pograjcang - Mladinsko Theatre

BlaÏ Lukan
PLEASUREINTRANSIT:
A VIEW OF THE
THEATREOF
MATJAÏ
POGRAJC
MatjaÏ Pograjc during the rehersal for
Who’s Afraid of Tennessee Williams?
(1999), beside him and Neda R. Bric
lukan
photo Dejan Habicht
1.
First of all, let us state that this text discusses the theatre
of MatjaÏ Pograjc as a whole and attempts to enter its core
while leaving aside the historic and factographic details
and performances as such and deals with them only when
necessary. And a note as a partial excuse: we have already
written about a great majority of performances by Pograjc
and thus already “thought through” his partial
manifestations. The present text does not bring a
diachronic “list” of his performances but should rather be
read in its synchrony and reciprocal simultaneity.
2.
The theatre of MatjaÏ Pograjc is distinguished by a
certain duality, a series of dual/doubled (ex)positions:
on the one hand, the study of theatre directing and
engagement (as a theatre director) in the Mladinsko
Theatre and his “drama” productions there alone (ten
stagings), and on the other, his early dance participation
in Ballet Observatory Zenith of Dragan Îivadinov and the
work with the (at least in their beginnings) dance group
Betontanc (till now twelve stagings); on the one hand,
literature providing the original inspiration for
performances, on the other, theatre imagination as its
“upgrade”; on the one hand, a director, on the other, (so to
say) a choreographer; on the one hand, the word, on the
other, the movement. But rather than seeking parallels and
oppositions which mark the work of Pograjc, perhaps it
would be more sensible to look for the points of transition
where these performative binomials coalesce into “a
monomial” or, more accurately, where they exchange
places, pass one into another, permeate and “exclude”
one another in the form of new theatrical idioms or even in
a new unified theatrical form.
Let us begin with Badiou.1 In Dance as a Metaphor for
Thought he discerns six principles relating to the link
between thought and dance which are governed by “an
inexplicit comparison between dance and theatre”. These
principles are:
263
lukan
264
1. the obligation of space
2. the anonymity of the body
3. the effaced omnipresence of the sexes
4. the subtraction from self
5. nakedness
6. the absolute gaze.
For Badiou, dance is constrained to space, it is a
site as such, without décor, it is a kind of “spacing”,
while this is not the case with the theatre. In dance
the body is never “someone” but is “the emblem of
pure emergence”, an interiority, or “a first body”,
in theatre the body is always caught up in the
imitation, it is a “role”. At the centre of dance there
is a conjunction of the sexes, only a pure form is
retained from the sexuation, the male dancer or a
female dancer cannot be named man or woman;
in theatre the sexuation is absolute. Dance, as a
characteristic of the body, actually does not exist;
Badiou quotes Mallarmé: “The dancer does not
dance.” In dance the dancer does not realize a
knowledge of dance, her dance is “the miraculous
forgetting of all her knowledge as a dancer”, she
herself is the dance she is inventing, she is inventing
her own body, she is “emergence”. In theatre the
consciousness of acting is omnipresent and
sometimes – in Brecht, for example – even passing
into the structure itself. Nakedness in dance is
nakedness in its essence, “the nudity of its
emergence”, relating to nothing outside itself, in
theatre nakedness is “the second skin”, a costume.
The spectator of a dance performance or dance itself
is not a singular spectator, should not be a voyeur,
his gaze should renounce all desire; the spectator of
dance should attain the so called “fulgurant gaze” or
“the flash of the gaze”, with which its disappearance
can be safeguarded, the gaze directed upon dance is
absolute. In theatre, which is “the child in relation to
the state and politics, in relation to the circulation of
desire between the sexes. The illegitimate child of
Polis and Eros”, the spectator joins this circulation,
or this “adultery”, as an equal, while at the same time
extends his perception into the space outside the
theatre, into the erotic and the political as such.
Theatre is then the real “positive” opposite of
dance since it counters all six principles. There is, of
course, no need to particularly stress that what Badiou
has in mind is traditional theatre and that he does not
consider other performative practices, like body art or
performance, while at the same time he also isolates
the notion of dance from its contemporary synesthetic
connections with other forms of the performative or
the turn to non-dance, which instead of a movement
structure discloses a substitute, a metadance or a
verbal structure, translating dance into speech.
Nevertheless, the above mentioned (it is difficult to
resist the temptation to quote more of Badiou’s
evocative and “poetic” definitions of dance, but the
effect would sidestep the problem) will suffice.
3.
For the purpose of the introduction a fleeting
digression. I recollect the guest performance of
The Maids, Pograjc’s academy production, in the
beginning of the nineties in Celje. The stage was a
staircase, with three actors sitting one by another,
among them a dialogue as a substitute for all the
physical or “the mise-en-scène’, yet still with
everything in it: the poetry as well as dramaticality,
the movement as well as the word, the space as well
as the two-dimensional “screen”, the body as well
as its abstraction. All was said and performed with
a certain weightless freedom though, nevertheless,
(intuitively) obligated to Genet as well as to the
concept and to the (scarce) audience. In this early
work of Pograjc, in this “introduction to the end”,
we can find everything that can be said of him today
(and, of course, we limit ourselves to the best)
though still “in its infancy”, which is always – this is,
above all, the case with poetry – the purest, for it
presents us with what Badiou conceives with the
term “emergence”.
4.
Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that his
“dance”, or movement, Betontanc phase is earlier
than his “drama” phase.
Until the production of Roberto Zucco, where the
relation in question is established in an almost
“ideal” form, Pograjc and his group had already
staged the emblematic production Poets Without
Pockets, as well as Romeo and Juliet, For Every
Word a Gold Coin’s Worth and Wet Hanky Thieves.
The latter is, perhaps, somewhat exhausted in the
sense of movement, as a series of new, let us say,
symbolic and allusive elements can be discernible,
which are closer to drama than to movement, or
more accurately, they call for a new method of their
“coalescence” or transformation. If before Zucco
Pograjc’s performers (to the full extent in Poets
Without Pockets, which is his most distinctly
“dance” or movement performance, later on less
and less in the sense of dance; with a return to
movement in some of the later Betontanc
productions, like e.g., On Three Sides of Heaven or
Roberto Zucco
Najpomembnej‰a gostovanja
1994 Eurokaz, Zagreb, Hrva‰ka
1994 Prisma 2, Oldenburg, Nemãija
1995 X. mednarodni gledali‰ki festival,
Caracas, Venezuela
1995 MOT, Skopje, Makedonija
1996 Iberoameri‰ki gledali‰ki festival
Bogote, Bogota, Kolumbija
1996 Mestno gledali‰ãe General San Martín,
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1996 VII. mednarodni gledali‰ki festival,
Montevideo, Urugvaj
1997 Mesto gledali‰ãe Budva, Budva, ârna
gora
Bernard-Marie Koltès: Roberto Zucco (1994)
directed by MatjaÏ Pograjc
stage design TomaÏ ·trucl
costume design Alan Hranitelj
in the picture Damjana âerne, Neda R. Bric,
Robert Prebil, Janez ·kof
photo Luc Jennepin
Bernard-Marie Koltès
Roberto Zucco (1994)
directed by MatjaÏ Pograjc
stage design TomaÏ ·trucl
costume design Alan Hranitelj
in the picture Neda R. Bric,
Robert Prebil
photo Luc Jennepin
Klavdija Zupan, Ivica Buljan, MatjaÏ Pograjc
Butterendfly (1995)
directed by MatjaÏ Pograjc
stage design TomaÏ ·trucl
costume design Alan Hranitelj
in the picture Ivan Peternelj
photo Luc Jennepin
Bernard-Marie Koltès
Roberto Zucco (1994)
directed by MatjaÏ Pograjc
stage design TomaÏ ·trucl
costume design Alan Hranitelj
in the picture Neda R. Bric, Robert Prebil
photo Luc Jennepin
lukan
266
5 Drugaãen Lorca, enaka strast
Tisti, ki so si pri‰li ogledat konvencionalno postavitev Hi‰e
Bernarde Alba, so ostali z dolgimi nosovi. A ãe je bilo to, da nismo
imeli opravka z integralnim Lorcovim besedilom, za nekatere
morda razoãaranje, je bilo za druge pravo odkritje.
Slovensko mladinsko gledali‰ãe pravzaprav niti ni ustvarilo
razliãice omenjenega dela, temveã je na lorcovski osnovi raziskalo
svoje lastne re‰itve in izvirnik spremenilo v izjemno senzoriãno,
gledali‰ko in kinematografsko predstavo, ki gledalcu ne pusti
dihati.
Lorca reÏiserja MatjaÏa Pograjca je drugaãen Lorca, tak,
kakr‰nega najdemo v drugih, manj formalnih, bolj surrealistiãnih
besedilih granadskega avtorja. âeprav njegove korenine prav tako
seÏejo globoko v konflikte ãlove‰kega bistva, je to nek drug Lorca –
a strast ostaja enaka. Zgodba o ‰panski materi, ki svoje hãere, da bi
ohranila njihovo devi‰kost in se drÏala lokalnih konvencij, zapira v
brutalen obroã, je zastavljena iz enakega zornega kota, povezanega
s seksualno represijo, koncept uprizoritve pa temu doda ‰e temi
vojne med spoloma in homoseksualnosti. Gre za preobrat
tradicionalnih lorcovskih postavk, slovenski naãin, da zgodbi po
svoje izvabi sok. Kajti to grozovito nasilje, ki ga gledamo na odru,
doÏivljam kot identiãno tistemu, ki utripa tudi znotraj Lorcovih
oseb. Scenografija Sandija MikluÏa je impresivno klavstrofobiãna.
Dvonadstropna lesena struktura ustvari prostor, zavarovan z
verigo in kljuãavnico ter nepredu‰no zaprtimi vrati.
Igralke bivajo na razliãnih ravneh strukture med ‰tirimi zasloni,
na katere so projicirani posnetki (Ïenske v Ïalnih oblekah na poti v
cerkev, psi, ki pozdravljajo obiskovalca, mo‰ki brez obraza,
okrvavljena Ïenska) in izbrani odlomki tistega, kar se dogaja na
odru, kot to zabeleÏijo kamere, razpostavljene po prizori‰ãu.
V tej jeãi sanj in Ïeljá se razvname buren boj, razvije se do
popolnosti organiziran kaos. Sem vstopajo in izstopajo, tu drsijo in
se plazijo, plezajo in se spu‰ãajo, se obe‰ajo in spodrsavajo
Bernarda in njenih pet hãera, vse obleãene v ãrno, v kratke obleke
in visoke pete. Liki se vsekakor navzamejo zlohotnih, skrivnostnih
in krutih odtenkov, kot da bi pri‰li naravnost iz Lova na ãarovnice.
Ta nenavadni spoj nas postavi pred pomemben odrski izziv:
dejanja so pogojena z Ïenskimi in magiãnimi lastnostmi, hkrati pa
polna ranljivosti in moãi.
ReÏiser igralke razgrne v like in osebe, besedila pa, ki so jih
napisale v hi‰o za en teden zaprte igralke v koÏi svojih likov,
prihajajo v dvorano v nespo‰tljivih, presenetljivih izbruhih, z
doloãeno dozo humorja.
Zdi se, da izvrstne igralke plamtijo na grmadi ãutnosti,
ljubosumja, srda in frustracij. Edini mo‰ki se pojavi zgolj na
provokativnem videu in z zakritim obrazom izraÏa svoje seksualne
zahteve.
To je totalno gledali‰ãe, v katerem vsi elementi igrajo vitalno
vlogo. Osvetlitev je popolna in veliãastna; glasba in zvoãni uãinki
filmsko obarvajo vsako gesto, vsak gib, vsak prizor; kostumi
poenotijo like; video dopolnjuje zgodbo in notranjo zgodbo; od
igralske prezence pa oder drhti do zadnje minute.
Konec ni mogel sprevrniti estetike predstave: po subtilni
Adelini smrti (v rdeãi obleki) igralke izginejo v ozadje odra,
ostanejo pa odprta spodnja vrata, tako da si obãinstvo lahko
voyeuristiãno ogleduje senzualna telesa ‰estih modernih
deklet, ki brez skrbi ple‰ejo v disku.
Ta slovenska Bernarda nam ponuja postmoderno tragedijo,
evropski eksperiment – ali pa ‰e bolje: ãudovit umetni‰ki izraz,
ki ustreza na‰emu ãasu.
Norma Niurka, El Nuevo Herald, Florida, ZDA, 14. 6. 2002
Gledali‰ki list za predstavo
Mesto, kjer nisem bil (1996)
oblikovanje Iztok Lovriã in Kladivo
The House of Bernarda
Alba (2000)
directed by MatjaÏ Pograjc
stage design Sandi MikluÏ
costume design
Nata‰a Recer
in the picture top:
Maru‰a Geymayer-Oblak,
bottom: Damjana âerne
photo Barbara âeferin
Secret Sunshine Schedule) manifest a dynamic
relation between verticality of the body and
horizontal attraction of the ground or the earth, and
according to Badiou, where the earth and the air
exchange their positions, the one passing onto the
other (at this point we should add that in Poets
Pograjc is much more interested in weight and the
metaphor of “stone” than in lightness and the
metaphor of “bird”, while the earth and the air are
in incessant “conflict” with one another), then in
Zucco they temporarily “quiet down” in an
interspace, traversing it in a choreographed miseen-scène, uttering responses against the
continuous music background. They are somewhat
more (speaking with Badiou) “restrained”, although
the movement – as well as the word – often erupts
out of them, explodes. Zucco suddenly and very
distinctly displays the relations between restraint
and impact, between slowness and quickness,
between the “quiet body” of dance and the
“babbling” body of traditional drama. In a way, the
relations are even staged schematically, their
corresponding representation being the coffered
scenography which isolates particular elements
(fragments, links, signs) and with its presence
continually draws attention to the “dual” nature of
the performing method.
Transition from one form to the other or from
one state to the other takes place in a turn (with
Pina Bausch, for example, in a wrenching-up
movement of the body), in a rotation of the body
side and downwards, in an arch or a bow to the
weight, the ground or the earth, and then in a
renunciation of gravity which necessarily winds up
with a blow or a bang, while the spectator’s
consciousness perceives it as “danger”,
“aggression” or “brutality”. Movement elapses into
the dramatic (with which we have in mind not only
the performer’s verbal activities but his overall
conception in terms of a character, role and
communication with the viewing) and the dramatic
into the movement, though not instantly, but in a
prolonged gesture, a shift, which, when we think of
it afterwards, brings about a kind of slow motion
Play It Again, Caligula! (2003)
directed by MatjaÏ Pograjc
stage design Sandi MikluÏ
costume design Mateja Benedetti
set construction Grunf Design Studio
in the picture Matej Recer, Niko Gor‰iã
photo Barbara âeferin
movement, a movement with delay or
postponement, like a blurred intervention into time,
which is the only remaining consequence of dance in
Badiou’s sense; dance restrains time in space. In the
transition, a word is heard as well, not only as a
modulation of air passing through the vocal chords
but as its trace, nothing but a breath from the throat,
which is at the same time before the word and after
it, as a fanlike trace of the gesture is simultaneously
before and after it. In the trace a thought occurs in
the sense, which the Slovenian word zamisel
(literally: after-idea) clearly illustrates; za-misel is
primordial but also, and according to the prefix,
subsequent, post festum, and thus conceals in its
signified the design as well as the performance or, in
one word, the event as such.
In the turn a thought takes place, the turn of the
body is the turn of the thought; a signifying curve is
always a referential plane, triggering in the
perceptual consciousness a similar winding of the
cortex and the pulsation of the skin. The turn is a
blow colliding with something in the spectator we
used to call “the third body”, namely, with the
spectator’s “body in dance”; and back: the turn from
movement to word collides with the spectator’s other
sitting beside her on the seat.
267
The House of Bernarda Alba (2000)
directed by MatjaÏ Pograjc
stage design Sandi MikluÏ
costume design Nata‰a Recer
in the picture Janja Majzelj
MatjaÏ Pograjc
Hi‰a Bernarde Alba (2000)
reÏija MatjaÏ Pograjc, scenografija Sandi MikluÏ, kostumografija
Nata‰a Recer
na sliki zgoraj Maru‰a Geymayer-Oblak, spodaj Damjana âerne
photo Barbara âeferin
foto Barbara âeferin
Klavdija Zupan, Ivica Buljan, MatjaÏ Pograjc
Butterendfly (1995)
directed by MatjaÏ Pograjc
stage design TomaÏ ·trucl
costume design Alan Hranitelj
in the picture Dario Varga, Îeljko Hrs, Ivan Peternelj
photo Luc Jennepin
lukan
268
Tena ·tiviãiç
Fragile! (2005)
directed by MatjaÏ Pograjc
stage design Sandi MikluÏ
costume design Mateja Benedetti
in the picture Janja Majzelj, Matej Recer
photo Barbara âeferin
Peter Weiss
The Persecution and Assasination of Jean-Paul
Marat (2002)
directed by MatjaÏ Pograjc
stage design Sandi MikluÏ
costume design Mateja Benedetti
in the picture Olga Grad, Niko Gor‰iã, Barbara Îefran
photo Miha Fras
lukan
272
5.
Peter Weiss
The Persecution and
Assasination of JeanPaul Marat (2002)
directed by MatjaÏ Pograjc
stage design Sandi MikluÏ
costume design
Mateja Benedetti
in the picture (front)
Îiga Saksida, zadaj
Katarina Stegnar,
Niko Gor‰iã, Olga Grad,
Nata‰a Matja‰ec
photo Miha Fras
9 Peter Weiss
The Persecution and
Assasination of Jean-Paul
Marat (2002)
directed by MatjaÏ Pograjc
stage design Sandi MikluÏ
costume design Mateja
Benedetti
in the picture (from the front)
Ivan Rupnik, Olga Grad,
Niko Gor‰iã, Matej Recer,
Katarina Stegnar
photo Miha Fras
A CD cover of Demolition
Group with the music from
Roberto Zucco in
Butterendfly
designed by Iztok Lovriã
9 Neda R. Bric, Damjana âerne, Îeljko Hrs, Branko
Jordan, Nata‰a Matja‰ec, Marko Mlaãnik, Rafael Vonãina,
Barbara Îefran
Who’s Afraid of Tennessee Williams? (1999)
directed by, stage and costume design MatjaÏ Pograjc
in the picture v ospredju Îeljko Hrs, Barbara Îefran
photo Îiga Koritnik
Let us seemingly retreat for a moment from the
attempt to define the elementary point of
Pograjc’s theatre (or “directing”). Instead of a
(binary) duality let us rather speak of the
polyvalence of his productions and the directing
method in itself. Namely, it expresses a unique
permeability (Felix Ruckert),2 which posits two
sides and a layer or a membrane in between,
and where interiority and exteriority (of the body,
the world) are interchanging through the
membrane, communication flow running through
it, in which the dancer or the subject is outside
and inside at the same time, thus absolutely
present. Moments of extreme permeability are
without memory and plans, in these moments
time runs faster than usual and becomes
“visible” to the spectator. The link between
exteriority and interiority is manifested as pain;
its organ or medium being the (dancer’s) body
and skin. In the theatre of Pograjc the pain itself
is translated also into other spectacle
instruments, and is not manifested merely on the
surface of the performer’s body, as a matter of
fact, it can be found there – in the pure form –
most rarely. Firstly, it is discerned in the
“literary” inspiration, which almost as a rule
precedes his movement stagings and is, in the
form of a “brief sketch”, usually reproduced in
the programme booklet, the staging itself then
being a sort of a “dramatization”; in his dramatic
work the literary inspiration (commonly) comes
from a well known literary work or a play (e.g.,
The House of Bernarda Alba, Caligula,
Marat/Sade, etc.), or a thematic or “mythical”
frame (e.g., Mme. Butterfly, Tennessee Williams
or Lulu), which is reinterpreted and reformulated
by his staging procedure.
Literary inspiration or a template (in fact,
there is a sign of equation between them) is a
kind of membrane allowing Pograjc’s theatre
imagination “to permeate” into the space, and is
itself polyvalent, since – when necessary – it
may adopt the role of the screen onto which prerecorded or live video material is projected (a
frequently employed procedure by Pograjc, for
example, in Tennessee Williams or Bernarda
Alba), or of a transparent panel separating the
space into front and back and before and after,
and reflecting shadows on its surface: the
shadows coming from the goings-on behind it
”(“memories”) and the ones cast by the objects
in front of it ”(“commentaries”).
In the staging the literary (purely verbal as
well as signified dramatic) material permeates
and transmutes also with the space and its
equipment (scenography), as well as with
objects that inhabit it (scenographic elements,
machines, devices and procedures). Already the
lukan
literary material is, in its ideal form, threedimensional, i.e., spatial, or more accurately, it
incessantly passes into the space. Therefore it is also
characterized by transitivity/translativity already
taking place at the level of movement/word. The
space of Pograjc’s performances is never
“dramatically” illustrative of an absent real but
subsumes a certain new real, his space is invented
and fabricated anew, often in apparent contradiction
with the laws of architectonic statics yet always
permeable, aerial, “light”, with a tendency to be
tuned with other staging elements as well as with
itself (the puzzle principle). The space of Pograjc’s
performances (his collaborators are at all times also
scenographers, like e.g., TomaÏ ·trucl or Sandi
MikluÏ) is space in-itself, new, pure, and the “first”
space, merely reminiscent of other spaces, while its
conception fosters original associative connections.
In this space the real is fabricated anew and never
without “creative” passion.
Da‰a Dober‰ek, Branko Jordan, Nata‰a Matja‰ec
Lulubaj (2004)
directed by MatjaÏ Pograjc
stage design Sandi MikluÏ in Mateja Benedetti
costume design Maja Ljubotina
in the picture (foreground) Jadranka TomaÏiã, Niko Gor‰iã
(back) Sandi Pavlin, Ivan Godniã
photo Barbara âeferin
273
programme for performance Who’s Afraid of Tennessee Williams? (1999)
graphic design Iztok Lovriã
Neda R. Bric, Damjana âerne, Îeljko Hrs, Branko Jordan,
Nata‰a Matja‰ec, Marko Mlaãnik, Rafael Vonãina,
Barbara Îefran
Who’s Afraid of Tennessee Williams? (1999)
directed by, stage and costume design MatjaÏ Pograjc
in the picture (center) Nata‰a Matja‰ec, (surrounded by)
Marko Mlaãnik, Îeljko Hrs, Rafael Vonãina, BlaÏ ·vent
photo Îiga Koritnik
lukan
Kdo se boji Tennesseeja Williamsa?
1999
1999
1999
2000
2000
2000
2000
2001
2001
274
2001
2003
2003
2005
2005
Najpomembnej‰a gostovanja
Teatralmente intrecci, Trst, Italija,
Dnevi satire, Zagreb, Hrva‰ka
MOT, Skopje, Makedonija
Teden slovenske drame, Kranj
Mesto gledali‰ãe Budva, ârna gora
Re‰ke poletne igre, Reka, Hrva‰ka
Splitsko poletje, Split, Hrva‰ka
Sarajevska zima, Sarajevo
Gledali‰ka neurja, Puerto Montt,
Ancud, Valdivia, Santiago de Chile,
Til-Til, âile
Asunción – kulturna prestolnica
Iberoamerike, Paragvaj
Mednarodni gledali‰ki festival Santa
Dominga, Santo Domingo,
Dominikanska republika
Mednarodni gledali‰ki festival
Havane, Havana, Kuba
Mednarodni gledali‰ki festival
Mercosur, Córdoba, Argentina
Mednarodni gledali‰ki festival,
Montevideo, Urugvaj
The membrane is linked to the notion and the
phenomenon of the edge, limit or a wall,
characteristic of the early works of Pograjc. The wall
is the ground, raised by ninety degrees, the wall
inscribed with the threat of the overturning weight,
and at the same time a wall, cutting into the space,
disclosing the duality between outside and inside,
which is now more evident than the prior duality
between up and down, which is not always perfectly
clear in the theatre (or even the ambience where
Poets took place). However, the wall does not merely
bring about the spatial delimitation but also a
phenomenological and ontological relocation.
Namely, it evokes the consciousness of barriers,
always at work in the relation between the subject
and the world, presence and absence, being and
nothingness. Although this “ontology” is somewhat
gentle and manifested as a premonition in Pograjc’s
early works (for example, For Every Word a Gold
Coin’s Worth), it begins to take on darker tones in his
later productions (Midnight Meat Flight), until it – for
example, in Everybody for Berlusconi which
introduces into his theatre a new vocabulary and
where the wall passes into the (political) metaphor –
presents itself as the fundamental postulation of his
(new) world: the opposition between outside and
inside no longer exists, everything is on the outside,
the universal (media) performativity becomes,
speaking with McKenzie,3 the “postmodern
condition”; now, only the worthless memories are
being projected onto the walls, edges or borderlines,
which used to separate the self from the world and
because of that were often romantically and lavishly
praised.
The music is in connection with the space as well
(Mitja Vrhovnik-Smrekar, Janez ·kof and âompe,
Demolition Group, Silence, etc.). It translates the
original “pain” which gives rise to Pograjc’s literary
template (or even something that precedes logos
itself4).
Music is never in the space “in itself”; its role is
to allow emotive material to pass from the
background to the fore, from bodies into the space,
from the stage to the auditorium. Perhaps, music is,
in fact, also a spatial sign yet it often unfolds above
the stage in the shape of a “superior” cupola, a tent;
the music is the “fifth”5 ”(“sung”) side of heaven, the
sounds continually bounce from the cupola to the
ground and back, and the performers need to take
them into account in order to prevent unpredictable
collisions. It is no coincidence that Pograjc’s music is
closer to pop than to classical music (except in the
early phase with M. Vrhovnik-Smrekar), but to the
pop which is close to the contemporary awareness
of the world and not the one (except in a few
performances or particular performance scores) with
an astray “escapist” romantic function. Besides its
methodological, technical and phenomenological
function, the music also bears the idea, the thought
of the performance, its connection with the world.
The music (often together with scenography and
spatial solutions as well as with technical
“inventions”, as for example “machines” in
Marat/Sade) reveals – and at the same time resolves
– that particular contemporary chaos which gives
rise to primordial pain, the foundation of everything,
it does not encompass only the so called
contemporary “urban” sounds but also the entire
history of this chaos, the memory of futile attempts
of its overcoming and, after all, victory; hence, there
is also nature in the sounds, in the most clear-cut
instances (in Poets or Zucco, for example) even
something that could be called a “soul”. In other
words, with the music the staging “breathes”;
through it the space is traversed with the humane
which is otherwise covered with the most diverse
traces and layers but also always radiating through
them, most distinctly in the procedure we have
called transitivity/translativity.
6.
Pograjc is interested in the soul, the psyche,
psychology. His performances are – at least on the
surface – often similar to psychological, or better,
psychoanalytical theatre: Tennessee Williams,
Bernarda Alba, Berlusconi, but also Midnight Meat
Flight or Maison des rendez-vous.
But only similar. Their psychic material (when it
does not result in something we used to call, in the
case of Tirza, “psychist kitsch”) stretches through
the space as a kind of cover, its bearers being not
only the performers, i.e., actors, but the space as
such; the space is more or less saturated with the
psyche, which is also characterized by
transitivity/translativity: the psychic interiority passes
into the body and space, and on the screen, thus
receiving the expression which relieves it of
psychodramatic weight, which in most successful
variants (for example, in Tennessee Williams and
Maison des rendez-vous, less in The House of
Bernarda Alba) becomes even playful. With Pograjc,
play (playfulness) never appears on its own, and also
never in a (ludistic or grotesque) function, like, for
example, with Taufer, but is always put together with
the space, music and textual interventions in the
same befitting puzzle. And both edges, the psyche
and the play, also determine Pograjc’s performer.
Interestingly, Pograjc’s actor is often
“anonymous” – in Badiou’s sense – also in his
“drama” performances. As a matter of fact, she is in
a space in-between. She has a name (also in
“dance” performances) but is not a “persona” or a
“character”, she is fleeing from her psychology to
typology (or typicalization), which is, in fact, an
abstraction. The moment the performer turns in her
“role” and whirls the body, and with this also time
and space, into a choreographed gesture, she loses
her own name; just so when she performs, instead
Damir Zlatar Frey
Tirza (1997)
directed by MatjaÏ Pograjc
stage design MatjaÏ Pograjc
costume design Alan Hranitelj
in the picture Neda R. Bric, Maru‰a
Geymayer-Oblak, Niko Gor‰iã
photo Dare âekeli‰
Maison des Rendez-vous (Betontanc, 2002)
directed by MatjaÏ Pograjc
stage design Sandi MikluÏ
costume design Mateja Benedetti
in the picture Îeljko Hrs, Katarina Stegnar
photo Miha Fras
lukan
276
of a gesture, a word. Paradoxically, with this she
does not become only-body but still retains some of
her “individuality” but this individuality does not
come from the “role” but from herself, from her
privacy. Pograjc’s actors are close to poetical and
energetic bodies of contemporary dancers, his
dancers close to epic and neurotic bodies of
contemporary actors. The permeation of private with
“dramatic” or “choreographical” is incessant,
already characterizing the principle of work
(collective “writing” of texts, such as, Tennessee
Williams or Bernarda Alba, somewhat differently with
Lulubaj, where the authors of the texts do not appear
onstage) and the actual performance (for example,
Berlusconi) as well.
And – the second characteristic – Pograjc’s
performers never manifest their sex in an
accentuated way, they are rather – despite the
eventual nudity, in this case merely serving the
purposes of the drama, therefore “of the costume” –
“sexless”, “bisexual” or “neutersexual” (Jelinek),
which is perhaps apparent also in his fondness of
several actors with homosexual preference, or to
actresses – not as sexual icons (which would
otherwise be possible, for example, in case of
Nata‰a Matja‰ec) but as authors of his message.
Pograjc’s gaze raises (all the details are, of course,
unknown to us) above the erotic and the sexual and
does not sexually mark his “psychism”; on the other
hand, his “male” nature (and nature of the director is
in principle male, for example, Jovanoviç; among the
younger generation, de Brea; perhaps Korun’s is
closer to the “female”, though only at first sight;
while Îivadinov’s is in principle neurotic) is
discernible somewhere else, unconscious (thus the
one that “escapes” him) in the relational sense
(traces of adoring/oppressive treatment of female
dancers and male actors), conscious (thus the one
which is planned, let us call it the critical) in the
music, which has as such also the function of
translating the sexual ideology of the performance.
7.
Although Pograjc’s performances are often
reproached as being made by “others”, namely the
actors, musicians, choreographers (Branko Potoãan,
for example), and although they sometimes truly
appear as such, these claims are nonsensical. In
other words, Pograjc’s “psyche” passes into these
others through permeability, transitivity and
translativity. It is not “directly” expressed in them,
his performances are not euphoric manifests (like
Îivadinov’s) or traumatic self-portraits (like Frey’s),
but rather commentaries or “observations”.
Observation seems like an appropriate term: it
evokes observing, i.e., visual perceptions, but also
the noting of the imaginative material, as well as
momentariness, namely, the lightness, which is
characteristic of both the lyric origins of Pograjc’s
theatre as well as for the overcoming of (epic,
dramatic, physical, psychic) weight. Thus, Pograjc
is in his performances, which sometimes appear to
act “on their own”, simultaneously present and
absent, “drawn in” and “withdrawn”; it would be
difficult to – especially if we do not know him – find
in his performances any straightforward
autobiographic cues, while at the same time it
would be difficult to claim that he avoids any
personal statement. His personal real is symbolized
to such a degree that it is becoming a new –
performative – organism, with which he is in
dialogue throughout the working process yet it is
never judged; with time it, too, assumes the nature
of the objective, penetrating back into him through
his »skin« as an inevitable component of being.
Pograjc (to make a brief “psychoanalytical”
digression) reveals himself in a similar way in both
of his theatrical currents: as an authentic fragile
subject often disguisedly expressing a certain
paradoxical narcissism, exhibiting oneself in one’s
concealment – and not fully lived-out male nature –
most apparent in the expressive exclamations of
Tirza, for example, and at the same time the
fabricated reality of his performances displays a
productive dynamics or an interchange of an almost
existential desire to “be here” with the romantic one
to flee without return, a desire to repeat himself or
to yet position himself in the “false” world of the
theatrical simulation (or more precisely, no doubt
that the world is dissolving but it still admits a
considerable level of stability), although he knows
that the real provokes in him only the feelings of
despair (désespoir). In fact, the only way to prevent
the total abandonment of the real is to build it anew,
construct it through playfulness, bearing in mind its
limitations and power-lessness already in its
conception. Even the need to “resort” to movement
and the body displays a similar desire: to map the
field of self and the world, to give form to the body
so that its form is also the form of the world, to
express oneself as directly as possible through the
body, lay bare one’s emotive experience and own
“sentimental” biography (a recurrent form of his
performances is melodrama or its close equivalent).
In the field of the corporeal he wishes to
substantiate the power-lessness of contacts and
encounters, striving after them and at the same
time mockingly evading them, all this by means of
full, face-to-face contacts or, not infrequently,
playful “petting”. How to avoid, where to flee, and,
on the other hand, how to partake, how to confront,
how to prove oneself; how to be and how to coexist? This is the principal question for Pograjc, the
answer differing from one performance to another,
at one time practically infantile, at another almost
wise, yet never without the crucial and “fatal”
personal input and consciousness of one’s (own)
transitivity.
What he desires for himself, Pograjc also expects
from his audience. Although the audience is
frequently “alienated” in the Brechtian sense (with
music, subtle ironic distance, epically decomposed
scenes and fragmented characters), and “confused”
in terms of genre (playing with genres to bring about
a unique stylistic satiety is Pograjc’s favoured
procedure), it is expected of them to identify, to relive their own experiences. He wants to be visible,
noticeable, if possible, without any noise and
“mistakes”, he wishes to “penetrate” the spectator’s
reflexive depth with his emotive landscape, and thus
“exchange” himself, to pass into some other
“physical” state, where he could once and for all
begin a new comfortable life – of course, merely an
illusion. He does not expect the spectator’s absolute
gaze (on dance) but a prolongation and a repetition
or recognition of his own work as art (which Badiou
disavows: dance is a “sign of the body’s capacity for
art”). This often leaves him disappointed but, at the
same time, his position in the eyes of the spectator is
thus strengthened and confirmed.
8.
Let us now return to our starting point. If we have
once been able to discern in Pograjc’s Roberto Zucco
(to quote, although with considerable discomfort)
“exchanges of raw rhythmical pulsation with
geometrical repetitions, transitions from physical
actions to figurative stylization, formalization of
movement and gesture, which “ought to’ be direct,
and directness of “choreographed’ passages”, it
seems to us by now that this “formula” may hold
true for his work as a whole. This
transitivity/translativity undoubtedly conceals
pleasure. Despite the attachment to the old as a
starting point, transition/translation reveals the new:
new form, new space, new emotion, new dialogue.
However, Pograjc is not particularly interested in
defining new spaces in full but in suggesting
possibilities, locating holes and openings, through
which it is possible to draw oneself into the “other”.
In this other he seeks the lyrical core, which he
found (and lost) with maturing in the “first”, original
world or self, he pursues the generic form and its
ramifications, which enters the process of
constructing relations and motions, and which he
will be able to use as a substitute for the lost original
one and will, thus, be both at the same time: the old
and the new, lost and found, transitory and
permanent, weighted and immaterial. In this Pograjc
is unrepeatable, as is unrepeatable the turning
gesture of his performers: as soon as it is enacted, it
is enacted, with no regard whether it was
correct/erroneous or perfect/flawed, it cannot be
mended since its slowed-down trace brings about an
indelible effect, a specific “repetition” – and
precisely this kind of a turn is called for in the
spectator.
lukan
277
Peter Weiss
The Persecution and
Assasination of JeanPaul Marat (2002)
directed by MatjaÏ Pograjc
stage design Sandi MikluÏ
costume design Mateja
Benedetti
in the picture Matej Recer,
Olga Grad, Niko Gor‰iã,
Îeljko Hrs, Katarina
Stegnar, Neda R. Bric,
Nata‰a Matja‰ec
photo Miha Fras
Bernard-Marie Koltès
Roberto Zucco (1994)
directed by MatjaÏ Pograjc
stage design TomaÏ ·trucl
costume design Alan Hranitelj
in the picture Janez ·kof, Dario Varga
photo Miha Fras
Alain Badiou: Mali priro_nik o inestetiki. Translated by S. Koncut.
Ljubljana: Dru·tvo Apokalipsa, 2004.
2 Dance Theatre Journal 2005, vol. 4.
3 Jon McKenzie: Perform or else. London, New York: Routledge, 2001.
4 An untranslatable wordplay: template in Slovenian: pred-loga (alluding
to the words prior and logos) (translator’s footnote)
5 An untranslatable wordplay: in Slovenian the words fifth and sing are
homonyms. (translator’s footnote)
1