/ 22 September 1995

Orlin against the world

Critically acclaimed, Robyn Orlin remains marginalised by the dance world. She spoke to HAZEL FRIEDMAN

THERE’S an ancient Greek saying that the soul of a nation is ultimately judged by the way it treats its artists. If so, South Africa has much to answer for in its treatment of Robyn Orlin. Think of contemporary dance in this country and her name might appear alongside those of other luminaries such as Sonya Mayo, Sylvia Glasser, Esther Nasser and Adele Blank. Think of local contemporary dance being pushed and pummelled into bursting its boundaries, and Robyn Orlin stands

She, more than any other exponent of her discipline, has succeeded in transforming a pristine performing art into a kinetic installation. It was Orlin who twisted seamless sequences inside out, turning them into visceral rites of passage. It was she who deconstructed the classical pas de deux, exposing it as a battle of sexual wills. And it was Orlin who used refuse bags, shopping carts, empty refrigerator boxes and wind-up toys, not merely as props, but as dance partners and artforms in their own right.

Often arrogant and intolerant, she could make her dancers soar — or crush them underfoot. She was particularly adept at hitting her audience in the place where a laugh and a gasp are indistinguishable, where humour and horror merge in a disconcerting embrace.

And for that she is both adored and reviled. She has spawned a generation of “Orlin off-cuts” who slavishly emulate her imagery. But her work is fundamentally different to that of today’s creative operators who regard art as a series of slick sound-bites. She has been critically acclaimed and given awards, yet she remains marginalised by the conservative dance world.

But Orlin has returned, a little bruised, but still unbowed. Forced to leave America, where she studied for five years on a Fullbright scholarship, she has a Master’s degree in fine art, under the interdisciplinary rubric of kinetic installation. South Africa is a place she no longer understands. As for dance, she knows it too well.

“It is so difficult to access things here,” she says. “Despite the changes, the rifts are as large as ever, the alienation deeper than I imagined. It’s almost as though the wells of creativity have dried up.” She adds: “Before, we were in this battle together, fighting a common enemy. But now, artists are just battered and that sense of community has disappeared.”

Yet in her alienation, there’s a newfound serenity. “If there’s one thing I learnt in America, it’s that I’m no longer an artist rooted to a specific place. Being there helped me to get in touch with my own dislocation. It has been a liberating experience that has developed my aesthetic.” She adds ruefully, “Except

Freed from the imperatives that previously informed her work, she is now accessing subjects ranging from Brecht to Dada, surrealism, and even Hollywood icons. Her fascination with the latter is the focus of one of two pieces comprising her retrospective show at the Market Theatre. Called Upsy-Daisy, its dialectic revolves around the public and private personae of a screen goddess who tries unsuccessfully to kill herself. In many ways, it is vintage Orlin: the caustic observations on media distortion, the mechaninistic rituals of modern life and the tragi-comic gap between desire and reality. It is about Orlin against the world and the loneliness of the long-distance dancer.

The second piece is more serene. Called In a Corner the Sky Surrenders, its title has been taken from writings by Andre Breton on the work of fellow surrealist Max Ernst. In a sense it represents the flip-side of Upsy- Daisy. It’s about redefinition and self-empowerment. Here Orlin, the outsider, is in control. There is no resolution, merely acceptance of its absence.

“I know the moves but I’m no longer interested in dance,” she insists. “I’m far more obsessed with challenging theories through performance and posing uncomfortable questions. But without funds and a corps of dancers, it’s becoming harder to ask them.” And when she does manage to get both, her brutal tools of deconstruction too often serve as self-detonators.

For example, a piece called Rumble in the Jungle practically caused a riot when it was performed at the Johannesburg Art Foundation earlier this year. Another piece for Napac, The Explosion of Stars, had its premiere and finale practically in one performance.

Yet Orlin still has an insatiable energy for shlock and shock. “I’m interested in all kinds of performance. I’d love to do opera, to really deconstruct it. But you can’t do that here. Everything is still so categorised, so black and white.”

She adds: “If there’s one contribution I can still make, it’s in teaching students how to think for themselves. Beyond that, I don’t know how I’m going to pay the rent. Maybe I’ll make muffins.”

Now that’s stretching it a little too far, even for

Robyn Orlin’s Whoops! A Retrospective runs Upstairs at the Market until September 30