What can the body say or what can it hint at in an era of transition in which one knows the step that was but not the step that has to come?
Dance has always been at the mercy of the eye, but if this eye were covered, how could we respond to this blindness?
If the point at issue, now essential, was the absence of a collective aesthetic reference, the visual disorientation, the lack of a unitary solicitation?
Here the theater, once a symbol of construction of ideas or calling in question of them, finds itself face to an emptiness: where are we going? Is this perhaps the era in which meaning neglects fatuous reference points and it says itself for what it is?
The path taken by Laurent Chétouane through his last three works is a years-long answer. The comparison with such a cumbersome and complex topic unfolds in three different scenic moments but joined like a snake, as if from the tail, passing through the central part, you get to the head, a muzzle that with its tongue opens the possibility of a solution, it whispers, it makes the solution a gesture. Maybe that path is actually inverse? This is precisely the point: to create a new theater, a theater born from the crisis, you have to get to the feet, to the tail, to find the residues of the world because that’s where the world reveals itself.
Comparing dance to music it is possible to notice a similarity in terms of historical evolution. However, unlike the other arts, music as of today has the maximum level of “purity”, that point where it says itself and nothing else. I believe, it is a real declaration, that state of total advancement which is also a total return to the origin was accomplished in dance by Chétouane.
On his scene the big toe finds its fulfilment and the arm seems to make an enduring gesture, in the sense of that timeless gesture praised by Henri Bergson, perceptible only in terms of duration, an indivisible gesture in which the arm finds his being an arm in that movement and in which the movement intensely and on surface eulogises the arm.
In Invisible Piece #1: Duett für hörende Körper, a duet dance of listening bodies, the movement of the bodies is almost not tangible, it is dazed, as if the dance was made to be immediately forgotten, the gesture is lost in the next one and the two bodies rumble.
Invisible Piece #1: Duett für hörende Körper at HAU3 Hebbel am Ufer – Video Tanzforum Berlin © Walter Bickmann
The question begins to crumble as it becomes aware of its strength, it always addresses the issue of invisibility, but it feels a glow.
In Invisible Piece # 2: As if there were no end, an end that has no end is recognised, a beyond-end that is endless.
Here the acceptance of a pure dance, less confined to visual references, wider – it seems to observe the universe – takes hold.
Is it possible to dance the end of the era of representation? Yes, but not through an apocalyptic vision, not through a dance of death, but through a differently perceiving body, a utopian body.
Invisible Piece # 2: As if there were no end at HAU3 Hebbel am Ufer – Video Tanzforum Berlin © Walter Bickmann
And here we are at the end, at this end that has no end, at this end that accepts its being without end. With Op. 131: End / Dance the main question becomes ontological, it addresses the essence of dance in its core. It almost seems to see this body without organs.
With the String Quartet In C Sharp Minor Op.131 Beethoven seems to say goodbye to his work, all the musical works created until then are separated into autonomous parts, at the end of the work they cannot be held together by a compositional logic.
What remains are the residuals.
The word residue etymologically has the sense of remaining, staying. What can a residue do if not pause in falling behind, not caught by that regenerative wave that made it become a residue?
For Beethoven, this all sounded very lively. The crisis always provides for a rupture that allows questioning and therefore regeneration. He knew that the power of innovation can only be found through interaction with the rhythm dictated by the death impulse.
Here the end finds its beginning, a beginning in which the body becomes free compulsive residue.
Without meaning, or better to say without any concept, a gesturing, hopelessly gesturing, finally infinite body.
Op. 131: End/Dance at HAU3 Hebbel am Ufer – Video Tanzforum Berlin © Walter Bickmann
Text by Emiliano Aversa
All Images © Eva Würdinger
Invisible Piece #1: Duett für hörende Körper
Performed for the first time on April 4, 2018 at HAU – Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin
Choreographic research: Laurent Chétouane, Tilman O’Donnell, Mikael Marklund
Light: Philippe Gladieux
Communication: k3 Berlin
Production management: Christine Kammer, Hendrik Unger
Production: Duett GbR
Co-production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Kampnagel Hamburg
Funded by the basic funding of the Senate Department for Culture and Europe and the Fonds Darstellende Künste.
With kind support from DOCK 11/EDEN***** Berlin
Invisible Piece # 2: As if there were no end
Performed for the first time on December 6, 2018 at HAU – Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin
Choreography: Laurent Chétouane
With: Youness Khoukhou, Mikael Marklund
Lightdesign: Philippe Gladieux
Communication: k3 Berlin
Production: Christine Kammer, Hendrik Unger
Production: Invisible GbR
Co-production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Kampnagel Hamburg
Funded by Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe.
Supported by: DOCK 11 / EDEN***** Berlin
Op. 131: End / Dance
Performed for the first time on November 29, 2019 at HAU – Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin
Choreography: Laurent Chétouane
Dance: Léonard Engel
Music: Azadeh Maghsoodi (violin), Nora Romanoff-Schwarzenberg (viola), Stefan Hadjiev (cello)Costume: Sanna Dembowski
Light: Philippe Gladieux
Musical Consultant: Johann Günther
Dramaturgical Support: Mikael Marklund, Marten Weise
Production: Christine Kammer, Hendrik Unger
A production of Beethoven GbR in coproduction with HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Aarhus Teater and Kampnagel Hamburg.
Sponsered by Basisförderung/Senate Department for Culture and Europe in Berlin.
Supported by the NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ Coproduction Fund for Dance, which is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
With the friendly support of DOCK 11 / EDEN***** Berlin.
