SCULPTING FEAR: HETZEL'S APOCALYPTIC VISION

Sculpting Fear: Julian Hetzel - at The Old Market, Hove, Produced by SPRING Performing Arts Festival Utrecht & Co-produced by South East Dance and Quadrennial Prague, 11th November 2015.

The Forecast:

There are dark days ahead. The black-and-white chequerboard certainties of life will be reduced to monochrome Grey. The workplace will become yet another arena where we 'live together apart' under the familiar, yet more pervasive, poisonous cloud of 'office politics': still pushed around by others; going round in circles; competing; 'wheeling-and-dealing', yet never really relating to each other. Speech will become obsolete: screen-based lives mean words can be created at arm's length on any device (why talk?). Chairs will be extensions of ourselves: we'll have closer relationships with them than with others. 

 

 

Roomba for Development

 

Witness a curious evolutionary twist: while we humans cease to relate to others, being unable to weather the storms and passions of normal relationships, having been  dehumanised by the apparent safety of anonymity, becoming evermore remote, yet controlled by bosses; schedules, and the need to emotionally shut-down; the remote-controlled devices we create will learn to speak; to dialogue with one another, and care for each other's welfare under the guidance of The Over-Voice (God? The outer manifestation of our 'inner voice?).

Roomba with a View

I was struck throughout the performance by the enactment of certain English idioms. I was able to ask Julian whether he'd ever heard the phrase I wouldn't touch him with a barge pole? No, and yet this had been powerfully demonstrated by the human cleaner who employed a screen, and long metal pole when 'handling' fellow workers, in contrast to the kindly, solicitous cleaning-machines. Daily grind; being blown away; and relationships that are stormy, and tumultuous were also unknown to him, and yet intuitively accessed.
 

 

Climate of Change

 

Practiced detachment wreaks havoc. Lack of warm connection with ourselves, each other, and our environment can only end in disaster. Computers and economies crash. A yoga pose in the midst of catastrophe is too little, too late; and woefully inadequate. A digital network is not a support network. We will undertake necessary repair work, after the inevitable impending disaster, alone - remote from each other. We live the mess we create.

 

 

Taken by Storm

 

Hetzel's latest work is a tour de force. A grim tale told with illuminating flashes of humour: the Roombas talking: 'breathe in; breathe out; inhale, exhale; email, Excel'. The great plume of smoke as though God Himself was taking a cigarette break, where the machines listen to The Voice and heed it's advice, while the humans create a world of destruction. A lot can be achieved with little: 3 performers; 3 office chairs; polystyrene floor tiles; a wall of electric fans, and many more in the audience. Bravo!

Can You Tell What It Is Yet?...Michael Clark: Animal / Vegetable / Mineral

ANIMAL / VEGETABLE / MINERAL      

Show & Tell

 

The clue had to be right there in the title of Michael Clark's latest dance production at the Brighton Dome Wednesday 11th March, harking back to the hugely popular long-running TV & radio show, otherwise known as '20 Questions' - a game of deduction with 3 categories: Animal (alive); Vegetable (growing); mineral (not alive, doesn't grow & comes from the ground) being the only clue given to the panel at the start of each round where the word  must be correctly arrived at through a filter of questions. The audience, however, are privy to 'the mystery voice' announcing, for them only, the word to be identified. In this context a single spotlight was focused on a performer down on the auditorium floor - the visual equivalent of an aside - before the performance / game began. In keeping with the general cluelessness at the start of the process we had very little to go on, unable at this stage to even guess at gender: dancers looked identical. The music too gave little away, sweet and level in tone for several tracks.



          Clues EveryWhichWay

With each question asked, or dance performed, a little more is revealed. It's possible, however, to think you know the answer, only to discover you've been on the wrong tack entirely. Clue succeeds clue: the dots still need to be connected. If for any reason you miss the word given at the start, it can be hard work getting clued up, but the false leads and misinterpretations are part of the fun of the game. Everything is a possible clue & this worked so well with lighting by Charles Atlas; costumes by Stevie Stewart, and music by Relaxed Muscle; Scritti Pollitti; The Sex Pistols; Pulp & others; plus little details, like 'drawing' (in a lyric) mirrored by the action of a dancer's leg (delightful!); and hand signals that showed: Pointing (indication / selection); Beckoning; Negation / Denial. All clues! With a lot of backtracking in the 4th piece: dancers reversing before advancing: recapping: eliminating dead leads, making new connections like professors & clerics (hands held behind the back). 

Cut to the End

'You can find a station with talking...' went the line of a lyric (dancers as radio tuning dial, and listener). Words should make things, but not always. Think of the scope for misinterpretation due to the absence of tone/ expression when texting which, like tofu, takes on the flavour of the recipient's state of mind. Text appeared on the back screen: disordered, back-to-front, random, sequential, breaking up. We seek to connect; search for meaning, look for signs & signals; tune in to wavelengths & good reception in the human zoo of life, where we're  all performers of one kind or another. The costumes signalled significant developments along the way, from homogenous genderlessness to greater definition: 3 disparate colours up-front, shadow element behind, to a final glorious burst of orange. If the Oscars in the Oscar-making factory could party, they'd look like this, I found myself thinking; with just a hint of Clockwork Orange in dancer-as-chair pose. The audience was dazzled by mirror-spotlights: we were all in it together.

 

Mass media; mass production, and all-in-all a massive success, although there were times we were completely in the dark; but then - That's Animal / Vegetable / Mineral for you!

 

Good game! Good game! We all came out Winners - Thanks to the Michael Clark Company.

SCULPTING FEAR: JULIAN HETZEL

I was fortunate to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of Julian Hetzels latest work-in-progress: a 'Sharing' of thoughts and ideas, with an invited audience, to give shape to the mass of possibilities characteristic of early-stage work. Even with the best of plans Art; Life; Relationships; the Weather – all find their own form, and are subject to...well, who knows! Often we try to use the past to predict the future – there's always the need to pin the future down – sometimes at the expense of the present. As we made our way along the corridor to the dance studio we came across a man lying on the floor. Collapsed? Unconscious? Drunk? It was unexpected. Questions were immediately triggered; a response required. What was one's responsibility? How was the situation to be assessed, or dealt with? We were assured all was in hand, so continued to make our way to....

Enlightenment in the Dance Studio

We had just witnessed the 1^st Enlightenment: the interactive element of Sculpting Fear the very title of which encompasses the tension of opposing forces. Fear: the stuff of rapid heartbeats; sweat (hot or cold); the jellification of limbs, fluid; in flux; changeable; hard to capture or fully define, yet the desire here is to confront uncertainty using questions and responses to create meaning around the unknowable, and in this way sculpt the materiality of fear. To be open to observe all the permutations of the situation; our responses, and that of others, all of which, like clouds, are constantly subject to change. 

When we step out of the accepted predictability of our own domains we expect a certain amount of predicatability in the everydayness of what's out there. But, what are we to make of one body found lying down in the street? One cloud in the sky is a clear day; several clouds might signify an impending storm. Would a series of bodies imply an epidemic? A trail of victims? If the body was of a policeman / sex worker / senior citizen – would our attitudes be any different? Is there a hierachy of caring? How much are we influenced by what we 'read' into the situation? What do we make (sculpt?) out of clothing? Status? Age? Race? This is what Julian would like (us) to find out.....

RUN – HIDE - TELL

Now for the 2^nd Enlightenment: the unpredictable Dance of Life. Each of us saw the same thing unfold, but what did we see exactly? Air being blown into a canopy of black plastic against a hum of ambient sound, yes, but Anaias Nin said: We dont see things as they are, we see things as we are'. Now a world of possibilities opens up; now we might see a tired stormcloud; a struggling soul reluctant to leave this earth; a cancerous lung, or womb; apprehension. It appears there are people 'under the covers'. What are they hiding from?

Here Julian has 'caught them redhanded'.

As it was in the beginning....

From the darkness of the womb; to the darkness of earth: the cycle of life turns; we end as we begin. We had talked of unpredictability; uncertainty, the unknown; of questions and projections; technology; symbology, community; the apocalypse, and psychopolitics; of unrest, and tempests. It was time to wrap the evening up; wrap ourselves up, and head for home.

I had entered the building with others, but left the studio on my own, emerging from the lift in a place I didn't recognize: disorientated, a little panicked: feeling trapped. I heard voices behind closed doors – another studio. I popped my head in and, shamefaced, asked for directions. The exit was just to my left, leading into a sidestreet, not the way I'd come. I was apprehensive. Shady figures shifted in the background, bodies settling under a concrete staircase. And this chap - laid back in his hi-visibility jacket shielding his eyes from the light; under the watchful eye of his guardian angel. 

Or, was there some other story? Hmmmm....