Žilina's station. It's memory lanes strolled. Tent popped-up - legs tired, but still walking.
Off to see some performances at this year's Kiosk Festival 2023, where, sadly, your correspondent – due to a mix of bad planning and stress – only managed to catch a handful of shows over the final two festival days. I'm told the other two days were fantastic, and there's at least a hint of the usual Kiosk buzz around STANICA and Žilina's New Synogogue, where a majority of festival events normally take place.
Although this year's festival theme "bez elektriny" (translating to "No Power") is aimed more in an environmental direction, I can't help but think about digital cultures as I stare out the window on my 10 hour train ride from Berlin. The cultural logic of digital life has emerged as the dominant metaphor since the pandemic took away 90% of income for performing artists in Europe, completely transforming previously fundamental dramaturgies, narratives, and understandings of life. As we build our digital double-lives, one of the most aggressive cultural shifts in Western history has taken place with barely a whimper, its direction serving the interests of power (including big tech and resource-extraction) too well to be meaningfully challenged.
Was this really what we wanted? Is there realities, or "selves", to be found outside the surfaces of our controllable, manipulable digital identities?
As I dissect the programme over a coffee in the morning light streaming through the windows at STANICA, it seems to me that "Bez elektriny" can also remove the screen, and see what's left afterwards.
Festival worker Anna Kováčová, Photo: Natália Zajačiková
Vystaviť sa telu 2: Ne-činnosť (ENG: Expose yourself to the body 2: Inaction)
Among the low-fi selections of the morning is Yuri Korec & Co's choreographic
investigation of the body in a gallery (and non-gallery) environment. The
audience arrives in the rear of Zilina's Museum of Art, greeted by a crumbling
structure in a delapidated car park. The destroyed structure is decorated with
the body of performer Anja Naňová lying in the rubble, front covered in tape,
skin blending with the bricks and mortar. The performer slowly rises, enacting
a kind of "twitch" movement while exploring the space.
From this opening, there is an abject synergy between body and environment
that continues throughout the piece, the human body becoming a vessel for
connection between the constructed and natural worlds. As we enter the
courtyard of the gallery and Naňová removes the tape, this becomes a more
threatening gesture that seems to position the human as an object of
scopophilia: trapped in Elton John glasses, staring out the window, listening
to Irene Cara's 80s hit What a Feeling, showing life only though the
occasional twitch or change of pose.
It's a subtle work, but one worth contemplation, as it delicately traverses the terrain between human and environment, and deploys the resources of the surroundings in place of electricity or other manufactured intervention, replacing the need for control with a sharing of careful observation - a perfect example of theatre's enrichment through re-defining stage resources.
Traces
Sometimes I worry in contemporary performance that this approach to non-human agency is actually paper-thin. There's almost a genre of show now that involves a performer promenading around a given environment essentially asking the same question in the same way: "As a human, what is my relationship with non-human stuff?". As I argue extensively here for example, my hunch is that actually posing this question is more difficult than the agreement of contemporary performance allows. Non-human agents are a threat to human supremacy, yes, Donna Haraway, yes... but what would it actually mean to question our dominant position inside the constellation of agencies? Isn't it more complicated that just going "maybe this rock, too, has emotion"? Practically, also, where does such a questioning lead? Doesn't it just lead us down the same path of (human-centric) self-reflection, where we only pretend to pose questions in order to secretly re-affirm our doninant relationship with environment? Where is the risk - where is the threat?
Jakub Jautz's Traces proposes a similar question. The circus/dance artist meets us on a rocky hillside, via a surprise tumble, before addressing us and talking about his protective clothing (in a theatrical way, because some items of clothing are too small, some are poor-quality etc.). There’s some naivety to this opening, as well as a genuine curiosity – Jautz explores the environment, picking up objects and contemplating them with us, occasionally pulling a piece of string to activate a secret pulley-system that makes another object appear, as though controlling and manipulating the environment itself. The whole thing reminds me very much of Kevin Costner in the (vastly underrated) Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, complete with woodland atmosphere and home-made tinkering.
As Jautz leads us through the forest, the artist also takes us through a journey of his choreographic and circus practice, integrating aspects of this with the natural environment. Several “natural stages” appear on the walk, beautifully-constructed amphitheatres carved from wood and leaves, conjuring pop-up theatres from a particular scenario.
Photo: Marek Jančúch
But as Jautz leads us to his last, high-level act, nature does reveal herself uncontrollable. At this point, I wondered about the safety elements, because lightning flashing and heavy rain over someone 20-meters up a tree and wearing a lot of metal does not make for a comfortable viewing. Maybe true respect for the non-human is also respect for the self, taking risks where needed, but acting with preservation of both self and other in mind – this is the truly radical position. Yet it can be a moot point, after all, Traces is a work that seems lovingly-prepared for Kiosk’s theme, and that does re-direct our attention to the wonders of the natural world.
Innenhof: Dedina
Performed in the Stráňavy’s Kultúrny dom by Mária Ševčíková, I unfortunately couldn’t really catch much of the beautiful Slovak language in this monodrama, nevertheless spending a good hour drying off and marvelling at the low-lighting states employed by the performer. You win some, you lose some.
(Coming up: Day 3 Special edition, D'Epog's Handsfree)
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Vystaviť sa telu 2: Ne-činnosť (ENG: Expose yourself to the body 2:
Inaction)
Concept and choreography by Juraj Korec
Choreography: Anja Naňová
Production by Martin Krištof / Skrzprst, o.z.
Photo: Nela Rusková
Traces
Concept and performance by Jakob Jautz
Outside Eye: Mala Kline
Installation and costume: Jakob Jautz & Julian Herstatt
Production by Jakob Jautz
Production Assistant: Katja Büchtemann
Photo, video: Otero Tillmann Filme
Innenhof: Dedina
Text and performance by Mária Ševčíková
Directed by Martin Hodoň
Dramaturgy: Dáša Čiripová
Music: Dominik Suchý
Design of ceramics and porcelain: Štefan Sekáč
Lighting design: Martin Hodoň
Costume, set: Matoha
Poster: Alexandra Šakira Srnková
Production. Gaffa o.z. / Innenhof o.z.
Photo: Štefan Sekáč
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Note: Current publication is done with the understanding that
colleagues and communities from Kharkiv, Mariupol, Kyiv, Lutsk, and Lviv
among others in Ukraine are currently under attack in an attempt to
erase Ukrainian culture and identity. No artist should be forced to
rehearse how to pick up the gun.
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