Experimental choreographer Robyn Orlin previews the most magnetic work on offer at this year’s wildly varied [email protected] festival
When the first scent of jasmine hits Johannesburg it’s the signal that Arts Alive, the festival that wakes the city from its winter slumber, is hotly imminent. This year is the Dance Factory’s sixth annual festival in collaboration with the arts fest, and the international line up is nothing short of astonishing.
[email protected], as those funky orange street posters around town declare, features 14 different programmes happening from September 4 to October 4. Highlights include performances by humorous British duo Leikin Loppu and the highly acclaimed Leeds-based RJC, as well as new works by local artists and companies like Soweto Dance Theatre, Zapac (Zamdela Performing Arts Centre in Sasolburg), State Theatre Dance Company, the Ritmo Dance Company and Moving into Dance, which celebrates its 20th birthday this year.
But possibly the most tantalising options on offer are the works by the Nordic solo artists whose work is bursting with invention and originality. The pieces they’re bringing are conceptually smart and layered, yet funny and accessible to all those balletomanes out there who are likely to feel less alienated than moved by their passion, beautiful bodies and (yebo) superb technique.
There has been a trend in dance over recent years in which innovative work is being done by a generation who are not strictly choreographers or playwrights or fine artists or filmmakers, but work in a post-post modern meltdown of all these disciplines. Within the Nordic dance contribution at this year’s Arts Alive, this trend is easily discerned.
Reijo Kela is not just a dancer or choreographer. He comes from a background of fine arts, theatre and dance. This has allowed him to work in spaces that are not determined by the constraints of theatre. In one piece, Kela went back to his home town in rural Finland, where he performed for the community on top of a roof, in an open field, in a window of a barnhouse, and skillfully controlled the audience from one moment to the next.
On the roof he did very daring acrobatic movements; in the field he performed a Zen-like t’ai chi movement combination while explosions took place in the background; in the barnhouse, with much humour, he slowly revealed his nakedness (buttocks first) to the audience through a window whose segments were blocked by piles of hay that he gradually pushed away.
Kela’s movements are clearly dance and his framework theatrical, but his work is transposed into improvised everyday spaces. For instance, in another work, Kela recreates, within the constraints of a phantom space, his everyday world. In the central square of a city, he lives a week within a perspex box within which he lives, eats, goes to the toilet, baths and receives friends as within his own home. He lives within walls of his own invention – walls that hold him and at the same time position him to be observed within a constructed domestic environment.
The work that Kela is bringing to Arts Alive is site specific. Undetermined as yet, it will be interesting to see what space he chooses within our fragmentary, ever-changing city – whether it’ll be Newtown, the post industrial stomping ground of past Arts Alive and Biennale artists, or whether he’ll be more daring.
But boundary-pushing is not the only thing on offer. Reclaiming tradition can be, and is, exquisitely beautiful in the work of Virpi Pahkinen from Sweden. She has danced in Ingmar Bergman’s stage productions (Space and Time, Winters Tale, The Bacchae) and performed in many countries. Her work is decorative, but simple – with an Eastern quality. She uses a lot of yoga and t’ai chi movement within a very classical contemporary dance idiom. New agey maybe – cynical, no.
As one would expect in contemporary dance, she uses the stage fully and physically, and, although she is obviously in love with movement, it is without any excess. With Spartan simplicity, she exhausts a movement and then moves on. All is focused on her – clothes, colour, music, light. Her visuals are like a rich meal. Unlike Kela, she does not question space. This is not central to her work. She performs on a stage and uses it lovingly.
The Nordic Solos programme is part of Shuttle 99, an ambitious arts exchange programme between the Nordic countries and South Africa which will be launched during this year’s Arts Alive International Festival. The programme, which will run for two years, will focus on the sharing of ideas in dance, theatre, literature and the visual arts. The five Nordic countries are Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Iceland and Norway, co-ordinated by the Nordic Council of Ministers which has provided financing to the tune of R4- million.
All five Nordic dancer/choreographers question the use of the body, sex and identity – but maybe none more so than Anders Christiansen. Christiansen’s work is funny. It is not straight dance by any means. His movements are almost like conversations. You can almost read words out of his body movements – he uses sign language on a grander scale. There is something raw and a naively honest quality about it.
His are very personal stories about sexuality, frailty, vulnerability of the body. The elements clash – strength through humour, frailty through a vulnerable body. He applies the same freshness to the way he works with props on stage. His work is theatrical, painterly and perhaps even deliciously kitsch.
What South Africans can possibly learn from Christiansen’s work is the art of developing an expressive vocabulary that is unique and personal. His work resonates through little things. It doesn’t change your life, but it makes you more conscious of the multi-faceted nature of life.
The Nordic programme also features works by Lara Stefansdottir (Iceland) and Jo Stromgren (Norway). A number of the dancers perform to live music, so prepare yourself for ritual, spectacle, performance and some interesting blurring of what is audience space and what is the domain of the performer.