Faki Day 3: Incorrectness and Disability

It's day 4.

Occasionally at Medika, entire days pass without you really noticing. I claim this is because of its phantasmagoric essence, as an illusory new reality where the old rules of time and space would not apply. This means that days can simply disappear into some strange vortex, never to be heard from again.

In this case, I'm reliably told that the day existed. But if you asked me, it consisted of several glances at the clock, and a few mystified comments that "it's already (insert time here)!!!".

As a result, we have developed a small backlog with these dialogues, and I sit here in Medika's infamous HackLab, glass of red wine and lit tea candle the only notable companions as we enter the night.

Day 3 was problematic for us, as we reconsidered - or, I reconsidered - the performance (UMRE)ŽENE, which was repeated from the night before. On top of this back-step, we are invited to consider the work from a Hungarian disabled group Cloudwalkers, whose Bonding forced us to face certain truths - one of them being that neither Monika Jašinskaitė nor I are particularly knowledgeable about how to discuss theatre with disabilities. As a result, the second conversation will be somewhat addled as we attempt to engage a work that was close to community theatre, and more about process than performance outcome. We will be joined by Polish actor Damian Droszcz, a guest of the festival who has some experience working with people with disabilities.

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Pettifer: Ok, let’s begin. I will type slowly, as we speak, because then I don’t need to type it later.

Jašinskaitė: Like in European parliament we talk in pauses while they translate.

Pettifer: Exactly. What did you do this morning?

Jašinskaitė: Yesterday evening I took a nice walk through Zagreb. I found some nice buildings of early modernism, and some small details that were very peculiar, like the faces built into the walls, and some bas relief of an old man with big hair. It was -

Pettifer: Scary? At night?

Jašinskaitė: (Laughs) Very scary. I think this neighbourhood was much more scary.

Pettifer: Medika is scarier.

Jašinskaitė: Where have you been last night?

Pettifer: I went to a heavy metal concert here, and it was really good. It was free, I drank the rest of your wine and hung out. Then I went to a bar, then I went on the roof.

Jašinskaitė: We don’t have so much to talk about today, just one new show, Bonding, from Cloudwalkers in Hungary, and a second viewing of (UMRE)ŽENE from yesterday.

(UMRE)ŽENE (Part 2)

Pettifer: Watching the show again with your comments in my mind, I think some things I said yesterday were wrong. I think the show was for women, about women. It was talking to women. I don’t know if you agree?

Jašinskaitė: (laughs) That’s interesting to me. I am a woman. So it might be true.

Pettifer: I mean some of the things you were noticing I was just not noticing. And when you explained them to me, I was like ‘oh, it’s clearly – it’s a metaphor of oppression'. But I didn’t immediately read this.

Jašinskaitė: But I think that in this piece there’s a mixture of artistic languages of the performing arts – there are some actions that use the language of Live Art,  and visual language. Another level was physical – what the bodies do with each other. And one more was this, let's say 'contemporary dance' language. So I think because all of these are mixed, so it’s a little bit hard for the spectator to read this piece. In the beginning I was a little misled by different languages, and I thought that something was not important, even though it’s part of the message.

Pettifer: I don’t have a response to that. But for me, I think this is, for sure, now, feminist work, and maybe even more so than if it did what I was expressing yesterday – smashing patriarchy. Instead it bypasses this completely, totally ignoring it. This is one approach, why not? It does things on its own terms, in its own situation. And I think that’s fine – potentially even more radical.

Jašinskaitė: Yesterday, we finished at the point where I was talking about the message I feel the choreographer gives. And I was wondering if I didn’t make a mistake in interpreting the work. And I want to talk with you – because you are speaking about her being feminist, so I wanted to talk with you about the role of men in this performance.

Pettifer: On stage?

Jašinskaitė: Yes. 

Pettifer: I mean, for me, they are nothing (laughs). I don’t have something to add to that, actually. But I do not mean it in a bad way.

Jašinskaitė: Because I was thinking about one man in the performance, who is the last to enter the space, and is acting more like a stage technician, or an assistant for the performer. Later on he has his role, in the image choreographer proposes us, he becomes a ‘fake master’. And I was thinking about this situation a little bit through ballet. In ballet, which is a completely patriarchal kind of art, the woman performs and the man is ‘helping’ her to perform. So, for me, this piece is also working in a similar way, however I find it, as a strength of the work – it’s not a given thing, Ilijašević is not unaware about it. She includes it into her work. And for me, that makes a critique of the relationships between men and women, on stage and outside. Like yesterday you mention that you missed some historical links  –  ballet may be a possible link. Maybe Ilijašević wasn’t totally aware about the parallel with ballet, but I think it was a conscious choice to use the men as assistants. Because I think in this performance, men do not have power to show a woman in some kind of way that he wants to see her, but the woman is showing herself.

Photo: Ivan Marenic

Pettifer: And has control.

Jašinskaitė: Yes. Even though she is continuing to reproduce the same culture.

Pettifer: Well, in a way, but it’s not the same. No?

Jašinskaitė: No.