Bernard-Marie Koltès: Roberto Zucco (1994) directed by MatjaÏ Pograjc stage
design TomaÏ ·trucl costume design Alan Hranitelj in the picture Damjana âerne,
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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
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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:
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
