Street Fabrik (tanzschreiber.de)

My last review for my short residency over at tanzschreiber.de here:

 https://tanzschreiber.de/en/street-fabrik/

Against the Grain (tanzschreiber.de)

Over at tanzschreiber.de - my latest article about the series of short dance works "Against the Grain", an interesting night of inclusive dance performance. 

 https://tanzschreiber.de/en/against-the-grain/ 

Theaterstück: Celebrating 50,000 hits?

I started this writing platform almost exactly 10 years ago, when I first arrived in Berlin. Back then, the idea was to write about theatre here, as a way of coming to know it, and at the same time to develop myself into a "critic". The reason I wanted to do that is because I identified that criticism is a worthwhile activity: it's the difference between really knowing something, to go deep into life, and simply experiencing it and letting it wash over you as you strategically pick your way through different available privelages. Historically, it's been the difference between fascism and democracy, at least according to a scholar like Hannah Arendt, who wrote extensively (and critically) about the ideologies of Nazism and other totalitarian regimes in the 20th century. 

Furthermore, today, it's dying. 

In today's cultures that are driven by profit and fame - what good is there in reflection? All the competitive mechanisms teach us to move faster, more streamlined, more efficient. To pause and think is calamatous, and it's the same for actually paying attention, which can stop you from seizing opportunities. As a cultural worker in a world rewarding surfaces, reflection is often seen as a luxury - you need to endlessly and aggressively self-promote, even at the expense of your colleagues, just to survive.

The screenshot of the moment the dream came true.

 

No wonder then, that over the years many have been a bit arrested when I have confronted them with critique, and are all the more confused so when that critique is also reflected upon myself. "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones", is the idiom - and so, at this moment of pausing to reflect on attracting 50,000 or something readers over a 10-year period, it's a good moment to stop and take stock.

First, 50,000 is not a big number, and I did an awful lot of work to achieve what others can do with a single, entertaining cat video. I write on approximately 25 shows a year on this platform, over 10 years it's about 250 pieces of long-form criticism. On average, this is about 200 readers per article. Take out the bots and random internet traffic, and the real readership is probably much lower than this. Remove people who don't actaully pay attention to the words or wider argument, and I'm probably only writing for a handful of people each time.

Yet, there is every chance this is more than enough. As criticism is such a loathed and poorly-understood practice, you're only trying to reach a few people anyway, who can act as agents for it in different ways. Popularity is not the goal (although sometimes I think a more widespread respect for the practice would help me to write). Rather, we are trying to build culture, and that normally takes time, patience, and care - resources that are in scant supply today. Making and re-making different arguments in relation to this in critical writing is an important part of that development.

50,000 is not a big number. Still, I celebrate it, purely because I understand that what this writing platform tries to achieve may not be possible. While this alone doesn't make its existence worth fighting for, from my experience, anything that is worth achieving in culture was hard in the beginning (sometimes very hard). The rewards come in the end - often too late for the instigator, but not too late for their successors.

Thanks to people who have read over the years, especially those who have entered into dialogue with me - it has made me richer.

--

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. 

From a Void of Fire and Ice ("Blazing Worlds", for tanzschreiber.de)

Over at tanzschreiber.de, my latest writing about the work of Romanian choreographer Sergiu Matis:

 https://tanzschreiber.de/en/from-a-void-of-fire-and-ice/

Among Lifeless Master-Pieces ("Messa da Requiem", for tanzschreiber.de)

“Messa da Requiem” is a 2016 work setting ballet to Verdi’s choral and orchestral score. Choreographer/director Christian Spuck revives the work with the Staatsballett Berlin and Rundfunkchor Berlin, for this premiere on 14 April 2023 at Deutsche Oper.

 Full text over at tanzschreiber: https://tanzschreiber.de/en/among-lifeless-master-pieces/

A Little Catching Up To Do

 

A couple of exhbitions, a concert, a festival of short films, and a cinematography club later, and your correspondant is feeling a little worse for wear. Those familiar with burnout will recognise the signs: when small things become unmanagable and impossible, when the body and mind begin to account for a period of sustained deference, during which urgent tasks dwarf their potential undertaker, with "not urgent but important" ones relegated to an expectant, ever-growing pile.

Post-intense period, the demands of life tend to come flooding back, and that is what is happening to me at the moment. Although the urgencies of the most recent invasion of Ukraine seem incomporable with my own relatively light psychological suffering, it is nevertheless always funny to observe the body and mind, and how they remind you of your own humanity and limitations, which are real even if these seem comparably trivial.

The last weeks were filled with incredible experiences as part of the Exhibition and Event Series of Ukrainian Culture, and I am proud and happy to be able to work in support of these events, which were unanimously moving and powerful interventions in Berlin's cultural landscape, led by my colleagues at Cultural Workers Studio.

Although I continually failed in the last period, somehow, I was able to keep a skeleton critical practice going on tanzschreiber - albeit without my usual attention to detail (or ability to meet deadlines).

Here are those texts:

https://tanzschreiber.de/en/a-committed-sense-of-rhythm/

Juan Domínguez's oddball piece Rhythm Is The Place certinaly left many in the audience scratching their heads - nevertheless, an important albeit esoteric experiment in tempo.

https://tanzschreiber.de/en/still-bursts-frills-and-a-mating-call/

La Cage's work Oiseau was such a gentle, slight experience - I really appreciated its production ethic and focus on simplicity, although judging by the collaboration's published texts, we have some differences about non-human agency.

https://tanzschreiber.de/en/splitting-roles/

Time Out of Joint was among my trickier tasks for tanzschreiber so far - I saw it on International Women's Day, and was confident that I would be able to be unfailingly enthusiastic. Instead I was met with a complex, conflict-ridden work, and this made writing about it not easy, as I had an uncomfortable encounter with my own unrealistic expectations of female uniformity in solidarity.

https://tanzschreiber.de/en/the-cool-deep-maths-of-the-body/

I write a sort of clowny introduction here - but I often feel out of place in the more ecstatic, performative introversions of Berlin, which make almost no sense to me. This piece Deepspace from visiting choreographer James Batchelor seems like it has sort of aged since its premiere in 2016, and a perhaps once-radical approach now seems almost classical - I nevertheless found a lot to appreciate in its euclidian trimmings.

--

For me, now, the doctor in my head (the one I can afford) prescribes it's a bit of rest and time in the garden. I will return with more writing soon, including the last of my Tanzschreiber articles and some interviews I was working on in the last period.

In the meantime, to quote the poet and activist Lesya Ukrianka:

 

Away, thoughts - you heavy, autumn clouds!
Now the spring comes, gleaming gold!
Is it with such pity, lamenting aloud
That the stories of young summers are told?

 

The Cool, Deep Maths of the Body ("Deepspace", for tanzschreiber.de)

Questions of time, space, and mathematics dominate in “Deepspace”, a choreography based in scientific collaboration and research from James Batchelor, viewed at Trauma Bar und Kino in Berlin-Moabit on 14 March 2023.

Full text over in tanzschreiber.de - https://tanzschreiber.de/en/the-cool-deep-maths-of-the-body/