Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Невесомость

Sometimes I just enjoy shows without really knowing why. Partly it's a matter of choice. But there's also definitely an element of mystery to it. I must get some kind of strange pleasure from non-conformity in audiences. I have a small bug inside me that jumps around the trap of consensus, looking for a way out.

The last point is, I think, a feature of any worthwhile critic. Whilst you should be able to understand how a text is likely to be read by the dominant cultural forces, you should also understand the possibilities that alternate readings might bring. I don't mean just subject positions, or identities, (although those are important, too) but radical readings that open up new possibilities for art - sometimes even totally against the intention of the artist. I'm an advocate for this because I think it is one of the key things that criticism can contribute to artistic discourse, and because it makes criticism an imaginative and generative autonomous practice - not just a reflector of what is already clear to everyone anyway.

At about the 10 minute mark, I began to really enjoy Невесомость (meaning 'weightlessness' in Russian), a collaboration between author Ruslan Stepanov, sound designer Artjom Astrov and lighting designer Oliver Kulpsoo. It would be difficult for me to pinpoint why. This might be a valid question from a neighbouring audience member, who sees only a set of repetitive etudes accompanied by occasional adjustments - fidgets almost - from the designers.

Photo: Lee Kelomees


Indeed, Stepanov states in his description that the show is about 'boredom'. From the beginning our attention span is played with, offering only a simple set of what could be warm-up exercises (descended from the artist's ballet training, I'm reliably told), a loop of which lasts for perhaps 6 minutes before being repeated. These exercises are undertaken by Stepanov himself, underneath a 'stadium roof' of fluorescent lights, which intrude everywhere from the top down. Occasionally, Astrov interjects with sound, such as a low repetitive moan, or enters the stage to make sounds at a standing microphone. At one point, he exits the side door and plays music from behind like a disgruntled teen.
In other words, the exercises are repeated - but with Deleuzian difference. And these differences are, as the performance unfolds, increasingly comic (to me at least). Like neighbours having a silent war over the garden fence, the collaborators edge closer to intervening in each other's work, without ever fully doing so - each doing just enough to exert an outside force on the other, whilst never quite destroying the fragile agreement that sustains the show. For Stepanov, that's a minuscule adjustment in address that doesn't come until the end of the show - a period of eye contact towards the end of the performance, in which the same repetitive gestures are 'offered' to spectators, almost as an object, or moment, to be shared.

That doesn't sound like much to go on with, but from a particular perspective, it's quite thrilling. Невесомость might be an esoteric project, were it not for the feeling of genuine artistic exploration taking place. I don't think it's about boredom at all, although it may appear so. Rather, like Deleuze's project, it operates as a critique of representation and opposing the generality of entertainment in the theatre event, and creating instead something unique from the occasional, earth-shattering interventions of sound and light.

Simple, but effective. And worth dwelling on for a long while afterwards.

Невесомость

Author, director & performer: Ruslan Stepanov
Light designer, technical solutions: Oliver Kulpsoo
Mentor: Alissa Šnaider
Soundscape: Artjom Astrov

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