With a degree
of wit, humour and pathos, Jochen Roller guided the audience through
his thoughts on the philosophy and economics of the arts: an artist
faces yet another funding crisis - or he is actually fairly funded
in relation to other workers of the world? How much is a simple tendu
(a stretch of the leg in any direction with the toe on the floor) worth?
The first monologue, No Money, No Love, was a thesis on the
value of dance. Roller appeared in warm-up clothes surrounded by shopping
bags which represented our contemporary material world. In between brief
phrases of dance, he did various calculations on a white board about
the monetary value of dance and the job of a dancer. At one point, he
offered an audience member $10 to entertain us - someone immediately
took up the offer and gyrated furiously to the music. This proved the
point nicely that, in a world bombarded by images, entertainment can
be instant and shallow. That's the Way I Like It, which
closed the evening, consisted of a series of projected video interviews
between the artist and randomly chosen individuals with the same name.
Roller was opening up a discussion about the privileged life of a government-funded
dancer and how other people in different professions might regard this.
I did find it interesting that all the interviewees supported the notion
that society needed art and artists but few had actually attended the
theatre or remembered any performances; however, by this point, we were
getting past two and a half hours of a one-man show and the spirit of
the performance - and of the audience - seemed to be flagging; the production
ended with a whimper rather than a bang.
My main problem with this work was that it failed to sustain my interest
for long on any front because much of the show actually consisted of
one man simply talking (in German, albeit with English surtitles) and
moving infrequently. There seemed to be an outright denial of the performer's
body and his unique ability as a dancer. Roller can sustain beautiful,
fluid passages of dance, robotic gestural phrases and full bodied rap
and he teased the audience with these from time to time. However, he
also forced us to listen to his treatise on arts funding and the role
of the artist, most of which was presented rather monotonously and with
little dynamism or originality. His theories on evaluating art in terms
of itemised costs and the need for artists to multitask as pizza waiters,
night security staff and aerobic instructors, for example, were clichéd
and only reinforced the easy stereotype of the "poor struggling artist".
It was only the very small passages of dance sprinkled infrequently
throughout the three monologues that I truly found truly brilliant and
tantalising. Roller's movements were awkward yet virtuosic and choreographically
innovative and exciting; they left the audience wanting much more dance
and less talking. In the second monologue, Art Gigolo, for
example, Roller conversed with a wise puppet about life and art and
performed an excellent loose-limbed dance that combined sharp gestures
with convulsive whole body movements. Although much of the movement
remained contained with the arms pressed to the sides of the body, there
was also a sense of joy in the freedom that he allowed himself with
this dance. He also ended this monologue with a naked dance which was
both provocative and hilarious.
Aside from these moments, Roller forbade himself from entertaining
us because, as he said indignantly, "the empty seats in this theatre
are there because people would rather be entertained by a musical".
Certainly, the tedium of some aspects of this performance went some
way to proving his point. |
"It was only the very small passages of dance sprinkled infrequently
throughout the three monologues that I truly found truly brilliant and
tantalising"
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From: The Editor (matthewlyon@myway.com / Thursday, August 16, 2007 at 20:41:06)
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From: Ng Yi-Sheng (ng.yisheng@gmail.com / Sunday, September 9, 2007 at 05:31:32)
Hi Stephanie - sorry I'm only posting now; I was hoping someone else would comment first -
I can't agree with your assessment of "perform performing". You're right about the show being rather long and the last sequence being a little wearying, but you I've noticed that you don't seem to enjoy the conceptualism of the performance at all - not in this or in any of your previous reviews of contemporary dance. Your judgments of shows seem to be based entirely on their technical ability and wide entertainment value, not on the ideas they explore.
I found Roller's lectures on the role of the artist neither monotonous nor unoriginal - his restrained, muted delivery created a sense of intimacy with the audience, a choreographed honesty and straightforwardness that's very disarming - particularly when you're someone who cares about the arts in Singapore and you find him articulating the absurdity funding the arts for economic reasons. He's critiquing the very engineering of the financial machine that's allowed him to tour his dance performances in the first place, as well as the standard justification to the Ministry of Finance for developing Singapore as a cultural city. If you understood his monologues as being merely about being a "poor struggling artist", then you've digested very little of the piece.
Of course, I acknowledge that as a person with roots in experimental theatre, I'm naturally more encouraging of experimental and conceptual work in performance, so I fall well within the target audience of this show. Also, I've had dinner with the choreographer before in Bangkok.
Perhaps before you review experimental pieces, you should declare your original grounding in performance, and be aware of that as you judge works outside your comfort zone? Also, it would be more professional (and quite acceptable in an online review) to openly admit the fact that you missed the first act of the show. It's an easy mistake, but it also helps to explain why you got off on the wrong foot with this show.
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