With its attention turned towards experimental and innovative works of performing arts, Atalante offers a space for the artistic works, a discourse surrounding those works, and the field at large. During the fall of 2024 we will delve deeper into the various universes of the artists presenting work and make space for a dialogue between the artists, the spectators and the venue. Through discussions with the artists on what the experimental and its otherness signifies in their work we will offer shorter texts, such as this one, as a way of situating insights made by the artists within a larger field of thought.
Order – Disorder | I – You | Human – Society | Space – Place | Rest – Unrest |
Touch – Distraction | Turmoil – Silence | Disruption – Peace | Shadow – Aberrancy
In our current times these opposing ideas suggests that duality as such is a ready-made concept for us to consume as truth. Lived experience, however, is a far cry from the simplistic idea that our perception of the world can be placed within neat categories of two. And still, in spite of this cry, we tend to fall into the trappings of relying on concepts which we have been conditioned to view reality through rather than our actual lived experience. As such, our emphasis upon the existence of a reality that is constructed upon the premises of duality is an idea that has found a deep seated lodging within most monotheistic cultures; heaven and hell, piety and sin, man and God. Things seem to appear in a clear two-folded system, a system that not even modernity with its disregard for religious thought could shake. Instead they were reinvented as spirit and matter, the physical and the mental, the body and reason. In the spirit of modernity reason and its operation of rationality claims to know all without recourse to the corporeal reality of life. Yet even in the seemingly two-tier structure of monotheism and its heir rationality, mystic orders and the ambiguity of lived experience has manifested itself in the crevices of the human psyche and its ghosts haunt us until this day. Could it be that beyond the ready-made concepts of duality there may lie an otherness that places the ambiguity of the human experience front and centre? If we are to find out we must begin with that which is unknown present in the known in an attempt to unravel aspects of the work of Art of Spectra and their current piece DISORDER.
Discussing their work and the foundations they have established to enable their visions for both stage and screen it is evident that the human aspect is a constant point of reference and artistic subject for the company. The insistence upon the human reveals a tendency that within the arts the human is paradoxically often lost. It is lost because we deny either the body its lived experience by exclusively demanding from it a form and quality of movement which is unnatural. Or we deny the ambiguity of our inner lives and the wealth of named and unnamed instincts present there. As such the objectiveness of art threatens to overtake the ambiguity of being human, of not knowing in the midst of named objects. The ambiguity as a fundamental aspect of humanity plays a crucial role not only for the performer but for the event of the performance itself. That which is not shown acts as a conduit establishing the relation between performers and spectators. Conceding that the very name of the company plays with the notion of the spectral suggests that its plural meanings is also at play on stage. For the spectral is not only that which we see, that which is spectacular, but also that which is ghostly and otherworldly. As fleeting as the performing arts is as an art form so is its spectrality in its disappearance.
The multimedia aspect of their work has been a guiding force throughout their existence and has informed the amalgamation of how one medium flows into another whether it be movement, voice, text, music or film. The predominant use of film in their works functions as a method of creating multilayered worlds enticing the spectator to burrow down imaginary holes. The performer in her corporeal reality of flesh and bone is made available to herself as a spectre through the medium of film. She is not only seen by the spectators but seen by herself while being observed. As such the dimensions of time and space become susceptible to an unravelling that thrusts the spectator between the real and irreal. The emphasis on cinematic chapters has become a way of substantialising the work as projections enable a dislocation of space. Living through a time saturated by images a critique of the image is made available on stage whence we are given space to reflect upon the effect it has upon us. The locus of the stage defies the portrait-style focus of the self as sole actor by directing attention towards the group through its landscape view and manages to go further still because of its three-dimensionality in space as an immersive experience. Throughout, the physical–human–aspect of the performers never loses its vitality. The interplay between the real as the physical human on stage, her relation with the other humans on stage, and the irreality of the screen provokes another time which resists the temptation of reading a scene, a glance, a movement as obvious or self-evident. Instead the suggestive and obscure is allowed space to develop in its own rhythms. We as spectators are not entirely sure of what we are witnessing but we nevertheless sense a mood, an atmosphere, a rhythm which forces us to accept the situation and allows us space to remain with questions and curiosity rather than ready-made concepts.
The importance of the spectators own experience is here paramount. Although what is presented to us on stage found its inception as a clear intention, or specific event, from the choreographer/director it is of the utmost importance that the relational connection be based off of what the spectator experiences in the moment of the performance. The ambiguity of understanding makes room for the unexpected to overcome the spectator. The language of Art of Spectra heavily relies upon a certain physical ability professed by each performer in their own unique way but it is simply not enough to know how to reach the extremes of physical contortions. The emotional and relational range is equally important for the full spectrum of humanity to be present. This demands that the performer must find a correspondence within herself between that of the dancer and that of the actor. To enable this dialogue between physical end emotional states fragmentation becomes a necessary method of working. Internal motivation is key–there is a play within the play always at play within the field of the performers and acts as a catapult into the imaginary as much for the performers themselves as for the spectators. A drama is unfolding that must remain veiled in order for the fragmentation and porosity of meaning to be susceptible to the spectators own imaginative faculties.
In DISORDER the human voice plays a crucial role as an aspect of confession. Confession has historically been used as a plea to the gods for our mistakes, in the secular age it is perhaps a way to communicate with an otherness within ourselves that we wish to remain hidden from view. To confess is also an act of acknowledgement. It is interesting to note that although the heightened physical language of the company nevertheless necessitates the isolation and perhaps vulnerability of the sole human voice. In its vulnerability a gap opens up that treads the indeterminate space of the unknown in the midst of the seemingly known. A voice that echoes in the dark but also finds resonance in the bodies of the performers. The isolation of the voice is perhaps also a ghostly remnant of the genesis of the performance itself. Sprung from the shock of the disruption caused by the pandemic, the ensuing wars, and the civil unrest that followed suite, the amount of disorder seem only to have taken on a scale beyond our wildest imaginations. The dualities–order and disorder– seem only to have upended themselves with each passing catastrophe. In its aftermath the human and her indeterminacy picks up the pieces and builds the world anew. If we are willing to reflect upon the irreality of ready-made concepts such as those described in the programme notes we might also move beyond the simplistic reading of “good” or “bad”. At times such as these it may be worth recollecting that utopia means “nowhere” and that dystopia simply signifies an imaginary “worse nowhere”. In its place we might be able to find an openness in something other which places the ambiguity of the human experience front and centre. The opening up of such questions is an ethical impetus of art.
Reflection & text: Josephine Gray
Join us for an in-depth discussion on these topics on Monday 21/10 at 7 PM with some of the invited guest artists performing at Atalante this autumn!