strategies developed by Romeo Castellucci (b. 1960) and Jan Fabre (b. 1958) (Climenhaga 2018). Her working environment has been linked to the intellectual playing spaces developed by Richard Foreman (b. 1937) with his Ontological Hysteric Theater. Foreman describes his working space as “an environment for the text to explore, a gymnasium for a psychic, spiritual and physical workout” (Foreman, 1995: 69), and absent the concentration on text, that description would certainly be apt for the environment Bausch creates. The way her pieces are brought together through exploration in rehearsal has been compared to similar works by the New York-based Wooster Group, and later work by Ann Bogart (b. 1951) and SITI Company’s use of “Viewpoints” as a way to import principles of dance construction to theatrical development. Bausch’s particular developmental approach and move toward theater through physicality has been likened to the movement and sound operas of Meredith Monk (b. 1942) as well. What all of these artists and styles of performance share more than any governing aesthetic is simply the search for new forms of expression outside of conventional dramatic structure. The work of most of these artists, including that of Bausch, has been labeled as performance art at some point in their careers, even as the relatively recently coined term retroactively claimed the Futurists, Dada, and much other experimental theater practice of the twentieth century. In many ways, performance art, as a term, is useful to describe those events that fall outside the accepted ground of what theater or dance can be at that time. It is a process of growth, constantly making itself obsolete as performances and styles are accepted into the now expanded feld of what theater or dance can mean. It is by defnition the leading edge of performance practice. Bausch’s work has extended the boundaries of what dance and theater are, and in the process blurred the boundaries between both. More recently, theater theorist Hans-Thies Lehman has coined the term ‘postdramatic’ to describe a theatrical practice based on new formal methods developed in the 1960s with the aim of creating a performance space where “theatre becomes a moment of shared energies instead of transmitted signs” (Lehman, 2009: 150). Lehman specifcally cites Bausch’s use of space as a physical construct as one facet of her more all-encompassing postdramatic strategy. Physical action is made palpable through an interaction with space, as in the observable efort and heavy breathing seen in Bausch’s Rite of Spring: Charged by physical energy, such immediately spatialized body-time aims to communicate directly with spectators’ nervous system, not to inform them. The spectators do not observe but experience themselves inside of a time-space. (Lehman, 2009: 152) Lehman considers how these ideas are derived from a re-imagining of theatrical possibility in the latter half of the twentieth century, and shows how many theater artists, including Bausch, further develop on those initial structures. 353

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Lehman provides one example of the way Bausch’s work has been incorporated into current discussions of theatrical structure. Simon Murray and John Keefe set out to catalogue new theatrical construction based on physical parameters in their comprehensive Physical Theatres: A Critical Introduction (2015). Bausch is the first example they provide in discussing contemporary practice, and they clearly lay out her seminal presence in new energies across the theater spectrum. As theater expands to encompass a wider range of possibilities, Bausch’s work becomes a constant reference point in describing the transition to something new.

Bausch’s infuence Bausch’s infuence has worked along (at least) two diferent lines. First, her work expands the palette of formal resources performing artists can use. Bausch opens the door to new creative process which allows choreographers, directors, and creators of new works to reach toward the center of an idea, a play, or a creative construct and articulate that heart through a variety of means. Second, Bausch’s work opens possibility. What you once may have viewed as a boundary – between theater and dance, text and movement, character and performer, and so on – is shown to be a limiting structure that can be pushed aside, and dozens of individual artists and creators have taken on that challenge. What Bausch appears to do with such ease in creating these fuid, dream-like pieces that explode the boundaries of the stage, is not so simple to accomplish in practice. In Bausch’s oeuvre, the pieces come from months of painstaking creative work, editing, orchestrating, and rebuilding. Those who might wish to walk through the door of possibility Bausch provides must confront a difcult process. Nonetheless, despite the spate of poor imitations of Bausch that have appeared on stages around the world, there have also been several who have used the tools and freedom they inherit from Bausch in combination with the vast variety of their own talents to create challenging and dynamic work. In her home country, other German artists have expanded on the ground that Bausch established. The older generation of artists who worked alongside Bausch in the years when tanztheater was developed still hold signifcant infuence, while many among the newer generation create compelling work. None has received more attention than Sasha Waltz (b. 1963). After studying in Amsterdam and America, Waltz created a number of viscerally demanding pieces for which she credits Bausch’s work as a direct infuence. In 2000, she was asked to be an Artistic Associate at the Schaubühne in Berlin where she continues to work creating dynamic pieces alongside director Thomas Ostermeier’s (b. 1968) reimagining of theatrical possibility. In Switzerland, Joachim Schlömer (b. 1962) (another product of the Folkwang School) has worked as the head of Tanztheater Basel since the mid-1980s. Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker (b. 1960) and her company Rosas lead what has been dubbed the Belgian dance-theater boom, with works that range from stunning formal expressions (Fase (1982), Rosas Danst Rosas (1983), and the more recent Small Hands (out of the lie of no) (2001)) to pieces that fuse theatrical elements with rigorous physical expression (Elena’s Aria (1984), Stella (1990) and (but if a look should) April me (2002) among others) and some newer works that explore text: Quartett (1999, text by Heiner Mueller) and I said I (1999, text by Peter Handke). She also explicitly cites Bausch as an infuence in her construction of new works. She is followed by a group of artists exploding the boundaries between dance and theater: Wim Vandekeybus (b. 1963) and Ultima Vez, Meg Stuart (b. 1965) and Damaged Goods, NeedCompany, Alain Platel (b. 1959), and so on, all of whom list Bausch as a primary infuence. Bausch’s work has also opened new possibilities in dance around the globe, from France to Israel, India to South America. 354

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England is in the midst of a new wave of physical theater, while the dance scene also moves to expand boundaries. While the seminal work of theater groups like Théâtre de Complicité or Forced Entertainment or the visceral dance of DV8 can’t be traced directly back to Bausch’s infuence, the move toward a direct confrontation of physicality in space and time and away from a more text-based dramaturgy certainly comes from an evocative atmosphere Bausch’s work signifcantly impacted (and many company members in all of those groups count themselves amongst Bausch’s many fans). The impact is seen not always in new physicality, but in the developmental process and use of dance-construction principles to interweave theatrical images. American dance has clearly moved beyond the formal considerations cited in the 1980s, if it wasn’t already moving in new directions even at that point. Choreographers work to fnd ways to incorporate the broader impact of theatrical presentation while maintaining a base in physical expression, often amidst increasingly constrained (fnancial) resources. New theater companies have added to the challenge of text based work and sought new possibilities of construction. Downtown performance festivals in New York are peppered with groups exploring a physical base of development, coming out of both Bausch’s infuence and the increasing importance of the Viewpoints as a means of exploring new performance work. (Created by Mary Overlie from roots in expressionist dance practice and further developed by Anne Bogart and SITI Company, Viewpoints open up a performer’s awareness in time and space.) All these groups share a response to the open dramaturgical structure of which Bausch provides the foremost example. Bausch’s work has changed the ground of presentation, and ofered a new way in for dance and theater practitioners across the spectrum of performance. Bausch’s initial aims in her choreography were echoes of her German expressionist roots: to explore the potential of the stage and lay bare the depth of human emotion. One of Bausch’s greatest achievements in the development of tanztheater has been to draw on the power of those essential elements of the stage and of presentation. Bausch refuses to take anything for granted, always asking both what it means and what it does simply to walk out on stage and be looked at, and look back. In so doing, she utilizes stage elements for what they are, rather than what they pretend to be, and concentrates her attention on the performers themselves, and what they can ofer in rehearsal. She strips away the ornate exterior to uncover people. The combination of that concentration on the subjective presence of her performers, who bring their own histories, ideas, knowledge, and experience to bear on each performed moment, and the very questioning of that arena of display in theater and dance leads to a form of presentation that consciously incorporates vast histories of social engagement and performance practice. Each moment is built on the same ground through which we perceive it, never innocently, but always in light of our own experience and history, expectations and awareness of the past. The present moment is built on a past that runs deep, and allows that moment to breathe its small gulp of air before it too becomes one more piece necessary for the construction of the next present. All that is a longer way of saying that Bausch does not let us of easily. The moments she creates are the glistening tips of very large icebergs that bring with them the weight of intricate social and historical layering. Each moment can be appreciated for the glistening portion above the surface, but an awareness of the depth and intricacy of the precedents that keep that moment afoat can add a new level of understanding. We see Bausch’s pieces both from our own developed present, and within the context of the performed history they embody. Tanztheater develops out of the multiplicity of those infuences, rather than as a further development of a specifc performance practice. Bausch’s own life and creative development provide a model for the energies that lead to the essential diference that the development of tanztheater contains. She carried that history with her, and the work is a constant refection of it. 355

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Bausch’s infuence after her death in 2009 has only grown as the company continues to present pieces from the repertory in tours throughout the world. The company has recently decided to expand beyond Bausch’s work to perform pieces by other choreographers, even while they remain committed to sustaining Bausch’s legacy in the active presentation of work. A few of the older works based on more traditionally balletic practices (the Gluck pieces and Rite of Spring) have since been performed by the Paris Opera Ballet, with Rite of Spring developed with the company while Bausch was still alive. This living legacy has only furthered the reach of Bausch’s accomplishments as many of the pieces are presented as part of retrospectives with added symposia to consider how the works have become part of the greater dance and theater traditions. In addition to performance practice, the Pina Bausch Foundation was established immediately upon her death specifcally to consider and work toward preserving her legacy. An institute was established outside of her longtime home in Wuppertal, with archival preservation of elements and documents from her entire career. The institute also serves as a gathering spot and venue for developing new work by visiting artists, and is working to take advantage of digital media and distribution to provide access to materials beyond work at the site. Beyond the enormous impact of the work in its global distribution through tours by the company and video documentation, the Pina Bausch Foundation is rewriting the script for how ephemeral performance companies can sustain a sense of presence beyond the immediate impact of founding creative directors. The issues are never easily determined or resolved, but eforts by Tanztheater Wuppertal to directly address concerns of legacy have added to Bausch’s presence within the international performance community, providing a model for dance and theater artists to work from in years to come.

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Kontakthof in context Why Kontakthof?

In the fall of 1985, I sat in the opera house at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York as the performers described at the beginning of the chapter made their way downstage in Kontakthof. They simply walked forward, with an odd hip thrust, confronting the audience in their march of presentation, looking straight at us, and I felt at me in particular, despite my seat halfway up the balcony. That direct gaze was exposing, and exposure always feels self-consciously personal. I had come to see this piece on the promise that it would be diferent. I was searching for a means to reconcile my theater education, my experience in dance choreography and theory, and what I dimly imagined possible on stage. The singularity of a reimagined presence I saw on Bausch’s stage drew me in immediately, and I felt – though I still had no idea how to approach it – that here was an entrance into performance that opened up possibility. Since then, I have worked to try to uncover that presence; in my research, in my theater going, and in creating new works for the stage myself. Kontakthof has been performed throughout the world over the past thirty years in the repertory of Tanztheater Wuppertal, with some of the original ensemble members who created the piece in 1978 and new performers taking over roles as the company shifts personnel. Bausch also re-created the piece twice more, once with a group of men and women over sixty-fve, and again with young teenagers. Each performer, whether a long-standing company member, one of those brave teenagers, or the older members of that intrepid group of senior citizens, stands before the audience and ofers him or herself to the event. It is the sacrifce of self, the co-optation of strength through vulnerability, that we make whenever we step on stage, this 356

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time made palpable and used as a metaphor for our own lives. We look at these performers, and they dare to look back. The look with which each performer confronts the audience recalls the glare of provocation, exposure, and visceral intensity of expressionist portraits. Austrian painter Egon Schiele (1890–1918), in particular, cleared a path into radical self-expression in his break from the more ornate surfaces of the style of portraiture that preceded him. He created perhaps the most jarring example in visual art of the expressionist attempt to uncover inner psychological truth. The connection between Schiele and Bausch is not so remote as one might think. Bausch’s work continually picks up the threads of expressionist practice across the arts from the fervent period before the war. With this simple introduction to a piece about desire and connection (or the lack thereof), Bausch reclaims and extends earlier attempts at uncovering self-hood in performance. As a representative example of Bausch’s work, Kontakthof covers only a limited perspective, but it comes from a particularly important period in Bausch’s development. Bausch’s career has been varied and her scope large. Certainly, Rite of Spring (1975) stands as a testament to her dynamic choreographic style, and is the prime example of her early period with Tanztheater Wuppertal. Within the ballet world, it is regarded as a modern classic. But Bausch quickly shifted focus, and her reputation was built, primarily, from the creative period following the more dance-centered Rite of Spring, and in which Kontakthof is central. Her later periods all draw on that fundamental break in presentational practice. The pieces based on residencies that followed all take their basic constructive principles from methods established in the late 1970s. Even as the pieces shifted focus again in more recent work from image-dominated collages to more movement-centered works, the basic approach to making a piece does not change, and that approach was frst systematically explored in the time around the creation of Kontakthof. Re-setting Kontakthof on casts of senior citizens and early teenagers gives us new perspectives into the piece as well, and insight into the way in which Bausch’s work in general operates on stage. Seeing the same desperate attempts at connection on older performers and in the earnest faces of youth both implicates and alienates the audience from the events on stage. While you can never completely divorce the action from the context of its performance with either the original cast or in the newer ensembles, being able to place your response next to its counterpart on the other side of the performance equation ofers a means of understanding how the images themselves work. Because of its presence in the repertory, its re-creation and subsequent tours with new casts, and its prominence in documentary coverage of Bausch’s work, Kontakthof has become a central piece in defning Bausch’s aesthetic. Or it could be central in my own understanding because it was the frst piece of Bausch’s I saw, eight years after its premiere. Whenever I ask people about their favorite Bausch piece, the answer that invariably comes up is the frst piece of hers any given person has seen. The shock of frst encounter with something that has the potential to refocus your own ideas often has lasting power. But beyond my own response, Kontakthof stands as a central piece within the Bausch oeuvre. It takes the dramatic break in form enacted through work on Bluebeard and the Macbeth project and extends it into a full piece derived entirely from an open idea (in this case the limits and ramifcations of tenderness), rather than a response to an outside source. Walzer (1982), created in this same period, does much the same thing, but has not lived on in repertory to the same degree, and while 1980 – A Piece by Pina Bausch (1980) and Bandoneon (1980) were also created during this period and have toured a bit more, they don’t have the same reimagined impact through performance by diferent ensembles. Through its continual performance in its various presentations, Kontakthof has become an emissary for a new style of work. It gives us more variety of performance experience, more centrally located in the Bausch canon, than any other 357

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piece from Tanztheater Wuppertal. And it’s my favorite, because I saw it frst and because it changed my perspective on what was possible in performance.

Coming into being Kontakthof is one of many of Bausch’s pieces that investigate human relationships, specifcally male/female relationships, but there is no narrative story being told and no direct source material to reference or interpret. In the frst weeks of rehearsal, the company simply starts with a vague collection of ideas about desire and connection. Bausch pushes into the idea of how we connect with each other, or at least how we attempt to connect. It begins with the idea of tenderness. “What is it? How does one do it? Where does it go? And how far does tenderness go at all? When isn’t it tenderness any more? Or is it still tenderness?” (Hoghe 1980: 66). The point of departure is this group of simple questions. But close examination of these questions quickly reveals a wealth of associations and attitudes drawn from the dancers’ own experience of connection in their lives. The long rehearsal period begins by creating and gathering material. “Let’s do something with our complexes,” Bausch says. “We all have complexes, so let’s demonstrate them. Everyone show what they don’t like about their bodies” (quoted in Klett 1984: 13). From here, the company develops a presentational parade. They march up to Bausch in rehearsal and ask to be considered. It’s a form of audition, but also stands in for any moment of ofering yourself up for judgment, on stage, and in life. They try creating an image that is later dropped where each performer literally reveals a bit of him or herself; a shoulder, the small of the back, navel, or sole of the foot (see Klett 1984: 14). The questions about tenderness and the exploration of connection begin to center on these moments of presentation. In another section that they call “The Museum,” “everyone stands around as if at a party, until someone falls down, throws up, smashes against the wall. The others watch, indiferent or interested, as if looking at a work of art instead of a person” (Klett 1984: 14). The moments created by the performers in rehearsal gradually coalesce around ideas of connection and what we do to get it. How we exhibit ourselves in the attempt to be noticed and what we do with and to each other once a point of connection has been reached. The performers use the resources at hand to develop this growing catalog of images; their own lives, the developing context of the 1950s (primarily established through the music that underscores each action, a series of sentimental love songs from the era), and the idea of presentation in the theater itself. As the amount of images created in rehearsal grows, Bausch begins the equally long process of selection and ordering. How one moment leads into the next begins to create pathways that expose diferent aspects of the images and also leads to new material. It all must be sifted and sorted to create the overall impression of the piece. When Renate Klett, acting as a rehearsal assistant, suggests various threads to follow that ft more expected ideas of story and character development, Bausch fnds it boring. It leads to a too simplistic version of the pieces and the audience cannot fnd their own entrance into the material. Klett explains Bausch’s structural method: She doubles scenes, complicates their structure by intermixing them. Many scenes run parallel, commenting on and overlapping each other. Sometimes ten diferent actions occur at once; then again everything is concentrated on one single event. (Klett 1984: 16) 358

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The efect Bausch is striving for is a web of impressions that an audience can enter into from their own perspective. The work comes from the individual responses of Bausch and her performers and should be open to the personal investment of the audience. Once the fnal construction of the piece begins to fall into place, they look for a title that might be specifc enough to elicit the underlying ethos of the piece, but open enough to allow for a variety of interpretations. After going through a long list of possibilities, they arrive back at Kontakthof, which Bausch had suggested early in the process. In German, “Kontakthof ” literally means meeting place, and is usually used to refer to a courtyard or square, as in a prison or a school, but it can also refer to a place where prostitutes meet their clients, where the body is ofered for sale. Theater as a kind of prostitution is explored throughout the piece; a place where contact is expected, where the performers ofer themselves to “the mute expectancy of the audience waiting to be impressed” (Servos 1984: 117). Bausch begins the rehearsal process by approaching content, by asking “What is connection? How do we go about it?” What makes it through the exhaustive developmental process are those images that refect the base of her and her performers’ experience. They may start with something specifcally personal, but the transition into moments of performance entails moving past the surface detail and into the underlying energy from which the idea or feeling comes. The world of the theater is one of the metaphors she fnds for the expression of this basic human conundrum of desire for and difculty in maintaining connection. Bausch simply took what was at hand – her dancers’ experience in theatrical techniques – and made them work on a metaphoric rather than on a literal level.

Performance The setting for Kontakthof is a large room with walls on three sides, a few simple doors upstage right and left, and a large vertical window on the stage right wall. There is a stage in the back with a black curtain, an upright piano in the corner and simple black wooden chairs lining the walls. It resembles a meeting hall (or the “Lichtburg,” a remodeled movie theater that the company uses as a rehearsal space). It is a particularly bland and open environment, meant to highlight the presentation of the performers to come. The setting is the stage itself and creates an arena for action rather than an illusionistic world into which we might invest, though it does lend a sense of its worn placement in a vague post-war time period to the tenor of the piece. Bausch’s settings – from her early collaborations with Rolf Borzik of which this is a part, to her work with Peter Pabst since Borzik’s death in 1980 – are places where things happen, often with one dominant reverberant element that dramatically infuences how the performers exist in that space, whether that is the dirt covering the foor in Rite of Spring or Gebirge, water in Arien, or fowers in Nelken, and so on. The goal is to let the stage be as open a structure as possible, but with a particular feeling that permeates the piece and helps color the action. Music also plays an important structural as well as emotional role in most of the pieces. It is almost always a vast range and collection of material that underscores both movement and imagistic moments, and that subtly carries the weight of an imagined context with it. In this case, the music is mostly a mix of popular German songs from the 1930s through to the 1950s, with a few other pieces added in for particular moments. At least from an American perspective, I recognize the style of the music and easily place the tone within this time period, but I don’t specifcally recognize any of the songs. The music helps create the web of impressions that the piece becomes, but is never so specifc as to limit meaning to one particular interpretation. I see the music as nostalgic and sentimental, a world before my time, and at least in its original 359

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presentation with the main group of company members from Tanztheater Wuppertal, I imagine it has a similar connotation for most of the audience and the ensemble. When presented with the cast of senior citizens, however, the music suddenly changes focus and becomes a more specifc reference to the world of these performers. I imagine them listening to this very music at a meeting hall perhaps quite similar to the one depicted on stage, ever hopeful of a moment of connection amidst the quiet guilt and rebuilding of post-war Germany. And just as the music takes on a more specifc context with the seniors, it further alienates the teenagers. In that case I am made more glaringly aware that these young people are being asked to do things that are strange to them, though they may identify with the underlying feeling. Because I know these are not professional performers in either the senior citizens’ or the teenagers’ performance of the piece, I am brought into a diferent relationship to their presentation of self. Even though their roles are constructed for this performance in both cases, there remains a strong infuence of the actual person in the creation of character that the performers enact. That same presentation of self is in place with the regular ensemble as well, because I know that the images they present are derived from their own experience, but it is highlighted with the alternate casts. The presentation of self we see in Kontakthof is an extension of the theatrical nature of display pulled out and used for dramatic and metaphoric purpose, and that becomes a leitmotif in many of Bausch’s pieces. What does it mean for us to put ourselves up here to be looked at for the next few hours? In Kontakthof, that sense of ofering yourself up for critique and the balance of power and vulnerability that is implied in that gesture is developed metaphorically as a link to our search for love and connection. In other cases the purpose changes with the context, but in all the ground remains the performers’ own experience. We are not allowed to pretend that these people are anything but performers on a stage, and that role in itself is used for dramatic purpose. The piece begins with the performers all seated in the chairs lined up at the back of the stage. The women wear an array of colorful cocktail dresses, while the men are in suits. They sit in their chairs and look at the audience impassively. One woman in a red dress walks down-stage and stops before the audience. She turns around to show us her back, returns to face us and puts her hands behind her head. She opens her mouth to show us her teeth, then turns to the side. She drops her hands to show us her palms and then the backs of her hands, before turning around and walking back to rejoin the group seated upstage. Another woman comes forward and repeats this procedure, and then another. A man comes forward and also repeats this series of actions while the frst song ends. The song speaks of longing: “Frühling und sonne schein, bist du allein” (“Springtime and the sun shines, but you are alone”). Another man comes forward while another song begins. All the men come forward and perform the ritual of presentation and, as the women come to join them, the men leave. The women are left alone and all go through the act of presentation. The performers present themselves as property to be examined as if for sale, and we are the ones making the purchase. The performers cannot escape themselves in this transaction, they ofer their bodies to us to be looked at, to be deemed worthy. But they are able to stand aside from the roles they create as well. The performed characters of the dancers both acquiesce and subtly stand in defance to this commodifcation. They allow it to happen, but the confrontational and pained expression they project makes the audience aware and uncomfortable with their own implicit involvement in the objectifying practice. Both the seniors and teenagers are remarkably precise in recreating this moment. The action is the same, but the context shifts dramatically and only increases my feeling of discomfort at viewing this act of exposure. I may question my implicit involvement in a scene where 360

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professional performers highlight the transactional engagement of the act of presentation, but being asked to consider teenagers or seniors in this context takes the act of voyeurism to a new level, in part because neither group is able to so easily stand alongside their performed persona as conscious commentary. They are all the more stripped bare in that we can see in some small ways the efort of the actual performer necessary to create this moment. Anne Linsel’s remarkable flm Dancing Dreams chronicles the construction of the piece with the group of teenagers, from frst auditions to frst performance, and follows many members of the cast through the process, interviewing them and dropping in on their breaks to get a sense of them as the young people behind the performed personae. It is clear in this documentation that the performers go through a grueling process of uncovering themselves in the act of taking on the characters they portray. The roles may have been created by members of Tanztheater Wuppertal before they were even born, but the act of embodying that action forces them into an act of revelation, and we are asked to bear witness to the fragile moment. Beyond the objective context that this moment makes real, this image shows the extent to which we are all involved in societal approval for who we are as bodies. The dancers ask for our approval before they continue on their mating ritual, and show the process by which we all constantly check our value within a society that highlights body image. Again, the same action performed by seniors and especially teenagers expands this idea immensely. The dancers call attention to the use of their bodies within dance or theater itself, but the process by which they are valued within the society of performance is also a comment on the more general body valuing that goes on in life, and particularly in the search for relationships. The context of the rest of the piece – where various performers ofer themselves as wares within the context of male/ female relationships – makes this point clear. Norbert Servos analyzes this opening moment as follows: The body is merchandise which must be appropriately displayed in order to fetch a decent price, whether in personal or professional life. The apparently private sphere of the individual body is shown to be subject to the same laws as the public person. In this respect, the reality of the dancer who must market his body and his technique is no diferent than that of the audience. Both must sell themselves and control their afects in line with prescribed codes. (Servos 1984: 118) The dancers are placed in a given context and act within the societally prescribed norms of their situation. They uncover the posturing and display inherent within our social system, and act in accordance with the paradigm in which they are enmeshed. Kontakthof uses techniques of theatrical presentation as metaphors for the general idea of presentation and connection in our social relationships. Simply and dramatically the act of presentation in the theater is acknowledged and made meaningful. One woman speaks, “Good evening, I’m from Paris.” And another, “I’m from Hamburg and I’m married.” Each ofers a short phrase of identifcation. They introduce themselves to us as one might at a party, but the presentation is always self-consciously theatrical, with the performers directly addressing the audience. After the women have all introduced themselves, they turn to join the line forming upstage, with the last woman slyly looking back over her shoulder at us again before she joins the group. Now they all come forward en masse, with a brush of the foot, thrust of the hip, and two steps in time with the music. The men join in and the whole group comes at us in waves, retreating downstage to repeat the traveling action every time they reach the end of the stage. 361

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Finally, they stand in silence, looking out at the audience. One woman shakes her head, laughing hysterically, until she collapses on the foor. The others barely register her violent action. After a little more silence, a man begins singing slowly, and the group gradually disperses with the same brush-hip-step-step traveling action back to their seats upstage, leaving the collapsed woman on the foor alone. Someone screams and they all run of, except one woman who runs and screams as a man chases her, throwing a mouse at her feet at every turn, eliciting another scream. Another song begins and the women enter and walk awkwardly on their heels in a line that moves diagonally across the stage. Throughout this opening section, every action is done for someone else, whether for each other on stage or for us in the audience, and there is a sense of expectancy with each action. It is as if the performers are continually asking, “Is this what you wanted to see?” or doing something, anything, to try to elicit a response. After a moment of silence, a woman slowly enters and plays one high note on the piano. She squeals. She plays another lone low note and moans, but before this image has a chance to develop, the music is back, along with the line of women moving in unison, this time awkwardly adjusting their bras, underwear, or pantyhose. They march across the stage in awkward regimented unison. A woman sits on a man’s lap at the back and then does a little dance for him. As the procession of undergarment adjusters continues, the woman coos to the man, “Oh – you’re so handsome. Ooo – you’re so strong.” She tries to get his attention with little coy movements, but the man simply turns around and exits. Another couple has entered and gently touches each other. Little timid, firtatious touches that continue while a pair of women at the back whisper to each other, their caustic comments amplifed by a microphone: “That dress is a bit tight around the waist.” “She’s gotten so fat.” “She has. I mean she looks like the side of a house now.” “Such fabby old skin.” “Old skin, and it’s real soft. It hangs on her.” “Just hangs on her arms and chin.” “It’s like a mask.” “And the make-up!” “Oh, the make-up, but if she didn’t have that much on, I mean what would she look like?” Meanwhile, a man has entered with a clipboard and takes notes. The actions are overlapped and it’s easy to get lost amidst all of the activity. The specifcity of each action is not what is important, but the way they all come together to create an overall feeling of relationships, thwarted desire, and calls for attention. The energy is carefully calibrated as well, with actions orchestrated to move between raucous group activity and smaller quiet moments between a few people. As open as the structure appears, we are carefully being led on a journey into the heart of this world and the compositional density of the action subsumes the audience. You don’t need to follow the action or the story, you are simply immersed in the moment. The performers all have moments of emphatic self-presentation, always in desperate search for connection. One woman enters the empty stage and stands on a chair. She says, “I’m standing on the edge of the piano and I’m about to fall. But before I fall I scream, loud, so that nobody misses it.” She screams and the rest of the performers run on and take their seats. The woman gently gets down from the chair and crawls under it. She says, “Then I crawl under the piano, look around, and act like I want to be alone. But I don’t really want to be alone. Then I take my scarf and try to strangle myself, hoping someone will come before I die.” As we watch the succession of images, they begin to reverberate of each other, coloring the way we see each succeeding moment. This woman uses her body as bait to receive the attention of others and the similarity between this type of gesture and the more common dressing up and display of 362

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the body in an attempt to lure someone into connection is demonstrated by their juxtaposition. Both approaches sacrifce the subject in an attempt to reach the other through objective manipulation. After the woman’s attempt to gain attention, the group runs on and begins a frantic push downstage, again coming at us in waves and retreating upstage to come again after each approach. Two people are screaming at each other across the stage and one man deliberately lies down and stays there as if he is dead. Some of the performers simply stand and stare out into the audience, and amidst this organized chaos, a woman enters with a microphone and performs little cries of ecstasy. The other performers stop and applaud and the woman looks to them for approval. She continues her performance while the others congregate in a semicircle. After another round of applause she rejoins the group to let someone else have a turn. Dancers move to the center in pairs and display little gestures of physical abuse. A man pokes a woman in the breast. The group applauds. The woman undoes the man’s pants and pulls them down. The group applauds again. Another couple moves to the center and the woman hugs the man while grinding her heel into his foot. The man caresses and then ficks the woman’s nose. Several couples proudly perform their little tortures to the group’s applause, until the music changes and the group disperses. The men all run to one side of the stage and sit and the women run to the other. They frantically gesture to each other across the vast space. The men move their chairs forward in little runs, gradually getting closer to the women standing against the wall, all the while gesturing frantically. Eventually they are on top of each other in couples, still gesturing frantically beyond their partners so that their hand and arm motions become slaps and failing attacks. As the music changes the couples begin a swinging dance, with the men carrying the women around the stage. Jan Minarik, the man with the clipboard at the beginning, walks around the stage with a tape measure and takes measurements from each couple – an inseam, the distance between one couple’s faces – and duly writes his fndings in his notes. The connections that occur appear haphazard, with various people drawn together as dancing partners because that is what the dance requires rather than there being any coherent character or story-based reasoning for the partnering. The world that is developed is one of the need for connection in and of itself, without regard to the quality of connection that might be obtained. As the images continue, we do get a sense of individuals in the group based on their particular actions, but never is that a basis for an imagined connection. Jan Minarik, however, does create a particularly individualized character. He stands apart from the rest of the group, as he often does in Bausch’s pieces from this time, as a kind of master of ceremonies. He always seems to be carrying around a microphone to bring out some particular couple’s speaking, or a camera or tape measure to catalog the events as they take place, jotting down his fndings on his clipboard. He is the ethnologist carefully transcribing the mating rituals of this particular group of human animals. But he enters into the action as well. He is the one who throws the mouse at the screaming woman, for instance, always hoping for a response and getting what he wants as she runs and giggles through the same pattern every time he returns to his mouse throwing. A coin-operated children’s horse is brought on stage while a woman works to teach a man a hip-swaying movement across the foor. She says, “Can you show me that step one more time? Wait a minute, hold your jacket up or I can’t see anything.” The man tries to rotate his hips in steps that travel downstage, but the woman interrupts him. “That’s not right at all. Here.” She demonstrates. “Circles, circles, circles. You’re just doing this and this. That’s not right at all.” As the man tries to produce the action, the woman continues to berate him before fnally leaving in disgust, saying, “Do it properly, I know you can do it. Keep working on it.” The whole group enters and all move downstage with huge smiles and wide hip circles in time to the music, the original man desperately trying to keep up and watching others to see if he is doing it right. 363

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This act of teaching movement, and the general objectifying tone that comes with it, makes regular appearances on Bausch’s stage. She often uses images that refer more directly to the rigorous ballet training that most of her ensemble members have endured, and the feeling of inadequacy that often accompanies such trials in the rehearsal studio where you feel that your body betrays you and will not do what your mind knows it should. The act of physical training that some dance employs literally separates our sense of self from our bodies, particularly in ballet where any sense of self is obliterated in the need to make movement present. Here, that feeling is added to the body presentation and attempts at connection that make up the rest of the piece. When the regular ensemble performs this image, we see it in the context of their extensive dance training, but when the senior citizens perform, this kind of image appears particularly brutal and dehumanizing, before ultimately becoming triumphant. We know that these untrained performers have worked hard to be able to accomplish this piece, and to see that work placed under this scrutiny feels especially harsh. But I do judge the older dancers on their ability to do the movement, despite my not wanting to evaluate them on that level. The conditions of performance dictate my response, just as social structures dictate my response to bodies in life. But in this context, I am often amazed at the older performers’ ability to match the conditions of movement imposed on them by the piece. The simple act of triumph over the material becomes an exultation. As the group disperses, a woman comes down to the audience to ask for change. After receiving a quarter she goes to the coin-operated horse, puts her money in, and climbs into the saddle. The woman sits expectantly, but the horse doesn’t move. She gets of the horse and goes back to the audience for more change. When she gets another quarter, she goes to the horse and tries again. She still has hope that maybe this time the horse will respond, but still nothing. She gets of the horse with an air of resignation and dejectedly returns to the group. After the whole group goes through a series of sensual gestures, a man takes the woman back to the horse and shows her that it was not plugged in. Some crew members come out with an extension cord and once the horse is plugged in, the woman gleefully goes back to the audience looking for more change. After getting another quarter, she scurries back to the horse, deposits her coin, and jumps on for the horse’s lurching, hesitant ride. Another woman leaves the group and stands waiting for her turn on the horse, and then another until there is a line of women waiting for the horse, while the rest of the group continues with their gestures which have now turned to more violent pokes and tweaks, lifts, and carries. This ballet of body posturing and attempted connections continues in a succession of overlapping images. Bausch is relentless in her exploration of the degree to which we objectify ourselves in our search for connection, and the ultimate futility of this objectifcation leading to anything more substantial than momentary attention. In the end, the women get more satisfaction from the horse than they ever do from any of the men in the piece. Beyond the direct reference of the mechanical horse as a metaphor for satisfaction (in both a sexual and an emotional capacity), we are also treated to the sheer joy of the image itself. To see these women ride this sadly rocking horse is both poignant and funny. You can look for what it “means,” or you can just enjoy the image in its absurd aptness to the situation and context that exists on stage at that moment. A bit later, a man and a woman sit facing each other at either side of the stage. They begin shyly and meekly gesturing to each other across the huge expanse. Slowly, they begin removing their clothing; frst their shoes, then their socks, shirts, and so on, until fnally they sit naked, still gesturing across the space. The other dancers have meanwhile formed a rigid line that circles about the stage in a unison march. Once the man and the woman are fully undressed, the line of marchers, who had been ignoring them up to that point, stop and glare at the couple and then act embarrassed. The couple, like Adam and Eve suddenly aware of their nakedness, cover 364

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themselves, run out, put on their clothes hurriedly, and join the group. The actions are precisely visceral, with the delicacy of the couple’s gestures and the vulnerability of their undressing in opposition to the formality of the group’s march, and we see this couple’s attempt at connection brought under the control and dominance of the group. The image is further heightened and made more complex in the versions performed by people over 65 years old and young teenagers. The same sense of shame and awareness in the attempt at connection through a moment of shared intimacy is there, but added to this is the uncomfortable sense of just how vulnerable these performers become. In the original version the performers maintain a strength of presence in revealing their well-toned bodies, but in the latter version, we are made aware of how we are supposed to view our bodies as betraying us at certain points in our life, or the awkward coming of bodily awareness and change that comes with adolescence. The performers are beautiful in a simple and exposed way in both instances, but I couldn’t escape feeling complete sympathy for these people going through an event that must have made them very uncomfortable. That feeling itself showed me how much we incorporate an antagonistic relationship to our own bodies throughout our lives, and especially as we begin to embody our sense of self or age and are supposed to keep such things hidden. The orchestration of these various images all lead us to the couple quietly undressing across the space, and that provides a kind of an ending as we go to the frst of two intermissions. Even as intermission is announced, the action on stage continues in small ways, and I can never completely escape the world I have entered when I came into the theater. It was never a world I could simply watch from the outside to begin with, but an environment in which I am complicit, and I am made aware of my own engagement in the piece. I take it with me as I go out to the lobby and feel a bit self-conscious as I watch those around me, imagining that they see through me in the same way that I think I can see through them. We are all sad and hopeful, calling for attention and trying not to be noticed. I see it in the clothes I wear, the way I cut my hair, and the book in my pack that I will read on the subway on the way home. Coming back from the intermission, the performers are all dressed in black and moving in a circle, all performing a series of small gestures in time with the music. The women peel of, leaving the men to saunter around the space with their gestures, and as the women return back in their colorful dresses, the groups confront each other. A man calls out “Back! Stomach! Knee!” and the women retreat starting from a sharp action from the body part that has been called out, as if they have been shot in that particular place. A woman responds with commands of her own, “Hand! Cheek! Back!” and the men take their turn in injured retreat in this battle of the sexes. The traded assaults come faster and become more insistent until the two groups stop in frozen opposition. The men take of their coats and the women their shoes. The men all muss their hair and the women drop their hands on their heads. As the group moves toward each other and the couples separate into antagonistic pairs again, poking and tweaking at each other, Jan brings out a chair and sits to watch. The images continue, some repeated from before, some new. The ensemble lines up their chairs facing the audience and all talk at once. Jan makes his way down the line with a microphone and we hear snippets of conversations about relationships in English, French, German, Spanish. All the conversations I understand (the ones in English and those in German when they speak slowly enough for me to keep up, which isn’t often) are pointless moments between men and women as if in an endless phone conversation. The images build and I am able to move more freely amongst them now, seeing details I may have missed the frst time, remarking on how diferent people enter in to the diferent scenarios. I move in the midst of the work as if it were a dream that keeps showing me how it feels to want, and I carry that dream with me from sitting here in the house to the lobby at intermission, to recalling the images years later. 365

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Another chaos of action, people running, dancing, little screams of ecstasy, a man plays the piano, couples waltz, some sing along with the music, until fnally someone sings “My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean” and gradually everyone joins in. It becomes a nice chorus before everyone gets quiet and we hear one woman at the back quietly weeping through the song: “Oh bring back my bonny to me.” The rest of the ensemble quietly exit, leaving the crying woman at the back. A woman comes and joins the crying woman (to ofer some support?) and then everyone comes downstage and sits with their backs to the audience. The curtain across the back is pulled open revealing a screen and someone brings on a movie projector. The lights dim and we all watch a short flm about ducks and their mating habits (“a small happy brood of mallards”). It has the tone of a school informational flm. When it fnishes, there is a small groan of disappointment from the entire group before people disperse and a woman comes to ask for more change for the mechanical horse. The images all begin to blur together and there is an overall feeling of fatigue, whether mine or the performers’ or some combination of the two, it’s impossible to say. The performers, all dressed in black now, stand at various positions around the stage. Couples slowly come together, and Jan takes their pictures. As the woman who was chased by the mouse at the beginning comes back, Jan chases after her again and once again throws his mouse. The woman does not react. She follows the same pathway she did before, up on chairs, across the stage at the back, but does it all in deadpan slowness, unfazed by the mouse, until Jan, disappointed, walks of. The woman stops and stands facing front. After two hours and forty-fve minutes of alternatively harrowing and touching moments, we are left with this woman standing and looking at us. She wears a white dress and black shoes and simply stands downstage center. She addresses the audience with her blank gaze and invites consideration. She provides no outward expression for us to receive. Gradually one man and another and another approach her and begin to caress her; rubbing her shoulder, stroking her cheek. I supply the meaning for these gestures and receive the warmth of the touch, wanting the woman to mirror my expected response of opening up to the attempted connections. But the woman remains passive. By subverting my expectation of tender response, the piece strips me of my interpretive clothing and I am left to be re-clothed in the image. Gradually the men’s gestures become more mechanical, moving from the warmth of a caress to the gentle prod of awakening to the investigative delving into a foreign object. At what point does tenderness turn into cruelty? The limp woman is now surrounded by men, held up and shaken, her hair is smoothed, her face pinched, hand held up, all in a furry of randomly repetitive motions. The woman’s body has become object, and I must continually remind myself of the person in there somewhere going through what has now become a torture. This “manhandling” continues long after I have grown uncomfortable with it. I soon, however, fnd my discomfort move into acclimation. I get used to the activity and ignore the objectifying and rather brutal implications. But the image continues, and soon I fnd myself uncomfortable with myself for my own placidity. I have been implicated because I allow this to continue. Of course I am contained by my passive presence in the audience, this is no call to audience participation, but I am made to realize how I take on the role of passive enabler in life. It is this implicit involvement that suddenly brings the image to light, for me. To say that men objectify and abuse women even through the subtlety of their actions is a nice point. But to say that this process continues and we get used to it, that we remind ourselves and then forget again, that the process is so continual that we must constantly awaken ourselves to the screaming of the silent, unmoved woman, is a provocative and disturbing indictment of contemporary culture. The men continue their prodding for what seems like an eternity (actually six minutes), until another woman enters and the men all move to follow her as she seductively leads them into a 366

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circle, leaving the tortured woman alone. The other women come out to join the circle and the full group walks in unison, all performing the same simple gestures, with their audible footsteps continuing after the music has ended. The lights go out, leaving only the sad thump, thump, thump of the dancers’ footsteps as they continue their circle dance. The heartbeat of the group continues after everything; a sad commentary on our ability to ignore even the most brutally objectifying images in our desire to belong, and our necessary connection to and defnition through the group. But that is an intellectual response I derive after the performance. For the moment sitting there in the dark I am stunned, oddly uncovered, and exhausted. Bausch has made us all work hard, and the penultimate image of that woman lingers. I see her in my mind and carry the image with me as I head back out into the lobby. Despite the artifce of the situation, the woman goes through a very real event, and her presence on stage is a product of both her actual existence in this moment, and the long and dense collage of images that lead up to it. The moment has power, in part, to the degree that we are able to see the woman as a real person enduring a real as well as a metaphoric trial, and Bausch has supplied a context that demands our attention to her subjectivity as expressed in bodily terms. She incorporates, or makes body, the underlying feeling structure of the image because it is enacted on her and expressed with the real presence of her body in the moment. Many ask why the woman in this fnal moment doesn’t speak out, doesn’t take action to stop the tweaks and pokes of the men. But if she were to use her free will to act against the objectifying gestures of the men, the situation would change and her being would change with it. She would reclaim her being and force us to consider her under new guidelines, and those new guidelines let me of the hook. If the woman acts, then I can see her as a dynamic feminine presence, in charge of her world and able to stand against the objectifying male behavior that surrounds her. I can cheer for her as she responds to the men who are not me, because I don’t do those things. But her stillness and tolerance signify something else. Her body, in this case, both situates her in a very real moment and serves as the ground for a metaphor, pushing past this particular situation to comment on a larger reality. Again, we have an image of the plight of women in contemporary culture, where women fght to move beyond the cultural projections in which they fnd themselves entrapped. Her resistance is implied, but she is helpless to act, and I cannot escape my own complicity in the moment and the need to reawaken myself to the way I may unthinkingly contribute to an objectifying culture. Bausch makes explicit the abuse and repression that each woman carries implicitly within her body. A woman need not go through specifc abuse to incorporate this process of objectifcation, it is enough that the culture in which she is situated and out of which she constructs her being contains the process of abuse and repression as a dominant infuence. A woman walking alone on a dark street, or entering a male-dominated workplace, need not ever have been specifcally assaulted to have the potential for assault invade her being within that context, thereby changing her bodily presence. And I certainly don’t have to act abusively in order to be perceived as a threat walking down that same dark street. Responses to abuse and repression have been learned and express themselves through each individual woman’s bodily presence in context. Bausch points to that process of incorporation and reawakens the actual abuse latent within the woman’s bodily being. And, as stated, the process continues and we forget, only to be awakened again. I want to forget this process of abuse and objectifcation and my own implication in the event, but Bausch won’t let me forget. The woman expresses what Ann Daly calls “the unheard rage of a woman” (Daly 1986: 54), as well as the desire to move out of the projections of others. If she were to act against the process of objectifcation she would provide the audience with a desired sense of resolution, 367

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carrying away our own feelings of involvement and implication in our identifcation with her. Many people fnd Bausch disturbing precisely because she does not give the audience that easy release, but forces us to confront our own projections by leaving the situation unresolved. We are left to consider our own involvement in the process of objectifcation we see before us and, by implication, larger processes of objectifcation that surround us in our lives. Bausch points out the implicit abuse that continually haunts women, and the desire to escape it. Beyond this particular moment, the way in which this process of incorporation works throughout the piece was never so clear as in the remountings of Kontakthof by the alternative casts. What before was the rather desperate longing and lack of connection as performed by the original company is not altered in its surface details (in fact the specifcity with which both new ensembles are able to re-create the details of the original production is astounding), but the way the piece reads changes drastically. We see a hard-won resolve and acceptance in the older performers that realigns our own conception of desire away from the active push contained in the original performance, and a coming of age, an entrance into an adult world all too soon for the teenagers. The young performers expose the objectifying and often cruel ramifcations of entering into the relational marketplace, and while the older performers still push in their seemingly fruitless search for meaningful connection, that push takes on a pathos previously absent and made all the more palpable when placed in bodies that belie the youthful intent inherent in the piece. At least for me, the performance with the teenagers still enacted a realm of sympathetic projection. I saw my younger self in the performers on stage, just as I saw myself in the roles of the original company, who are roughly my contemporaries. But with the performance by the seniors, I am taken out of myself. I felt as if I could suddenly see the attempt to reclaim the youthful presence contained within each person on stage, and I was forced to move them out of the bounds under which I might normally contain them. It was like seeing my mother at her fftieth high-school reunion, playing through the dynamics of youthful romance from a remove and reinventing that part of herself long hidden in her many years as wife and mother, the only means of defnition I had previously had to understand her. I am forced to see these people under new conditions. It is a moment of Brechtian alienation taken to the extreme and shot through the piece as an overriding metaphor for our own distance from life. The performers create the world on stage through a combination of actual presence and metaphor rather than telling us something, or giving us a story with characters that we can understand and leave when we exit the theater. I left the theater unsure how to approach other people, but feeling the need to fnd a sympathetic hand and hold it. The piece, fnally, is the collection of images as a whole, and Bausch’s choreography is the subtle interlacing and orchestration of those images that lead me from one moment to the next. Something happens in Bausch’s theater, and I feel I am a part of it. Others may not feel the same connection, or may willfully avoid it, but for me, and a growing audience world wide, Bausch creates an environment of interaction. My idea of performance has shifted and my connection to the world deepened.

Coming together Looking back on the piece, Kontakthof initiates a shift that becomes central to Bausch’s work: the redefnition of bodily presence on stage. We see the performer as more than either a created character or a moving body. People on Bausch’s stage are expressive in and of themselves, and as they exist physically within the performance arena, and that arena is constructed 368

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through overlapping metaphoric images that unearth deeper structures of feeling, much like dreams. The dancer’s body in Bausch’s work always exceeds the bounds of movement any performer enacts, and the presence that is developed enforces our seeing past the movement to the person underneath and cultural codes as they are incorporated. The reality of the dancer’s body on stage is given increasing importance, rather than some abstract ideal of movement the dancer tries to emulate. Even more, the bodily attitudes the dancers enact are drawn from the social fabric in which our image, and indeed our sense of self, is enmeshed. Our bodily relation to society is explored, in terms of both our placement within the structure of society and the longing to fnd some sense of true defnition beyond that realm. In Kontakthof, the dancers’ bodies are displayed objectively as empty postures used either to lure a partner, or as the material presented to the audience. Even as we see past this objective structure, we are made aware of its dominant infuence in performance practice. I left the theater with an uneasy feeling of participation in a ritual sacrifce, where, perhaps for the frst time, I was made aware of the negation of self expected within the theatrical process where performers either ask me to invest in their portrayal of character (as separate from themselves) or erase themselves in the attempt to make movement the central mode of expression. Bausch counts on the audience needing to look past the dehumanizing aspects of self-presentation she displays to fnd the human element behind the theatricalized experience. She does not allow the audience to lose sight of reality through either technical virtuosity (though the dancers are all technically profcient, the scenarios they create on stage don’t call attention to that fact) or the alluring completeness of a created world on stage (though the world that is created is precisely crafted). The images we are shown are deliberately open-ended and demand that we turn to our own experience and a consideration of the dancers’ experience beyond the created environment in order to give the performed metaphors meaning. The performances’ strengths lie in this constantly shifting awareness within each individual audience member between what they are presented, how they relate to it personally, and how they can then reinvest that awareness back into the theatrical experience. The dancers do not re-present experience bodily, but begin the process whereby bodily experience is made present. That realigned attitude toward the performer’s body on stage provides a base for a new approach to performance and creates an alternative to either illusionistic practice in theater or abstract movement for movement’s sake in dance. Bausch constructs a world of individual embodiment as we live it, an archaeology of experience. In approaching the broad range of human emotions by exploring them within the context of experience, Bausch is able to call upon particular, personal moments to explore deep structures that afect our own behavior and way of being in the world. In Kontakthof, the base emotion is our experience of the need for connection, and the underlying feeling we have as we enter into those patterns of behavior in our life where that desire for connection is a motivating factor. The world on stage is built through images, but the images act as patterns of experience, rather than crafted visual moments. The image of the couple undressing across the vast space, for instance, has contained within it feelings of desire, risk, and vulnerability. Of course we have never engaged in that precise action, but it enacts the same process by which we tentatively uncover ourselves in our own attempts at connection. The moment is particular, but uses that particularity as a referent to larger themes. It acts as a metaphor, structuring our own experience by creating a condensed version of what we feel at particular moments in our own lives. We enter the moment on stage empathetically, feeling the vulnerability of the couple and relating it to our own experience. The undressing couple does not tell us about desire and vulnerability; the image gives us desire and vulnerability incarnate. The image we see on stage is saturated with the feeling from which it was built. 369

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Kontakthof is densely packed with these saturated images, creating an underlying feeling in which we are enveloped. Rather than asking what the piece means, I am forced to acknowledge what it does. The images I see are sometimes absurd, sometimes seemingly nonsensical, but they are invested with a quality that feels potent. As events and images unfold on Bausch’s stage, they coalesce and knock me of my center. They do something.

Credits All quotes and descriptions are drawn from repeated viewings of a production of Kontakthof presented at BAM in October 1985 with most of the original cast, as well as a return production, also at BAM in October 2014 with mostly new ensemble members. I have also drawn from a video-taped version of the 1985 performance currently held in the Dance Collection of the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts. The piece with a cast of Ladies and Gentlemen over “65” is presented on video (Bausch: 2007) and the construction of the piece as performed by boys and girls of about 14 years old is chronicled in the flm Dancing Dreams, directed by Anne Linsel. The original piece premiered in Wuppertal on December 9, 1978, with the following credits: Kontakthof, Piece: Pina Bausch. Music: Charlie Chaplin, Anton Karas, Juan Llossas, Nino Rota, Jean Sibelius, and others. Collaboration: Rolf Borzik, Marion Cito, Hans Pop. Stage and costumes: Rolf Borzik. Cast: Arnaldo Alvarez, Gary Austin Crocker, Fernando Cortizo, Elizabeth Clarke, Josephine Anne Endicott, Lütz Forster, John Grifn, Silvia Kesselheim, Ed Kortlandt, Luis P. Layag, Maria DiLena, Beatrice Libonati, Anne Martin, Jan Minarik, Vivienne Newport, Arthur Rosenfeld, Monika Sagon, Heinz Samm, Meryl Tankard, Christian Trouillas.

Further reading Adolphe, Jean-Marc. 2007. “Corpus Pina Bausch.” Pina Bausch. Heidelberg: Editions Braus, 9–24. Alof, Mindy. 1987. “Two Continents: Two Approaches to Dance.” BAM Next Wave Festival Souvenir Program, 64–73. “Bausch, Pina.” 1986. Current Biography. September: 3–6. Bausch, Pina. 1975. “Choreografn Pina Bausch über ihre Arbeit.” Interview with Edmund Gleede. Ballett-Jahrbuch des Friedrich Verlags. ——— 1978. “Not How People Move but What Moves Them.” Interview with Jochen Schmidt, 9 November. In Pina Bausch Wuppertal Dance Theater or the Art of Training a Goldfsh. Cologne: BallettBühnen-Verlag, 1984: 227–30. ——— 1982a. “My Pieces Grow From the Inside Out.” Interview with Jochen Schmidt, 26 November. In Pina Bausch Wuppertal Dance Theater or the Art of Training a Goldfsh. Cologne: Ballett-Bühnen-Verlag, 1984: 234–37. ——— 1982b. “The Things We Discover for Ourselves Are the Most Important.” Interview with Jochen Schmidt, 21 April. In Pina Bausch Wuppertal Dance Theater or the Art of Training a Goldfsh. Cologne: Ballett-Bühnen-Verlag, 1984: 231–33. ———1983a. “I’m Still Inquisitive.” Interview with Jocen Schmidt, 23 December. In Pina Bausch Wuppertal Dance Theater or the Art of Training a Goldfsh. Cologne: Ballett-Bühnen-Verlag, 1984: 238–39. ——— 1983b. “Pina Bausch: an Interview by Jochen Schmidt.” Ballett International. Vol. 6, no. 2. February: 12–15. ——— 1985. “‘I Pick My Dancers as People’ Pina Bausch Discusses Her Work With Wuppertal Dance Theatre.” Interview with Glenn Loney. On the Next Wave. October: 14–19. ——— 1989. “The Evolution of Pina Bausch.” Interview with Sylvie de Nussac. World Press Review: Le Monde. October: 91. ——— 1992. “Come Dance with Me.” Interview with Nadine Meisner. Dance and Dancers. Sept/Oct: 12–16. ——— 1994. “Gespräch mit Pina Bausch im Goethe-Institut Paris.” Interview with Dr. Ros. Transcription by Susanne Marten. Goethe Institut, Paris.

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Bausch (1940–2009) ——— 1995. “‘You Have to Keep Totally Alert, Sensitive, Receptive’: Pina Bausch Talks with Norbert Servos.” Ballett International/Tanz Aktuell. December: 36–39. ——— 1998. “Zu extrem, um nachahmen zu können.” Unlisted Interviewer. GI-Intern. 3: 19–21. ——— 1999. “Every Day a Discovery . . .” Interview with Christopher Bowen. Stagebill: Cal Performances. October: 10C–11A. ——— 2004a. “Ich glaube nur, was ich gesehen habe.” Interview with Ulrich Deuter, Andresas Wilink. K. West. October: 5–10. ——— 2004b. “Pina Bausch über Lust.” Interview with Eva-Elisabeth Fischer. Süddeutsche Zeitung. Nr. 223, 25/26 September: 8–12. ——— 2007. “‘Man weiß gar nict, wo die Phantasie einen hintreibt’: Ein Gespräch mit Pina Bausch gefürt von Jean-Mark Adolfe.” Pina Bausch. Heidelberg: Editions Braus, 25–39. ——— 2007. Kontakthof with Ladies and Gentlemen over “65”: A piece by Pina Bausch and Tanztheater Wuppertal. Paris: L’Arche. DVD included. 149 minutes. ——— 2008. Orpheus und Eurydike: Dance-Opera by Pina Bausch. Performed by Ballet de l’Opera national de Paris. Paris: BelAir Classiques. DVD included. 104 minutes. ——— 2012. Le Sacre du Printemps: Chorégraphie Pina Bausch. Paris: L’Arche. DVD included. 37 minutes. ——— 2012. Walzer: A Piece by Pina Bausch and Tanztheater Wuppetal. Paris: L’Arche. DVD included. 56 minutes. ——— 2014. Ahnen: Rehearsal Fragments. Paris: L’Arche. DVD included. 78 minutes. ——— 2016. Renate Wandert Aus: Operetta von Pina Bausch. Paris: L’Arche. DVD included. 164 minutes. Baxman, Inge. 1990. “Dance Theatre: Rebellion of the Body, Theatre of Images and an Inquiry into the Sense of the Senses.” Ballett International. Vol. 13, no. 10. January: 55–60. Bentivoglio, Leonetta. 1985. “Dance of the Present, Art of the Future.” Ballett International. Vol. 8, no. 12. December: 24–28. Bentivoglio, Leonetta and Francesco Carbone. 2007. Pina Bausch oder Die Kunst über Nelken zu tanzen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Blom, Lynne Anne, and L. Tarin Chaplin. 1982. The Intimate Act of Choreography. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Bowen, Christopher. 1999. “Pina Wears the Pants.” The Times. January 19: C1–2. Borzik, Rolf. 1980. Rolf Borzik und das Tanztheater. Wuppertal: Tanz-theater Wuppertal Pina Bausch GmbH. Breslauer, Jan. 1996. “Open-Eyed in L.A.” Los Angeles Times. March 17: 3–4. Buchwald, Karlheinz. 2007. “If I Tried Concentrating on Getting My Arm Right, Then My Feet Went Wrong.” Kontakthof with Ladies and Gentlemen over “65.” Paris: L’Arche: 30–35. Chamier, Ille. 1979. Setz Dich Hin und Lächle: Tanztheater von Pina Bausch. Cologne: Prometh. Climenhaga, Royd. 1997. “Pina Bausch, Tanztheater Wuppertal in a Newly Commissioned Piece: Nur Du (Only You).”TPQ. July: 288–98. ——— ed. 2013. The Pina Bausch Sourcebook: The Making of Tanztheater. London: Routledge. ——— 2014. “Bausch’s American Legacy.” Inheriting Dance: An Invitation from Pina. Eds. Marc Wagenbach and the Pina Bausch Foundation, Wuppertal: Transcript Verlag: 115–122. ——— 2015. “A Theater of Bodily Presence: Pina Bausch and Tanztheater Wuppertal.” The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater. Ed. Nadine George. Oxford: Oxford UP: 213–235. ——— 2018. “Chapter 2: Imagistic Structures in the Work of Pina Bausch.” The Great Stage Directors: Volume 8 – Pina Bausch, Romeo Castellucci, Jan Fabre. Ed. Luk Van den Dries and Timmy De Laet. Series Editor, Simon Shepherd. Brussels: Methuen: 75–119. Cody, Gabrielle. 1999. “Woman, Man, Dog, Tree: Two Decades of Intimate and Monumental Bodies in Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater.” TDR. August: 115–31. Copeland, Roger and Marshall Cohen. 1983. What is Dance? Oxford: Oxford University Press. Daly, Ann, ed. 1986. “Tanztheater: The Thrill of the Lynch Mob or the Rage of Woman?” TDR. Spring: 46–56. ——— 1996. “Pina Bausch Goes West to Prospect for Imagery.” New York Times. September 22: 10–20 Dancing Dreams: Pina Bausch. Film. Dir. Anne Linsel and Rainer Hofman. First Run Features, 2010. 89 minutes. Delahaye, Guy. 2007. Pina Bausch. Heidelberg: Editions Braus. Dixon, Michael Bigelow and Joel A. Smith, eds. 1995. Anne Bogart: Viewpoints. Lyme, NH: Smith and Kraus.

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Royd Climenhaga Fernandes, Ciane. 2001. Pina Bausch and the Wuppertal Dance Theater: The Aesthetics of Repetition and Transformation. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Finkel, Anita. 1991. “Gunsmoke.” The New Dance Review. Vol. 4, no. 2. October–December: 3–10. Fischer, Eva Elizabeth. 1998. “Refections of the Times: The Inter- and Multimedia of Tanztheater.” Tanztheater Today: Thirty Years of German Dance. Exhibition Catalogue. Seelze/Hanover: Kallmeyeresche, in association with Ballett International/Tanz Aktuell. Foreman, Richard. 1995. “From Unbalancing Acts (1992).”Twentieth Century Theatre: A Sourcebook. Ed. Richard Drain. London: Routledge, 68–74. Galloway, David. 1984. “The Stage as Crossroads: Germany’s Pina Bausch.” In Performance. Vol 13, no. 6. March/April: 39–42. Hofman, Eva. 1994. “Pina Bausch: Catching Intuitions on the Wing.” New York Times. September 11: H, Section 2, 12. Hoghe, Raimond. 1980. “The Theatre of Pina Bausch.” The Drama Review. Trans. Stephen Tree. T-85: 63–74. ——— 2016. Bandoneon: Working with Pina Bausch. Trans. Penny Black. London: Oberon Books. Kaufmann, Ursula. 1998. Nur Du: Ursula Kaufmann Fotografert Pina Bausch und das Tanztheater Wuppertal. Wuppertal: Verlag Müller und Busmann. ——— 2002. Ursula Kaufmann Fotografert Pina Bausch und das Tanztheater Wuppertal. Wuppertal: Verlag Müller und Busmann. ——— 2005. Getanzte Augenblicke: Ursula Kaufmann Fotografert Pina Bausch und das Tanztheater Wuppertal. Wuppertal: Verlag Müller und Busmann. Kerkhoven, Marianne van. 1991. “The Weight of Time.” Ballett International. Vol. 14, no. 2. February: 63–68. Kirchman, Kay. 1994. “The Totality of the Body: An Essay on Pina Bausch’s Aesthetic.” Ballett International/ Tanz Aktuell. May: 37–43. Klemola, Timo. 1991. “Dance and Embodiment.” Ballett International. Vol. 14, no. 1. January: 71–80. Klett, Renate. 1984. “In Rehearsal with Pina Bausch.” Heresies. Vol. 5, no. 1: 13–16. Koegler, Hörst. 1979. “Tanztheater Wuppertal.” Dance Magazine. February: 51–58. Kozel, Susan. 1993/4. “Bausch and Phenomenology.” Dance Now. Vol. 2, no. 4. Winter: 49–54. Lawson, Valerie. 2000. “Pina, Queen of the Deep.” Sydney Morning Herald. July 17: 18–19. Lehman, Hans-Thies. 2009. Postdramatic Theatre. Trans. Karen Jürs-Munby. London: Routledge. Lelli, Sylvia. 1999. Körper und Raum: Pina Bausch, Reinhild Hofmann, Susanne Linke, William Forsythe, 1979–1999. Wuppertal: Verlag Müller und Busmann. Mackrell, Judith. 1999. “The Agony and the Ecstasy.” Guardian. January 21: C1. Manning, Susan Allene. 1986. “An American Perspective on Tanztheater.” TDR. Spring: 57–79. ——— 1993. Ecstasy and the Demon: Feminism and Nationalism in the Dances of Mary Wigman. Berkeley: University of California Press. Manning, Susan and Melissa Benson. 1986. “Interrupted Continuities: Modern Dance in Germany.” TDR. Spring: 30–45. Manuel, Diane. 1999. “German Choreographer Pina Bausch in Rehearsal.” News Release. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University, October 20. Meisner, Nadine. 1992. “Come Dance With Me.” Dance and Dancers. Sept/Oct: 12–16. Müller, Hedwig and Norbert Servos. 1986. “Expressionism? ‘Ausdruckstanz’ and the New Dance Theatre in Germany.” Festival International de Nouvelle Danse, Montreal, Souvenir Program. Trans. Michael Vensky-Stalling, 10–15. Murray, Simon and John Keefe. 2015. Physical Theatres: A Critical Introduction. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Partsch-Bergsohn, Isa. 1987. “Dance Theatre from Rudolph Laban to Pina Bausch.” Dance Theatre Journal. October: 37–39. Partsch-Bergsohn, Isa and Harold Bergsohn. 2003. The Makers of Modern Dance in Germany: Rudolf Laban, Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss. Hightstown, NJ: Princeton Book Company. Pina Bausch: In Search of Dance. Documentary Film. Pina Bausch: One Day Pina Asked. . . Documentary Film. Dir. Chantal Ackerman. Bravo International Films, 1984. 40 minutes. Pina: Dance, Dance, Otherwise We are Lost. Film. Dir. Wim Wenders. The Criterion Collection, 2013. 103 minutes.

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Bausch (1940–2009) Regitz, Hartmut. 1998. “Beyond the Mainstream: Everything Else You Find in Tanztheater.” Tanztheater Today: Thirty Years of German Dance. Exhibition Catalogue. Seelze/Hanover: Kallmeyeresche, in association with Ballett International/Tanz Aktuell. Robertson, Allen. 1984. “Close Encounters: Pina Bausch’s Radical Tanztheater is a World Where Art and Life are Inextricably Interwoven.” Ballet News. Vol. 5, no. 12. June: 10–14. Schlicher, Susanne. 1987. Tanztheater. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlts. ——— 1993. “The West German Dance Theatre: Paths from the Twenties to the Present.” Choreography and Dance. Vol. 3, part 2: 25–43. Schmidt, Jochen. 1984. “Pina Bausch: A Constant Annoyance.” In Pina Bausch Wuppertal Dance Theater or the Art of Training a Goldfsh. Cologne: Ballett-Bühnen-Verlag, 13–16. ——— 1985. “Pina Bausch and the New German Tanztheater: Movement from the Inside Out.” Festival des Nouvelle Danse, Montreal, Souvenir Program, 59–65. ——— 1990. “The Wuppertal Choreographer Pina Bausch – The Mother Courage of Modern Dance – Turns Fifty.” Ballett International. Vol. 13, no. 6–7. June/July: 40–43. ——— 1994. “From Isadora to Pina: The Renewal of the Human Image in Dance.” Ballett International/ Tanz Aktuell. May: 34–36. ——— 1998. “Learning What Moves People: Thirty Years of Tanztheater in Germany.” Tanztheater Today: Thirty Years of German Dance. Exhibition Catalogue. Seelze/Hanover: Kallmeyeresche, in association with Ballett International/Tanz Aktuell. Schulze-Reuber, Rika. 2005. Das Tanztheater Pina Bausch: Speigel der Gesellschaft, with photographs by Jochen Viehof. Frankfurt am Main: R.G. Fischer. The Search for Dance: Pina Bauch’s Theatre with a Diference. Documentary Video. Script Direction, Patricia Corboud. Bonn: Inter Nationes, 1994. 28 min. Servos, Norbert. 1981. “The Emancipation of Dance: Pina Bausch and the Wuppertal Dance Theater.” Trans. Peter Harris and Pia Kleber. Modern Drama. Vol. 22, no. 4: 435–47. ——— 1984. Pina Bausch Wuppertal Dance Theater or the Art of Training a Goldfsh. Cologne: Ballett-Bühnen-Verlag. ——— 1985. “On the Seduction of Angels.” Ballett International. Vol. 8, no. 12. December: 72–76. ——— 1996. Pina Bausch – Wuppertaler Tanztheater oder die Kunst, einen Goldfsch zu Dressieren. Kallmeyer: Seelze – Velber. ——— 2003. Pina Bausch: Tanztheater. Photographs by Gert Weigelt. Munich: K. Kieser. Sikes, Richard. 1984. “‘But is it Dance . . . ?’” Dance Magazine. June: 50–53. Smith, Amanda. 1984. “New York City.” Dance Magazine. September: 35–37. Sörgel, Sabine. 2015. Dance and the Body in Western Theatre: 1948 to the Present. London: Palgrave. States, Bert O. 1985. Great Reckonings in Little Rooms: On the Phenomenology of the Theater. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ——— 1988. The Rhetoric of Dreams. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ——— 1993. Dreams and Storytelling. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Stendahl, Renate. 1996. “Pioneer Dance.” San Francisco Focus. October: 66–70. Tanzland Nordrhein-Westfalen. 1999. Special promotional publication. Cologne: Ministry of Employment, Social Issues and City Development, Culture and Sports of the State of North Rhine Westphalia Ofce of Public Afairs in association with the NRW State Ofce for Dance. “Tanztheater.” 1989. Unpublished transcript, October 28. Sp. Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, New York. Participants: Reinhild Hofmann, Susanne Linke, Susan Manning, Susanne Schlicher, Marcia Siegle. Moderated by Madeline Nichols. Tanztheater Today: Thirty Years of German Dance. 1998. Exhibition Catalogue. Seelze/Hanover: Kallmeyeresche, in association with Ballett International/Tanz Aktuell. “Thoughts on the Creation of Nur Du and Bausch’s World.” 1996. The University of Texas College of Fine Arts Performing Arts Center Program, Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal – Bass Concert Hall, 22 October. Viehof, Jochen. 2000. Pina Bausch: Ein Fest. Wuppertal: Verlag Müller und Busmann. Wagenbach, Marc, and the Pina Bausch Foundation, eds. 2014. Inheriting Dance: An Invitation from Pina. Wuppertal: Transcript Verlag. Warren, Larry. 1991. Anna Sokolow: The Rebellious Spirit. Princeton: Dance Horizons. Was Tun Pina Bausch und Ihrer Tänzer in Wuppertal? Videocassette. Dir. Klaus Wildenhahn. Inter Nationes, 1983. 60 minutes. Wehle, Philippa. 1984. “Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater – A Place of Difcult Encounter.” Women and Performance. Vol. 1, no. 2. Winter: 25–36.

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Royd Climenhaga “What the Critics Say.” 1986. TDR. Spring: 80–84. Wigman, Mary. 1975. “Creation.” The Mary Wigman Book: Her Writings. Ed. and trans. by Walter Sorell. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 85–96. Williams, Faynia. 1997. “Working with Pina Bausch: A Conversation with Tanztheater Wuppertal.” TheatreForum. Winter/Spring: 74–78.

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19 WILSON (1941–) Maria Shevtsova

19.1 A working life Becoming Robert Wilson Born in Waco, Texas, in 1941, Robert Wilson sufered from a speech impediment that was cured when he was 17 by Byrd Hofman, a local teacher of dance. Wilson thinks of her as the frst artist he ever met. Byrd Hofman, who was in her seventies, would play the piano in an adjoining room while he, free from her gaze, moved about in whatever way he wished. As Wilson observes, she delivered him from his stutter by teaching him to release tension, to ‘just relax’ and let ‘energy fow through so, so that I wasn’t blocked’ (quoted in Brecht, 1994: 14). This event in the life of an adolescent who, he claims, had had a relatively lonely childhood was to leave its mark on Wilson’s work in the theatre. Movement – idiosyncratic, ‘Wilsonian’ – was to become its fundamental principle and penetrate its every aspect so deeply – gesture, light, colour, costume, sound, word – that Wilson could credibly claim, even early in his career, that ‘everything I do can be seen as dance’ (Lesschaeve, 1977: 224). If the pioneer dancer and choreographer Martha Graham, whom Wilson admired, could assert that the body never lies (Copeland, 2004: 12), Wilson could be no less certain because of his own experience that the body speaking truthfully in movement was the way of physical and mental healing. The key was in letting it fnd its appropriate path. The freedom not to seek efects but just let things be, which Wilson has always encouraged in his performers, arguably stems, at least in part, from this insight. In 1959, Wilson enrolled in a business administration course at the University of Texas, probably to please his lawyer father who wanted conventional success for his son. He dropped out in 1962, just before he was to graduate (Brecht, 1994: 15), and spent some months studying painting with George McNeil, an American abstract expressionist painter in Paris. He returned to the United States, now to New York, as a student of architecture at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He allegedly had a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide (ibid.: 20), and graduated from Pratt in 1966. Wilson spent the summers of 1964 and 1965 in Texas continuing the theatre work with children that he had begun soon after fnishing high school. He and the children wrote their scripts, performing in churches, construction sites, garages and vacant lots – anywhere that could be taken over as a performance space. The thing that most interested him, Wilson was to say in 1970, was ‘education, teaching . . . it’s like the biggest challenge’ (ibid.: 22). 375

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Graduation from Pratt was followed by Wilson’s short apprenticeship to the anythingbut-conventional architect Paolo Soleri in Arizona and, in 1967, by Poles, his frst commissioned architectural work: In a broad fat feld he erected 576 vertical telephone poles in a square array resembling an amphitheatre. Rising from a height of two-and-one-half feet to fourteen feet the incline created by the pole tops is attractive, accessible and human in scale. It ofers precarious seats, an arena for some event or a jungle-gym for children at play . . . Isolated from view except for visitors to the feld, Poles inhabits its own landscape, a surreal image contradicting the natural site. (Stearns, 1984: 37) It is clear from this account that Wilson’s construction or ‘architectural sculpture’ (ibid.) was also a potential theatre and playground in one, a combination that may well have come to him from his theatre work with children in Texas. His work afterwards on a variety of stages across the world refected a similarly architectural concern with building a space in which all play elements could be organised systematically. Many years later, Wilson would win the prize for sculpture at the 1993 Venice Biennale with an otherwise theatrical and ‘surreal’ work (the adjective would justifably stick to Wilson throughout his career) that was actually an installation sculpture. This was Memory/Loss, which featured a mould of Wilson’s head and shoulders in a large foor of cracked mud. Wilson’s voice could be heard reading fragments of a text he had written, and was complemented by a soundscore by Hans Peter Kuhn who, by then, had become one of his regular collaborators. Julia Kristeva, the renowned French theorist turned psychoanalyst, was on the jury hotly criticised for awarding the prize to Wilson for a sculpture, the assumption being that the work did not ft the bill. Kristeva countered: But clearly the traditional categories – painting, sculpture, stagecraft, etc. – no longer correspond to reality. Personally, I think this is due to the crisis in our psychic space and the borders that separate the object and the subject. In the same way that there is a breaking down of the boundaries between objects, there is an intrication [sic] of the roles of the artist and the spectator, erasing the borders between the self and the other. This lack of diferentiation can have a dramatic efect on some people: loss of sense of self, hallucinations, etc. But it can also give rise to jubilation, because it creates a sense of osmosis with Being, the Absolute. (Kristeva, 1994: 65) Kristeva stresses that Wilson’s abolition of established artistic categories obliges viewers to cross perceptual boundaries, which is a double-edged (even faintly psychotic) experience – both ‘loss of sense of self ’ and ‘jubilation’. For Wilson, however, cross-border perception, for creator and spectator alike, can only be positive since it calls upon unexercised dimensions of the imagination. This liberating power, while applicable to Memory/Loss, as to Poles and all his performance pieces, is at the heart of the matter: Wilson is a polymath – an architect, designer, painter, installation artist, writer, performer, director, and more – yet the diversity of his output is on a continuum. ‘It’s all part of one concern’, Wilson states in response to criticism of his 2000 installation retrospective of fashion designer Giorgio Armani at the Guggenheim Museum in New York: ‘many people . . . thought it should not be in a museum of “fne art”’ (The Guardian, 11 September 2003). He no more thinks in hierarchical terms about his work (like ‘fne’ versus 376

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‘popular’) than he does about it and his daily life: ‘Now I’ll go home and watch television. Now I have sex. Now I’m with my boyfriend. Now I go to work. I don’t see it as separate’ (The Guardian, 19 May 2001). Wilson’s involvement in performance gathered speed while he was at Pratt. Along with others, he ‘pitched in’ to help choreographer Alwin Nikolais (Nikolais in Shyer, 1989: 290), designed the sets for Murray Louis’s Junk Dances and made gigantic puppets for Motel, the third part of Jean-Claude Van Itallie’s America Hurrah. According to Van Itallie, he also wanted to set the whole of America Hurrah ‘in a yellow submarine – I guess from the Beatles’ song’ (ibid.: 292), an idea certainly in tune with the 1960s celebration of ‘getting stoned’ alluded to by the song. He also revamped for show at the Pratt Institute two dances that he had created for a youth theatre programme in Waco. In the meantime, he earned his living as a special instructor for the Department of Welfare, teaching brain-damaged children, some of pre-school age, whose motor skills he aroused with endless patience by simple means – hold chalk to paper and, slowly, slowly, eventually draw a line, splash paint over newspaper-covered foors and walls, crawl inch by inch – all of it, to Wilson’s mind, an application of what he had learned from Byrd Hofman. Some of the adult crawling on all fours in later productions, among them Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights (1992, text by Gertrude Stein), might well be memory traces of his hours of crawling about with children, thus extending his life experience into his art practice. While he was still at Pratt, Wilson frst met the dancer and choreographer Jerome Robbins, who invited him to ofer a series of therapeutic exercises at his experimental centre, the American Theater Laboratory. Wilson recalled in 1999 that Robbins was curious about the way he worked with brain-damaged children while he, Wilson, ‘had no idea’ that he ‘would ever work in the theatre and wasn’t particularly interested in theatre’ (quoted in Lawrence, 2002: 364). Wilson continues: I was studying architecture, but what I was doing was a sort of crossover between architecture and performance, design, and it was a time in the sixties where you had this crossover. Someone like [Robert] Rauschenberg would paint a goat and put it in the middle of the room, so it was painting or was it sculpture, sort of coming of the wall and becoming three dimensional? And some of the work I was doing with children was free work, and I guess really related to theatre. (Ibid.) Wilson’s reference is to Rauschenberg’s Monogram (1955–59), a painted goat poking its head and body through the hole of a tyre. Provocative in the avant-garde mode of the time, Monogram may well have had no allegorical or symbolic intention, although art historian Robert Hughes claims it is one of the wittiest statements ever to be made on sexual penetration (Pegram, 1980) and is ‘one of the few great icons of male homosexual love in modern culture’ (Hughes, 1980: 335). Wilson, it is clear, was attracted by the work’s non-determined (not ‘indeterminate’) status, this being integral to the creative endeavour of the 1960s that sustained his unique approach. It will become evident in the course of this chapter how the kid of the 1960s survived in the international man of the twenty-frst century. When Wilson returned to New York after constructing Poles, he came back to the two areas in which he had been most active: teaching – enabling through performance and working on performance. The former included his activities with terminally ill patients at Goldwater Hospital on Welfare Island, where he organised a performance with patients in wheelchairs. Another was with patients in iron lungs who, by means of a system of dangling strings and pulleys devised by Wilson, moved fuorescent streamers and rolled-down posters with their mouths. His work 377

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on performance mostly took place in his Spring Street loft. Wilson made four pieces between 1967 and 1969. The frst, Baby Blood, was composed of disconnected sequences which featured rings and candles moved by hooded fgures, and Wilson ‘walking like an equilibrist on a narrow wooden plank using a giant lollipop as equilibrating stick’ (Libe Bayrak in Brecht, 1994: 31). The second, Theatre Activity 1, featured dancer Kenneth King, another early infuence, and Andy de Groat, the choreographer for Wilson’s path-breaking Einstein on the Beach in 1976. Some of the performers sat in the audience with their heads covered by paper bags. At one point, the performers on the stage blew bubbles, but nothing else happened. At another, the movements of a soldier-like fgure, crashing glass and a soundtrack in the background appeared to be ‘all about Vietnam’ (Fanny Brooks in Brecht, 1994: 36). If true, then it suggests that, for all his immersion in the world of the imagination, Wilson was not oblivious to the violent antagonisms in the United States over the Vietnam War. The bag-covered heads could have been a metaphor for the people blinkered by the War, although just how much semantic content was invested in the show’s images is a matter for conjecture. Whether Wilson’s works actually have semantic content and meaning or are purely ‘aesthetic’ constructions has remained a problematic issue ever since. The next piece, Theatre Activity 2, took up the motif of crashing glass. The fourth, ByrdwoMAN, included Meredith Monk, a performer and innovator of music theatre. Composed, like its predecessors, of numerous disjointed bits, some static, others busy, ByrdwoMAN was in two parts, and lasted about two hours. Wilson played the role of the Byrdwoman in the frst part in his loft, its foor covered with hay. A parrot in a cage, perhaps a joke on the ‘character’, sat at the back of the loft. Monk played the role in the second part in nearby Jones Alley, to which the audience was transported by two trucks. She danced in the street while somebody else descended a fre escape and Byrdwoman fgures dotted nearby rooftops. Lawrence Shyer records: ‘The audience was then taken around to the other side of the alley where they found nearly 40 Byrdwoman fgures bouncing on wooden boards. At the conclusion of the performance, a rock band played and performers and spectators danced together’ (Shyer, 1989: 293). Wilson performed with Monk again in 1968 in his duet Alley Cats for her piece Co-op. His contribution included performers bouncing up and down in long fur coats, which Monk found ‘witty and fun’ (ibid.: 296) – traits often found in Wilson’s work, although they are frequently overlooked. The little information available about these performances manages to suggest the efervescence of the 1960s: wild imagination, naïve hedonism, tomfoolery, narcissism posing as artistic experimentation and serious innovation looking like narcissism. Wilson’s loft-generated performances were, in efect, more like ‘Events’ (the frst in 1964), as understood by Merce Cunningham and his partner John Cage, both of whom made a lasting impact on Wilson. They were even more like the visual-art ‘Happenings’ invented by Allan Kaprow virtually a decade earlier. Like ‘Happenings’, they looked casual and used found spaces rather than dedicated ones, theatres or galleries. Their playing around with the boundaries between spectators and participants – dissolved in the party concluding ByrdwoMAN – was a nod to a practice popularised in the late 1960s, notably by Julian Beck and Judith Malina of the Living Theatre – most of all in Paradise Now (1968) – and Richard Schechner, whose ‘environmental’ theatre abandoned the proscenium arch and mixed and mingled performers and spectators in a common space. In 1968, Wilson named the team gathered around him the Byrd Hofman School of Byrds in honour of his old teacher. Wilson even called himself ‘Byrd’, appropriating his mentor’s identity while playing with ideas of gender in cross-dress appearances in his ‘Happenings’. The School of Byrds was a communal but fuid group providing him with hundreds of largely amateur performers for nearly a decade, some quite literally pulled by Wilson from the streets. In 1968, as well, Wilson became the artistic director of the Byrd Hofman Foundation, Inc. and 378

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began preparations for The King of Spain. It was performed at the Anderson Theatre in 1969, the frst of his early works on a proscenium stage. This production, his change of status and the constitution of the Foundation (‘legalised’ when Wilson fled a Certifcate of Incorporation for it in 1970) might be said to have kicked of his professional career.

Dance plays, silent operas and words The King of Spain was essentially a preamble to The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud (1969) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Wilson’s second proscenium theatre. Subtitled ‘a dance play in three acts’, it was performed in silence or, intermittently, to a muted sound score. Freud repeated several key images from The King of Spain – a man running continually at the back of the stage, cat legs the height of the stage striding across it, the back of the gigantic head of a fgure in an armchair – and added many more that were just as incongruous: a beach with real sand covering the vast stage; a black woman in a black Victorian dress to whose wrist was attached a large stufed raven; a man with a snake; a cave around which were grouped lions, tigers, cows and sheep, among other animals that appeared to wander randomly in and out of the show; young half-naked men and women exercising beyond the cave. Freud walked with his wife or grandson, or sat at the mouth of the cave among the beasts. The character was played by a man whom Wilson had noticed, struck by his resemblance to Freud, at a New York station and had persuaded to perform in his production. When he could not for the last two of four performances, he was replaced by Jerome Robbins, whose high forehead and balding head could pass for those of Freud. Wilson added to his team of Byrds some 30 ordinary people recruited or, like Freud, found by chance, who walked on and of the stage, performing no one but themselves. The play’s links to Freud were tenuous, its interest lying, apart from its disconcerting images, in its open space, slow pace and unhurried duration, the whole lasting some four hours without a break. Long duration of movement focused the spectator’s attention subliminally – not as a mind–reason action, but one similar to the soft-edged but heightened awareness of a dream-like state. A chair took these hours to descend from the fies to Freud’s table, drawing space and the passage of time, and enveloping spectators in the dream-like state emanating from the stage. Even the materiality of the chair itself faded into this everlasting moment when time seemed to have stopped. A similar demarcation of time–space and, paradoxically, of time eternal, which knows no markings, was to be had from the performers crawling over the sand, or from the turtle pulled on a string infnitesimally slowly across the stage. Richard Foreman, founder of the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre in 1968, called the production ‘one of the major stage works of the decade’, explaining that Wilson’s was a ‘non-manipulative aesthetic’ quite diferent from that of the theatre and comparable only to the ‘one current among advanced painters, musicians, dancers and flm-makers’ which liberated spectators to discover the ‘discoveries’ of the artists by themselves (Village Voice, 1 January 1970). Everything that had brought Freud into the illogical logic of dreams and the unconscious – there was the ‘hidden’ link to Freud – was realised again in Deafman Glance (1970). A fock of pink famingos unexpectedly few by in the ‘sky’. A man-sized frog in a dinner jacket and bow tie sat poised for hours beside a dinner table before it jumped onto it and then sat down to sip a martini. An alligator repeatedly closed its mouth around the ankle of a woman. Deafman Glance multiplied its efects – and length – when Wilson added Freud to it for the 1971 Nancy Festival, which was followed by performances in Paris, his frst engagements outside the United States. The Nancy Festival, which promoted exciting international theatre, was the initiative of the young lawyer Jack Lang, who, before and after he became French President François 379

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Mitterrand’s Minister of Culture in 1981, helped to further Wilson’s career not only in France, but in the rest of Europe. Nancy buzzed while Paris, the citadel of high art, fell, spellbound by the ‘miracle’ of silence, as Louis Aragon, the French surrealist novelist, described Deafman Glance (Aragon, 1971: 3). In his famous letter to his dead friend André Breton, author of the 1924 Surrealist Manifesto, Aragon wrote: I have never seen anything more beautiful since I was born. Never has any spectacle ever got anywhere near this one because it is, at the same time, waking life and life with your eyes closed, the world of every day indistinguishable from the world of every night, reality mixed with dreams, everything that is inexplicable in the gaze of a deaf man . . . Bob Wilson . . . is what we, from whom surrealism was born, dreamed would come after us and go beyond us . . . Bob Wilson is a surrealist by his silence, although this can be said about all painters, but Wilson binds gesture and silence, movement and what cannot be heard. (Ibid.) Such silence, Aragon argued, was virtually unidentifable. The work’s 60 performers had ‘no other word but movement’, but it was ‘neither a ballet nor a piece of mime or an opera’. If anything, it was a ‘silent opera’ and an ‘extraordinary freedom-producing machine’ that critiqued ‘everything we are used to’ and liberated people’s ‘mind and soul’ (ibid.: 15). Aragon’s belief that the liberation of the psyche was essential for changing the world echoed an old surrealist precept, which, its origins forgotten, had become a rallying call for social revolution on both sides of the Atlantic during the upheavals of 1968. Other French critics followed Aragon’s lead in calling Deafman an opera. Together, they must have inspired Wilson, who, from here on, called all his works ‘opera’ and justifed his choice of term by pointing out that ‘opera comes from the Latin root for “works” and that’s what he makes, “works for the theatre”’ (Shyer, 1989: xx). Wilson created another compendium out of his existing pieces in his 12-hour The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin in 1973, which, apart from triggering subliminal understanding and the sensation of being in a trance with ‘your eyes closed’, as Aragon puts it, hints that it might just be a protest – silent, but nevertheless in the spirit of the late 1960s and early 1970s – against the consumerist treatment of theatre and other creative works as quick-fx and quick-sell objects of the marketplace. The long duration of this and of other Wilson productions implies, in other words, a critique of consumerism and the capitalist acceleration of speed and time for the sake of mass productivity. The verb here can only be ‘implies’, since nothing in Wilson’s work, whether long or short, is explicitly spelt out. Billed by Wilson as an ‘opera’, Stalin combined most of Freud with parts of Deafman Glance, Overture for a Deafman (1971), which was something of a synopsis of the former, and sections from the 24-hour stage-adapted version of KA MOUNTAIN AND GUARDenia TERRACE, which Wilson and the Byrds had devised for the Shiraz Festival in Iran in 1972. The Shiraz production required a cast of about a hundred. In later years, Wilson’s practice of recycling material took the more limited form of recall of visual, aural and kinetic images. The sound of shattering glass, for instance, noted earlier, returns persistently in productions as diverse as Death Destruction and Detroit II (1987), Orlando (1989), Alice (1992) and Three Sisters (2001), to name but a few. Stalin may not have been short, but KA MOUNTAIN, running for seven days and seven nights, epitomised Wilson’s love of the long haul. It was a time-saturated, site-specifc fantasia, a ritual and a pilgrimage across the seven hills of the arid rocky terrain of the Haft Tan Mountain, and involved an old man’s journey up one of these hills while a host of unconnected events 380

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occurred simultaneously on all seven. Every day a diferent Byrd played the old man as if to suggest, by the change of actor, the idea of the seven stages through which human life supposedly passes. The old man paused at various stations identifed by cut-outs of such symbols of Western civilisation as Noah’s Ark, the Acropolis and the New York skyline. These served as relay points for the performers and were where the spectator-participants could stop and rest, if they had not dropped out already, depleted of the energy and stamina required for such a long duration. (Indeed, few managed to last the week.) The winding path was strewn with cut-out replicas of the old man and of other human-size fgures; cut-out pink famingos; papier-mâché fsh, apples and snakes; and real animals in cages. A dinosaur stood at the foot of the central mountain and another at its summit, where, on the seventh night, in a grand apocalyptic moment, the face of a seven-foot ape went up in fames. Several stations provided platforms for gibberish when they were not being used for declamatory, ritualistic readings from the Bible, Moby Dick and other canonical texts. The mountain itself, with its searing heat during the day and intense cold at night, could be said to be the prime actor in this epic whose greatest signifcance probably lay in the personal inner journeys undergone by its makers. The fact that this mixture of artistic genres involving site-specifc performance, performance art and installation took place on a mountain, the site of gods and of mythology – think of Mount Olympus – may well suggest that it also had a spiritual dimension, embodied in its associations with pilgrimages and endurance in pilgrimage for a glimpse of something higher than banal everyday experience, which are seven days of the Creation, and the Stations of the Cross. In KA MOUNTAIN, such associations were made with Christianity and with Wilson’s cultural references. Their signifcance was by no means stressed in the performance, but the fact that these references were made at all in a predominantly Muslim country indicates the shortfall of Wilson’s site-specifc invention. In other words, the performance was not fully site-specifc in that, while the landscape framed it geographically, it lacked cultural references specifc to this site. Could the Koran have been read instead of the Bible, for instance, and, if it had been, would it have been viewed as a cultural intrusion and/or an insult to Islam? Wilson’s mixture of artistic genres may well not have been able to sustain a mixture of religions, and especially not the spiritual dimension of another religion. Something about the silence of distance in KA MOUNTAIN, of events seen from afar but not heard, must have connected the whole experience in Wilson’s mind to Deafman Glance. His muse during these several years was the young deaf–mute man Raymond Andrews whom he had adopted and whose capacity to order the world in pictures had confrmed his belief that language was not indispensable for knowledge and communication. Yet the sound of language, if not its meaning, continued to fascinate Wilson, and he increasingly drew inspiration from his second adopted child, Christopher Knowles, who joined the Byrds, aged 14, in time to write for and perform in Stalin. Knowles was slightly autistic, and his way of disassociating sounds, words and sentences from conventional sense and of making chains and variations out of them provided Wilson with a model for A Letter for Queen Victoria, which he wrote and directed in 1974. Knowles wrote additional texts for the production. Much of Queen Victoria was slyly comic, indicating how well aware Wilson and Knowles were of the language games they were playing. Queen Victoria, probably Wilson’s most exuberantly verbal piece, is full of random sentences, odd colloquialisms, grammatical errors, slipshod punctuation and play with syllables that change according to changes of a letter in them (‘HAP’, ‘HATH’, ‘HAT’) and are repeated again and again. It has non-sequitur monologues, and bits of dialogue, some of which are nonsensical, 381

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others like overheard conversation and still others like trivia pretending to be formal speech. Numbers replace characters. Thus: 1 2 1 2 1 2

THEY’VE HAD ICE MAKING MACHINES AROUND FOR A LONG TIME. YOU CAN’T WIN THEM ALL MAN. MANDY YOU JUST GOT MARRIED. MANDY I GOT A GET A DIVORCE. MANDY IT JUST NOT HUMAN. ... THIS ACT WAS DELIBERATE AND PROVOKED. HE TOLD ME SOME DAY HE’D GET EVEN. (Wilson, 1996: 57–58)

The cast included Wilson and Knowles, who performed strategically placed duos with gusto. Wilson’s voice frequently rose in a crescendo, engaging Knowles in comedian-style repartee accompanied by vaudeville gestures. Designs by Knowles out of single letters, syllables or words were painted on backdrops, demonstrating his visual and spatial conception of language. Several patterns were read aloud to juxtapose them against acoustic patterns and shapes. Numerous sounds – knocks, screams, gunshots, horses’ hooves, a train making noises like shots, a whistle – punctuated speech, some of which was uttered by two or three speakers at once. All of it was intended, as Gertrude Stein said of her plays, ‘To tell what could be told if one did not tell anything’ (Stein, 1970: x). Wilson’s empathy with Stein has been greatly underestimated partly because her deconstruction of language is more adroit than his. Yet Wilson shares at a very profound level, beyond the attraction of verbal concoctions, her non-narrative, whimsical and refexive aesthetic. This is precisely why he staged, with the afection reserved for mentors, her Doctor Faustus (cited earlier), Four Saints in Three Acts (1996, music by Virgil Thomson) and Saints and Singing (1998). Queen Victoria incorporated a string quartet and two dancers whose continual dervish-like spinning was the legacy of Kenneth King, King having left the Byrds around the time of Deafman Glance. The diferent arts comprising the production – not as unity or synthesis, but as textured arrangement – established Wilson’s trademark hybridity, which has also been described as ‘total theatre’, or Gesamtkunstwerk in the manner of Wagner (Marranca, 1996: 39; although the latter description is misleading because Wilson never sought, then or later, the fusion of elements central to Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk project. What I have called ‘textured arrangement’ is a diferent proposition). By its use of music throughout the performance, Queen Victoria foreshadowed Einstein on the Beach, Wilson’s frst fully fedged piece of music theatre which was followed over the years, in a zigzag fashion – Wilson, never linear, branched out in several directions at once – by a wide range of productions that were music theatre in some sense of the word. Given Einstein’s important place in Wilson’s body of work and, indeed, in twentieth-century performance history, the production will be the focus of Section 19.2. Queen Victoria was also the hub of a series of verbal pieces for two written and performed by Wilson and Knowles. All were titled Dia Log, each with a diferent subtitle (1974, 1975, 1976, 1977), the last of which was Curious George in 1980. After this date, Knowles rarely collaborated with Wilson again. The Wind, a reading with Wilson, took place in 1998, and he wrote passages for Death Destruction and Detroit III (1999). Their friendship, however, has endured, and Knowles has successfully pursued an independent career as a visual artist, showing drawings at the International Art Fair in New York in 2005 that echoed his stage experience with Wilson. 382

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Queen Victoria was the beginning of the end of the Byrds as a collaborative group. The burden of sustaining a large creative community had become too great and, by the time of Einstein, Wilson knew that he wanted to operate in a more professional context. Sheryl Sutton, who had been key to Deafman Glance, worked with him on Einstein, as did Andy de Groat. The new major contributors to the production were composer Philip Glass and dancer and choreographer Lucinda Childs. Wilson’s decision was doubtless also motivated by the strong response to Deafman in France. The couturier Pierre Cardin had brought it from Italy to the theatre he owned in Paris, where Wilson and the Byrds were stuck, penniless and without a return ticket home. Its success, followed by that of Overture for a Deafman (also produced by Cardin) and of the staged version of KA MOUNTAIN in 1972 (after the Shiraz event) led to sponsorship of Einstein on the Beach by the French Ministry of Culture, headed by Michel Guy, a staunch supporter since Deafman. This ofcial seal of approval and faith in him would have exerted some pressure on Wilson to give priority to professional standards over amateur enthusiasm. Pressure may have come, in addition, from the feeling that he owed his best to the loyal audiences that he had by now acquired. By 2006, 30 years after Einstein’s premiere in France, Wilson’s followers there had been exposed to dozens of his productions and exhibitions. They had become a Wilson public, comfortable with his idiom. Wilson was to build a more devoted audience still in Germany, where his work continues to be commissioned and received. Since the later 2000s, he has been especially close to the Berliner Ensemble, the theatre founded by Brecht, where he has staged nine major productions, the last of which, to date, is Samuel Beckett’s Endgame (2016). A large, old-fashioned alarm clock with obtrusive bells alludes, in this whimsical and gently sad production, to time passing – indeed, to life passing by, unnoticed. Lit predominantly in Wilson’s inimitable blue, Endgame ofers another variation on the theme of time that sufuses his entire body of work. Wilson’s infuence spiralled outwards from Germany across Western Europe, where various countries have fnanced him, one after another, including the Nordic countries, most of which have maintained professional contact with him across the years, waiting for the right project to invite him back. Such is the case, for instance, of Norway where, in 2005, he staged Peer Gynt, returning to make a spectacular Edda (2017), whose script he wrote with Norway’s most important contemporary playwright, Jan Fosse, on Fosse’s interpretation of the eponymous Old Norse mythology. The latter was the basis of a religion that dominated Scandinavia until the eleventh century, and it provided Wilson with the opportunity for creating translucent, supernatural light efects for the story of the creation of the world, which showed just how prodigious a lighting designer he had become since his silent operas. During roughly the same period, Wilson was able to premiere works in Eastern European countries, an expanding European Union having facilitated the availability of money for his lavish productions. His frst, in 2002 in the Czech Republic capital of Prague, was the opera Destiny by Leos Janacek, followed by the same composer’s Katya Kabanova and The Makaropoulos Case, both in 2010. In 2014, also in Prague, came 1914, in memory of the First World War. Meanwhile, in 2006, Warsaw had seen an otherworldly Lady from the Sea, Ibsen’s most enigmatic play, and, in 2008, Gounod’s opera Faust. The National Theatre of Craiova in Romania commissioned Romanian–French Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros for 2014. In 2015, Estonia commissioned Wilson to stage its internationally renowned composer Arvo Pärt’s sacred music, which Wilson called Adam’s Passion. The production was performed in the vast space of the Noblessner Foundry in Tallinn, and its title came from Pärt’s Adam’s Lament, the work’s central piece. Based on the Biblical story of Adam’s expulsion from Paradise, and the consequent fall from grace of humankind, the visual beauty of the work never detracts from the choir’s singing and the words that it sings of contrition and eternal loss. Hues of blue light, 383

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certainly, but also soft, wafting clouds that, at frst, cover naked Adam’s legs and feet, visually balance the music’s purity as its gossamer-like instrumental sounds also speak of what Pärt believes to be the colossal tragedy of humanity. Interest in Wilson’s work has spread in Europe beyond the European Union, notably to Russia. Only one month after the premiere of Adam’s Passion in Tallinn, Moscow saw Pushkin’s Fairy Tales commissioned by the Theatre of Nations. This theatre’s artistic director, Yevgeny Mironov, who is one of Russia’s most-loved actors, also performs in this production (still in repertory in 2017). The co-produced La Traviata (with Denmark, Austria and Luxembourg) was premiered in Russia with Russian singers at the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre in 2016 under the baton of Teodor Currentzis. Currentzis is Greek but trained in St Petersburg, and is a Russian resident who also has honorary Russian citizenship. Lauded as one of the world’s most musically radical and exciting young conductors, the link between his reputation and fame with those of Wilson suggests that Wilson’s stature remains unshaken after more than 50 years of consistently highlevel work which is still considered to be pathbreaking. The above details are by no means a mere compendium, but are meant to show the broad sweep of his achievements, artistically as well as geographically, as he approaches seniority of age and standing. His is a truly global reach that holds him to Europe even as he fies elsewhere – to Japan, Indonesia, China, Australia, South America and, occasionally, back home, where selected productions of his are imported ready-made from abroad. Very few have actually been initiated, crafted or fnanced in the United States: ironically, this richest of countries could never come up with the funds for his expensive – often extremely expensive – creations, and those that have travelled there from their European cradle have not necessarily been Wilson’s fnest. Nor have they been able to convey to North Americans the full range and variety of his work, or to develop audiences on the scale and consistency of his audiences in Europe. Simply, not enough people in the United States have seen enough of his work. All this has made Wilson an American–European director.

Art and politics: the 1960s and after Practical circumstances have determined Wilson’s path, but the United States and, specifcally, the culture of New York have nurtured him. The ‘Events’ consolidated over the years by Cunningham and Cage (Cunningham was still presenting them in 2005) had grown out of the famous Theatre Piece 1 staged by Cage at Black Mountain College in 1952. It was a multi-focus afair of simultaneous unrelated activities outside and in the aisles of concentric circles arranged so that spectators only saw parts according to where they were sitting (Harris, 1987: 226). Cage’s piece, although original – it included four all-white paintings by Rauschenberg hanging from the rafters – was ‘not conceived in a creative vacuum’ (ibid.: 227). It was fuelled by the neoDadaist movement in New York spearheaded by Marcel Duchamp; Cage’s discovery of Artaud’s The Theatre and its Double and its argument that the theatre was a visceral, physical rather than literary experience; Cage’s involvement with French new music (Pierre Boulez, Pierre Schaefer) and, through Cunningham, with American new dance; and his obsession with Zen Buddhism and the chance operations of the I Ching. He composed his music by consulting the I Ching to throws of a dice, thereby disproving the reigning assumption that art necessarily depends on its maker’s intentions. The appeal of Cage’s principle of controlled randomness, which Cage never abandoned, is evident in all the Wilson productions discussed so far. Black Mountain was a hotbed of experimentation, running summer schools where its teachers, many of whom had fed Nazi persecution, encountered a younger generation of non-conformist artists grouped, like Cage and Rauschenberg, in the large cities. These teachers 384

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had been formed by the European Modernism of the frst three decades of the twentieth century – Expressionism, Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, the Bauhaus – and contributed to the spread of its ideas and sensibilities across the coteries and studios of art and dance, notably in New York. Several of them had been in contact with the teachings of Wassily Kandinsky at the Bauhaus in Germany on the way colour stimulated the senses and the emotions. Kandinsky reconnoitred a terrain explored by the nineteenth-century German poet Goethe and the Russian Constructivist and Suprematist painter Kasimir Malevich, whom Kandinsky had known when he lived in Russia. Wilson’s afnity with Russian Constructivism, particularly with designer, photographer, sculptor and painter Aleksandr Rodchenko, as well as with Malevich’s unique ‘Suprematism’ and its visions of colour in reconceived space, has not been recognised and certainly deserves further research (Shevtsova, 2016: 118–19). Moreover, Wilson, in conversation with this author, freely acknowledged this afnity (25 February 2013), refning our understanding of Wilson’s major place in Modernism and his special contribution to it through his visual approach to the theatre. But the networks of Modernism reached into unexpected quarters. The spiritual dimension of colour, as conceived by Kandinsky, connected him to Rudolf Steiner, founder, at the beginning of the twentieth century, of Anthroposophy, which linked humans and nature to the world of the spirit. Steiner’s own theory of colour both refected and contributed to the prevailing Modernist ethos which was transplanted to Black Mountain College as a fligree of contacts and afnities. It was difcult to see, in this fligree, who or what was the presiding infuence, or whether, in the younger, American-born generation of Cage and Rauschenberg, the transmutations had produced something else again. We could put it this way. Bauhaus non-contentual ‘abstract’ relationships between space, shape and colour were in the same network of thought and execution as those explored by Malevich. It is this ‘whole’, which includes Malevich’s all-black as well as all-white paintings, that prefgured Rauschenberg’s canvases. The same ‘whole’ transmuted in the 1960s, but touched Wilson vitally through his contact with the art world. . . . Wilson’s perception of colour as capable of stimulating emotion is tied in with the Modernist currents from Europe that had been absorbed in the United States. The painters Barnett Newnam and Donald Judd, who, increasingly in the 1960s, emphasised the relationship between colour and volume, were part of this process. Both, to this day, are touchstones for Wilson: Newnam’s glowing rods and uninterrupted expanses of colour for which Wilson has found the equivalent, with light, for the stage; and Judd’s intimations of mass through the expanses of a single colour divided into heavy-looking shapes, which Wilson has transformed into impressions of volume made of lightweight substances. Infuences were also passed on directly, as in the case of illustrious Bauhaus émigrés, architect Walter Gropius and his painter colleague Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, also an explorer of shape and colour. Or they were fltered, at one remove, through art schools such as the Pratt Institute where Wilson was blown away by the stream-of-consciousness lectures on the history of architecture given by Sybil Moholy-Nagy. Wilson was to acknowledge that Sybil Moholy-Nagy’s non-coercive attitude had afected his working method (Grillet and Wilson, 1992: 11; Morey and Pardo, 2003: 13), while the array of disparate illustrations that she showed as she talked taught him that word and image need not coincide. The immigrant culture was a force to be reckoned with in the making of American culture and it provided for the visual and plastic artists of the 1960s and 1970s the axiom that a work of art did not have to be about anything other than itself: its constituent components and how they were done were its subject and justifcation. Jasper Johns, who was close to Rauschenberg and painted backdrops for Cunningham’s dances, ‘said’ as much in his canvases when he showed that they meant nothing more than met the eye: a painting of the American fag was just that and nothing else except the application of paint. The choreographer George 385

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Balanchine, whose sense of spaciousness and purity of line struck a deep chord in Wilson, afrmed that his ballets did not have to tell a story because they were about the ‘logic of movement’. He was not trying to prove something quite other than the fact of dancing. I only wish to prove the dance by dancing. I want to say: ‘If you should happen to like it, here they are: dancers dancing. They dance for the pleasure of it, because they wish to’. (Kirstein, 1984: 32) Dedication to that which is rather than means was concentrated in the ‘Minimalism’ that emerged during this period, a movement identifed by its belief in interdisciplinary strategies for transforming art; similarly, by its rejection of expressiveness as the motor force of art practice. Thus, choreographers who, like Lucinda Childs, were associated with the Judson Dance Theatre sought collaborators beyond the precincts of dance, and found them among painters and sculptors. All, whatever their ‘originating’ discipline, backed Minimalism’s ideology of non-expressive ‘cool’ and its tenet that art works were not the fulflment of personality but, in the words of Johns, ‘objects alone’ (Francis, 1984: 50). Once object status was conferred upon a performing form like dance, it necessitated a corresponding impersonality in how dancers danced. Impersonality, which had always been a feature of Cunningham’s choreography, marked Wilson’s work from the beginning and has permeated everything he has done ever since. But it was embodied ingeniously in former Judson dancer Trisha Brown’s Roof Piece (1973), a remarkable exercise in minimalist-style repetition by 14 dancers on a mile of rooftops in Manhattan. An object set-up by alienated dancers, it wittily subverted itself as such by being literally lifted out of the consumerist arena – gallery, theatre – onto a space where it could be seen by a few and bought by none. Gratuitous by nature, it corresponded with Balanchine’s creed of dancing ‘for the pleasure of it’. Wilson’s 40 Byrdwomen on roofs four years earlier was in a similar spirit. Given the trends of these years, it is not surprising that Susan Sontag’s 1961 essay, ‘Against Interpretation’, should have had such great resonance for contemporary artists, including, of course, Wilson, who was to collaborate with her in the 1990s. Nothing could have legitimated their practice more than her proclamation: ‘Interpretation, based on the highly dubious theory that a work of art is composed of items of content, violates art. It makes art into an article of use, of arrangement into a mental scheme of categories’ (Sontag, 1994: 10). And the value that she ascribed, against content, to the ‘sensuous surface’ and the ‘sensory experience of the work of art’ (ibid.: 13) valorised their experiments with form for the gratifcation of the senses. The most humorous example of such re-evaluations of the idea of content was Cage’s incorporation of everyday, ready-made sounds in his 4’33’’. A pianist sat at a keyboard in silence while the noises of the street flled the room, obliging the audience to listen, instead of blocking them of, and then to hear them as the composition itself. The event demonstrated Cage’s contention in his 1961 Silence – allegedly ‘the one book’ Wilson, ‘a non-reader’, cites as ‘having had an important efect on his thinking’ (Stearns, 1984: 64) – that there was no such thing as silence at all. There were always ambient sounds, including your heartbeat, which are ‘only called silence because they do not form part of a musical intention’ (Cage, 1987: 22). Years later, in 2012, Wilson was to pay his tribute to Cage by performing Lecture on Nothing from Cage’s collection of writings titled Silence. The piece, composed of interspersed silences among scattered haiku-like fragments and Cage’s idiosyncratically ‘Zen’ pronouncements, was, in Wilson’s performance, essentially a visual–sonic poem in white with touches of grey. Wilson sat at a table, while the foor beneath and behind him was strewn with crumpled up pages of 386

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writing paper – images of discarded, efectively silenced, words. A video of a photograph of Rodchenko, intermittently winking, was set high in the left corner of the front of the stage. It displayed another of Wilson’s admired avant-garde predecessors, but did so with touches of visual humour in counterpoint with Cage’s verbal humour. At the same time, it provided a silent partner for Wilson’s monologue of sounds. A remarkable piece of work in its deft grasp, in performance, acoustic and visual art terms, of Cage’s playful but nonetheless serious thought, it was essentially about being and nothingness (here borrowing the title of Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous book); and, in this multiple capacity, it was ftting that Lecture on Nothing was frst performed as an installation–performance at that great storehouse of civilisation in Paris, the Louvre. It was performed there, too, in memory of Cage’s generation, and, as well, of Wilson’s generation, which immediately followed it, all of whom were nurtured by the 1960s and collaborated with art galleries, producing dance, music and ‘performance’ in the broadest sense of this word in their open spaces. By doing just this, instead of staying in dedicated theatres and concert halls, they forged relations with diferent types of spectators (many out of art schools), whose creativity was not bounded by generic distinctions. It is precisely these new kinds of spectators who have grown into Wilson’s audiences of the twenty-frst century. Looking back, it would seem that Wilson’s silent pieces of the 1960s were infuenced by Cage, and he shared Cage’s interest in how the always-there was changed by changed perception; similarly, in how perception could embrace multiple foci and yet shift attention by choice. Cunningham developed this idea in his dance: all points were equally the ‘centre’ of the dance and there were no fxed points in space (Cunningham, 1991: 18). As a consequence, the onus for what they saw was on spectators. Wilson’s decentred mosaic pieces transferred responsibility in the same way. Childs said as much of the two-hander made up of roughly a hundred story fragments that she and Wilson co-directed and performed in 1977, I Was Sitting on my Patio This Guy Appeared I Thought I was Hallucinating (text by Wilson). It was the spectator’s job, she asserted, ‘to make sense of what he sees and to decide if it’s chaos or order, formed or formless, or if that matters’ (quoted in Shank, 2002: 134).

Cool’ and ‘hot’ Wilson’s taste for the culture of cool was behind his dismissal of the radical ‘hot’ arts epitomised by the Living Theatre, who had arrived with a bang in 1959 with their production of Jack Gelber’s The Connection. The company, led vociferously by Beck and Malina (although leadership contradicted its anarchist politics), had defed social mores and state authorities, including the Inland Revenue Service which seized their theatre in 1963. It went into voluntary exile in Europe, spreading the cause of revolution in the streets as much as in the theatre. For, Beck claimed again and again, there was no distinction between theatre and life, and what counted even more than theatre-as-life was action. The Living Theatre was particularly aggressive in France in 1968 during the insurrections of May, inciting students to occupy the state-owned Odéon Theatre in Paris. Then, with an extreme-left group calling itself the enragés, it sabotaged the state-endowed Avignon Festival where it was to perform Paradise Now. With the enragés, it denounced the Festival as an instrument of bourgeois oppression, refused to honour its engagement and returned to the United States, publicity for its exploits preceding it, to perform Paradise Now in New York that same year and then tour it across the country. The production, with its agit-prop political messages, group groping of naked bodies on stage and assumed intimacy with spectators – the actors came down of the boards to caress, animate, accost and harangue them – appeared 387

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to crystallise not just the ideal of individualism, which was part of the national ethos, or a fagrantly hedonistic idea of unfettered freedom, which was not so familiar, but the deeply political as well as lifestyle concerns – the whole gamut of the so-called counter-cultural concerns of a decade. Why was this so? The answers are far from simple and the requisite historical information has been well documented (Caute, 1988; Heale, 2001; Jones, 1995; Wilmeth and Bigsby, 2002). The roots of the counter-culture’s questioning of received values went deep into the 1950s – the destabilisation of liberalism and the American Dream by McCarthyism and its anti-communist witch-hunts, and the fear of the atom bomb, fed by the Cold War. Wilson, growing up in these years, could not help but be exposed to these national traumas, even in a small place like Waco. And he remembers the ‘absurd’ public instruction, when he was a child, to hide for protection under a table in the event of a bomb being dropped (9 February 2005, during a rehearsal of Peer Gynt). Doubts about materialism, consumerism and other givens of the American way of life led, in some quarters, to sullen anger and, in others, to cultivated insouciance. Allen Ginsberg, poet of the Beat Generation, conveyed this anger. Novelist William Burroughs’s tone was very much on the wry side – the 1950s version of ‘cool’ – and his promotion of drug-induced alternatives to conventional society (notoriously in The Naked Lunch, 1959) made him a precursor of the 1960s hippies. He was to have a new lease of life when Wilson sought him out for collaboration on the text of The Black Rider (1990). All this questioning fed Malina and Beck’s view that the Living Theatre should contest the status quo. But it had a much wider reach. It developed the critical awareness that fared up in the 1960s and 1970s which, Maldwyn Jones writes, ‘were among the most traumatic decades in American history’: The country was shaken by a sequence of political assassinations and by a protracted, shabby and shaming scandal. A new and aggressive militancy among blacks and other disconnected groups produced violent confrontations on the street and college campuses. A costly, frustrating and ultimately unsuccessful war plunged the nation into turmoil, while shattering the ‘illusion of American omnipotence’. These experiences left Americans divided and unsure of themselves. Some carried their rebelliousness to the point of questioning the very moral and constitutional foundations of American society. Meanwhile America’s economic supremacy was being eroded: there was mounting worry about infation, unemployment, and the threat of an energy shortage. National pride did indeed receive a boost in 1969 from the remarkable technological achievement of landing a man on the moon and from the bicentennial celebrations of 1976. But the late 1970s brought a further darkening of the economic skies as well as more humiliating reminders of the limits of American power. (Jones, 1995: 543) Most notable among the assassinations were those of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the black civil rights leader Martin Luther King in 1968: within minutes of the news being broadcast [of King’s assassination by a white] African Americans were taking to the streets. Riots broke out in over a hundred cities, and within a week forty-six people died and 27,000 were arrested. Over 700 fres lit up Washington D.C. (Heale, 2001: 123) 388

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Such riots demonstrated the magnitude of a problem where poverty, race, discrimination and exclusion were tightly intermeshed. These were issues fercely attacked by Black Power groups (a concept King did not approve of) like the Black Panthers and the separatist Black Muslims who, whatever they may have ultimately gained for their communities, were instrumental in focusing attention on the principles of citizenship – rights, entitlements, obligations and respect for identities – integral to any democracy. Their example stirred the consciousness of white people and emboldened Mexican Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans to stake out their own claims not solely to ethnic identity, but also to political equality. The theatre contributed to this process. An impressive list of black playwrights included Lorraine Hansberry, from an earlier generation, and Amiri Baraka, from the more recent Black Muslim radicals, who had changed his name from LeRoi Jones. El Teatro Campesino made interventionist performances in collaboration with Chicano farm workers. By the late 1970s, it had become less militant on the grounds that conditions for Chicano farm workers had improved and the company now had to look to its artistic growth. The San Francisco Mime Troupe, wholly engaged in the politics of empowerment, performed among the Italian, Asian and Chicano communities. Founded in 1959, it was ‘one of the oldest of the contemporary theatres dedicated to bringing about social change’ (Shank, 2002: 59) and one of the most consciously dedicated to the working classes. By the end of the 1970s, it was still committed to its leftist platform in the commedia dell’arte, circus and carnival sideshow style that it had made its own. Pressure groups for civil rights involved, beside ethnic ‘minorities’, gay, women’s and feminist groups of various kinds, all more or less galvanised by the Vietnam War. Probably the War alone could bring about some agreement across the gender divide between the men burning draft cards and the women burning bras, or the race divide, since it had become clear to all that combat troops were disproportionately composed of African Americans, or the divide between students and parents, who disapproved of their ofspring’s cavalier attitude to sex. Peace protests were a uniting force, evident particularly in the massive march to the Pentagon concluding Stop the Draft Week in October 1967. Marches, sit-ins and demonstrations, many of them violent, continued when the War was extended to Cambodia; the Kent State University demonstration in 1970 became infamous for the shooting of four students by national guardsmen. Richard Nixon was now president, and his administration’s ruthless drive against civil disobedience, supported by what had become known as the ‘silent majority’, heralded a right-wing backlash as anti-liberal as it was anti-left. Conservatism took hold on all fronts, surviving the Watergate scandal (concerning eavesdropping devices placed by Nixon’s men in the Democratic Party’s headquarters), which brought about the impeachment of Nixon and the downfall of his presidency in 1974. It survived, as well, the more benign but weak presidency of Jimmy Carter, who was elected in 1976, the year of Einstein. However, conservatism took of virulently in the Ronald Reagan 1980s. His agenda for traditional social values (many, like anti-abortion campaigns, renouncing the rights won by women two decades earlier) began to stife protest and his political programmes, especially on the international scene, aimed to reinvent American supremacy. The Reagan period returned to Cold War tactics (the Soviet Union was ‘the Evil Empire’), bequeathing to George Bush, who was elected in 1988, the bellicose turn of mind and greed for oil that gave us the Gulf War (1992) and later, under the leadership of the latter’s son, the Iraq War (2003). Reaganite economic policies, on the other hand, held to neo-liberal, aggressively competitive laissez-faire principles, which have continued to the present day, shifting gear according to 389

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the pressures of the market and the corporations regulating them. Reagan’s legacy in social life took the form of quietism, defned at the turn of the twenty-frst century as ‘political correctness’. . . . It seems quite clear that neo-liberal economic policies, convictions and attitudes have not abated in the United States under the country’s ensuing presidents, whether Republican or Democrat. The chain goes down from Bill Clinton, George Bush Jnr and Barack Obama to Donald Trump, elected in 2017. Obama ended the Iraq War in 2011, but was less successful in establishing his universal healthcare programme, known as ‘Obamacare’. The debates and struggles over the latter confrm how difcult it is in the United States to accept the principle of government responsibility for matters that have considerable social signifcance, in which the arts, besides health, are also to be counted. Donald Trump’s presidency looks set for unbridled market competitiveness in which fnancial allocations for the arts on the part of government bodies are likely to stay at current minimal levels or to diminish. This will oblige Wilson to rely even more on fundraising for his projects among private donors at home and to continue seeking subsidies from abroad, especially from Europe, which has proved to be his primary source of support in the frst two decades of the new millennium.

Finance and formalism A huge amount of history has necessarily been elided, my signposts intended to provide a rough context for Wilson in and beyond his formative years. I have stressed his formative years because they situate Einstein on the Beach – also by what Einstein is not – which is an exceptional work, even for this period of contention and invention, and seminal to Wilson’s artistic development and his international career. Furthermore, although Wilson was extraordinarily productive in the decades that followed, superseding some of his achievements in Einstein, as in other works, Einstein was to remain a reference not only for the theatre (dance and opera included) and the visual arts, but also for those arts transgressing boundaries to become new, hybrid genres. The radicalism, in all senses of the term for the 1960s and 1970s, met with the opposition that pushed towards the turn to the right initiated by Nixon. And the right was allergic to the very idea of government intervention in the economic sphere, which also transferred to the arts. Thus, one of Reagan’s frst decisions when he came to power was to cut the funds of the National Endowment for the Arts, a recent body, founded only in 1965. Wilson was well aware of the implications of Reagan’s action, observing in an interview at the time that ‘Reagan and his men spend money on bombs and arms. This is a disgrace for our country, for art in our country’ (Friedl, 1982: 58). And he compared it to the very diferent relationship between government and the arts in France and Germany (ibid.). At this point in his career, the beginning of the 1980s, France and Germany were his foremost patrons. Indeed, comparison with Europe on the role of the state in civil society is illuminating. The principle of state subsidy for the arts does not depend, in Europe, on the position of a government on the left or the right of the political spectrum. A state cultural policy is in place irrespective of who is in power and how its programme may shift. What changes is the degree of subsidisation. This is precisely why Wilson’s work was able to enjoy the support of the French state in the early and mid 1970s, when the government was on the right of the spectrum under Presidents Pompidou and Giscard d’Estaing, and continued to enjoy it during the 1980s, when the government was on the left and Mitterrand in power. Support in the 1980s was greater still from the Federal Republic of Germany, frst, because the country had the highest national budget for the arts in Western Europe and, second, because 390

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its two-tiered subsidy system provided funds from both the Federal government and wealthy municipal councils. Overall funding decreased after the unifcation of Germany (1990), but such theatres as the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin, which had commissioned work from Wilson previously, continued to house his shows when they were not able to produce them. The rest of Western Europe ascribes to cultural policies that guarantee subsidies to theatres. Wilson’s work was able to beneft from them in the 1990s (Italy, Spain) and after 2000 (Denmark, Sweden, Norway) while retaining favour in France and Germany, the two countries that had launched him. Of course, the United States has the National Endowment for the Arts. However, it has always been small fry, even before Reagan’s cuts, when compared to state subsidies in Europe, and small compared to the private Foundations that are the veritable patrons of the arts in the United States. Wilson has been the recipient of such Foundations – the Rockefeller Foundation, the Guggenheim Fellowship – but his work in all its variety has required numerous permanent benefactors. The Watermill Centre, completed and inaugurated in 2006, is an international laboratory founded by Wilson in 1992 for interdisciplinary collaboration – research, preparation of new works and teaching. A massive, remarkable undertaking, it has relied heavily on the private patronage assured by Wilson’s high international profle and the managerial and fundraising skills of his administrative team. Wilson ploughs his earnings into Watermill, whose operation in the future is bound to require considerable fnancial resources. Institutions of state cannot run indefnitely without public backing, and the great response from the French public to Deafman Glance and Einstein on the Beach, which toured nationally, suggested that audiences had shed some of the anti-American sentiment that had fared up in France in the early 1960s. All the countries of Western Europe had had revolts in 1968 specifc to their political, socio-economic and cultural conditions. But their left-wing and liberal groups shared their opposition to the Vietnam War, drawing strength from the anti-war movements in the United States. This meant a general change in attitude. Things were no longer dismissed as ‘American’, and such evidence of people power and free speech as the exposure of Watergate by the press, which helped to bring Nixon to justice, was taken as a model of democracy at work. By 1976, when Einstein was performed, these positive political images of the United States in France had merged with the perception that its arts were just as daring. The French political and artistic elites heavily promoted North American artists, especially their ‘cool’ variety – Wilson, Cunningham, Cage, Brown, Childs, Monk and Foreman. Meanwhile, the French state paid for their work. But let us go back to Wilson in the United States. Wilson was reticent about ‘hot’ politics and this, together with his immersion in avant-garde dance, music, painting and design, but not the theatre, could be taken as a sign of his political attitude. Perhaps the best way of putting it is through Henry Sayre’s observation that Brown’s Roof Piece ‘also represents, I think, the relative isolation of dance from the social, let alone political, arena’. Sayre continues: While avant-garde dance and music have both succeeded in providing important formal models for the avant-garde, they have remained, as it were, aesthetic. Few people know about either, and fewer are willing to read into their performances implicit political positions. (Sayre, 1989: 140) And yet: ‘Insofar as she [Brown] creates “objects” which cannot be contained in “consumer space,” her work assumes a political dimension’ (ibid.). The issue emerging from Sayre’s discussion is trickier still when the ‘objects’ of such visual artists as Andy Warhol, whose ‘scene’ Wilson 391

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had frequented, enter the picture. Do Warhol’s repeated ready-made images of American icons, whether Campbell’s soup cans or Marilyn Monroe, have a political dimension in so far as they can be taken to be wry, ‘cool’ musings on objects in ‘objects’ and on the act of consumption itself? Perhaps, but does the fact that they are contained in ‘consumer space’, and made Warhol millions, deny them a political dimension? Attitude is a simpler issue than dimension, and Warhol’s stemmed from his dandyism. Dandy ‘cool’ rather than passion defned Wilson’s take on the world. When it came to a ‘political dimension’, he preferred it in the detached manner of Laurie Anderson, who wrote the music for his staging of Alcestis in 1986, and her performance hybrids were closer to his own than anything in the theatre, notwithstanding the experiments in form and genre of Mabou Mines and those generating the mixed popular-theatre forms of El Teatro Campesino and the Bread and Puppet Theatre. The Living Theatre was not attractive to Wilson, but nor were Joseph Chaikin’s collectively run Open Theatre or Megan Terry’s politicised productions (her extravagant anti-war Viet Rock in 1966 was a milestone in musicals). Nor was he inspired by the burgeoning gay or feminist theatres, among them the lesbian group Split Britches. And none had anything much in common with his work, although all had rejected the orthodoxies of story, plot and character construction, realistic acting and spectator identifcation with the stage, as Wilson himself had done. Arnold Aronson describes Wilson’s theatre as ‘formalist’, comparable, as such, virtually only to that of Richard Foreman (Aronson, 2000a: 140; also Shank, 2002: 12): the formalist theatre could be seen as a reversion to the American myth of the lone explorer forging new paths in the wilderness. With its rejection of the emotionally cathartic experience, formalist theatre could be seen as a response to the failure of alternative life styles to transform society in the signifcantly utopian ways that had been anticipated. (Ibid.: 146) Elsewhere Aronson argues that Wilson and Foreman’s theatre was the product of a unique and very personal vision. Although complex spiritual, social and political ideas entered into their works to varying degrees at diferent points throughout their careers, ideology was neither the starting point of the creative endeavour nor the goal of the performance, as it tended to be for the majority of 1960s experimental groups. (Aronson, 2000b: 111) The trends of the 1960s ceded to the many diferent directions taken by the theatre of the 1980s and the 1990s, graphed admirably by Theodore Shank (2002). Wilson’s work in these decades has points in common with the performance art of the period and, curiously, with Elizabeth LeCompte and the Wooster Group whose collaborative practice grew out of the 1960s, its methods possibly closer to the Open Theatre than anyone else. The Wooster Group’s work since it was founded in 1975 might not be formalist in Aronson’s sense of the term, but its concern with composition and with technology for formal purposes, and its highly complex social ideas, which elude classifcation as ‘ideology’, are by no means alien to the Wilson of today. And what of Foreman? Foreman has followed his star to his allegedly last stage work ever in 2005, THE GODS ARE POUNDING MY HEAD (AKA Lumberjack Messiah). Quirky, and 392

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humorous as only a ‘broken heart’ can be (Foreman’s phrase in his programme note), it bids farewell to the lumberjacks of the avant-garde ‘forging’, in Aronson’s words, ‘new paths in the wilderness’. Wilson, meanwhile, continues to pursue his vision, but not as a lone explorer and certainly not in any wilderness, real or metaphorical.

Wilson after Einstein Aronson’s claim that Wilson’s ‘was a singular vision created through total control of the creative and producing processes’ (Aronson, 2000a: 146) is relevant for his Byrd Hofman beginnings, but does not apply categorically to his work with established artists and the staf of established theatres. Or, rather, what changes subtly with and after Einstein on the Beach is the collaborative model. The laid-back, communal style of the Byrds shifted to a collaboration among professional peers, and this more high-powered mode spawned variations, the strongest being what could be called Wilson’s ‘corporate’ model, which he perfected as the 1990s moved into the twenty-frst century. The dizzying volume of Wilson’s output and, after about 2000, its increasingly rapid fow make it impossible to itemise in the short space of this chapter. I shall, therefore, proceed by clusters, grouping productions by shared characteristics, as earlier for his silent pieces or his Dia Log ‘series’ with Knowles. This organisation is not chronological, although it is temporal, and it is not foolproof since some pieces in one cluster could well cross into another, as might be expected of work that by its very nature slips over borders. Not all of Wilson’s theatre works will be cited, and his designs, exhibitions and related visual art activities are excluded.

Dislocated history Wilson’s productions of the early to mid 1980s have a distinctly historical bent. However, their ‘social and political ideas’, in Aronson’s words, are not elaborated, nor embedded in issues and consequences, which is part of what we think of as history. They are allusions largely derived from anecdotes, and they give an impressionistic overview in which colour, light and shape suggest rather than tell what flls the canvas. This is primarily due to how an image rather than a verbal account triggers of Wilson’s imagination, leading him to collate information in ways that are frequently enigmatic. Historical content, then, is never direct or straightforward. It is dislocated and deviated through pathways that meander through his productions but only show where they may have been going when they are retraced backwards, so to speak, after the event. One of these pathways concerns ‘great’ individuals: Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler’s Deputy Führer, in Death Destruction and Detroit (1979) and Thomas Edison, the American inventor of the incandescent electric lamp, in Edison (1979). The ‘heroes’ of the CIVIL warS (1983–85), an epic of grand proportions claiming to encompass nothing less than the history of the world, are Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee, opponents in the American Civil War; Frederick the Great, eighteenth-century King of Prussia and military mogul; and Giuseppe Garibaldi, whose battles led to Italy’s unifcation in 1861. Death Destruction and Detroit was Wilson’s frst production for the Schaubühne in Berlin, known internationally for the radical organisational and artistic innovations of Peter Stein, its director from 1970. This production – Wilson’s frst experience of a strong ensemble company, even though he used only a few actors from it – provides clear examples of historical dislocation. A photograph of Hess as an 82-year-old man staring into empty space in Spandau prison caught Wilson’s attention and, although it had little to do with the sketches forming in his head, it slowly drew him to Hess’s story, snatches of which began to encroach upon his material. The 393

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research of his co-writer Maita di Niscemi threw up details about Hess’s solo fight to Scotland in 1941 (supposedly to obtain peace), his crash landing and, fnally, his solitary confnement by the allies in Spandau. The alleged words of the Scottish farmer who had witnessed his landing, ‘Come, let’s have a cup of tea with my mum’ (Shyer, 1989: 96), are uttered in a scene where a parachutist descends on a ‘street’ in London. They are out of context and very cryptic, in any case, in the scenic context. (How many spectators could possibly guess the origin of these words?) Haphazard though they appear to be, they relate circuitously to other details such as the goggles worn in a totally diferent scene by women driving egg-shaped cars in a desert. The goggles are replicas of the ones worn by Hess, while the cars and the desert are part of a fctitious iconography unrelated to him. The unreal-looking cars seem purely arbitrary until they are linked to a recurring phrase in another scene, ‘You’re from Detroit’. Detroit was once a major automobile manufacturing city, and Shyer maintains that the phrase relates the German war machine to the assembly-line production of American industry, where ‘dreams of power and destruction are also generated’ (ibid.: 99). The photograph of Hess raking leaves with two other inmates in the garden of Spandau prison undergoes a metamorphosis in Wilson’s image of three blind men tapping their way across the stage with their canes. The men’s caps and costumes are similar to those worn by Hess. The canes allude to his increasing loss of sight in old age. History thus appears on the microstructure of personal detail rather than on the macrostructure of issues, but, even then, to be fully visible it needs to be reconstructed through Wilson’s creative process. Reconstruction might be possible for researchers, but it is impossible for spectators, so the point of the work is to allow them to connect at will from a phenomenal collage of material. Of course, Wilson’s elliptical approach is not without its pitfalls, and Death Destruction and Detroit led to confusion among those German spectators who expected ‘serious cultural and political critique’ (Arens, 1991: 37) instead of the link that Wilson gave them of a ‘political event to everyday life and objects’ (ibid.). Whether you view this critically or with pleasure, the theme of war in Death Destruction and Detroit is so cunningly displaced that it seems not to be there at all. The CIVIL warS provides an apposite contrast, although it also works on principles of ellipsis and allusion. Wilson’s premise here is that war is a universal of all time, sweeping up all humanity, and is potently conveyed by flm images projected onto a screen the height and breadth of the stage. Vast walls of buildings ceaselessly crash down, image after image, as if whole cities were repeatedly being detonated by bombs. The cumulative efect is awesome and no less so when a group of ordinary-looking people place themselves in front of the screen, one by one, while the continuing images of annihilation are projected over them. They smile and, suddenly, because of the motion behind them, they look like photographs of the dead turned up against the debris. This sequence is the closest Wilson has ever come to making a socio-political statement, and it may recollect the nuclear threat of his childhood and youth. The CIVIL warS could also be his belated response to the strife of the 1960s, as suggested by his claim that he thought of ‘war’ as civil confict and struggle of every kind (Brookner, 1985). The CIVIL warS was, quite literally, dislocated, Wilson having decided to break it up into sections to be built, rehearsed and performed in diferent cities – Rotterdam, Cologne, Minneapolis, Rome, Marseille and Tokyo, with workshops in Munich and Freiburg, among other locations. The whole, constituting fve acts and a connecting Noh-like interlude (the Minneapolis section, 1984), was to be assembled in a 12-hour performance at the Olympic Arts Festival during the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. As Shyer observes: ‘With its theme of universal brotherhood, its diverse cultural make-up and international cast, the CIVIL warS was a mirror of the Olympics itself. The occasion of its presentation was really part of its form’ (Shyer, 1985: 75). Wilson had indeed foreseen this correspondence, and placed the climax at the end of the Rome 394

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section, the ffth act, which recapitulates the motifs of the earlier sections. Thus Alcmene, who is the mother of Hercules, the founder of the Olympics, hands him the torch of peace. (Texts by Seneca are mixed with those of di Niscemi.) Luxurious pictures of the world’s vegetation slide by on the scrim to recover the battlefelds of the dead. Nature, beasts and humans are one. Hercules holds aloft the torch that opens the Olympics and promises a new future. The Rotterdam (1983), Cologne (1984) and Rome (1984) sections had already been performed in their home cities and Wilson was in Tokyo making fnal preparations for that section when the Director of the Olympic Arts Festival announced the cancellation of the CIVIL warS: another $1.2 million, still needed, could not be found. This announcement occurred, without prior consultation with Wilson, three months before the scheduled premiere in Los Angeles. Wilson had already rejected a proposed compromise to show one or two sections at the Olympics rather than the whole work. He said: I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. The Italians spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their production. They painted those beautiful drops over a hundred meters long, it cost a hundred thousand dollars just for the drums that held them up. They built the show for Los Angeles as well as their own tiny opera house in Rome, and then they few everyone out to California to study the theatre. In Japan, schoolchildren and artists sent in contributions. The Germans spent so much on the production and the French . . . How could I say to them ‘I’m only going to take this section?’ These are the people who support my work. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t choose one over another. (Shyer, 1985: 74) Nor did Wilson give up without a fght. Having run out of money of his own, and in debt everywhere (he owed $45,000 for the scenery for the Japanese section alone), he came up with the ingenious idea of broadcasting the performance live by simultaneous satellite from the countries of all the sections. He secured the support of French and German radio and television, but to no avail. The work was cancelled, leaving a shattered Wilson to observe how difcult it was in America ‘to fnd a sponsor for something that’s unknown’ (ibid.: 75) and to despair at his country’s lack of subsidies for serious art. ‘I’m always saying,’ Wilson observes, ‘that what we need is a national cultural policy’ (ibid.). Los Angeles, home to Hollywood, seemed hardly the right place to try, and its commercial outlook was perfectly in harmony with the Reagan era. Wilson spent fve years on the CIVIL warS, working with hundreds of performers, writers, choreographers and composers who spoke diferent languages, and the multi-lingual aspects of its fve acts refect this international interchange. Among the throng was Glass, who wrote the music for the Rome section. A new collaborator, Suzushi Hanayagi, who was to become a long-term one, choreographed the Minneapolis section. Wilson was to learn more about the stylisation of movement from her. Another new collaborator was Heiner Müller, whom Wilson had invited to write the Cologne section. Müller tailored his texts to Wilson’s visual needs, understanding full well his faith in the power of imagery since his own playwriting was viscerally imagistic, crammed full of jagged angles and incongruities, like Wilson’s staging. His writing similarly ignored narrative and characterisation and, although tighter, tougher and more violent than Wilson’s scenic as well as verbal writing, its grit provided a foil for the beauty of Wilson’s productions. Müller, moreover, became an intellectual mentor, whose erudition and harsh experiences in Germany during the Second World War and afterwards in East Germany fed Wilson’s untutored intelligence. Müller was to give Wilson his fragmented play Despoiled Shore Media Material Landscape with Argonauts for the Prologue to the opera Medea (1984, music by the English avant-garde composer 395

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Gavin Bryars), and Description of a Picture for the Prologue to Alcestis (music by Laurie Anderson, as noted previously; choreography by Hanayagi). Alcestis was American-made, among the few in Wilson’s repertoire, and its presentation by the American Repertory Theatre (ART) in 1986 gave Wilson some cause for optimism after the fallout of the CIVIL warS: like all prophets, he wanted recognition in his own country. Müller came to work with him on Alcestis at ART as well as on Hamletmachine in English with students at New York University, which he revised for Wilson’s production. Wilson amplifed Müller’s short play to some three hours of performance, asserting thereby, to Müller’s delight, the independence of mise en scène from text. When, in the same year, he directed Hamletmaschine with German actors from the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg – hereafter an important patron of his work – Wilson started a pattern that entailed revivals of the same production in another language. The second in this mode was an English version of Müller’s Quartett (1988, presented again by ART), which doubled the German version of 1987. Müller subsequently contributed a text to Death Destruction and Detroit II (1987) for Berlin’s Schaubühne and to The Forest based on the Gilgamesh epic, which was commissioned by Berlin for its City of Europe festival (1988). His intense period of work with Muller provoked Wilson to confront, in Müller’s words, the ‘power of images with history and the European experience’ (quoted in Shyer, 1989: 133), and left him with a diferent appreciation of language. He no longer saw language solely as sonic efect (as in A Letter for Queen Victoria), but as a vehicle for dramatic structure. Müller was as much against interpretation as he was, so he continued to bypass language as a medium for semantic meaning.

Adaptations from prose Wilson’s re-experienced sense of the word through his collaboration with Müller showed in productions for which various writers adapted prose fction for him. Largely solos and duos, they ofered opportunities for rehearsal on a one-to-one basis with renowned European actors: Jutta Lampe of Schaubühne fame, French flm star Isabelle Huppert, Denmark’s Susse Wold and Britain’s Miranda Richardson, all in the title role of Orlando after the novel by Virginia Woolf. Orlando, frst produced in German in 1989, was followed by the French and Danish versions in 1993 and the English version in 1996 at the Edinburgh Festival. A reprise in Chinese appeared in Taiwan in 2009. Among the fne male actors whom he encountered was stage and screen star Michel Piccoli, a key player with Patrice Chéreau and Peter Brook. Piccoli performed La Maladie de la mort by Marguerite Duras with Lucinda Childs. La Maladie was premiered in German at the Schaubühne in 1991. Its French version with Piccoli and Childs toured Europe in 1996 and 1997, including London for the Peacock Theatre’s one-of French Season in 1997. Wilson’s repeats in diferent languages was a symptom of the globalisation that, by the mid 1990s, had seriously permeated the theatre, operating through well-oiled international circuits and relying on co-productions between theatres, festivals, agencies and related organisations. The global network certainly favoured Wilson economically and in terms of publicity, but it also provided artistic benefts, giving him access to highly capable people whom he would not otherwise have met. The great actors excited his imagination with their versatility, and the rhythms and intonations peculiar to their native languages showed him how atmosphere, a dramatic tool, can be created diferently through diferent languages. In Germany, he worked for the frst time with dramaturgs, learning from their deconstruction, reconstruction and contextualisation of texts. He developed his already sharp ear for sound from contact with brilliant music – sound designers like the German Hans Peter Kuhn whose multi-level scores for La Maladie, Orlando, Alice in Bed (text by Susan Sontag) at the Schaubühne in 1993 and Hamlet: a monologue in 1995 396

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utilised state-of-the art technology, pushing the frontiers of sound composition. Wilson kept pace with technological developments and with their help he continued to stretch his vocabulary of sound. Other Wilson prose adaptations during the 1990s include The Meek Girl (1994) for four actors based on Dostoevsky’s story, and Wings on Rock (1998), based on The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. As a whole, his prose cluster shows quite clearly Wilson’s turn to the European canon for his source material, and it foreshadowed his interest in the European dramatic canon, to which, hitherto, he had given only sporadic attention.

Drama classics Wilson performed in The Meek Girl after an absence of some ten years from the stage, and, for this reason, the production can be seen as a bridge to Hamlet, the last work involving him as a performer. Being a monologue, Hamlet links with Orlando and, further back in time, to Chekhov’s one-act monodrama Swan Song, staged in Munich in 1989. By the same token, it belongs to Wilson’s Shakespeare group, Wilson having directed a small-scale monologue-like King Lear in German in Frankfurt (1991), whose title role was played by the acclaimed German actress Marianne Hoppe. (For a detailed account see Shevtsova, 2016: 123–26.) His third Shakespeare production was The Winter’s Tale, also in German, at the Berliner Ensemble in 2005. By contrast with the preceding two, The Winter’s Tale was on a full scale, retaining most of Shakespeare’s characters and following his plot and sub-plot through to their resolution. The fourth and, so far, last Shakespeare production was Shakespeare’s Sonnets in 2009, also crafted with the Berliner Ensemble. Hamlet is very much Wilson’s Hamlet, several degrees removed from Shakespeare’s text for having been cut down to one and a half hours of play. He deletes Fortinbras and other characters related to the theme of war, and plays all the parts centrally related to Hamlet himself. Role switches are indicated by a change of space, movement and voice, and by a costume or object that Wilson occasionally holds up in front of him. All deletions allow Wilson to focus on Hamlet’s long journey through his thoughts about his personal relations and his place in the world. In this respect, the production is a mediation on space and time – a perspective taken right from the start when Wilson reverses Shakespeare’s order and begins with Hamlet’s ‘Had I but time’ (Act V, scene ii). The production closes with this line as well, providing a suitable framing device for its philosophical refections. It has strong cabaret, vaudeville and camp components, but is nothing less than deeply moving. A visual frame complements the verbal frame, which is a charcoal pile of ‘slabs’ at the back of the stage. In the opening scene, Wilson lies sideways, with his back to the audience, while saying ‘Had I but time’. Elsewhere, he lies sideways facing the audience, and this reversed image also shows that the ‘slab’ construction had diminished since the opening of the performance – a discreet allusion, perhaps, to the erosion of time by time. Suggesting weight, although elegantly arranged, these slabs evoke rocks, castle parapets, stairs and tombs, all harking back to Shakespeare’s Elsinore in order to capture, in one image, the physical place and social milieu in which Hamlet both meditates upon and acts out his existential quest (Shevtsova, 2016: 126–29). Wilson must have felt some qualms when he entered the world of drama with Shakespeare, the most canonical dramatist of them all. The experimental environment he had known in New York in the 1960s and 1970s had not equipped him for such a step any more than had his own writing, and a whole host of internationally authoritative productions of Shakespeare from Asia as well as Europe, many of them recent, had enriched the world’s theatre culture, a fact he could not ignore. Furthermore, Shakespeare, just like Chekhov and the dramatists 397

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whom he was to stage afterwards, was part of literary history and was frequently referred to as ‘literature’. This was something Wilson could not accept, since, for him, the autonomy of a production was beyond question: a production was a work in and of itself, not merely an animated text. He faced an additional difculty, for Shakespeare, like the ‘classics’ in general, had been co-opted by realistic performance conventions, which were at odds with his aesthetics. On the other hand, Wilson fully recognised that a ‘great’ text asserted its own authority. It was, in his words to actors repeatedly across the years, a ‘rock’, and, as such, it could withstand whatever he might do to it. It is quite likely that Wilson’s blend of respect and iconoclasm as regards ‘great’ texts was born out of collaboration with Müller, who had plundered them for his own ends; and, arguably, he had learned from Müller’s word power – by osmosis, as was typical of him – the power of the word. Also, another kind of experience of texts had come his way. By the time of Hamlet, Wilson had become a director of opera, whose libretti borrow their structural and story elements from drama. He had seen this full well when he directed his frst mainstream opera at La Scala in Milan in 1987. It was Salomé by Richard Strauss, its libretto based on the play by Oscar Wilde. That the production was commissioned by La Scala, the most prestigious of European opera houses, testifes to the credit Wilson had accumulated by then in Europe. In short, Wilson became acquainted with dramatic texts through various channels. Since his approach to them is discussed in the following section, it sufces to cite chronologically the relevant works up to 2006: Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken (1991), Büchner’s Danton’s Death (1992), Ibsen’s The Lady From the Sea (1998, adapted by Sontag), Strindberg’s Dream Play (1998), Büchner’s Woyzeck (2000, albeit as music theatre), Chekhov’s Three Sisters (2001) and Ibsen’s Peer Gynt (2005). In 2004, Wilson directed a selection of fables by seventeenth-century French poet La Fontaine, which he metamorphosed into a fne hybrid of poetry and drama. In the process, La Fontaine’s animals were transformed into animal–human characters of separate mini-scripts, each adding up to the larger playscript of the production. La Fontaine, played by a woman in seventeenth-century male breeches and jacket, weaved her way in and out of the sequence, occasionally introducing a fable or reading part of another; plume in hand, here and there, she delivered a fable’s closing couplet, which gave the moral to the story. The actors were for the most part in suits (one or two in black satin dresses) and wore wonderful masks – several with pronounced teeth – as well as gloves for paws to match their masks. Some masks covered their heads fully (black lion, black crow, black ant, black wolf, red fox). Others only covered faces but were neatly attached to fabrics that covered the back of the head (white rabbit, white deer, fox in a protruding blood-red African mask shaped like the bill of a platypus). A few actors had painted faces (a rooster in a rooster costume, a monkey with a white painted face and black circles around his eyes). The cicada, who had danced her way through the summer in a delightful green Charleston-style dress, wore regular non-stage make-up. She looked pitifully vulnerable when she shivered in the wind of encroaching winter, and she looked even more vulnerable when the industrious black ant that had worked all summer to prepare for the winter’s cold came in snapping her outsize crab-like pincers. Here, especially, were the darker shades typical of fables and children’s stories. Filled with courtly music and syncopated animal sounds, Wilson’s whimsical magic never lost sight of La Fontaine’s stern lessons for society. Wilson’s work with canonical dramatic texts continued from 2006 until the present day (2017), and included the highly successful reprise of The Lady From the Sea in Polish (Warsaw, 2006), Spanish (Madrid, 2008) and Portuguese (Sao Paolo, 2013), elegantly dressed by Giorgio Armani (as in the Italian original of 1998). The music was by Michael Galasso, the composer of 398

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Les Fables de La Fontaine. Wilson, in this production, aimed, above all, for a ‘cool’, unperturbed, other-worldly atmosphere that was alien to strong emotions. Angela Molina, the Spanish dancer in the title role (she is also a famenco dancer), recalled how Wilson curbed her ‘fery’ temperament and whittled away her urge to breathe ‘feelings’ into her character (personal conversation with the author, 25 April 2008). Among the most notable new productions of this period that belong to the dramatic canon was what might be called Wilson’s Beckett trilogy. It started with Oh les beaux jours (Happy Days) in Luxemburg in 2008 and was followed by Krapp’s Last Tape, which was premiered in Spoleto in 2009 and subsequently toured internationally. The production travelled from Enniskillen in Ireland (2012), where Beckett went to school, to Moscow, Perth, Beijing and London (2013 to 2015) and then to the Theatre Olympiad in Wroclaw, Cultural Capital of Europe, in 2016 and Jerusalem in 2017. The third of the Beckett trilogy was Endgame in 2016, as cited above. Wilson’s solo performances in Krapp’s Last Tape received mixed reviews and, indeed, their quality fuctuated according to how crisply and cleanly Wilson shaped the words and their sounds and silences. These, together with the judicious use of pauses, were Wilson’s primary concerns, much as they were Beckett’s, although the risks he took with audiences under his nose were unlike those that Beckett had faced when fxing his words on the page. The Financial Times reported that ‘eminent academics’ present at the Enniskillen performance snifed at Wilson’s work, calling it ‘alienating and pretentious’. Meanwhile, the critic of this newspaper observed how far removed Wilson’s performance was from such predecessors as Harold Pinter’s ‘more naturalistic’ style. He found it ‘stylish and very powerful’, adding that ‘[Wilson] acts, directs and designs. White face, clownish – dead perhaps – Krapp skips and minces, poses, grimaces: mocking, human, tragic’ (1 September 2012). By contrast, the Financial Times in London commented on Wilson’s long opening silence (usually some 15 minutes long), punctured by an ‘impressive’ soundscape of thunder and rain, which gave way to Wilson’s ‘inane singsong whine’ (25 June 2015). Yet this critic would have done well to notice that the problem with Wilson’s London performances was that they communicated his physical fatigue, and this weakened his delivery, depriving it of the verbal sharpness characteristic of his performances several years earlier in Ireland, which he was still able to maintain at the Perth Festival in Australia (The Guardian, 24 February 2014). One of the remaining productions to be cited under the rubric of dramatic texts is The Old Woman (2013), after the 1920s Russian surrealist Daniil Kharms. It was showcased at the Manchester International Festival by Willem Dafoe, formerly of The Wooster Group and now a Hollywood star, and Mikhaïl Baryshnikov, the world-renowned ballet dancer. A vaudeville-style two-hander, it was played in counterpoint, now one performer taking the upper hand, now the other, so as to highlight bizarre happenings like that of old women falling out of the sky. Kharms’s multiple absurdities inspired Wilson to indulge his zany streak in collusion with two performers ready to play games with him. Their eccentric wigs with heavily gelled spikes of hair reinforced the burlesque favour of the production, as such wigs usually do in the most deliberately outrageous of Wilson’s twenty-frst-century works. The latter include Shakespeare’s Sonnets, The Life and Death of Marina Abramovič (2010, which Wilson created at this acclaimed performance artist’s request and which she performed with Dafoe, also at the Manchester International Festival), Peter Pan (2013), after J.M. Barrie’s novel about a boy who resists growing up, and Pushkin’s Fairy Tales. Other productions in the dramatictext group number Les Nègres (The Blacks) by Jean Genet in Paris (2014), which was a lacklustre afair and died in obscurity. Faust I and II by Goethe captivated audiences at the Berliner Ensemble in 2015. 399

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Music theatre Word, sound and music have gone together in Wilson’s oeuvre since A Letter for Queen Victoria. And his work is always musical, relying on rhythm, pitch, tone, timbre, intonation, volume, cadence and pause, even when a sound is isolated, like the sound of glass being smashed intermittently in Orlando. Nevertheless, a large number of his productions involve music to such an extent that they must be called music theatre. They essentially fall into four groups: avant-garde opera, court opera, folk-rock and what is usually known as ‘grand’ opera to distinguish it from operetta and other musicals. The frst group gathers Einstein on the Beach, the Rome section of the CIVIL warS, and a later Wilson–Glass collaboration, Monsters of Grace (1998). Monsters is a self-conscious experiment in 3D vision set to digital music. Its music hammers away while spectators, in a rather witty throwback to 1950s movies, sit in front of a screen wearing 3D glasses and watching computer-animated objects (dishes of food, a carving knife) zoom out at them and vanish into nowhere. For all its eforts, this opera is dull, but it demonstrates that Wilson is able to turn his hand to just about anything. The second group, that of court opera, comprises Charpentier’s Médeé at the Lyon Opéra in 1984 and Orphée et Euridyce and Alceste, both by Gluck, at the Châtelet Theatre in Paris in 1999. The stylisation of this genre suits Wilson’s formalised aesthetic. The third group, Wilson’s folk-rock music theatre, is made up of fve productions: The Black Rider (1990), Alice (1992, based on Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll), Time Rocker (1996, a fantasia on the science fction of H.G. Wells), POEtry (2000, devised from the poems of Edgar Allen Poe, as the pun of the title suggests) and Woyzeck (cross-referenced earlier). All but Woyzeck were sponsored and premiered by the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg, Woyzeck by the Betty Nansen Theatre in Copenhagen. These pieces celebrate a raw kind of ‘Americanness’ that Wilson cherishes, and his choice of collaborators is also evidence of the pull of his roots. Tom Waits, the quintessence of homespun ‘popular’ art combined with folk ‘wisdom’, wrote the music and lyrics for The Black Rider, Alice and Woyzeck, the last two with his partner Kathleen Brennan. Burroughs, a predecessor of this ‘folk’-type ‘Americanness’ as well as of hippies, wrote bits of text and several songs for The Black Rider. Lou Reed, founder of the 1960s rock group Velvet Underground, composed the music for Time Rocker and POEtry. The Black Rider was revived in London in 2004, renewing Wilson’s contact with the ofbeat all-American culture generated during his youth. The production now featured Marianne Faithfull, a British icon of the 1960s who had hung around in the American underground and/ or ‘junkie’ scene and had known Burroughs. Music, as for the other pieces cited, was played live and at full blast. In this version, The Black Rider toured to San Francisco and Sydney. In 2006, it was revived with another cast in Los Angeles, the site of old wounds received by Wilson more than 20 years before. The Black Rider, like Einstein before it, became something of a cult production in Europe, where it toured extensively during the early 1990s. Based on the 1811 tale Die Freischütz (The Free-Shooter) and Thomas de Quincey’s 1823 The Fatal Marksman, which was inspired by the same tale, it tells of Wilhelm’s bargain with the Devil to sell his soul for seven magic bullets that never fail to hit their target. Wilhelm thus becomes a good hunter, winning Käthchen’s father’s approval for her hand in marriage. However, on his wedding day, he mistakenly shoots his bride with the last bullet reserved by the Devil for his own use. Wilhelm goes mad. Burroughs associates the bullets with drugs and, although he jokingly compares Wilhelm’s inevitable downfall with drug abuse (‘just like marywanna leads to heroin’), he nevertheless encodes his past addiction to opium in his innuendoes. Moreover, he draws an implicit parallel between himself and Wilhelm, having accidentally shot his own wife while high on drugs. 400

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Since The Black Rider also became something of a prototype for Wilson’s subsequent folkrock productions, a summary of its features is useful. The Wilson–Waits–Burroughs trio caught the German tale’s sinister edge, but added comic-satirical overtones and tragic undertones to it. Waits’s score is raucous, splicing music in a fairground style with cabaret in the style of Kurt Weill mixed with elements of jazz. Wilson’s structure is a matter of layered contrasts, drawn from numerous sources: the fair (a barker opens the show to a roll of drums with ‘Laaaadies and Gentlemen, step right up!’), the circus (clown-like make-up, mimicry and movement), cabaret (including the Devil – ‘Pegleg’ in the production – as a high-camp master of ceremonies and ‘artiste’ on a swing, 1930s-Iype transvestite numbers, and echoes of Weill and Brecht’s Threepenny Opera), German Expressionist silent movies (particularly The Cabinet of Dr Calagari), opera (mock arias and a subversion of Weber’s 1821 opera Die Freischütz, which is based on the story), animated cartoons (especially evident in forest and hunting scenes), American vaudeville (in countless steps and gestures), Broadway musicals (in song-and-dance duos between Wilhelm and Käthchen – tap-dance phrases included – and in rodeo-style solos recalling Oklahoma), variety shows (dancers covered by placards dance in front of the fre curtain, which drops occasionally, interrupting the dramatic action). Burroughs’s texts are laconic and dry, as are Waits’s songs, in contrast with Wilson’s opulent stage. Nostalgia for his origins may well have prompted Wilson to mount this frst of his folk-rock pieces, which, although twinning North American and European cultures, are fundamentally American. However, his folk-rock bracket of works took on a particularly idiosyncratic colouring after his Shakespeare’s Sonnets, which was accompanied by Rufus Wainwright’s music. The latter’s ‘folksy’, even sentimental, tonalities opened the door to their nearest antithesis in the tougher, rougher edges of CocoRosie’s band compositions, known generally as ‘freak folk’. ‘CocoRosie’ is the name of two North American sisters, Bianca and Sierra Casady (‘Coco’ and ‘Rosie’). CocoRosie’s highly charged compositions incorporate wind and percussion instruments, electronic music and hip hop – an eclectic mixture, if ever there was one, of classical, contemporary– experimental and youth-music components to which, on occasion, are added the sounds made by children’s toys. And it is these very CocoRosie creations that helped Wilson to produce what could be seen as a sub-group of his folk-rock works: a sub-group that captures the tone and temper of the younger generations who are hungry to try any and every cross-border venture. In their dismissal of boundaries, categories and defnitions, these younger generations reach out to the spirit behind Wilson’s hybridised works decades before them. For all the diferences between the millennial generation’s merged-and-blended inventions and those of Wilson across the decades – and Wilson’s have varied across time, however rooted they might be in the 1960s – it is clear that he has not missed a beat. He is still in the vanguard, and still a reference for his younger contemporaries, as the strong presence and enthusiastic reception of his youthful audiences show. That there is a commercial side to all this inventiveness cannot be disputed, any more than can the desire for display that is paramount in the celebrity culture of the early twenty-frst century. But, while these social changes must be admitted, it is just as important to recognise that, although Wilson has an established performance vocabulary, these changes have also nudged into action the shifts in his perception and practice. In other words, Wilson’s meeting of minds with CocoRosie has fostered the sub-group (if it really can be named in this way) that, to date, consists of Peter Pan, Pushkin’s Fairy Tales (to be discussed in detail later) and Edda. Whether these theatre works warrant sub-grouping or not, they have stretched the range of Wilson’s music theatre. Furthermore, they have continued to bridge North American idioms 401

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and European origins, as seems increasingly to be inevitable in a globalised and capital-oriented world. Wilson’s productions of grand opera, on the other hand, are fundamentally European, but they are also far from conventional. They have most of the features that distinguish Wilson in the company of the numerous highly individual and innovative directors of our epoch. The surprise may be that grand opera, the fourth group of Wilson’s music theatre works, is the most concentrated group, numbering some 20 productions from 1987 to 2006. Furthermore, he has added fve since then, that is, in the past ten years. Among these fve are Die Freischütz (2009) – not unexpected, given the iconic importance of The Black Rider in his oeuvre – and two operas by Verdi, the very Verdi whom Wilson parodied when he staged Aida in London. These two are Macbeth (2013) in Bologna and, two years later, La Traviata, as already noted, in Perm. In addition, he has staged three court operas by Monteverdi, and several contemporary ones whose libretti he has co-authored. All in all, Wilson is very much an opera director, which comes as a shock to spectators accustomed to thinking of him exclusively as a theatre director. It is just as surprising for those who wrap him up in a time warp with Einstein in the 1970s avant-garde. And yet Wilson’s opera range is wide, covering composers as diferent as Mozart (The Magic Flute, 1991) and Wagner. His production of Wagner’s mammoth Ring tetralogy began at the Zurich Opera in 2000 and spanned several years. It was reprised in its entirety for the Châtelet Theatre’s 2005–06 opera season as a co-production between the two theatres. Compare, too, the distance between Debussy’s discreet ‘symbolist’ Pelléas and Mélisande, which Wilson mounted at the Paris Opera in 1997, and the quintessentially ‘Verdi’ big opera La Traviata, which he directed 18 years afterwards. France launched Wilson’s directing career internationally, but played a similarly important role in his development as a director of opera, providing him with fnance, staf and theatres that were sole producers or co-producers of his experiments. Experiments are precisely what they were as he transferred his theatre methods to a genre mired in sacrosanct traditions and in complex infrastructures reluctant to let them go. The prestige Wilson had acquired in France since the early 1970s eventually won him the confdence of opera houses, and the early 1990s saw his opera-directing career really take of. His ascent was helped along by an invitation from the Ministry of Culture to inaugurate the Opera Bastille in Paris in 1989 for the bicentenary of the French Revolution. Wilson was asked to stage a concert of French music in the new house that had been François Mitterrand’s very own special project – the summit of his government’s cultural policy in which Jack Lang’s idea of ‘culture for everybody’ had played a crucial part. The Opéra Bastille was where opera was to lose its elitist image and become a democratic art. Among Mitterrand and Lang’s strategies to achieve this goal was the provision of generous subsidies for tickets, thus lowering the cost to spectators. To this day, ticket prices at the Bastille are some of the lowest in Western Europe. Mitterrand was a shrewd politician, and, although accused of opportunism in his attempts to democratise art, he had a genuine commitment to national glory. He bequeathed the opera house to the nation on the eve of the bicentenary, initiating a spate of ofcial celebrations conducted in the desired pomp and circumstance of the occasion. No one could ignore the signifcance of the government’s commission to Wilson, and it certainly gained him extra international standing. Two years later, his production of The Magic Flute appeared at the Bastille, the frst of several opera productions backed by the two houses comprising the National Paris Opera, the new Bastille and the old Garnier. If Wilson asserted at the time of the CIVIL warS that the United States needed a cultural policy, the opportunities consolidated for him by the bicentenary could do nothing but confrm his belief. 402

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Finally, there is I La Galigo, a work of music theatre that does not ft any of the groups mentioned earlier. It is based on the Sureq Galigo, a creation myth of the Bugis people, who are an ethnic minority living on Sulawesi, an island to the north of Bali. Lasting fve years, the project was promoted by the Bali Purnati Centre for the Arts as ‘an unusual opportunity to serve Indonesian arts, artists, scholarship and scholars on an international platform’ (I La Galigo, 2004: 108). It involved musicians and dancers from the whole Indonesian archipelago, although they came primarily from South Sulawesi, the home of the epic. Wilson’s collaborators rehearsed and co-ordinated the work in Indonesia while he was otherwise engaged in Europe. I La Galigo premiered in Singapore in 2004 before touring to Amsterdam, Lyon, Barcelona, Ravenna and, in 2005, to New York. The theatre and festival organisations of these cities co-produced it, guaranteeing the ‘international platform’ considered necessary for preserving the Sureq Galigo from oblivion. The mechanisms of globalisation, while frequently harmful to indigenous cultures, do not appear, in this case, to have worked for neo-colonial or hegemonic ends. The Sureq Galigo is a ritual in storytelling form, written and chanted in an archaic language to music and dance. I La Galigo respects these performance traditions, as reconstructed by Wilson’s Indonesian collaborators while he lightly etched his own conceptions of performance over them. The result is an incomparably harmonious production in which ancient lore becomes a subtle and exquisite modern work of Bugis culture, touched by Wilson’s hand but not possessed by it. By now Wilson had indeed been on a long artistic journey since his loft dances in the 1960s, and he had come a long way from Texas. Wilson was to come a further way still as the Watermill Centre gathered strength and established its mission to be a laboratory of exploratory rehearsals and research and, as well, a powerhouse for the preparation of works that would see their premieres far from the United States. Such was, for a recent example, the case of Pushkin’s Fairy Tales, which saw its actors and Russian and non-Russian production teams collaborate and learn from each other in the creative environment of Watermill.

19.2

Einstein on the Beach

Itinerary and reception The show was sold out long before Einstein on the Beach premiered at the Avignon Festival in 1976 and received a thunderous standing ovation. The press was equally enthusiastic. Le Monde, the newspaper ‘for intellectuals’, declared that Wilson ‘had lived up, once again, to his legend’ (28 July 1976). Le Figaro, the bastion of conservative opinion, observed that the production’s slowed-down pace and minute shifts of movement took spectators out of their normal world into a ‘universe beyond the laws of natural physics’; the whole was a ‘fascinating experience’ (27 July 1976). All reviews recalled the sensation caused by Deafman Glance fve years earlier so as to claim that Einstein, a diferent kind of work, was just as revolutionary. Criticism came only from L’Aurore: the production was ‘fantastically imaginative’, but Wilson’s art led to an impasse, its ‘obsessive stuttering and eternal repetition’ making it look like ‘a lesson for the re-education of the mentally disabled, a therapy for depression, a cure for insomniacs or a psycho-motor nightmare’ (L’Aurore, 28 July 1976). This sting in the tail of praise could be compared to a ‘down’ after the ‘high’ induced by Einstein’s visual, sonic and body rhythms, which appeared obsessive, like actions under the infuence of narcotics, and lasted four hours and 40 minutes without an intermission. The production embarked on its six-country European tour, which included the hugely prestigious Autumn Festival in Paris, a showcase for avant-garde work. Some 30 performances 403

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later, all generating immense excitement, Einstein returned to New York, where it had been constructed and rehearsed thanks to the sponsorship of the French Ministry of Culture; most probably the work would have never seen the light of day without this fnancial and moral support. International funding had also come from the Venice Biennale, and the sets were made in Milan to facilitate their transport to the production’s opening in Avignon. Einstein was performed in New York at the Metropolitan Opera, although not in the Metropolitan’s regular programme but during its ‘dark’ nights on two consecutive Sundays. The engagement was arranged with the help of Jerome Robbins who, we know, had performed briefy in Wilson’s Freud and was renowned for his choreography of West Side Story. He had also accrued considerable prestige from fne choreographies for the New York City Ballet. Robbins had telephoned from Paris, where he had just seen Einstein, insisting that someone from the Metropolitan should fy over to see it. This was done, and the show was signed up for the house. Wilson stresses that timing is of the essence for his compositions but, clearly, it also applies to their successful dissemination. The Metropolitan has 4,000 seats and, if standing room is counted, holds 4,500 people. Composer Philip Glass states how worried he was that ‘the Met would be half empty’ (Glass, 1988: 52) – a fear not unfounded given that the Metropolitan was a most unlikely venue for this unconventional opera. ‘Opera’ was the term on which Wilson had insisted, even though Glass had originally preferred to think of it as ‘music-theatre’ (Shyer, 1989: 220). Glass notes with a touch of humour that, although Wilson called all his pieces ‘opera’, ‘maybe he thought that with me he could fnally do a real one’ (ibid.). There was no need for concern. Einstein’s triumph in Europe had registered in America and the house was full to the rafters on both Sundays. This was a far cry from the ‘audience totalling barely two dozen people’ for the performance of A Letter for Queen Victoria which the reviewer Robert T. Jones had attended at a Broadway theatre for musicals just two years before (Jones in Glass, 1988: viii). According to Glass, ‘some in the audience’ for Einstein ‘had mistakenly thought that an evening at the Met would hold to a more traditional line’, although most spectators expected ‘something new and unusual’ (ibid.: 53); and if numbers of them ‘stormed out after the frst half-hour or so’, the entire house was up on its feet at the end of the performance in a storm of calls and applause. The Metropolitan was no gift, however, despite the production’s resounding success. Glass and Wilson were left nearly $150,000 in debt (Shyer, 1989: 229). The defcit took years to pay of, but the experience, felt with a keen sense of responsibility by Wilson, steeled him for the numerous difcult negotiations over money in which his work was always to be involved in the future, the CIVIL warS being a prime example. . . . The critical reception in New York was just as robust as that of the public. Clive Barnes from the New York Times remarked that the ‘avant-garde always runs the risk of the ridiculous, the peril of the irrelevant’, but ‘Robert Wilson is the exception’ (23 November 1976). The fgure of Einstein, he suggested, was Wilson and Glass’s symbol of ‘the afnity between mathematics and beauty . . . The mind that caught the limitless theory of the expanding universe also sparked the atomic bomb.’ But whether the work actually meant this was not, he believed, of any importance: You are either interested by its ritualistic pictures, its verbal and musical convolutions and its languorous sense of fantasy, or you are not. You then are bored rather than sedated, annoyed rather than excited, insulted rather than intrigued . . . You will never forget it, even if you hate it. Which is a most rare attribute to a work of art. Nowadays. (Ibid.) Mel Gussow, also of the New York Times, described the production as a ‘science-fction operaplay’ and stressed its ‘suspension of traditional theatrical expectation’, its ‘strict structural form, 404

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co-ordinated through theatre, music, dance and design’ and its ‘insistent, ear-piercing’ score which was ‘ultimately as hypnotic as the play itself ’ (28 November 1976). All of it had ‘an eerie, other-worldly quality that occasionally makes us feel that we are on Mars rather than at the Met’ (ibid.). Gussow’s way of identifying Einstein with a cluster of nouns (‘science-fction’, ‘opera’, ‘play’) reminds us of how radically Wilson’s practice had called into question the very idea of generic categories, obliging commentators to fall back on composite names for his pieces, or on such new ones as ‘hybrids’ and ‘crossovers’ (which are, of course, new categories). Wilson maintained from the start – and continued to say – that he was not interested in categorisation: his was simply a diferent way of seeing things. The memory of Einstein on the Beach as weird and wonderful was strong enough to inspire its revival in 1984 for the cutting-edge Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). The New York Times ran an article with the heading ‘The Avant-Garde Is Big Box Ofce’ and pointed out that Einstein would be a ‘surefre hit . . . having already sold out its run of 12 performances in the Academy’s 2,100-seat opera house’ (16 December 1984). The reviewers confrmed the prognosis. John Rockwell, for example, who had seen Einstein in Avignon, at which time he had called it an ‘astonishing modern-day mystery play’ (New York Times, 1 August 1976), now announced that the revival was even better than the original and, ‘constantly involving and almost religiously moving’, it would provide for those who were as afected as he was ‘experiences to cherish for a lifetime’ (New York Times, 17 December 1984). For Rockwell, the question of the work’s resistance to meaning, and whether this mattered, did not arise at all as it had done for his colleague Barnes eight years before. He was sure of its subject matter: Above all, Einstein is about light: its beauty, its relation to energy and power, and ultimately its mystical connection to love (from the fnal speech: ‘you are the light of my life, my sun, moon and stars’). (Ibid.) Amidst the general hubbub, the normally reticent Wilson insinuated that he would have liked Americans to discover Death Destruction and Detroit, which ‘is so dense, so rich, so complicated. Einstein is from another period – very static, and fat, using compressed space, very two-dimensional’ (cited in the New York Times, 2 December 1984). It is relevant to remember here the bitter disappointment Wilson had felt in March 1984 when the Los Angeles Olympic Arts Festival cancelled his CIVIL warS due to lack of funds. Pleased as he was that New York had managed to fnance Einstein for the Next Wave Festival, he must have been smarting at the thought that his most recent and most ambitious project had been so ignominiously treated in his own country. Einstein turned out to be a commercial success, doubling by itself alone the festival’s whole takings in the previous year. After the event, its artistic success was also indisputable. That this ‘legendary spectacle brought back from mythic limbo’ had ‘moved many to exhilaration and tears’, as it had done in 1976, was taken to be ‘a tribute to the truly visionary power of this performance masterwork’ (Howell, 1985: 90). The 1984 revival was by no means a straight reproduction, even though it had kept the original’s structure and ‘way-out’ feel, along with many of its performance particulars. The original dervish-like dances by Andrew de Groat, which I remember as gripping in 1976, regardless of the ‘friendly, unassuming, faux-naïf air about them’ (ibid.: 90), were performed by the team of multi-tasked singer–actor–dancers who, primarily for reasons of costs, had handled everything in the 1976 version except the instruments. The Philip Glass Ensemble played these. Re-choreographed by Lucinda Childs, the opera’s two dance sections were still 405

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20 minutes long. However, now more virtuosic and precise than before, they required trained dancers, whom Childs provided from her own dance company. The rhythms of Childs’s new choreography were also sharper, and her re-iterative accentuated steps enhanced the intricacies of Glass’s music, highlighting the fact that the music and Wilson’s staging were meant to run in parallel with rather than to interpret each other. The stage performers had changed, as well. Only the principal performers Lucinda Childs and Sheryl Sutton had remained, together with the 77-year-old Samuel Johnson, who concludes the production with the panegyric on love cited earlier (‘You are the light of my life’). The fourth remaining performer was Wilson himself who, shortly before Johnson’s fnal speech, dances a speedy solo torch dance, lights fashing in the semi-darkness. What Einstein had lost in artisanal roughness, which was appealing in 1976, it had gained in professionalism and power, qualities closer to the temper of 1984. Glass has been quoted as saying half-jokingly that ‘this production is what we would have done in 1976 if we had known what we were doing’ (cited in Howell, 1985: 90). This toned-up and streamlined Einstein was revived in 1992. It was still a knockout for audiences, and still gave rise to such grandiloquence from critics as ‘one of the Zeitgeist-defning artistic creations [of the twentieth century]’ (Washington Post, 21 November 1992). Why had Einstein ‘withstood the test of time’ once again, eight years later in 1992, as Rockwell had already claimed it had done in 1984, eight years after its frst appearance in 1976 (New York Times, 17 December 1984)? Why did it still have such impact? Part of the answer might lie in Glass’s observation in 1993 that Einstein on the Beach struck him as being more radical in the present than in 1976: the 1970s was a period of experimentation but, since then, the theatre in America had become ‘much more conventional’ (cited in Holmberg, 1996: 21). In a climate dominated by the box ofce, ‘young audiences . . . have no idea you could get away with making theatre in such a non-traditional way’ (ibid.). He and Wilson had thought ‘about aesthetics, not success’, and not at all about whether the production would go anywhere else after they had fnished it (ibid.). Well, concentration on Einstein’s aesthetics did result in touring, even in the longer term. After its 1992 revival, Einstein went for the frst time to Barcelona, Melbourne and Tokyo, among other cities, and was performed again at BAM and the Autumn Festival in Paris. The analytical discussion to follow will concern this 1984/1992 version and will open up a work described by another critic as ‘not always easy or intelligible’ (Banes, 1998: 25). To be noted is that Einstein on the Beach was revived again in 2012 but with an entirely new cast, travelling to London where it had never been seen before and then further afeld, ending its tour in South Korea in 2015.

Einstein on the Beach: a landmark Einstein on the Beach is of great importance for several reasons: • • •

•

It is a milestone in the history of twentieth-century performance. It is a cultural icon in so far as it crystallises and transcends the experimental trends of all the arts across the board during the 1960s and 1970s in the United States. It is one of the frst major examples of late twentieth-century internationalism in the theatre and of what today is called globalisation, expressed in how it was fnanced, distributed and sustained over time. It is a salient example of how a production can stir up strong contradictory passions whose potency refects its social signifcance and confrms its artistic stature. 406

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Where Wilson’s body of work is specifcally concerned: •

•

• •

It is a turning point in Wilson’s artistic development, being his frst piece of music theatre and leading him to make numerous music theatre productions in the broadest sense of the term, which includes grand opera. It is a landmark, by its comprehensive nature, in Wilson’s criss-cross journey over the boundaries that traditionally defne artistic genres and which separate ‘high’ and ‘popular’ culture. Its extensive dance sequences make it uniquely dance-like, and foreshadow the pervasive role played by dance movement in Wilson’s subsequent works. Its apparently paradoxical status as both an avant-garde and a main stage piece defnes the direction Wilson’s career was to take – a whiz-kid innovator working in established institutions across the world.

Structure and form What is this work that is at once a beginning and a major achievement, and seminal as well as infuential, but somehow unique, out there on its own? How is it made intelligible when spectators, in the process of watching it, are absorbed most of all by its mystery? Wilson explains that he always starts with a title and then determines the structure and duration of the proposed work (Huppert, 1994: 65). He then flls this ‘architecture’ (Wilson’s term) with content. His architectural approach, together with his sense of organisation and exactitude, suited Glass’s way of writing music, and the two men went about their respective tasks, although not as fully independently of each other as Cunningham and Cage. Wilson, for instance, would suggest images for Glass to think about for the music, and it was he who asked for an aria and ‘that there should be singing throughout the piece’ (Glass in Shyer, 1989: 220). Arias, of course, are an opera convention, but the one Glass composed for a soprano was on a few modulated notes without words, a decision totally in keeping with his ‘minimalist’, seemingly repetitive but in fact perpetually changing score. Glass, in any case, was more than capable of delivering the goods. He was a highly educated, published and performed composer who led an established music ensemble. Moreover, he had a wealth of theatre experience behind him, having collaborated since the 1960s with Mabou Mines, a group pioneering collective improvisation and devising. The idea of Einstein for an opera came from Wilson’s desire to work around a popular hero about whom everyone knew something. His title was inspired by a postcard of the scientist by the seashore, but the opera is no more biographical than any of Wilson’s other productions supposedly ‘about’ individuals (The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin, Edison and so on. . . .). Although random, the title serves as a reference for images and actions that may be associated with Einstein. There are clocks, gyroscopes, small paper aeroplanes and a toy-like spaceship, as well as a contraption the size of the stage whose lights sizzle like freworks and suggest a spaceship out of hell or a blockbuster movie. There is an eclipse of the moon and a picture of a nuclear explosion. A man repeatedly writes into space what appears to be Einstein’s formula E = mc2. These allusions are scattered across the production, only capable of being brought together in the spectator’s mind afterwards. They refer, of course, if only tangentially, to Einstein’s theory of relativity, which concerns energy, light, mass, motion, speed, time and space; and all these are enacted or embodied in some way – speed of dance or moving beam of light – so as to suggest that they are the very subject of the myriad of images and sounds swirling from the stage and the orchestra pit. Einstein on the Beach could be said to be, in a piecemeal but nevertheless very 407

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tangible way, Wilson’s meditation on space and time. Space and time, as we have seen, are the fundamental subjects of his work as a whole. Wilson and Glass decided that Einstein would be four hours long and have four acts and fve connecting interludes that Wilson calls ‘Knee Plays’ (because they are like the joints of the human body). One Knee Play would open the work and one would close it. There would be three visual themes – a train, a trial and a feld-with-spaceship – that were to be distributed through the four acts. The feld theme would also appear as a feld-with-dancers. How this was done is best described as through mathematical permutation and combination. (Mathematical principle, although not initially intended to recall Einstein, proved to be in keeping with the Einstein motif.) So, Act I has the frst train and the trial themes (Train 1 and Trial 1). Act II has the frst feld theme and a new train theme (Field 1 and Train 2). Act III has a new trial theme and a new feld theme (Trial 2 and Field 2). Act IV pulls the three themes together (Train, Trial and Field, and ‘feld’, this time, is the interior of a spaceship). Wilson named these themes by letters – A for ‘train’, B for ‘trial’ and C for ‘feld’ – and usually referred to them in this way, naming Act I ‘A1 and B1’, and so on for the diferent combinations. These visual themes mark out the scenes. Thus, the frst three acts have two scenes each, while the fourth has three, giving a total of nine scenes. The permutational form of these themes resembles the much more complex musical pattern written according to Glass’s techniques of ‘additive process and cyclical structure’ (Glass, 1988: 58). It is precisely his procedure of repeating, say, fve notes several times, then six, then seven, then eight and so on, that gives the sensation of addition and return in the one stretch of sound. And rhythm is crucial: A simple fgure can expand and then contract in many diferent ways, maintaining the same general melodic confguration, but because of the addition (or subtraction) of one note, it takes on a very diferent rhythmic shape. (Ibid.) Glass demonstrates with bars of music from his score how he achieves his various efects (ibid.: 57–62), all of which reveals that his music has a far more compact structure than is implied by its barrage of sound. It is useful to think, here, of Bach’s fugues. After all, Glass is steeped in Bach and in the Western music tradition as a whole. Second, we should think of the sound of the Indian raga system. Glass was deeply infuenced by the raga when he worked with Ravi Shankar and his tabla player Alla Rakha. (Shankar is the great Indian sitar player who, in the 1960s, popularised Indian classical music in the West.) The combination of two diferent music systems, Western and Eastern, accounts for the sounds Glass produces, as in all his compositions. The music for Einstein is for two electric organs, three fute players doubling on saxophone and bass clarinet and one solo soprano voice. A chamber chorus of 16 mixed voices carries the vocal music. A solo violinist, whose bushy hair, eyebrows and moustache make him look like Einstein, has featured parts which he plays on the edge of the stage between the instrumentalists and the performers. He is occasionally a useful focus, visual and aural, during a scene change. Sometimes the choir sings from the stage. The monologues of the libretto were written mostly by Christopher Knowles. Johnson wrote the Old Judge’s words for the frst trial scene (Act I) and the love text of Knee Play 5, which concludes the opera. Childs wrote the ‘supermarket’ monologue that she speaks in the second trial scene (Act III). The chorus does not have a traditional libretto made up of words. Instead, it sings numbers and the solfège scale (‘do, re, mi’ and so forth, as distinct from the ‘C,

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D, E’ and so forth of the scale commonly used in Anglo-American societies). Glass had been rehearsing the chorus with numbers and solfège syllables to guide them through the difculties of remembering the frequently rapidly changing notes and rhythms of his score in the raga style. As the premiere approached and he had not yet written a single word for the libretto, he decided it was just as well to keep the numbers and notes the singers now knew so well. The way he ‘taught the singers became the text. It’s also a description of the music’ (Glass in Shyer, 1989: 227). Comparing this process to the paintings of Jasper Johns, where the painting does not depict anything but is the thing itself, Glass acknowledges that his idea ‘had roots in the practice of contemporary art’ (ibid.). All the vocalists and speakers perform through wire-free microphones hidden on their body. Movement, apart from the dance sections, is minute. Wilson was to claim, when Einstein transferred to the Metropolitan, that the ‘smaller the movements were, the more they resounded in that immense theatre’ (Lesschaeve, 1977: 219); and he could have said this for most of the large theatres in which Einstein was performed afterwards. What is particularly signifcant about his observation, however, is its negative reference to conventional opera as epitomised for him by Joan Sutherland in Aida: ‘She is programmed to play “big” in a “big” auditorium – a “big” woman playing on a “big” stage for a “big” public in a “big” opera’ (ibid.: 218–19). Einstein, by playing on small movement, which Wilson equates with lightness and lack of strain, is his antidote for the visible efort and exaggeration of opera. Let us recall, in this framework of thought, his distaste for visceral, ‘hot’ theatre like the Living Theatre. He criticised the latter, at the time of Einstein, for its needless stress on the ‘actor’s effort’ (ibid.: 219), and linked this type of overtly physical acting (it could also be described as ‘big’) to Grotowski, of whose influence on the American theatre scene from the mid 1960s he was perfectly aware. Small movement, in his view, not only restrained actors, but also allowed dispassionate presentation of emotion. Einstein, then, was Wilson’s model for how to do theatre, and that very model served him implicitly later, when he began to stage conventional operas, stripped of their large gestures and emotions, in the ‘big’ houses of Europe. Among them, eventually, was Aida (without Joan Sutherland!), which premiered in Brussels in 2002 and subsequently performed at London’s Covent Garden in 2003.

Breakdown of the work A general overview would be inadequate. Only a detailed breakdown of Einstein can allow us to appreciate fully how the constituent elements of its architecture (that is to say, its sustaining structure and outward form) and its content (its thought and inner workings) are put together. All this, together, is nothing other than the ‘aesthetics’ of the work, which Glass claimed had been his and Wilson’s sole concern. Indeed, irrespective of the publicity surrounding it and its cult-like status, which continued to rise over the decades, Einstein owes its impact above all else to its artistry. Einstein was able to distinguish itself in the experimental 1970s and stand out from among numerous innovative works, and it could still serve as a model of artistic daring 16 years after its frst showing, as Glass observes, because it really was a ‘performance master-work’ (Howell’s evaluation earlier). The fact that audiences continued to be receptive to it suggests that there was enough imagination, inventiveness, craft and skill in Einstein to hold their interest, and this despite the changes in value, perception, awareness and taste that necessarily occur as social circumstances change with time and new performance works emerge from them.

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Knee Play 1 The frst Knee Play lasts 30 minutes and is in progress when the audience enters the auditorium. Two women, one black (Sutton) and the other white (Childs) sit upright behind minimalist ‘designer’ tables at stage left. They are in a painterly composition in which a square of light projected onto the scrim behind them is echoed by a square of light in front of them extending to the edge of the stage. This scrim will drop for every Knee Play. The women, barely audible, count random numbers. Their fngers slowly perform movements, which could be those of typists or switchboard operators, over their table tops. Three notes are played on two keyboards (electric organs). Each is held for a long time, and soft. One by one, the chorus singers come in and stand in hieratic poses, some facing the audience, some in profle. This occurs 15 minutes into the scene. When the entire chorus is in the shallow orchestra pit, the lights slowly dim. Spotlights come up on the chorus as they begin to count. One keyboard holds what sounds like one note, but which, in fact, shifts up and down by a semi-tone. The other one repeatedly plays ‘do, re, mi’. Childs, in a fat, still barely audible voice, recites something from which she occasionally emphasises a word or a phrase – thus, ‘the bus driver’, ‘red ball’ and ‘these are the days my friends’. At some point a picture of a child in an old-fashioned suit is projected onto the white square of light. The Knee Play ends abruptly with a blackout. My close inspection draws attention to some principles that recur throughout the opera: • • • • •

the trance-like behaviour of the performers the indeterminacy of action (‘typing’?) the disconnection between the compositional elements – in this case between action (‘typing’?), recitation, picture, music, singing the insignifcance of semantics and the emphasis on the sound or quality of words rather than on their actual or potential meaning the deeply subliminal, invisible efect of everything visible to the eye and ear.

act i, scene i, train 1 Very fast organ and fute sounds follow the briefest of pauses announced by the blackout. There is a grey backdrop. A small boy stands on a platform protruding from the top of a crane designed in an abstract way. During this scene he occasionally walks along this platform and throws paper aeroplanes down to the stage. Childs paces forwards and backwards along a diagonal line – a movement she repeats about 50 times, usually shortening the diagonal towards the end of a sequence before she starts all over again. There is a spring to her step, and she holds a pipe in one hand. Her opposite arm lashes out occasionally to introduce a little variation to her movement more or less along the lines of Glass’s additive sound. While she dances, a man scribbles in the air with sharp gestures and sudden stops. He, too, repeats a small range of movements. His back is to the audience, whereas Childs always faces it. During the course of the scene, Sutton enters from stage left and, with her back to the audience, walks extremely slowly in a straight line to the back of the stage. She then takes a sharp turn, drawing an invisible rectangle as she continues walking. Her walk is deliberate, with knees held high and feet fexed before she places her feet frmly on the foor. This characterises her walking throughout the production. Now and then she breaks her walk with a jerky jump. Later in the scene, three more fgures walk unhurriedly, each out of kilter with the other. Sutton 410

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suddenly opens a newspaper and walks while reading it. At some point after the second of two sudden blackouts, her arm gesticulates sharply, as if she, like the man, was also writing in the air. Everyone wears white short-sleeved shirts (except the man writing, who is in a red shirt), grey baggy trousers and black braces and sneakers. Their uniform clearly refers to Einstein, who was continually pictured wearing these clothes. The chorus wears the same uniform throughout the performance. The tones of these no-nonsense costumes blend in with the colours of the sets – reputedly consisting of nothing less than 99 diferent shades of grey and beige (Quadri, Bertoni and Stearns, 1997: 27). Fairly early in this scene, a huge cardboard cut-out steam train with a fabulous chimney appears at the back from stage left. It inches its way forward slowly, as if it were peeping out to look. A vertical stream of luminous silver–white light comes down the cyclorama behind the train. It is soft-edged, like drawings of auras, and it cuts the space in half. It is refected in the foor, which elongates the line of light. Blackout. Lights up. The locomotive has vanished and so has the apparition made of light. But the efect is awesome, like magic. This is probably where the spell of Einstein really begins. The locomotive reappears two more times in the scene, blowing steam from its chimney. Meanwhile, Childs paces along her line, sometimes slapping her thigh; Sutton does her walk; the man writes; the boy moves about up top; now and then a paper plane glides to the foor; another dancer is immobile at the left stage corner with her leg up, and so on. They are all, performers and objects, ‘diferent energies’, as Wilson says, and Childs’s particular mini-scene is ‘like an electric generator’ in respect of everything else (Wilson in Huppert, 1994: 66). A scrim drops with a picture of a train travelling in a diagonal across a snowy landscape. Someone intones what sound like radio advertisements. None of it is distinct except for the words ‘Crazy Eddie’, which you could link to the writing fgure who does, indeed, appear demented as he stabs the air and, now and then, freezes in an upwards-pointing gesture. Childs calls out ‘1966’, someone else, ‘What is it?’ And the music pounds on, no one in time to it, although Childs’s vigorous pace, bounce and drive are the closest to its rhythms and intensity. The cardboard train crawls further along its appointed line each time it appears. On its third appearance, it goes past the silvery stream of light that has returned to the middle of the cyclorama, and it goes almost as far as the crane, changing the confguration of space quite signifcantly by its diferent position. There is another dimension to the train image in so far as it refers to Einstein’s well-known love of trains. However, spectators who are not aware of this bit of biographical information lose nothing of the scene’s strange enchantment. Allusions in a Wilson work do not have to be recognised because his work is never geared primarily towards semantic meaning. The music stops abruptly. The train edges back and disappears into the wings. The human fgures seem to vanish into thin air. The crane breaks apart: its platform goes up into the fies, its body into the wings. ‘Crazy Eddie’ looks sideways, holds still and resumes writing. The nocturnal charcoals, greys and blues that appeared on the cyclorama every time the train appeared and looked more and more like a brewing storm now become much darker, their emotional tone changing from mystery to menace. The luminous stream of light just stays there, growing brighter as the rest deepens. The same happens to its refection on the foorboards. People start walking about, marking the foor. They bring in what, in the semi-obscurity, look like geometric shapes. Some of them are ftted together like bookends, and circles are placed on top of them. Others, now rectangular, are laid down fat on the stage and covered with a long white sheet. All this activity is unhurried. The organ hums, as if stuck on a note. Spectators begin to suspect – rightly – that this is a scene change. A spotlight is on ‘Crazy Eddie’, who keeps writing or points his fnger diagonally towards the wings until a rectangular black box is lowered from the fies, cutting the magic stream of light like a ‘t’. The magic light snaps 411

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out. Then there is a minute of blackout. The scene change lasts ten minutes in all, during which time you have been mesmerised by the light. The whole of the frst scene beautifully encapsulates Wilson’s lifelong concerns: • •

• • • • •

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his focus on space, time and timing his design along a plethora of lines – vertical (the crane, Sutton, the light), horizontal (the train, the crane platform, bent arms and legs) and diagonal (Childs, who shifts the diagonal further and further away from the centre) his composition by layers – the images are one layer, the music/soundscore is another, the language another, the dances another, and so on his disinterest in characters, replacing them with performers doing physical actions his fascination with simultaneous unrelated actions his predilection for non-communication between fgures so much so that they all appear distant, isolated and unrelated to anyone else his complete commitment to the autonomy of light, how it is shaped into planes (in later works it will be planes of vivid colour), and how it illuminates parts of the body – here the hand of the immobile fgure at stage right or the pointing hand of ‘Crazy Eddie’ his principles of juxtaposition and counterpoint his principles of allusion, ellipsis and association.

act i, scene ii, trial 1 The scene, emptied of people, opens by drawing your gaze towards what was the rectangular black box and which is now a horizontal beam of fuorescent light suspended above the stage. At frst the whole space is in charcoals and black. It is soon washed in Wilson’s inimitable blue. An iridescent light covers a low fat bed below two assembled ‘bookends’ which are, in fact, a desk lit at each end by two round lamps. The fuorescent beam, the desk, the two white screens behind it and the bed are all the same length, their geometric symmetry creating a feeling of calmness. Another iridescent light illuminates a high metal chair standing near one of these lamps. Two groups of people enter in Einstein uniform. The group on the left stands in profle in two rows. The four on the right sit on two metal benches, their backs to the audience. This opening occurs to the quiet tones of the two organs and the women in the choir singing what sounds like ‘3, 4’. Everything in this 45-minute scene is slow, including the descent of panels, circles and scrims that layer the whole and recall the Constructivist design of celebrated German Expressionist flms, most notably Fritz Lang’s 1927 Metropolis. Childs and her ‘double’ do some stretch–bend dance movements before they sit at stage right, one behind the other, at school desks. A man at stage right, whose briefcase is outlined by fuorescent tubes, is stuck on the spot. He looks funnier still later on when he swings his briefcase, or when someone briskly walks in, briskly straightens his tie and briskly leaves. Eventually two judges come in and sit at the desk. They are the young white Knowles and the elderly black Johnson. We know . . . that slowness in Wilson’s productions is never stillness. In this scene, small but pronounced hand movements frst move with the slow action and then counterpoint it. Childs and her double gesticulate with their fngers: perhaps they ‘spool’, ‘weave’, ‘fle their nails’ and also ‘type’, as in the ‘typing’ of Knee Play 1. Are they stenographers? The chorus – for it is they who stand at stage right – also look as if they are ‘typing’ while they drone out their syllables, sopranos followed by the men’s voices. The difculty for the singers lies in how their gestures do not follow the tempi of their singing, which means that their movements constantly work 412

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against their voices. Someone is reading a book. The fgures at stage left stay seated and dance only with their arms and torsos throughout the scene. The Old Judge, who is very still, moves only when he beats the desk with his gavel: three times each on six well-spaced occasions, each beat given its full measure. These sounds highlight the fact that Wilson calculates precisely the tempo of the scene as a whole. While the scene is consistently in slow motion, regardless of the ‘typing’ gestures that continue, uninterrupted, its music changes pace, going from a drone at the beginning to a repeated sawing up and down a scale by the ‘Einstein’ violinist, who is seated in a spotlight at the front right side of the stage. He plays two amplifed solo sequences (one lasting 20 minutes). Each ends abruptly, the second in mid-fight. The choir, some of whom sing from the stage, speeds up, as if ‘echoing’ the violin, led by the fast and strong beat of the instrumental ensemble. The blasts of sound counter coolly spoken words. Sutton may here be a lawyer fgure, and can be heard intermittently saying ‘Mr Bojangles’ and ‘So if you see any of those baggy pants’. On other occasions she yells ‘Go’ (or is it ‘No’?) or repeats ‘Gun, gun, gun’, usually in diferent rhythms broken up by pauses of various length. Childs, dressed as Einstein, is on a high metal chair. Johnson and Knowles alternately repeat six times with authority, ‘This court of common pleas is now in session.’ Each pronouncement is preceded by the beat of Johnson’s hammer. All of it speaks to the senses rather than to our rational minds. Towards the end of the scene, Johnson delivers – deadpan – a humorous parody of small-town feminism. (In France his speech, the only one in the production in French, seemed to send up the cliché of French lovers.) ‘Crazy Eddie’ has somehow reappeared, still writing into space at stage left. Meanwhile, a number of shapes have come down from the fies: two tall panels, which both frame and throw into relief the judges’ desk; two more with indistinct pictures on them; the face of a white clock without hands – a timeless clock which stops its descent in the middle of the Constructivist, geometrically organised space behind the judges’ desk; another clock higher up; a gigantic test tube; a portrait that could be young Einstein; a transparent scrim on which is projected a classical nude. A large black disc glides in from the side and slowly eclipses the white clock (probably an allusion to the eclipse that corroborated Einstein’s theory). The scrim with nude drops towards the end of the scene; the white bed is translucent behind it. When it drops, the stage is swathed in grey–blue. Lights out. The organ and ‘Einstein’ continue to play in the dark.

Knee Play 2 The violinist fddles away right through the interlude. A bright square like the one in the frst Knee Play illuminates Childs and Sutton, who are on their chairs, talking quite fast and out of sync. Their various movements, by contrast, are very measured and include bending forwards and crouching on the foor before they return to their positions on the chairs. The text concerns a sailboat, a balloon and ‘a Phonic Centre’ that has ‘contactless lenses and the new soft lenses’ to ‘answer your problem’. This interlude ends with a spectacular movement requiring perfect muscular co-ordination and control. Both women lean sideways and balance on one buttock on their chairs with the other one lifted, while their knees are up and their arms bent upwards. They call out ‘1905’. A photograph of Einstein is projected, at some point, onto the square behind them. The date seems as random as anything else, so it matters little whether you know or not that 1905 is the publication date of Einstein’s article ‘On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies’, which is the basis of his theory of relativity and which changed forever our sense of the universe. 413

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act ii, scene i, field 1 The frst of the opera’s two dance sequences – both in a contemporary dance idiom – is an exciting display of velocity, agility, lightness and precision in an empty stage. Eight dancers enter and exit in ones and twos or form confgurations of three, fve and eight. They leap, turn, circle, skip, spin and jump across the entire space with their arms usually out in a relaxed second position. It is a joyous, buoyant dance whose sense of freedom is exhilarating. Blackout.

act ii, scene ii, train 2 Warm low lights go up on the back of a railway carriage in the middle of the stage. A quarter moon hangs in the night sky. By the end of the scene it will be full before an eclipse blots it out. A man and a woman are in profle. He walks out onto the end of the carriage, which could be from a Western movie. She follows him and they lip-sync a duet sung by a soprano and a tenor in the pit. The duet, ‘Happy Lucky Lover’, is sung very quickly in repeated combinations (‘Happy lucky’, ‘Lucky lover’, ‘Happy lucky lover’) which alternate with ‘1, 2, 3’, also sung very quickly. The lovers are in evening dress, she (Sutton) in an exquisite white gown. The event is too delicately presented to be a parody of something like ‘By the light of the silvery moon’. Yet the temptation to see it as parody is almost unavoidable, especially because the duet begins to sound more absurd and quite ironic the longer you listen to it. When the eclipse occurs, it recalls, with some humour, the eclipse of the preceding act. Many in the 1992 audience laughed. The lovers return to their compartment. The light on the carriage gradually grows smaller, creating the illusion of a train receding into the distance. The elegant lady, smiling, points a gun at her lover. This image demonstrates how Wilson elides a human drama, missing its details so as to sum it up cogently in one shot (no pun intended!). Blackout. A small light focuses on the carriage – now empty – to indicate its increasing distance. The image feels like a coda to the drama which has taken place without words, ‘danced’, as it were, in a dream-like state that is transferred to the spectators. So absorbing is the dream atmosphere by the end of the scene that the sound coming from the pit becomes something of an intrusion, a noise penetrating your consciousness to wake you up. Meanwhile, a woman at stage right has interminably held a curiously disjointed arabesque, facing three-quarters to the audience. Two spots of light, like eyes glowing in the dark, hang in the sky after the eclipse. Second blackout. In Train 2, Wilson changes perspective from the front to the back of the train. By now spectators have looked at the stage pictures from numerous diferent angles. These shifts of perspective and perception suggest that Wilson materialises in the production that spin-of from Einstein’s theory of relativity which had hit the general public early in the twentieth century: namely, there is no one way of looking at things because truth, like time, is not fxed; how you perceive is relative to where you are in space and time. This, if anything, is the philosophical content of the opera.

Knee Play 3 This is another variation on the frst Knee Play. Sutton and Childs are back in their bright white square, this time with their backs to the audience (a shift of perspective once again). To all intents and purposes, the two women manipulate a control board covered with twisted circles of light. The chorus is below them, lit up as it was at the beginning of the production, and the singers return to their ‘do, re, mi’, operating some sort of invisible machine with their hands in the air as they sing. 414

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act iii, scene i, trial 2 This scene is as long as the frst trial scene. However, it is a deconstruction of its predecessor in that the sets, which are those of Trial 1, are pulled apart in full view. The benches belonging to the four dancers are pulled away by strings – a technique Wilson was to exploit increasingly in his rock operas, grand operas and such fundamentally operatic solo pieces as Orlando and Hamlet. One half of the bed is pulled closer to the wings by strings. It is then carried of, as are one half of the judges’ desk, one of the judges’ chairs, the high metal chair standing near the desk and other bits of furniture. Scrims and panels go up into the fies. Later, the school desks at stage right are pulled away by magic, a.k.a. strings. Wilson’s delight in dismantling the stage is equal only to the business of reconstructing it. An enormous scrim the width of the stage comes down. A grille half the width of the stage, whose vertical black bars suggest a prison, drops down at stage left. This and more will deconstruct towards the end of the scene, leaving an open stage for Childs’s fnal monologue, which she speaks on the high chair that was also used for Trial 1. The process in its entirety is a potent demonstration of Modernist theatricality as developed by Meyerhold during his Constructivist phase, when he divided his stage into diferent planes and levels, and by Oscar Schlemmer in whose performance work at the Bauhaus dancers, actors and objects were interchangeable parts of form in motion. Performance, for Schlemmer, was essentially a matter of moving architecture (Gropius and Wensinger, 1961: 17–35). Wilson’s process is concerned with constructing space so that it constantly moves while providing multiple planes for action. The ‘prison’ grille, for example, creates several planes for action to occur – behind it, to the front and to its sides. The bed is another action plane when Childs uses it. Meanwhile, the grille, the bed and the edge of the desk provide a passageway for movement. At the same time, Wilson constructs space for the purposes of architectural shaping and perspective, pictorial balance, and visual impact. Wilson’s deconstruction of what he constructs with such care is not confned to architecture and objects but includes movement as well. The scene begins as if it had been suspended in time because the judges are behind their bench, as in Trial 1. They duly leave, separately, the second judge when the set breaks up conclusively. The four dancers, who came in with a march-like step to resume their position on their benches, stay just long enough to remind spectators that they had been there before. Then they leave, deconstructing the movements they made earlier with their upper bodies and arms. No one speaks during this piece of breaking and remaking. Trial 2, although slow in its frst half, is busy (and much busier than my synopsis, although it summarises the essentials). The chorus repeat their earlier ‘typing’ or telephone-operator gestures, as do two women at the school desks. Childs comes in, demure in a white dress, and gets into the bed. When she comes out, she puts on a black jacket and black trousers, and pulls out a machine gun, which she frst points towards the chorus and then towards the audience. In the meantime, Sutton does a series of her trance-walks in various directions. Unless you were informed, you would be hard pressed to say that the woman in black was a reference to Patty Hearst, the young newspaper heiress who was kidnapped in 1974 by a guerrilla-style terrorist group and brainwashed by her captors to turn against wealth and privilege. She did so with a vengeance by participating in an armed bank robbery and appearing as a poster girl with a machine gun, ready for battle. The Hearst case was infamous, and Childs, in the 1976 original of the scene, had been described as striking ‘poses like those of Patty Hearst, familiar from recent magazine covers’ (Flakes, 1976: 79). These are topical references, and only seem obscure at a later date. While Childs behaves oddly 415

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(or alludes to Hearst, if you know it), the ‘Einstein’ violinist sits in his place at the edge of the stage, spotlighted as before. As usual, the texts are aleatory. Childs repeatedly recites (some 35 times, starting from the bed) in a cool, clear voice the litany she has written herself on how she is in ‘this prematurely airconditioned supermarket’ full of bathing caps (colours enumerated), ‘but I was reminded of the fact that I had been avoiding the beach’ – the only reference to the production’s title in the whole production. Unlike preceding and following recitations, this one is distinct, its every word and intonation building a line of sound, none of it obliterated by the music. Wilson’s idea that repetition liberates performers from anxiety – they can simply do without having to think about it – is here demonstrated by Childs’s vocal and physical ease. After the machine gun sequence, Sutton-as-lawyer speaks of ‘Mr Bojangles’ again, as she had done in Trial 1. Childs-as-witness is on the high chair in her white dress. She recites her second text (‘I feel the earth move’ by Knowles), which ends with a list of names and times. She repeats this long soliloquy ritualistically three times. Its efect is hypnotic. She ends the scene alone on the stage. Who is on trial? Is it Patty Hearst? (She was tried.) Einstein, for opening the door to the atom bomb? No one in particular? Stefan Brecht, when studying the 1976 version, indicates that Einstein was a dreamer and thus the bed can be associated with him. But to his mind, the bed, not Einstein, is on trial (Brecht, 1994: 347), and his guess is as surreal as any other. For Brecht, Childs’s crawling into the bed ‘was in the petty contemporary vein of arbitrary action’ (ibid.: 346) and a ‘remnant of some feeting plot-idea’ (ibid.: 348) that Wilson had had (presumably at some stage in the work’s development). When all is said and done, Trial 2 veers towards camp or kitsch – the beginnings of a recurrent feature of Wilson’s music theatre, grand opera included. Wilson does not always manage it with aplomb. Thus camp/kitsch could be said to be merely decorative in Einstein on the Beach, whereas it is structurally intrinsic to The Black Rider and Woyzeck. It is so thoroughly over-the-top in The Black Rider that it is persuasive, and is powerful by its incongruity in Woyzeck. His opera productions carry it to varying degrees with varying results. Aida, for instance, might well be without Joan Sutherland, but it brims over with ‘big’ camp/kitsch, especially in dance sequences, which makes a mockery of this opera itself. The music of Trial 2, on the other hand, is sensational. It roars and yowls, cascades and thunders, and rolls and darts and dives, changing its dynamics when you least expect it, and unexpectedly cutting out. You are surprised, although you should not be, given that Glass cuts of the music as dramatically as Wilson cuts his lights. There is a neat transition in the music to clarinet and saxophone when Childs, in an opera-style recitative, talks over these instruments without efort and closes the scene.

act iii, scene ii, field 2 Blackout to start. Lights up on all eight dancers with their backs to the audience. The cyclorama at the back is a sky. The dancers face us one by one, brilliantly executing balletic ronds de jambe. In fact, many of their steps are from ballet – jetés, grands battements, fouettés, pirouettes – as happens in various kinds of contemporary dance, the diference from the former lying in the looseness of the dancers’ bodies. The dancers mostly dance together to give a sense of mass, but their dance is fast, relentless, like ‘Einstein’ who saws away in his usual spot. Could the chorus really be reiterating ‘lovey dovey’ at top speed? Glass and Wilson play enough pranks in the work (like ‘lucky lover’ in Train 2) for this to be possible. Five minutes before the end of the dance the light turns blue and a gauze scrim descends, covered with stars. It looks beautiful, and could be another 416

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joke: ‘lovey dovey’ indeed! The dancers continue dancing, visible but veiled and distanced by the scrim in another play of perspective.

Knee Play 4 Blackout. Silence. ‘Einstein’ – spotlighted – starts to fddle away. The preceding scene and this Knee Play merge as one. Six of the chorus are lit up, standing in the pit and singing ‘do, re, mi, fa, sol’. (They have gone further up the scale, which is surely meant to be funny. Later they go backwards, down the scale.) Childs and Sutton are back in their square, only this time they gyrate and swivel slowly on high plexiglass tables, their legs ‘swimming’ in the air. At some point, they are lit from above and below in such a way as to make the glass disappear and to suggest that they are weightless, foating in space. Their stomach muscles are their centre of gravity, for this dance requires enormous physical control. How the action looks to the spectator and how it feels for the performer are quite diferent. As David Warrilow from Mabou Mines remarked of his performance in Wilson’s The Golden Windows at BAM in 1985: You’re on a rake and you have to walk, calmly, slowly, steadily upstage: it may look cool and beautiful, but it’s a saga of muscular and balance difculty . . . There is in Bob’s work almost an expectation of perfection. That creates a lot of stress and that’s the last thing the audience should see. (Cited in Shyer, 1989: 21) Anything but stress is conveyed either by the dancers or the singers, who run their syllables perfectly. The Knee Play ends with a gag when the singers pretend to brush their teeth and then, unexpectedly, stick their tongues out. You may not realise until after the show that this action imitates a famous photograph of Einstein sticking out his tongue at the photographers. But it is not important if you miss the association between the image in the performance and the image that inspired it. The moment is indeterminate, leaving you free to choose your own associations, as Wilson intended. The connection between an image of tongues stuck out and Einstein is signifcant only when you do a formal analysis of the piece, which is what we are engaged in here.

act iv, scene i, train 3 (with building) This scene lasts ten minutes. The organ scurries in the dark before an enormous building painted on a backdrop, which is a cross between a Renaissance palace and an Industrial Age power station, appears at centre stage. A man in one of its upper windows writes, unperturbed, on a board. A child rides in on his skateboard, followed by one, two and fnally a total of 24 people dressed in Einstein uniform who gaze ahead, each in a diferent direction until they all look up at the scribbling fgure. They walk of one by one. Brecht claims that Wilson makes the scene ‘a representation of reality’ and argues that it is ‘an actual gathering of unrelated undistinguished people out for a stroll happening onto this great man [Einstein] at work’ (Brecht, 1994: 354). The man goes out.

act iv, scene ii, trial 3 (the bed) The lights go down and the drop goes up in the dark. The organ cuts of suddenly and picks up a Bach-style fugue almost immediately. A luminous band placed horizontally where the foot 417

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of the bed was in Trial 2 shines in the darkness. Here begins a 20-minute choreography for this column of light, that might as well be a piece of sculpture but performs like an actor. (There are no other performers on stage during its ‘fight’.) The column slowly levitates, tilts to one side, hovers and goes through a 45-degree angle until it reaches a vertical position. It then hangs in space just above the foor and starts rising vertically. Once it has reached mid-height, it progressively grows shorter, creating the illusion that it is receding into the distance, further and further away until it fades out. The efect is hallucinatory and the audience totally spellbound. We are meant to be reminded of the magic stream of light in Train 1, the cross-reference between the two, as between the fragments of a dream, being part of the surrealist ‘method’ that was to become a Wilson trademark. The whole of this amazing ascension is accompanied by the organ, which holds a single note very softly. The organ eventually stops, starts again and changes pitch and rhythm. An aria for soprano begins about 10 minutes into the light’s performance. The soprano sustains her two or three notes without words softly and gently, much like the organ. It is small wonder that the American newspaper critics cited at the beginning of this section spoke of Einstein as ‘religious’ and mystical’ and that Rockwell, who was deeply moved by the production, took light, with its merger of symbolic connotations and scientifc meanings as energy and power, to be the core subject of the work.

act iv, scene iii, field 3 (interior of spaceship) Act IV is diferent from the preceding acts in that its scenes are not crisply demarcated but fow into each other. The fow into this scene is an upsurge. The organ begins to ‘wa-wa’ and fuorescent light jumps nervously along tubes placed in parallel diagonals on what appears to be a wall. A man (Wilson) paces back and forth, as did Childs in Train 1, and appears to be guiding something or someone in with two torches, the way a plane is guided in from a runway. Someone else is doing semaphoric gestures. A glass elevator with a young boy and a clock inside it emerges from the foor, steam billowing out from its tail, and goes upwards. ‘Einstein’ sits silently in a spotlight in his usual place. The minute ‘Einstein’ starts on his electric violin – his and everybody else’s sound amplifed to the full – the whole thing takes of. Wilson’s torch dance becomes faster and faster; the semaphore-person moves frantically; the elevator goes up and down; a capsule near the top of whatever we are looking at glides backwards and forwards along a horizontal line; fashing lights show that the whole contraption, virtually the length and height of the stage, is a burnt-gold colour, three storeys high and divided into 15 cubicles; bodies gesticulate in shadows; a scrim falls and a small rocket–spaceship is rapidly pulled along it, on a string, diagonally upwards; voices; numbers; roaring music; beat of music; urgency. You realise that what you are looking at resembles the control board of a spacecraft that you have seen in science fction flms or comics. And your impression is confrmed when the lights go mad. Circle-swirls and vertical broken lines fash on and of like so many unstoppable, unreadable symbols spat out by a computer. Two plastic bubbles on the foor spew out smoke. Childs and Sutton, who are cool and collected, crawl out towards the audience and bend into the foor. As they crawl, a gauze drop falls behind them. Wilson keeps dancing. You begin to make out the shape of the earth in the greyand-white design on the gauze and realise with a jolt that the image is of an atomic explosion. A grey plane fies at the top left of the drop. At the bottom left is a small dinosaur. The music snaps of. Are we at the beginning (dinosaur) and the end of time (atomic explosion)? We could well be, for the whole spectacular fnale has an apocalyptic air. It is certainly contrived, certainly artifcial, but its energy is irresistible. 418

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Knee Play 5 The music resumes immediately with single spaced-out notes. Its volume has dropped considerably. The gauze curtain showing the explosion lingers a while and then goes up. Another one comes down. The women slowly lift the upper part of their bodies, get up and walk backwards to the seats brought in for them at stage right. They sit apart peacefully, their fngers ‘typing’ slowly, as in the opening Knee Play. The music is light. The violin comes in, sweetly and gently. A bus similar to the locomotive of Train 1 enters at stage left. Its driver (Johnson) is warmly lit up from below. He speaks of two lovers on a park bench and ends his tale with a mild joke on kissing.

Summing up It is only when Einstein is analysed closely that its performance principles become apparent. The actual experience of the work is nowhere near as clear, not least because the action on stage looks arbitrary. We cannot usually decipher on the spot the numerous sensations we feel during a performance. This natural difculty is compounded by Einstein primarily because the infux of sensations prompted by it either causes confusion, or is so great – even overwhelming, as transpires from the awestruck tone of critical reviews – that it cannot be assessed immediately. Only after the event can an appropriate overview be taken of the production’s system of presentation by layers or separate planes, which is reminiscent of how Wilson’s beloved Cézanne applies paint to canvas. Wilson explains that in making Einstein he ‘thought a lot about gestures and movements as something separate, of the lights as separate’, of the decor, drops and furniture as separate and so on (Obenhaus, 1985); and the result is a juxtaposition of what is separate – most striking, perhaps, in the juxtaposition between the spoken texts and the situations in which they are spoken. This separation procedure also involves looking from multiple angles of vision along the multiple planes (or separate elements) held in one frame, which is a cubist technique invented by Cezanne. By the same token, it allows Wilson to use the modes he borrows from painting – portrait, still life and landscape – in a particularly pronounced way. Thus, in Einstein, they provide him with structurally inscribed perspectives: the Knee Plays are the close-up portraits; the train and trial scenes provide the middle-range perspective of still life; the dance sections and the spaceship’s interior provide the long view of landscapes. Einstein is additionally difcult to process during performance because its themes are not mediated by such standard elements of drama as character, dialogue and plot. The production’s themes are articulated through images, colour, gesture, rhythm, movement, sound, objects and garments. And they rely, sometimes quite heavily, on the collage techniques of echo, variation, inversion and abstraction – all evident in the collages made in New York from the 1950s to the early 1970s. Wilson, however, leaves the rough-and-tumble of the loft culture that had spawned them to produce, in Einstein, a formal, polished piece whose home is European Modernist art (as my earlier references to the Bauhaus and so on have suggested). Collage, in Einstein, relies on neat organisation. The train theme is repeated in the building which, looked at intently, proves to be an ‘enlarged’ variation, in a phantasmagoric rather than realistic vein, of the image of the back of the train in Train 2. Arguably, the whole range of images of means of transport – walking, train, plane, bus, spaceship – is a collage of the production’s motifs of time and space, and of the movement in them; and, arguably, these images dot out, in the dislocated fashion of collage, the transition from the steam age to the age of space travel (which is the time span of Einstein’s life. Wilson might well have been mentally inserting Einstein into his earlier Life and Times of . . . series of productions). The spaceship theme operates in a similar fashion. The toy rocket, which is seen from the outside, is an inversion in miniature 419

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of the spaceship seen earlier from the inside. Childs and Sutton crawl out of bubbles and could be cosmonauts emerging from their capsules. The plexiglass elevator could be inside a spaceship fying through the cosmos (but could also be inside an apartment block). The dance as a spaceship (Field 2) is far more cryptic. Only when the whole context is reconstructed is it possible to see that the velocity, lightness and travel of the dance could be an abstract ‘representation’ of the trajectory of a spaceship. These examples throw up a third group of points, which concerns the absence of linear narrative in Einstein. Narrative connections can be drawn between the lights-gone-mad of the spaceship and the spat-out ‘cosmonauts’. The latter can be seen as ‘survivors’ of a cosmic accident or, equally, of the atomic blast pictured on the scrim. The images of Trial 2 are elliptical, but nevertheless suggest some kind of story. (I have spoken, for example, of Sutton as a ‘lawyer fgure’.) Scholars have noted allegedly explicit references to Patty Hearst in Trial 2, and have given them a narrative form (Brecht, 1994: 348–51; Holmberg, 1996: 11). Yet there is no pressing need to construct a narrative from any of these bits and their potential ‘stories’ about cosmonauts, atom bombs or terrorists. Whatever Wilson’s private allusions may have been in the making of his opera, they operate as allusions in the work, which is a piece of experimental theatre far closer to the happenings and performance art of Wilson’s formative years than to canonical theatre with its narrative sequences, consequences and resolutions. Too literal a dependency on the production’s allusions deprives it of its rich ambiguity. And this leads to a fourth group of observations regarding the particular character of Einstein. The production fully demonstrates Wilson’s distinction between the ‘interior screen’ (or ‘interior refection’, . . . ) and the ‘exterior screen’. The ‘exterior screen’ is the production’s semiotic system, including its numerous allusions to Einstein. There are more allusions to add to those already mentioned. Einstein was a good amateur violinist (!), smoked a pipe (Childs in Train 1) and declared after the frst atom bomb was dropped that he ‘wouldn’t be a scientist but a plumber or a peddler’ (cited in Holmberg, 1996: 11) if he had his life all over again. The high chair of Trial 1 and Trial 2 is made of plumbing pipes, which Glass claims is Wilson’s allusion to Einstein’s declaration (ibid.; Glass, 1988: 34). If this is the case, the chair speaks visually rather than verbally about what Einstein said in words. It is a pictorial transposition of language. The ‘interior screen’ is each individual’s way of processing within his/her sphere of understanding, which is also deeply subliminal. Wilson’s own ‘interior screen’ – what has personal resonance for him – has to do with Einstein’s life and achievements, but spectators may not catch any of it at all. Spectators may not have the slightest idea about Einstein, which was probably the case for the young people watching the show in 1992, who had not grown up with the Einstein myth as Wilson and Glass had done in the 1950s. Furthermore, spectators engage with the ‘exterior screen’ of any work. When it has as much on display to captivate the senses as Einstein, it can override the ‘interior screen’ and compel attention to itself as ‘pure form’, as form that spectators do not need to fll with personal meanings to take pleasure from it. The production’s capacity to generate such great interest in its surface that the resonances beneath the surface become more or less incidental may well be what Wilson meant by his critical remark in 1984. Einstein, he said, was ‘from another period – very static, and fat . . . very two-dimensional’ (cited at the beginning of this section; ‘fat’ and ‘two-dimensional’ imply ‘surface’). As the production unfolds, its monumental scale, technical feats, stunning juxtapositions and sheer hypnotic beauty are compelling of their own accord (even when considered ‘two-dimensional’). So prolifc and powerful are these features of the ‘exterior screen’ that they can eface your ‘interior screen’, sending you on a ‘high’, or into a trance, or to sleep – if, of course, they do not send you out of the theatre bored out of your brain. 420

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Paradoxically, Wilson’s play of associations, allusions and ellipses on the ‘exterior screen’ – for they do appear here – raises the question of whether their dynamic can be anything other than that of ‘pure form’. This, we know from the preceding section, is the trickiest area of Wilson’s aesthetics. The ‘pure form’ of his earliest pieces from The King of Spain to Deafman Glance provided the ‘mental environments’ that Brecht believes distinguished these silent works (Brecht, 1994: 360). Association and so on were there in freefall, not attached to ideas of content. However, Einstein is quite diferent in that it seeks to connect form to content in some way. In this respect, it is a turning point in Wilson’s aesthetics. We saw that the question of what Einstein is about, the fundamental point for discussions of content, did not concern newspaper reviewers. It became a cause for critique in scholarly accounts. Brecht maintains that, although Einstein is ‘not without content’, it ‘took one in as pure surface, aesthetically’, and its structure is a ‘mere formality’, which makes its themes ‘meaningless’ (ibid.: 360, 375). Michael Vanden Heuvel argues that, in Einstein, Wilson ‘works to agitate various sets of conficting attitudes and desires: popular and esoteric art . . . form and content, sensualism and spirituality, rationalism and irrationalism’ (Vanden Heuvel, 1993: 176). Here, and increasingly in his productions, Wilson wants ‘both the powerlessness and the lack of referentiality of pure spectacle, along with the clarity and order of rigid form and signifcant content’ (ibid.). In Einstein he fails to ‘fnd a fruitful dynamic’ (ibid.: 177) between this tension and all his other ‘conficting attitudes’. Moreover, while attempting to fnd a form capable of bringing such ‘conficting attitudes’ together, Wilson ‘gets caught between the almost pure surrealism of his earliest work and the limited conventions of opera and the Broadway musical’ (ibid.). The whole of this argument rests on the assumption that Einstein’s allegedly ‘confictual attitudes’ are a matter of binary oppositions. However, the contrary can be argued, namely, that Wilson neither thinks in terms of confictual (or binary) ‘sets’, nor do confictual (or binary) ‘sets’ appear in the work: his goal is the syncretic co-existence of disparate elements, and this can accommodate ‘pure’ surrealism along with the conventions of opera and musicals. The syncretism of Einstein, the frst of a series of syncretic productions by Wilson, prompts the description of ‘hybrid’ and ‘crossover’ for them. Furthermore, it can be argued that Wilson defnitely did succeed in combining ‘lack of referentiality’ and ‘signifcant content’, not through any purported ‘sets’ but – crucially for my argument – via his loose play of allusions, ellipses and associations. All of these allusions and so on work in the same way towards the same ends and perform a dual function, formal and contentual, rather than a dichotomous one. I am not referring to the bread-and-butter allusions to pipe and plumbing, but to the more sophisticated ones that refer to the ‘signifcant content’ of the dynamics of space, time, light and everything else that we have identifed as relevant to Einstein’s theory of relativity. For, apart from implying content, these very allusions refer, at the same time and in a Cubist/Constructivist way, to the mechanisms of the production. The mechanisms on display are by no means mindless, since what they do and how they do it are the embodiment of conceptual thought. Put diferently, this means that showing how, say, light is handled demonstrates Wilson’s idea of light as he puts the idea into practice. And this mechanism-cum-concept is most defnitely also the ‘content’ of Einstein. Where light is concerned specifcally, it is impossible to ignore the structural, conceptual and contentual importance of the production’s frequent blackouts. These blackouts create a type of conversation with light, suggesting by their removal of light just how indispensable light is to all living matter and, indeed, to the universe as universe. (Einstein’s understanding of the cosmos can thus also be seen in this particular aspect of the production’s construction.) Alongside this grandiose cosmic vision is Wilson’s passion for light in the theatre. . . . It sufces to repeat here that Wilson always uses light to convey emotion openly in a way that he prevents his performers 421

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from doing. And he prevents them from doing it because he associates open expression of emotion with exaggeration as well as with the ‘actor’s efort’ in overdrive of the kind that he thinks characterises the performances of the Living Theatre or of the Grotowskian actor (Lesschaeve, 1977: 219). Emotion, then, is defected away from the performers, who, in any case, do not psychologically represent characters but confgure them (a consequence, we know, of Wilson’s dislike of ‘naturalist’ theatre). It is invested instead in light, which, by its tones and degrees of intensity, tells us of the emotional state not necessarily of the ‘characters’ – Einstein is conspicuous by their absence – but of the stage events as such. One of these events in Einstein is the stream of light in Train 1 around which a range of diferent hues keeps shifting the scene’s emotional colouring ‘from mystery to menace’, as I put it earlier. We have seen from various examples . . . how, after Einstein, Wilson displaces the emotions of characters with light, making light an emotionally eloquent and catalytic force. Another factor plays its part in the way Wilson deals with ‘content’, whose meaning for Wilson does not coincide with the meaning attributed to this word by his critics. Content, for Wilson, is what, at the beginning of my analytical breakdown of the production, I have called ‘thought and inner workings’. Misunderstandings and disagreements over the meaning of the term ‘content’ in respect of Wilson’s work are real enough. Yet he averts in Einstein what can be seen to be a problematical aspect of his aesthetics as a whole precisely because, by the sheer force of circumstances, ‘pure form’ and ‘content’ coincide in it. In other words, Wilson’s preoccupations in Einstein with space, time and light as form and content ft in with Einstein’s concerns regarding space, time and light. It is a happy ‘ft’. This remarkable concordance also makes Einstein on the Beach a landmark in performance history.

19.3

Pushkin’s Fairy Tales

Pushkin’s Fairy Tales, coming to Moscow’s Theatre of Nations in its ostentatious extravagance almost 40 years after Einstein on the Beach, could not be more diferent from the latter. Even so, in its diference, it occupies a place at the forefront of Wilson’s oeuvre alongside Einstein on the Beach, and this is reason enough to give it special attention. It is key in more ways than one. Pushkin’s Fairy Tales entered Russia’s powerful artistic territory with the same aplomb that Einstein on the Beach entered the French cultural terrain. With time, Wilson’s Russian debut may prove to be as signifcant a geopolitical event as it already is in the world of the theatre. The production opened one month after the premiere of Adam’s Passion in Tallinn, which indicates that these two highly contrasting works were prepared in parallel, with one as an antidote to the other in that juxtapositional mode of composition typical of Wilson. Where Adam’s Passion is a meeting between transcendent music and Wilson’s scenic intimations of transcendence, Pushkin’s Fairy Tales is down to earth. The fact that the production is in a freak-folk idiom – ‘weird’, as this idiom is sometimes defned – and is also eclectic makes it stand out in Wilson’s ‘folk’ repertoire, as did Peter Pan before it, although to a lesser degree by comparison with the abandoned audacity of Pushkin’s Fairy Tales. Keep in mind, too, that Pushkin is to Russian culture what Shakespeare is to British culture, and since his tales are for young and old alike, Wilson’s bold-as-brass approach could be seen as a deliberate, albeit good-humoured, swipe at a literature known and loved universally in the Russian-speaking world. Just how far Wilson wished to go with his generally sardonic gaze on these great canonical tales can only be guessed from the staged work, and it is well to remember that Pushkin was not parsimonious with his own ironic–satirical tone and asides in them. The production has all the features of Wilson’s folk-rock, combining them with the extra dimension of noisy ‘freak’ 422

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music and lyrics. A small orchestra of 15, including the conductor, play in the pit throughout the performance. This music is in sharp contradiction to the classical line and shape of Pushkin’s writing, and Wilson echoes these qualities visually by drawing on the same kind of elegance that had distinguished Shakespeare’s Sonnets and had allowed him ‘to fll out [his] space without cluttering it up’ (Shevtsova, 2016: 133).

Style and ‘camp’ Pushkin’s Fairy Tales, like Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Les Fables de La Fontaine, is an itemised structure in so far as each tale (each sonnet, each fable) is a discrete entity, which is connected with the preceding one only by virtue of its belonging to the set given by the author in question. This threading of discrete units, like pearls on a string, leaves Wilson at liberty to fracture each piece as he wishes, thereby facilitating the mosaic composition that is symptomatic of his folkrock group of works. The mosaic style is pronounced in Pushkin’s Fairy Tales, regardless of each tale’s narrative sequences, and it is enhanced by the fragmentary nature of CocoRosie’s score. As a result, Pushkin’s Fairy Tales turns out to be one of the most jigsaw-like constructions of Wilson’s music theatre and, indeed, of his work as a whole. The notion of ‘music theatre’ deployed throughout this book now has the freedom in this ‘case study’, as one might call it, for some further commentary. ‘Music theatre’ is not to be confused with ‘musical theatre’, otherwise known as ‘musicals’. The latter have a far bigger dose of commercial entertainment than Wilson would ever admit into his productions. Yet, although Wilson has no ambition whatsoever to reproduce musicals, he is by no means prejudiced against the popular culture that, in his native United States, covers, apart from musicals, just about anything from country-and-western music, ‘pop’, and rock in its myriad variations to comic strips, animated cartoons, television serials, blockbuster flms, and so on. In other words, popular culture is a conglomerate feld, and its component items are distinguishable from the cultural manifestations encompassed by such terms as ‘bourgeois art’, ‘established art’ and ‘high art’. Given that Wilson does not dismiss what are, in efect, entertainment forms, their characteristics appear across all his theatre productions, whether faintly or in a marked way. They appear to varying degrees in his productions of classical plays – in the slapstick rustic scenes of The Winter’s Tale, for instance, or in satirical, cartoon-like pictures of village youth in Peer Gynt. And they appear in his grand operas, although generally in a lighter manner, with the exception of Aida at Covent Garden in London whose signs of pop culture were so pronounced as to turn the whole opera into kitsch. This reversal of codes happened because images, movements, gestures and mimicry drew incessantly on potboiler 1950s ‘exotic’ Hollywood flms and were quoted ironically to such excess that quotation lost its ironic purpose. Aida became the message of its medium as no other opera in Wilson’s hands has done before or since. The fact that Wilson works across artistic borders within one production – it is important to stress this – as well as across his productions as a whole largely explains why his attitude towards artistic genres is non-hierarchical. Thus, in such an approach, one thing is not ‘better’ than another but is simply ‘diferent’ from it; and Wilson, although a world fgure, imbibed this type of egalitarian thinking during his formative artistic years in New York. The view generally upheld in this context of thought is that, say, grand opera and folk-rock opera are diferent, but they are diferent not by superiority but because they co-exist on the same, egalitarian, continuum. Moreover, all people can enjoy them if they choose to – the idea of choice here being paramount – regardless of their social advantages or disadvantages according to money, education, social status, cultural capital and other markers of social diferentiation. 423

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Irrespective of the fact that Wilson rejects hierarchies and hierarchical classifcations, he does not dismiss the idea of ‘art’. The crucial point is that, for Wilson, ‘art’ is not a hierarchically imposed quality. Nor is it constructed within social conditions, which shape artistic habits, perception, evaluations and tastes. His is an essentialist idea of art: ‘art’ is intrinsic to a given work through the care with which it is made. In his frame of reference, the highly extroverted, frequently burlesque semiotic processes of Pushkin’s Fairy Tales are as much about ‘art’ as the elegant music theatre piece he made from Shakespeare’s Sonnets; and they are as much about ‘art’ as the sacred Adam’s Passion, redolent with tragic undertones. What matters most about ‘art’, where Wilson is concerned, is that the work is done with integrity, skill and felt truthfulness from within an actor’s internal landscape, or, in Wilson’s words, from this actor’s ‘interior screen’, as cited [earlier]. Actors have to believe in what they are doing, no matter how outrageous their actions may appear to spectators. Wilson’s emphasis on execution, on how something is done, helps to explain why he gives precedence to style over content and genre: it is style that defnes a work and elicits interest, not solely because of how the work looks to the eye and sounds to the ear, but also because of how it creates an atmosphere. Style, moreover, determines content (what a work is about) instead of content determining style, or, for that matter, genre determining it. From Wilson’s standpoint, then, the dailylife, supposedly ‘naturalistic’ content of plays by a dramatist like Ibsen does not automatically demand a ‘naturalistic’ performance style. It is not necessary to tailor the style of a production of Ibsen according to a presupposed model of ‘naturalism’. Wilson’s adjustment to an order in which, he believes, content is given precedence purely because of convention raises the question of whether his productions of canonical texts by Pushkin, Shakespeare, Goethe and Ibsen, to name but a few of the established authors whose writings he has directed, can be said to be ‘like’ their texts of origin. The question is an old one, reverting to debates on the relation between literature and theatre, which, in any case, Stanislavsky resolved 110 years ago by arguing and demonstrating that the theatre was not a sub-branch of literature but had its own specifc characteristics. As such, it was an art in its own right. The question of the relation between text and production is, of course, tied up with a matter of content. Wilson bypasses the issue through his recourse to style, and can actually succeed in doing so by means of his aesthetics of indirect approach whose principles are association, allusion, ellipsis, elision, innuendo, implication rather than statement, and hyperbole rather than statement or explanation. None of these principles in Wilson’s practice operates strictly speaking within the logic of semantic meaning. Pushkin’s Fairy Tales fully demonstrates Wilson’s predilection for style, and, like Peter Pan, this production is in the idiosyncratic style known as ‘camp’, which identifes most of Wilson’s music theatre. Wilson is not concerned with theories, but theories of ‘camp’ burgeoned in New York during the late 1950s and very early 1960s. None was more thoroughly formulated than that by Sontag, who published ‘Notes on Camp’ in the same collection of essays that held her ‘Against Interpretation’, which was of such moment for the various artists of the period. This essay may not have had a direct infuence on Wilson’s practice, but it most certainly shed light on it as no other can. As we saw, Sontag was to become a friend and an occasional collaborator in his projects. Sontag’s ‘camp’ can be briefy summarised as a style of hyperbole, of deliberate and consistent exaggeration and proudly outlandish visual, aural and gestural imagery. It pushes beyond the limits of conventional representation for the sheer pleasure of the freedom it afords. ‘Camp’ is about highlighting artifce that is as far away from natural and naturalised behavior as possible. It willingly exploits the devices of playing, and indulges in parodic playing not merely to be looked at, but to be seen. 424

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Additional interpretative notes on Sontag’s theses may be added to her panorama. ‘Camp’ is extremely playful – ludic – and is powered by fantasy, like child’s play. It generates play-acting or what, in the theory of performativity of the late twentieth century and the early twenty-frst, is called acting-out, which also involves adopting roles and identities. Rock star David Bowie’s constantly shifting physical appearance in a series of tried-on personae may be taken as an example of such conscious and conspicuous adoption. ‘Camp’ is the celebration of what is deliberately constructed to be famboyant not as a protective shield – Bowie does not hide behind his multiple ‘Bowies’ – but as an opening for imaginary states of being. The instability, transience and androgyny of being are ‘camp’. Transvestite being is also ‘camp’.

Display and cultural evocation This, Wilson’s frst production created in Russia, and with an all-Russian cast which included the conductor and the musicians, comprises fve fairy tales, given here in their performance order: The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish; The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of his Gentle Son the Mighty Knight Gvidon Saltanovich and the Beautiful Swan Princess; The Tale of Medvedikha; The Tale of the Priest and his Worker Balda; The Tale of the Golden Cockerel. It is vital to note that Pushkin, when he used lofty language as he does in these titles, always used it with afectionate irony, since his afection for his creations was always expressed with humour. Pushkin’s humour was of multiple infections and colours, from which Wilson took his cues. Wilson was responsible for the direction as well as the set and light designs and the design of objects, as he usually is. His dramaturg for this project, Roman Dolzhansky from Moscow’s Theatre of Nations, shortened each tale, at Wilson’s behest, so as to foreground its storyline and main narrative steps. Wilson referred to each tale as an Act, indicating by his choice of term that he saw the individual stories as part of a coherent and unifed dramatic structure, which he framed with a prologue and an epilogue. Julia von Leliwa, one of the few collaborators Wilson brought with him from Germany, designed hair and costumes. Manuela Halligan of the Berliner Ensemble was the make-up artist, as she had been for Peter Pan and Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Wilson developed the production with the core group of his team made up of some 20 people, in keeping with his workshop approach. He sketched the impressions that came to him during discussions, according to his habitual storyboard and visual book methods, as detailed in Chapter Two. These sketches instantly show his proposed spatial arrangements and visual proportions. They indicate, as well, often in an abstract or enigmatic manner, the design and/or mood of a scene, or where a character might be in it. Wilson decided right from the start that the prologue and epilogue were for a character whom he named the ‘storyteller’ and whom he envisaged as Pushkin; and he cast the extraordinarily versatile and widely admired actor Yevgeny Mironov, artistic director of the Theatre of Nations, in this role. Just as appears in Wilson’s sketches, Pushkin– Mironov, who opens the production, is perched high, like a bird, on an uneven horizontal triangular shape among several sustaining heavy angles that corresponded to Wilson’s drawing of a tree. Wilson associated Pushkin with a raven, as other of his drawings show, and, as a result, he dressed Mironov in a black coat and tall hat, sitting in a black tree outlined by fuorescent lines of white. Proceeding further by association, Wilson also alludes to the sophisticated and worldly images of Pushkin portrayed during his short lifetime. Wilson’s cultural references are integral to his preparatory work with his team behind the scenes, where they can stay ‘hidden’ from spectators without diminishing the spectators’ perception of the images he ofers them publicly in the theatre. Mironov, with his legs crossed in a dandifed, debonair fashion, takes up his role of the storyteller in a poised but expansive and demonstrative way. 425

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Apart from visualising the stage Pushkin from portraits he had seen, Wilson used numerous other pictures, paintings and photographs to trigger his and his colleagues’ imagination. Among them were Ivan Bilibin’s illustrations of Pushkin’s tales and Bilibin’s designs for the opera The Golden Cockerel by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. Bilibin’s castle for both the opera and the eponymous story that had inspired it is clearly the reference for Wilson’s castle of the ffth tale/ ffth Act of his production. Wilson, however, does not reproduce it exactly. He only alludes to Bilibin’s design, leaving his spectators to guess what his stage image reminds them of, unless, of course, they actually recognise its source. Apart from associating Pushkin’s story with Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera via Bilibin, this image gives the tale a Russian atmosphere and ‘feel’, which grow almost imperceptibly during the course of the performance through an accumulation of similarly culturally specifc images. Some of them are no more than feeting traces of cultural phenomena. Such, for example, are the fsherman’s wife’s few foot movements in the frst tale, which suggest a Russian folk dance, and the snatches of folk song which open the second. The connections Wilson makes with Russian culture through his impressions, insights and reactions during the production’s preparatory phases serve a variety of purposes, not least that of foregrounding the ambivalence or double play of ‘camp’. Pushkin is recognisable from the thick sideburns on Mironov’s face. Yet, at the same time, this image is not immediately familiar because, where Pushkin’s sideburns were black, these sideburns are carrot red – as red as the shock of thick hair sticking out along the top of Pushkin–Mironov’s head and out to its sides. Von Leliwa arranges hair here, as in all fve tales of the production, to look very ‘designed’ – striking but fake and, therefore, unnatural. The priest’s bushy red beard in the fourth tale is also ‘designed’ in this way. Tsar Saltan, in the second tale, sports thickly gelled jet-black spiky hair that any punk rocker might envy. His hair echoes the points on the crown that he suddenly wears to denote his royalty, but it is like a paper party crown rather than a replica of the ‘real’ thing. Then, in the same tale, there is the Tsaritsa’s over-high and heavily lacquered black beehive wig, and Gvidon’s black cupola-like wig with an of-centre twist. Von Leliwa’s elaborate wigs for most of the characters are not meant to illustrate or to fll out ‘character’ but, primarily, to be like objects on display. Inspiration for von Leliwa’s costumes visibly came from sources shared with Wilson. Some of her costumes, while suggestive rather than simulated or reproduced, have cultural resonance, while others, like that of the fsh in the frst tale, are highly stylised. Costumes generally have witty touches, like the fsh’s dress in the shape of a fsh, with its tail swinging to the side to accentuate the joke that this fsh is a woman. Wilson highlights the joke by having a small fsh fy across the stage, undulating rapidly at the moment when, in Pushkin’s story, it disappears under the sea. That the fsh is a woman is beautifully caught in the vision of a woman rising quietly and majestically from beneath the stage–sea to speak to the fsherman. She descends by means of the same mechanism through the stage foor. Both her ascent and descent belong to the world of make-believe and magic, but, equally, they highlight the theatricality that Wilson exploits in the entire production. Tricks like these abound, contributing to the sensation that Pushkin’s Fairy Tales is continually nurtured by variations on variety theatre combined with vaudeville. But the key and the note are given, at the outset, by the very frst thing that the spectators see as they enter the auditorium: a variety-theatre curtain framed by round lights and covered in clusters of glitter that represent stars; and it boldly displays the production’s title in crooked red letters, which are also made with glitter, as a foretaste of what is to come. The curtain rises just after a miniature ship, seemingly attached to it but which, in reality, is pulled along by a string, ‘sails’ into the wings. Concurrently, an equally small fairytale hero in a red jacket and green boots is pulled to the opposite side. Variety devices they may be, but their history lies in the clever stage machinery of baroque 426

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court opera – indeed, in the earliest publicly performed court opera by Monteverdi (1642), The Coronation of Poppea, which Wilson was to stage in Paris in 2014. No sooner does this delightful curtain go up into the fies than Pushkin–Mironov is revealed, perched on a tree and reading from an outsize book. All the dramatis personae enter to loud, jaunty music, one by one, so as to be shown of to the audience. They include the splendid human-size bears, hedgehog, fox and a creature whose round, fat, semi-circular head with tawny hair suggests that it is a lion. These animals belong to the third tale in which this seeming ‘lion’ turns out to be the peasant huntsman who kills the bears in that story, and where the hedgehog’s metallic spikes and the fox’s thick and stif bushy tail are a magnifcent sight. Having been introduced, the protagonists of the fve tales dance about to the abrasive music and then saunter out. This parade of characters is repeated to music at the end of the performance, as happens in variety and related popular theatre and entertainment forms. The resplendent curtain that greets the audience is subsequently replaced by an ordinary black curtain, which is used here and there to ofset a mini-epilogue to a story that has just fnished. The frst tale, for instance, ends with this curtain. The fsherman and his wife, having gained and lost everything, hug each other in front of it, smiling in an excessively sweet way to the audience while a violin, backed by the orchestra, plays the Hollywood-movie song ‘When you are in love’. This mini-epilogue is a deliberate piece of kitsch, reiterated by the fsherman’s overblown wink at the audience as he and his beloved lightly run out into the wings in variety and music hall style. But an unexpected moral to the story is embedded in this kitsch. Instead of being an allegory about greed, which is usually how Pushkin’s tale is interpreted, Wilson’s version of it is a tale about love. The fsherman indulges his wife’s every wish by returning to the wish-granting fsh out of love for her. A similarly happy mini-epilogue ends the fourth tale. Balda, the Simpleton, on whom, willy-nilly, all blessings fall, ends up with a fortune without lifting his fnger. Waving a pouch of coins at the audience, he escapes his pursuers, among whom is his employer the priest, by dancing his way into the wings with the priest’s wife. Over and above the money, she, it is to be inferred, is the jackpot! The comedy generated by such conclusions casts a diferent light, playful rather than grotesque, on the characters’ whitened faces and heavily blackened features. The inventiveness of the latter is manifold as, for example, in emphatically drawn eyebrows (in double rows for the fsherman), circled eyes (especially pronounced circles for the priest), outlined lips and sculpted cheekbones, which are contoured by shadows and similar highlighting techniques. The Tsaritsa in the second tale is generally a humorous fgure, and two symmetrical round red spots on her cheeks recall the face of a clown to reinforce the production’s comic dimensions. Her make-up moves with her expressions – some are grimaces – as happens with the make-up of the characters of all the tales so as to sustain, even at this seemingly less signifcant level, the intended theatricality of the production. Since the actors speak in anything but normal and natural intonations, which are interrupted by shrieks, titters, theatricalised laughter and other exaggerated sounds, the overall efect is one of ‘camp’ dissonance in the fullest sense of the word as defned above. Spoken lines are relatively few, which means that, for much of the time, the actions are silent and more like mime, and they are ofset by the storyteller’s narrative. Occasionally, silent actions, gestures and movements are in counterpoint to his narration. An excellent example of such counterpoint is Pushkin–Mironov’s appearance in the second tale, when he intercedes visually in the heroic action involving Gvidon by driving on to the stage in a 1920s car with large wheels and a horn. The car is made to look as if it was cut out of cardboard (which it is), and Pushkin–Mironov’s feet, which protrude from beneath it, move 427

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it along. The joke about the storyteller ‘driving’ is camped up by the burlesque regal wave of his hand and his white shaggy woman’s coat, pretending to be a fur. The joke here is on gender and cross-dressing. A castle suspended above an island, which foats in the sky, as do numerous objects throughout the production, gives perspective to what would otherwise be a fat picture. Floating as well as suspended objects are to be seen frequently in Wilson’s theatre works. A comparable efect of perspective operates – to give another example – in the fourth tale, where a crooked church gives depth to the picture. The priest’s wife leans asymmetrically in its direction, continuing the perspective. The thin black-and-white slats of the church suggest that it is made of wood, and its crooked slant evokes the wicked witch Baba Yaga’s crooked hut from one of Russia’s most famous folk tales. The purpose of evoking Baba Yaga’s hut, which is perched on chicken’s legs, is not to connect the church and the hut in Wilson’s image and imply some kind of unsavoury link between the two, but simply to keep in view the Russian folk-and-fairy-tale threads that he weaves in and out of the overtly famboyant ‘camp’ strands dominating the production. Wilson pays attention to the smallest of details not only for comic but also for poetic efect. A fne metallic pole serves as the fsherman’s rod. The fsherman’s wife taps her foot in a red shoe, and the same red appears on the sole of Balda’s foot when he leans against a storybook haystack; his legs are crossed to indicate that he is loafng when he is meant to be working. Too lazy to look, Balda misses a white rabbit jumping by – a moment that is caught in a quick snapshot. The two devils whom Balda soon meets are funny and silly-‘cute’ with their pointy ears and bat wings. The squirrel of the second tale suddenly pops up, as if out of nowhere, incongruously holding chopsticks in its paws. A swan in the same tale is an elegant woman in white, holding a swan fgurine in her hand: the object identifes her. Meanwhile, another elliptical scene features a cut-out swan high on one pole, while a cut-out raven appears on a second pole beside it. These are ensigns of the Swan Princess and Pushkin, respectively, and both are run swiftly out into the wings. Several fnely etched trees in the third tale, which are lit in the ‘Wilson blue’ referred to earlier in this book, are a poetical elision of the forest in which Mother Bear Medvedikha and her cubs are killed. Tiny bulbs in the shape of leaves light these trees, also in blue. The killing end of the lion–peasant’s weapon echoes the contours of the branches of these trees, but it also resembles a pitchfork, although an exquisitely stylised one. Tender Medvedikha, whose rounded ear-tips are traced out by fuorescent light, stands with her hands up, impassive in the face of death. Blue-coloured light illuminates many scenes of Pushkin’s Fairy Tales, most often covering the height and width of the stage wall to create various enveloping atmospheres. Intense blue, suggesting a ceremony, foods the prologue for the entries of the hedgehog a nd the fox. The same intense blue at the beginning of the third tale creates the darkness of the forest and the sense of mystery that goes with this kind of darkness. Later in the third tale it washes from one shade of blue into another, creating a sense of the wonder of the forest. Still later, the silhouette in blue of a graceful young woman walks against a swathe of blue across which foat dark shadows that evoke clouds in the sky. Balanced on her head is a long and thin silver spear – a gentle sign of the weapon that killed Medvedikha. Coming straight after Medvedikha’s death, this gliding form suggests, through the processes of elision that circumvent the narrative, that it is Medvedikha’s ghost. For the fsh’s appearance in the frst tale, blue – with a lighter, brighter arch of blue on the horizon and a deeper shade of blue outlining waves – merges sky and sea. A celestial kind of blue in the ffth tale, sufused with soft pearl, announces the Queen of Shemakha. Wilson also uses it to illuminate Tsar Dadon, who is dressed in white from top to toe; his paper imitation crown is white as well. Wave-like strips of blue–purple move horizontally along the stage wall when Balda, standing high on the shape of a tower, encounters the devils, who are cavorting 428

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below him. What starts out as a poetic scene elides into the deliberately artifcial, emphatically play-acted gestures of ‘camp’. The only other light predominant in the production is red, notably in the second tale, where its atmosphere is ‘camp’ grotesque, full of the juxtapositions that defne ‘grotesque’ as understood in this book. The production’s poetic qualities are not sustained throughout, as they were, by contrast, in Les Fables de La Fontaine, Wilson’s frst meeting with the world of children’s/adult tales. The ‘camp’ of the whole overshadows them, with the exception of the third – Medvedikha – tale, which resists the production’s predominant ‘camp’. The variety-theatre beginning of the performance sets its fundamentally ‘camp’ tone, and it is bolstered up by CocoRosie’s raucous music. On occasion, the music ofers satirical vignettes, as happens when a song blares out: ‘I don’t want your money’. This can be interpreted as a comment on Balda’s newly made fortune, but it is difcult to tell with certainty whether the refrain targets the scramble for capital rife in contemporary times. It is just as difcult to know whether the mini-epilogue of Balda’s story has a particular moral about the new money and the newly rich emerging in recent decades in Russia. Nor is it possible to be sure whether the production’s ostentation, to which the splendid but gaudy curtain that greets spectators as they come into the auditorium belongs, is a wink and a nod to them, implying that the newly rich among them will feel at home in this kind of ‘bling’. These and preceding details have indicated that Wilson’s production is far from empty of content or insubstantial. However, its content is refracted by style for which light, for instance, is a major device. As a result, content is indirectly communicated and, moreover, it operates primarily subliminally. It is intended to go into the unconscious rather than to speak to the rational mind. Pushkin’s Fairy Tales is meant, above all, to appeal to the senses, and it is through them that spectators must pass in order to embrace the production. This double play between style and content and show and substance, and also between what is light, or even frivolous, and what is serious is integral to Wilson’s ‘camp’. Pushkin’s Fairy Tales, as the high point of this kind of ‘camp’, plays as great a part as Einstein on the Beach in the numerous innovations of Wilson’s body of work. His has been a life tirelessly dedicated to ‘art’ as he understands it, and in this, too, he will have made an immense contribution to the theatre of the future.

Further reading Appia, Adolphe (1993) Adolphe Appia: Texts on Theatre, ed. Richard C. Beacham, London: Routledge. Aragon, Louis (1971) ‘Lettre Ouverte à André Breton sur Le Regard du Sourd: l’art, la science et la liberté’, Lettres Françaises, 2–8 June, pp. 3 and 15. Arens, Katherine (1991) ‘Robert Wilson: Is Postmodern Performance Possible?’, Theatre Journal 43: 1, pp. 14–40. Aronson, Arnold (2000a) ‘American Theatre in Context: 1945 – Present’ in The Cambridge History of American Theatre, Volume Three: PostWorld War II to the 1990s, ed. Don B. Wilmeth and Christopher Bigsby, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 87–162. ——— (2000b) American Avant-Garde Theatre: A History, London: Routledge. Banes, Sally (1987) Terpischore in Sneakers: Post-Modern Dance, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. ——— (1998) Subversive Expectations: Performance Art and Paratheater in New York, 1976–85, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Brecht, Stefan (1994) The Theatre of Visions: Robert Wilson, London: Methuen. Buckle, Richard and John Taras (1988) George Balanchine: Ballet Master: A Biography, London: Hamilton. Cage, John (1987) Silence: Lectures and Writings, London: Marion Boyars. Caute, David (1988) The Year of the Barricades: A Journey through 1968, New York, and London: Harper & Row. Coe, Robert (1979) ‘Death Destruction and Detroit in Berlin: Robert Wilson’s Tale of Two Cities’, Performance Art 1:1, pp. 3–7.

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Maria Shevtsova Copeland, Roger (2004) Merce Cunningham: The Modernizing of Modern Dance, London, and New York: Routledge. Craig, Edward Gordon (1957) On the Art of the Theatre, London: Heinemann. ——— (1978) On Movement and Dance, ed. Arnold Rood, London: Dance Books. Cunningham, Merce in conversation with Jacqueline Lesschaeve (1991) The Dancer and the Dance, London, and New York: Marion Boyars. Dawn, Dietrich (1992) ‘Space/Time and the Tapestry of Silence: The Quantum Theater of Robert Wilson’, Word & Image 8: 3, pp. 173–82. DuVignal, Philippe (1991) ‘Bob Wilson – passé, présent, futur: interview par Philippe du Vignal’, Art Press 163, pp. 12–18. Eco, Umberto (1993) ‘Robert Wilson and Umberto Eco: A Conversation’, Performing Arts Journal 43: 1, pp. 86–96. Enright, Robert (1994) ‘A Clean, Well-Lighted Grace: An Interview with Robert Wilson’, Border Crossings 13: 2, pp. 14–22. Fairbrother, Trevor (1991) Robert Wilson’s Vision, Boston, MA: Museum of Fine Arts in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers, New York. Flakes, Susan (1976) ‘Robert Wilson’s Einstein On the Beach’, The Drama Review, 20: 4, pp. 69–82. Francis, Richard (1984) Jasper Johns, New York: Abbeville. Friedl, Peter (1982) ‘Une perception autre: entretien avec Bob Wilson’, Théâtre/Public 48, pp. 54–9. Fuchs, Elinor (1986) ‘The PAJ Casebook: Alcestis’, Performing Arts Journal, 10: 1, pp. 80–105. Glass, Philip (1988) Opera on the Beach: Philip Glass on His New World of Music Theatre, London: Faber. Graham, Martha (1991) Blood Memory, London: Macmillan. Grillet, Thierry and Robert Wilson (1992) ‘Wilson selon Wilson’, Theatre/Public 106, pp. 8–13. Gropius, Walter and Arthur S. Wensinger (ed.) (1961) The Theatre of the Bauhaus, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Harris, Mary Emma (1987) The Arts at Black Mountain College, Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press. Heale, M.J. (2001) The Sixties in America: History, Politics and Protest, Keele, UK: Keele University Press. Holmberg, Arthur (1988) ‘A Conversation with Robert Wilson and Heiner Muller’, Modern Drama 31: 3, pp. 454–8. ——— (1996) The Theatre of Robert Wilson, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Howell, John (1985) ‘Forum: What a Legend Becomes’, Artforum International 23, p. 90. Hughes, Robert (1980) The Shock of the New: Art and the Century of Change, London: BBC Books. Huppert, Isabelle (1994) ‘Echanges avec Pierre Soulages et Bob Wilson’, Cahiers du Cinéma 477, pp. 64–8. Ibsen, Henrik (1980) Peer Gynt, trans. Peter Watts, Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books. I La Galigo (2004) [programme book of the production], Milan: Change Performing Arts. Innes, Christopher (1998) Edward Cordon Craig: A Vision of Theatre, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Harwood Academic Publishers. James, Jamie (1996) ‘From Lohengrin to Catherine Deneuve’, Art News 95, pp. 98–102. Jones, Maldwyn A. (1995) The Limits of Liberty: American History 1607–1992, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kaprow, Allan (1966) Assemblage, Environments and Happenings, New York: Harry N. Abrams. ——— (1967) ‘“Happenings” in the New York Scene’ in The Modern American Theater: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Alvin B. Kernan, Englewood Clifs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, pp. 121–30. Kirstein, Lincoln (ed.) (1984) Portrait of Mr B, New York: The Viking Press. Kristeva, Julia (1994) ‘Robert Wilson’, Art Press 191, pp. 64–5. Langton, Basil (1973) ‘Journey to Ka Mountain’, The Drama Review 17: 2, pp. 48–57. Lawrence, Greg (2002) Dance with Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins, New York: Berkley Books. Lesschaeve, Jacqueline (1977) ‘Robert Wilson: résponses’, Tel Quel 71/73, pp. 217–25. Letzler Cole, Susan (1992) Directors in Rehearsal: A Hidden World, New York: Routledge. Marranca, Bonnie (ed.) (1996) The Theatre of Images, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Maurin, Frederic (2001) ‘Au Péril de la beauté: la chair du visuel et le cristal de la forme chez Robert Wilson’ in Les Voies de la Création Théâtrale, ed. Béatrice Picon-Vallin, vol. XXI, Paris: CNRS Editions, pp. 49–69. Meyerhold, Vsevolod (1998) Meyerhold on Theatre, ed. Edward Braun, London: Methuen. Morey, Miguel and Carmen Pardo (2003) Robert Wilson, Barcelona, Spain: Ediciones Poligrafa. Owens, Craig (1978) ‘Einstein on the Beach: The Primacy of Metaphor’, October, Fall, pp. 21–32. Poling, Clark V. (1986) Kandinsky’s Teaching at the Bauhaus: Color Theory and Analytical Drawing, New York: Rizzoli .

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Wilson (1941–) Quadri, Franco (2004) ‘The Complete Enchantment’, I La Galigo, Milan: Change Performing Arts, pp. 69–71. Quadri, Franco, Franco Bertoni and Robert Stearns (1997) Robert Wilson, Paris, France: Editions Plume. Sayre, Henry M. (1989) The Object of Performance: The American Avant-Garde Since 1970, Chicago, IL, and London: University of Chicago Press. Scanlan, Robert (1995) ‘Post-Modern Time and Place: Wilson/Müller Intersections’, Art & Design 10, pp. 76–81. Scarpetta, Guy (1978) ‘Bob Wilson. I Was Sitting on My Patio This Guy Appeared I Thought I Was Hallucinating’, Art Press International 53, pp 30–1. Schechner, Richard (2003) ‘Robert Wilson and Fred Newman. A Dialogue on Politics and Therapy, Stillness and Vaudeville’, The Drama Review 47: 3, pp. 113–28 . Shakespeare, William (2005) The Winter’s Tale, ed. J.H.P. Paford, London: The Arden Shakespeare. Shank, Theodore (2002) Beyond the Boundaries: American Alternative Theatre, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Shevtsova, Maria (1995a) ‘Of “Butterfy” and Men: Robert Wilson Directs Diana Soviero at the Paris Opera’, New Theatre Quarterly 11: 41, pp. 3–16 . ——— (1995b) ‘Isabelle Huppert Becomes Orlando’, Theatre Forum 6, pp. 69–75 . ——— (1996) ‘A Theatre that Speaks to Citizens: Interview with Ariane Mnouchkine’, Western European Stages 7: 3, pp. 5–12. ——— (1998a) ‘La Maladie de la mort’, Dance Theatre Journal 14: 1, pp. 31–3 . ——— (1998b) ‘Lucinda Childs and Robert Wilson: La Maladie de la mort and Interview with Lucinda Childs’, Western European Stages 10: 2, pp. 15–24. ——— (2001) ‘From Swan to Seagull: Modernism in Chekhov and Robert Wilson: in Matters of the Mind: Poems, Essays and Interviews in Honour of Leonie Kramer, ed. Lee Jobling and Catherine Runcie, Sydney, Australia: University of Sydney Press, pp. 165–175. ——— (2004) Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance, London: Routledge. ——— (2007) Maria Shevtsova in Conversation with Ann-Christin Rommen, ‘Experiencing the Movement: Working with Robert Wilson’, New Theatre Quarterly 23: 1, pp. 58–66. ——— (2011) ‘White and Black Magic: Robert Wilson’s Einstein on the Beach and The Black Rider’ in Subjekt: Theater. Beltrage zur analytischen Theatralität: Festschrift fur Helga Finter, eds. Petra Bolte-Picker and Gerald Siegmund, Berlin, Germany: Peter Lang, pp. 245–57. ——— (2016) ‘Robert Wilson’ in The Routledge Companion to Designers’ Shakespeare, eds. John Russell Brown and Stephen DiBenedetto, London, and New York: Routledge, pp. 118–36. Shyer, Laurence (1985) ‘Robert Wilson: The CIVIL warS and After’, Theater 16: 3, pp. 72–80. ——— (1989) Robert Wilson and His Collaborators, New York: Theatre Communications Group. Simmer, Bill (1976) ‘Robert Wilson and Therapy’, The Drama Review 20: 1, pp . 99–110. Sontag, Susan (1994) Against Interpretation, London: Vintage. Stearns, Robert (ed.) (1984) Robert Wilson: The Theater of Images, New York: Harper and Row. Stein, Gertrude (1970) Selected Operas and Plays of Gertrude Stein, ed. John Malcolm Brinnin, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Steiner, Rudolf (1971) Colour, trans. John Salter, London: Rudolf Steiner Press. Teschke, Holger (1999) ‘Brecht’s Learning Plays – a Dance Floor for an Epic Dramaturgy. A Rehearsal Report on Robert Wilson’s Ozeanfug at the Berliner Ensemble’, trans. Joe Compton, Theatre Forum 14, pp. 10–16. Trilling, Ossia (1973) ‘Robert Wilson’s Ka Mountain and Guardenia Terrace’, The Drama Review 17: 2, pp. 33–47. Tytell, John (1997) The Living Theatre: Art, Exile, and Outrage, London: Methuen. Vanden Heuvel, Michael (1993) Performing Drama/Dramatizing Performance: Alternative Theater and the Dramatic Text, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Whitford, Frank (1984) Bauhaus, London: Thames and Hudson. Wilmeth, Don B. and Christopher Bigsby (eds) (2002) The Cambridge History of American Theatre, Volume Three: Post-World War II to the 1990s, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilson, Robert (1977a) ‘A Letter for Queen Victoria’ in The Theatre of Images, ed. Bonnie Marranca, Baltimore, MD, and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 50–109. ——— (1977b) ‘. . . I thought I was hallucinating’, The Drama Review 21: 4, pp. 75–8. ——— (1979) ‘I Was Sitting on My Patio This Guy Appeared I Thought I Was Hallucinating’, Performing Arts Journal 4, pp. 200–18. ——— (1992) ‘A propos de Dr Faustus Lights the Lights’, Theatre/Public 106, pp. 54–60.

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Maria Shevtsova ——— (1997) Preface to Strehler dirige: Le tesi di un allestimento e l’impulso musicale nel teatro, ed. Giancarlo Stampalia, Venice, Italy: Marsilio Editori, pp. 11–16. ——— (2002) ‘Robert Wilson: Interview’, The Twentieth Century Performance Reader, ed. Michael Huxley and Noel Witts, London, and New York: Routledge, pp. 420–33 . ——— (2005) ‘Bob Wilson and The Ring: Painting with Light’ [Interview with Franck Mallet], Art Press 316, pp. 47–51.

Videography Brookner, Howard (1985) Robert Wilson and the CIVIL warS, Aspekt Teleflm-Produktion. Brookner, Howard and Charles Chabot (1985) The Theatre of Robert Wilson, BBC. Figgis, Mike (1998) H.G.: Robert Wilson and Hans-Peter Kuhn in London, 1895–1985, Artangel. Kessel, Marion (1992–93) Robert Wilson x 2 +: Visions of Robert Wilson, Arts Alive Productions. ——— (1995) The Making of a Monologue. Robert Wilson’s Hamlet, Arts Alive/Caddell and Conwell Foundation for the Arts. Obenhaus, Mark (1985) Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera, Obenhaus Films/Brooklyn Academy of Music. Pegram, Lorna (1980) The Shock of the New, 7, Culture as Nature, BBC/RM Arts.

DVD Otto, Katharina (2006) Absolute Wilson, ArtHaus.

Discography Glass, Philip and Robert Wilson (1979) Einstein on the Beach, CBS Masterworks. Glass, Philip, Robert Wilson and Maita di Niscemi (1999) The CIVIL warS: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down, Act V – The Rome Section, Nonesuch. Waits, Tom (1993) The Black Rider, Island Records Inc. ——— (2002) Blood Money [lyrics for Woyzeck], Anti Inc.

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20 ABRAMOVIĆ (1946–) Mary Richards

20.1

Biography and context

Beginnings in the Balkans Marina Abramović has frequently been described as the ‘grandmother’ of performance art, although there remains a question as to whether there are other artists such as Gina Pane (1939– 1990) or Rachel Rosenthal (1926–2015) who are more deserving of this accolade. However, neither Pane nor Rosenthal were ever described as the “the world’s greatest living performance artist” (Harper’s Bazaar, 1 November 2013) or the “best known performance artist in the world” (The Guardian, 16 August 2017) or even “Performance Art Diva” (Art in America, 16 December 2013). There are, too, more pejorative descriptions, which express something of the increased ambivalence art critics and fans have towards Abramović this century. For although Abramović’s visibility has increased considerably in the last two decades, she has experienced an extraordinary level of media attention since the MOMA exhibition in 2010. Since that time she has increasingly been framed as a celebrity fgure, in part because her circle of friends and acquaintances include various mainstream media celebrities such as Willem Dafoe, Lady Gaga, David Blaine, Jay-Z, and Debbie Harry, and in part because a number of her performance works have been interpreted as being primarily concerned with promoting Abramović as an art icon, and her work and legacy as marketable commodities. Abramović reached the age of 73 years in November 2018; however, her illustrious career began in the 1960s. She continues to work on a wide range of projects, as well as infuence and inspire thousands of others through a multitude of media platforms, exhibitions, video and flms. At the same time, and particularly (but far from exclusively) since her performance of The Artist is Present at MOMA in 2010, she has been at the centre of a number of controversies, as well as subject to extensive and often vitriolic criticism. As an artist, a performer and artists’ mentor, her infuence has been both extensive and remarkable; her extraordinary and demanding approach to art-making resonating with her own, as well as a new generation of artists. Over the last fve decades, however, her work has undergone a number of transformations that mirror the evolution of her own existence as both an artist and as a person. Born in Montenegro in November 1946, her childhood in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, living under the leadership of the paternalistic dictator Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980), 433

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has been a signifcant factor in her early, as well as her more recent performances. Her parents both rejected the Christian Orthodox religion into which they were born even though Abramović’s great-uncle Varnava Rosić was a patriarch (and martyr) of the Serbian Orthodox church and her grandmother Milica, with whom Abramović spent the frst six years of her life, was a devout Christian who frequently took the impressionable Abramović to Orthodox services. Both her parents, her father a Montenegrin and her mother a Serb, were communist partisans and as such took part in the National Liberation War (1941–1945), supporting an army headed by Tito. They were part of a guerrilla movement that fought against Croatian fascists. Although the partisans were victorious with the aid of the Red Army, and Abramović’s father, General Vojo Abramović, was considered a hero of the Resistance, both Abramović’s parents were greatly afected by the dreadful sufering they personally witnessed during this time. Abramović drew upon her parents’ testimony for the making of Balkan Baroque (1997). Abramović’s mother Danica Abramović (née Rosić), originally a medical student, found that her terrible experiences deterred her from continuing her studies. Instead she opted to pursue the visual arts, studying art history and becoming the Director of the Museum of Art and Revolution of Yugoslavia in Belgrade. Vojo Abramović continued to work for the Yugoslav Air Force after the end of the war. He actively encouraged Marina to embrace the physical demands of military style exercise regimes, whereas Danica wanted her daughter to excel in the more genteel arena of Frenchlanguage learning. Abramović’s upbringing played out against a backdrop that was coloured by the memories her parents had of the war’s inhumanity. She claims that she always knew that she would be an artist. “It was a necessity . . . the only way I could function in this world” (MacRitchie, 1996: 29). Abramović grew up during a time of extraordinary change. Yugoslavia enjoyed an unusual position for a communist nation, in as much as its citizens were allowed relative freedom of movement and could work in the West. This uncharacteristic fexibility and openness was due to the special relationship Yugoslavia had with the United States and the (former) Soviet Union which was partly a result of Yugoslavia’s strategic position between East and West and partly because Yugoslavia was not liberated by the Soviets or the United States and therefore did not have to align itself with either. The very fact that Abramović was able to carry out performances in public spaces like those of her Rhythm series (1973–1974) without being arrested, is testament to a degree of freedom of expression rarely found elsewhere in Eastern Bloc countries. However, that is not to say that all artists enjoyed complete freedom of expression. Abramović, as a woman, may have been seen as less of a threat or perhaps it may be that Abramović was less of a target because her mother was an art historian as well a museum director. Indeed, Abramović had the privilege of attending every Venice Biennial since she was 12 years old and could move between Yugoslavia and Western Europe with comparative ease “[a]s travel on a Yugoslav passport was easy at the time” (Janković, 2013: 23). Olivera Janković also notes that “. . . visits abroad meant that art lovers at home were well acquainted with the international character of the avant-garde and the similarity of problems faced by young people the world over.” Belgrade hosted the Belgrade International Theatre Festival (founded in 1967), the Film Festival (1971), the Art Festival and a festival of new media known as The April Encounters which featured the latest productions and some of the most outstanding fgures of the art world. (Janković, 2013: 23) Indeed, Gina Pane performed Life, Death, Dream at the 1972 April Encounter, a performance which is bound to have made an impression on Abramović, with Pane’s action of eating and then vomiting raw meat eradicating the distance between a representational gesture and 434

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a real physiological process taking place. So although Abramović has frequently given the impression that her primary sources of information and understanding of performance events outside Yugoslavia was through photocopied images, a few pirated videos, and the word-ofmouth accounts of people who had seen or professed to have seen the original event, it is clear that in the early 1970s Belgrade was a signifcant host of international art events which Abramović and/or other members of the “group of six” (discussed below) would have had access and exposure. Both Danica and Vojo Abramović originally believed in the ideals of a socialist Yugoslavia because they believed this was the only way to a classless society. The young Marina and her brother Velimir, like other children of this period, wore the red scarf of Tito’s young pioneers for state-organised public performances on ofcial holidays like May Day; often large scale, highly visible demonstrations of unity and hope. In practice, however, the socialist ideals espoused by the state had their limits and Abramović and other young people and artists were often more concerned with these limitations than the possibilities of the regime. As a young teenager, Abramović frst gained a sense of the rising tide of change when Branko (Filo) Filipović, an artist friend of her father employed to give Abramović art classes, gave her a lesson she would never forget. This Art Informel artist who had studied in Paris placed a canvas on the foor, covered it in glue, pigment and sand. Gasoline was added so that he could then set the whole thing on fre. Abramović reports him saying “This is sunset” and then leaving (Kaplan, 1999: 17). This experience became important to Abramović because for her it demonstrated that the process of art-making was more important than the product; an idea that can be traced to Yves Klein’s privileging of process over product. Her teenage years were marked by the need to defne herself and her own space. This is exemplifed in her decision to collect dozens of tins of brown shoe polish, with the idea of transforming her bedroom. She smeared her entire room, including the windows, with the dirt brown contents so that her mother would not want to enter the space and would leave her in peace (Warr, 1995: 12). At 16, inspired by the planes of the Yugoslavian army fying across the sky, she embarrassed her father by asking to borrow 15 aircraft from a military base where he worked, in order to create sky paintings with the dissipating clouds of their exhaust (McEvilley in Abramović et al., 1998: 15). Again this concept for a cloud piece appears to be related to the idea of transitory, process-emphasised art production. During the early part of her career she was trained, as all young artists were, in the International Modernist style condoned by the state and consequently prevalent at the time. But the young Abramović was fascinated by the urgency and intensity of life-threatening situations and in an efort to fnd compelling subject matter for her work sought out the scenes of accidents that could correspond with her desire to convey strong emotion. The results can be seen in the Truck Accident oil paintings of 1963.

Revolutionary fervour This explosion was provoked by groups in revolt against modern technical and consumer society, whether it be the communism of the East or the capitalism of the West. They are groups, moreover, which have no idea what they would replace it with, but who delight in negation, destruction, violence, anarchy and who brandish the black fag. (General Charles de Gaulle, television interview by Michel Droit, 7 June 1968)

The year 1968 is singled out in Europe and the United States as a year of unprecedented large-scale uprisings and public expressions of dissatisfaction. This was a response to what was 435

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understood to be the overarching powers of capitalist economics, the war in Vietnam and a pervasive liberalism that was felt, by students particularly, to arrest the ability to take up radical ideas and alternatives in society. A great many artists in the West found themselves caught up in the impact and subsequent shockwaves of what had seemed, particularly for young people, to be something verging on the edge of a socio-cultural revolution that crossed national borders and continents. Abramović, too, was involved in Yugoslavian student demonstrations and what she called “political disappointments”, something she notes in her Biography (1992–1993, 1995, 1998) performances. (Abramović, 1994: 12) However, as Bojana Pejić notes, within the context of art, this sense of, and desire for socio-cultural change and re-making was, as with some artists in the West, a rejection of Modernism’s conception of art and of the perception of the artist as merely a maker of art objects. Pejić points out that the artist of the 1968 generation in Yugoslavia understood her/himself: Either as a ‘martyr’ who sufers because of the political system; or as an a-social genius acquainted with the mysteries of ‘creation’, or again as a bohemian ‘in revolt’ (and usually drunk). (Pejić in Meschede, 1993: 33) Abramović, as a part of this generation, not only refects this revolutionary attitude in her approach to art-making but she was also a leading member of the student struggle to achieve certain freedoms under the regime. This was not a rejection of socialism but a desire to gain certain provisions exemplifed in the requests made to Tito that came to be known as the Thirteen Freedoms. The requested provisions included such things as a multi-party system, better food and freedom of the Press. Abramović, believed in the regime and in fact held the position of student leader of the Party cadre in Belgrade, but when the students went on strike in an attempt to achieve the Thirteen Freedoms the state reacted with anger calling in the riot police. Only three of the Freedoms were granted; one of which was an ofcial agreement to set up Student Cultural Centres. It was following this disappointment that Abramović burnt her Party membership card. Later Abramović stated: “all my work in Yugoslavia was very much about rebellion”, and she includes a revolt against the family structure as well as the state and systems of art in this” (Abramović et al., 1998: 16). A Student Cultural Centre (SKC) was established in Belgrade in April 1971 after the student protests of 1968. One of the most famous of the protests in Eastern Europe was the Red Peristil (1968); an action in which the entire square inside the Diocletian Palace in Split was painted red by four authors; Pave Dulčić, Slaven Sumić, Radovan Kogelj and Dena Dokić. The action was a protest against totalitarianism. (IRWIN, 2006: 39) The setting up of the SKC which was founded by Belgrade University as “a professional institution modelled on the London Institute for Contemporary Art” (Janković, 2013: 27), was an attempt to difuse some of the growing sense of frustration amongst young people with the authoritarianism and failures of the socialist system. Fractures between various ethnic groups were also emerging and the centre provided an experimental site where students could express some of their concerns in an alternative venue. Marina Abramović was one of a loosely connected group of artists asked to contribute to the centre’s programme. Zoran Popović, another member of this informal group, later described the situation in 1989 in an interview with Ješa Denegri “as a generation emerging on the art scene, we found ourselves between two ostensibly opposed thoughts that were both socially established” (Dimitrijević, 2004: 6). These were: that art under socialism had the obligation to beneft society while at the same time it felt it should be questioning basic artistic principles, as was happening 436

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in Western Europe and the United States. This signalled the beginning of an interest in bringing together art and politics in ways that questioned the role of artists and included a concern with blurring the distinctions between art and life. The art establishment was an obvious target for this disapprobation; in particular the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade. It was at the SKC that Abramović became afliated with fve other artists who collectively were referred to as the ‘group of six’: Neša Parapović, Raša Todosijević, Zoran Popović, Gergelj Urkom and Slobodan Era Milivojević. The group met regularly on Wednesdays to discuss contemporary practices particularly art practice’s relationship with new forms of media. Although they were not entirely homogeneous in their views, they shared the wish to break with the models taught to them at the Academy of Fine Arts. Instead, they favoured the “New Art Practice”; a broad term used by art critics to describe the many forms of ‘new art’ that emerged after 1968. This included conceptual art, body art, land art, video art and performance. These artists, although they never formed a distinctive group, also shared an opposition to social realist art, formalist aesthetics and the anti-intellectualism, which were all components of the dominant and ofcially authorised style of art in Yugoslavia during this period. It was these artists that presented art “swaying between idealisation and alienation, criticism, irony and aggression” (Becker in IRWIN, 2006: 394). And so it was that in 1970, Abramović, and other members of the group of six, were asked by the curator Dunja Blažević, to bring something to the SKC gallery that inspired them to make art. The objects chosen, while not artworks in themselves, were displayed as the exhibition Drangularijum [Trinketarium] (Serbian for ‘little things’). Todosijević brought his girlfriend Marinela Koželj, who remained ‘on display’ on a chair throughout the show. Gergelj Urkom brought an old blanket because he always slept in his studio before working. Another member of the group, possibly Popović, brought the door to his studio because in coming through this door he entered a diferent space that allowed his creativity to emerge. Abramović chose to bring three objects; two peanuts and a black sheepskin, which she attached to the wall, naming the work The Cloud with its Shadow (Abramović in Stiles, 2008: 11). It was this group of artists who in producing ground-breaking work challenged the perceptions of the Yugoslavian public who were completely unaccustomed to the sorts of interpretative enigma posed by works that exceeded the conventionally framed and hung image. In this respect, this time and place (the SKC) was formatively of huge importance for Abramović as artistic and political ideas were shared and discussed amongst these artists in a fuid, creative and spontaneous way. Furthermore, Abramović as the only woman, likens the experience to “being the frst woman walking on the moon” and recalls that “there was a kind of purity and innocence about it” (Abramović with Kontova, 2007: 103) inasmuch as she, like the other artists involved with the SKC, were all in a process of becoming and nothing seemed set in stone.

Risk Experiments in sound were another feature of Abramović’s explorations in the early 1970s. These were notably provocative and/or confrontational with Zvučni ambijent rat (Sound Corridor War) in 1971 at the Muzej Savremene Umetnosi (MSU), consisting of a passageway through which the spectator would pass as very loud machine gun-like sound would play. The Airport (1972) was installed in the SKC, where an ofcial sounding voice announced that passengers for fights departing to Hong Kong, Tokyo and Bangkok should make their way to gate 343. Travel from Yugoslavia to such exotic destinations was more difcult/expensive than travel to European destinations at this time so these instructions were an ironic commentary. In reality the airport had only four gates, nothing close to the number Abramović referred to, further emphasising the limited possibilities for Yugoslav citizens of the time. However, and as noted previously, 437

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in contrast to artists in Warsaw Pact countries, from the early 1960s Yugoslavian artists were permitted to travel unsupervised, for the purposes of education or to participate in art events and conferences (Becker in IRWIN, 2006: 391). On another occasion, and rather more provocatively, Abramović recalls that she had wanted to play the sound of a building collapsing on a Belgrade bridge but that the council forbade her from doing so. In response she installed speakers in her own apartment building to play the tape, and thus gained a suitably distressed response from the residents who reportedly were “rushing out into the street, freaking out everywhere” (O’Hagan, 2010). This action reveals a fascination with the forces of destruction, and the desire to elicit a reaction from a public forced to confront her work in the course of their daily routine. So even as a young artist, Abramović’s desires in art-making were radical, uncompromising and process-based. She soon came to feel that “art was a kind of question between life and death” (Abramović et al., 1998: 15). She even proposed, to a number of institutions, a performance piece that had death as a possible outcome (i.e. Untitled Proposal for the Galereija Doma Omladine, Belgrade, 1970). A childhood condition Abramović names as hemoravia (or haemorrhagia) – a condition having parallels with haemophilia – meant that she would bleed for a prolonged period of time if she was cut or a tooth came out. She spent an extended period of time in hospital but after a year doctors decided it wasn’t haemophilia, a diagnosis which she found disappointing (Abramović with Obrist, 2008: 15). It meant, however, that as a young child she was fearful of blood and associated it with death and dying (Heathfeld, 2004: 149–150). Abramović has stated that self-cutting, such as that used in her early work Lips of Thomas (a.k.a. Thomas’s Lips) (1975), was primarily about attempting to liberate herself from her fear of blood and bleeding. However, in addition to the abreacting of personal traumas the desire to shock her viewers was defnitely, if perhaps unconsciously, part of her agenda, as she rebelled against socio-familial constraints and dictates. This understanding of the artist as someone who should be virtually boundless and provocative may be seen as an infuential factor in her development of performances that involved physical risk. Deborah Lupton draws upon the ground-breaking work of Mary Douglas’s Purity and Danger when she writes in her book Risk that, when activities or persons are classifed as a or at risk, it is usually in order to preserve social and moral boundaries diferentiating “polluting people” that need to be retained at the periphery, from the ‘area’ of implied safety located at the ‘centre’ of society (Lupton, 1999: 49). In this early period of performance, up to 1975, Abramović seemed chiefy concerned with expressing herself through her art in ways that used ‘risk’ rather than what some have described as masochistic actions. Abramović may have wished at this time to strip away the protective surfaces that we use to create comfort and to shield ourselves from physical pain, discomfort or acute awareness of our mortality. What Abramović did in these early performances was publicly challenge our understanding of what constituted an acceptable risk, in this way she intended to confront us with our physical complacency, our disembodied nature and demonstrate the ways in which pain has become a taboo region of experience in modern society. By placing herself at risk she becomes a potential source of ‘pollution’ situating her work at the margins of what is culturally acceptable. However, Abramović was not alone in her desire to use risky actions. Many others were taking risks as they sought wide reaching change; on the other side of the ‘iron curtain’ the changing attitudes and direct actions of large numbers of young people were sending shock waves across all of Europe. The SKC was a focal point for artistic exchange and a meeting place for those artists coming from abroad and Abramović was a central player, producing her sound installations as well as performing Rhythm 5 (1974) and Freeing the Voice (1975). But this radical activity came at considerable personal cost and was something that continued to contribute to 438

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confict at home. “[H]er artistic engagement was causing serious problems for the family, who were bluntly criticised at party meetings” (Janković, 2013: 109) Even when Abramović was undertaking her well-known Rhythm series of performances, she was still living at home under her mother’s rules; Marina’s father left her mother when Marina was 18 years old. After carrying out her extraordinary work, she would still be expected to arrive home before her 10 o’clock curfew; a curfew her mother imposed until she was 29 years old. This can be understood as Danica Abramović’s attempt to carry out her duty to the Party by maintaining discipline at home despite Vojo Abramović’s absence. In spite of this type of familial constraint, Abramović did spend some time abroad with the group of six. They had received an invitation from Richard Demarco who, well known for his association with the Edinburgh Festival, was very interested in the work they were producing. However, the state would not provide money for this travel. Instead, the artists raised it and came to the United Kingdom for a number of months. In order to survive this period, Abramović worked for a time for the Post Ofce in England. However, this job did not last long as Abramović only delivered the hand-written letters – believing that the formality of the typewritten ones could only mean bad news. During this time she also designed wallpaper for the dining room of a luxury boat, made menus for a French restaurant, and packed toys in a toy factory. However, Danica Abramović, who wanted her daughter back in Yugoslavia, sent of a job application for Marina so that she could get a job teaching back home. Abramović returned and got a job teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts in nearby Novi Sad. She continued to teach there for two years until 1975. At the same time she continued to develop her own work. However, the work she created at this time did not allow for the usual objective distance conventionally observed between the performer and audience. Instead she demanded a more intense and emotional response from spectators who sometimes found themselves active participants in ways they could not have anticipated. Indeed, Abramović deliberately played along the edges of her own and her audience’s boundaries, testing the limits of both. Each performance – Rhythm 10, Rhythm 2, Rhythm 4, Rhythm 5 and Rhythm 0 – emerged from, or was in some way linked to, Abramović’s previous experiments with sound. The frst of the series, Rhythm 10, evolved after watching a performance of Joseph Beuys called Celtic (Kinloch Rannoch) Scottish Symphony in Edinburgh in 1970 and coming to the realisation that there was something in Beuys’s work that was not theatre or conventional art, but that had a power Abramović found compelling (Abramović et al., 2007: 14). At the time Abramović made the frst Rhythm performance – Rhythm 10, she had little idea of how to defne what it was she was doing. The repeated and rhythmic use of knifes at the core of the performance and its tertiary structure did indeed work as an exploration of sound but it was also much more than this as will be expanded upon in Section 20.2, ‘Key works’, when all fve of the Rhythm performances will be examined. In 1975, after the completion of the Rhythm series, Abramović made a number of extraordinary works that again pushed physical and psychological limits. It was in 1975 that she became more aware of what was happening on the western performance art scene where body-based artists like Vito Acconci, Gina Pane, Chris Burden, Charlesmagne Palestine and Yvonne Rainer had already challenged audiences with their unconventional oferings. Warm Cold (1975) performed in October at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh has some parallels with Gina Pane’s The Conditioning, First Action of Self-portrait(s) (1973) in which Pane lay on a metal frame with 18 lit candles beneath her, exposing herself to intense heat. Originally, Abramović proposed that she would lie naked on a bed made of ice with electric heaters suspended above her, so that her head, chest, stomach, genitals and feet were all heated. However, the proposal was refused by the Musée d’Art Moderne who stated: “We don’t want water in 439

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the Museum” (Abramović, 1 998: 9 8). Instead, Abramović simplifed the performance retaining the ice but having it placed on a table with a pane of glass on top. Abramović did not lie on the ice, but smashed her hand down on the glass in order to break it. She then left her hand on the broken glass and ice until spectators stopped the performance. This compromise was clearly not enough to satisfy Abramović, who retained the idea of an ice bed and used it in her Lips of Thomas (1975) performance. This two-hour performance was a marathon of endurance for audience and performer alike. Lips of Thomas is a performance which appears heavy with symbolism. The title alone has elicited a number of interpretations. For instance, within Christianity, Thomas is the one disciple who requires evidence (i.e. he lacks faith) and Christ allows him to touch the raw wounds of his crucifxion so that Thomas can verify their reality. In Abramović’s performance the audience witnesses the reality of her wounds. The performance moves through a number of stages including one where she draws a pentagram on the wall behind her, another where she sits and eats a kilo of honey, before drinking a litre of red wine. These latter actions of over-indulgence in conventionally pleasurable substances preludes actions of self-directed violence. Wine and honey, however, can also be interpreted in terms of Christian communion as the body and blood of Christ. During the socialist era in Yugoslavia, the overt practices of the Orthodox Christian faith were repressed, as was any religious practice. However, in Abramović’s 2016 biography Walk Through Walls, she admits that the title of the performance refers to a Swiss artist who was called Thomas Lips, and with whom Abramović had a “brief fing” (Abramović, 2016: 74). This undercuts any reading of the presence of honey and wine as symbolic substances, the action of self-fagellation and her ‘submission’ to the cross of ice as linked to the story of Christ’s crucifxion. Instead, and as Nikola Pešic has contended, the performance might more accurately be interpreted as something of an occult ritual, drawing from Abramović’s interest in the ideas of esoteric writers. Pešic suggests that Živorad Mihailović Slavinski’s book The Keys of Psychic Magic, with its references to the pentagram and cross as symbols of ritual magic rather than Christianity, informed Abramović’s work; in this case, within the framework of a work designed to seduce a Swiss artist. However, what appears to be confrmed by the re-performance of Lips of Thomas in Seven Easy Pieces (2005) are references to the socialist symbolism of the former Yugoslavia: the crystal glass Abramović drank out of is broken with her hand before she takes a razor blade to her stomach to cut a fve-pointed star or petrokraka. The bleeding star, while it might once have referenced Slavinski-style ritual practice, in re-performance instantiated socialism’s psychological and physical markings on the body: the red star the dominant symbol of Yugoslavian communism for decades. However, Abramović did not stop here; she took a whip and whipped herself until she could no longer feel. At this point, a cruciform ice bed already laid out on stage became Abramović’s resting place. The heat from the radiator above her now supine form caused the blood from her wounds to fow. It was only when audience members, worried by the extended period of time she remained on the ice, came and removed the ice from beneath her that the performance ended. This performance was frst performed in Innsbruck, Austria but, as mentioned above, it also featured with entirely diferent infections, as one of Abramović’s re-performances in 2005. If Lips of Thomas was on some level a critique of socialism’s oppressions then it did not stand alone. Other Yugoslav artists also used body-based performances to challenge the status quo of both art and the socialist regime. Raša Todosijević, for example, in his Drinking Water – Inversions, Imitations and Contrast presented a diferent sort of body in pain. His performance, which lasted 35 minutes, began with Todosijević pulling a large fsh from an aquarium. He then tossed the fsh onto the ground in front of the audience who then watched the struggling fsh gasp the unnatural air that now surrounded it. As the fsh’s ability to resist its surroundings diminished, its 440

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movements became less frantic and more rhythmic. At this point Todosijević, co-ordinating his own actions with the spasms of the dying fsh, began drinking glass after glass of water as the fsh simultaneously ‘drowned’ in air. Todosijević, reaching beyond his physical capacity to contain the water he continued to drink, vomited onto a white sheet he had placed on a table nearby. Under the sheet Todosijević had sprinkled a pigment that turned purple when the vomited water mixed with it. He said: “My plan was to stop the performance as soon as the sheet became saturated with the purple dye due to the outpouring of water” (Becker in IRWIN, 2006: 395). This performance, in common with Abramović’s, refected something of the sense of frustration and constriction the new generation of artists felt living under what was increasingly seen as an outmoded regime. With the introduction of a new constitution in 1974, the Yugoslav Federation was attempting to respond to many of the economic and social changes that had occurred. The new generation greeted this constitution with considerable interest but that is not to say that artists, critics or people in general were in agreement over the way forward. It did however: . . . extend the independence of the individual Republics and re-regulated their relationship to central government, converting the structure of the State from a federation to a confederation . . . It further defned the common notion of socialist self-management, which guaranteed the involvement of the Party in decision making and political matters as well as in areas of industrial, agricultural and cultural management. (Becker in IRWIN, 2006: 396) Artists, however, were still left with the unresolved issue of how to negotiate the contrasting needs and desires of the individual and the collective.

Relations and relationships A performance that on frst appearance appears as a departure from the sorts of painfully physical explorations Abramović engaged in is the work Role Exchange (1975). However, it is soon apparent that while Role Exchange involved no overt wounding, it enacts an erasure of the ego that is just as cutting as some of her earlier work. For Role Exchange Abramović swapped places with a woman (S.J.) who worked as a prostitute in Amsterdam. For four hours, Abramović occupies S.J.’s window space in the Red Light district, waiting for and dealing with customers as and when they arrived. Meanwhile, S.J. went to the Galerie De Appel where Abramović had an exhibition opening, to play her part as Abramović. Abramović commented on the piece: I was interested in the idea of the windows and the brothel spaces themselves as well as the moral aspects of the architectural space. I was sitting there with everyone looking at me, violently crushing my ego down to zero. (Novakov, 2003: 32) The idea of subsuming the ego continues to be an important aspect of Abramović’s performance practice. It in some ways mirrors the shamanic concerns of certain types of yogic practice outlined in a Sanskrit text the Pasupata Sutra; the principal text of the Siva Pasupata sect attributed to Lakulisa, a mysterious person described as a Brahmin (McEvilley, 2002: 225). The intention of this practice is that the practitioner should carry out inappropriate and potentially destructive behaviours that damage one’s self-image sufciently that the ego is all but efaced. 441

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Through the process the individual is freed from social constraints and thus “lies happy, free of all attachment” (McEvilley, 2002: 226). In societies where such customs are practised, these shamans serve the community by becoming the legitimate focus of afiction; absorbing and removing social detritus. In the context of a performance action, selling oneself as a sexual commodity in a way that is conventionally understood as shameful and goes against one’s social and moral code, ofered Abramović a profound if transitory and perhaps discomforting release; her usual status and identity as artist was put aside so that she could become not just an object of the other’s gaze, but an object that was there to service other’s sexual and sensual desires, absorbing some of the sexual excesses of this city. Abramović did not expose herself to the range of social and personal abuses more typical of the yogic practice outlined above and there are considerable limits to the parallels that can be drawn between the work and this shamanic practice, however, her attempt to partially subsume the ego through an activity that she felt to be shameful remains. Although Abramović would have liked the performance to last longer than four hours, Abramović could only ofer S.J. half her artist’s wages; a $300 fee from the gallery. S.J. said she could earn far more in her window space so she would only agree to swap roles for this period of time. While Abramović presented herself as a commodity for capitalist consumption, S.J. was expected to fulfl the role of successful artist presenting new work to the public in a gallery setting; a role S.J. found awkward – although both roles were essentially about selling. During the four hours, Abramović was visited by three men: one, who was confused by the absence of S.J. and quickly left when he found she was elsewhere, one who was drunk and incapable and one who didn’t want to pay the going rate (Novakov, 2003: 35). Ulay, who had only recently met Abramović, documented Abramović in this performance by taking photographs from outside the window space. He describes the experience: I parked a small commercial car in front of the window. I’d taken position unnoticed inside the car before Marina had taken her place. I was equipped with a camera. During the event I took photographs from Marina behind the window, as well as of people passing by and of some talking to Marina . . . a very few times Marina would shut the window curtains, that’s what prostitutes do when having clients. What I don’t know, whether or not Marina has fucked them – nobody knows . . . (Email correspondence with Ulay, 17 September 2008) A series of Freeing performances followed in 1975: Freeing the Voice, undertaken at the SKC, Belgrade; Freeing the Memory, carried out in the Dacis Gallery, Tubingen; and Freeing the Body, performed at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin. For Freeing the Voice Abramović screamed until she lost her voice. It took three hours for this to happen. In Freeing the Memory Abramović spoke continuously about anything that came into her mind until, after an hour and a half, her mind was blank and the performance terminated. Finally in Freeing the Body Abramović, naked, but for a black scarf that covered her head, moved to the beat of an African drummer until, after eight hours, she collapsed from exhaustion. All three performances worked from the basic premise of releasing through over-extension; emptying out the body and mind through exhaustive processes that had no pre-determined limit. This idea of ‘emptying out’ is one Abramović returned to in the late 1980s. It was before these performances in 1975 that Abramović met Ulay (Uwe E. Laysiepen) at an international gathering of artists in Amsterdam. It was during a television recording of Performance Art that Abramović saw a man who “had half his head and face shaved, the other half with makeup and long hair” (Abramović et al., 1998: 16). There was an instant rapport, and when they found they shared a birthday (although Ulay is three years older) it seemed to them 442

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that they were destined to be together. Her personal and professional collaborative association with this young West German continued for the next 12 years. Moreover, meeting Ulay was an important factor in re-focusing Abramović’s energies. My earlier works were based on pain, they were very drastic. If I hadn’t met Ulay, they would have destroyed my body. I was very fatalistic and more and more destructive . . . And then after we started working together our art became constructive. (McRitchie, 1996: 29) During their time working together (1975 to 1988), Ulay and Abramović used a number of techniques to explore the creative possibilities of two highly committed individuals who felt a deep-seated connection to one another. Their initial experimentations together have become known as the Relation series. Abramović’s earlier desire to create through over-extension, pushing to the limits of the physical and mental, continued in the couple’s subsequent ventures, however Ulay’s presence seemed to temper Abramović’s earlier self-destructive impulses. All these works were concerned with creating performances that had no rehearsal, no pre-determined end, and included no repetitions, but did explore the myriad ways in which two people might come together. In addition, they had made the commitment to live a shared nomadic existence and took up residence in their small van. The following pieces, primarily dealing with endurance-related activity, intended to explore and, if possible, extend the possibilities for experiencing a kind of shared subjectivity. That is, Abramović and Ulay seem to be trying to achieve a level of synthesis that is not about sexual communion, but something spiritual. The possibility of temporary synthesis might come about as a result of a sort of pain-induced ego-dissolution or what Leo Bersani calls “psychic shattering” (Bersani, 1986: 60) whereby their individual status might be subsumed so that the couple felt a sense of communion or unity. To some extent Abramović had earlier experimented with a form of psychic shattering in her Role Exchange (1971) performance where the ego is deliberately ‘crushed’. This sort of loss of subjectivity or embrace of Thanatos is sometimes connected with sexual orgasm (petite mort) or jouissance but it is clear from their continual attempts to blur their art-making and their life during this period, that Ulay and Abramović were seeking a union beyond the sexual. Relation in Space (1976) used the naked body in frontal assaults, that is, the performers approached each other, at varying speeds and allowed a collision to take place. This was repeated for an unspecifed period of time until the performers chose not to continue. Two variations of this were Interruption in Space (1977) where the performers, in a space divided into two by a wall, walked and ran repeatedly into the wall from opposites sides of the space, and Expansion in Space (1977) in which each performer, back to back in the centre of the space, ran outwards at one of two mobile (but weighty) columns, so that the force of their body hitting the column gradually moves the column fractionally. Relation in Time (1977) involved sitting motionless back to back with their hair plaited together so that their heads were joined about 25 cm apart. In this piece there is a literal unity that they attempt to maintain in spite of the inevitable unravelling of their hair that gradually occurs over a period of 17 hours, (the frst 16 of which occur without an audience). The prolonged stillness and upright positioning required to carry out the performance is clearly difcult to achieve and occurs as a result of their joint attempt to subjugate themselves, subsuming their separate selves to maintain a singularity symbolised by their connected hair. This would have been difcult without a shared fantasy of their connectedness to sustain them. The couple had efectively become an object, unable to function independently away from this form, without destroying that object. Both performers must have been acutely aware that this transitory state could have been disrupted at any point should either have begun to act according to their individual will. 443

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At frst glance Relation in Movement (1977) would seem to be a departure from the other works produced at this time. For in this instance the two artists used their small Citroën van (which was also their mobile home at the time) to drive in circles for 16 hours outside the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris during the 10th Paris Biennial. Ulay drove while Abramović used a megaphone to call out the number of circuits completed. The numerous repetitions marked the courtyard space with a large black circle (a result of oil leaking from the engine) and for those watching the continuous motion that same circle was etched into the mind. Indeed, the black circle remained to stain the space for ten years, according to Ulay’s account. This exploratory performance was just another aspect of their decision to experiment through art-making with their relationship to each other and to the world around them. Their decision to live nomadically ‘in motion’ was literalised in this performance. Abramović and Ulay seemed happy to work within the conventional constructs of patriarchally defned notions of man and woman, that is, the focus of their work was not to question these constructions. This was largely because of their shared understanding of the male and female as mutually interdependent. Abramović has often expressed her view that within the context of socialist Yugoslavia, there was far less gender inequality than in the West, and that as a consequence she was not particularly interested in concerning herself with ‘women’s’ issues in performance. However, it is also true to say that at the time they lived and worked from their Citroën van, they both adopted very conventional western male and female roles: Abramović cooking and cleaning, Ulay dealing with the maintenance of the vehicle which was their home. This contrasts with the concerns of many western feminist artists of the 1970s who used their art to question the legitimacy of gender-based power structures and in addition disputed a number of issues in relation to art historical discourse; woman as the object of the male gaze, the trivialisation and/or exclusion of women artists’ work. Talking about Similarity (1976) and Rest/Energy (1980) are both interesting pieces to consider in the light of male/female relations. In a personal correspondence with art historian Kathy O’Dell, Ulay revealed that Talking about Similarity was inspired by the actions of members of the Baader-Meinhof gang who were imprisoned in 1972 for their extreme political actions. This group symbolised their resistance to imprisonment by sewing their own lips together and it is this image that Ulay draws upon in this work (O’Dell, 1998: 86). He pierced his lower and upper lips once with a needle and thread and then tied a knot. Abramović, seated nearby, watched without intervening and then asked for questions to be directed towards Ulay. These questions were then answered by Abramović who apparently had extended her psychic connection to Ulay to a point where she attempted to answer as he would. The resulting question answer session was brief and was terminated as soon as Abramović felt the truth of her responses diminished. The couple were trying to project a fused sense of identity in which Abramović spoke for Ulay, his present condition preventing autonomous speech. Ulay as the self-styled masochist, appeared dependent on Abramović to verbally communicate with the expectant audience. However, although Abramović was free from the physical pain and discomfort Ulay was presumed to be experiencing in his mute state, Abramović herself, was equally compromised by her attempt to subjugate her own subjectivity in favour of Ulay’s. That is, Ulay not only placed himself at the centre of attention with his needlework, but the whole of Abramović’s concentration was devoted to subordinating information regarding herself in order to sensitise herself to Ulay’s (possible) thoughts and desires and giving voice to his concerns. Whether Abramović’s answers truly refected what Ulay may have wished to communicate is not as important as Abramović’s hypothetical self-annihilation. In this way, a complex dynamic is set in motion whereby the masochistic action of Ulay was dependent on, and coterminous with, the simultaneous loss of subject status of Abramović. Moreover, although Ulay forfeited free linguistic expression and symbolically the Law of the Father, perhaps it was 444

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Abramović who made the greater sacrifce, only existing in the performance space as a projective screen for Ulay. This becomes signifcant when considered in relation to their gendered identity; Ulay, as a man, could masochistically ‘voice’ his protest through Abramović, and thus experiment with power-countering dynamics of masochism, but he did so, in this instance, at the cost of another person’s (Abramović) subject status. Another work that also seemed to engage with a sort of self-annihilation was Breathing In/ Breathing Out, performed in the SKC, Belgrade in April 1977 and then again at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam in 1978. The two performers, with their noses blocked with cigarette flters, shared a single breath for as long as they could. With mouths locked together they breathed only the exhaled air of the other, sustaining this mouth-to-mouth contact for as long as they are able. The frst performance lasted 19 minutes whereas the second was sustained for 15 minutes, at which point the performers felt they would pass out if fresh air was not taken in. The fantasy enacted here was to breathe as one being, to share one of the most basic life-sustaining activities. The exhausting and hopeless endeavour allowed for only a few minutes of consummation before they were forced to stop. During this time they operate as one. The air tugging in and out of each performer’s body required their complete focus and concentration. Their performance choices forced each other into an unsustainable interdependence that would become mutually sufocating. However, unlike some of their performances, where it is difcult not to interpret their actions through the lens of gendered power dynamics, it did not appear that either performer dominated over the other. This may in fact be interpreted as a dissolution of binary-based power. In terms of achieving a negation of individual subjectivity, their action in subsuming their diferentiated egos through mutual masochism does allow them a sort of ‘loss of self ’ as they become a single object/ subject. However, this is achieved only for the duration of a single breath. Thus demonstrating that equitable masochism of this kind is largely unsustainable. Although the majority of Ulay and Abramović’s works at this time were of a deeply personal nature that largely eschewed politics, they were not oblivious to their positioning as citizens of two very diferent ideological systems. While Talking about Similarity (1976) could be considered obliquely political, Communist Body/Capitalist Body (1979) was really the frst of the artist’s joint performances where there was a more overt political dimension. It was carried out in a large unfurnished space in an Amsterdam fat (Zoutkeergracht 11/118) on the evening of their shared birthday (30 November). The audience members were invited friends and acquaintances; some of which recorded their experiences of that night three weeks later so that their impressions could be used as part of a flm of the event. The unobtrusive centrepiece of this work was Ulay and Abramović’s passports, which were taped together on a table a short distance from where the two performers lay in bed sleeping. Two tables were set up on either side of the room; one with objects and products sourced in Yugoslavia and the other with items from Western Germany. On the Yugoslav table the utilitarian socialistic republic was symbolised with a copy of the Pravda newspaper, enamel cups and dishes, toilet paper, aluminium knives and forks and Russian champagne and caviar. The table parallel to it had white damask tablecloth and napkins, porcelain dishes, crystal glasses with German champagne and caviar. Guests arrived, found their hosts asleep and after half an hour of waiting decided to open the bottle of champagne left out on the Yugoslav table. The audience entertained themselves while the performers apparently slept. Gradually, some time later, all but one guest left. The title of the piece and the careful joining of their passports, their symbolic identities, would seem to indicate a concern with the meeting of disparity. Ulay, the German, and Abramović, the Yugoslav, are here brought together in intimacy although born and raised under supposedly conficting regimes. Their peaceful repose enacts and symbolises a harmony possible because of their mutual knowledge of each other as individuals, in contrast to documents like 445

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passports, symbols of national identity which may be used to stress nationalistic interests and arbitrary divisions between people. By placing products derived from Yugoslavia and Germany on separate tables, the audience, made choices about which products to use; the fact that they opened the Russian champagne and not the German one revealed their allegiance. The audience did not wake the performers, most did not even try; although, several people kissed the two performers goodbye when they departed. Instead the audience retained a distance from their private bodies despite the ‘public’ context of being invited guests. The reality of their private peace remained in contrast to the public division symbolised by the tables. This performance was less concerned with the limits of the physical body and more concerned with enacting a desire for borderless communion and in this respect it was a departure from many of their other works. It was during the late 1970s and early 1980s that many artists, like Chris Burden and Vito Acconci who had made performances, returned to painting and/or the making of objects. Ulay and Abramović however wanted to continue with performance. For a time they experimented with space and proxemics; The Brink (1979), following random commands and repetitive actions; Go . . . Stop . . . Back . . . Stop (1979); as well as hypnosis in Point of Contact (1980). They also produced Rest/Energy (1980) that consists of the pair facing each other with a bow and arrow between them. The bow was held by Abramović, while the blindfolded Ulay holds the string and arrow. Each performer leans backward to achieve a balance that pulls the string taut and points the arrow towards Abramović’s heart. The performance is over when either one of them loses concentration or becomes too fatigued to continue. Abramović, although facing Ulay’s arrow, maintains a certain power through her strong, almost defant gaze, apparently refusing to submit. But it is Ulay who always retains the arrow and string; the one to penetrate rather than be penetrated. It is an outward demonstration of their perfect trust of each other; Ulay not wanting to become a wounder/murderer and Abramović not wishing to be a victim. However, once cast in these roles there is no fexibility, no freedom to play with what has been designated; after all they do not change places and let Abramović point an arrow at Ulay’s heart. It did, however, seem to confrm the strength of their mutual bond and commitment to risk in performance. Seeking new inspiration, the couple withdrew from the European art scene to explore four of the world’s deserts: the Sahara, the Gobi, the Thar and the Australian outback. Abramović has since stated in numerous interviews that their time in the Australian desert, living with the semi-nomadic Pitjantjatjara people, was one of the most formative experiences of her artistic career. When they returned from many months in the outback one of a number of performances they produced was Nightsea Crossing. As is detailed in Section 20.2, ‘Key works’, section ‘Collaborative period (1975–1988)’, the performance Nightsea Crossing (performed in numerous locations between June 1981 and October 1987) was a durational piece in which Ulay and Abramović sat motionless at opposite ends of a table staring at each other. In efect it was a means of pulling back from the relentless materialistic pursuits characteristic of everyday living and existence in the twentieth century. But it was also a turning point in Abramović and Ulay’s relationship, epitomised in a performance of the piece during which Ulay left the table and Abramović continued the performance on her own – gazing beyond the space where once Ulay had sat. In spite of this setback and the difculties they were experiencing as their personal relationship deteriorated, they continued to work together until the completion of their long term project: The Lovers: The Great Wall Walk (1988). In order to have a relationship you have to give up something. You give a part of yourself, and the other person gives a part of himself, in order to be able to melt into something. It’s really about giving up. It took me a long time to regenerate and to heal. (Abramović et al., 1998: 17) 446

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After an immensely challenging period of self-refection and recovery, Abramović went on to work with Charles Atlas on The Biography; a work in continuous evolution. At the time, the project allowed Abramović to explore and exorcise her personal demons and make sense of both her upbringing and family life in Yugoslavia and her relationship with Ulay, which had come to an end; the piece was a record of her personal journey so far. It acted as both a form of therapy and a way of getting Abramović to reconnect with her creative process. Key elements of all the important events and performances of her life up to this point were present. It is a performance that since 1989 she continued to return to every few years. Every time new elements were added, refecting her constant change and development as an artist. However, the Biography Remix (Avignon, 2005) for the frst time featured young performers replacing her in certain sections. This idea of the artistic re-making of performance by artists who did not make the original work will be further discussed later in the chapter. However, the biographical emphasis continued in the theatrical work The Life and Death of Marina Abramović made for the Manchester International Festival (2011) with Robert Wilson directing, and indeed, the spate of recent retrospectives of her work and her publication of Walk Through Walls, continues this interest in telling her story and building her legacy.

Transition The late 1980s signalled a shift in the emphasis of her work from performance to installation works that required a level of participation from her audience. This refected Abramović’s increased interest in creating art objects that had been primarily designed for the performer and audience to share (Warr, 1995: 12–13). This took the form of interactions with objects – what Abramović named ‘transitory objects’. The idea being that people would come to the space and physically make contact with and explore the materials that had been in some way incorporated into forms that could be sat, stood, or lain down on. Meditation, she explained, embodies a nascent politics: by emptying the mind and arriving at a state of non-thinking, one divests the self of societal conditioning and undergoes the mental preparation necessary to renegotiate the priorities of an information rich but spirit-poor society. (Drobrick, 1991: 67) The body of the artist is absent, but the viewer/participant instead occupies the vacant spaces in attempts at connection with the crystal and stone of the sculpture. It is suggested viewers should come to her installations in a meditative state of mind. This attitude of mind purportedly will allow the audience to adopt a meditative pose and the ability to attune themselves to the subtle vibrations of the crystal, metal and natural materials that she used in these works. Abramović hoped that this would allow visitors to experience her work and their own bodies in a quietly alternative manner. When discussing the purpose of the performances working with Transitory Objects Abramović hints at the broader more esoteric aim she has had for this work saying: “It’s to prepare for the new century, when the artist should not have any objects between him and the public, just a direct energy dialogue” (Abramović et al., 1998: 20). These ideas are certainly central to the performance work Abramović has so far undertaken in the twenty-frst century, particularly The House with the Ocean View (2002), The Artist is Present (2010), 512 Hours (2014) and The Cleaner (2017). Abramović’s investigations into the nature of crystals and their difering energies had her sleeping with diferent types of crystals and then writing notes about her experiences. She credits 447

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her work with crystals as being important in her own healing process after the split with Ulay (Abramović et al., 1998: 18). Abramović’s research into crystals began in the crystal mines of Brazil in the late 1980s. For three years she travelled to numerous mines and it was during this time that she came to associate particular crystals with certain parts of the body. However, her original impulse to explore the connection of mineral and crystal energies came from her experiences on The Great Wall Walk when she felt her mind was afected by the changing material of the ground she walked upon. These feelings were reinforced when, during the evenings of her walk, the local elders told her legends about dragons. The diferent coloured dragons the elders spoke of referred to the mineral energies contained in the ground – black dragons for coal, red dragons for iron etc. The wall itself, although supposedly built as a defence, was also built according to the magnetic lines of the earth to which many animals are sensitive: “When you throw a snake on the ground, wherever she walks she is following the magnetic lines of the earth’s energy” (Abramović et al., 1998: 20). Snakes are energy receptors and are receptive to the magnetism of the Earth and to energy fows. Abramović has observed that The Great Wall seen from above looks like an enormous snake (Abramović et al., 1998: 326). Snakes will move in relation to charged areas. In working with fve python snakes in her Dragon Heads (1992) performance, Abramović attempted to produce energy paths so that the snakes used in the performances would be able to pick up and respond to them. However, this was not the frst time Abramović had worked with snakes. Even during her time with Ulay snakes were a source of fascination. Indeed, a snake was once used as the object in one of their Nightsea Crossing performances and before this in 1978 a snake was used in Three, a performance where the artists attempted to use vibrations created by blowing across the top of a bottle and a circuit of wire to attract a snake to one or other of them. The end of the performance was to be determined by the snake, which left after two hours.

‘Cleaning the house’ Throughout the early 1990s Abramović continued to work on letting go of the past and preparing herself for the future. Part of that process has her returning to her homeland to interview her parents and, of all things, a rat catcher. What was revealed in these interviews became the source material for Delusional (1994) and later Balkan Baroque (1997). Like the earlier Biography, Delusional was made with the assistance of Charles Atlas. It was deliberately theatrical in its approach and in keeping with this decision was performed in a theatre rather than an art space in Frankfurt: Theater am Turm. The fve sections of the piece were entitled ‘The Mother’, ‘The Rat Queen’, ‘The Father’, ‘The Rat Disco’ and ‘The Conclusion’. Each section told a story and had its own mise-en-scène. In ‘The Mother’ for example, the stage space, draped in a grey canvas, was covered in 150 black plastic rats that squeaked if they were trodden on. An iron bed, an iron stool and chair, and an iron window frame were also in the space which Abramović entered to dance frantically to Hungarian folksongs before periodically collapsing on the chair, the bed or the stool. Projected on the wall were images of Abramović’s mother who told stories of her life, while at other times the onstage Abramović told her own stories of growing up. In ‘The Rat Queen’, the canvas is removed to reveal dozens of real rats under what is revealed to be a glass stage. Abramović, now encased in tight plastic that restricted her movement, and a long white dress became the queen who tells the audience all about these rats as well as how to get rid of them. ‘The Father’ section had Abramović interacting with the rats while her on-screen father beneath the stage tells stories of his wartime experiences. The rats are alone on stage with music playing for ‘The Rat Disco’. Finally Abramović appeared naked in the under-stage space with the rats for ‘The Conclusion’. Abramović moved forward through this space until she reached the 448

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front of the stage. She then pushed with her feet to open the glass front of the under-stage, the lights blacked out and the performance ended. The performance, as will be apparent from this description, was very important in terms of the development of Balkan Baroque (1997). . . . Both pieces use interviews with Abramović’s parents, folksongs, and rats; although, in Balkan Baroque, a story is told about rats but there are no real rats present as there are in Delusional. Moreover, there is a confessional feel to the performance that deals with personal stories of sufering, shame and loss; the breaking out of the under-stage space symbolic of Abramović escape from the difculties, pain and inequities of the past which nonetheless remain with her. Her choice to make this piece of theatre was, like Biography, a departure from her usual ways of working. It demonstrates that Abramović was prepared to use theatrical means to convey her ideas and no longer entirely dismissed dramatic devices as a method. It also implies a diferent relationship with the ideas being explored. Abramović has, for many years, said that the body is the subject of her work and while the use of her body is still central to the way that she expresses her ideas, this performance works through the body to express themes and ideas that have been refected upon, distilled and shaped to convey a particular narrative on stage. It is this dramatic shaping and control of the material that is diferent from her usual procedures. However, the work goes beyond representation, because in common with her less theatrical work, Abramović was thoroughly committed to pushing herself during every turning of the unfolding story and if blood appears it is real blood rather than theatrical blood-coloured paint. In addition to this ‘theatre’ work, Abramović continued to work with video, making a number of works that can be considered part of this releasing, cleansing and ordering process. The frst two video pieces made by Abramović appear as preparatory exercises; they record extended processes of purging and clearing that allow Abramović to be open and receptive to the new energies she elicits from rituals objects in the third piece. In Cleaning the Mirror I (1995), fve video monitors, one placed on top of another to form an imposing tower, present a close up view of a section of a human skeleton being washed by Abramović. In engaging with the physical remnants of the human body after death Abramović comes face to face with her own fears and anxieties about death and dying. Her scrubbing of the skeleton requires a minute examination of every fragment of this now empty frame. Then in Cleaning the Mirror II (1995) Abramović, in a single monitor, is seen communing with the cleansed skeleton which lies with her, its bones and skull echoing Abramović’s own invisible skeleton, its proximity allowing the movement of Abramović’s breathing to subtly animate the lifeless bones. These two sections of the series are derived from Buddhist exercises designed to release an individual (usually a monk) from their fear of death. The title of the series of works – Cleaning the Mirror, and elements of Abramović’s methodology directly relate to Tibetan Buddhism’s “emptying of the mind”; “a totally nonconceptual state of awareness” (Wallace, 1999: 183). ‘Cleaning the mirror’ is the name Abramović gives to the process of attempting to enter this heightened state which notionally allows those who achieve it to subsequently “experience a heightened sense of attentional vividness” (Wallace, 1999: 185). The fnal section Cleaning the Mirror III (1995) is the culmination of the work. Abramović spent several months carrying out research into objects that had some relationship to dying and associated rituals of death. As a result she borrowed a number of objects from the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford: the mummifed remains of an ibis from Egypt, a pair of Australian Aboriginal feather shoes, a mandrake root from Italy, a magic medicine box from Nigeria, an ancient stone mirror and a witch in a bottle from Hove, Sussex. Each object was set apart in a blackened space while Abramović held her hands above the object. Abramović was thus exposed to the accumulated energies thought to surround these ritual objects as she attempted to tap into unseen sources of power. There was no question in this instance that the public could interact, 449

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as was encouraged with Abramović’s “transitory objects”. Abramović was alone as a conductor of potentialities, something achieved through her heightened sensitivity and concentration and that could only be witnessed through a viewing of the video. In this respect the video works are a departure from Abramović’s previous emphasis on spectator interaction.

The Onion The truth of the matter is that the Western adult is always made up already. To get at his true identity beneath the make-up is like peeling an onion to reach its kernel without knowing that it consists entirely of its layers of skin. (Thevoz, 1984: 122)

Early in 1995 Abramović had created and performed a video work called The Onion that, in its concern with the elusiveness of identity, has parallels with Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. This work is typical of this period of her development where she wanted to simplify the way in which she presented her ideas. Abramović has described her working method as reductive. That is, initially she is struck by a myriad of ideas that may come to her during the course of her everyday existence; often ideas that she at frst feels are outrageous. However, Abramović fnds this quality of outrage adds a compulsive element to the idea so that she may well feel it must be developed in some form (Deepwell, 1997: 2). The Onion is a piece in which Abramović peels and consumes an onion. The simplicity of the idea is poetic, but the action itself is painful to perform and difcult to watch. The onion itself contains many surfaces, each at once dependent on and protective of the one underneath. Arguably these layers may be considered the many masks that make up identity. But the onion is made up of surfaces only, underneath what is inevitably revealed is the absence of a core. Perhaps Abramović is using the onion to represent the lack of any defnite, immutable subjectivity. That is, if we peel back the cultural constructions, the multiplicity of social personas we adopt and discard as and when necessary, we are faced with an emptiness, an absence behind the image projected. The deconstruction causes tears; Abramović cries as the layers are bitten into, chewed and swallowed. In eating the peeled onion Abramović multiplies the masochistic imputations of this activity, painfully reincorporating the destroyed surfaces back into the body, destroying the evidence that exposed her. This performance can be read as provocatively illustrating the socio-cultural construction of identity, but also reveals the socio-cultural framework that requires continuous and repetitive acts of small-scale masochism to maintain the illusion of stable subjectivity fundamental to this structure. However, fundamentally the piece remains an open text primarily because of its simple structure and execution. Luminosity (1997) like The Onion (1995) was a work that was concerned with the distillation of a single idea; in this instance light and transcendence. The image Abramović created was of herself naked and motionless, astride a sawhorse, her arms raised some distance from her sides. The light that surrounds her created the luminosity of the title and her eyes gazed distantly at a fxed point somewhere beyond her. It was an image that Abramović returned to in the opening of one of her re-made biographical performances known as Biography (as well as Biography Remix) mentioned earlier in this section. In this instance the same balanced form appears raised high up from the stage space with a large snake held in each hand. This time she is not completely naked but wears a two-tier skirt. There is something of the mythical goddess about this self-presentation; something noted by a number of critics of this piece. Large black dogs occupy the space below her. They chew on great bones left on stage for them, a sound that is amplifed by the microphones attached to their necks. Far above us, Abramović appears otherworldly. Indeed, talking about the particular state Abramović enters during some performances. 450

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McEvilley describes it as being rather remote and cut-of. However, Abramović emphasises the importance for her of the public and her awareness and sense of connection to them. . . . it isn’t entirely enclosed, because that energy only happens if I am relating to the public; it doesn’t happen if I’m alone in my studio doing something by myself. The public become like an electric feld around me. And then the communication is possible because they can project on me like a mirror. I hope. (Abramović et al., 1998: 18)

Continuity Performances in which the audience do not see the beginning and end; performances specifcally designed so that spectators have the impression on an uninterrupted image – of something that continues beyond spectators vision of it is a concept that Abramović has been working with since her time with Ulay and performances like Nightsea Crossing (1981–1987). Her work The Hero (2001) follows in this tradition. The work was created after the death of her father in 1999. Her father’s death was one factor in her decision to revisit her past history. The work is a video in which Abramović is seen seated upon a white horse, which stands motionless in a feld. Abramović holds up a white fag for as long as she is able. The material of the fag blown in the breeze is the only movement in the piece, and because the video is looped the action appears continuous. As mentioned earlier, Abramović’s father was a hero of the Second World War where he played an active part in the Resistance. The piece is doubly poignant when placed in the context of the recent Balkan confict. The House with the Ocean View (2002) – made the following year did not conform to this structure and most unusually for Abramović, at the end of the performance she briefy spoke to the assembled audience and dedicated the work to “the people of New York City” (Abramović et al., 2004: 169). For The House with the Ocean View, Abramović spent 12 days in three sparsely furnished ‘domestic’ spaces attached in a line on one wall of a room at the Sean Kelly gallery, New York. Broadly speaking, there was a sleeping, a washing and a sitting space each separated by a sizeable gap. Abramović systematically performed a series of actions on these raised platforms in a cyclic and ritual fashion. She dressed and undressed, washed, urinated, sat, stood, knelt, and reclined. Three ladders with up-turned butcher’s knives for rungs leant against the foor of each platform, restraining Abramović’s departure from and discouraging our entry into what was clearly intended to be Abramović’s space. What the performance did was open up a space in which the spectator, with Abramović, could concentrate solely on the present moment and those with which that moment was shared. In creating the space Abramović created a sense of community amongst those who came. There wasn’t any narrative to follow or even a seat to occupy. The lights did not dim and the gallery space did not suggest that you were supposed to move on through. Instead it was about stopping. Abramović’s presence alone encouraged people to remain, to share in this temporary space in which time seemed to stretch, even if it didn’t entirely stop (see Section 20.2, ‘Key works’, section ‘1988–2008’). In addition to the work that Abramović undertook in the United States, Abramović returned to her native Belgrade to carry out a number of works that were in many ways an extension of her Balkan Baroque performance/installation of 1997. She did this by invitation rather than through her own volition although subsequent interviews with Abramović have suggested that the strong emotional response she had when performing Balkan Baroque (1997) reignited her interest in her homeland, even though she was deeply ashamed of what happened. As has been mentioned, Abramović frst returned in order to conduct interviews for 451

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Delusional (1994). She returned again at the request of a Japanese company who wanted her to make a video piece in Belgrade that became Count on Us (2003). The third return was in order to work on the flming of Balkan Erotic Epic (2005) that resulted in both a multi-screen installation and a twelve-minute flm. Undoubtedly, these returns were very important homecomings for Abramović, forcing her to deal with both her own past and the current situation in the former Yugoslavia. The subsequent works explore both the contemporary and traditional identity of Serbians through songs, folklore and ritual practices as well as through Abramović’s own ideas and visualisations. In Balkan Erotic Epic (2005) Abramović primarily focused on the ritual and performative practices associated with fertility and sexuality unique to this region. Her earlier series Count on Us (2003) however, concerned itself with articulating something of the political reality of this time, as well as commemorating a famous Yugoslavian scientist – Nikola Tesla, who Abramović feels connected with through their shared interest in energy and its transmission. Tesla is well known in the former Yugoslavia both for his scientifc experiments with electricity, and for castrating himself in order to more fully devote himself to his work without distraction. For one part of the Count on Us series she uses one of Tesla’s experiments as source material. In one hand Abramović holds a neon tube that is not connected to any power source. Close by there are two copper wires through which 35,000 volts of electricity are passing. Although there is no physical connection between Abramović and the neon tube, the tube lights up because there is sufcient energy passing through Abramović’s body for this to happen. This action embodies the Buddhist belief “the proximity of a burning torch will light an as yet unlit torch” (Abramović et al., 1998: 405) and parallels the concept of electrical induction important to Jerzy Grotowski (Leabhart and Chamberlain, 2008: 6) where an electrical or magnetic state can be produced in a body even without physical contact. Tesla Urn is another refection on this idea. Abramović uses her hands on the urn containing Tesla’s ashes in an attempt to take up the energy contained there (Fürstenberg, 2006: 10). The resulting image is reminiscent of a soothsayer holding their hands over a crystal ball. In another section of Count on Us Abramović worked with a group of Yugoslav school children. In the opening, a young boy sings a traditional song of love and this is followed by a young girl singing a song about longing. Later in the piece, school children dressed in black shirts and trousers form a star shape that echoes the star used in her early piece Rhythm 0 (1974). Abramović, also dressed in black, with a skeleton attached to her body lies in the centre of the star. The children appear later in the video singing an ironic song extolling the value of the United Nations, which promised the region help during the conficts in the 1990s but never delivered any. Abramović, with the skeleton attached to her front, conducts the children. The third and most challenging of Abramović’s more recent work in Belgrade is undoubtedly Balkan Erotic Epic. This flmed work was made as a result of Abramović being approached by the Destricted flm company to make a flm using porn stars. After her initial misgivings Abramović agreed to work on something that explored the sexual and erotic practices of her culture. It was this historical context that was to be a very fruitful source of inspiration for the work. Indeed, Abramović spent much time exploring the archives for manuscripts written between the fourteenth and nineteenth century that detailed some of the pagan rituals and practices of this region. She soon came to see that the open and relaxed attitude to sex that she feels characterises her own culture is something that can be linked to a whole series of the customs and practices that openly used the sexual organs as a means to ward of evil, to protect, to strengthen as well as to fertilise for procreation. However, this did not make the project an easy one. Indeed, of the three works carried out in Belgrade, Abramović considered this the toughest. Some of this was to do with the necessity of keeping the project secret because of the fear that what they were attempting might be misconstrued and misrepresented because 452

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of the confrontational nature of the images Abramović wished to create; there was always a danger that in dealing with sexually explicit material their actions might be interpreted in some quarters as vulgar and/or tasteless. Indeed, it was a high-risk strategy to create work that breaks sexual taboos with its imagery. For instance, Abramović includes naked men copulating with holes in the ground. With this imagery “. . . you’re touching this idea of muscular energy, touching the idea of the sexual energy as a cause of war, as a cause of disasters, as a cause of love” (Abramović with Carlström in Fürstenberg, 2006: 66) Later, women are pictured out in the open air, Abramović amongst them, massaging their naked breasts while they sing Serbian folk songs and stare up into the heavens. Later in the flm, Abramović, dressed in black and on occasion sporting clinical glasses, takes on the role of ethnographer. She tells how a man, who is having trouble getting his horse or bull to carry a heavy load, may touch his genitals and then the beast in question. This process, we are told, will restore the animal to full strength. This short narrative is followed by a section of flm where we see a naked man standing in an artfully lit but otherwise empty feld with the rain pouring down. He gazes into the distance and masturbates with commitment. However, none of the actions are literally derived from the manuscripts that Abramović researched. The images constructed in the flm are a combination of Abramović’s interpretation of the manuscript descriptions of the powers of the sexual organs imbricated with her own creative visualisations. The inclusion of the folk songs was down to a chance meeting with Svetlana Spajić, a researcher archiving and recording traditional Serbian folk music, who subsequently became a collaborator in the piece. In bringing together an old tradition; women exposing their genitals to the elements in order to defect extreme weather conditions believed to have been caused by the evil eye, with her own image of women looking to the skies and singing, Abramović created hybrid imagery that was at once erotic, rooted and traditional. None of this was easy to achieve. The women and men that Abramović used in the work were not actors and actresses but mostly locals interested in the project. Abramović, someone who is very used to pushing her own limits, faced a diferent challenge in trying to realise her vision with those unaccustomed to such forms of expression; after all, these were not students of Abramović acquainted with the idea of shedding their inhibitions and exposing themselves to numerous tests of endurance. . . .

Origins and authenticity This is a question not of originality but of meaning. The meaning of the work can’t fow if the originality of the work is seen as holy . . . The artist’s name and originality are not important. Everything is built around the idea of the ego, and this prevents the work from having a proper life. The ego is an obstacle to the real experience of art. (Deepwell, 1997: 24)

Since the mid-1990s Abramović has become much less interested in the concept of ‘originality’ and the way in which the endless quest for the novel feeds into the capitalist consumer machine. The interest in recycling or re-imaging pieces from the past performance work of other artists might be considered an extension of her Biography performance, where Abramović re-enacted selected and condensed extracts from her own performance history. In particular, Abramović had wanted to re-stage Chris Burden’s Trans-fxed (1974) (Hilton, 1996/7: 4). In the light of performance art’s usually transitory and ethereal presence, the interest in the re-creation of both her own and other artist’s performance ‘texts’ suggests that it may be possible for performance art to approach the condition of drama. That is, that there is an available ‘text’ that can be transferred 453

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and re-performed by other artists who may use it “as a score” (Iles, 1996: 22) In this way the performance “text” may itself become a tangible, com-modifable and exchangeable product open to many. Furthermore, this would seem to pose a challenge to the usual understanding of performance art as a very specifc product of a particular artist/s that is inherently irreproducible. If the performance is not carried out by the piece’s originator can an actor, any actor, take their place? How does this afect the meaning of the piece? And can it still be considered performance art? Abramović’s supposition certainly occasions a reconsideration of both the question of the reproducibility of art works and whether the ‘original’ artist’s ‘presence’ is a necessity. Abramović suggests that what is more important than originality is experience, that is, the process of the art-making as experience. In this way Abramović reiterates the infuence of Yves Klein’s statement “my paintings are the ashes of my art” and confrms her belief that good art should attempt to remove itself from the notion of the ego and the limits this places on artistic practice (Iles, 1996: 22). Finally, after 12 years of planning and consultation Abramović’s desire to re-perform performance pieces of the 1970s became a reality at the Guggenheim in 2005. Abramović’s stated purpose was not only to give today’s audiences an opportunity to experience an evocation of earlier iconic performances but it was also to try to set a precedent in terms of guidelines for performers should they too wish to re-stage a performance or use the performance ideas of others. These guidelines include the following conditions: Ask the artist for permission. Pay the artist for copyright. Perform a new interpretation of the piece. Exhibit the original material: photographs, videos, relics. Exhibit a new interpretation of the piece. (Abramović, 2007: 11) Each night one of the six performances chosen was re-enacted. On the seventh night Abramović presented a new piece seen for the frst time. The frst night of the series was based on Bruce Nauman’s Body Pressure (1974). This was an interesting choice because Nauman never actually performed the work himself, the instructions he left were for others. So unlike the performances on the next fve nights, there is no documentation with which to compare performance presentations. The directions Nauman gave for the performance were exhibited as a stack of papers with the instructions written on each page encouraging the spectator to undertake the task as and when they chose to. The primary instruction is for the performer to press as much as possible of the surface of their body against a wall, with as much pressure as possible. In Abramović’s enactment the wall is a free-standing, transparent surface positioned in the centre of a circular stage which echoes the circular museum space. This see-through surface has the advantage of allowing spectators to observe the pressed form of Abramović without difculty. Abramović continued to force her body against the glass, in a variety of diferent ways, for seven hours. Vito Acconci’s Seedbed (1972), a performance carried out at the Sonnabend Gallery, New York for six hours, twice a week, was the source of Abramović’s second performance. Acconci was not visible during this performance as he was lying underneath a raised section of the gallery foor masturbating and vocalising his sexual fantasies. Acconci’s stated goal was to produce semen that he would spread throughout the unseen gallery space he occupied. He used the visitors to the gallery, whose presence he heard overhead, to fuel the fantasies he used to ejaculate. In a similar fashion Abramović situated the work so that she was beneath a specially built circular rostrum at the centre of the gallery space. She kept up a constant commentary of her actions and fantasies that were audible to the audience above her through the microphone she wore. 454

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So, like Acconci, she wasn’t visible, but her presence was distinctly heard by those who came to experience the event. Next was Valie Export (formerly Waltraud Hollinger) Action Pants: Genital Panic (1968) a performance that reportedly took place in a Munich art cinema and lasted just ten minutes. There is virtually no documentation, although, there is a photograph, taken by Peter Haussman the following year (1969) recalling the event. In the picture Export is seen wearing a leather jacket and a pair of trousers with the crotch missing. She sits on a chair and has one leg propped against a second chair. In her hands she holds a large gun. At the original performance Export announced “What you see now is reality, and is not on screen, and everybody sees you watching this now” (Abramović et al., 2007: 118). Export reportedly then walked towards the people seated in the cinema: their faces on a level with her crotch. Faced with this reality, many people apparently left the space, uncomfortable with Export’s exposed body. Abramović’s primary point of reference was the publicity shot not the performance just described. Indeed, it is very unclear whether there was an ‘original’ performance at all and Valie Export subsequently refused to answer questions asked by Abramović about what happened as there is no ‘evidence’ other than these images that were taken some time afterwards. So, in a work that may in fact be a re-enactment of a performance that never took place, Abramović adopted the external appearance of the publicity shots; she wore a leather jacket, crotchless jeans and she carried a gun. Rather than moving through an audience, as suggested in Export’s account, Abramović took her cue and her pose from the photographic record of Export where Export is seated, staring at the viewer with her legs apart; one foot on the foor, the other raised onto a nearby chair. Abramović, in attempting to pay homage to an iconic performances of the 1970s, creates something that bears no real relation to any original, both emphasising the fallibility and failure at the heart of re-enactment, as well as the intractable temporal and memorial disjuncture between archive image and action. Instead, Abramović presents us with surface detail – the appropriation of Export’s sullen expression, exposed crotch, and a sizeable weapon. As with all the performances in this series, the performance lasted seven hours. Gina Pane’s The Conditioning, First Action of Self-portrait(s) (1973) was performed on the fourth night. Originally half an hour long, Abramović repeated the elements she was given permission to use, in a cycle, until seven hours elapsed. In Pane’s performance she lay on a metal bed-like frame with 18 lit candles almost directly beneath her. Pane remained on the bed for as long as she could bear it. Pane is an artist who has been very important to Abramović so it is not surprising that Abramović chose this piece. There are echoes of some of Abramović’s early endurance works here and some parallels with her own Lips of Thomas (1975), which is the fnal re-created performance carried out before presenting her new work on the fnal night. However, before she undertook this re-enactment she presented her own version of Joseph Beuys’s How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965). In Beuys’s piece he mutely communicated his thoughts to the deaf ears of a dead hare, moving from picture to picture with the hare cradled in the crook of his arm like a baby. Beuys stated some years after the performance in 1979 that the honey and gold with which his head was covered for the performance was a way of transforming the head and with it thought and consciousness. This change would allow him communication with the hare, or rather this would symbolise the difculty we all have in communicating meaning, in particular when it concerns art and creativity. Abramović wears similar clothes in her version and gold leaf covers her head and hair. There are also blackboards placed on easels on the stage. While Beuys had worked closely with the hare, at one point putting a thermometer in its mouth and at another scattering white powder between its legs, Abramović worked diferently, taking the hare’s ears in her mouth on a number of occasions during the performance. 455

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The last of the re-enactments was Abramović’s own Lips of Thomas (1975). Abramović’s frst choice had been Rhythm 0 (1974), however the museum authorities would not allow a loaded gun, used in the original performance, in the museum (see Section 20.2, ‘Key works’). In carrying out a work for which Abramović has sole ‘authorship’ Abramović had more freedom to make alterations to the original and indeed, in common with the other works, the suggestion is that a new interpretation is being presented. The innovations included Abramović wearing army boots and a Yugoslav army cap while holding up a white cloth attached to a stick as an impromptu fag in part of the performance. The white cloth used for this fag had been pressed against the bleeding star Abramović had cut on her stomach so that red streaks of blood stained the material. The additions make direct reference to Abramović’s personal history in a way that was absent in the original, where the cut star is left to bleed, boots and cap are absent and no fag of any sort appears. The military cap and boots perhaps suggest nostalgia for the Yugoslavia of the past, her military ofcer father, as well as her nomadic existence as a self-imposed exile from her homeland. The white fag she holds high perhaps expressing her desire to be at peace with her own past and for the country to remain at peace after the confict of the 1990s. On the seventh night Abramović created a new work: Entering the Other Side (2005). In it she is placed at the pinnacle of a huge cone-shaped dress of Madonna blue, rather like a glamorous and beautiful fairy put at the top of a Christmas tree except that Abramović is inside the structure. The dress, which covered the entire stage and rose to the height of the frst foor of the museum, sent the eye shooting upwards to Abramović’s central position. With her arms outstretched and sometimes in motion she reached out and touched members of the audience with her energy and presence even though she could not physically reach any spectator. After the demands of the past six days this piece seemed something of a cathartic release; something to celebrate Abramović’s achievements over the past week. Abramović, now in her early seventies, continues to work constantly; both on her own development and legacy, and on assisting emergent artists with whom Abramović has a sustained working relationship. Many of these artists came to her as students or were former members of her International Performance Group (IPG). Indeed, her support for IPG artists ten years ago had her curating events all over the world as well as setting up other opportunities to showcase the talents of these emergent art makers. Projects by IPG artists include a contribution to the Venice Biennale called Erotic Body (2007), a series of regular performances at the Artists Space in New York called When Time Becomes Form (2007–8) and various showings of work in progress. In addition, Abramović’s interest in her legacy has resulted in the creation of the Marina Abramović Institute (MAI), which was originally to have a physical home in the large property she purchased and donated to MAI in Hudson, a village about two hours north of Manhattan, New York. According to the MAI website, the mission of the Institute “. . . is and has always been to promote performance art and to create communal and participatory art experiences for the largest amount of people possible.” However, the cost of renovating the building has been prohibitive. In July 2013 Abramović launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund schematic designs after initial design work was undertaken by Rem Koolhaas and Shohei Shigematsu of the Ofce for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) New York in 2012. The Kickstarter raised $661,452 and enjoyed the support of 4,765 backers, which allowed for the second phase to take place, but this work revealed that the costs of the MAI development were in the region of $31 million. It was at this stage that it was decided that the work of the Institute would need to take place in an alternative manner, with the MAI having a virtual and travelling presence and aiming to stick to its mission through bringing workshops and collaborative projects to venues all over the world with the intention of having a global impact. In addition, the MAI website provides a showcase and visual archive of projects supported by the Institute. This includes photographs of the work of emergent and 456

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established artists with whom Abramović has worked and/or mentored (for example: Generator 2014/2017, Kaldor Public Art Project 30 June–July 2015 Australia, Terra Communal March– May 2015 Brazil, and As One, Greece).

20.2

Key works

Early works up to 1975 – Rhythm series Abramović’s artwork, moving from an easel-based painterly tradition to working with the body, provided an interpretative challenge to Yugoslavian society in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This section will consider the sorts of challenges her work presented to audiences in her homeland as well as in venues she performed to in Western Europe, in order to highlight some of her primary concerns as an artist working with the body under particular socio-political circumstances. The Rhythm series refers to a group of solo performances Abramović undertook in the mid 1970s. These works were a series of personal explorations that involved risk and arguably, in the case of Rhythm 10, an expression of masochistic control. As a young artist emerging under Tito’s communist regime, Abramović wanted to resist or at least question the imposed boundaries of control on both a personal and a political level. Meanwhile, at the same time as Abramović was making her Rhythm performances, some artists in Western Europe and the United States like Chris Burden, Gilbert and George, and Valie Export were making works that confated art and reality in ways that were intended to shorten the distance between the audience and art-maker, thus blurring art/life distinctions. By contrast, the performance and artwork of Abramović at this time was much more concerned with a deliberate exploration of the limits of the physical body enacted through high-risk performance strategies. Following her frst experiments with confrontational sound installations, such as Zvučni ambijent rat (Sound Corridor War, 1971) – a corridor of ear-splitting machine-gun fre, her early performance works, while equally provocative, worked directly with her own body. The frst in the series, Rhythm 10 (1973), uses knives hitting a surface to create a complex rhythm and a heightened sense of risk. When Abramović frst performed this piece at the Edinburgh Festival in 1973 she did so using ten knives. This was one of her frst performances abroad and additional details of the performance have been recently outlined in Olivera Janković’s publication on Abramović’s early pieces: There are indications that in the course of the performance, she had by her a photograph of herself as a toddler, accompanied by her father in military uniform, walking in the old fort of Kalemegdan in Belgrade. This was a biographical element that would have given the work the dimension of an intimate experience. To music randomly selected from the radio, she frst painted the nails of her left hand blue, then turned of the radio and turned on the cassette recorder to capture the sound of the next part of the performance. (Janković 2013: 49) The piece was performed again in the same year at the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome as part Achille Bonito Oliva’s Contemporanea exhibition, using 20 knives. The only other pieces of equipment used were two tape recorders and microphones. With her left hand outspread on a white cloth on the foor, Abramović rapidly stabbed between each of her fngers in turn with the frst of the knives. When she cut herself, she 457

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changed knives and continued, stopping only when all the knives had been used. An audio tape recorded the entire performance. Once this had been done, Abramović listened to the audio recording of the performance so far, and then carried out the same actions again, cutting herself in the same places at the same time as in the frst half of the performance. In other words, although Abramović was undertaking a series of painful actions, her concentration and control were such that she could re-enact, up to a point, her original actions. Although clearly painful, the process of Rhythm 10 can be interpreted as empowering rather than destructive. While suspense mounted as neither spectators nor Abramović knew where or when the knife would fall and cut, halfway through the performance Abramović takes control over these apparently random events, and re-inscribes the cutting by a close reproduction of her original actions during the frst half of the performance. This was a performance game carefully set up and her ability to carry out these actions and re-do them with such a high degree of precision was evidence of her capacity to endure and control events in a way that was personally empowering. However, this remains a particularly disturbing performance for viewers, who had already witnessed Abramović take each knife in turn until an error of judgement resulted in a laceration. They might well have assumed that after each of the knives had been used the performance was complete, perhaps experiencing a cathartic release at the fnal knife cut. Their relief, however, would have been short-lived as the re-cutting and re-opening of the incisions amounted to a second assault. As Abramović later observed of her audience (Abramović uses the male pronoun but her comments apply equally to a male or female spectator): “He wasn’t sure anymore, he was unbalanced and this made a void in him. And he had to stay in this void. I didn’t give him anything” (Abramović with Kontova, 1978: 43). These comments are interesting because they suggest that in the experience of her performance the audience become the submissive ones. Abramović’s performance enacts a reversal that plays with audience/performer dynamics. It is also interesting that Abramović chose to use the male pronoun when referring to her audience – “I didn’t give him anything”. Abramović claims power for herself throughout these actions of apparent self-mutilation suggesting that in her ability to control her own actions and pain she has strength beyond the spectator, who remains inert, watching. Alternatively, her words and action could be interpreted in terms of repression where the aggressive energy she feels towards the other, is played out upon herself. What is particularly signifcant about this performance was that the process set in motion worked diferently from the later Rhythm performances that were deliberately experimenting with limiting or removing Abramović’s control over the outcome of events.

Control, risk and the uncontrollable All of the Rhythm performance works involved considerable risk. The type and degree of risk was not, however, always a deliberate decision. During Rhythm 5, a work also carried out in 1974, Abramović marked out, with wood, a large star (around 6 metres in diameter) in the courtyard of the SKC. She flled the star with wood chips and 100 litres of petrol. When it became dark she set the star alight and started to walk around it, ritually cleansing herself through a cutting of her hair and nails, which she threw into the fre. She then entered the star, placing herself in a horizontal position at the centre of the rapidly burning frame, after a brief period standing in the centre of the star with her arms outstretched. These sacrifcial actions had a readily communicable symbolism in the context of Belgrade in the 1970s: we young people are burning in the fames of you, the older generation’s socialist ideals. Abramović, although she had carefully planned each action, was unaware that the level of oxygen within the star would be reduced as the fre burnt. The smoke that then came to surround her prone body soon caused her to lose consciousness. It was only when two of her colleagues, Radomir Damnjan and Gergelj Urkom, both artists 458

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associated with the SKC, detected that Abramović was not responding to the fames that came so close to her legs that they entered the star and carried her to safety. Without their intervention this performance might have become more than a symbolic sacrifce. Abramović was angered by the unexpected outcome of Rhythm 5 because she realised there were limits to what she could do with her body when performing. However, aside from prompting this realisation, the performance had also created a diferent sort of performer/audience relationship: a relationship that has been the source of much debate as people argue over the responsibility and role of the artist and spectator when confronted by such risky performance strategies. Undeterred, the disappointment of Rhythm 5’s ending motivated Abramović to look at how the body could be used beyond consciousness in performance. The result was Rhythm 2 (1974) which she performed in Zagreb. In order to obtain the medication she wanted to use in this performance, she went to a hospital for people with mental health issues and seduced one of the doctors so that he would give her one drug used to calm and another drug used for people who experience catatonic episodes. In the Gallery of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, where she performed Rhythm 2 she sat in front of the audience and took the pill for catatonia. The efect of the pill was to cause her to move uncontrollably for about 50 minutes. Fortunately, while this happened her mind remained clear. For the second half of the performance Abramović took a pill for aggression, but before this the audience were given a 15-minute break where they listened to Slavic folksongs on a radio which Abramović had randomly tuned in to. The pacifying efect of the pill Abramović took next was to last six hours. During this time Abramović remained seated and smiling; an experience she recalls very little about. Abramović has said that this performance demonstrates loss of control and control, “there was this opposition, frst not controlling my body, then controlling it” (Abramović et al., 1998: 15), but once the pills had been taken during each sections of performance, and the drug had reached her bloodstream the way her body reacted was in certain fundamental ways beyond her control, that is, the substance of the pill itself efectively overrode Abramović’s ability to control it. With Rhythm 4 (1974) she went a step further by using an air blower, normally used to infate pneumatic tents, on her face. This meant that a large volume of air was blown at her under very high pressure. For this performance, Abramović remained in a separate room from the audience, who saw her on a screen in the gallery (Galleria Diagramma, Milan). The air distorted her features so that it looked as if she was underwater. After a short time, the excessive amount of air caused her to lose consciousness, but the pressure of the air held her where she was. She remained in this position, unconscious, for three minutes. The audience, who were viewing her from a separate space, were not aware of her condition. Through this performance she achieved what had eluded her in Rhythm 5; she managed to perform in and out of consciousness. The fact that this was only achieved by being physically separated from her audience does not seem to have lessened her sense of having shifting a fundamental performance barrier.

Rhythm 0 (1974) The instructions for Rhythm 0, the last of the Rhythm performances, were simple. “There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired. I am the object. During the period I take full responsibility” (Abramović et al., 1998: 84). The items laid out included: a pistol, an axe, a fork, a bottle of perfume, a bell, a feather, chains nails, needles, scissors, a pen, a book, a hammer, a saw, a lamb bone, a newspaper, grapes, olive oil, a rosemary branch, a rose and other things. (Iles et al., 1995: 46) 459

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The performance took place in the Studio Morra, Naples in the 6 hours between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. As a consequence of her performance choices Abramović left herself open to invasion and even abuse; this was precisely the point. The work is constructed through the interaction of the spectator with the objects and her body. How the spectators took up the opportunities presented to them certainly revealed something of the dynamics of group psychology where a collective presence may anonymise individual action and decision-making. As such, exposing herself to this group situation was a more potentially dangerous situation than setting out the same scenario for a one-to-one encounter because responsibility for actions are shifted from the individual to the collective; group members encouraging each other to push the boundaries and experiment with the objects on ofer. In its objectifcation of the performer the work echoes an earlier piece by the artist Yoko Ono entitled Cut Piece (1964/5/6) that Ono frst performed in Japan and then in New York’s Carnegie Hall. In Ono’s piece she kneels in front of the audience and allows any member of the audience to cut her clothing while she remains passive. What is perhaps surprising in Ono’s performance is that spectators only used the scissors to cut the material of her clothing and did not attempt to cut her body or hair. The limits the audience appear to have imposed upon themselves marks this performance out as one from the early 1960s rather than the 1970s; it is fair to say that audiences were still relatively unaccustomed to invitations to become participants in performances like Ono’s. However, in a revival of this performance in September 2003 at the Ranelagh theatre, Paris, Yoko Ono asked people to cut a piece of her clothing and send it to a loved one. Interestingly, participants who took up the scissors again did not push beyond the request made by the artist and cut ‘inappropriately’. Their compliance this time probably had more to do with the performance’s venue in a Parisian theatre, the established reputation of the artist (and this form of art) as well as respect for a woman of mature years who wished to convey a message of peace and demonstrate the need for people to trust each other. Of the 72 items laid out for Abramović’s performance some were chosen with pleasure in mind, whereas others defnitely suggested pain. Abramović adopted a motionless position next to these objects, while the director of the gallery announced that the artist would remain passive for the next six hours and would comply with whatever the audience chose to do to her. At frst the audience/participants were content to undertake relatively small interventions, such as placing a thorny rose in her hands and then across her body, photographing her and placing the results in her hands to display, writing on her, kissing her and moving her body around. It is clear from the photographic record of this piece that these activities had already caused a certain amount of distress to Abramović and an audience member at one point takes a handkerchief and wipes the tears from her face. There are a number of descriptions of this performance (Goldberg, 1998: 165; Archer, 1995: 117–118; Warr, 1995: 11). These accounts vary in their specifcs but gradually, as time passed and the boundaries of her subjectivity remained unguarded, more challenging and harmful possibilities occurred to members of the audience. Thomas McEvilley has provided a frst-hand account which relates how the audience for the piece was “. . . a random crowd brought in of the street, with some art world afcionados” (Iles et al., 1995: 46). He described how: “In the third hour all her clothes were cut from her with razor blades. Her throat was slashed so someone could suck her blood . . . She was so committed to the piece that she would not have resisted rape or murder” (McEvilley, 2005: 273) and indeed a loaded pistol was placed in her hands, manipulated so that her fngers grasped the trigger, and the barrel pointed at her head. Although the question of how the performance ended remains contested it appears that the intervention of concerned audience members coming together to aid Abramović was a pivotal one and perhaps prevented the piece becoming a crime scene. 460

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McEvilley wrote: “When the art world constituency rebelled against the aggressive outsiders, the event was declared over” (Iles et al., 1995: 46) implying that the spectators formed groups on the basis of their knowledge/experience of art. In other words, those that upheld the event as art behaved in a much more restrained manner than those that saw the event as an opportunity to take liberties and push Abramović as far as they could. Abramović, however, describes the ending a little diferently, emphasising the fear spectators had of her once the performance was concluded: I started walking to the public and everybody ran away and never actually confronted with me. The experience I drew from this piece was that in your own performances you can go very far, but you leave decisions to the public, you can be killed. (Abramović, 2002: 30) In her attempt to address the question of how the audience might respond to the freedom given to them, and where they might draw the lines, Abramović was pushed beyond the conventional limits of interpersonal interaction. In abdicating control and allowing the audience to use her as an object, her performance choice suggests an abandonment of responsibility and/or an incitement to power play. Was her passivity a brave display of her drive to walk the outer limits of experience, an exploration of her fundamental trust in human nature or a careless abandonment of her subjectivity? Or was it, as Franc Chamberlain suggests, “a continuing act of aggression directed at herself that later becomes transformed into a less violent attempt to get beyond the neuroses of the ego”? Whatever her motivation it is clear that at this time she was willing to risk everything to follow her impulses. Indeed, in 1970 she even submitted a proposal to the Galereija Doma Omladine, Belgrade for a performance (Untitled Proposal) in which she planned to dress in the clothes her mother would have chosen for her to wear and then place a gun loaded with one bullet to her temple. For Abramović, this piece has two possible endings, one of which ends with the trigger being pulled and Abramović presumably dying or at the least sustaining head-wounds. The alternative ending has the trigger being pulled without fatal or mortal consequences, in which case she would redress the way she wanted to dress and then go her own way. It is as if “she would rather kill herself than be bound by the rules of Western civilization” (Abramović et al., 1998: 25). It is also important to note that the Rhythm 0 performance provoked very mixed critical response as well as a certain amount of hostility. In common with the performance work of the other five artists who Abramović sometimes exhibited with, this performance (and the subsequent exhibition of the performance documentation of all the Rhythm performances) was not widely accepted by the public or the media. As a woman, Abramović, in particular attracted censure. One Serbian publication Jež made fun of the provocation, implying that if she had performed her work in Serbia rather than Naples then they would be able to understand ‘body art’ as “nabodi” art too (the word nabodi suggesting penetration) and that as she wasn’t too bad to look at, someone might be able to ‘use’ her (Bojičić quoted in Dimitrijević, 2004: 7). It is hard to appreciate just how radical Abramović’s actions were at this time without remembering that she was both a citizen of a repressive socialist state and a woman in a male-dominated sphere that was unlikely to take her actions very seriously. In these performances the audience’s calculation of risk may make them uncertain and perhaps anxious that she may come to harm. This essentially reconfgures the traditional audience/performer relationship where there is usually an unspoken arrangement/contract that places the audience in a position of relative physical passivity. The audience of such 461

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performances become uneasy observers of the activities of a woman who, through their own determination of risk, might be interpreted as ‘out of control’. Spectators placed under such conditions may recast themselves as active agents ready to intervene as and when necessary ‘for her own good’. While Abramović may have been drawing attention to how we understand and interpret risk and bodily sensations, she also opened up the possibility that her actions may be understood as an investigation of pathology. Although Abramović’s risky performances raise some interesting questions in respect of our understanding of what is permissible and impermissible risk, her repudiation of personal authority over what is done to, or happens to her body becomes a compelling as well as problematic performance choice, particularly for a female performer. These works highlight just how easy it was for her body to become objectifed and her own autonomy as the person who placed herself in this position to be dismissed. When women use pain in performance there is always the possibility that their actions may compound the viewers sense of their ‘natural’ propensity towards submission and pain understood as a sort of co-requisite of their biological function. The ‘excess’ manifest in performance may easily be misconstrued as mental disorder or even psychosis when it seems that the degree of her abandon has few limits and no concern for her own safety is outwardly expressed or made manifest. By providing her audience with the ‘real’ body undergoing ritualistic acts of self-inficted harm, Abramović demonstrated the depth of her devotion to achieving an alternative art to the point where she not only risked her physical integrity, moving through diferent states of consciousness, but she also risked her life in what she has described as “a completely male approach, really go-for-it and heroism and the possibility of being killed and everything” (Abramović et al., 1998: 16). The work did undeniably shock the audience out of the usual collective inertia typical of theatre and gallery audiences. Whether it was to act in relation to the objects or other audience members in Rhythm 0 (1974) or whether it was to watch or take action in Rhythm 5 (1974) or Rhythm 10 (1973), they had to make choices. However, it would be far from the truth to say that these performances were founded on Abramović’s interest in audience dynamics. Quite the reverse, these performances were all about exploring her personal limits – physical and familial. So while the audience were clearly important to her on one level, she was so absorbed in her own experimentation that in most ways the audience were never the central factor or driving force for her. It was only some time later that her focus shifted and her interest in the reciprocal relationship of the performer and audience became central to her practice. Nonetheless, what these early performances certainly did, and continue to do, is raise questions about the role and function of the audience/witness in performance, as well draw attention to the increasingly fuzzy distinctions between reality and representation, art and life. The blurring and consequent confusion created by the increasing confation of art and life in many spheres of performance and the refusal to allow a distance-producing gap to open up between reality and representation clearly undermined the usual boundaries that operate to create audience/performer ‘safety’ or comfort zones and a ‘frame’ through which the audience may distinguish ‘art’ from ‘life’. But this challenge to perception is not new. Attempts to universalise art, that is, to see art in everything and every action has been a signifcant preoccupation for many artists since Marcel Duchamp. In an attempt to shift our understanding of what art could be or mean, Duchamp almost arbitrarily designated objects as art. The most notorious example of this was his piece Fountain (1917), which was a shopbought urinal that he signed R.Mutt and submitted to the frst exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists at the Grand Central Palace Academy, Paris. The Society refused to exhibit the work. Since the time of Duchamp, other artists have played with the idea. 462

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Piero Manzoni, for instance signed living people (usually naked women) with his name and called the work Living Sculpture (1961). Dennis Oppenheim marked out pieces of land with “site-markers” to make art. In the performance world, Allan Kaprow initiated many of the events that came to be known as Happenings in order that “the line between art and life should be kept as fuid, and perhaps as indistinct, as possible” (McEvilley, 1983: 63). However, this process of “universal appropriation” of any aspect of the world as art has certain limits. The action may be real but has semantically become a “shadow-real” as it is categorised as art. So while it may be seen to refect all the world, it still remains a shadow in that world, that will continually regress as one appropriation is appropriated and re-appropriated infnitely, which led Yves Klein to the core of the problem announcing “The painter only has to create one masterpiece, himself, constantly” bringing the idea that the artist IS the art to the centre of artistic discourse at this time and posing the perhaps unanswerable question; can the artist be distinguished from their art? It is precisely these sorts of issues that complicate our reception of Abramović’s early work.

Collaborative period 1975–1988 – Nightsea Crossing and The Lovers: The Great Wall Walk During the time of their collaboration, Abramović and Ulay (Uwe E. Laysiepen) worked in a variety of ways that physically extended the limits of the performing body and explored the creative possibilities of two bodies making performance art. Many of their performances were concerned with emptying out the body and mind through exhaustive processes, many of which had no pre-determined limit. This desire to create through over-extension, pushing to the limits of the physical and mental continued in their joint ventures. This section will examine their approach in two key works Nightsea Crossing (1981–1987), which is carried out in complete stillness and The Lovers: The Great Wall Walk (1988), which relies entirely on motion. While Ulay and Abramović worked together for over a decade, these two works can only really be considered representative of the fnal years of Abramović working partnership with Ulay, whom Abramović frst started working with in 1976. These works can, however, be taken as a culmination of many of the ideas worked upon in their earlier performances. It is rarely mentioned but Ulay was an artist in his own right before working with Abramović. He had an unconventional approach to art-making that was based upon his own lived experiments. For instance, he spent two years dressing as a female and spending time with transsexuals and transvestites. He did this before he spent a year living as someone with a mental impairment, interacting with and mirroring people with severe physical abnormalities (Schimmel, 1998: 101). Ulay’s totally immersive approach was something he fruitfully brought to his work with Abramović and it is something that is particularly evident in both Nightsea Crossing and The Lovers: The Great Wall Walk. Nightsea Crossing is one of the best known of the Ulay/Abramović combined works. This performance was undertaken 22 times between 1981 and 1987 in a number of cities around the world including Sydney, Berlin, Cologne, Amsterdam, Ghent, Helsinki, Lisbon, Ushimado in Japan and São Paulo in Brazil. It meant crossing the ocean of the unconscious. For hours and hours we didn’t do anything except sit at a table and look at each other. It opened the doors to perception to us and we were surfng diferent mental states. (Abramović et al., 1998: 410) 463

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It was, by Abramović’s own admission, one of their most challenging works. The piece consists of the two performers seated at either end of a long table facing each other. They remain in this position completely inert for the duration of the piece, which took place without interruption, throughout the gallery’s opening hours (usually around seven hours). The idea behind this was that the spectator would never see a beginning or an end to the performance and would thus only have an image or memory of their continuity; as if they might sustain this position indefinitely. Abramović and Ulay carried out this performance as: “Their tribute to the cultures – Indian, Tibetan, Australian, Aboriginal – in which ceremonies and meditation techniques had been developed to take the practitioner close to the state of death” (MacRitchie, 1996: 31). In order to survive this long painful performance it was necessary for the performers to be highly disciplined. In essence, the point was not to mentally journey beyond their present circumstances but to experience the ‘here and now’ in a way that most of us just don’t; we instead live perpetually in the past or the future. When spectators came they would often stay much longer than they themselves would have expected to, without really being able to identify what had happened or why. This was the sort of efect the couple’s work had on spectators. In practice, the piece allowed the performers and certain spectators to experience something that might be described as a break with linear time, so that the depth of time can be explored. This experience, which has parallels with the observations made by spectators coming to The House with the Ocean View (2002) could be described as ‘fow’; the sense of being oblivious to the passing of time. When individuals are ‘in the fow’ they are fully engaged with an activity and feel a sense of fulflment, they may . . . temporarily lose their normal sense of time, merge action and awareness leading to a temporary loss of ego, experience an enhanced or transcendent sense of self and intense closeness, (Victor Turner’s communitas) sometimes euphoric, with others sharing their liminal state. (Rountree, 2006: 99) As has been noted earlier . . . , the concept for this performance came about as a result of spending an extended period of time in isolation in the Central Australian desert in 1980; a place where the temperatures during the day rose to the point where motion was no longer viable. As a result of these conditions much of their day was spent in stillness and as an extension of this they chose to remain silent. Enormous self-control was necessary to cope with these specifc conditions. These conditions of stillness and silence taught them a sort of watchfulness that allowed them to minutely observe the smallest things. As Ulay observed: “The company of the lizard is enough – to watch its throat pulsing” (McEvilley, 2005: 280). Once they had spent this time in the desert and gained the acceptance of the Pitjantjatjara people, Abramović and Ulay wished to bring something of their desert experiences back to the European context, that is, the couple wished to bring the ideas behind the discipline of motionlessness ‘inactivity’ where the mind is free to wander, to a western audience with its obsession with the lack and avoiding the waste of ‘time’. The invitation or challenge to the audience was to participate in their shared stillness and let that be enough. In this respect Ulay and Abramović’s performance choices have much in common with the spiritual and religious practices of silence and stillness. . . . For western spectators however, it is likely that those observing Nightsea Crossing, while they would marvel at the performers’ tenacity, would wonder how they managed to sustain such a gruelling ordeal for so long. Such inertia is antithetical to a culture that places such emphasis on dynamism and change, temporal accountability and productivity. 464

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Through motionlessness, Ulay and Abramović believed they went beyond the limits of the corporeal body, chained as it is to sensation, to experience periods of insight and clarity. But for the spectator, the performers drew into sharp focus the relative nature of time. In this way the arbitrary nature of the time-based constraints we live by in western society that dictate a rigid code of timetabling and specifc duration-driven imperatives is highlighted, revealed as a product of our acculturated existence as members of a capitalist based economy where ‘time equals money’. Consequently this performance may be interpreted as efecting a reversal, thereby exposing the viewer to the practice of everyday submission undertaken by most of us who fnd ourselves running to keep pace with the clock’s ticking. Observers come and go, impelled by pressures to be elsewhere, whereas this couple, self-contained and sealed of by their shared stare, live the moment, by the moment, apparently unperturbed by what occurs beyond their mutual vision. The performance highlighted how bound observers were by the sort of disciplinary power expounded by Michel Foucault. The stillness and extended duration of the performance allowed Abramović and Ulay to be temporarily freed from the usual constraints of contemporary subjectivity. But it wasn’t just that Ulay and Abramović sat not moving, they tried to not even blink. This was because Abramović believed that with every blink a new thought process is begun: “If you stop blinking, somehow the time stops and that, actually, after one day was unbearable” (Greenfeld, 2002, n.p.). This connection between eye movement and thought can, like many ideas circulating in Abramović’s work, be traced to Buddhism’s Abhidharmic approach to enlightenment. This method advocates introspection and the sort of meditative practices that slow down one’s sense of time so that each moment can be examined in minute detail. For those that can attain this state, consciousness itself can be observed and it is realised that the self, or one’s illusory sense of self, is really just made up of a series of disconnected moments that under ‘ordinary’ circumstances run so quickly that we have the impression of a continuum, when at an atomic level such a continuum does not exist. In essence, the self is not a fxed discrete object or thing, but is an illusion that arises out of “an ever-fowing process” (Lama Govinda in McEvilley, 1991: 110) of “mind-moments”. Mind-moments, in Abhidharmic analysis, exist for a mere billionth of an eye-blink, so to consciously resist the action of the eyes, as Ulay and Abramović have done, was part of an attempt to slow thought processes down so that the possibility of experiencing “selfessness” or the type of atomic consciousness described above, might be possible. Abramović’s description of her experience during a performance of Nightsea Crossing is illuminating in this respect: It was totally unbearable, because after already two hours, the body wants to move, all the blood, the circulation stopped, you experience enormous pain and if you really build your will-power very strong and you say, I don’t move no matter what and you go over this and then at one point it’s so unbearable that I’m going to lose my mind, I’m going to lose consciousness, what’s the big deal? In that moment something really clicks and all your pain stopped totally, I mean there was no pain and really, the experience of the sensation of the here and now was so strong. It was the frst time that actually I felt that my thinking process stopped and this was an extremely important experience . . . (Greenfeld, 2002: n.p.) Abramović has also spoken of a heightened sense of smell that she developed after the frst few days of performing. Additionally, she claimed to experience a gradual increase in her feld of vision, so that it initially widened to 180º and then increased again so that she could see 360º; 465

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“I literally could see all the public from my back” (Greenfeld, 2002: n.p.) Whether Abramović’s claim can be proved is perhaps less important than her sense that she was experiencing the ‘here and now’ without the usual mental distractions that everyday life produces, allowing her an insight into what she calls “true reality” or what the Buddhist tradition call not-self or selfessness. Beyond the durational and latent spiritual aspects of the piece, the surroundings in which the piece took place were also of great importance. The performance did not so much take place in a room, as become part of the architecture of the site. The material of space, the objects incorporated into the performance and the clothes worn by Ulay and Abramović were all signifcant and given exacting attention in the planning of the performance. Both performers wore a uniform of shirt and trousers in a single block colour. Ulay always wore a diferent colour from Abramović and the colours changed from one performance to another. The single coloured costume that changes every day the performance is undertaken, is something Abramović used again in her recent The House with the Ocean View (2002) and is linked to Abramović’s continued explorations of the energy and the particular qualities of diferent colours. . . .

The Great Wall Walk The Wall is the spine of the dragon. There is a legend telling that if you travel along the whole wall by foot you will get the energy needed for eternal life. (Abramović et al., 1998: 410)

The Lovers: The Great Wall Walk (1988) was the couple’s fnal performance. For this work the two performers walked from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China towards each other; a distance of some 1,250 miles. The wall was reputedly built as a defence against Genghis Khan and Mongolian invasions. The layout of the wall, however, has long been considered to have astrological signifcance indicated by the way in which its distinctive course is mirrored in the Milky Way (Kaunis, 2003: 359–360). This truth of this claim is hard to verify however, the coastal beginning of the wall bears the inscription “First path on earth” while the end of the wall reads “Heroic path to the sky” (Abramović with Pijnappel, 1990: 60) perhaps reinforcing its astrological connection rather than its more pragmatic defensive purpose. Ulay began his walk to the west (dry, heat) at Jao Yu Guan, which is on the south-western edge of the Gobi desert, while Abramović started at Shanhaiguan by the Yellow Sea in the east (damp, cold), an area known as the dragon’s head and which becomes forbiddingly mountainous. The journey, begun on 30 March 1988, took three months to complete. The wall’s meandering path across the landscape took each walker through mile upon mile of difcult and dangerous terrain. Indeed, many parts of the wall, where Abramović insisted she walk, are considered so physically difcult that even the experienced Chinese guides do not venture onto them. Danger or risk, as in so many of her works, was the means used by Abramović to focus her mind, whereas the pain, exhaustion and repetitious act of walking were all ways of leaving the body behind so that a new state of consciousness could be achieved. “It’s like a gate to me, when the body gives up” (Carr, 1997: 69). The walk was originally planned to investigate the relation between the two artists and with ‘Mother Earth’. In order to set up the performance, the couple made repeated journeys to China; once in 1985, 1986, and 1987 before the walk itself in 1988. This was necessary in order to plan, negotiate and gain permission to carry out the walk with ofcials in China. This was a time when it was particularly difcult for westerners to travel through this part of the world. The performance, when frst planned, was to end in a marriage ceremony but because the 466

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relationship between the performers had deteriorated before the walk fnally began, they ended the walk at Er Lang Shan along with their 12-year partnership on the 27 June 1988. The walk was a symbolic act. In pacing along this “dragon of energy” a metaphorical conjunction was made between east and west. It was through the experience of walking the varied terrains of the wall that Abramović became interested in geomancy and the energy felds generated by the land and materials. “I realized that my state of mind was diferent according to the metals in the ground” (Goy, 1990). Feng shui and geomancy base their philosophy on an ancient understanding of electromagnetic felds and their efects on human physiology and brain chemistry. Geomancy is a system that afects all cultural and physical structures – including people. Cosmic forces are controlled through geomantic principles so that “auspiciousness” can be cultivated and/or preserved. Activities or rituals that enhance “auspiciousness” are therefore of great importance. Feng shui is a practice that works to control “auspiciousness” through “yin-yang wuxing” or the binary forces of yin and yang and the fve elements. Yin yang comes from the I Ching (the Book of Changes) and the fve elements are derived from ancient ritual practices of the Chinese based on “interaction, confrontation and mutation between these elements” (Hesselink/Petty, 2005: 268–269). Many times during Abramović’s journey, as night came she was invited to become a guest in small villages near the wall. The older people would often regale Abramović with stories of the wall that drew upon the wall’s geomantic properties. The connection Abramović made with the ancient Chinese tradition of geomancy was particularly important to her evolution as an artist because of the way it directly informed her subsequent experimentation with the energy relationships of crystals, minerals and metals which she continues to incorporate into her performance work in a variety of ways. . . .

1988–2008 – Balkan Baroque and The House with an Ocean View From 1988 to the present moment Abramović has continued to focus, defne and refne her approach. Investing herself in the next generation of artists, she has taken up visiting professorships and full professorships at institutions in Germany and France as well as lecturing and carrying out workshops worldwide. She has done this in addition to producing numerous acclaimed works. This work continues to extend her physical and psychical limits, but at the same time have come to more transparently relate to the changing global stage – in particular the devastating confict in the Balkans in the 1990s, to which Abramović responded with Balkan Baroque (1997) and her tribute to New Yorkers following the 9/11 terrorist attacks: The House with an Ocean View (2002). By the later half of the 1990s Abramović reputation in the west was well established, but like many exiles, she has had an ambivalent relationship with her homeland and her homeland with her. In 1997 Petar Čuković, an art historian from Montenegro and director of the National Museum of Montenegro in Cetinje, was appointed commissioner for the Yugoslav pavilion for the 1997 Venice Biennale. While the choice of artist to represent a country at the Biennale is made without the interference of the international community, it is inevitably a political as well as an artistic decision. It is also signifcant that although the region has evolved and been reconfgured a number of times since it frst exhibited in its own pavilion in the Venice Biennale in 1950, the pavilion retains the original title of ‘Yugoslavia’. Čuković deliberated and then invited Abramović to be the former Yugoslavia’s representative. This was the frst time Yugoslavia had ofered this opportunity to a woman working alone. Abramović didn’t immediately accept the invitation but was infuenced to do so by the student protests in Belgrade that started on the 17th November 1996. Students demonstrated against the 467

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state in peaceful ways that voiced their desire for a more democratic political system. While considering where this commission might lead her, she was also acutely aware of the sorts of recent atrocities that had blighted her homeland and, in particular, that women from many ethnic backgrounds had sufered huge losses and personal violation as a result of the war. She planned to construct an installation for the pavilion, in front of which she would perform for a number of days. When the appointment of Abramović was announced in the daily newspaper Pobjeda on 23d January 1997, the choice immediately generated controversy. One of the reasons for this was cost. The cost of the proposed installation was estimated at around £55,000. However, this was not just to construct the installation but included all the costs associated with mounting the project in Venice. Once the Biennale was over, the installation was to be given to the Museum of Montenegro. However, not only were the costs complained of, so too were Abramović’s credentials as an ‘authentic’ national representative of the region that would refect the nation’s ‘pluralism’. The ofcials associated with the selection process would have felt that a demonstration of national pluralism was more plausible with a delegate chosen from one of the ofcials’ regions; Croatia or Slovenia for example. After all, they argued, Abramović, had not lived in the Balkans for many years, so how could she possible be considered a suitable representative of the ex-‘Yugoslavia’? Čuković, however, thought diferently: Those are the artists who spend the greatest parts of their lives in diaspora, the greatest part of their works being created in diaspora, in spite of the fact at the deepest levels of their being . . . their homeland murmurs. (Hoptman, 2002: 332–333) This opinion was clearly shared by the 1995 Polish commissioner for the Biennale, who chose Roman Opalka to represent Poland; an artist who had lived for decades in the United States. Heated discussion in the Montenegrin and Serbian press ensued. The Minister of Culture in the Montenegrin government, Goran Rakočević, expressed his disapproval of the choice of Abramović in a widely cited ‘private’ statement. He believed that “this outstanding opportunity ought to be used to represent authentic art from Montenegro, free of any complex of inferiority” (Hoptman, 2002: 334). The problem was eventually resolved; Rakočević fred Čuković, rescinded the ofer made to Abramović and then asked Vojo Stanić, a landscape painter, to replace her. Abramović, however, received support and backing from the Italian Germano Celant, the curator of the Biennale, who gave her ample space to set up her installation in the Italian pavilion. Somewhat ironically perhaps, the work she produced for this event could hardly have been a more pertinent response to the divisive confict that had so recently torn the Balkans. And while the piece used elements deemed to be ‘authentic’, she did not allow the stereotypical western reading of the Balkans as primitive, barbaric and destined to repeat rather than learn from their mistakes, dominate her work. Her installation, or ‘play’, Balkan Baroque in fact won her the prestigious Golden Lion for Best Artist. The piece was part-installation, part-projection and part-performance and it occupied an entire foor of the pavilion. Some of the themes included were developed from her earlier work Delusional (1994). In the largest of the windowless rooms used for the piece, there were two copper sinks and one copper trough, all containing water. These were placed in the space as both a way of refecting the fickering images projected on the screens and as a reference to the sort of ritual cleansing necessary to free the body and the mind. Two of the three video projections showed images of her parents: one devoted solely to her mother 468

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and another to her father. Their gestures on screens provide a backdrop and visual clue to Abramović’s historical and personal positioning as a daughter of a Serb and a Montenegrin; their inclusion ironically demonstrated Abramović’s inherent pluralism. And as a device it also brought to light her own sense of being connected to the recent combat in this part of the world and her shame at what this connection imputes. The third screen is given over to another story which Abramović herself presents. It begins with Abramović, clinically and authoritatively dressed in a white laboratory coat and heavy rimmed glasses telling us how to catch a wolf rat; a well-known Yugoslavian fable. I’d like to tell you a story of how we in the Balkans kill rats. We have a method of transforming the rat into a wolf; we make a wolf rat . . . To catch the rats you have to fll all their holes with water, leaving only one open. In this way you can catch 35–45 rats. You have to make sure you choose only the males. You put them in a cage and give them only water to drink. After a while they start to get hungry, their front teeth start growing and even though, normally, they would not kill members of their own tribe, since they risk sufocation [sic] they are force to kill the weak one in the cage. And then another weak one, another weak one, and another weak one. They go on until only the strongest and most superior rat of them all is left in the cage. Now the rat catcher continues to give the rat water. At this point timing is extremely important. The rat’s teeth are growing. When the rat catcher sees that there is only half an hour left before the rat will sufocate [sic] he opens the cage, takes a knife, removes the rat’s eyes and lets it go. Now the rat is nervous, outraged and in a panic. He faces his own death and runs into the rat hole and kills every rat that comes his way. Until he comes across the rat who is stronger and superior to him. This rat kills him. This is how we make the wolf rat in the Balkans. (Abramović et al., 1998: 380) In the delivery of the story she betrayed no emotion. The story with its horrors was recounted matter-of-factly, in keeping with the clothes she adopted for this part of the video. The portraits of her parents mutely sign and gesture at either side of the unfolding story. Without the power to intervene, they remain stuck in their own memories of confict. Then suddenly she removes the white coat, revealing a sexy black dress. She starts to dance, but her movements are disturbing rather than sensually alluring. In parallel with the story she tells, her penetrating gaze and uncomfortable dance, refect something of the mindless cruelties and the physical and psychological violations that characterised the embattled Balkan region in the 1990s. When Abramović was present in person, as she was for 6 hours every day for 4 days, she carried out a number of actions. She danced to entertain her audience and sang ethnic folk songs from Eastern Europe that she recalled from her childhood. And as with childhood songs, when she forgot the words she just hummed until she found her way again. Each day one song was chosen and she would repeat it again and again throughout the six hours until the song became more like a prayer. Day one was a Russian ballad popular in the 1950s, day two a Serbian one, while the third day featured a Dalmatian folk song. If the performance had continued beyond the four days she would have included songs from every region of the former Yugoslavia. Singing in this way, amongst the bones of dead cattle, deliberately evoked the tradition of professional 469

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female mourners known as narikača who, through their singing would set the scene and assist in the process of mourning for families of the dead. Aside from singing and dancing, she spent much of the time sitting on top of a huge pile of cattle bones dressed in a white dress deeply stained by her eforts to clean the bloody gristle and detritus from these bones with a scrubbing brush. The sheer size of the pile dwarfed her, but she was also raised up by this mountain of remains in a way that created an image that was truly baroque in its excess. Abramović worked diligently at the bones and the recent past was all too readily evoked by these actions. For the audience, there was not only the image of a woman placed in the middle of an extraordinary mass of decomposing material, singing mournfully but there was also the smell of these remains, left out for days, powerfully contributing to the presentation; the pervasive and unavoidable stench a heady reminder of the decay, death and destruction left across the landscape of her homeland. In her performance the unprocessed bones are a potent symbol of unresolved feelings and shallowly buried emotions. She draws attention to the abject in removing the evidence of the extant body. Bones themselves have a clarity and fnality, but the clinging tags of fesh and gristle are discomforting as they remind us of the freshness of the death. The cleaning action too is itself disruptive, but it is an action that she has used in a number of earlier works including Cleaning the Mirror I (1995). However, for Cleaning the Mirror I (1995) she used a human skeleton, probably a cast, and certainly not one that had recently belonged to a living being. In cleaning the bones, she works to preserve them – to help them to dry out. In doing so she acknowledges, assimilates and gives value to the past; even a painful and in parts horrifc past. In an interview with Chrissie Iles, Abramović talked about the bones and how their symbolism and meaning is totally dependent on the context in which they are presented. She notes that in Tibet and India bones have a very positive and spiritual aspect; however when they are translated to a European context, bones are the site of shame and taboo. Abramović says she is “trying to question” this and “push it beyond the history of one country” (Iles, 1996: 21). However, this is a difcult task for a western audience largely fearful of death; that ultimate loss of control. Whereas in other cultures, particularly those to which Abramović refers back to in her work, death is embraced as part of the continuing cycle of life, the bones a symbol of transition. On both a personal and political level, by including images of her parents after listening to their testimony, Abramović reclaims something of her personal history. And by setting herself the task of cleaning bones she confronts the recent history of the Balkans. This part of the performance seems to simultaneously accept loss symbolised here by her direct contact with bones. While her determination to deal with, and make the bones ‘clean’, reveals that in spirit she remains undefeated; she has not submitted and is thus ‘victorious’. Within the context of the recent Balkans confict this ‘victory in defeat’ can be seen as a political declaration to continue, and the performance, a covert political statement which had a particular resonance with her audience who at this time were no doubt acutely aware of the atrocities of this war. This example of Abramović’s work also demonstrates that although much of Abramović’s work appears concerned with achieving a personal efcacy, she is clearly able to communicate in a politically efcacious way too.

The House with the Ocean View (2002) Disarming in its simplicity, The House with the Ocean View (2002) was a performance in which Abramović spent 12 days without food, books or other escapist distractions on three small raised platforms attached to a wall of the Sean Kelly Gallery, New York. The tripartite form echoed a medieval triptych but the events depicted could hardly have been more diferent. Ladders with knives for rungs led down from each of the three spaces and throughout her time in the space 470

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Abramović carried out a series of repetitive and ritualised actions: dressing and undressing, washing, urinating, sitting, standing, lying down and occasionally singing but not speaking. Moreover, the control exhibited in her actions was mirrored by the gallery audience watching, who for the vast majority of the time, watched and waited without overly intrusive or disruptive actions of their own; the knives perhaps contributing to an air of respectful distance. Simple eye contact with selected individuals was the point of connection between the deliberate and controlled world she inhabited and the world of the passing, frequently pausing observers below her. The work, according to Abramović was, “as much about you as it is me” (Abramović et al., 2004: 158), making it clear that to encourage interactivity with her audience was a core part of her intention. She achieved this by deeply purist means; by generating “energy”. Creating an energy feld. In the energy sense, performing is like publishing. If you put an article in a newspaper, you concentrate an enormous amount of mental energy into it, if you invite people to come to a performance, practically you do the same . . . during the performance you exchange your energy with the energy of the audience and together the artist and the audience are all subject to the same idea. (Abramović et al., 1998: 407) In this piece Abramović put the process described above into action so that the reciprocated energies of spectator and performer communicated ideas in such a way that a sort of change was efected in both the public and the performer. This method of conveying a message would appear to be an ephemeral rather than empirical means of afecting change but it is a methodology that Abramović has consistently subscribed to. The entire premise of the performance is to ask the questions: “Can I change my energy feld? Can this energy feld change the energy feld of the audience and the space?” (Abramović et al., 2004: 7) The apparent simplicity of such questions belies the complexity of the performance and its execution. ‘Energy’ on one level appears as a primary question relevant to a performance related enquiry, while on another level this can be seen as a scientifc enquiry concerned with the physics of space that has the potential to blur disciplinary boundaries. What really happens in the space and how can we consider or indeed measure its productive and/or generative potential? For RoseLee Goldberg and Peggy Phelan, who both witnessed this performance and recorded their reactions and those of others around them, there is agreement; something transformative does happen. Indeed, many seemed visibly afected by the simple profundity of the work (see Abramović et al., 2004: 158 and 177–178).

Transformation through presence During a discussion with her brother Velimir in the late 1990s, Abramović declared that the classical model of the audience viewing a picture was fnished and that instead the experience of the audience should be closer to what she experienced when she meet with a monk who had just come out of seclusion following a number of years spent in a cave. Abramović has described how she sat next to the newly liberated monk and while they were unable to speak to each other because they did not have a shared language, she felt his presence alter her own physical and mental state. She encountered a feeling of great warmth in spite of the cold, and this was followed by an experience of great clarity where she “just stopped thinking” (Abramović et al., 1998: 404). It is this deep sense of peaceful connectivity that Abramović sees as something art should strive for; inner power transferred from artist to 471

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spectator (Carr, 2002: 57). This represents a shift in emphasis from her early solo works with their edgy subsumed self-directed violence, and even from the collaborative works with Ulay where their involvement with each other limited spectator access to any form of connection or exchange.

Processing trauma The ramifcations of that fateful day extended even into Marina’s proposal for the new performance being prepared for the gallery. (Abramović et al., 2004: 5)

The House with the Ocean View was in part made “to provide a place of contemplation for the aftermath of the disaster and the dramatic change it had wrought in the psyche of a wounded New York City” (Abramović et al., 2004: 158). The fact that Abramović decided to perform a ritualistic performance partly in response to the events that occurred in the U.S. on and after 11 September 2001 adds an additional index to the work. At root, the performance became a space in and through which the performance and spectator could project themselves and their present preoccupations. Moreover, as an expression of system and order within a cultural climate of uncertainty the piece also had a particular resonance with something Mary Douglas wrote in her infuential book Purity and Danger: Order implies restriction; from all possible materials, a limited selection has been made and from all possible relations a limited set has been used. So disorder by implication is unlimited, no pattern has been realised in it, but its potential for patterning is indefnite. This is why, though we seek to create order, we do not simply condemn disorder. We recognise that it is destructive to existing patterns; also that it has potentiality. It symbolises both danger and power. (1966 reprinted 2004: 117) Abramović, in this performance, staged herself in anticipation that others would ‘join’ her in her extended, slowly moving, meditation. The simplicity and orderliness of the means of performance perhaps ofered the spectator time to discern what is essential and what is superfuous in our own lives. The space within the gallery provided a haven from the complexities and complications of the rest of the world. Its emphasis on creating a basic connection with spectators was a way of giving her audience a unique experience that in an unexpected way both relied on and was all about them and the ‘disorder’ and ‘potentiality’ they brought; here lay the piece’s “danger and power”. Indeed, for much of the performance Abramović just stood making eye contact with individuals who had come to share time and space in the gallery. Some visitors returned repeatedly, almost religiously, to witness her state of being at various times over the 12 days. As RoseLee Goldberg reports: One young woman mimicked Abramović’s movements with the precision of an understudy. A man held up a small drawing he had made of her, tinted gold, as in an ofering to a saint. Another man stood and stared, legs astride arms akimbo, at Abramović and she down at him, for a full quarter of an hour. (Abramović et al., 2004: 157) In essence, she used her energy and outward gaze to extend herself into the space. Spectators have written of their desire to both engage in an exchange (largely through reciprocating her 472

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gaze) or of wanting to support her with their presence in the space – particularly as the days passed and Abramović’s physical condition visibly altered for regular visitors. And she hid nothing, allowing observers access to her entire repetitive routine; she left herself open and exposed with all the intimacy and discomfort this sort of exhibition of herself implied. A telescope installed at the back of the spectator space allowed anybody to minutely examine every inch of her body and the performance space. But as a counter to this invitation to look so closely was an awareness that others in the space could observe the telescope-looker looking. The other notable object in the mise en scène was a metronome that Abramović periodically set in motion. Its repetitive rhythm marked the passing of time and emphasised the cyclic nature of her activities during the 12 days. It also recalls one of Man Ray’s early works Indestructible Object (frst made as Object of Destruction 1923 and remade in 1965 as Indestructible Object) which consisted of a metronome with a photo of an eye attached to the moving arm. Man Ray used the metronome to regulate the rate at which he painted: The faster it went, the faster I painted; and if the metronome stopped then I knew I had painted too long, I was repeating myself . . . I also clipped a photo of an eye to the metronome’s swinging arm to create the illusion of being watched as I painted. (Montagu, 2002: 47) In similar fashion, the metronome provided an audible regulation of the pace of Abramović’s performance as spectators looked on. Throughout the 12 days the performance was continuously recorded, both as a form of documentation and of authentication. Even while the gallery was closed the video camera continued to act as a silent witness watching and recording her performance. Her daily visitors brought the unexpected and the spontaneous to the performance; without their constant but dynamic presence the performance may have been reduced to little more than a ritual exercise. Without these people to take up the ofer Abramović’s performance extended, the piece would have had much less to say. This reinforces the important role Abramović increasingly gives the spectator in her work. Certain esoteric practices of Buddhism are once again an important source of inspiration for this work. Thomas McEvilley, a long-time friend of and commentator on Abramović’s work, has described the piece as “a meditation retreat made public” (Abramović et al., 2004: 168). He goes on to clarify this allusion: Specifcally, it seems to have been based on what in the Pali tradition of Theravadin Buddhism is called a vipassana retreat. These retreats (which are given here and there around the world) usually last 10–12 days (Abramović chose 12), with no talking, reading or writing, and very limited eating; one can fast, as Abramović chose to do, or eat one meal at about noon every day . . . the Buddha says that the primary point is to remain carefully aware of four postures: walking, standing, sitting and lying down. Abramović’s posted rules for her publicly performed retreat adhered to this formula. (Abramović et al., 2004: 168) Its originality and signifcance lies in bringing this performance to a New York gallery. As noted earlier in this chapter, Abramović’s wish to bring ideas from the east to the west or rather to western audiences has been evident. Indeed, she once stated: “We wanted to get to know the whole background of the primitive cultures, integrating into them and then trying to transform and bring this experience to our work, so as to form a bridge between East and 473

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West” (Abramović et al., 1998: 19). She did this as a person born and raised in the former Yugoslavia – a country which itself acted as a conduit between Eastern European ideas and powers and western capitalist ones. Fasting was undertaken both to purify and to alter her usual energy levels so that she could gain the attention of the public; a public who through the process of the performance evolved into a temporary community of interested and/or concerned audience members. But the fact that Abramović fasted throughout the piece’s duration is not the centre-piece of the work, rather it is part of her performance process – a means by which she ‘travels’. As a co-requisite action it is a core part of her process but it is not the point of her ‘journey’. For it is Abramović’s customary practice to undertake regular periods of fasting in order to release the body from the tyranny of digestion that diverts the body’s energies. By ceasing to eat, the energy usually expended on routine food processing ‘rises’ and can be utilised in alternative ways. For Abramović the key is to tap into this energy for creative purposes. In this way the fasting is a means to an end, not the end itself. Abramović, moreover, doesn’t fail to acknowledge that for the frst days of the fast there is discomfort, even pain, as the restricted body rebels against the imposed regime. But in pushing through this, Abramović temporarily re-educates her system. This sort of preparatory practice is a typical feature of workshops Abramović has run for student groups as well as for practitioners. During these workshops Abramović expects participants to abide by a strict series of rules and restrictions which might include fve to seven days of no eating, speaking, smoking or alcohol, and a rigorous set of practical exercises. . . . The connection Abramović desired with the audience was not always so easy. The gallery space itself engenders a certain deferential distance, but more than that, her elevated position creates an immediate gulf – she is not on our level. Above us, in this white space she became a kind of exemplar of purity, simplicity and complete openness that could not be matched by anyone present. Furthermore, the durational aspect of the piece enhances a sense of being in the presence of something or someone sacred. The relative stillness, meditative quality and extended duration also evoked the earlier performance Nightsea Crossing (1981–1986). On refecting back on the proxemics of the performance, Abramović has spoken of wishing to revise the staging to remove these barriers to allow for even greater proximity and access for spectators/participants. I’ll have another platform on the other side for the public, who’ll also be elevated. Anyone who wants to participate in this performance will have to make this efort to step up, to be on the same level. I’d like it to be harder, to put the public in similar conditions to mine – not for twelve days, because it’s dangerous for many diferent reasons – but maybe the public wouldn’t eat for one or two days, so that we’d have similar conditions for receiving energy. (Heathfeld, 2004: 147) How this would work in practice is perhaps harder to imagine, but Abramović is certainly no stranger to intimate and prolonged interaction in performance as the previous discussion of her work in this section testifes. At core the performance The House with the Ocean View spoke of the value of human perseverance, of the potential simplicity of existence and of the necessity of extraordinary acts, if only to remind us that there are more ways to live than our customary western commodity-driven understanding generally allows us to experience and that an appreciation of this fact may allow us greater insight and subsequent tolerance of and respect for cultures and societies that choose to live diferently. 474

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2008–2018 – The Artist is Present, 512 Hours and The Cleaner In the section I wish to examine a number of recent works (including my frst-hand account of 512 Hours) and the MOCA Gala controversy. This is done as a means of refecting upon Abramović’s trajectory over the last ten years.

The Artist is Present (2010) She did create a charismatic space, a little rent in the fabric of the universe, that was wholly her own that she occupied. And she did it in a room flled with many people, and many people felt that charismatic space as a reality. That’s an extraordinary achievement. (Biesenbach in Akers, 2012)

The decision to mount a major retrospective exhibition of Abramović’s work at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York in 2010 represents a signifcant landmark in Abramović’s career. Indeed, this exhibition with its signature new performance with the same title as the exhibition The Artist is Present, marked a further shift in the public’s perception of Abramović and performance art, leading to a massive increase in the visibility of Abramović’s work both within and beyond the museum. In addition to the work she made specifcally for the occasion, Abramović employed young artists and performers to train and re-enact a number of her earlier works in the spaces of the museum. However, the centrepiece of the three-month exhibition was Abramović herself, performing The Artist is Present. A work that itself reworks elements of Nightsea Crossing (see Section 20.2, ‘Key works: Collaborative period (1975–1988)’), which Abramović performed with Ulay in the 1980s, which itself could be linked back to Abramović’s early childhood experiences of sitting alone and largely motionless in her grandmother’s kitchen. Instead of sitting opposite Ulay, as Abramović did in Nightsea Crossing, a member of the public was invited to sit with Abramović throughout the opening hours of the museum. Visitors could stay for as long as they wished and hundreds of people patiently and impatiently queued to take their turn. Some sat for moments, others for hours, but Abramović had someone with her throughout the time the work was installed in MOMA (March 14–May 31, 2010). The fact that such a simple premise resonated so strongly with spectators surprised everyone including Abramović, even though such “energy dialog” has been a signifcant feature of her work for a long time. I don’t have this kind of feeling in real life, but in performance I have this enormous love, this heart that literally hurts me with how much I love them . . . I really looked at the people in the gallery. To me the eyes are a door for something else, and whatever is happening in their lives, I pick it up. You can’t imagine how much I cried in that piece. (Abramović, interview with Anderson, 2003) The openness, respect and concentration with which Abramović made eye contact with every sitter during the 736 hours of the performance, was undoubtedly a testament to Abramović’s indefatigable physical and mental fortitude and dedication to her work. Despite the inevitable toll this commitment must have made on her, she did not miss a single day of the rigidly prescribed schedule of ‘presence’ she had made for herself. And yet, the promise of presence within the framework of the space in which she was exhibited, while seemingly sufcient for the many who sat with Abramović and found the experience exhilarating, 475

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profound and/or moving, was perplexing for others. Aside from those who criticised the piece for the way in which they felt it made Abramović into something like a quasi-religious site of pilgrimage: the stark but theatrical gallery setting where the spectator queued for an audience with the artist; the prominent security; the multiple cameras and media presence recording all that occurred; all these could be considered factors that worked against the spectator’s capacity to be truly present with the artist in the manner suggested by the simplicity of the ofer, ‘sit with me’. Indeed, Amelia Jones has argued that the appearance or simulation of authentically being ‘present’ with the spectator suggests, does not take into account the very particular, and highly mediated circumstances with which the artist and spectator are surrounded that create a considerable barrier to any possibility of feeling ‘present’ (Jones, 2011: 18). The role of the artist as ‘mirror’ that Abramović was keen to promote, in this instance, also refects back the very theatricality she is attempting to dissolve. In the chair, neither artist nor participant can forget the contrived nature of what has been set up: the elaborate lighting, the cameras and the countless devices available to capture and reproduce what is on display to multiple audiences within and beyond the gallery space. Moreover, Jones also identifes as contradictory and troubling the manner in which claims for the performance of ‘presence’ along with multiple re-enactments of Abramović’s work also taking place in the museum, (by predominantly young, attractive performers), readily commodify actions that were originally created in defance of such blatant commercial enterprise and instead . . . serves the museum’s desire to market performance as the latest thing in modernism’s long teleology . . . remind[ing] us not only how closely all cultural expressions are tied to the marketplace in late capitalism, but of questions of history in relation to performance art that are extremely important politically. (Jones, 2011: 42)

512 Hours (2014) In April 2014, Abramović stated, in a BBC Radio 4 interview with Will Gompertz, in which she discussed her plans for a new exhibition in London that: I called Hans Ulrich and I said “I don’t know how you’re going to take this, but this is what I want to do: nothing . . . there’s nothing.” There’s no work, just me, and the public is my live material, and that’s the most radical, the most pure I can do. (Zeitgeisters, Series 2, www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03z089k) This became the premise for 512 Hours at the Serpentine Gallery, which ran from 11 June to 25 August 2014. It did not go unnoticed that Abramović’s choice to focus on nothing did not acknowledge any historical precursors, something that was reported in The Guardian and noted by art historians Frazer Ward and David Joselit in the 29 May 2014 publication of Art in America. “A Spat Over ‘Nothing’: A New Marina Abramović Project Raises Hackles”. Indeed, a number of artists have explored immaterial art and nothing, including Yves Klein’s presentation of the empty Iris Clert gallery in Paris as The Void or The Specialization of Sensibility in the Raw Material State into Stabilized Pictorial Sensibility, The Void, and more recently the North American conceptual artist Mary Ellen Carroll, who has been working with nothing since the 1990s. Could Abramović’s promise of nothing ofer something radical to audiences? With the disproportionate emphasis in the developed 476

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world on neo-liberal values and its accompanying notions of productivity and free market consumerism, to ‘do nothing’ might be framed as antithetical, even obstructive, nihilistic, anti-social, wasteful (in terms of human capital) and amoral; ‘don’t just sit there doing nothing’. However, the framing concept was later modifed on the Serpentine Gallery website which states: “Creating the simplest of environments in the Gallery spaces, Abramović’s only materials will be herself, the audience and a selection of common objects that she will use in a constantly changing sequence of events” (http://512hours.tumblr.com, accessed 16 October 2017, author’s emphasis). Nothing was now complicated/compromised by a “selection of common objects”. Before entering the gallery, all visitors were asked to deposit their belongings in an individual locker. This mandatory ‘request’ is designed to liberate the visitor from electronic devices and other forms of distraction. The frst space that a visitor encounters is brightly light by natural sunlight coming from windows in a circular ceiling. On my frst visit the room was populated with around 20 earnest-looking individuals, all silent and pensive. Most people were sitting or standing upright. Abramović, dressed all in black, appears in a doorway and walks into the space accompanied by two people, whom she holds by the hands. These people look awkward as if simply walking has suddenly become something strange and complicated. Abramović committed to be present in the gallery throughout the duration of the piece, but in common with a number of works Abramović has made over the last decade, she chose to employ assistants to help with the operation of the piece. These assistants periodically take people by the hand and lead them in a slow walk across or through the space before placing their hands on their shoulders or back in a sort of slow motion healing ritual. The gentle but insistent gestures of these assistants manipulate a good deal of the activity that takes place, but that does not stop those who wish to from opting out; for example, a woman in one space sleeps in an upright position, arms crossed across her chest, unperturbed by any activity around her. A month later I visit again but this time the spaces are very diferent. The space into which you enter feels more concentrated with an enlarged platform in the shape of a cross on the foor beneath the circular dome from which bright white light continues to rain down. On all four sides of the platform there is a row of four chairs where people are seated facing the central area – most now have noise-excluding headphones on. On the platform there is a close-knit group of individuals standing, facing inwards – mostly with eyes shut and distant looks on their faces. In an adjacent space there is a long row of desks with seated fgures, like an old-fashioned schoolroom. They all have their backs to the doorway. A fgure dressed in black walks down the row of desks with hands behind her back as if inspecting the work of those at desks. The seated people appear busy, concentrated, silent and, yes, industrious. They are fully occupied sifting what looks like rice and sunfower seeds or lentils. Some are creating small measured piles of each, while others are making patterns with the separated materials. It’s a sorting exercise that now forms part of the Abramović Method, a chance to focus the mind on the here and now, and another attempt to engage visitors with the present moment. The technique originates from Abramović’s experience in Tushita monastery in Northern India where she was set this task. It generates considerable activity and is not interpreted as pointless, quite the reverse, as soon as a desk becomes vacant, a man rapidly asserts his right to take the seat so he too can sort and count; the energy of absorption and productivity emanates from the space. Not coincidentally this is the same exercise Abramović gave Lady Gaga in December 2013 when Gaga, reportedly overcome with stress, took part in a four-day retreat with Abramović. In common with the model of withdrawal Abramović has used with groups of emergent artists . . . , Abramović led Lady Gaga through a range of 477

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exercises, each of which was carried out each for a four hour period. Abramović recalls her time with Gaga: One of the most insane exercises was, I gave her one pound of rice and one pound of lentil seeds. . . . You mix them together, and then you divide them and count each one. She did this for four hours. It looks like a stupid thing full of repetition, but it has everything to do with self-control, with concentration, with state of mind. It’s to see if you can focus on one matter for a long period of time. It says everything about you – what is your patience level and so on. (Abramović cited by Hoen, 2013) While the well-publicised interaction of Lady Gaga and Abramović further reinforced Abramović as someone who enjoyed mixing with celebrities and was increasingly considered to be one, it is unlikely that any of the participants in the activity at the Serpentine Gallery were taking part because they have been inspired by Gaga’s ready engagement in these “insane exercises”. Instead, as Abramović suggests, the task is a kind of test: Can you maintain interest? Are you patient? What does the grain and pulse sorting reveal about you? Activity in the various spaces of the gallery varied during the 512 hours the work took place in the gallery. From the initial promise of nothing, slow walks and walking backwards with a mirror appeared, as was the later introduction, noted on my third and fnal visit, of camp beds which one could lie in with noise-excluding headphones and a blanket provided by one of the assistants who efectively tucked in visitors for as long as they desired. As I saw it, and in Foucauldian fashion, each space evoked the vestigial force of one or other disciplinary mechanism traditionally (in the west) used to structure and develop the individual into a productive and compliant citizen; the ‘church’ space evoking an atmosphere and indeed behaviours reminiscent of religious or spiritual belief and/or experience; the ‘schoolroom’ where we are educated or acculturated into valuing a particular set of ideas, behaving with restraint and working to a series of timetabled activities (grain/pulse sorting) that measures out the day; and fnally the ‘exercise’ room where controlled motion (which can be seen as exertion without the dangers of over-exertion) is encouraged and instrumentalised for the beneft of maintaining a healthy and thus a useful body. In this instance, discourse and classifcation are not overtly used as mechanisms of control but rather the mutual surveillance of visitors and the space, together with the actions instigated by those employed to ensure particular processes occur, guarantee visibility and compliance. Silence, stillness, slowed motion and sorting are established, normalised and repeated. So even while Abramović’s proposition of nothing should subvert the strangely familiar productive potential of the spaces she has created in the gallery, there is a residual sense that these spaces are still imbued with and reiterate the underlying disciplinary structures with which I am familiar. My third visit is diferent again – while the central light room is the same and there are still slow walkers, the grain-sorting classroom has gone. Instead, and as noted above, camp beds lined the walls of both sides of the room. Each has a brightly coloured sheet and a pillow. One of the black-clad assistants I recall from my frst visit controls the room and ofers me a place in a newly vacated bed. I decline and instead walk to the end of the room to take in the sight of so many supine bodies: at the time this was less evocative of a space of contemplation than it was an overcrowded ward of inert patients yet to come out of anaesthesia. People appeared very engaged with themselves, many enjoying the relative silence, the meditative vibe of the place and the opportunity to practice mindfulness, which was very much the zeitgeist of this time. But in common with The Artist is Present (2010), an awareness that Abramović and her assistants are around to direct things ends up being a distraction. The overall impression is one 478

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of micro-management and a strictly imposed disciplined environment that distracts me from engaging with the nothing originally promised. Abramović herself spent her time working the various rooms with a sort of evangelical zeal. In contrast to much earlier Rhythm 0 (1975), which placed the body of the artist at the centre of the piece, 512 Hours (2014) unintentionally places the diva status of the artist at the centre of the piece. In search of Abramović the Gallery has for some became a site of pilgrimage. So while the question of how we are acted upon and act towards others remains the focal point of both Rhythm 0 and 512 Hours, in 512 Hours we do not act upon the artist but we are asked to act upon ourselves in the presence of the ‘master’/ the shamanic celebrity. The intention may be to expand the horizons of all of us through introducing the exercises of the Method as the artwork, and thus erasing the boundaries between the public as spectator and the public as practising disciples of the Method, but Abramović is always the durational performer at the centre of it – reminding us, distracting us: however far we choose to go, she will always have gone much much further.

The Cleaner (2017) The Cleaner (2017) performance took place for seven days (27 February–5 March) from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the Eric Ericson Hall (Skeppsholmskyrkan), Stockholm. The hall is a former Orthodox Christian church deconsecrated in 2002, however, it retains its large religious statuary, its raised pulpit with adjoining stairs, and its circular dome above its central-plan circular space: commonplace in Orthodox churches. This place is now the home of the Eric Ericson International Choral Centre and it was the acoustic of the space that was one of the things Abramović wanted to explore when she was designing the piece for this venue. The work was curated by Catrin Lundqvist and Lena Essling of the Moderna Museet, which is situated a short distance from the hall. The intention was to create something that literally resonated with the local community. The result is a piece that focuses on providing an intimate experience for that community through closely controlled activity led by 30 of Abramović’s specially trained performer assistants. The space is constantly flled with the sound and reverberations of individual and collective singing that embraces the visitor as soon as they enter. This was achieved through the eforts of a number of individual singers and local choirs who ensured that this vital element of the piece remained continuously present for the duration of the performance each day. In common with 512 Hours (2014) in the Serpentine Gallery, visitors were required to leave all electronic devices and bags in the cloakroom or at home, before entering the space. In addition, for this work visitors were asked to leave their shoes and their outdoor clothes behind as well. Given that the work took place during winter, this additional stipulation made practical as well as metaphorical sense. The curator Lena Essling commented on this action in what was essentially a liminal space between the outside world and the interior of the hall, as one where “you show respect for the whole situation”. Once released of the usual reference points of connection and communication, visitors were met at the door and taken by the hand by one of the black dressed performer/assistants recruited by Abramović and trained by Lynsey Peisinger, who has played an increasingly important role in stage-managing Abramović’s workforce. Peisinger also contributed to choreographing the actions of the performer/assistants with Catrin Lundqvist from Modern Museet. The uncomfortable intimacy of being led by the hand in this way is a more pronounced and deliberate strategy for engagement then that adopted in 512 Hours where the performer/assistants were more like custodians or initiators of suggested optional action rather than gentle enforcers of prescribed elements of the experience as they are in The Cleaner. In The Cleaner everyone is accompanied and led to a designated space or ‘station’. And while you may then be left to experience the piece with other visitors, performer/assistants are constantly 479

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on hand to place a hand on your chest or your back, to indicate to you when your eyes should be closed, to assist you to the foor or to your feet, or to further encourage you to engage with the experience through their persuasive gestures and movements. The video documentation suggests participants did not resist, but rather dutifully complied, as if the dispossession enacted before entry also contractually obliged participants to submit to whatever befell them in the space itself. The measured pace of activity mixed with contemplation, the obsolete but still-present religious statues, the rise and fall of sonorous voices in the space, all evoked something of the spiritual or sacred. While some visitors claim that there was nothing overtly religious about the performance, the ritualistic activity managed by the performer/assistants and the meditative framing of the piece with voices leading or echoing songs or sounds, did indeed appear to provide a communal atmosphere typical of traditional forms of collective Christian worship; one marked by docility and submission. Moreover, visitors were left at what were termed ‘stations’ throughout the space; ‘stations’ in the context of the space of a former Orthodox church cannot be ignored as accidental. While there is no obvious Via Dolorosa, invoking ‘stations’ it does beg the question – have people come here for an experience like worship? And if not, do they inadvertently fnd themselves compliant? Even if the result is pleasantly releasing? What does that say about the force of Abramović and indeed her troupe of performer/assistants? One might argue that this work is about taking a step back from the everyday, an invitation to be self-refective, to meditate, to take back time in the context of a culture of global hyper-connectivity. Its evocation of community, its creation of a secular space for contemplation and a shared appreciation of choral music, suggest the work meets this community of visitors’ desire for a space and a sense of connection traditionally associated with conventional acts of religious worship but one that does not require the reference point of a monotheistic deity. God or gods are not of interest to Abramović, but the ritual practices that surround a wide range of spiritual practices are, as has extensively been explored in this chapter. Nonetheless, as a performance, there is a tension here as there was in The Artist is Present (2010) and 512 Hours (2014) as to what extent have visitors come to see Abramović and engage in the cult of personality that has come to surround her, and to what extent did they come to experience and be present in the piece? Or is it no longer possible to separate one thing from the other? And if this is part of her legacy, does it matter?

Artists for hire I have this whole idea, apart from the members continuing their own work, to experiment with establishing a model of service where performers can be rented to perform. This may work within the context of some of the artists’ practice, because so many artists actually don’t perform themselves, and they need a performer to do it. And they often have trouble fnding someone who can really do it with the right discipline. So I have thirty-fve people from twenty-two diferent countries who can do anything you want because they’re really trained. So you want someone short or small, somebody blonde, and you can audition the performance artist like you can audition the actors. For me, this kind of income is much better than working in a bar or a factory to survive. (Abramović et al., 2007: 26)

In the frst decade of this century and following her own experiments with re-enactment Abramović has promoted the idea of using artists to construct or reconstruct her work in ways that has parallels with the use of actors in conventional theatrical productions. There are, however, considerable diferences. For example, Abramović sees the ofer of taking part in one of her re-performances as a sort of training opportunity for emergent or practising artists, and there is 480

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an expectation that in order to take part such performers will submit to Abramović’s prescribed preparations for any piece within which they are to perform. In addition, performers must limit themselves to the actions that Abramović has determined. This contrasts with the ofer of an acting role where an actor may be expected to bring their own perspective and interpretation to the part they are contracted to play. Moreover, Abramović’s re-performers tend to be silent: the fve performances (Imponderabilia (1977), Luminosity (1997), Nude with Skeleton (2002/2005), Point of Contact (1980) and Relation in Time (1977)) chosen for the MOMA retrospective did not require performers to speak, and thus may easily be seen and feel themselves to be mute objects within her constructions, particularly when asked to perform nude as many were in what became a controversial Gala performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles in 2011. During this fundraising event for donors to the museum, Abramović employed a number of artist/performers to enact a work she entitled An Artist’s Life Manifesto. Auditions were held to determine applicants’ suitability, and while the following is the account of one artist’s (Sara Wookey) understanding of the proposed performance (and she subsequently declined the ofer of work), her account was circulated to artist Yvonne Rainer, who became concerned about the proposed performance. Wookey stated that performers for the Gala . . . will spend 3(!) hours under the dining tables of the donor gala with their heads protruding from the tables. They will be sitting on lazy susans under the table and slowly rotating and making eye contact with the donors/diners. Of course we were warned that we will not be able to leave to pee, etc. That the diners may try to feed us, give us drinks, fondle us under the table, etc. but will be warned not to. Whatever happens, we are to remain in performance mode and unafected. (Wookey in La Rocco, 2011) The payment for the work was to be $150 and the performer Wookey calculated that this was for 15 hours work “. . . all day Friday and Saturday.” It is also noted that there is another role being auditioned for the event, one “. . . where the performers lie naked on tables with fake skeletons on them,” which presumably was the recreation of Nude with Skeleton (2002/2005). As a result of receiving this communication, on 9 November 2011, Rainer wrote to the Museum Director Jeremy Deitch, where she describes the proposal as a “public humiliation” to the performers. The core of her concern circulates around “Ms Abramović’s obliviousness to diferences in context and some of the implications of transposing her own powerful performances to the bodies of others. An exhibition is one thing – this is not a critique of Abramović’s work in general – but titillation for wealthy donor/diners as a means of raising money is another.” While the concerns of Wookey and Rainer are not identical, the fact that the proposed activity is being presented to donors at an event aimed at gaining funding for the museum frames all the issues presented. The objectifcation of performers bodies for the entertainment of the assembled donors makes the choice of actions being presented more than questionable in Rainer’s eyes. Abramović was accused of being exploitative, and certainly the level of payment for such work and long hours is exploitative because it doesn’t represent a fair hourly rate but relies on Abramović’s cult status and the desires of many young emergent artists to work with Abramović regardless of the ‘cost’. But this controversy goes beyond the objectifcation of female bodies (and yes, all the nudes were female) to a more fundamental question concerning performance art’s ontology as a feeting, transient form that resists the usual commodifcation accorded conventional art objects. Performance art evolves out of a particularly set of socio-cultural and personal circumstances 481

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and creates specifc responses, by having performers re-enact work like Nude with Skeleton on dinner tables for a Gala or Imponderabilia through a specially constructed doorway which was not the door way to the gallery for the MOMA exhibition Abramović strikes at the heart of performance art’s originary narrative, as well as at the power that evolves out of the creation of something one of, radical and relevant for the moment for which it emerged.

Further reading Abramović, Marina (1994) Biography: In Collaboration with Charles Atlas, Reihe Cantz series, Ostfldern: Cantz. ———. (1999) Unfnished Business, Köln: Salon Verlag. ———. (2016) Walk Through Walls: A Memoir, New York: Crown Archetype. Abramović, Marina et al. (1998) Artist/Body: Performances 1969–1998 (essays by Obrist, Hans Ulrich, Iles, Chrissie, Wulfen, Thomas, Avgikos, Jan, Stooss, Toni, McEvilley, Thomas, Pejić, Bojana, Abramović, Velimir), Milan: Charta. Abramović, Marina et al. (2002) Marina Abramović (essays by Vettese, Angela, Di Pietrantonio, Giacinto, Daneri, Anna, Hegvi, Lorand and Societas Rafaello Sanzio), Milan: Charta. Abramović, Marina et al. (2003) The Student Body (interview with Fernández-Cid, Miguel), Milan: Charta. Abramović, Marina et al. (2004) The House with the Ocean View (essays by Kelly, Sean, McEvilley, Thomas, Sontag, Susan, Carr, Cynthia, Madof, Stephen Henry, Iles, Chrissie, Goldberg, RoseLee, Phelan, Peggy), Milan: Charta. Abramović, Marina et al. (2007) Seven Easy Pieces, (essays/interviews by Spector, Nancy, Fischer-Lichte, Erika and Umathum, Sandra), Milan: Charta. Abramović, Marina et al. (2017) The Cleaner (essays by Essling, Lena, Colstrup, Tine, Abramović, Marina, Pejić, Bojana, Zuber, Devin, and Heathfeld), Berlin: Hatje Cantz Verlag GmbH. Abramović, Marina with Celant, Germano (2001) Public Body, Milan: Charta. Abramović, Marina with Denegri, Dobrila (1998) Performing Body, Milan: Charta. Abramović, Marina and Obrist, Hans Ulrich (2008) Interview in Art Basel Conversations, The International Art Show – Die Internationale Kunstmesse Art 39 Basel, www.artbasel.com. Allsop, Ric and DeLahunta, Scott (eds.) (1996) The Connected Body?: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Body and Performance, Amsterdam: Amsterdam School of Arts. Anderson, Laurie (2003) ‘Marina Abramović’, Bomb Magazine, August, https://bombmagazine.org/articles/marina-abramović (accessed 18 December 2017). Andrae, Tor (1987) In the Garden of Myrtles: Studies in Early Islamic Mysticism trans. Sharpe, B., New York: SUNY Press. Archer, Michael (1995) ‘Marina Abramović’, Art Forum, Summer, pp. 117–118. Beard, Alison (2016) ‘Life’s Work: An Interview with Marina Abramović’, Harvard Business Review, https:// hbr.org/2016/11/marina-abramović (accessed 11 December 2017). Bersani, Leo (1986) The Freudian Body: Psychoanalysis and Art, New York: Columbia University Press. Bird-David, Nurit (2004) ‘Illness-images and joined beings. A Critical/Nayaka Perspective on Intercorporeality’, Social Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 325–339. Blacker, Carmen (2004) The Catalpa Bow: A Study of Shamanic Practices in Japan, London/New York: Routledge. Bodhi, Bhikkhu (2008) The Noble Eightfold Path Chapter VI Right Mindfulness, www.vipassana.com/ resources/8fp6.php (accessed 5 August 2018). Boileau, Gilles (2002) ‘Wu and shaman’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 65, No. 2, pp. 350–378. Boucher, Brian (2014) ‘A Spat Over “Nothing”: A New Marina Abramović Project Raises Hackles’, Art in America, 29 May, www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/news/a-spat-over-nothing-anew-marina-abramovi-project-raises-hackles (accessed 20 December 2017). Boutoux, Thomas (ed.) (2003) ‘Marina Abramović and Gregory Chaitin’, Hans Ulrich Obrist Interviews: Volume 1, Milan: Charta. Brawner, Lydia (2013) ‘The Artist is Present: Performing the Icon’, Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 212–225. Butcher, James (2005) ‘Profle: Lewis Gordon Pugh – Polar Swimmer’, The Lancet, Vol. 366, pp. S23–S24.

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Abramović (1946–) Cage, John (2006) Silence: Lectures and Writings by John Cage, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Carr, Cynthia (1997) ‘Marina Abramović Seeks the Higher Self through the Body in Extremis’, Village Voice, New York, 25 November. ——— (2002) ‘On Edge: Hunger Artist: The 12 Days of Marina Abramović’, The Village Voice, p. 57. Chatwin, Bruce (1987) The Songlines, London: Picador. Cress, G.O., Brady, Brian and Rowell, Glen A. (1987) ‘Sources of Electromagnetic Radiation from Fracture of Rock Samples in the Laboratory’, Geophysics Research Letters, Vol. 14, pp. 331–334. Čvoro, Uroš (2017) ‘“Halfway Tradition”: Transition, Nation, Nation, Sex and Death in the work of Marina Abramović and Mladen Miljanović’, Družboslovne Razprave, Vol. XXXIII, No. 85, pp. 35–49. David-Neel, Alexandra (1929, reprinted 1971) Magic and Mystery in Tibet, New York: Dover Publications. Deepwell, Kathy (1997) ‘An Interview with Marina Abramović’, N.Paradoxa, Issue 2, http://uminterme diai501.blogspot.com/2017/02/an-interview-with-marina-abramovic-with.html (accessed 5 August 2018). Dikker, Suzanne and Oostrik, Matthias (2013) ‘Co-production: Marina Abramović Institute (Suzanne Dikker + Matthias Oostrik) Mutual Wave Machine’, http://todaysart.org/project/99 (accessed 8 December 2017). Dimitrijević, Branislav (2004) A Brief Narrative of Art Events in Serbia after 1948, www.eastartmap.org/text/ knowledge/selectors/dimitrijevic.pdf (accessed 5 August 2018). Douglas, Mary (1966, reprinted 2004) Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Drobrick, Jim (1991) ‘Marina Abramovic’, High Performance, Fall, p. 67. Ebony, David (2013) ‘Abramović Sings’, Art in America, 16 December, www.artinamericamagazine.com/ news-features/news/abramovi-sings (accessed 12 December 2017). Eliade, Mircea, trans. Trask, Willard R. (1964 reprinted 1988) Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, London/New York: Arkana. ———, trans. Trask, Willard R. (1959 reprinted 1987) The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, Orlando, FL: Harcourt. Export, Valie (1979) ‘Aspects of Feminist Actionism’, New German Criticism, Vol. 47, pp. 69–92. ——— (1988–1989) ‘The Real and Its Double: The Body’, Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 3–27. Fischer-Lichte, Erika (1996/7) ‘Performance Art and Ritual: Bodies in Performance’, Theatre Research International, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 31–37. Fisher, Jennifer (1997) ‘Interperformance: The Live Tableaux of Suzanne Lacy, Janine Antoni and Marina Abramović’, Art Journal, Winter, pp. 28–33. Foucault, Michel, trans. Sheridan, Allan (1991) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, London: Penguin. ——— (1980) Power/Knowledge, ed. Colin Gordon, New York: Pantheon Books. Fürstenberg, Adelina Von (2006) Balkan Epic: Marina Abramović, Milan: Skira. Goldberg, Roselee (1988) Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present, New York: Abrams. ——— (1998) Performance: Live Art Since the 60s, London: Thames and Hudson. Goy, Bernard (1990) ‘Marina Abramović’, Journal of Contemporary Art Online, http://jca-online.com/ abramovic.html (accessed 12 January 2008). Greenfeld, Susan (2002) ‘Sensory Deception’ Symposium with Marina Abramović, Old Operating Theatre, London (transcription of audio tape). Greenfeld, Sidney M. (2005) ‘Trance States and Accessing Implicit Memories: A Psychosocial Genomic Approach to Reconstituting Social Memory During Religious Rituals’, Current Sociology, Vol. 53, No. 2, pp. 275–291. Hamilton, Annette (2008) ‘Performing Identities: Two Chinese Rites in Southern Thailand’, The International Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 161–185. Heathfeld, Adrian (ed.) (2004) Live: Art and Performance, London: Tate. Henderson, Barney (2015) ‘What Have Been the Successes and Failures of U.N. Peacekeeping Missions?’, The Telegraph, 28 September, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/bosnia/11729436/ Srebrenica-20-years-on-What-have-been-the-successes-and-failures-of-UN-peacekeeping-missions. html (accessed 21 December 2017). Hesselink, Nathan and Petty, Jonathan, C. (2005) ‘Landscape and Soundscape: Geomancy Spatial Mapping in Korean Traditional Music’, Journal of Musicological Research, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 265–288. Hilton, Guy (1996/7) ‘Fifty is Just the Beginning’, Make, December/January, pp. 3–5.

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Mary Richards Hoptman, Laura and Pospiszyl, Tomas (eds.) (2002) Primary Documents: A Sourcebook for Eastern and Central European Art Since the 1950s, Cambridge, MA/London: The Museum of Modern Art. Hover-Kramer, D. (2002). ‘Incorporating Biofeld and Chakra Concepts into Energy Psychotherapy’, in Galle, F.B. (ed.), Energy Psychology in Psychotherapy, New York: W. W. Norton, pp. 135–151. Hynes, Maria (2016) ‘Public Sociology for an Emergent People: The Afective Gift of Marina Abramović’s The Artist is Present’, The Sociological Review, Vol. 64, pp. 805–820. Iles, Chrissie et al. (ed.) (1995) Marina Abramovic: Objects, Performance, Video, Sound (essays by Iles, Chrissie, Goldberg, RoseLee, and McEvilley, Thomas), Oxford: Museum of Modern Art. ——— (1996) ‘Marina Abramovic’, Performance Research, Vol. 1, No. 2, London: Routledge, pp. 20–26. IRWIN (ed.) (2006) East Art Map: Contemporary Art in Eastern Europe, London: After all. Jackson, Michael (1989) Paths Toward a Clearing: Radical Empiricism and Ethnographic Enquiry, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Janković, Olivera, trans. Popović, Mary Thompson (2013) Marina Abramović: Early Works (The Belgrade Period), Novi Sad, Serbia: Bel Art Gallery. Jones, Amelia (2011) ‘“The Artist is Present” Artistic Re-enactment and the Impossibility of Presence’, TDR: The Drama Review, Vol. 55, No. 1, pp. 16–45. Kaplan, Janet A. (1999) ‘Deeper and Deeper: Interview with Marina Abramović’, Art Journal, Vol. 58, No. 2, pp. 7–19. Kaulins, Andis (2003) Stars, Stones and Scholars: The Decipherment of the Megaliths as an Ancient Survey of the Earth by Astronomy, Bloomington, IN: Traford. Kim, Tae Sook, Park, Jeong Sook, and Kim, Myung Ae (2008) ‘The Relation of Meditation to Power to Well-Being’, Nurse Science Quarterly, Vol. 21, pp. 49–58. Kontova, Helena (1978) ‘Interview with Abramovic and Ulay’, Flash Art, Vol. 80–81, pp. 43–44. ——— (2007) ‘Marina Abramović Vanessa Beecroft Shirin Neshat: Modern Nomads’, Flash Art, Vol. 255, pp. 102–107. Lardner Carmody, Denise and Carmody, John (1996) Mysticism: Holiness East and West, Oxford: Oxford University Press La Rocco, Claudia (2011) ‘Yvonne Rainer Blasts Marina Abramović and MOCA LA’, http://theperformanceclub.org/2011/11/yvonne-rainer-douglas-crimp-and-taisha-paggett-blast-marina-abramovicand-moca-la (accessed 14 August 2017). Leabhart, Thomas and Chamberlain, Franc (2008) The Decroux Sourcebook, London/New York: Routledge. Levin, David Michael (1988) The Opening of Vision: Nihilism and the Postmodern Situation, New York/ London: Routledge Lewis-Williams, J. David (2004) ‘Neuropsychology and Upper Palaeolithic Art: Observations on the Progress of Altered States of Consciousness’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 107–111. Little, Greg L. (2001) ‘Science at the Frontier: A Merging of Ancient and Modern Science, Literature Review’, The Journal of Religion and Psychical Research, pp. 2–25. Lupton, Deborah (1999) Risk, New York/London: Routledge. Ma, Shirley S.Y. (2005) ‘The I Ching and the Psyche-body Connection’, Journal of Analytical Psychology, No. 50, pp. 237–250. MacKenzie-Stewart, Jampa (1995) ‘Foundations of Taoist Practice’, www.scribd.com/doc/2527647/ Foundations-of-Taoist-Practice (accessed 5 August 2018). MacRitchie, Lynn (1996) ‘Marina Abramovic: Exchanging Energies’, Performance Research, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 27–34. Maréchal, Joseph, trans. Thorold, A. (2004) The Psychology of Mysticism, New York: Courier Dover Publications. McEvilley, Thomas (1983) ‘Art in the Dark’, Artforum, November, pp. 62–71. ——— (1991) Art and Discontent: Theory at the Millennium, New York: McPherson. ——— (1999) Sculpture in an Age of Doubt, New York: Allworth Press. ——— (2002) The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies, New York: Allworth Press. ——— (2005) ‘Marina Abramovic/Ulay Ulay/Marina Abramovic’, The Triumph of Anti-Art Conceptual and Performance Art in the Formation of Post-Modernism, New York: McPherson. Marcuse, Herbert (1969) ‘Repressive Tolerance’, in Woolf, R.P. and Moore, B. (eds.), A Critique of Pure Tolerance, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, pp. 81–123. Montagu, Jemima (2002) The Surrealists: Revolutionaries in Art and Writing 1919–1935, London: Tate.

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Abramović (1946–) Murphy, Jay (2006) ‘Marina Abramović’, Contemporary 21, Special Issue on Performance, No. 89, pp. 20–23. Novakov, Anna (2003) ‘Point of Access: Marina Abramović’s 1975 Performance “Role Exchange”’, Woman’s Art Journal, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 31–35. Obrist, Hans-Ulrich et al. (2003) HuO: Hans-Ulrich Obrist: Interviews, Milan: Charta. O’Dell, Kathy (1998) Contract with the Skin: Masochism, Performance Art and the 1970s, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. O’Hagan, Sean (2010) ‘Interview: Marina Abramović’, The Observer, www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/ 2010/oct/03/interview-marina-abramovic-performance-artist (accessed 29 September 2017). Pauwels, Louis and Bergier, Jacques (2001) Morning of the Magicians, London: Souvenir Press. Pejić, Bojana (1993) ‘Being in the Body: On the Spiritual in Marina Abramović’s Art’, in Meschede, Friedrich (ed.), Marina Abramović, Milan: Edition Cantz. Pešić, Nikola (n.d.) ‘Marina Abramović’, https://wrldrels.org/2017/03/28/marina-abramovic (accessed 12 December 2017). Phelan, Peggy (1993) Unmarked: The Politics of Performance, London/New York: Routledge. (2004) ‘Witnessing Shadows’, Theatre Journal, Vol. 56, No. 4, pp. 569–577. Pijnappel, Johan (ed.) (1995) Marina Abramović: Cleaning the House, London: Academy Editions. ——— (1996) ‘Interview: Marina Abramović’, in Wijers, Louwrien (ed.), Art Meets Science and Spirituality in a Changing Economy: From Competition to Compassion, London: Academy Editions. Pluchart, François (1978) ‘Risk as the Practice of Thought’, Flash Art, Vol. 80–81, pp. 39–40. Reader, Keith A. (1987) Intellectuals and the Left in France Since 1968, Hampshire/London: Macmillan Press. Rety, John (1995) ‘“Vive Les Etudiants”, Through the Anarchist Press’, Freedom, London: The Freedom Press. Rocha, Cristina (2009) ‘Seeking Healing Transnationally: Australians, John of God and Brazilian Spiritism’, The Australian Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 20, pp. 229–246. Rounthwaite, Adair (2014) ‘Sanja Iveković, Abramović and the Global Politics of Authentic Experience’, Third Text, Vol. 28, No. 6, pp. 457–474. Rushe, Dominic (2014) ‘Art Star Marina Abramović Caught Up in Row Over “Nothing”’, The Guardian, www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/may/29/art-star-marina-abramovic-row-nothing-serpentine (accessed 20 December 2017). Shanks, Gwyneth J. (2012) ‘Lying with a Speaking Spine: Reperforming Marina Abramović’s Nude With Skeleton’, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 109–123. Sartre, Jean-Paul, trans. Barnes, H.E. (1974) Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology, London: Methuen. Scarry, Elaine (1985) The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World, New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schimmel, Paul (1998) Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949–1979, Los Angeles, CA: The Museum of Contemporary Art. Schwabsky, Barry (1998) ‘Marina Abramovic’, Artforum, March, pp. 97–98. Singer, Daniel (1970) Prelude to Revolution: France in May 1968, London: Jonathan Cape. Slater, Victoria E. (1995) ‘Towards an Understanding of Energetic Healing, Part 1: Energetic Structures’, Journal of Holistic Nursing, Vol. 13, pp. 209–224. Stich, Sidra (1994) Yves Klein, Stuttgart: Cantz Verlag. Stiles, Kristine, Brett, Guy, Klocker, Hubert, Osaki, Shinichiro and Schimmel, Paul, (1998) Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object 1949–1979, London: Thames and Hudson. Stiles, Kristine, Biesenbach, Klaus and Iles, Chrissie (2008) Marina Abramović, London/New York: Phaidon Press. Sundararajan, K.R. and Mukerji, Bithika (1997) Hindu Spirituality: Postclassical and Modern, Vol. 2, New York: Crossroads. Swearer, Donald K, (1973) ‘Control and Freedom: The Structure of Buddhist Meditation in the Pāli Suttas’, Philosophy East and West, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 435–455. Thevoz, Michel (1984) The Painted Body, New York: Rizzoli International Publications. Thompson, Chris & Weslien, Katarina (2006) ‘Pure Raw: Performance, Pedagogy, and (Re) presentation’, PAJ, Vol. 82, pp. 29–50. Tiller, William A. (1999) ‘Towards a predictive model of subtle domain connections to the physical domain aspect of reality: The origins of wave particle duality, electro-magnetic monopoles and the mirror principle’, Journal of Scientifc Exploration, No. 13, pp. 41–67.

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Mary Richards Ulay/Abramović Performances 1976–1988 Exhibition Catalogue April 26–June 15, (1997), Eindhoven: Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum. van den Henzel, Louis (2012) ‘Zoegraphy: Performing Posthuman Lives’, Biography, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter: 1–20. Volner, Ian (2016) ‘Marina Abramović: Body of Work, Art of Note’, Art in America, 30 November, www. artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/news/a-spat-over-nothing-a-new-marina-abramovi-project-raises-hackles (accessed 22 December 2017). Wallace, B. Alan (1999) ‘The Buddhist Tradition of Sámatha: Methods of Refning and Examining Consciousness’, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Vol. 6, Nos. 2–3, pp. 175–187. Walsh, Roger (1994) ‘The Making of a Shaman: Calling, Training and Culmination’, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, No. 34, pp. 7–30. Watanabe, Shinya (2016) ‘Comparison of Marina Abramović’s Performance at the Venice Biennale, and Sanja Ivekovic’s Performance Miss Croatia and Miss Brazil Read Žižek and Chomsky at the Sao Paolo Biennale’, https://pizzaleaks.wordpress.com/2016/12/12/comparison-of-marina-abramovics-performance-at-the-venice-biennale (accessed 29 September 2017). Warr, Tracey (1995) ‘To Rupture Is To Find’, Women’s Art Magazine, A Women’s Art Library Publication, Vol. 64, May/June, pp. 11–13. ——— (ed.) (2000) Survey by Jones, A., The Artist’s Body, London: Phaidon Press. Weintraub, Linda, Danto, Arthur and McEvilley, Thomas (1996) Art on the Edge and Over: Searching for Art’s Meaning in Contemporary Society, Litchfeld: Arts Insights. White, Charles S. J. (1974) ‘Swāmi Muktānanda and the Enlightenment Through Śakti-pāt’, History of Religions, Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 306–322. Winnicott, Donald W. (1971) Playing and Reality, London/New York: Routledge. Wulften, Thomas, trans. Mickens, William A. (1994) Marina Abramović – Biography: In Collaboration with Charles Atlas, Germany: Hatje Cantz. Youngblood, Gene (1970) Expanded Cinema, London: Studio Vista.

Performances (on video) Marina Abramović/Ulay Video Anthologies: Volume 1: A Performance Anthology (1975–1980). Volume 2: Modus Vivendi (1979–1986). Volume 3: Continental Video Series (1983–1986).

Documentary flms ‘Balkan Erotic Epic’ in Destricted (2006 Dirs. Matthew Barney et al.). Seven Easy Pieces (2007 Dir. Babette Mangolte). The Artist is Present (2012 Dirs. Matthew Akers and Jef Dupre). Abramović: An Art Made of Trust, Vulnerability and Connection (2015 TED Talk). The Space In Between (2016 Dir. Marco Aurélio).

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21 LEPAGE (1957–) Aleksandar Saša Dundjerović

21.1

Cultural and artistic biography: Robert Lepage in-between worlds Introduction

Robert Lepage is one of the world’s foremost theatre directors and is widely regarded as a key contemporary performance visionary. He is a director, playwright/deviser, actor and multimedia artist whose performance practice combines various artistic forms, traditions and cultures. The theatre is only one of the media used by Lepage. He also works as a flm auteur and directs opera, rock concerts, installations and large spectacle performances – notably his directing of KA in 2004, a 200 million US dollar production for Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas. Lepage connects popular culture with high-art aestheticism through a visually engaging theatricality made for people dissatisfed with text-based theatre. He challenges the audience’s understanding of the theatre performance as a fnished and complete artistic act through his work-in-progress approach, which is developmental, open and one of continuous transformation. Consequently, Lepage views performance as rehearsal and rehearsal as performance – blurring the diference between the two, he often uses the term ‘open’ or ‘public rehearsal’ for performance. Lepage’s theatre connects a number of important late twentieth and early twenty-frst century performance practitioners, such as Jacques Lecoq, Peter Brook, Pina Bausch and Laurie Anderson. Lepage’s theatre inspires new practitioners, directors, actors and scholars alike, and the process of his work is studied at universities worldwide. In spite of this, there are very few studies of his work and even fewer that examine his creative process. The reason for this is that Lepage is very prolifc as a director-author. As he makes three or four major projects a year, any study of his work can only temporarily be bound by the date that the material is published. Moreover, Lepage is a practitioner who creates live theatre performance and not a written text. Textual or video recordings of his performances are limited, but there has been a more organised approach since the conceptualisation of La Caserne in 1997, his home-based performance lab in Quebec City. Lepage is not interested in theatre as a pedagogue, nor is he setting up his own ‘system’ of work to be studied by others. In fact, he contradicts the view that there is any method to his work practice, although there is a very recognisable director’s ‘signature’ in all of

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his productions. He does not write about his understanding of theatre and until now the only account of his work is given in Robert Lepage – Connecting Flights (1997), a book of interviews with Rémy Charest. Lepage’s real infuence lies in his creative process rather than the product, regardless of its accomplishment. He is important for an understanding of the liveness and immediacy of contemporary performance, because of the way he uses all of the theatre production elements (making a mise-en-scène into a main medium for narration) and his belief that theatre art could encompass all other art forms. Lepage’s work proposes that meaning in the theatre is found in the relationship between every element (the sum of all the diferent parts) of theatre production, not just the text or the actor. His focus is on understanding performance as a rehearsal – a performance is not a fxed form, but alive. It is ‘presenting work that [is] “unfnished,” expecting and ready to integrate or refect audience response’ (Heddon and Milling, 2006, 21). Similar to Anna Halprin, whose teaching of The RSVP Cycles Lepage adopted, he emphasises the process and not the achievement of a fnal product. In the tradition of Jean Cocteau, Lepage is a multidisciplinary artist who also brings diferent art forms (in particular live performance and flm) together in a montage. In total theatre, equal emphasis is placed on all elements rather than just on verbal language. Lepage’s theatre is founded on the dramaturgy of visual images and actors’ performativity, through which he wants to achieve global communication that will not be inhibited by the audience’s inability to understand the productions’ verbal language.

Storytelling and languages Robert Lepage was born in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, on 12 December 1957, into a typical working-class French Canadian family. One of four children, his mother was a housewife and his father a cab driver. What made Lepage’s family unusual was that they were bilingual. Lepage’s mother had lived in London during the Second World War and his father had been in the Royal Navy, and during that time they had become fuent in English. Initially unable to have children, they adopted two English-speaking children. Some years after the adoption, Robert and his sister were born. In their home, English and French language coexisted and were constantly mixed. Lepage liked to see his family, with its bilingual mix, as ‘a metaphor for Canada, a cultural metaphor’ (Lepage, 2002). His bilingual upbringing was exceptional in the francophone cultural environment that was Quebec City. The concern for language and communication in Lepage’s theatre emerged in response both to the cultural duality (English and French) in Canada and to two opposing forces – the isolationism of Quebec’s nationalist politics and the internationalist Québécois who needed to connect to the world and get out of its linguistic enclosure. Lepage is aware that if Québécois theatre is to be understood and ‘to have access to the market, to be invited all over the world,’ it has to overcome the limitations of language. As he explains: ‘You have to do this extra efort to get the story clear, to illustrate it, to give another layer to it’ (McAlpine, 1996, 150). This need to translate and the urgency to be understood forced theatre authors in Quebec to invent a theatricality based on visual images, sound, music and a physical expression that was able to communicate beyond the constraints of verbal language. Growing up in Quebec City in the 1960s and 1970s, Lepage felt the powerful impacts of clerical nationalism, conservative ideology and the dominance of white French Catholics over all aspects of life, in particular family and cultural politics. The anglophone minority in Quebec was mainly centred in Montreal and had economic power. The francophone majority lived mostly on farms, while the working class lived in the cities. Since Lepage’s family was bilingual, he could not fully identify with a dominant francophone centre. This cultural and linguistic 488

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position meant that Lepage did not belong to either of the two groups. Combined with his sexual ambiguity and his alopecia (the loss of body hair that he sufered at the age of six), this made his childhood difcult and as a result he was somewhat reclusive, shy and prone to depression (Lepage, 2002). He became an outsider in his own cultural context, assuming the position of otherness. It was in the theatre that Lepage found a place of escape where he could assume alternative identities, exorcise his fears and engage with his own personal problems. The questioning of language, of human communication, and of the stability of identity, and the going out of one’s own location into other cultures to fnd answers to one’s own dilemmas, are dominant themes in Lepage’s theatre. In fact, all of his theatre and flms are shaped through the confict between a local (inner) and international (outer) perspective, by exposing Quebec’s local character to the world and outside infuences. When he was a child, Lepage’s mother often told him war stories about Europe and life in old Quebec City. The stories were personal recollections of the past, distorted through the lens of memory and transformed through time. It was this imprecision and embellishment, rather than their accuracy, that attracted Lepage to the oral tradition of storytelling. He has said that in order to create, one has to be a mytho-maniac: ‘You have to be able to amplify the stories you hear, give a large dimension to stories you invent. This is how you transform them into legends and myths’ (Charest, 1997, 19). At the same time, Lepage’s childhood fascination with the stories his father made up on the trips he organised for tourists around Quebec City had a signifcant infuence on Lepage’s own storytelling in the theatre. He would accompany his father and listen to stories that were an intoxicating mix of local myth, fction and fact and that were often adapted according to the occasion and who the spectators/tourists were. Lepage uses his childhood sense of wonder and the discovery of the unknown in telling his stories through the theatre. Each of his projects inevitably deals with a main character going into a new country or environment and discovering something about themselves in the new location that signifcantly changes their life. Lepage’s favourite subject in school was geography. As he points out, all his work in the theatre relates to geography, travelling and cultural diferences between countries. It is ‘not just going to Europe in a plane, it’s also the geography of the human environment and what that means and how does it have an infuence?’ (Dundjerović, 2003a, 153). His version of intercultural theatre has the naivety of a frst discovery, of travel to a new destination and of stories told about a journey that is always transposed through a personal memory and perspective. It was hardly a coincidence that Lepage’s main fascination with the theatre was as a live, improvised and unstructured performance, where the actor-creator (often Lepage himself) gives a personal account of events and establishes their own relationship with the stories, thus creating what is known in performance as ‘auto-mythologies.’ All of Lepage’s stories sit at the local and the global cultural intersection, where the personal is confronted with outside perceptions. His theatre is created in Quebec City for the purpose of global touring, to go to audiences across the world from London and Paris to Sydney and Tokyo. However, his theatre performances remain profoundly infuenced by Québécois social and cultural references. Lepage’s mise-en-scène creates a debate between and interaction with national identity and internationalism, individual and collective creation, local and global references and live and recorded media. Within the postmodern context, his theatre exists between worlds (cultures, art forms, identities, territories, narratives, destinations) and through the interplay of live and subjective with recorded and collective experiential processes. Lepage’s performance practice reinforces Roland Barthes’ idea of mythologies in contemporary life, where everything has its form of narrative and that, in contemporary culture, we are 489

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surrounded by a plurality of narratives rather than one main narrative (Barthes, 1993). In this way, a culture is the sum of the narratives arranged in social patterns that we have experienced, that we accept and with which we can identify. This also means that narratives are subjective and fexible so that they can be reordered according to memory and personal interpretation. Lepage invariably afrms that the veracity or preservation of a story is not important. What is important is how the story interacts with the outside world and how those who interpret it give it its actualisation. Subjectivity in Lepage’s creative process has a central place; his storytelling is a way of telling audiences about himself. In order to fnd out who he is, Lepage has to defne himself in the context of the outside world. He takes up the position of a storyteller and he uses the apparatus of various theatrical elements to relate to and communicate with an international audience. In the writing of the story as well as its presentation, Lepage uses public rehearsals in front of an audience, whose presence helps in the discovery of the actual structure of the performance narratives. The motivation to explore language as sound is an outcome of the cultural politics of Quebec’s linguistic isolation, as well as Lepage’s reclusive personality. Lepage acknowledges that linguistic problems are the main issue with which Quebec artists have to deal, and they need to fnd a way to get their ideas across if the audience does not understand their language. In a 1991 census, only 25% of Canada’s population spoke French and the majority of these people were located in Quebec. As a result, ‘the seventies and eighties saw a widespread move away from text-centred theatre’ (Jacobson, 1991, 18). Quebec’s language isolation and the politics of nationalism were a concern shared by a number of other theatre companies working there in the 1980s and 1990s. They had to use touring models as well as non-verbal theatre to reach audiences outside of Quebec and even more so outside of Canada. The goal of Québécois collective theatre and performance groups was to create a means of communication that was unobstructed by the limitations of verbal language and so enable them to communicate cross-culturally. Other internationally renowned Quebec companies, such as Carbone 14, LaLaLa Human Steps and Cirque du Soleil, developed ways of communicating in their own performance style that overcame the obstacles of cultural politics, language and geographical location to attract international audiences. In the work of Carbone 14, ‘the “concrete” language of the stage (corporeal movement, music, light and other scenographic elements) is understood as more important than spoken language for the purposes of creating and communicating meaning’ (Wallace, 1990, 190). Replacing text and verbal language with a concrete language of the stage is central to Lepage’s theatricality. It is an expression founded on the performers’ engagement with space, objects and the body, creating a mode of communication that is free from verbal language. It is important to note that, while the Québécois cultural context (particularly the quest for national identity) inevitably infuenced Lepage, his theatrical language was a communication tool that he used on a more personal level to escape loneliness and isolation. He adopted the existing discourse of theatrical language in the broadest sense, appropriating the new ‘corporeal language’ without political or ideological references. He built theatricality on discourses created from verbal and non-verbal utterance, comprising visual elements such as gestures, mime, movement, space, properties (objects) and light. To explain this shift in emphasis, Lepage points to the political function of language in Montreal and Quebec City: Words were so coloured with politics, at least in the 1970s, that people turned to non-verbal theatre to try and get other messages across. Politics were so present in Canadian life in the 1970s that a lot of the creative work in Canada was based only on 490

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the politics of the mind, not the politics of the body, of emotions, or of relationships. I think an artist sometimes has to put words aside, to explore these types of politics. (Huxley and Witts, 1996, 239) The linguistic situation prompted Lepage to provide an answer by working within the scope of bilingual or multi-lingual productions, emphasising language as sound and working with the performers’ physical and vocal expressions, separated from narrative or textual structures. Words as sounds are resources (theatrical objects with which the performer can play). ‘To me and the actors I work with, the performance is what’s most important. Words are sometimes just a way of saying music’ (Jacobson, 1991, 19). Mixing languages and projecting their translation, making a simultaneous collage of diferent languages (English, French, Italian, German, Serbo-Croatian, Chinese, Japanese, etc.) and using language as a sound or as music rather than as a locus of meaning can be key elements in the performance mise-en-scène Although Lepage’s performances are often theoretically situated within intercultural theatre, they are as much about the collision of cultures and linguistic misunderstandings as cultural exchanges. This relates to Lepage’s experience of the Canadian dual identity. However, his theatre is pertinent to a global reading and has themes that are accessible to interpretation by other cultures outside the Canadian experience. This is because his theatre appeals to an urban cosmopolitan audience, which is exposed to cultural collisions and a plurality of perspectives. The interpretation of his plays is open – it allows the audience to create their own meaning and to indirectly infuence the further development of a performance, which Lepage refers to as a work in progress. This ability to change and evolve a performance while touring comes from the tradition of improvised theatre. The plurality of perceptions in Lepage’s performance narrative emerges not only from the tensions between the local and the global but also from personal and collective improvisations. Lepage’s theatricality focusses on the interaction and interconnection between the performer and the spectators, where the performer does not follow a fxed narrative but is open to discovery in front of the audience. Lepage’s collaborative method invites continuous debate between individual and group creation, and allows for substantial creative input from the actor as the author of the performance. Many diferent perspectives are also achieved through the plurality of media used for storytelling. Peter Gabriel was an important infuence on Lepage in the 1970s, with Gabriel’s rock group Genesis using theatrical infuences and mixing media. Genesis created in 1974 the rock opera The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, mixing rock with live performance, masks, projections of flms and slides. It was not traditional theatre that had an impact on young Lepage, but theatricality. As he explains, the infuence came ‘from seeing rock shows, dance shows and performance art, then from seeing theatre . . .’ (1992, 242). Lepage has always been attracted to working with collaborators from diferent media – each bringing their own artistic vocabulary and skills – and to combining this with live performance to provide the necessary mixture of live and recorded theatricality.

Apprentice (1978–84) In 1975, at the age of 17, Lepage was admitted to the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Québec, which was the main training school for professional actors in Quebec City. Students had to be at least 18 years old and have a high school diploma. Lepage had abandoned his high school education and he lied about his diploma. His inexperience and youth were seen as positive aspects in the audition, and he was accepted. The Conservatoire had a fairly rigid programme, which followed the tradition of professional theatre schools training actors for the 491

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demands of the industry. Students were taught with very specifc acting techniques and, consequently, used the tools (and clichés) of psychological realism that were so dominant in the TV, flm and theatre industries of the 1970s. At the Conservatoire Lepage could not subscribe to one specifc style of acting. His performances did not follow one technique, but were eclectic and diversifed. Furthermore, as a performer, Lepage was working more on the action and energy produced in performance than on emotion and psychological realism. At the Conservatoire, I was taught a defnition of emotion, which I learned but never managed to produce on stage. And for three years, I was told that I acted without emotion. Right from my very frst professional shows, however, I managed to move the audience. I didn’t really understand what made this happen and it took me a long time before I began to sort it out, before I could really distinguish the diference between the emotion that an actor feels on the stage and the energy he needs to generate that emotion in the audience. (Charest, 1997, 155) Lepage’s training as an actor was held back by his inability to reproduce ‘ordinary’ realistic scenes acted with emotional engagement and psychological involvement, as required by the realistic, character-based actor training methods. However, creating emotional response in the audience is not the same as actors feeling psychological emotions. What had a big infuence on Lepage at the Conservatoire was working on physical improvisations and character observations through the limited exposure he had to Jacques Lecoq’s techniques in movement classes that were taught by one of Lecoq’s former students, Marc Doré. In fact, Doré encouraged Lepage to explore techniques using the body, space and everyday objects. The Lecoq exercises that had the most impact on Lepage were movement improvisations and the observation of everyday situations. After graduating from the Conservatoire in 1978, Lepage and his classmate Richard Fréchette were the only graduates who were unemployed. They did not have an agent and realised that they would have to start their own company if they wanted to work. In the summer of that year they went to Paris and joined Alain Knapp’s workshop at his Institut de la personnalité créatrice for three weeks. The workshops taught actors how to become the creators of their performance by working simultaneously as directors and writers. The sessions were based on Knapp’s artistic philosophy of teaching the actor to write their own performance text, rather than to be an interpreter of someone else’s work. The actors would write, perform and direct their own material as well as work on all aspects of production-making. In Knapp’s workshop, Lepage learned how to devise theatre. For Lepage, the most important aspect of Knapp’s workshop was that it gave him an awareness of his own ability to work in many diferent ways as actor, writer and director and that it was good to be eclectic. By working in this way he was able to turn what were formerly considered to be his faults in the Conservatoire (reserve, control and a plurality of styles) into a personal style for creating a performance. When Lepage returned from Paris, he founded Théâtre Hummm . . . with Richard Fréchette, working as actor and director, adapting plays and writing his own performance texts. The company existed for a year, and mainly toured schools and local arts venues in towns around Quebec City. Two years later, in 1980, Lepage was asked by Jacques Lessard, one of his teachers from the Conservatoire, to take part in a collectively created performance – L’école, c’est secondaire (School, it’s secondary) – for Quebec City’s newly established experimental theatre company, Théâtre Repère. Returning from a year-long study with Anna Halprin in San Francisco, Lessard had gathered together several graduates of the Conservatoire in 1979 and founded Théâtre Repère, using Halprin’s The RSVP Cycles as a creative method for theatre performance. In short, Lessard 492

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argued that the collective creative theatre in Quebec had reached a situation of stalemate, that it lacked any creative system able to produce its own structure, could not be used to make ideologically driven text and, in fact, less successfully replicated Québécois text-based theatre. The initials ‘RSVP’ – meaning please respond – are used not as an indication of any structure but to suggest communication, an invitation to the audience to respond. This creative process was conceived by Lawrence and Anna Halprin. Lawrence was a landscape architect and environmental planner. His wife Anna was a dancer, choreographer and director of the Dancers’ Workshop in San Francisco. Together they put together in the late 1960s the theory-practice of The RSVP Cycles, utilising their own combined experiences with environmental design/space and dance theatre/body. This work process became extremely infuential in helping to increase human creative potentials. The RSVP Cycles can be adapted to any human creative process and have a varied application, not only in dance and performance but in psychology and therapy. The word ‘cycles’ refers to a cyclical form where human action is a cycle and the creative process can start from any point within the cycle. The RSVP Cycles are founded on (r)esources, (s)cores, (v)aluaction and (p)erformance – which in dance and performance are space, objects and the body, placing improvisation at the core of the creative process. However, Lessard perceived that theatre performance requires a greater emphasis on the actors’ form of expression and on the sequential organisation of the working process. He reworked The RSVP Cycles, making them a central preoccupation of his Théâtre Repère. In French, repère means reference or landmark point. At the core of the work process is a performer who establishes a personal reference point with the material that is devised. Repère demonstrates the efect of reducing the importance of words and increasing the importance of other theatrical forms of expression, such as movement, light, sound, objects, etc. As Lessard indicates, ‘The Cycles Repère are an extremely precious working instrument which gives the creator a tool, without limiting the liberty of imagination and sensibility’ (Roy, 1993, 31–32). After their initial collaboration, in 1982 Lepage was invited by Lessard to direct and perform in En Attendant (Awaiting), about young artists in a state of limbo waiting to get a break with their careers. In the same year he and Richard Fréchette both joined the Théâtre Repère as full members. The emphasis in En Attendant was on one simple situation and image rather than words and narrative. Lessard, Lepage and Fréchette manipulated physical objects through games, using improvisations and playing a range of characters. The set was simple with Oriental references (a backdrop painted with Japanese characters was the key image). Props and costumes were transformed by being used in diferent ways. For example, a simple chair had many uses depending on the needs of the actor/character at any given time. In fact, En Attendant was a collective creation containing the origins of basic theatrical inclinations that would eventually become the foundations of Lepage’s theatrical vocabulary. Another important infuence on the development of Lepage’s practice was his experience with La Ligue Nationale d’Improvisation (LNI), which he joined in 1984. The idea behind LNI was not only to be a Québécois version of Keith Johnstone’s Theatresports, but to revitalise the local theatre by bringing in actors with diferent experiences to engage in improvisations in the manner of a sporting competition, through a game, and therefore making the theatre a more active and unpredictable place. It also served as a place where actors could practice and perform in front of live audiences. Actors were invited to tell their stories and improvise their sessions in a way similar to that of stand-up comedians, surrounded by an audience in an area set up like a hockey ring. Lepage as actor was excellent in short improvisations and had already been performing short improvisations for Théâtre Repère in small local theatres as part of a one-night bill of solo acts. Here, in 1984, Lepage received his frst critical recognition as a performer by winning the 493

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O’Keefe trophy for the actor awarded the most stars for solo improvisations and the Pierre-Curzi award for recruit of the year at the LNI. Through these improvisation sessions, Lepage learned to use all the external elements from outside reality (most importantly audience presence) as personal resources (stimuli) to play with. He explored ways of improvising from ‘peripheral consciousnesses.’ This is the ability to take all of the surrounding elements of the actor’s environment and incorporate them into the improvisation as stimuli to respond to. For example, any accident or spontaneous unplanned moment that the performer becomes conscious of (even outside events, such as noises from the street, things that happened before rehearsal or cultural/political happenings at the time) can be used as material from which to improvise.

Exploring forms: Théâtre Repère (1984–91) Lepage’s involvement with Théâtre Repère subsequently shaped the form and direction of the development of his theatrical style. In Canada in the early 1980s, when Lepage started to work in collective creations, it was important to fnd a new form of expression that would be diferent from text-based verbal theatre. The development of new technology and communications led to the breakdown of the barriers between diferent media and the arts. This was followed by an increased interest in and borrowing from other traditions (particularly from the East), which opened the possibilities for new hybrid art forms to be created. The plurality of artistic forms in Lepage’s performances refects a collective creative tradition of using all available elements to create a production. We can also see his work in the context of a postmodern unifcation of visual disciplines (flm, paintings, pop videos, internet and advertising) into one visual culture (Mirzoef, 1999, 139). Regardless of the media he employs, Lepage embodies the postmodern position of author as editor, gathering various stimuli into a montage of performance experiences. Lepage’s main role in Théâtre Repère was not as a performer but as a director. He directed collectively created material and edited improvised solo or group material into a performance. In 1984 he acted in and directed Théâtre Repère’s devised project Circulations, after which he became responsible for devising new touring projects. He began working on experimental projects with a group of performers as a separate wing within Théâtre Repère, recreating and representing the world that interested him – a world that existed in-between dreams, memories, reality and fantasy and that was theatrically expressed through visual images. This way of making theatre and communicating about the world found its audience in the 1980s. After the success of Circulations, the work in Théâtre Repère was divided into two areas. Jacques Lessard was concerned with the pedagogy and training of actors who could work through the Repère Cycles, with its very strict creative system, while Lepage was an artistic director responsible for explorations of storytelling through theatrical forms. For Lepage, this period with Théâtre Repère was marked by the search for his own directing style and technique. He explained that, coming to Théâtre Repère, he ‘united Jacques Lessard’s creative theories about the Repère Cycles with the intuitive method that we [Lepage and Fréchette] were using in our shows’ (Charest, 1997, 139). Devising performance material in the theatre is a result of group experiences and an external stimulus rather than an existing dramatic text. One characteristic of devised work is that it is multilayered and often uses multimedia, drawing upon various artistic traditions and performance vocabularies. Alison Oddey explains that: Devised theatre can start from anything. It is determined and defned by a group of people who set up an initial framework or structure to explore and experiment with ideas, images, concepts, themes or specifc stimuli that might include music, text, 494

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objects, paintings or movement. A devised theatrical performance originates with the group while making the performance, rather than starting from a play text that someone else has written to be interpreted. (Oddey, 1994, 1) It was with Théâtre Repère that Lepage learned how to further develop his devising skills and to use The RSVP Cycles. In performance-writing, his main focus was on the interaction between the actor, the space and the objects and also how to use the actor’s personal material as a resource from which to create scenes. Above all, The RSVP Cycles taught Lepage how to make his own material relevant and to place his subjectivity at the centre of a creative process. He places importance on intuition, accidental discovery and a group’s collective unconscious to generate the work, which points to a very personal nature of group creative process. As with any other devising process, Lepage creates performance from a group’s unconscious, approaching collective material as a vast chaotic source of creativity, where the artist shapes and translates images into experiences that can be communicated to the audience. Circulations went on a national tour and, at the La Quinzaine Internationale de Théâtre du Québec, it won the Grand Prix, awarded for the best Canadian production. This recognition efectively placed Théâtre Repère on the national map of promising collective companies. Circulations pointed to Lepage’s directing style, which was founded on a collage of languages and diverse places, taking the story through diferent geographical locations. This was followed by the collectively devised The Dragons’ Trilogy, in which Lepage acted and directed. Through an extensive world tour, this was the production that established Lepage’s international reputation. Before The Dragons’ Trilogy he was known as a member of Théâtre Repère – after the international success of the production, Repère was known as Robert Lepage’s group. Lepage’s directing was favourably received by critics, and he was seen as someone who had managed to build ‘a bridge between the world of visual, physical avant-garde theatre, post-Pina Bausch and the ancient tradition of the saga or epic storytelling’ (Hemming, 1991, 5). The success of The Dragons’ Trilogy in London’s Riverside Studios in 1989 marks Lepage’s entry into the milieu of international contemporary intercultural theatre and the comparison of his theatrical language to that of Peter Brook. Lepage’s emphasis on performance-writing through theatrical elements is similar to what the French director Roger Planchon referred to as écriture scénique (scenic writing) or Richard Schechner’s notion of performance text. The emphasis on mise-en-scène is not on the fxed narrative and character but on the development of a performance, a new theatrical language. The idea of écriture scénique revolves around discussions held in the early 1960s concerning the adaptation and modernisation of a classical text to be used in contemporary theatre. The classical text would be ‘rewritten’ through stage-writing – mise-en-scène – and the director, as an author, would create his own ‘écriture scénique’ that would contemporise the text. Planchon believed that écriture scénique is on equal footing with the author’s written words (Bradby and Sparks, 1997, 41). Lepage’s attraction to a plurality of styles and transformation in theatre comes from his belief that performance is a process of change that, for him, is at the heart of ritual as a pre-theatrical form of expression. The audience witnesses the ritual, the passage from one state of existence into another, and is part of this process of discovery. Lepage extends this principle of transfguration into the way he creates mise-en-scène. In theatre we witness transformation. He explains that he is attracted to plays in which the characters are transformed, but also to plays in which the sets are transformed and matter is transcendent. It’s incredible to be able to travel through 495

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time and place, to infnity, all on a single stage. It’s the metamorphosis brought about on stage that makes this kind of travel possible. (Charest, 1997, 135) Alongside his work with Théâtre Repère, Lepage developed an independent career as an actor, mainly in his solo performances. In this period he developed a theatrical expression founded on visual images, and a collage of various technologies (namely flm and photo projections) with a strong live, actor-centred performance. Indeed, his experience with a combination of multimedia and live improvised performance led him to develop his practice as a solo performer. In 1985, Lepage wrote, directed and acted in his frst solo performance Comment regarder le point de fuite (How to Look at the Moment of Escape), produced by Théâtre Repère and presented at the Implanthéâtre, a small theatre venue in Quebec City. This solo show was the frst part of a multidisciplinary performance, Point de fuite, presented as a bill of solo performances. In 1986, Lepage created his frst solo performance, Vinci, which drew national and international attention to his talents as both an actor and stage writer. He created mobility of space by interacting with the everyday objects on stage, transforming their meaning for the audience. He won the Best Production of the Year Award for this work from the Association Québécoise des Critiques du Théâtre, and his theatricality was widely discussed in Quebec. Although co-produced by Théâtre Repère, Vinci was a solo performance. Lepage wanted to fnd a wider audience and so began to think about the theatricality needed for performances that could be toured. The frst critical recognition for Vinci came from performances given outside of Quebec, an afrmation that there was a larger audience with whom he could communicate. Vinci went on to have major national and international tours, winning Lepage his frst international award in 1987, the Prix Coup de Pouce at the ‘Of’ Festival d’Avignon, for the best fringe production. Solo performances established Lepage’s international reputation as an artist. They also pointed to his multimedia mise-en-scène through the use of cinematic and photographic images. It was with his second solo show, Needles and Opium (1991), that Lepage gained international recognition – particularly for his integration of visual technology into live performance, using flm projections as a vital element of the performer’s action. The production toured until 1996 (with another actor from 1994, once Lepage had fnished developing the performance). This approach to mise-en-scène, made up of a collage of forms and media where a live performer was juxtaposed to technology and recorded images, was subsequently developed, particularly in his solo performances, throughout the 1990s. In 1987, he co-wrote and co-directed Polygraph with Marie Brassard, a performer and an initial member of Théâtre Repère, with whom he collaborated on all of his projects throughout the 1990s. The production opened in Quebec City and toured until 1990, going through a continuous process of transformation and development. It was also the frst text that was published of his devised performance which was meant to be live without any recording. With Polygraph, Lepage began to depart from Lessard’s live experimental concept of improvised devised scores to the concept of using them as works in progress: cycles that were transformative and eventually led towards a more structured performance text and larger audiences. In 1997, Lepage used the performance text of Polygraph as a resource for the development of another cycle using a diferent medium, that of the cinema, to make the flm version of Polygraph. In 1989, Lepage and some of the other original members of Théâtre Repère (Marie Brassard, Richard Fréchette and Michel Bernatchez) left Théâtre Repère over artistic diferences with Lessard, who wanted to keep Théâtre Repère as an experimental fringe theatre with no presence in mainstream circles. Lepage had, in the meantime, associated himself with mainstream institutional theatres around the world as a freelance director. 496

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In 1988, Lepage received his frst commission as a freelance director for a major arts theatre in Montreal, the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde. He staged Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, setting record audience numbers at the Theatre. A year later, in 1989, he was invited to stage Bertolt Brecht’s Life of Galileo at the same theatre. Alongside Brecht and August Strindberg, Shakespeare is the playwright that Lepage has staged most. In 1989, he collaborated with an English-Canadian theatre company in Saskatchewan on the adaptation of the bilingual project, Romeo and Juliette in Saskatchewan. In 1992, he devised the Shakespeare Cycle, comprising Macbeth, The Tempest and Coriolanus, as an international co-production between Quebec, France and Germany. However, Lepage’s most signifcant relationship with a Shakespearean text has been with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. His interpretation of the text was inspired by Jan Kott’s infuential book, Shakespeare Our Contemporary, which ofers a highly erotic analysis of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with hidden sexual subtexts. Lepage’s treatment of the text was similar to his approach to devised projects. In a seven-year production cycle, between 1988 and 1995, he directed three diferent versions of the play, creating three mise-en-scène. Each used the previous one as a resource for its own development. Following the frst production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, the second phase was in 1992 at the Royal National Theatre in London and the fnal version took place in 1995 in Quebec City at the Théâtre du Trident. Lepage and Théâtre Repère began work on Tectonic Plates in 1987. They had originally been commissioned by Lili Zendel, the theatre programmer for the Toronto Harbourfront World Stage Festival, to do a show for the 1988 festival. At the same time they were commissioned to do a collaboration with Glaswegian actors in the Tramway theatre for Glasgow’s 1990 European City of Culture celebration. Michael Morris, former artistic director of London’s ICA theatre and Lepage’s European agent and producer, supported the development and promotion of Tectonic Plates. One of the objectives for the company, right from the start of the project, was to experiment with the form and nature of the performance-making process. Tectonic Plates extended the method of work previously explored in The Dragons’ Trilogy; this was developed through phases, on tour, while having set production objectives. It also introduced a new concept – collaboration with actors from diferent companies who spoke diferent languages. The idea was to develop the project through cyclical phases until it reached the ‘fnal’ phase in Glasgow. Tectonic Plates was a commission that collaborated with international partners, used the English language, various locations and had to be developed through diferent media, from theatre performance to TV and flm. In many ways the project pointed to future developments with Ex Machina, where Lepage worked with collaborators from other countries, actors speaking other languages and developed performances that would be transformed into another medium (that of television). Turning theatre performances into flm was something Lepage explored further with The Seven Streams of River Ota, which became the flm No, and the flming of his solo show The Far Side of the Moon under the same title. In 1989, Lepage moved to Ottawa to become the youngest artistic director of the French language section of the Canadian National Arts Centre. This move from the margin towards the centre and institutionalised culture signalled Lepage’s own interest in centralising his activities and in emulating institutionally supported theatre (the ensemble type of theatre production organisation so common in continental Europe). While at the National Arts Centre, Lepage continued working on his personal material, creating his second solo show Needles and Opium. The performance premiered in October 1991 at the Palais Montcalm in Quebec City, before opening in Ottawa in November at the National Art Centre. Needles and Opium became a tribute to the art of Jean Cocteau by using Cocteau’s personal life as a resource, including his passion for Raymond Radiguet and his lifelong camaraderie with opium. It makes references 497

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to Cocteau’s aestheticism, quoting his text Lettres aux Américains. Lepage’s own nostalgia, pain over his own lost love and the need to look for answers inside one’s own artistic heritage were juxtaposed to Cocteau’s world. By intertwining the lives and works of Jean Cocteau, Miles Davis and a character called Robert, Lepage’s alter ego, Needles and Opium explored the contradictions between artistic work and everyday life, and between artistic representation and nature – life itself.

Multidisciplinary performance: Ex Machina (1994–) In the 1990s Lepage’s work was characterised by the mixing of media and digital technology in his theatre and by his involvement with other disciplines, such as opera, flm and installations. It was also a period in which Lepage looked for stability, independence and control over all aspects of theatre production. After serving as artistic director at the National Arts Centre, in 1994 he created his own company in Quebec City, Ex Machina, with some of his old collaborators from Théâtre Repère and some new ones (inviting a mixture of artists from opera singers and puppeteers to computer designers and video artists). Lepage’s artistic work in the period with Ex Machina has been referred to by critics as the ‘Canadian Renaissance’ because of his versatile approach to the arts, regularly directing opera and flms, mixing media and artistic languages. At this time he made his directorial debut in opera, staging in 1993 for the Canadian Opera Company a double bill of operas – Béla Bartók and Béla Balázs’ Bluebeard’s Castle and Arnold Schoenberg’s Erwartung. Since then, directing opera has become integrated into his multidisciplinary theatricality, directing Hector Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust (1999), Lorin Maazel’s adaptation of Orwell’s 1984 (2005) and Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress (2007). Lepage directed Peter Gabriel’s rock concerts Secret World Tour in 1993 and Growing Up Live in 2002. In 1989, he worked as an actor on Denys Arcand’s much acclaimed flm Jesus of Montreal. In the mid-1990s Lepage started working on his frst flm, Le Confessional, which opened in 1995. As a flm auteur he has made four more feature-length flms: Le Polygraph (1996), No (1998), Possible Worlds (2000) and The Far Side of the Moon (2003). In 1993, Lepage collaborated with opera singer Rebecca Blankenship, whom he invited in 1994 to join Ex Machina on a new project, The Seven Streams of the River Ota. Originally titled Hiroshima Project, the performance was a commission to mark the 50th year of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. The intention was to create a collage from seven diferent arts, to be split into seven parts, last seven hours and take place in seven locations. The multidisciplinary project was the inaugural production for Ex Machina – as The Seven Streams of the River Ota it was internationally launched, together with Ex Machina, at the Edinburgh International Festival in 1994. Lepage had visited Japan for the frst time in 1993, going to Hiroshima where his guide told him about the city’s history and his own experience of the atomic bomb as a hibakusha (survivor of the bombing). This personal account made a profound impression on Lepage, and the starting point for the Hiroshima Project was the atrocity of the US atomic bombing. Following the pattern set with Tectonic Plates, a number of other co-producers from Toronto, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Vienna and Paris marketed the project internationally before it was created. The intention of the new company was to develop productions through phases in Quebec City and then take them on national and international tours. The process of creation cannot be separated from the social and cultural milieu for which the performance is made, particularly since Ex Machina is founded on the idea of international tours and collaborations involving a number of co-producers from diferent countries performing at international festivals and performance venues. This ‘work in progress while touring’ approach was fully developed in The 498

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Seven Streams of the River Ota. It could be said that Ex Machina, and later La Caserne (Lepage’s specially adapted multidisciplinary studio), grew out of Lepage’s experience with The Seven Streams of River Ota. If we look at the space for this performance and the space at La Caserne, we can see remarkable similarities. In the production of Ota, the space is a Japanese house with sliding doors, which hides and is transformed throughout the performance to relate to seven diferent locations. The studio space in La Caserne consists of a big black box (the studio) at the centre, surrounded on two foors by numerous rooms/small studios which face the central studio. The studio-based black box can be adapted to the travelling needs of this project, which was created through touring world venues. The choice of name for the company relates to Lepage’s artistic interest in hybrid art forms. Apart from the obvious reference to the Ancient Greek drama ‘Deus Ex Machina’ (god from the machine), which resolves the unsolvable crises of human conditions, the name Ex Machina is a central metaphor for the interconnections between the performer and technology and a meeting place between diferent arts. Lepage created his most technological and aesthetically elaborate performances with Ex Machina – The Geometry of Miracles and The Tempest 3-D version (1998), Zulu Time (1998), a new version of The Dragons’ Trilogy (2003), Buskers Opera and KA with Cirque de Soleil (2004) and three solo shows, Elsinore (1995), The Far Side of the Moon (2000) and The Anderson Project (2005). Working with hybrid forms combining actors who are simultaneously performers, dancers and musicians with various interdisciplinary artists who bring diferent skills and techniques into rehearsals is crucial for the development of Lepage’s theatricality. This was explored in The Geometry of Miracles where he worked with actors as dancers, Zulu Time where he worked with digital and robotic artists and Buskers Opera where he worked with actors who were singers and musicians. It also embodied the idea of creating theatre and taking it to the audience, instead of bringing the audience to theatre. Ex Machina was a global theatre company from the start, not representing any one cultural or national centre but having an international cast along with a network of collaborators and co-producers. Lepage would not have been able to realise this global, multimedia and cross-cultural theatre if there had not been an investment of 7 million Canadian dollars (approximately 3,3 million pounds) for the creation of La Caserne. A former fre station, on Dalhousie Street in Quebec City, was turned into a multimedia studio by adding modern architectural elements to the existing early twentieth century design. The new building was a result of collaboration between engineers, architects and stage designers working to create a multi-functional space that was also clearly a production facility. The large black box at the centre of La Caserne is an empty space, similar to a studio theatre but without any fxed arrangements for the audience. Numerous ofces, multimedia and digital studios are arranged around the black box space and look into it. Lepage uses this general space for rehearsal, to make sets for theatre productions which are integrated with live performance, as a flm studio and also as a live theatre venue. Moving to the new facilities meant that Lepage had a permanent laboratory and a multidisciplinary creative venue to house his company, Ex Machina . The intention was to connect with other international centres and to create work that could be taken to international audiences. The group could now develop the mise-en-scène in the relative safety of their production lab before premiering it for international audiences. The Geometry of Miracles had a long rehearsal period before opening to the audience, which created problems with co-producers who expected to see a show that was not yet ready. To take the performance to the next level in cyclical development, Lepage needed to have an open rehearsal in front of an audience. The company realised that for fnancial as well as artistic reasons their next project, Zulu Time (1999), had to confront the audience earlier. 499

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The international partners collaborating on Lepage’s productions include, among others, major festivals that create their own networks (such as the Edinburgh International Festival, FTA Montreal, the Festival d’Automne à Paris, Berlin Festspiel and the Sydney Festival) and a number of production partners (for example, Cultural Industry Ltd., London’s The Royal National Theatre, London’s Barbican Centre and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York). With all of Lepage’s projects, setting up tours by involving international co-producers (often government-sponsored commissions and theatre festivals) is an integral part of the creative process. Lepage begins working on a project by establishing performance dates and venues before he has devised a production. This serves as an overall frame for the production. Every Ex Machina show follows this pattern – international events, festivals, international partners and performing venues have a budget for their themed productions (or commissions), for which Lepage devises a performance. Michel Bernatchez, administrative director of Ex Machina and Lepage’s North American producer and organiser of new productions, is responsible for prearranging his tours. In order to fnance the production process, the international venues and co-producers buy into the project before it is complete. In this way, touring becomes an organic part in the development of the work in progress. It is a well-established practice in the festival network that productions of international theatre companies are commissioned or co-produced, as well as invitations being extended to leading theatre directors such as Peter Stein, Lev Dodin or Calixto Bieito. They form a circuit of internationally sponsored and cultivated theatre, and Lepage as a director became a part of this circuit, with all his productions being co-produced by international partners. However, Lepage works from the actor-audience interaction in a fexible and open performance with continuously changing, unstable structures, which often poses problems for expensive, high-art events that require a fnished product. Also, in recent years, the practice of EU governments paying money in advance for large-scale projects has been difcult to maintain, while Lepage’s shows are becoming more expensive and harder to fund. The funding of a production is ruled by business logic, either through the state or privately, but co-producers need an assurance that the fnal cultural ‘product’ will attract critical recognition and mainstream approval, thus providing publicity as well as proftability for its sponsors. In recent years, Lepage has discovered that the balance between a big production frame and the work-in-progress approach is difcult to maintain. His work process depends on intuition and spontaneous discovery, which is difcult to maintain with fnancial structures where coproducers need defnitive results. In the programme for his fourth solo show, The Far Side of the Moon, Lepage explained his approach to mise-en-scène: I consider myself a stage author, understanding the mise-en-scène as a way of writing. For example, in this work, the ideas from the mise-en-scène alternate with the actors’ lines, one leads to the other . . . . What fascinates me about the act of creation is that you fll a space with objects that have no relation to each other, and because they are there, ‘all piled up in the same box,’ there is a secret logic, a way of organising them. Each piece of the puzzle ends up fnding its place. (Lepage, 2002) This approach underpins the key concerns of Lepage’s performance – the ways in which fragments are related and, ultimately, how the puzzle is composed into a performance. Lepage often compares the rehearsal process to a psychotherapy session (in fact he likes to use a psychotherapy session as a way of telling a story to the audience), where the hidden side of the human personality is allowed to come out in front of someone who is observing them. 500

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Dependence on the global cultural network in order to produce shows resulted in a setback in 2001, when the premier of Zulu Time in New York and its subsequent world tour was cancelled. This new version of Zulu Time was produced by Lepage’s Ex Machina and Peter Gabriel’s Real World Ltd., and at one million Canadian dollars was considered to be the most expensive Lepage production to date. It was also anticipated that a separate company would be set up to commercially promote and internationally tour Zulu Time after its New York launch. The performance was due to take place on 21 September at the Roseland Ballroom, as part of a two-month festival entitled Quebec New York 2001. Its open-form technological cabaret structure, which could transform and invite various artists from diferent places on tour and which could be adapted to the cultural circumstances of specifc locations, made Zulu Time an ideal project for both artists. However, the events of 11 September 2001 (seemingly prophesied in Zulu Time with its Middle Eastern terrorists and the crashing of hijacked aeroplanes) caused the cancellation of the New York premiere and the subsequent tour. In this case, art preceded life and displayed characters described by one critic as ‘human automata, animated objects incapable of anything but the most gross emotions – universal lust, a drug smuggler’s greed or a terrorist’s hatred’ (Radz, 28 June 2002). The events of 11 September 2001 transformed Zulu Time and the cultural and social dialogue around it.

Conclusion Lepage has built a considerable international reputation over time, beginning with a small experimental theatre in Quebec City in the early 1980s. Starting of in Quebec’s theatre fringe scene, the ability of his theatricality to communicate with an international audience has made Lepage one of the key theatre practitioners of our time. He has received prestigious awards and numerous recognitions for his artistic creativity over the years. In 1999, he received the medal of l’Ordre National du Québec. In 2002, he was awarded the French Legion of Honour and was the recipient of the Herbert Whittaker Drama Bench Award for his outstanding contribution to Canadian Theatre. In 2003, he was awarded the most prestigious Prix Denise-Pelletier by the Government of Québec for his services to theatre arts. Lepage’s theatre is founded on a non-verbal performance language, which is able to communicate outside the Québécois cultural setting and the francophone linguistic milieu. Lepage’s use of a non-verbal theatrical language that brings together physical improvisations, playing with objects, cinematic images and visual projections, can be seen within the context of Québécois cultural politics as an attempt to communicate globally by exporting theatre to international audiences and to express Québécois concerns without the limitations of verbal language. The inability to reach a wider audience outside of Quebec with productions in the French language forced Lepage to take his stories to another level and to replace the centrality of verbal language with total theatre and theatrical language. Because Lepage was unable to fnd a forum for his work within the traditional text-based theatre forms, either as an actor or director, he had to fnd a suitable way of expressing himself through scenic writing. His creative process starts from intuition and, through free associations, allows the group of collaborators to look for and make poetic connections. Lepage discovered his creative context in collective performance, working simultaneously as an actor and director and devising material by looking into and borrowing from diferent cultures, media and art forms to express his own position. His theatrical language came out of the need for personal expression as well as the need to overcome the limitations of traditional theatre forms and the obstacles of language. 501

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21.2

Performance text: The Dragons’ Trilogy Introduction

The focus of this section is on the devised performance, The Dragons’ Trilogy. To analyse one performance as a key representative of Lepage’s practice, from such a rich range of creative work, could be limiting. However, this is the one production that brings together pre-rehearsal training, creative processes and a collage of art forms and media connecting Lepage’s work from the 1980s to his current work. It was performed in two versions, bridging more than two decades of Lepage’s work. The frst version was developed through cycles between 1985 and 1987, while Lepage was still a member of Théâtre Repère. By the time the second version (with Ex Machina) was developed in 2003, Lepage was a well-known international director of theatre, flm and opera, as well as recognised as a solo performance artist. The second version took the previous Trilogy as a resource to create another cycle and became a published play text in 2005 . The Dragons’ Trilogy is the longest running of Lepage’s original productions. Lepage’s directing trademark developed in Circulations and his one-man show Vinci, but it matured fully through the development of the three phases of The Dragons’ Trilogy. Evolving from a ninety-minute production into a three-hour performance, The Dragons’ Trilogy fnally became a six-hour performance. The original six-hour version was presented for the frst time on 6 June 1987 in Hangar 9, at the 12th Festival de Théâtres des Amériques (FTA) in Montreal. It won the best show award and gave Lepage his frst major recognition as a director. This fnal cycle produced a performance that became fxed and was on tour until 1991. It won a number of prestigious theatre awards and critics started to contextualise Lepage’s theatricality within the tradition of Peter Brook’s work. In addition, the production method that it set up was later followed by Lepage in other major epic, interdisciplinary and intercultural projects such as The Seven Streams of the River Ota, Geometry of Miracles, Zulu Time and Lipsynch. The second version was recreated for the same festival, FTA, in 2003, and was on international tour until 2007. Arguably, Lepage’s The Dragons’ Trilogy remains his most remarkable and longest running theatre work to date, communicating with audiences in the late 1980s as powerfully as with a whole new generation more than 20 years later. . . . Lepage’s creative process develops through transformation of performance text. This transformation takes place over a period of time through international tours, where the performance evolves in front of an audience. To reiterate, the audience is another partner in the creative process and their response is vital for the development of a performance text. Lepage’s theatricality is similar to live performance art events that directly communicate with the audience through actors’ improvisations and which have a fexible structure that does not have to be replicated from one performance to the next. However, Lepage’s productions are theatre plays and, as such, ultimately aim to discover a structure that will eventually become permanent. In the course of the following section, we will analyse the cyclical creative process and devising techniques behind The Dragons’ Trilogy.

Synopsis of The Dragons’ Trilogy There are two published recordings of this production. One is the publication of the full performance text (2005), based on the 2003 restaging of the second version. The other is an account of the 1987 six-hour frst version, which appeared in a special issue of the Québécois theatre journal Jeu (1987) that was dedicated to the reconstruction of The Dragons’ Trilogy. Jeu’s account ofered a synopsis of the performance alongside a collection of critical essays and personal 502

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accounts of the performance. However, these materials were secondary sources and it was very hard to establish a personal experience with the performance through them. Although the fve-hour second version is strongly founded in the previous 1987 cycle, there are diferences between the frst (1987) and second (2003) versions of the performance; however, we will not engage with an analysis of these diferences and what afected the selection process. Lepage’s work is cyclical and is bound to change and develop. Our approach will be to look at how Lepage created this landmark performance and at the techniques he employed. We will be looking at the second version as an example, bringing in elements from the 1987 performance only where diferences are important to understand Lepage’s performance practice. To start our journey into The Dragons’ Trilogy, it is important to understand that the performance text we will use here was not preconceived and written as a dramatic text, nor was it ever intended to become a published text. The 2005 published second version is based on a collectively devised theatre that initially developed over three years and is more similar to ephemeral performance art and multimedia events than to an enduring traditional drama text. This is not a literary text but a performance, where visual qualities of images and mise-en-scène are more important than words (language) and narrative plot in establishing the meaning of a specifc scene. It is important to note that the published performance text equally uses French and English, also mixing in Chinese (Cantonese) and Japanese depending on the characters and action on stage. Lepage recalled that the group wanted ‘to do a show about Chinatown and I wanted it to be a trilogy: three parts, three places and three times. Those were my bounds; I had the intuition it was going to lead us somewhere’ (Lefebvre, 1987, 33). The initial idea to do The Dragons’ Trilogy came out of touring Circulations in Quebec City, Toronto and Vancouver, where the audience and theatrical community were very responsive. This was why the group wanted to set up the show in these three cities and create a specifc performance for each one of them. The starting idea was to create a group of solo performances with seven actors, organised around the same theme and space, with the performance developing as a site-specifc event in each location, communicating with communities across Canada. The Dragons’ Trilogy is a collective creation where the actors’ own ‘writing’ of the text is drawn from the improvisation and testing of the action on stage in front of an audience. Although the performance is divided into three parts, they are not traditional acts. Each part has a diferent story following the lives of the main characters through the twentieth century. The text is fragmented and the action in each part is independent from the others. Lepage has always said that for him theatre starts from action, and action is central to his creative process. However, the emphasis is on action that is created fresh and immediate, not repeated and interpreted. The audience comes to see and follow the performer, who is discovering action in front of them (Lepage, 2005a). The six-hour version of The Dragons’ Trilogy was originally performed by eight actors – all long-standing members of Théâtre Repère (including Lepage, who also directed) – interpreting some 30 diferent characters. Subsequently the second version had eight actors who took on the developed characters and made them their own, adapting them to their own personalities and reworking the existing text. The story takes place over 80 years, framed by two appearances of Halley’s Comet. The setting is a car parking lot, covered by sand, that is an ‘archaeological site’ where the past is discovered, following the idea that memories – what happened in the past – were buried in the sand. The stage is rectangular in shape, covered with sand and outlined by a wooden walkway. The audience face one another on the traverse stage. They are visibly present as voyeurs/observers of the journey embarked on by the characters. Throughout the performance the parking lot transforms and becomes many diferent locations; however, the 503

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sand remains as a connecting device. The sandy parking lot, which covers the remains of Quebec’s old Chinatown, is the departure point for a journey through diferent communities; a journey that will defne the key events of the twentieth century’s cultural integration in Canada. Through these events, we follow the lives of two Québécois girls, Jeanne and Françoise, their children, Crawford the Englishman, Wong the Chinese and his son Lee and three generations of Japanese women, all named Yukali. However, it is the events in Jeanne’s and Françoise’s lives, from childhood to adulthood and fnally to death, which connect all three parts of The Dragons’ Trilogy. The Prologue starts in the darkness with voices saying: ‘I’ve never been to China’ (The Dragons’ Trilogy, 2005b, 15) repeated in sequence in French, English and Chinese (Cantonese). As the dim shadowy lights slowly come up, we see the contour of an old parking attendant who searches with a lamp through sand and audience. The voices of-stage continue: ‘When I was young, there used to be houses here . . .’ (2005b, 15) in English, French and Chinese. Throughout this sound installation, the parking attendant continues his search. He holds his lamp against an object he fnds in the sand – it is a musical box in the shape of a glass ball. Meanwhile, the trilingual narration continues to describe the setting and introduce the play as if revealing a mystery: ‘Look at the old parking lot attendant. He never sleeps. It seems as if he is the dragon. The dragon who watches over the gates to immortality. He is the dragon. And this is The Dragons’ Trilogy’ (2005b, 18). The parking attendant enters a cabin, illuminated with intense light from the inside. Other characters slowly appear with their hands glued to the window of the cabin. The journey through time, which will take us through the life cycle of the individuals and communities, begins.

‘The Green Dragon’ The frst part of The Dragons’ Trilogy, ‘The Green Dragon,’ is set in Quebec City between 1932 and 1935. It takes the spectator to a very local setting of Quebec in the 1930s. The action takes place in enclosed interior locations – a laundry, a barber’s store, a room and a basement. The characters constantly refer to a cold and wet environment. This is an entrenched community with high racial and religious prejudices. The space is fragmented through dim lights and shadows; it is deliberately small, sufocating and narrow. The action starts with Jeanne and Françoise as young girls, playing in the sand. Using a pile of shoeboxes they recreate the shops on St. Joseph Street, one of the main shopping streets in Quebec City. In their play they interact as grown-ups, resuming diferent characters. The shoebox is a store. One of the girls knocks on the box and the other lifts the lid as if opening a door, and they play a customer and merchant situation. Through this game, the audience is introduced to the social and cultural context of Quebec City in the 1930s. Out of their game emerges a real character, Crawford, who walks on the set and is in St. Joseph Street as if he is part of their play. He stops in front of a shoebox that represents a Chinese laundromat. This changes into a real situation as Crawford knocks at the door. He is an English shoe salesman who was born in Hong Kong and has just arrived in Quebec City to set up his business. He is befriended by a Chinese laundryman, Wong, with whom he shares a passion for gambling. Crawford and Wong are also united by their position as the ‘other,’ being culturally isolated in the society where they live. Crawford teaches Wong to play poker and, in exchange, Wong gives him a ‘surprise’ – he introduces Crawford to opium smoking. They set up poker gambling sessions with the locals, Lépin the undertaker and Morin the drunken barber (who is Jeanne’s father). Jeanne has a boyfriend, Bedard, disliked by her father and by whom she becomes pregnant. ‘The Green Dragon’ ends with Morin gambling away all his money, his barber shop and, fnally, his pregnant daughter, who now has to marry Lee, Wong’s son. 504

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‘The Red Dragon’ The second part, ‘The Red Dragon,’ spans 1935 to 1955. It uses simultaneous fragmented events on stage, where diferent times and spaces overlap, showing parallel narratives. ‘The Red Dragon’ continues to follow events in the lives of Jeanne, Lee Wong, Françoise and Crawford and is structured in two sections. The frst covers 1935 to 1945. In the prologue, we hear voices in French and English setting the scene in 1935 Toronto. This section starts with a scene without words that portrays Jeanne and Lee’s domestic life. Jeanne is listening to a radio playing instrumental music from the song Yukali tango. The sound transforms the space, and we are now in a hotel room where the Japanese geisha Yukali is having sex with an American navy ofcer. She becomes pregnant and is ultimately rejected by the ofcer. This starts a new sub-narrative where we follow the life of Yukali, her daughter and granddaughter. The next scene is in a train where Françoise, who has joined the Canadian Army Women Corps, is on her way to Toronto to fnd Jeanne (who now lives there with her daughter Stella and her husband Lee). Françoise meets Crawford in the train. He now owns a shoe store in Toronto where Jeanne works. The section ends in 1945 at an army show in London, where Françoise sings a Christmas song to celebrate the end of the Second World War. Meanwhile Stella has been diagnosed with meningitis and Lee goes to Crawford to inform him that Jeanne will not be working at the shoe store any more since she has to look after Stella. The section ends in a skating rink. All the characters in the performance return simultaneously and perform their character’s most expressive physical movements. The second section takes place on 6 August 1955. Yukali announces in Japanese that it is ten years since the bombing of Hiroshima. We see Jeanne who, unable to look after her mentally disabled daughter, decides to send her to a hospital run by Catholic nuns in Quebec City. Yukali’s narrative runs in parallel. Her daughter, now 20 years old, is writing to her American father and ceremonially burying his photo. The second section ends with Jeanne’s suicide after discovering that she has incurable cancer.

‘The White Dragon’ Set in Vancouver in 1985 the third and fnal part, ‘The White Dragon,’ refects contemporary life, the mixing of cultures, travelling, comfort and anonymity. This section brings the life cycle of our main characters to a close. In the prologue, a voice announces the time every ten seconds in French, German, Japanese and English. This lasts for two minutes and amounts to 12 announcements. During each of these announcements we see 12 physical images. We see all the characters doing short scores which last ten seconds each. The third part then starts in the departure lounge at Vancouver airport. Françoise is returning to Quebec City after visiting her son Pierre, who has an art gallery in Vancouver. Pierre meets the third Yukali, also a painter, at the airport. They start a relationship. Crawford, now totally dependent on opium, has made a flm about his drug habits. During the passage of Halley’s Comet, Crawford, who is in a wheelchair, sets himself on fre and dies. Stella is raped and killed in the hospital by another mental patient. The stage space represents a non-location. It is not defned as in the previous parts. There are more abstract and neutral spaces – the airport, an art gallery, a cinema, a mountain, the hospital, an art gallery, an aeroplane. The enlargement of the space and the specifc lighting that defnes it become signs of universality and refnement. From the scene in the airport, the space grows to artistic exploration (through the installation show made of lights by one of the characters); it becomes the cosmos and then returns to the parking lot. The scenes in this part are fewer 505

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and longer, and the mise-en-scène takes up the whole of the stage space. This part ends with an Epilogue which completes the cycle and brings us back to the Prologue. The play ends with the old parking lot attendant returning with the glass ball musical box in his hands, indicating the possibility of a new beginning. “We hear Chinese,” Crawford’s and Françoise’s voices repeating the text from the beginning of the play, ‘I’ve never been to China.’ There is no end or resolution. The parking lot is a portal into the past where time is suspended. The past is buried in the sand, a metaphor for the memories buried inside of us.

The rehearsal process The performance text of The Dragons’ Trilogy is the outcome of a collectively devised process of stage-writing. Although the six original devisers are credited on the cover of the published play in 2005, this production has been always referred to as Lepage’s The Dragons’ Trilogy. In the tradition of director’s theatre, Lepage, rather than the group of actor-authors who devised the material, became the recognised label and identifed author of this performance text. The fact is that the performance became internationally and critically renowned long before there was a published text. The production has been critically acknowledged not for the value of the dialogue or the literary qualities of the text but for its imaginative and visually complex theatricality, multilayered meanings and cinematic images, for which Lepage’s directing was mainly credited. As a published text, The Dragons’ Trilogy is still more of a recording of the performance than a traditional text written by a playwright. Lepage’s performance texts are not often staged by other directors or companies. (The Seven Streams of the River Ota had, in 2005, a very successful staging in Brazil, but the critics were divided over the production’s authenticity, some claiming that it was just a remake of Lepage’s staging). The understanding of Lepage’s work as a director is inseparable from the group ‘writing’ process, and the devising of The Dragons’ Trilogy combined the actor-author approach with a multidisciplinary mise-en-scène where visual image and dialogue were intertwined into one expression. Lepage believes in the actor who is a storyteller, an author of their own text, someone who the audience will listen to. He says that, as a director, ‘I try to help them tell the story and make it interesting; then they decide how to do it’ (Lepage, 2002). The development of The Dragons’ Trilogy followed the working method of The RSVP Repère Cycles. The frst performance cycle resulted in a ninety-minute production. The frst open rehearsal took place in November 1985 at the small Implanthéâtre in Quebec City. This performance served as a resource for the second cycle, where the production developed from ninety minutes to three hours and had its open rehearsal in May 1986 (at the same venue). One month later it had further developed. The sections which were relevant to English characters and locations were developed and translated into English. This version premiered at the Du Maurier World Stage Festival in Toronto. As we have seen, when it opened in the fnal phase as a six-hour performance, in June 1987, it won Lepage the Grand Prix for directing. (This was the version that toured until 1991.) So we can see that the performance text transformed and developed over a period of three years. The growth from a ninety-minute to a six-hour production was due to the performance itself evolving out of the actors’ own writing and an ongoing devising process. Lepage was there to facilitate the creative process by framing and shaping the work as a stage image, selecting dramaturgical connections and new ideas and eliminating material that was not progressing the performance further. We have seen how Lepage personalises the creative process by making the relation between actor and resources central to his directing approach. The resources could be physical (material objects) and emotional (stories, anecdotes or memories). To Lepage, a resource must be an 506

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impulse for action, ‘a provocation rich in meaning that can inspire the group’ to engage in an individual process (1999). More than anything else, resources must be concrete. If a deck of cards, for example, is used as a group resource, there will be diferent reactions and responses. As Lepage explains: With the group you play cards; you look at them; you explore them the way you want. People begin to talk about the cards. Someone will say they look like a family with the king being the father etc., someone else will see the opposition between black and red. Some will see death, others will see hazard. These are feelings, not ideas. One can’t have an opinion about a deck of cards, and you can’t discuss a sensation. I can’t say to someone it is not true if he tells me that he sees the cards bleeding when he plays poker. (Lefebvre, 1987, 32) Resources need a solid foundation – a parking lot covered in sand, or family stories or events remembered. They can also be well-known characters, or other arts or flms. Whatever it is, the resource has to provide a group provocation so that each actor-author can create their own personal material. The collectively agreed starting resources for The Dragons’ Trilogy were a parking lot in Quebec City where, according to Lepage’s mythology, the old Chinatown used to be in the early twentieth century, and the idea that the performance would trace the Chinese community throughout the twentieth century – moving from Quebec City to Toronto and fnishing in Vancouver (the three cities cited at the beginning of this section). Since The Dragons’ Trilogy was originally supposed to be a collection of six solo performances on the same theme, the starting resource served to unify individual performers’ personal material and their research work. Therefore, these stimuli allowed each actor-author to establish their own interpretation and personal relation and to see how these resources were relevant to their own experience. This process is not about factuality but fctionalising what is real and personalising it. Rémy Charest observes that the heart of Chinatown in downtown Quebec City was not in the area that was turned into a parking lot but was what is now the area under an elevated highway (Charest, 2006). For Lepage, the parking lot (and for that matter the China itself) is a resource with which the actor-author can establish diferent personal reference points and use it according to their own needs: The China of the Trilogy was a China that suited what we wanted to say in the production. And the country itself is something like that, but it’s also many other things. China has its smells, its textures, its rules, its sensations, none of which we know, but none of which we needed for the show. It’s not important to be geographically precise. It’s like our use of an anecdote: what’s important is that it fts in the show. (Charest, 1997, 35–36) Multicultural performance and visual expressiveness, not cultural investigation in the ethnographic sense, are the main objectives of Lepage’s creative process. Artistic and cultural traditions are changed once they are juxtaposed or interpreted by other cultures. This is relevant to both the form and content of The Dragons’ Trilogy. The hegemonic supremacy of one culture is challenged by the newcomers (Morin loses his property and daughter to the Chinese laundryman; Bedard loses the woman he loves in a card game). What the Chinese are to the French, the French are to the English – foreigners with diferent traditions and languages. They are immigrants in diferent social circumstances in search of their identities. The Dragons’ Trilogy, for better or worse, does not aim to explain what it means to be 507

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Chinese in Canada. Instead, China is a personal resource for the actor. Artistic license is consciously used to present a vision of being Chinese (‘other’ in a French-dominated Quebec) and how that progressed to a multicultural setting of contemporary Canada. Lepage’s intercultural collage may be problematic and questionable, and was indeed challenged as ‘cultural tourism’ (Fricker, 2003), but even in its extreme manifestation it is only a theatrical refection of a far more painfully real Americanisation of the world and the legacy of a new Western imperialism and neocolonialism (spearheaded by the Bush-Blair coalition’s ‘war on terror’). In order to establish dramaturgical links and fnd new images and resources, during the devising process of The Dragons’ Trilogy the group occasionally referred to Oriental traditions – that of I Ching: The Book of Change and the principle of yin and yang. I Ching helped in fnding connections in the ‘Valuaction’ part of the creative cycle, the period when dramaturgical selection of the material is made, along with decisions of what to develop further and what to abandon. ‘I Ching provided us with the image of a well, which involves digging, seeking out the roots, the heart of things. So we understood that our characters had to dig inside themselves to fnd their own roots’ (Charest, 1997, 99). The yin and yang helped provide a key element in the development of the characters – unity of oppositions. Lepage explains that in The Dragons’ Trilogy everything they did had a ‘feminine and masculine side . . . we were playing with those ideas, making interesting characters so there is a male that has a feminine quality or a female that is extremely physically masculine’ (1999). As with Lepage’s other original productions, numbers were an important dramaturgical device. The signifcance of the number three in this project came from the names of dragons in the Chinese card game of mah-jong. The game’s cards or tiles were used as a metaphor for the three parts – Green, Red and White Dragon. Moreover, the rules of mah-jong refect the overall dramaturgy of the play (discussed later in this section). Structurally, the performance becomes a trilogy, not only consisting of three parts but also of three locations, three times and three sub-narratives. Lepage admits that, although most choices were made arbitrarily, ‘when we began to do research about those cities [Quebec, Toronto and Vancouver], coincidences began to reveal themselves’ (Lefebvre, 1987, 32). The Chinese community was more active in Quebec City at the beginning of the century, Toronto’s was important during the Second World War and Vancouver’s is presently becoming one of the biggest Chinese settlements in North America. This coincided with the idea of placing the ‘Green Dragon’ section in Quebec, the ‘Red Dragon’ in Toronto and the ‘White Dragon’ in Vancouver. Group and individual research were important aspects in ‘translating’ what derived from intuition, spontaneous and accidental creativity. Lepage acknowledges that for coincidences to happen, he must listen to those he works with: I must let all kinds of exploration happen; I must liberate the longing of the people I work with have to play. I was working with six people and they had enough confdence in me to tell me their dreams, their ideas, to confde to me things that had no apparent relation to what we were doing but which would fnd their place later. But I know this dynamism is somewhat mysterious. (Lefebvre, 1987, 33) Apart from establishing the starting spatial image for the devising process, it was important to discover emotional resources that could propel the action. Emotional resources do not have to come from grand narratives or big ‘classical’ stories. As Lepage often observes, they are all sorts of little stories about ordinary people that have a personal and, obviously, emotional 508

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connection with an individual performer. Emotional resources can be anecdotes, legends or personal experiences. It is a story that the performer can identify with and feel very excited by. The real-life story that became an emotional resource for the development of the main action in the frst part of The Dragons’ Trilogy originated from events close to Lepage’s family. Marie Gignac, one of Lepage’s principal collaborators and one of the creators of the project, explains: His mother when she was young lived in the Saint-Roch neighborhood of Quebec City, beside the Chinese quarter. One of her friends found she was pregnant at the age of sixteen, at the end of the 1920s. The father of this friend played a lot of cards with a Chinese man and owed him a large sum of money. This Chinese man wanted to get married . . . the man proposed to the father of this friend the following bet: ‘If I win, I marry your daughter and wipe out all your debts; if I lose you owe me nothing.’ He won and married this woman. . . . The daughter of this woman, at the age of fve, had meningitis and she had to be placed in a specialised institution at the age of twelve. She died there at forty, raped and murdered by another patient. (Gignac, 1987, 177–78) This personal story was an emotional resource the group could collectively respond to. Likewise, using lyrics from the song Yukali tango became a resource for devising a whole narrative involving three generations of Japanese woman called Yukali. The story of these three women was the central narrative in ‘The White Dragon.’ Together with the space (the parking lot covered in sand) and the mah-jong game it was the reference point for the group’s devising process. One of the main objectives of Lepage’s creative process is not to have preconceived ideas, or in fact any director’s concept, before work with the actors starts. Rather, he wants to allow stories to come out through the actors’ spontaneous playfulness and improvisations with the resources. Therefore, the performance text for The Dragons’ Trilogy was an outcome of a work process where stories were discovered throughout the rehearsal process. As explained in Chapter 2, developing the narrative through phases was possible because performance can become the starting point in The RSVP Cycles. It is a resource from which a new creative cycle can be devised. Since the work is collectively devised, any improvisation or ‘stage writing’ done by an individual or a group of performers can become stimuli for another performer to create new material. This is how narratives are discovered through performance, by acting and observing the action, through individual and group creativity. Lepage learned the process of personalising material through writing one’s own text in Alan Knapp’s actor-creator workshops. As is usual in Lepage’s practice, the material in The Dragons’ Trilogy was improvised, and the scenes created by the actor-authors transcribed or video-recorded. It is interesting that the text remained essentially the same as it was discovered in the initial improvisations, and it does not change drastically in the fnal versions. In other of Lepage’s devised projects, such as The Seven Streams of the River Ota or The Geometry of Miracles, the text undergoes major changes and rewrites. The reason for this was that in The Dragons’ Trilogy each actor-author originally established a personal reference point, fnding material that was very close to their own experience yet related to the group’s starting resources. The stories came from their own background and the life they were all very familiar with. When this is not the case, the group has to rework and rewrite the text. Over time, as the group goes further into the research material and fnds out more about the lives of the characters that they are devising, the stories become more personalised. 509

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Rebecca Blankenship, opera singer, actor and long-standing Lepage collaborator, observes that it is better for her as an actor if she remains an author during the performance: As soon as I start worrying about being an actor, then I go a step too far. . . . I forget that I wrote it myself, and it’s like trying to reinterpret yourself. . . . We are all better of when we remember that we wrote it, and that we control it, and that it’s part of our nature. (Blankenship, 1996) Also, by being herself, she does not have to train her ‘body memory’ to adopt the circumstances of the character she plays but uses the natural reservoir of resources within her psychological makeup; it becomes natural for her because it is herself doing a scene. The actor’s performance is not fxed or coded into a set pattern of actions. It is fexible and open, coming from the performer’s own ‘body memory.’ Blankenship explains: ‘Because they [emotions] come from such a natural place, so every night they come from that same place. . . . You do not have to get back to the source of how the writer or the composer has intended something to be. If you’ve written it yourself you’re always there’ (Blankenship, 1996).

Playing with material objects It is important to understand the context of playing that is so fundamental to Lepage’s theatre practice. Lepage – in common with other twentieth century practitioners, Jacques Copeau, Jacques Lecoq, Ariane Mnouchkine, Peter Brook, Clive Barker, Pina Bausch and Anna Halprin – places imagination, improvisations and physical expressiveness at the heart of the creative process. The concept of the director/actor as an interpreter of the playwright’s text was increasingly abandoned from the 1960s onwards in favour of collective performance exploring group response and pre-rehearsal techniques as a new vocabulary for performance. Creating the dramatic text during workshops/rehearsals through the actors’ improvisations became a way of making theatre. The actors were empowered to be creators and not just mere interpreters of the text. Performance text liberated the actor from servitude to the written text and from an imposed mise-en-scène that arrived from preconceived concepts. In discussions, Lepage often reinforces the idea of ‘acting as playing.’ He points out that we have lost the notion of acting as a spontaneous process and that player has become actor, a serious and established professional (Lepage, 2002). Lepage rejects the professionalism of traditional theatre, where the joy of discovery through process is burdened with psychological and intellectual clichés, over-analytical and conceptual approaches and an orientation towards achieving a predetermined fnal product. Instead, Lepage’s performance practice relies on provoked chaos, chance, actors’ personal material and playfulness. The way the spirit of playing is captured through creative process is embedded in a ‘fnal’ performance. For Lepage, playing becomes a way of theatre-making rather than serious professionalism and working towards the perfection of the fnal product. Both theatrically and as a creative process Lepage makes actors playing with material objects central to his performance practice. Lepage sees his job as providing an interesting playground for the actors: As a child I always played with the box the toy came in much more than the actual toy. Creating a piece should include the childish spirit – when people have fun you feel the warmth of the emotions and the interactions. Then you bring it to the audience and it has to be a playground for them. (Hemming, 1991) 510

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The idea that theatre is a playground is very relevant to both the way the rehearsal process takes place and the way the performance asks the audience to engage with it. Similarly to Keith Johnstone’s ideas on improvisation embedded in his Theatresports, Lepage’s notion of spontaneous live action that happens at the moment refers to the audience’s and performers’ simultaneous involvement in the discovery of what is happening on stage (Johnstone, 1987). Anything can happen at any point. It is a process where the past (where we have been) is clear but not the future (where are we going). As a director, Lepage ensures that the actors are in an environment where they are surrounded with material they can play with, objects with which they can interact and, most importantly, start performing with. The choice of resources – objects – which are used depends on the performer’s ability to establish a relation with them. The resource has to be a point of reference for the actor so that they can establish the inner relation with it. If not, the actor looks for another resource to engage with, changing and adapting it, as in any game where choices are made at the moment. The parking lot that covers the remains of the community is a spatial resource that could be used as a collective reference, where each member of the group can fnd something hidden in the sand, giving each of them something to work/play with. In developmental psychology, playing is considered the preferred orientation for children to discover reality, as it is a voluntary, spontaneous and pleasant activity (Piaget and Inherdel, 2000). Piaget’s symbolic play happens when young children are able to diferentiate the ‘signifer’ from what is signifed (Piaget and Inherdel, 2000, 58). It shows that children can substitute one object for another through imitation and that the meaning prevails over the physical attributes, in a way that anything can stand for something else. Lepage’s playing with objects and their transformation is an extension of symbolic play, where the actor, like a child, plays with objects and gives them characteristics that come out of a game. Stimulating actors to create through games that used objects symbolically was essential to the way The Dragons’ Trilogy was devised. The symbolic use of objects depends on how the object is used by actors. On stage, objects are not defned by their ‘reality’ or material qualities, but through the performer’s appropriation of them. Therefore, the actor’s interpretation of the object is diferent from its implied meaning. One object can have many diferent meanings depending on the context in which it appears. And, in turn, the way the actors relate to the objects determines the way the audience perceives them. The mise-en-scène for The Dragons’ Trilogy was created through actors playing with objects. In the frst scene of ‘The Green Dragon,’ two actor-creators (Marie Brassard and Marie Gignac in the original 1987 version) are playing as two young girls with shoeboxes creating a street. In the previous rehearsal phases the actors were playing with sand and a toy car, out of which a real car came carrying Crawford. The object that is used as a toy is then transformed through their game to ‘represent’ the houses and the actual St. Joseph Street in Quebec City. The children’s play becomes the supplement for the actual/objective presentation of the scene. Throughout their game, they are setting a story from which the actual characters appear. In fact, we can say that in The Dragons’ Trilogy the scenes are devised around a number of key objects – sand, a cabin, a lamp post, a glass musical ball, shoeboxes, shoes, a suitcase, a barber’s chair, laundry, a razor blade, a barrel, an umbrella, a kitchen table, chairs, opium, ropes, a white canvas, origami, a dactylographer, a bicycle, a toy car, a wheelchair, a car, candles and an aeroplane propeller. The objects are used as metaphors to represent the plurality of meanings required by the theatrical ‘language.’ The objects on stage are transformed into a polyvalent theatrical sign through the actors’ interactions. The objects initially used by Jeanne and Françoise in their game, the shoeboxes, stay on the stage throughout the frst section to signify a row of shops and houses on the main street. Likewise, the cabin remains physically a cabin throughout the performance, 511

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but its meaning transforms. The actors use it as a guard’s booth on the parking lot, a time machine, a laundry, a cellar, a roof from where to observe the stars, the place where Françoise takes a dactylographic lesson, an airport shop, the door of the house. The objects do not appear throughout the performance in any particular order but in diferent contexts defned by the performers’ actions. For example, a white cloth is used several times in The Dragons’ Trilogy. At the beginning, it is linked to the tradition of the Chinese laundryman. Next, we fnd it as a screen that allows the projection of the characters’ dreams. Further on, it is associated with sails and voyages, as part of a junk (boat). As the performance develops, it is used to show the bloodstains that confrm Stella’s death. In the scene where Morin the barber is shaving the young Bedard for the frst time, the ritual is completed with the use of real-life objects – a razor, foam, hot towel, lotions, etc. The whole process is ceremonially ‘presented,’ relying on these materials as ‘representative’ of the action. The scene that concludes ‘The Green Dragon,’ the poker game, happens on a turned barrel with the players miming the game and the cards in a stylised way, banging with their palms on the metal barrel as if drumming, increasing the rhythm as the game progress. However, they use real-life objects as the stake – Jeanne is real and the barber’s chair represents the shop. Betting is the event, so the emphasis is on what is at stake, what will be lost or gained. Drunken Morin loses everything in the poker game to Wong. The fnale of the scene is visual image/metaphor, where Jeanne sits in a barber’s chair, mounted on the top of the barrel, swinging in a circular motion when moved by Wong and his son Lee. It is not only physical objects that have this quality to transform, connect or become symbols and images as spatial metaphors. Lepage also uses the performers’ bodies and their physical presence as symbols and images. For example, Jeanne in ‘The Red Dragon’ is associated with her childhood love from ‘The Green Dragon’ – Bedard – either as Jeanne’s vision or as part of a dream sequence (riding a bicycle or physically interacting with her but invisible to others on the stage). Section one in ‘The Red Dragon’ culminates with all the characters on the stage simultaneously, but in their own time, reliving key events/moments from the past. They are images locked in a dance routine repeating single actions in a dream-like state. This group of individual scores transforms the shoe store into a skating rink, where skaters destroy shoes by skating over them collectively – creating an image of the devastation that the Second World War inficted upon civilians and humanity. The scene in ‘The White Dragon’ in which Crawford’s aeroplane crashes provides another good example of the transformation of material objects and use of physical expressiveness. The pilot comes on stage with a big black suitcase that he puts on the sand. He lies fat on his stomach on the suitcase extending his arms and legs, a turning fan above him creates the living engine of the plane and the Christmas lights in the sand (used in the previous scene to represent an art installation in Pierre’s studio) become an aerial view of Vancouver from the aero-plane. The bodies of the other actors are used to create the silhouettes of skyscrapers. The event of the crash constructed in theatrical space, through the integration of material objects and the performers’ bodies, illustrates a fundamental principle of Lepage’s thinking – namely that communication with the audience is through a combination of visual (physical/media) images and verbal language. Another example is the scene in ‘The Red Dragon,’ where Lee discovers that Stella has meningitis. During rehearsals, the actors improvised how to communicate this information to the audience. The verbal text was very melodramatic and when played for its psychological values, as Tony Guilfoyle (the [Irish] actor playing Crawford in the 2003 version) observes, ‘It sounded as a bad soap opera’ (Guilfoyle, 2006). After various improvisations with the text and the information that needed to be conveyed using verbal language, Lepage found the solution 512

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through the symbolic use of objects, the space and the actor’s body to communicate this event. On one end of the stage there was just a table representing a domestic setting – the kitchen where Lee and Jeanne were. On the other end of the stage there were four chairs representing Crawford’s shoe shop. Lee’s character wants his wife to stay at home and look after their ill daughter. Lepage instructed the actor playing Lee to cross the stage to inform Crawford that his wife can no longer work for him and that she will be staying at home. Lee then takes each of the four chairs from the shoe store and puts them around the kitchen table. The last chair to be taken is the one where Crawford was sitting. Lee pushes this chair under Jeanne for her to sit on, efectively locking her with the table. With this physical action she was metaphorically imprisoned in the house, losing connection with the outside world. Her life has been changed forever. ‘Improvisations are not always about linear dialogue, they can be about visual things, juxtapositioning things where lots of action is going on at once and Robert is good in creating meaning through layering’ (Guilfoyle, 2006). Lepage’s performance texts have often been criticised for their lack of literary values, their naïvety or for clichés, often having a dialogue close to ‘TV soaps.’ The non-textual position of his theatre is evident and it is something that Lepage has never attempted to hide. Being an actor himself, coming from a background of collective creation and being very good at improvised short stand-up routine (often using improvised comedy), Lepage believes in the actor-creator who can write their own text regardless of whether they are a good or bad writer. A text that comes from their own experiences gives the actors direct connection with the material. The efectiveness of Lepage’s performance does not depend on literary values of a text but on the interplay between various theatrical elements – resources (space, objects, images, sounds, etc.) where dialogue is only one of the points of communication and artistic expression.

Obstacles While studying with Alan Knapp, Lepage was introduced to the method of creating by imposing self-limitations and obstacles. We have seen that Lepage’s practice is about process and not product, and that this process is shaped through spontaneous and free playfulness. However, by establishing a set of limitations and obstacles, self-imposed by each actor-creator, Lepage creates a dynamism within the work process. This dynamism is shaped by two opposing forces – restrictions and freedom. Lepage explains that, for Knapp, the creator has to be ‘in a state analogous to a lemon being squeezed. The creator must defne limits, bounds, constraints and obey them until creation oozes out’ (Lefebvre, 1987, 33). One of the principles that Lepage retained from Knapp is that the more obstacles you impose on yourself, such as limitations in time and space, the more the work and the performance will beneft. The purpose of these obstacles is to act as an inner stimulant for the actor-creator. Lepage believes that every actor should have a physical challenge. Like acrobats, actors have to set up the individual obstacles that they have to meet. ‘When you’re aware of the challenge, the Olympian nature of theatre, the human beings on stage acquire a kind of nobility, a divinity. Our goal is Mount Olympus – not a gymnasium in Athens, but the place where the gods meet’ (Charest, 1997, 85). Lepage claims that it is important for him to trust his own instincts and give himself entire freedom to create. This process is a dialectical opposition, with obstacles and imposed limitations on one side and free creative energy and improvised action on the other. Out of the interaction between these two forces, the dynamism of the mise-en-scène is conceived. The frst phase of rehearsals for The Dragons’ Trilogy lasted three weeks, and the main purpose was to research and write, try the scores and explore newly found resources. Lepage started the initial rehearsals by asking each actor-creator to bring their own personal material, their feelings, 513

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dreams and ideas regarding the established resource. This in itself is an obstacle – each actor is a researcher and improviser, fnding, shaping and presenting their own material to the group. This individual material is then collectively used, and the group (or often Lepage) selects what is valuable to keep and develop further. Lepage explains that the direction and blocking, the mise-en-scène, is as eloquent as the text, sometimes more so. The actors’ performance expresses at times the mise-en-scène rather than the text. . . . If the mise-en-scène of The Dragons’ Trilogy – the show’s principal defning element – doesn’t hold up, we have no reason to tell the story a second time. If we were to remount it, I would restructure some elements and stage them diferently, rather than simply do a revival. (Charest, 1997, 162) Through this exploratory phase, the structure of the narrative slowly emerged, but it was not crucial to fnd it before the frst open rehearsal in 1985. The open rehearsals serve for the group to perform the material they have been working on in front of an audience and see how fragmented scores ft together. In this way, this set meeting with the audience is an imposed restriction and the group works towards it. Every improvisation of scores in The Dragons’ Trilogy is organised around a set of obstacles that results in a new action. In Robert Lepage – Connecting Flights, Lepage gives a good example of how limitations stimulate the creative process. In the scene from ‘The Red Dragon,’ when Jeanne and Sister Marie are about to put Stella in a mental institution, the same actress plays Stella and Sister Marie. Since there is no time for a costume change, the transformation has to be done in front of an audience as part of the stage action. Jeanne removes the Sister’s clothes, one garment at a time, and puts them in her daughter’s suitcase. In this process she transforms her into Stella. To justify this transformation, a new story was invented with a whole new set of symbols, using objects/props to expand the vocabulary of theatrical expressiveness. The group created a whole ritual around this movement and came up with a new ritual where the nun’s cap became the symbol for the mind, the surplice a symbol for the heart and so on. This approach was then used in other scenes where live transformation was done in front of the audience. All this was created to overcome the obstacle of having no time for the actor to change costumes. A new scene that transformed one event into another was introduced. Lepage integrates the scene changes and transitions into the performance action, making an aesthetic expression out of simple transactions, such as costume changes. For the second version in 2003, Lepage worked with a new group of actors – Sylvie Cantin, Jean-Antoine Charest, Simon Chartand, Hughes Frenette, Tony Guilfoyle, Eric Leblanc, Veronika Makdissi, Warren and Emily Shelton. Marie Gignac, who was a deviser from the original version, was to provide dramaturgic assistance. Under the technical production of Ex Machina, the group reworked the 1987 performance. Actors were given a transcript of the original performance and shown a six-hour video. The existing characters were reference points but also obstacles – the new actors had to create their own characters rather than imitate the ones from the recording of the frst version. Lepage is often involved in acting in his devised performances at the early phases of writing; like other actors in the collective process, he creates his own character(s) before the performance is more developed and needs his full attention as an outside eye. In the frst version, Lepage devised and acted the character of Crawford, later played by Tony Guilfoyle in the 2003 version. Guilfoyle is a classically trained actor with substantial experience in devising, who had collaborated with Lepage on three productions. It is interesting to observe the diferences in the creation 514

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of the two versions of Crawford, in order to understand how Lepage uses obstacles in his creative process. Having limited time to rehearse before opening the show at the Festival de Théâtres des Amériques in 2003 in Montreal (and going on a subsequent international tour), Guilfoyle had to work within a specifc frame dictated by time constraints and by the fact that the existing material (the transcribed text) determined the contours and content of the future performance. The new cycle of The Dragons’ Trilogy was not a remounting of the same old show with a new cast, nor was it a staging of a dramatic text with a new directorial concept. This was an RSVP take on a performance that was to be redeveloped. The 2003 version used actors that brought their diferent experiences into the interpretation of the performance text, thus making the performance their own. Knapp’s notion of actor/creator was implemented in the sense that the actors created their own performance using the previous performance as a resource. Lepage’s Crawford was an Englishman who is an outsider, a displaced person born in Hong Kong, coming to start his business in Quebec City and subsequently settling down in Toronto. Lepage identifes with the position of outsider. Growing up in a bilingual family, he was aware of the displacement an anglophone person feels in a predominantly francophone environment such as that of Quebec in the 1930s. Crawford’s friendship with Wong, who is also ‘other’ to the francophone centre, is a logical consequence of Crawford’s position. Lepage’s Crawford was nostalgic and lovable, a comic version of the cliché of a colonial Englishman. Lepage had three years to develop Crawford as a character. Guilfoyle had to respond to the obstacle of having an existing score and developing performance text with an already fnished character. Rather than working from the existing character, Guilfoyle used this as a starting resource to develop his own Crawford, consequently changing the performance. Since Lepage wanted to tour the 2003 restaging of The Dragons’ Trilogy as a fnished product, he did not allow Guilfoyle to use his own scenes and text for Crawford’s character. Rather, he wanted Guilfoyle to keep the existing material but to adjust it to himself without entirely changing it. Unlike Lepage’s Crawford, presented from an outside perspective of colonial Englishness, Guilfoyle’s Crawford (being connected to his own experiences) had more depth and personal story. Guilfoyle was aware that the performance would play in London, bringing his Crawford in front of a home audience well aware of all the intricacies of English colonialism in its past and present forms. Guilfoyle’s Crawford comes to Quebec City with the attitude of someone who has arrived to change the world, bringing with him all the arrogance and pretentiousness of colonial presence and class structures. However, he is attempting to ‘colonise’ French-speaking Quebec and ends up becoming close to the Chinese immigrant community, as he is also an ‘other’ to the mainstream, mainly small-minded Québécois. Crawford becomes a drug addict and a documentary flmmaker and fnally sets himself on fre by throwing petrol on himself as a plane which is going to Hong Kong crashes. For Guilfoyle, Crawford’s death and the aeroplane crash symbolise the end of the Empire (then British, now American). In the frst version Crawford dies while fying to his place of birth, Hong Kong. However, in the second version, Guilfoyle decided that Crawford dies because he is ready to die, his time has come and therefore he commits suicide by setting his wheelchair on fre. The new ending of Crawford’s character is montaged into a single scene with the aeroplane crash, juxtaposing both actions simultaneously into one meaning. The audience’s interpretation is not based on the events and their connection in a linear cause-efect plot but on the editing of actions, as in flm, and the juxtaposition of text, sound, physical movement and images in space within the whole of the performance. The fact that the building blocks for the mise-en-scène are not founded on one overall narrative but actor-authors’ scores that are independent and fexible units, each having its own story, allows autonomy in the associations and structuring of a performance. These associations have a freedom similar to 515

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that of children’s games. One material object can serve many ideas/meanings that can refect on each other, thus creating a number of other meanings like the refections in a hall of mirrors.

Games sessions From the very start of The Dragons’ Trilogy – the search with the lamp through the sand and the audience, the overlapping sounds and voices in diferent languages, the cabin magically lit from inside with diferent characters appearing around it – a game of discovery was initiated where fantasy and mystery were essential parts. The story takes us through diferent times and spaces in a simultaneous presentation of what is real and imagined, creating a collage of memories, dreams, hallucinations and rituals. As with the mah-jong game, a sense of mystery and unpredictability is at the centre of the theatre game that performers engage with. This can be extended to the way Lepage sees theatre as a whole, as a puzzle that is being solved throughout the process whose mystery is resolved only at the end. For Lepage, this is the basic connection between actor and audience – the spectators are observing people empowered by the process of discovery that is taking place at that very moment. Playing games comes from the human ability to do diferent activities by using imagination and mimetic skills. This is the basis for learning and understanding processes. This ability to play is generally used in devising theatre as the starting point to create a performance. Theatre games were important for the creation of the performance text of The Dragons’ Trilogy and for Lepage as a director. What is interesting about Lepage is that he develops performance by playing in front of an audience where actors are involving audience in their game. ‘I am trying to fnd a way of devising work that gives the impression that people are playing, and you are inventing a game much more than a script, and you end up writing things on the day after the closing of the show’ (McAlpine, 1996, 135). Clive Barker’s theory of theatre games, which explores the actor’s creative process through games, can be applied to Lepage’s method of devising and playing to understand the creative process of The Dragons’ Trilogy. Lepage shares Barker’s view of theatre as a game session. They share the view that the outcome, both in performance and in games, has to be unpredictable. The audience has to be involved in the suspense and thrill of the game. They should be made another partner or a player. The key question that Barker wants to answer is how self-conscious actions (playing for someone who is observing) are turned into a ‘non-refective body/think mechanism’ (spontaneous playing as children do in their games). Lepage believes that playing frees actors from restrains of ‘professionalism,’ of a product-based theatre, and allows them to be spontaneous and playful. Barker sees theatre games as a means of releasing emotional energy and social inhibition. This helps the actor to substitute ‘the pain of learning’ with ‘the joy of re-discovery’ (Barker, 1989, 64). He explains that ‘Children’s games are a readily accessible, and seemingly acceptable, framework for releasing physical and emotional energy. Pressure is released, and the human being is to some extent made free, in a framework which is not susceptible to social criticism’ (Barker, 1989, 64). Barker names fve purposes of the game sessions used to create a spontaneous genuine response in actors and the audience (Barker, 1989, 65–66). We will apply these purposes to elements used for The Dragons’ Trilogy, such as the mah-jong game and I Ching, but also the searching in a sand-covered parking lot to reveal something of the actor’s performance and to open up new possibilities. The game session has to: 1

Lead the actors to physical experiences and sensations that would otherwise not be directly accessible to them. Beginning to devise from one starting resource, bringing their personal 516

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2

3

4

response to it and collectively sharing their individual improvisations and scores is a useful way of materialising internal feelings and fnding new possibilities for expression. Initiate a process of self-awareness and discovery in the actor. By playing games and also using objects, the actor engages beyond conscious thinking of what needs to be done and opens up creative potentials from the subconscious. Explore a shared body of experience, which could build relationships within the group, thus developing the performance which is made by an actor-author from their own experiences. This is based on a collective playing, where the game provides a common denominator for the group in which a collective exploration is turned into a communicable experience. Create a vocabulary that can unify various scores in performance. This means that the game session has to be both a theatrical style and a frame for the work, which can be applied to the individual and collective scores.

While devising, Lepage uses games to release the actors’ inhibitions. He creates an environment that resembles a playground with various gadgets and objects that provide stimuli to help the actors. In this playground, actors can engage in improvisations without any conscious objectives or censorship and can release their inner child. This approach allows performers to be spontaneous and harness creative chaos to liberate the group’s unconscious creativity from which the material for the performance is drawn. By participating ‘unselfconsciously’ in game sessions, the actors reveal their own personality. This idea relates to Lepage’s notion of liberating the performers to respond to their own need for creation. The audience is ‘invited’ to witness this playfulness, often discovering the outcomes at the same time as the actors.

Playing mah-jong Chance and collective interplay are important features of the mah-jong game that was used as the creative principle in The Dragons’ Trilogy. Each of the three parts is, in theme and narrative, related to the symbols from mah-jong. Natalie Rewa explains how Lepage developed the stage imagery and the narrative of Jeanne and Françoise’s lives by applying symbolism from mah-jong: The green dragon, ideogrammatically water and spring, is theatrically presented as the naïvety of childhood; the fre and summer of the red dragon are presented in terms of the conficts of adult lives, including those of war; and the air and autumn of the white dragon are portrayed as the calm of the middle age and the spirituality of art. (Rewa, 1990, 150–51) Like mah-jong, the dramaturgy of The Dragons’ Trilogy depends on the connections between the diferent cards/parts, which make full sense once all three dragons are placed together. Each player in the game represents one side of the world, and their seating arrangements are made according to the diferent cardinal points (east, south, west and north). East starts the game, and it is believed that this is the best position, while the west would be the worst. The cycle of mah-jong is completed after four rounds when all four sides of the world have had their turn to start the game frst. The three dragons – green, red and white – are considered to be the best cards because they give more points, and when they are collected the player does not have to be concerned about which side of the world he is sitting on. The principles of mah-jong were also important for the space. The transformation of the sandy parking lot and the discovery of what is hidden throughout the development of the performance had the logic of the card game. At the beginning of the play, the parking lot hides all 517

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the mysteries that will be revealed to the audience and performers. Likewise, the game has closed cards, which are unknown to the players/performers and must be fgured out as the game/ performance develops. The game is seen as a magical event in which personal superstitions play an important role. Players have to determine their position in regard to other players, and the development of the game depends on how well the players can read one another’s strategy. Indeed, Lepage’s rehearsal process is like a game that provides an environment and rules, within which the actors/creators can play and discover their space, characters and where the justifcation for the devised narrative can be found. Both the card game and the rehearsal process are unpredictable, and although there are set rules, the result can vary. The performance of The Dragons’ Trilogy was also a combination of various rituals. Lepage’s re-enactment of diferent ceremonies as a set of rules has the tangibility of ritual theatre. He indicates that ‘the ritual theatre makes you live it [performance], makes you take part in it’ (Carson, 1993, 329). In The Dragons’ Trilogy, ‘daily rituals’ are appropriated as a form of regulated conventions – from shaving, a poker game and a theatre of moving shadows to the explanation of aircraft regulations, an art installation, the mah-jong and yin and yang. All of these ‘rituals’ become part of the performance. Using the principles of mah-jong and appropriating them into a performance refects a common approach in Lepage’s theatre. He often takes other arts and cultures as theatre resources – objects to play with – and makes them into material for game-performance. The object, in this case the card game, changes its original cultural context into a new set of implied meanings needed for the performance. Lepage openly uses cultural clichés, particularly of Eastern and Oriental traditions and characters, as resources. He uses other cultures from his position and own cultural context. The term ‘Oriental’ for Lepage, as for the West, represents something that is romantic, exotic, mysterious and defnitely diferent from the Western approach to life.

The audience response as a resource In Canada, the theatricality of Lepage’s The Dragons’ Trilogy was generally perceived (and praised by critics) as the development of a new theatre language and as a new Quebec theatre that could transcend linguistic and cultural boundaries. The search for a new and more international way of communicating with the world through theatre performance was an important political concern for French-speaking Quebec in the late 1980s. On the other side of the Atlantic, when The Dragons’ Trilogy was performed in London’s Riverside Studios, the production was generally received very favourably by audiences and critics mainly because of its internationalism and intercultural references. The plural cultural coexistence in the performance where characters speak English, French, Chinese and Japanese is a metaphor for the world at large and was a favoured topic of the intercultural discourse among critics and scholars at the end of the 1980s. The intercultural discourse was particularly fashionable with London audiences, who accepted Lepage and gave him a cult following. However, Lepage is at home with audiences in many parts of the world. The explanation for this could be found in the openness of his performances to various cultural interpretations. As his performances tour, each audience contributes to the understanding of the performance with something they ‘read’ into the narrative. In The RSVP Cycles the audience, as participant, is asked to respond to the performance/rehearsal. In The Dragons’ Trilogy, this transcultural communication was made possible by the fexibility of the resources, which allowed for a variety of interpretations of the narration depending on the audience’s experience. When the production was performed in Toronto, the reference to Chinese was understood as a symbolic representation of the position of the Québécois in Canada. On the 518

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other hand, outside of Canada, the reference to the Chinese became representative of the Asian cultural minority in Canada. As the narrative progresses through the development of the performance, the integration of cultures in The Dragons’ Trilogy creates an intercultural milieu. Therefore, towards the end of the performance, the mixture of other cultural references creates a more integrated society. Marie Gignac indicates that the group made minor modifcations to the text when it was played in front of an English-speaking audience. However, since the show was in a plurality of languages, this did not afect the performance. Each audience could fnd something in the performance. Gignac explains that the play is received in a diferent way depending on the country. In Ireland, for example, people reacted a lot to maternity, to pregnancy, and little Stella had a big impact on the audience. In New York people were astonished by how simple the performance is. (Carson, 1993, 329) Like geography, communities are important for setting the scores in The Dragons’ Trilogy. The performance moves through Chinese communities in Canada, from the beginning of the twentieth century in Quebec City, to Toronto in the 1940s and 1950s and fnally to Vancouver’s multi-cultural milieu at the end of the millennium. The sand pit was used as a location where communities are constructed through actors’ personal resources – anecdotes and memories that connect them with a particular time and community. Out of these very personal and local refections, diferent themes (concerning the discovery of global, cultural and personal identity) emerged, which had universal relevance for a global audience. The fact that these themes found worldwide appeal, regardless of their cultural or linguistic diversity, points to the international and human approach of Lepage’s theatre and its engagement with the fundamental questions of our existence – how do the past and our memories shape our present moment, who are we and where are we going? From the beginning to the end of The Dragons’ Trilogy, an important line, ‘Je ne suis jamais allée en Chine’ (I have never been to China), echoes the motive that hovers above the performance – the displaced in the search for identity. The refections on the mode of existence, which are never complete, are presented through a hallucinatory vision, a dream of mythical China, which is diferent from any knowledge of the real China. The characters never reach China or Hong Kong. They remain outside, telling the story from the point of view of the displaced. The myth of the Orient, the term ‘China,’ becomes the supplement for the ‘dream world,’ a fantasy that has never been achieved but always pursued. The distinct cultural perspectives (French, English, Chinese and Japanese) derive from this search for their own belongings. The cultural clashes are the outcome of that search, of the attempt to fnd what is missing in their lives, the attempt to live the dream. It is the vision of ‘others’ (cultures) in which all participants are estranged from their own individual and cultural identities, becoming a group portrait of their diferences. They are all immigrants in their own social and cultural environment. The response of the audience and critics worldwide was focussed on the simplicity and imaginative theatricality of The Dragons’ Trilogy and its ability to communicate with audiences internationally and to transmit a story regardless of the linguistic barriers. The group’s references to history, traditions, cultures and languages found resonance in the audience. In this performance, Lepage’s transformative, multidisciplinary and multicultural mise-en-scène employs a plurality of channels to communicate with international audiences, inviting technology, media and other arts into the theatrical space. 519

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Conclusion The Dragons’ Trilogy had amazingly vibrant and critically successful production cycles, spanning over two decades. It promoted Lepage as a new international director with an interesting, new and powerfully visual theatricality. The developmental phases of The Dragons’ Trilogy were characterised by exploration and transformation, culminating in the fnal phase which took the world of theatre by surprise in 1987. However, at the time, critics and audiences alike did not understand Lepage’s ‘work in progress’ process. They responded to the fnal outcome as presented in the festivals as a fnished artwork. From the rehearsal process to the development of the performance, from the audience’s refection to the diferent cultural receptions, the common denominator is the transformability of the theatre action and narrative. It is not surprising then to fnd out that Lepage received very mixed and generally negative criticism for the frst phases of his next major epic project, The Seven Streams of The River Ota (1994–1996). His solo show Elsinore (1995) was cancelled in 1996 when it was due to open the International Festival in Edinburgh. The performance text is not always ready for the audience, especially when the audience expects to see a fnalised performance that is actually just a number of diferent improvised scores (scenes). By exploring The Dragons’ Trilogy performance we can observe that, depending on the actors’ intentions onstage, resources can have multiple meanings. In Lepage’s devising process, all the theatrical elements that make the performance environment (physical action, space, objects, visual projections, sound, verbal text, etc.) are equally important for the creation of the performance text. This means that the purpose of directing is not to translate the written text (since there is none) but to facilitate performance text based on theatricality, where the language of the stage is the main artistic expression. Performers’ appropriation of the resources on the stage is the main alphabet of that language, where the performance is ‘written’ through the process of constant transformations of the space, action and images until the right expression and communication with the audience is discovered. These visual images are often implemented through the most simple collage of technical means (overhead, slide, 16mm and video projections and computer cameras for live feed) and actors’ improvisations, but with the most thrilling aesthetic results. In respect to the actors’ personalisation of the material in the original version of The Dragons’ Trilogy, Lepage explains that some scores were continuously changed while for others the group would improvise once and record the material that would remain unchanged most of the time. The group would correct a few details in later rehearsals but the captured essence of the scenes would ft within what the group wanted to do. Lepage believes that this is because the material had a personal resonance for everyone in the group, because the performance revolved around their lives and the lives of their parents and grandparents in the city they all knew very well (Charest, 1997, 100). It is a subjective material made of local stories that was internationally accessible through improvisations that included the audience responses, with a theatrical vocabulary that substituted verbal language with the language of the stage, founded on visual images and actor-authors writing their own stories.

Further reading Appia, Adolphe (1962). Music and the Art of Theatre. Translated by Robert W. Corrigan and Mary Douglas Dirks. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press. Augé, Marc (1995). Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Super-modernity. London: Verso. Auslander, Philip (1999). Liveness. London: Routledge. Barker, Clive (1989). Theatre Games: A New Approach to Drama Training. London: Methuen.

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Lepage (1957–) Barthes, Roland (1993). Mythologies. Translated by Annette Laverse. London: Vintage Classics. Beauchamp, Hélène (1990). ‘Appartenance et territoires: Repères chronologiques.’L’Annuaire théâtral 8: 41–72. Bennett, Susan (1994). Theatre Audience: A Theory of Production and Reception. London: Routledge. Bharucha, Rustom (1993). Theatre and the World. London: Routledge. Bial, Henry, ed. (2004). The Performance Studies Reader. London: Routledge. Blankenship, Rebecca (1996). Interview by author. Tape recording. October. London. Bradby, David (1991). Modern French Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bradby, David and Annie Sparks (1997). Mise-en-scène: French Theatre Now. London: Methuen. Bradby, David and David Williams (1988). Directors’ Theatre. London: Macmillan. Brassard, Marie (1996). Interview by author. Tape Recording. October. London. Brook, Peter (1968). The Empty Space. Harmondsworth: Penguin. ——— (1987). The Shifting Point. London: Methuen. Bunzli, James (1999). ‘The Geography of Creation.’ The Drama Review 43 (Spring): 79–103. Burian, Jarka (1971). The Scenography of Josef Svoboda. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Carson, Christie (1993). ‘Collaboration, Translation, Interpretation.’ New Theatre Quarterly 33 (February): 31–36. Chamberlain, Franc and Ralph Yarrow, eds. (2002). Jacques Lecoq and the British Theatre. London: Routledge. Charest, Rémy (1997). Robert Lepage: Connecting Flights. Translated by Wanda Romer Taylor. London: Methuen. ——— (2006). ‘Connecting Flights Ten Years after.’ Edited by Aleksandar Dundjerović. Paper presented at the International Conference on Robert Lepage, London, 1–3 June. Cocteau, Jean (1994). The Art of Cinema. Edited by André Bernard and Claude Gauteur. London: Marion Boyars. Davis, Eden (2006). Beyond Dance: Laban’s Legacy of Movement Analysis. London: Routledge. Delgado, Maria M. and Paul Heritage, eds. (1996). In Contact with the Gods? Directors Talk Theatre. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Dixon, Steve (2007). Digital Performance: A History of New Media in Theatre, Dance, Performance Art and Installation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Donohoe, Joseph, Jr. and Jane Koustas, eds. (2000). Theater sans frontières: Essays on the Dramatic Universe of Robert Lepage. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. Donohoe, Joseph, Jr. and Jonathan Weiss, eds. (1997). Essays on Modern Quebec Theatre. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. Dundjerović, Aleksandar (2003a). The Cinema of Robert Lepage: The Poetics of Memory. London: Wallfower Press. ——— (2003b). ‘The Multiple Crossings to The Far Side of the Moon: Transformative Mise-en-scène.’ Contemporary Theatre Review 13, no. 2: 67–82. ——— (2007). The Theatricality of Robert Lepage. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Etchells, Tim (1999). Certain Fragments: Texts and Writings on Performance. London: Routledge. Fouquet, Ludovic (2005). Robert Lepage: L’Horizon en images. Quebec City: L’Instant Même. Fricker, Karen (2003). ‘Tourism, the Festival Marketplace and Robert Lepage’s The Seven Streams of the River Ota .’Contemporary Theatre Review 13, no. 4 (Fall): 79–93. Gignac, Marie (1987). ‘Points de repère.’ Jeu 45: 177–182. Gofman, Erving (1959). The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Goldberg, RoseLee (1999). Performance Art. London: Thames & Hudson. Guilfoyle, Tony (2006). Interview by author. Tape Recording. October. London. Halprin, Anna (2000). Dance as a Healing Art: Returning to Health through Movement and Imagery. Mendocino, CA: Life Rhythm. Halprin, Lawrence (1969). The RSVP Cycles: Creative Processes in the Human Environment. New York: George Braziller. Heddon, Deirdre and Jane Milling (2006). Devising Performance: A Critical History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hemming, Sarah (1991). ‘Conjuring Act.’ Independent (London), 30 October. Hodge, Alison, ed. (2000). Twentieth Century Actor Training. London: Routledge. Hunt, Nigel (1989). ‘The Global Voyage of Robert Lepage.’ The Drama Review 33 (Summer): 104–118. Hutcheon, Linda (1989). The Politics of Post-Modernism. London: Routledge.

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Aleksandar Saša Dundjerović Huxley, Michael and Noel Witts, eds. (1996). The Twentieth-Century Performance Reader. London: Routledge. Jacobson, Lynn (1991). ‘Tectonic States.’ American Theatre Journal. November: 16–22. Jencks, Charles (1989). What Is Post-Modernism? 3rd ed. London: St Martin’s Press. Jeu (1987). ‘Reconstruction de la Trilogie .’ 45, no. 4: the whole issue. Johnstone, Keith (1987). Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre. New York: Theatre Art Books. ——— (1999). Impro for Storytellers. New York: Routledge/Theatre Art Books. Jung, Carl Gustav (1966). The Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature. Translated by R.F.C. Hull. vol. 15, The Collected Works of C.G. Jung. London: Routledge/Kegan Paul. ——— –, ed. (1978). Man and His Symbols. London: Aldus. ——— (1979). Foreword to I Ching: The Book of Change. Edited by Dan Baruth. Translated by John Blofield. Visited on www.iging.com/intro/foreword.htm Kaye, Nick (1994). Postmodernism and Performance. London: Macmillan. Knapp, Alain (1992). ‘Pour une autre pédagogie du théâtre: Entretien avec Alain Knapp.’ Interview by Josette Féral. In Jeu 63: 55–64. Lavender, Andy (2001). Hamlet in Pieces: Shakespeare Reworked by Peter Brook, Robert Lepage, Robert Wilson. London: Nick Hern. Lecoque, Jacques (2001). The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre. Translated by David Bradby. London: Routledge. Lefebvre, Paul (1987). ‘Robert Lepage: New Filters for Creation.’ Canadian Theatre Review 52 (Fall): 30–35. Lepage, Robert (1991). Interview by Christi Carson. Tape Recording. National Arts Centre, Ottawa. ——— (1992). ‘Robert Lepage in Discussion.’ Interview by Richard Eyre. In Huxley and Witts, The Twentieth-Century Performance Reader, 237–247. ——— (1999). Interview by author. Tape Recording. December. Quebec City. ——— (2002). Interview by author. Tape Recording. January. Quebec City. ——— (2005a). Interview by author. Notes. July. Quebec City. ——— (2005b). La Trilogie des Dragons (The Dragons’ Trilogy). Montréal: L’instant sine. Lepage, Robert and Marie Brassard (2003). Polygraph. London: A&C Black. Lepage, Robert and Ex Machina (1997). The Seven Streams of the River Ota. London: Methuen. Lyotard, Jean-François (1992). ‘What Is Post-Modernism.’ In The Post-Modern Reader, edited by Charles Jencks, 138–150. London: Academy. Machor, James and Philip Goldstein, eds. (2000). Reception Study: From Literary Theory to Cultural Studies. London: Routledge. McAlpine, Allison (1996). ‘Robert Lepage.’ In In Contact with the Gods? Directors Talk Theatre, edited by Maria M. Delgado and Paul Heritage, 130–157. Manchester: Manchester University Press. McAuley, Gay (2000). Space in Performance: Making Meaning in the Theatre. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Melzner, Annabelle (1994). Dada and Surrealist Performance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Mirzoef, Nicholas (1999). An Introduction to Visual Culture. London: Routledge. Mitter, Shomit (1992). Systems of Rehearsal. London: Routledge. Oddey, Alison (1994). Devising Theatre: A Practical and Theoretical Handbook. London: Routledge. Pavis, Patrice (1992). Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture. London: Routledge. ——— –, ed. (1996). The Intercultural Performance Reader. London: Routledge. Piaget, Jean (1951). Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood. Translated by C. Gattegno and F.M. Hodgson. Melbourne: Heinemann, in association with the New Education Fellowship. ——— (1955). The Child’s Construction of Reality. London: Routledge/Kegan Paul. Piaget, Jean and Barbel Inherdel (2000). The Psychology of the Child. New York: Basic Books. Postlewait, Thomas and Davis C. Tracy (2003). Theatricality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Quick, Andrew (2007). The Wooster Group Work Book. London: Routledge. Radz, Matt (2002). ‘Strobe-Lit Spectacle.’ Gazette (Montreal), 28 June. www.canada.com/montrealgazette/ index.html Rewa, Natalie (1990). ‘Cliches of Ethnicity Subverted: Robert Lepage’s “La Trilogie des Dragons”.’ Theatre History in Canada 11, no. 2 (Fall): 148–161. Roy, Irène (1990). ‘Robert Lepage et L’esthétique en contrepoint.’ L’Annuaire théâtral 8: 73–80. ——— (1993). Le Théâtre Repère: Du ludique au poétique dans le théâtre de recherche. Quebec City: Nuit Blanche.

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Lepage (1957–) Said, Edward (1991). Orientalism. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Schechner, Richard (2002). Performance Studies. London: Routledge. Schechner, Richard and Willa Appel, eds. (1991). By Means of Performance: Intercultural Studies of Theatre and Ritual. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Steegmuller, Francis (1970). Cocteau: A Biography. London: Macmillan. Strindberg, August (2005). A Dream Play. New York City: Theatre Communication Group. Svich, Caridad, ed. (2003). Trans-Global Readings: Crossing Theatrical Boundaries. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Wallace, Robert (1990). Producing Marginality-Theatre and Criticism in Canada. Saskatoon: Fifth House. Whitley, John (1999). ‘A Passion for Unpolished Gems.’ Daily Telegraph (London), 6 March: 23. Worth, Libby (2005). ‘Anna Halprin in Paris.’ Contemporary Theatre Review 15, no. 4: 440–448.

Video/flm list Brook, Peter (1992). De l’espace vide au théâtre sacré, video by J.-G. Carasso and Mohamed Charbagi. CICT/ Anrat video cassette. Gabriel, Peter (1994). Secret World Live, DVD. Los Angeles: Universal Music & Video Distribution. Lepage, Robert (1995). Confessional. Film on DVD. ——— (1998). No. Film on DVD. ——— (2003). The Far Side of the Moon. Film on DVD. Les plaques tectoniques/Tectonic Plates (1993). Dir. Peter Mettler. Video-cassette. Toronto: Hauer Rawlence Productions. Who Is This Nobody from Quebec? (1992). Dir. Debra Hauer. BFI Video.

Useful websites http://lacaserne.net/index2.php/lacaserne/intro/www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/lepage_ transcript.shtml Robert Lepage: ‘Performing Past and Present’ (2007). Online Video, 14 November. www.youtube.com/ watch?v=sqhUSm451gI

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INDEX

Abramović, Marina xii, xiii, xv, xvi, xvii, 399, 433–86 agit-prop 15, 162, 387 Akropolis 201–4, 207, 210, 226, 228–9, 234–8, 240–1, 244, 246, 248–9, 251–2 allusion 393–4, 407, 411–13, 420–1, 424, 473 Anabasis 260, 261, 277–8, 393 anthropology xi, 45, 109, 145, 201, 226, 248, 250, 261–2, 277, 280, 286, 292–3, 351, 482, 485, 520 Apocalypsis cum fguris 195, 198, 200–1, 205, 207–11, 220, 226–7, 233, 241 Appia, Adolphe 233, 429, 520 Arena Theatre 150–1, 155–6, 158, 165, 233 Art as Vehicle 199, 224–5, 230, 244–7, 249 Artaud, Antonin xiv, 108, 112, 121–4, 129, 137, 207, 215, 281, 305–7, 309, 331, 342, 352–3 Ausdruckstanz 341, 372 Bablet, Denis 29, 32, 296 Balanchine, George 339, 348, 429 Balinese dance 284, 292, 304–4, 317 Baraka, Amiri 317, 389 Barba, Eugenio xi, 108, 201, 204–6, 208, 211, 215, 221, 236, 245–7, 250–93 Barrault, Jean-Louis 111, 121, 159, 215, 299 Bauhaus 5, 40–1, 45–6, 58, 62, 103, 144, 344, 385, 415, 419, 430–1 Bausch, Pina viii, x, xiv, xvii, 19, 49, 334–74, 487, 495, 510 Be With 64, 67–8, 105 Beehives 216, 241–2 Berliner Ensemble 11, 19, 268, 383, 397, 399, 425, 431 Bluebeard 342–3, 345–6, 357, 498 Boal, Augusto xiii, xiv, xv, xvi, 148, 150–92

Brecht, Bertolt xiii, xiv, xv, xvi, 1, 19, 110, 153–4, 157, 192–3, 226, 233, 246, 248, 263, 268, 301, 308, 329, 332, 334–5, 342, 375, 378, 383, 416–7, 420–1, 429, 497 Brook, Peter xiii, 14, 17, 41, 54–5, 108, 135, 138, 157, 206, 210–11, 215, 233, 235, 305, 309, 315, 321, 325, 353, 396, 487, 495, 502, 510, 522 Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) 210, 303, 347, 356, 379, 405, 432, 500 Bunraku theater 304, 320, 325–7, 329, 331 Butoh ii, xi, 64, 67, 345 Cage, John 46, 54, 63, 338, 378, 483 Cardboard Citizens 168, 172–3, 179, 182–3, 186, 189–90 Chaikin, Joseph 54, 72, 110, 207, 215, 392 Chekhov, Michael xii–xvii, 110 Circle the Earth vii, 57, 60–1, 69, 72, 74–7, 80–4, 86–7, 89–94, 96–9, 101–5 CIVIL warS 393, 402, 404–05, 431–2 Cixous, Hélène 297–8, 302–4, 310, 322, 326, 328, 330, 332 Cocteau, Jean 200, 488, 497–8 commedia dell’arte xvi, 112–13, 122–3, 258, 301, 306, 308, 310, 316, 389 Constant Prince, The 194, 198, 202–7, 210, 229–33, 249 Copeau, Jacques 108–9, 111–12, 123, 148, 305, 307, 510 Craig, Edward Gordon 5, 21, 41, 306 Cunningham, Merce 46, 63, 338–9, 348, 378, 430 Dancing with Life on the Line 60, 75–6, 86, 89–94, 97–101, 103–5 Dead Class, The 4, 14–15, 18–21, 23–4, 26–31, 38–9, 41, 248, 329

524

Index Deafman Glance 380–3, 391, 403, 421 Decroux, Etienne xiii, xvi, 108, 111–12, 119, 121, 125, 147–9, 215, 484 Dragon’s Trilogy, The viii, 495, 497, 499, 502–4, 506–9, 511–20, 522 Dullin, Charles 111–12, 121, 123, 308 Edinburgh Festival 10, 13, 18–19, 58, 396, 439, 457 Ego Faust viii, 262, 273, 276–92, 294 Eiko (dancer) 64, 67–68, 103, 105 Einstein on the Beach viii, 378, 382–3, 390–1, 393, 400, 403, 405–7, 422, 429–32 Existentialism 199, 318 Feldenkrais, Moshe 47, 52, 103, 104 Flaszen, Ludwik 200–1, 221, 228, 236, 246 Forced Entertainment 13, 147, 256, 355 Foreman, Richard 353, 379, 392 Forum Theatre vii, 170–3, 182–3, 189, 190–1 Freire, Paulo 159, 160–2, 192 Freud, Sigmund 169, 279, 280, 293, 379, 380, 404 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 16, 273, 275, 284, 287, 293, 370, 385, 399, 424 Graham, Martha xiii, 43, 46–7, 62, 337, 348, 375 Gregory, André 215, 221, 224, 241, 249 grotesque 15, 22, 29, 31, 33, 109, 141, 232, 236, 239, 274, 288, 427, 429 Grotowski, Jerzy viii, xiii–xiv, xvi, 10, 13–15, 18, 19, 21, 41, 54, 108–10, 119, 134, 194–249, 342, 353, 409, 452 Halprin, Anna xi, 42–106, 488, 492–3, 510, 523 Hamlet 191, 205, 229, 244, 274, 321, 396–8, 415, 432, 522 Hanayagi, Suzushi 283, 395–6 happenings 12, 41, 53–4, 63, 105, 169, 338, 378, 399, 420, 430, 463, 494 Hijikata, Tatsumi xiii, xv, xvi, xvii, 64 Holm, Hanya 43, 62, 337, 347 Holocaust 6, 132–3, 237, 240, 248, 297 House with the Ocean View, The 447, 451, 464, 466, 470, 472, 474, 482 I Ching 384, 467, 484, 508, 516, 522 International School of Theatre Anthropology xi, 201, 250, 261 Jooss, Kurt 336, 339, 343, 345, 372 Jouvet, Louis 116, 121, 123, 308 kabuki 257, 275, 280–1, 285, 304–5, 317, 319, 320–1, 326 Kantor, Tadeusz vii, xiii, xiv, xv, xvi, xvii, 1–43, 248 Kaosmos 269, 273, 288, 294

Kaprow, Allan 12, 41, 54, 63, 378, 430, 463 kathakali 119, 252–3, 258, 293, 298, 304 Kontakthof viii, 334–5, 344, 346, 356–61, 368–71 Laban, Rudolf i, x, xiii, xiv, xv, 240, 246, 343, 372 LeCompte, Elizabeth xiii, 234, 392 Lecoq, Jacques vii, 107–49, 256, 300, 304, 306, 487, 492, 510, 521 Legislative Theatre 165–8, 191–2 Lepage, Robert viii, x, 64, 103, 309, 487–523 Living Theatre 54, 378, 387–8, 392, 409, 422, 431 Lovers, The 446, 463, 466 Memories from My Closet 64–67 Meyerhold, Vsevolod xi, xiii, xvi, xv, xvi, 1, 5, 18, 41, 110, 119–21, 134–5, 197, 199, 244, 252, 257, 265–6, 305, 342, 415, 448 Miller, Arthur xv, 159, 210, Minarik, Jan 342, 351, 363, 370 Mind the Gap 181–3, 185, 188–90, 193 Mirecka, Rena 200, 206, 208, 238–41 Molik, Zygmunt 200, 237–41, 246 Mnouchkine, Ariane vii, xiii, xiv, xv, xvi, xvii, 109, 295–333 Monk, Meredith 63, 353, 378 Mountain Project, The 216, 242, 247 Müller, Heiner 395–6, 398, 430–1 Mummenschanz vii, 109, 111, 118, 129–30, 139–49 National Endowment for the Arts 222, 390–1 Needles and Opium 496–8 New World Performance Laboratory x, xi, 224, 228, 249 Nightsea Crossing 446, 448, 451, 463–5, 474–5 Noh 119, 121, 262, 293, 304, 317, 319–21, 326, 394 Objective Drama x, xi, 199, 219, 222, 224, 243, 245, 249 Odin Teatret 201, 215, 249, 250, 252–9, 262–5, 268–9, 272–3, 277, 285, 288, 292–4 Ohno, Kazuo xiii, xv, xvii, 64 Onion, The 216, 450–1 Pavis, Patrice 110, 148, 245, 247, 270, 276, 279, 280, 282–5, 288–90, 292–3, 332, 522 Planetary Dance vii, 61, 69, 71–2, 75–80, 83, 88–9, 91, 100–1, 104–5 Pushkin’s Fairy Tales 384, 399, 401, 403, 422–9 Rainbow of Desire, The 164, 170–1, 189, 191 Rhythm Series 439, 457–63 Richards, Thomas 196, 223–26, 244–5, 247–8, 463 Rite of Spring 339–42, 345, 353, 356–7, 359 Robbins, Jerome 210, 377, 379, 404, 430

525

Index RSVP Cycles 488, 492–3, 495, 509, 518, 521, 55, 58, 61, 64, 71, 80, 83–4, 86–7, 89–90, 104 San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop 48, 52, 54, 57–60, 64–5, 72, 103–5 Schechner, Richard 54, 160, 165, 191, 206, 211, 224, 229, 244–9, 254, 291, 293, 316, 378, 431, 523 Seven Streams of the River Ota, The 498–9, 502, 506, 509, 520–22 Shakespeare, William 9, 126, 153, 168–9, 193, 206, 224, 229, 293, 300, 303, 306–7, 317–19, 321, 323, 330–2, 397–8, 422, 424, 431, 497, 522 Sokolow, Anna 337, 348, 373 Sontag, Susan 386, 396, 398, 424, 431, 482 Stanislavsky, Konstantin i, xii, xiii, xiv, xv, xvi, 1, 14, 18, 105, 110, 119, 120, 153–4, 169, 196, 197, 204, 207, 224, 226, 244, 248, 252, 257, 263, 265, 271, 424, 430 Steiner, Rudolf 385, 431 Strehler, Giorgio 113–15, 298, 432 Suzuki, Tadashi xiii, 214

Tanztheater x, 334–7, 339, 341–8, 352, 354–8, 361, 371–4 Théâtre de Complicité vii, 109, 111, 118, 129–34, 136, 139, 142–3, 146–9, 306, 355 Théâtre du Soleil 109, 149, 295–333 Theatre of 13 Rows 200–7 Theatre of the Oppressed ii, 150–4, 158–9, 161–72, 191–2 Third Theatre ii, 258–62, 292–3 Vakhtangov, Evgeny ii, 197, 199 Varley, Julia 257, 274, 276, 288 via negativa 205–6, 233, 242 Wigman, Mary xiv, xv, xvi, 43, 336–7, 372, 374, Wilson, Robert viii, xiii, 19, 65, 270, 329, 353, 375–432, 447 Wooster Group, The 13, 234, 353, 392, 399, 522, Zarrilli, Phillip 120, 147, 149, 262, 293, Zulu Time 499, 501–2

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