New Treaty Militia - A response from Tru Paraha

Performers: Cat Ruka and Joshua Rutter

Venue: Otara Music and Arts Centre

Southside Arts Festival

Reviewed by Tru Paraha

The art of fearless community

On 28th October 1835 The Declaration of Independence was signed in Aotearoa, five years prior to the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. On Friday the 28th October 2011 performance artists Cat Ruka and Joshua Rutter presented New Treaty Militia at The Otara Music and Arts Centre, where audience members including whanau, friends, South Auckland locals, artists, dancers, teachers and students from Manukau Institute of Technology were invited to place their signature of attendance on a giant registry board. This was the first of many provocations of the evening where the gathered crowd became collaborator and conscience. I am reminded of Australian artist Lynette Wallworth and her profound installation work “The evolution of fearlessness”. She expresses in her notes how she is challenged to ‘structure theses spaces to encourage temporary interdependence between the viewer and the vision and a communal relationship between participants’.

Ruka achieved this feat through strategic decisions which placed an R18, experimental dance work in the heart of Otara and subsequently transformed the space. Presenting this work in The Southside Arts Festival after a disappointing response at Tempo allowed Ruka’s colleagues and students to form the voluntary support crew by which the tasks of production could be achieved. This enabled the kind of on-site learning that performing arts students are seldom privy to in their first year of training and gave them insight into a distinctive arena of independent production. For these individuals to host a NZ arts gathering including practitioners such as Shigeyuki Kihara, Sean Curham and Kristian Larsen on their own turf was liberating and of critical value.

The self-produced event relied on a currency of venue sponsorship, koha and product and bar sales. The performance artifacts and set design were accumulated through a process where friends and colleagues of the choreographer gifted articles to her. This was not a financial decision but a deliberate act of community inclusion. The most pervasive currency of the event however, was Aroha. Aroha as an operational principle presumes the universe to be abundant with more opportunities than there are people. Aroha in practice is intelligent; a unified intelligence of the heart, soul and mind, recognised by peoples of all cultures. Aroha in action is munificent as was evident in the audience contribution throughout the performance, generosity of koha and commitment of various individuals who respect and support both artists. This currency is a direct result of Ruka’s ability to maintain significant relationships within her local and international community. It also attests to a wahine who, through the evolution of her own fearlessness, enrolls the veracity of like-minded comrades along the way.

The art of provocation

Described in the director’s notes as a “theatrical protest,” New Treaty Militia arrives in NZ as a timely prelude to the oncoming general elections. Aotearoa, notorious for our post-colonial identity crisis has toiled over Maori/Pakeha relations and power dynamics for nearly two centuries. Cat Ruka of Ngapuhi and Pakeha descent explores this hybrid conundrum in collaboration with NZ born artist Josh Rutter, in a performance of un-rivaled ingenuity. A barren community arts centre with black out curtains and modest lighting grid is mutated with a mountain of green bottles, chains, portable smoke machine, stage lights, bells, balloons, boxes of beer, a giant poi, two microphone stands, sound equipment, swag bag and various other paraphernalia. Symbolic and evocative, the haphazard display is more than chaos. There is a camera which the audience are invited to use at anytime and it’s fine if our cell-phones go off during the performance. Eleven envelopes entitled “articles” placed in a precise row across the floor contain cryptic information. The contents/instructions are unknown to both audience and performer until selected and read aloud. What follows could range from an orgiastic dance solo, to violent treaty negotiation, exquisite hair pulling pas de deux or a series of interrogations such as, “Do you relate more to people of African American descent than to Pakeha even though you are genetically more distant?” and my personal favourite “Are you Maori?”. These intermittent questionnaires evoke childhood games of truth or dare and at times, the odious surveys of NZ census; a wry observation of the Kiwi obsession with identity.


The art of transgression

A medley of selected and original soundtracks including modulated voice-over, gangster rap, and Kiri Te Kanawa’s rendition of ‘Po karekare ana’, create subliminal rhapsody and dissonance depending on what is happening within the performance or which article we are dealing with. The eccentric duo morph in and

out of theatricality, treading the edges of indiscretion. Their voices, amplified by microphones are often a caricature. Michael Haneke in his ground-breaking thriller “Funny Games” breaks the unspoken rule of the 4th wall when one of the antagonists makes a direct address to the camera/viewer. Such a blurring of fantasy/reality and reconstruction of genre has caused much controversy and debate as also happens within the dance paradigm. Ruka’s work is not everyone’s cup of tea, though I suspect it may be because kiwi patrons are not familiar with the blend. The piece is abstract, and refreshingly impossible to understand. It does not reek of the codified movement vocabulary which is propagated through schools of dance in this country. These are however, highly trained practitioners who have chosen a unique path of navigation. A provocation of which one must be willing to experience; a breaking of the 4th wall.

Halfway through the performance, the audience is invited to create a dance party with pop-out streamers, lighters aflame and bass booming. Here is a euphoric hiatus, beckoning the elevated spirit of the participants to couple with an atmosphere of permissiveness. It is a clever manipulation. The artists possess full awareness of our need to articulate. The mute, passive observer of the proscenium arch is not cultivated in this breed of theatre. Some of us remain in a kind of Stockholm syndrome and continue to identify with an oppressor. I choose to stand on my chair and wave my hands in the air. Others avail themselves of randomly positioned bottles of beer. Beer is a powerful device in this decadent performance ritual. The players consume it before, during and after the show. It serves as a performance artifact and cultural emissary. Ruka sloshes it over her bare breasts inducing a paradox of iconic Maori maiden and wet-t-shirt-contender-at-slapper-pub. She questions her proclivities and ponders whether a desire to take her top off stems from the fact that her ancestors didn’t have tops on? Rutter, in a brilliant moment of absurdist theatre strikes a pseudo-gangster pose for the camera with an orange Tui box over his head. Later, when questioned on whether he loves rugby, an ambiguous head roll ensues, to both the dismay and delight of a gathering with divided loyalties. In some nations this could equate to being asked whether you support a fascist government or believe in God. His interpretive taiaha display is also something to behold; vaguely camp and devoid of the customary warrior mechanisms prevalent in indigenous performance. But the pertinent thing is that he isn’t Maori (unless you are of the doctrine that having Maori friends makes you a little bit Maori) and can improvise without duress. Ruka – a 21st century femme fatale clad in sheer tights and leotard, sequined brassiere, lace-up boots and bandanna across her face-greets her audience with legs astride, penetrating stare and taiaha in hand while Rutter ominously binds his hands in white boxing wraps, over and over again. Yes. You had to be there.

The Artist and the State (of things)

This brings me to cite those illustrious advocates of the NZ contemporary arts industry who did not make it to the performance. No professional dance reviewers, CNZ/Te Waka Toi representatives, NZ arts administrators or members of DANZ, Pacific Dance, Toi Maori or director/producer of any state-funded performance company in Aotearoa were sighted at this event. As the late front man of OMC, Pauly Fuemana once proclaimed- how bizarre, how bizarre. And it really is considering the international itinerary of this work and the contribution that these practitioners are making to the NZ contemporary art arena. It was the only professional dance performance programmed in The Southside Arts Festival and is supported by a strong media profile with feature articles in The Leader, The Aucklander, Sunday Star Times, Radio Live and various online sources. Perhaps the work is too subversive or the location simply undesirable. My questions to the above mentioned organisations and others are:

How are we able to create a culture of critical analysis/dialogue around performance work being made in NZ if we are not attending?
Who are the artists considered worthy of investment by the State and why?
Why are dance support organisations in Auckland not sending representatives to every profiled contemporary performance?
What are the current definitions for contemporary dance, contemporary Maori dance, experimental dance, avant-garde dance theatre, Pacific dance and performance art?
Which do you personally consider “real dance”?
Are you Maori?

‘Pro - Man Renaissance’

a re'posting..

Performances at Auckland Zoo are part of its marketing engine, A strategy to maintain or boost numbers - not so much bums on searts but eyes on animals. Usually performances are by musicians playing in publicly user friendly zones of the zoo. However the marketing dept at Auckland Zoo have taken a big risk with a very subversive event. Amsterdam based De Laatste Groep van het Werk van de Bank (translation - The Last Bank Work Group) have created something of a performance art coup. Paying homage to and going way beyond Janice Claxtons 'Enclosure 44 - Humans at Edinburgh Zoo' this 48 hour long installation not only evicted the divisions between animal and human, it also slammed culture and species together with head fucking simplicity.


De Laatste Groep van het Werk van de Bank is a seven strong group of performers headed by couple / co - directors Femke Bathhuis and Matz Van Doorn. This is a collective of independent artists, a format typical of the networks of European artists that have functioned quite happily outside of the antiquated 'company' model for some time now. This particular constellation seems to have referenced the 90's European dance movement which itself strongly referenced Judson Church. The Judson artists deployed pedestrian movement and heavily deconstructive conceptual frameworks to depart from previous era's of dance. However this group has stayed true to two movement languages that emerged from that time: Contact Improvisation and pedestrian gesture. Those two movement languages were used to construct a vocabulary that connoted a dying culture and species. Although a decidedly conventional movement pallet, it was deployed with devastating effectiveness.


Van Doorn and Batthuis have created a kind of cultural anti-statement in response to the age of spectacle. Known around Europe for their politically subversive performances, De Laatste Groep van het Werk van de Bank's new work is an event that is almost too good to be true. Reminiscent of shop front window performances where the performers would live on display for twenty four hours a day, this group have taken that format a step and a half further. Housing themselves in an enclosure called Giraffe Valley at the Auckland Zoo, the colony of seven humans cohabited an enclosure with relatively benign zebras, giraffes, and ostriches.


The dancers looked both terrifyingly vulnerable and at the same time discomfortingly 'normal'. They also accomplished a deeply natural sense of disinterest in their surroundings which made their integration into the enclosure almost seamless. Miraculously the animals reciprocate this disinterest and were not intimidated by the presence of the colony in the slightest. They simply wandered around, ate, and did their thing as did the dancers. There were no predators, bar the audience.


Over the course of a day the dancer's employed an improvisational loop structure that allowed them to navigate a consistent world of material via endless theme and variation. Familiar activities such as gathering and preparing food, sheltering in bivouacs, and walking in meandering choreographic patterns, were blended with contact duets, trios, and even a group unison phrase that consisted entirely of everyday gestures. The members of the group interacted only with each other, never with the animals, and never with the audience. The shifting and confused crowd of onlookers were largely disregarded - eye contact between performer and audience was incidental, even accidental. Occasionally the dancers spoke to each other but it wasn't really possible to discern what they were saying, or even if what they were speaking was a made up language.


Within this terrain there were elements that seemed so natural that they were easy to overlook. The most obvious being that the performers were naked. To a seasoned punter nudity is de rigeuer, to be expected. However in this situation the placement of naked humans in an animal enclosure desexualised them, turning the performers into a crude cultural artefact. This played havoc with deeply entrenched notions of packageable entertainement housed in comfortable environs. 'Pro - Man Renaissance' not only subverted the tedium of spectacle that saturates performance across most media, it also reframed human beings as an endangered species to be ogled for entertainment and consumption.


This work was an outrageous social experiment. But polarising the ourageousness was the 'typical' New Zealand muted emotional response. I didn't see parents pulling their children away, rather most adults were either ignoring the performance outright, or just pretending to look at the animals in the enclosure. The strongest reactions were ones of faint embarrassment or discomfort as if some reality tv cameras were present. Which they weren't.


Call me cynical but I wasn't surprised by this. I was however deeply impressed with the multilayered audacity of the event. I had one question as I moved on to see the kiwi's in their little night house enclosure; if on the one hand a zoo is a place where humans view animals, and a 'zoo' is a metaphor for a place where chaos and unrestrained behaviour takes place; how can an audience remain so complacent or even just socially awkward in the face of imagery that is so spectacularly ironic, confronting, and profoundly questioning? Oh well, I soon lost track of that thought as soon as I saw the ocelots, my oh my they were just too adorable!

self entitlement: “yes ringmaster: dialoguing ghosting” with Alexa Wilson & Val smith- A Performance work by Sean Curham 'Ghosting 1-6 Part 2 Cabaret'

Discussion of Sean Curham's work 'Ghosting: Cabaret part 2' at Gundry St, Auckland Feb-March 2011 by Val Smith and Alexa Wilson.



Yesterday
[Alexa Wilson]
10:39
yo
[Val Smith]
10:44
ok good
right so yep, ghosting hmmmmmm
[Alexa Wilson]
10:47
yes 'what does it all mean?' lol
it has to be a joke right? the whole work is a satire
ghosting.. cabaret: part 2. did you see part 1? was there a part 1?
[Val Smith]
10:48
i think i did, if it was the part with the ballet studio girls at kmc
[Alexa Wilson]
10:48
ok. right. tell me about that.
it felt like ghosting part 2 referenced older works so in a way was self consciously ghosting himself.. ?
[Val Smith]
10:50
ok so yeah it was the ballet girls maybe 5 of them and these young theatre peeps [i use peeps to mean both male and female young adults, urksome], cant remember their company name yet
oh yeah ghosting himself, makes sense, ghosting memories, concepts, images, ideas
[Alexa Wilson]
10:51
its hard not to see sean's work without seeing it as referencing or being contextualised by past works.. he has a real prolific and long history of experimentation within nz dance/art/performance art.
i see parts of it from older stuff- even classes. and the setting- gundry street.. he has been the caretaker of it for a long time. its like his home.. and a home to a community of dancers he encourages.. also experimental. the setting was instantly very community. its a hall. Its HIS hall.
[Val Smith]
10:52
yes the history and reference of is defs in there, i think the role of the technical helper as other performer, kind of onlooker but participant, is interesting [anna and josh]
[Alexa Wilson]
10:53
yes true- and he has trained in lighting.. he has been a lighting technician for many dance shows so knows that role- and also changed his own lights a lot. that whole NZ DIY style
[Val Smith]
10:53
community is something he is working with for sure, like expanding, including, but in an understated way,
DIY. love that style, his lighting stuff is totally awesome to me, noone is doing that biz, concept lighting, body lighting
[Alexa Wilson]
10:54
true. yep he's always very humble with that ay. an unsung hero! it seemed to me very defined - the tone - by the audience.. having watched it 3 times (to document it with video and photographs)..
[Val Smith]
10:55
those theatre dudes at kmc were giving cues, and feeding in stuff, doing actions, like a toast scene that kept reoccurring [plus mics, and scripts or instructions on paper]
[Alexa Wilson]
10:55
ghosting part 2 was bookings and 10 only allowed- but more sneaked in 2 nights i saw.. and sat in various awkward positions around the space in the way nzers do- even when encouraged to sit on the roller chairs with headphones in the space- to hear the sound... people tended to avoid being in the 'performance zone'. This is quite nz.
[Val Smith]
10:55
what do you think about his movement, what is happening in his mind/body, ? < his inner experience is exciting;, its intense, and mysterious – what the hell is happening for said performer right now?>
[Alexa Wilson]
10:56
oh funny. it was the kid version at kmc? this was the 'adult version'?
i'm interested in this because for a long time he has investigated the techniques of dance and abstract movement using his own somatic techniques.. i saw a reference to this. an ocd- autisticness... a repetition. repeating movement like he's autistic.. an obssessive compulsive disorder that dance has.
[Val Smith]
10:57
maybe, i think he wanted to work with the ballet , they were really interesting to watch, well not always, like they certainly are not a josh or an anna to watch , there is a level of uncomfort < teenagers, self conscious, a certain awkwardness – paradigms of sean/choreographer/teacher as authority present?>
[Alexa Wilson]
10:57
and counting over and over.. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 8 very funny.
oh that's interesting. Wow we are getting an overlay of threads of convo by using an internet chat for this.
[Val Smith]
10:58
perhaps something about precision, discipline, self violence, perhaps self violence seems most on for me
yeah
[Alexa Wilson]
10:58
the kids created discomfort as opposed to the 2 performers anna and josh supporting- sean's solo?
[Val Smith]
10:58
the concentration in his choices around movement material interests me, why he'd want to go there. [correction – mind movement, what he is thinking/feeling]
[Alexa Wilson]
10:59
yes the self violence of discipline and dance.. the inherent and unconscious way it controls in a pathological way,
i also saw a form of 'acting out'
[Val Smith]
10:59
like his mind has to concentrate in a certain way , his eyes pop out, its not relaxing to watch.
[Alexa Wilson]
11:00
performance art from 70s/80s used this term 'acting out'- although its a psychological one.. for kind of grotesquely embodying aspects of our culture to an extreme... drunk people do this - 'act out'. So do kids and crazy people.
[Val Smith]
11:00
I have to admit i just loved the moment of softening when he has the rabbit head on and the music, it gets evocative for that one moment, soothing and he like cuts it off, im like mmmmmm that was beautiful , and i want more.. [my taste is questionable here. i enjoy disruption and contradiction intellectually, my body enjoys relaxed and heartfelt consistency that plays out to the end, like a fairytale, complete, aaaaah ooooo- cynical?]
[Alexa Wilson]
11:00
so the 2 things went in opposition to each other.. of course- the controlled repetition.. turning into a pathological acting out of kind of madness.. with spit flying and his voice reaching pitches that were uncomfortable at times with people covering their ears. [edit- we are totally entitled to response to works in a multitude of ways and infact i prefer the tension that this kind of violence creates- also for my own work and the authentic responses complex and problematic that arise in said audience when viewing stuff in this way- naturally we like peace.. but i aim to energise and enliven with that stuff myself and having talked to sean it seems the same]
[Val Smith]
11:01
i liked the spit,
i liked the violence, i wanted it to go further, i wanted to feel unsafe, more uncomfortable
[Alexa Wilson]
11:02
yes - i loved the 'mean entitled bully' dance as well. i chose that one on the first night i went from the smorgasboard he gave the audience to choose from.. and each time i saw it it was powerful. it seems the most earnest one.
[Val Smith]
11:02
it does stand out
[Alexa Wilson]
11:03
he spoke about - and again referencing old work- his research in dunedin with walking dogs and the socio psychology of it..
[Val Smith]
11:03
the stories of karekare, so known to us, again soothing somehow, gentle,
[Alexa Wilson]
11:03
he spoke of walking his dog on kare kare beach- but
[Val Smith]
11:03
oh thats cool, i dont remember him talking about the dogs in dunedin
yeah i remember him talking about walking his dog at K.K. [clumsy and disturbing abbreviation of karekare] every friday night...?
[Alexa Wilson]
11:04
in a way that was very personal.. his personal relationship to the change of that beach... no his referencing his past research in dunedin for me- about how he talks to his dog- questioning that.. and while pointing to his laptop to show pics of the beach like a conference-
[Val Smith]
11:04
yes the personal, the story, getting to know him as person, the photos, in that space
[Alexa Wilson]
11:04
oh true.. yes. i love the mash up of waiter (he's wearing a suit).. conference, wedding or 21st – speeches.. in a hall- all kinda gone loopy.
[Val Smith]
11:05
oh the waiter, thats right, [censored] i liked the clean cut suit thing,
[Alexa Wilson]
11:05
but in it there is this beautiful self aware moment.. amidst the satire- and he spoke earnestly a lot in rambling ways for each work- also highly self aware naturally- but for this- how he likes this destabilising... and i spoke with him after about how being honest can be very unstable- i speak from personal experience in my own work. I'm not sure if this was his actual angle but that's how i took it to mean.
[Val Smith]
11:06
the implication of relationship to dancers , other performers, techies, is interesting
[Alexa Wilson]
11:06
and he said he 'comes from a long line of mean entitled bullies'..
[Val Smith]
11:06
desire to know them, but not given much about them [who are josh and anna in this context?]
[Alexa Wilson]
11:06
that when he gets upset or agitated his voice raises and that's where he goes.. [edit- yes who are anna and josh as characters? techies.. back up dancers?]
[Val Smith]
11:06
yes i was there the night his sister was there, you were too i guess
[Alexa Wilson]
11:06
yes- and that all ties in to this concept in a way- that whole - control thing..
yes- very personal... his family was there 2 nights i was there.. his dad too..
so he's speaking directly to and for them. pretty friggin cool.
[Val Smith]
11:07
hmmm yeah, oh wow his dad.
[Alexa]
11:07
coz that kind of acknowledgment for the artist in nz is very rare.
the inclusion of and reference to family in a respectful and healing way
[Val Smith]
11:08
sorry what kind of acknowledgment?
[Alexa]
11:08
so in a way HEALING the long line of mean entitled bullies.
acknowledgment from the artist of the role of their family
within their art
in their life
the dance after that in the rabbits mask- which he got a random audience to put on... was sensual and self satirical. i saw a lot of self-deprecation.
how did you read it on a gender level? i know you're really into that stuff at the moment.
[Val Smith]
11:10
i like that he acknowledges his 'weakness' and that it is being addressed [i like how you ‘shouted out’ HEALING, haha]
[Alexa Wilson]
11:10
yes- that's the destabilising eh.
[Val Smith]
11:11
i didnt have much response to his work regarding gendering. . [censored, getting too personal i reckon]
[Alexa Wilson]
11:12
i like how he spoke about what to do in that space between- in relation to the mean entitled bully section- the 'real world' and then making it into art.. what that is.. how to do it.. and then when it turns into a show- what that does to it. he's very interested in investigating these in between awkward spaces.. which is brave and cool as. Even if academicised.. actually within academia is probably harder in a way.
as with all the stuff we've addressed so far. oh that's interesting.. some of my non-dance friends presumed HE was gay. [afterthought- in this way where performers are often if not always hyper-sexualised- because they're so embodied..? unlike most people]
my friends saw him as fred astaire..
[Val Smith]
11:14
i dont get that from him, i [noticed a fleeting] fantasy of him as a transgender, female to male, with a lesbian partner, bahah [should i leave this out? it’s on the edge of ok-ness for me]
[Alexa Wilson]
11:14
it did embody a dance formality- a wedding and 21st speeches and hall- and drunken lunatic losing control vibe.. i loved the use of random objects from the hall- to leap around on totally inappropriately- like ive done at many a party in the wee hours with equally drunken friends 'acting out'.. totally ANTISOCIAL. [edit- yeah HEALING needs to be shouted in this day and age esp in contemporary arts practice... like HALLO LOL OMG]
[Val Smith]
11:15
oh thats cool, thing about how he might transmute the real into art ...
[Alexa Wilson]
11:15
and friggin hilarious. but even more hilarious in a way in this context.
yes.
i noticed him embodying- on the gender front a slight piss-take of the female sort clubby booty shaking... thing.
its funny coz i always have booty shaking in my own work.. in the past 5 years anyway.
[Val Smith]
11:16
yeah, but totally controlled, as opposed to the mess of drunkenness, he is very tidy in his choices [on reflection i don’t really get a ‘booty shaking’ thing here, more just a grooving to music thing, i guess i think of booty shaking as like hard out ‘asse and tits’ kind of flavour?]
[Alexa Wilson]
11:16
like with the dance matt around his head gyrating to MIA.. on the stool
[Val Smith]
11:17
yes you do. who's mia, was that the music? i want to talk about that piece,
matt and stool, [self censoring my toilet humour immaturity here] [gyrating as a deliberate side effect of pelvis and head and ribcage articulation?]
[Alexa Wilson]
11:17
yes a lot of it is incredibly controlled and well thought through- satirising aspects of the world- including youtube spectacle and absurdity through himself. His pop-cultural references feed into his life and the low keyness of his mad presentation smorgasboard of selves.
[Val Smith]
11:18
the matt around his head part taking us through a class activity was so nostalgic for me, i missed his teaching enormously in that moment, and my body remembered it [ autistically repeating ‘lovingly’], i loved it then and now, it is so healthy and i love the spinal aspect.
[Alexa Wilson]
11:18
i think its well developed coz- its his MA project- thesis project at AUT in spatial design.. its a clever decision to present it over the weeks each thursday too.. to spread the word
yes that song is by MIA - um.. frig- whats it called- that bang bang one i love.. and i remember doing phrases to that exact song years ago when he was still teaching dance class more formally.
[Val Smith]
11:19
i like that its happening spread out, its very down home, i will go again, hoping still to see more pieces not yet seen,
oh god, yes the piece with the youtube blog, bahaha, that was awesome,
[Alexa Wilson]
11:20
it was funny then too, kinda perverse. there's a perversity in his work... again an underbelly of repressed nz sexuality i rex
[Val Smith]
11:20
so funny, that he chose that, random, another insight to him, expanding, little glimpses into his random art practice, making connections...
[Alexa Wilson]
11:21
that piece- what was it? - him lip synching to this woman's youtube video talking about how this perfume of ... ? bad memory.. smelt like 'crotch'
and how embarrassed but compelled the girl was by this... on the video- with him dubbing himself over her text. everyone's perverse fascination with it, her with the crotch perfume, him with her and us with the performance of it all.
[Val Smith]
11:21
hmmmm, ok cool lets talk about the sex of it, yes, repressed, yes underlying, yes, perversity, fetish,
the taming of the stoool, woah cowboy, get down, tie up its legs, rodeo stylez, sexy, dunno about that, but there is sex, and bondage as always, i remember the perfect lie, was that what it was called, the bits in mouths, DOGS again... [shout out to dogs in general x x homer!]
[Alexa Wilson]
11:23
[oh yes homer! home dog] very funny scene. and so funny with anna and josh- moving tech stuff around so seriously to aid the 'show'... all the time.. of something so absurd. as sean sitting at a table on its side projected onto the table of this woman.. and even saying things like 'laugh'... really heightening this repressed sexual tension within the whole narcissism of it. the piece was called - something about 'teenage boy'- oh 'i feel like a teenage boy' that's right.. pretty weird sexual gender shit [edit-feeling self conscious bout my swearing here] .. going on there... and the youtube exposure.. all of it.
[Val Smith]
11:24
teenage intrigue in anything sexual
[Alexa Wilson]
11:25
so innocent was her sexuality and his not.. and also how she's leaving herself vulnerable to perverts all over the world- as youtube does. i make stuff 'unlisted' myself on youtube!
[Val Smith]
11:25
hmmm yeah i hadnt thought about that yet, i feel like a teenage boy, i guess he might have been going into the territory of what feels uncomfortable and seeing whats in there, projected idea
[Alexa Wilson]
11:25
yes bondage... i see what you mean in a way
cables and cords.. all over the place.. and this latent aggression- very passive aggressive nz style. Latent control and gender issues squealing out of nz... on many levels. [edit-i like your projected observation val... its a very interesting observation mate. desire is so much about projection and performance always reeks of it..]
[Val Smith]
11:26
how bout when he dropped the microphone
[Alexa Wilson]
11:26
it made a lot of the audience laugh this piece
[Val Smith]
11:26
oh they laughed at the teenage youtube one?
[Alexa Wilson]
11:27
again - and i saw it a few nights- so it varied in its emphasis according to what got chosen- but i saw this autism... with the mic.. lots of counting many many times.. and movements so repetitive.. ocd. dropping it like a kid or 'i just don't care'.
yes they laughed everytime. Other things were more just uncomfortable.
[Val Smith]
11:27
matt and stool was pretty intense on the floor, as a user of the space i noticed i was like woah go easy, thats a community asset, then laughed at myself
[Alexa Wilson]
11:27
i kind of saw this bogan guy in there as well- pogoing around...
but always the waiter - at your service as a platter of entertainment...
[Val Smith]
11:28
his kind of marching thing, on the spot, and homolateral movemvements, if it was that, he likes to work himself hard..
[Alexa Wilson]
11:29
who is the real one in control. having worked as a waitress bitch you ARE the one in control... and you are ON SHOW.. it is all for show. its all about presentation working in restaurants.
for everyone
[Val Smith]
11:30
yep titillation, as you become the object of fantasy/imagination, so you can become the image they want or not, plus controlling how much flirtation is allowed or engaged in
[Alexa Wilson]
11:30
yes and like a performer too, presenting body as something to be consumed, very much playing with titillation- he has an almost flirtatious eyeballing engagement with the audience...
very self conscious.. its like how to be sexy and on show time. I always feel awkward being served in a restaurant in a similar way to maybe how an audience feels looking at a performer.
i saw a lot of control stuff directly referenced in there eh, he spoke about this- with giving over the choices to the audience- which he struggled with- on the choices.. some believe sex is power. Geez how did we get to this? that's pretty 90s ay.
[Val Smith]
11:34
haha all good.
[Alexa Wilson]
11:34
he makes sophisticated choices about how exactly to satirise nz culture through his own experiences through a humour which underpins an indirectness nz has. a hiddeness.. about real agendas.
[Val Smith]
11:35
SHOW, the lights, pink, popping pink balloons,
yes, i can so relate to that, a hiddeness about real agendas, geez, i want to get out of that, it creates a kind of sickness a leaking of desires in twisted ways.. [probably makes good art subject i guess...]
[Alexa Wilson]
11:36
the whole elephant in the room- no one should speak of things.. how we can't stand up for ourselves or speak directly. therefore this passive aggressive bullying and acting out can occur- a tyranny.. which is antisocial and socially backward. i saw this repression in nz culture in many contexts- creatively, academically, politically, business board rooms, clubs, at the table, in the hall in formal community events... he was the ringmaster of this particular circus. it was clever and funny.. and brave too. [edit-good art- what's that even? everyone's opinions differ.. in mine 'good art' makes you conflicted in some way.. and enlivened in others]
Val is offline.11:37
Val is online.11:37
[Val Smith]
11:37
honesty is the only way it seems, i feel his showing all of that helps to expose it for healing i guess, but also because of the nature of art being in codes etc, it compounds it as well, heightening the problem, fetishised secrecy
Val is offline.11:38
Val is online.11:39
[Val Smith]
11:39
yes ringmaster. but playing the gentle welcomer and holder of space, it is most certainly brave but do you think that is something significant for him, he seems comfortable, or perhaps i just cant sense, oh he has anxiety, like performance anxiety, but does he have art anxiety?
[Alexa Wilson]
11:40
good point val about secrecy. [edit- also defs welcomer of space- he has a firmly placed heart in terms of people and community no doubt]. Of course he has anxiety- who doesn't? It seemed tough after a show where there were less people- made it more awkward. But yeah its easy to make brilliant stuff and it go off the radar in nz. its almost safer. and i feel it is important to document this kind of work- in writing, video and photos- which slips between artforms and genres in nz.. dance? art? ... we live in a very mainstream dance culture here.. and this kind of experimental stuff from my recent experience of europe- goes on big stages.. but here is hidden away..
and sean doesn't like a big fuss about his work.. he is humble and just does his shit. its admirable but i would love nz culture at large to be faced with this stuff. he says people have had bad responses to his aggression- like not getting the psychological choices made to expose this passive aggressive acting out pathology of nz culture... [edit- sounds like i'm dissing nz culture when it could be humanity at large but this is our particular breed of humanness]
[Val Smith]
11:41
god that is so true and so frustrating for me,
Val is offline.11:41
Val is online.11:42
[Val Smith]
11:42
this work is totally brilliant and exciting and hardly anyone will see oit or have a chance to understand how important it is,
oh interesting that he thinks about how people have had bad response to the aggression
to me this is the work that should be in the arts fest, damnit
[Alexa Wilson]
11:43
its been a BIG paradox/contradiction i have been struggling with since going to berlin. that our work is really unique coz it deals with nz context - and sits well in europe in some ways- formalistically (though i found germany more repressed than nz at the moment- and i got called a radical anarchist amidst this minimalist grip- off topic but not really) but then we are speaking to and about nz which is VERY IMPORTANT. it is a frustrating dilemma as nz does not give cudos to the true experimenters in nz dance..
only the tried and true. Experimentation gets absorbed into the dance world regardless however.. from those who do it. With little acknowledgment.
Val is offline.11:43
Val is online.11:44
[Val Smith]
11:44
i feel like i dont understand his work, and i want to, i feel like i want to talk to him about what he thinks regarding his work, it goes over my head
[Alexa Wilson]
11:44
really?
has that always been the case or more recently? since his academicising of his practice?
[Val Smith]
11:45
yeah, like i didnt get the violence thing til someone said something, i was like oh yeah,
Val is offline.11:46
Val is online.11:46
[Val Smith]
11:46
hmmmm, maybe the more complex works, like the sugar rabbits and branding one, which i loved so so much, gosh i guess i really love the perversity of it, always desiring it to go further.. [your thinking is complex sean, would love some format of your thinking on paper, i’d be really keen to read about that aspect of your work..]
[Alexa Wilson]
11:48
so he taps your desires? Hehe. his work should TOTALLY be in the main arts festival in nz- its more interesting than a lot of the international acts they bring from 10 or 15 years ago - like jerome bel- and current... he would be better off to take his work to international festivals where he would meet international response. europe is very academic in dance.. anyway- its a bit of a strayed discussion this.. but i guess it gives it a greater context. this is the first work he has presented since Bedrock- that you just mentioned 5 years ago. what a drought. its really really really hard to make experimental dance/perfromance in nz - and sustain it. its vital that nz keeps making and supporting experimental work as it pushes the art form and our world we live in in new directions. its exciting! experimental is 'normale' in europa damnit. but its the reality here and its not going away. its a small country. sean had has to sustain himself somehow and grow- and studying seems to have given him a lot of nourishment. A lot of support too. And interesting new directions.. [lost track of what is an edit and what was original here. am totally projecting my own frustrations and desires creatively onto his work. i do feel that i do have time & energy to consider sean's work in this way despite being very busy because its very important work for nz dance/art]
is there anything more you want to say?
[Val Smith]
11:50
yeah, ummmm, perhaps to add on any after thoughts would be fun, just as they come, whenever,
[Alexa Wilson]
11:50
its interesting to have a discussion about the work rather than review it blankly as- it is very complex and veiled.. so digging out and comparing is a cool process as a review.
[Val Smith]
yes, it seems to be that, this is a dialogue in my mind, i'm not trying to evaluate it [bullshit], though i do have subjective opinions, [disconnect]
Your chat message wasn't sent because Val is offline.
Val is online.11:59
Val is online.12:00
[Alexa Wilson]
12:00
woah you keep going offline babe. and coming back.
[Val Smith]
12:00
slow connection here.
ummmm, alexa and val were students of sean's in the chris jannides era 1998-2000, [unitec, dude]
[Alexa Wilson]
12:00
yes its a dialogue. [edit-It's pretty intimate- i'd like to acknowledge that about this community in general but especially this discussion- which maybe or maybe not reflects the work itself.. intimate and with our desire to read into the layers of veilment there as fans, former students and peers. Hopefully that's not too ghastly for Sean.]

[additional- This dialogue was conducted via facebook chat. It seemed appropriate to use new technologies and an informal dialogue between interested speakers about this unique work done in the moment in writing. The result is a fragmented, layered discussion. Please note that after thoughts and convo were continued for a few days.]

[i liked my/your self editing/contextualising comments - self diminishments, and justifications, nz self installed tall poppy ing, god i feel guilty calling myself tall, how sick is that NZ] [i also notice i take on a following role in the conversation, that facebook chat format happens at lightning speed for my usual slow and deliberate process. I think this chat would be very different if it was done as multiple back and forth email thing, i’d like to try that with a different performance with you perhaps..?] [choice, thanks alexa x.]

You can still see this work March 3rd, 17th and 24th at 7 Gundry st in the Old folks Association Hall, Newton, Auckland NZ.

Cat Ruka's opening to the Dudley Benson Show - By Val Smith

(Val Smith is a New Zealand/US dance artist engaging with the fields of education, performance and research, her work interfacing with a sensation-based, creative practice. Her performance background is in contemporary dance, improvisation, feminist performance art, and political street theatre, since 1991).


I saw the final show at Oratia Settlers Hall on a warm Sunday evening (December 5th 2010).

We arrive by car from the city.
I am aware we are much closer to the Waitakere Ranges.
I can smell flowers and trees in the air.
As we walk across the road to the hall I become aware of birds calls, Ruru.
It feels really alive here in a very different way from where we have just come from.
This feeling of aliveness is also filling the hall as we enter to find seats.
People are excited in a quiet, sparkly-eyed kind of a way.
Having never seen Dudley live before I don’t really know that which is happening.
The hall slowly packs, and more chairs are pulled out to accommodate everyone.

Cat’s piece opens the show and is rendered like a kinesthetically communicated karanga. She stands as a solo artist on the small raised stage, but I easily sense all the other performers are with her, just not yet seen. Lit with DIY lighting, the space is all really old school colonial styles, all tea cups and dance halls. Calling across thresholds with precise and refined signals, becomings, and embodiments, Cat skillfully crafts the focus and quality of mind/spirit in the Settlers Hall.

The piece functions to set the tone and intention for the whole event, and in her role Cat perhaps functions as our spiritual host. I really enjoy the formality of this ritual along with the way Cat manages to also undermine the formality with an inspired approach to content. Perhaps I should give an example of what I might mean by this here, in case you didn’t see this work, but hmmm, nah, maybe you can just imagine what a dissident and transgressive ritual choreography might look like…

Body is dressed in a long simple off-white costume with a long black thick rope wound loosely around her neck, it is slowly cast off or birthed through, with slow weaving hands and arms, then, it just lay there evocatively draped across and around her feet. At some point, I cant quite remember when, Cat seats herself on this chair, knees spread wide in a strong position claiming spaces of all kinds, including sexual spaces, and its like, here I am, whatcha gonna do, but softer and more intricate than that. I drop into the liminal flow of images, engagements with audience, and all of the ancestral, modernity, and contemporary referencing.

There is a part where a stream of quick edits of breathing movements morph in quite a trippy way. I am struck by how easily Cat moves between embodiments of the feminine and masculine. In split second shifts she becomes a god, a warrior, then perhaps an ancestor, and long gone early modernist choreographers. All and more inhabit the choreography - ghosting characterisation. I really super love this part. She is pushing around binaries - I see the spiritual and physical, tapu and noa, and feminine and masculine realms being cleverly played.

Not only a maori invocation/ritual, this work also plays out as a protest piece. Owning ‘self’ as maori and a performance artist Cat opens up (and closes) emotional realms and fields of qualities through ways of being, through carrying her history and allowing us to see all of it. She somehow invokes and includes past, present, and future social and political paradigms, challenging all of our colonialist fuckups, and provoking ‘us’ (the implied us-ness of an audience, as visitors on the implied marae) to stand up and own our ‘selves’ as well. This is mostly all implied, so I’m not sure how to explain this with concrete descriptions.

There is a definite flavour of subversion to this work, (as there is in all of Cat’s artistic work to date), but in this case she is pointing partly at a lineage of modern dance and the interest in primitivism at the time, making movement references to that dance history through the lens of colonisation of the exotic body. Her statements are intriguing through their complexity and ambiguity. Notions of the spiritual are at once revered and questioned. It’s really intelligent, but also emotional. It’s like I’m not exactly sure what is happening but there is a sense of the mystique of ritual and quite rightly so I’m drawn into the magic of it and the artistry of how she is revealing the realm of spirituality and politics combined.

Cat has a strong sense of mana as a performer that is very moving. Through this particular performance she is making bold statements about gendering possibilities through incarnations of maori masculine and feminine symbols and movements which she unapologetically owns. There is a feeling of pushing boundaries around what is ‘ok’ to portray here, but she is totally confident in her decisions, so I feel like she is creating new ideological grounds that others can walk upon too. What she challenges she changes. I experience an empathic exchange of hope and courage whereby she is envisaging a future more tolerant of living diversity.

I bring diversity into the discussion deliberately here, because this performance is making statements about what it means to be maori, a woman, a dancer, and a performance artist. But beyond this Cat is also creating ideological space for the performance of Dudley and The Dawn Chorus and all of the implied statements of that segue into our experience as audience - that of witnessing living sexuality, sexual identity, queering, and genderqueering.

Cat’s performance opens a door for understanding and appreciating the significance of Dudley Benson as a living history of contemporary performance practice and self conceptualization. For me, Dudley embodies a lineage of fighting for the freedom to express a queered self acceptance in art. Whilst how he is in himself signals for me a time where we can more comfortably and visibly be who we are in performance and art, there is still a reminder of a history of violence against LGBTQ communities. The witnessing of Dudley and The Dawn Chorus doing their thing sheds light on meanings evoked by Cat’s work. There is a revealing of the subtleties of what she is communicating to us through contextualisation of what comes after her. I realize more of her gendering intentions after I ‘get’ the extent of what Dudley and his art practice represents.

This set is a collection of Dudley’s interpretations of waiata by the New Zealand composer Hirini Melbourne. They are folksongs that celebrate Aotearoa’s birdlife from Dudley’s new album Forest: Songs by Hirini Melbourne as well as songs from his debut album The Awakening. Dudley and The Dawn Chorus are sweet and concentrated, carrying us into a kind of quasi-religious state. We are reflective and transfixed by their delicate and articulate voice and song. I think Dudley might come from a church choir background, but whether he does or not, I am taken into a heightened space that sparks feelings that I associate with churchly experiences. Why is this worth a mention? Because Dudley is mixing queering with God, and that for me is such a very valuable actioning in these present times.

I know now the meaning of the sparkly eyed thing I saw in people as we entered the space tonight, Dudley is well loved. Its so interesting to me how I feel affirmed in my own queering identity by just witnessing Dudley’s presence in performance…but the strength of talent of his artistry along with the talents of Hopey One (beatbox) and the rest of The Dawn Chorus members is just so damn beautiful, I end up crying quietly throughout their set. Tears for injustices, tears of shame and pain, tears for loves, and loves lost and left. What I carry away from Cat’s performance and this event as a whole is a renewed hope and gratitude for the living and loving of queer and genderqueer artists working away all over the place dreaming and enacting new futures and worlds.

http://dudleybenson.com
http://catruka.com/

CINDERELLA - By Ann Liv Young. Reviewed by Cat Ruka

As I enter the building an old naked man in womens’ make-up stands at the top of the stairs leading to the theatre. He is saggy and creviced, a confrontational image of everything about the body that society passionately seeks to avoid. I won't pretend that initially I am shocked and caught off guard by the honesty of this, but given the nature of the work I am about to see, I assume that he is part of the cast placed intentionally amongst audience members to help jolt us out of the normality of our lives - or perhaps for any other reason - maybe just for fun. I give the man a warm hello, which he receives gratefully and politely, and then I take my place in the long line for tickets. I soon see however that he is standing a few people behind me waiting in line to be ticketed just as I am. This not only reminds me that I am in New York, but also sets the tone for an event that has already, without even trying to, immediately confused the traditional boundary between audience and performer.

The venue that Naked Man and I are lining up outside of is Issue Project Room, located on the third floor of the Old American Can Factory in Gowanus, Brooklyn. It is a long white rectangular venue with no ‘stage’ area as such, meaning that the performance takes place amongst and with the audience. Upon entering the space, which has been decorated with huge bunches of balloons and blow-up animals, we all circle ourselves around an orange square in the middle of the room, which has on it, among other random objects, a laptop, some papers with notes on them, a microphone and stands, water bottles, food, and what seems like beads or gems scattered around. The style is colourful, kitschy and primitive, as though we have entered the earnest pages of a young girl’s scrap-book. There is a woman standing at the end of the room overly primped in a blue hooped princess dress, white gloves, thick garish make-up and a blonde wig topped off with a small sparkling tiara. Beside her are two male assistants in black suits, pink bow-ties and wigs, and a soundman in a bloody-stained blue lycra dress stands by the mixing desk near the middle. When everyone is in, the woman makes her grand entrance to the middle of the room on roller-skates, floating toward her fantasy.

The woman on wheels is none other than controversial, provocative and prolific New York based performance artist Ann Liv Young, a young woman who since graduating from Hollins University’s prestigious dance programme has fast become a leader in her field. At only 29 years of age Young has performed her distinctive works at some of the world’s most leading festivals and venues including P.S 1 Contemporary Art Center, Brooklyn Museum, The Kitchen, Dance Theater Workshop, P.S 122, Judson Church, Impulstanz, Tanz Im August, Springdance, and Laban Centre London, among others. Having only had the chance to follow the woman’s prowess via her online presence (which is quite extensive by the way), my anticipation is running high. What will I see tonight in this sickly-sweet room? Will I see boobies? Will I see people having sex? Will someone even try and have sex with me maybe?

Starring in Young's one-woman fairy tale reinterpretation is her own alter-ego “Sherry”, an aggressive and persuasive southern wildcat who in turn plays the character of Cinderella, a poor young maid whose parents are dead and whose evil step-sisters control her meaningless life. Essentially there are three women performing tonight, each one bouncing in and out of the aggressive and the demure, an interplay that manages to investigate female archetypes and stereotypes without boring you to death with serious feminism. The juxtaposition of a socially provocative character (Sherry) inside a strangely sweet and child-like veneer (Cinderella) is a subtly tense yet playful dynamic that among other things, enables the audience to maintain curiosity.

Existential ‘Dear Diary’ monologues that Cinderella softly recites into the microphone as she sits in front of her laptop provide a simple thread through the first part of the performance. These personal and almost shy offerings are spliced and contrasted with her trademark use of pop songs, which she leaves her computer to dance and rap/sing along to with conviction and a truthful attempt to get the words and pitch correct. Her two suited assistants in pink bow-ties and wigs provide flamboyant back-up dancing with flashing fame style moves. High kicks, turns, and pirouettes never looked so funny, must have been the wigs. A favourite moment is Young’s powerful and hilarious rendition of T.I’s Whatever You Like, which she manages to re-contextualize with a Riot Grrrl attack on the microphone.

It is a simple structure that unfolds. Young performs a song or monologue, and then addresses the audience with questions, after which she returns to her computer to recite a monologue again. It soon becomes apparent that it is not the actual singing and dancing and 'performing' that is the 'performance', but rather everything else that happens in-between it. She gets on the mic and asks us how we are, what we think of the performance, if we have any questions or comments. The young intellectual Brooklyn audience is keen to participate, giving responses that Young steers the show with by cleverly throwing it all back in our faces. The issue of relationships and being in love comes up at some point, which then becomes the over-arching theme of the rest of the discussion, paralleling the story of Cinderella. Young spots a man alone leaning against the wall, whose name is later revealed to be Jacob. She interrogates him about his relationship history, which he reveals to be almost non-existent. She proceeds to ask him very personal questions and the air becomes awkward and tense. She takes him outside to ask him further personal questions, which she then shares with the audience when they return. “Jacob hasn’t had sex since 2003" she says, embarassing him as anyone naturally would be in this situation, and it seems as though he is on the brink of tears, crushed like a young child who learns that their favourite storybook character is not real.

Young’s behaviour seems a little unfair to me at this point, and to me it is though she has crossed a certain line. I feel compassion for Jacob and a hint of resentment towards Young, a resentment that probably comes from the same place as the anger that has lead people to physically attack her in previous performances. I sit there petrified at the possibility that I may be the next victim of her terrifyingly direct questioning. But as the evening progresses, my resentment transforms into complete awe as I come to understand her embarrassing provocations as cleverly crafted acts of healing.

After performing another song, Young lifts her dress up, pulls down her stockings, and squats on top of a bowl announcing that she is going to poo into it (she also happens to be eating something at the same time I might add). She sits there pushing, asking us to look away whilst she performs this act, but then asking us to gather around closer to her, which she suggests might actually help her push the poo out as it proves difficult to do. Stage fright perhaps. She asks us for advice as to what might help her shit which, by the way, she innocently refers to as "doo doo." Someone hands her a cigarette, the soundman opens a coke for her to drink, a friend from the audience even gets up and sticks two fingers up her arsehole in an attempt to douche it out. Nothing works though, so we sit back down and she changes the subject.

What was supposed to be approximately a one hour performance turns into a 3 and a half hour ritual. It emerges as an open forum discussion, where Young in fact recognizes that people may receive her as a controlling protagonist that uses the misfortunes of other people to create entertainment. We sit on the floor huddled around her like primary school kids, listening intently to the mistress share her glittering story. She addresses Jacob again, who throughout the evening has become the star of the show in a way, perhaps identified by Young as someone who was looking for some help in the first place? Maybe not though, who knows. She actually ends up making out with him, and then after this, repeatedly asks him if he wants her to give him a blowjob, maybe to show him what he really wants, maybe to just do it. Ironically, Cinderella has found her prince, but it is she who saves him in this instance, a clever twist and maybe an accurate reflection of the power that women do actually have over men. There is no clear ending to the show and we are all finding it hard to leave, partly because as audience members we aren't given an obvious "THE END" cue which we are all so used to. The curtain to this fairytale never drops, and we are forced to enter back into the worlds we came from with a lingering sense of "FOREVER AND EVER." Young asks us, "Why haven't you all left yet?" And we all kind of look at each other with "Who the hell knows, I just can't!" expressions on our faces.

Just over 24 hours have past and I haven’t been able to get Ann Liv Young/Sherry/Cinderella - or the chain of events that she provided the conditions for - out of my head. To me she is a sharmanistic provocateur disguised behind the annoying aggressive feminist stereotype, perhaps a completely selfless act to come off as the bad guy whilst all the while undertaking the work of a modern-day spiritual doctor. Ann Liv Young can simultaneously create excrutiating discomfort, unusually profound enlightenment, humour and grief. Exposing people to their own potential, to their true identities and to what is stopping them, Ann Liv Young is an inspiration to those of us performers who want to transform our audience. Behind the candy-dipped facade of an old story she is simply seeking for honesty I think, in her own performance delivery and in her community, because if we are honest with ourselves, and are honest about ourselves in the presence of others, can we perhaps heal and let go of that which brings us misery and holds us back from our potential? I feel privileged to have witnessed Ann Liv Young’s idiosyncratic take on the fairytale of Cinderella, and to be making work and viewing dance at a time when she is around is, simply, inspiring.

And as for Naked Man, a personal thank you to you my friend for owning your body, your identity, and your true desires. May you shine on like the crazy diamond you are, and may you continue to lead the path for those of us who have become afraid.

MA SODA 'entry examination' UDK 2010 Writing exercise: Critique of another appilcant's solo: 'Flashdance' - By Alexa Wilson

Q: 'What did you see? How did it work? What was its wider frame of reference? What critical feedback do you have?'

I saw Bulut from Serbia, a tall woman with big black hair in a skant black leotard, perform the beginning of the audition routine from the 1983 movie 'Flashdance' just as it was done in the film to its hit song 'What a Feeling'. She performed it complete with making a mistake and asking to begin again, which she did twice before continuing to deconstruct the notion of an audition, 'art' and contemporary dance conventions as they currently stand in Europe through a monologue which parodied dance and herself as a performer.

To me the irony of her deconstruction was that satirical dance deconstruction itself is now a well utilised convention within contemporary choreography, originated by Pina Bausch in the 1980s and the likes of Jerome Bell in the 1990s. Therefore I presume that she was self-consciously playing upon cliches as such references to 'Flashdance' and the trend towards 1980s retro being 'hip', which has usurped the western world for the past 10-15years.

This solo was clever within its own conceptual framework and well performed by Bulut, taking the audience on an initially cringeful journey of cliche through an enticing and skillful presentation of theatrical piss-takes of various conventions within post-modern dance, which became demonstrative. These consisted of referencing 'using intuition' like a sniffer dog, 'internally motivated movements' which were basically hip hop moves, intellectualising herself within an existential paradigm of 'reflections', being 'out of control' and being 'smart, but not too smart' as well as 'pretentious'. It was entertaining and a strong piece, evidence of a quixotic and sharp mind and clever wit.

The journey of descent that the work took was into a neurotic, narcissistic, self-referencing set of mock 'confessions' and the work ended with her dancing to another of 'Flashdance's songs 'Maniac' and tossing herself clumsily around on the floor with limbs landing heavily before sneaking off the stage and out of sight before the music ended.

I thought it was particularly clever in summarising what this audition process for the MA SODA course is, which is an experimental, intellectual European dance version of 'Flashdance'. She referenced not only this film's cult status to ironically 'express' the way that dance essentially can no longer because it is seemingly in the grips of serious intellectualism and physical minimalism, but to deconstruct the intensity of the conventional audition process itself, which is the part of this film that her dance referenced. This film is very 'hip' right now.

My main criticism of this work is along the lines of my current questioning about post-modern dance in general. Satire is now an institution within contemporary dance and so is speaking through an entire 'dance'. Dance has long since been the 'new theatre' in Europe. With all her skills, performance talents and well crafted ideas, perhaps Bulut could turn her attentions to deconstructing something beyond dance itself, such as any number of pressing issues in the world right now. This not only risks more personal exposure as an artist but contributes something to the world at a time when it is actually in crisis. It is also safe and no longer boundary pushing when something becomes a trend as it is afraid to actually say something which has genuine risk involved.

Deconstruction is very important to any art form in questioning power structures and humour can be powerful, but there are a few more interesting things that this performer could put these skills and talents to than entertaining the dance scene with self mockery. I also wonder, where to from here with self-referential deconstruction, which brings us to the surface? Does this actually unconsciously mirror the larger state of the world in not really knowing? In which case the post-modern theorists have won their case and a reflection of surfaces is all we now have- even inside such (self) bludgeoning artistic 'self-consciousness'.

By Alexa Wilson

Maybe Forever by Meg Stuart and Philip Gehmacher - Reviewed by Cat Ruka

Irregular flashes of light across the stage reveal an electric guitar, speaker and mic-stand to the right. There is a sense of loss and abandonment here, instruments incomplete without their players. A half-round curve of heavy blue-grey curtains provides an unusually shaped backdrop, which as the flashing fades to darkness and the light ever so slowly grows again, is revealed to be a wry suggestion of an empty small-town cabaret lounge. The huge image of two dandelions being blown in the wind stretched wide in front of the curtains echoes the sense of romantic wishing that tends to linger in such an environment. Two figures are positioned centre-stage, sitting side by side on the carpeted floor with legs stretched out and backs to the audience. Slowly they recline in unison until lying submerged in their world, and as the man apprehensively stretches his arm out to grab the woman’s, their intimate interplay begins.

Awkward engagement and disengagement is at the core of this restless folding and unfolding duet. Man and woman dressed in every-day clothing roll and struggle across the floor, stopping every now and then for long periods, finding it difficult to make prolonged physical connection. The choreography has been given all the time and space it needs, allowing the work’s message to gradually and undetectably seep into the hearts of its audience like love-sickness. Penetrating insight into the nature of a steady declining relationship is delivered through the movement’s calculated clumsiness, which in its disregard of the balletic code provides an astonishing unpredictability.

The man and woman stirring uncomfortably in each other’s presence are Europe-based choreographers Meg Stuart and Philip Gehmacher. In 2007 the two came together in collaboration to create Maybe Forever, which has been touring the world ever since and is performed as part of the main performance program of the 10^th Indonesian Dance Festival in Jakarta. Although both very different in their approach to choreography, space and design, the two arrive at a complimentary meeting place that, unlike the disintegrating relationship they demonstrate, has proven to be a winning point of departure.

Stuart and Germacher are joined by Brussels-based singer/songwriter Niko Hafkenschield, whose shiny blue lounge jacket surreptitiously reinforces the tired pub-like environment. His sweetly melancholic series of love ballards infuse the dancing with a fragile and delicate darkness. Quite indie-blues and up-to-date in its retro character, Hafkenschield’s performance contextualizes the story of love in a contemporary setting, helping to transform age-old issues into radically progressive performance. With his soft and vulnerable lilting he is a modern day angel of sadness - honest and open, almost unbearably so, in that he demands us to be honest with ourselves.

Stuart performs two text-based solos in the work spliced with abstract gestural arm movements, each solo positioned at either end of the stage. The first she performs in a skirt and heels, both rather drab and forgettable in colour, the skirt at an awkward just-below-the-knee length. She also wears a restrictive dark leather or vinyl jacket, completing a rather incoherently assembled outfit. The loud squeaking and crunching of the jacket amplified by the microphone emphasizes the ongoing feeling of unease, of everything being not quite right. Interrupted by gestures and silences that drag her away from the microphone, her text is broken and incomplete. Right down to the very last detail, this work is a tour-de-force of struggle.

Gehmacher’s solo is performed in his signature style of timid apprehension towards space. Shoulders inelegantly reaching for the ears and gawky transfers of weight as he walks from one position to the next create an uncoordinated language of movement that speaks volumes for the uncoordinated relationship he is in. It is almost as though he is embarrassed, self-conscious of the fact that there are people watching him. He pulls back the curtains and reveals part of the backstage area. Stuart enters and together they perform a phrase of ‘almost-hugging’, difficultly manoeuvring around each other, he often failing to complete the touch. The cold black concrete of the theatre’s walls are exposed and so too is a cold and dying union.

The startling final act of the work plays out like a Lynchian memorial service, spooky enough to send shivers down my spine as I sit in disbelief. In a bright yellow shirt and black jacket and trousers, Gehmacher performs a final confession to the one he has lost – he moves abstractly around centre stage and as he does so, a recorded speech is laid over the top, the text broken up and slightly nonsensical. Without warning Stuart enters from the right in an intensely garish orange sequined dress, slinky and shimmering under the lights. We are caught off guard by this over-excited outfit, which after the previous dowdy and monotonous clothing makes a raucous and unsettling statement. She takes a seat next to the musician’s speaker. He enters and stands behind her as if to claim her as his. Almost menacingly she simply sits and watches, looking ridiculously fabulous and no longer Gehmacher’s who is now out of his depth in this uncomfortable situation. And with a painstakingly slow lighting fade, the image is crystallized.

After seeing Maybe Forever I dreamt that I was having a conversation with the woman an ex-boyfriend of mine is seeing. She was crying hysterically, trying to make sense of their crumbling connection, demanding that I give her insight whilst simultaneously refusing to accept any advice I offered. For some reason this was all taking place on the sports field at my old primary school, an aptly surreal continuation of Stuart and Gehmacher’s performance which somehow managed to bleed further into my consciousness than I had hoped. Obviously this work affected me profoundly and like the memories of failed relationships will continue to stay with me, maybe forever.

Contact Gonzo by Contact Gonzo - Reviewed by Cat Ruka

Four young Japanese men casually enter onto the stage while the house lights are up. They are wearing t-shirts and track-pants and still have their performance passes on around their necks. One is carrying a backpack, others have water bottles, and there is a video camera on a tripod. They could well be mistaken as backstage helpers preparing the stage for the next act, but as they empty their pockets, place their objects on the ground and begin to warm up, it becomes clear that they are not ‘helpers’ at all.

For a few minutes the men pace around, lunging and stretching their arms out every now and then, not in a dancerly fashion but as though they are about to run a 100m sprint. They seem to be preparing themselves both physically and mentally, creating suspense and tension in their audience, who are all probably wondering what the heck is going on.

Eventually two of the men make contact, not in the sense of contact improvisation where physical connection is utilized to explore movement, but rather within a code of combat or struggle. They push and tussle, climbing on top of one another, every now and then dropping away to reposition and grab a drink of water or to take a photo on their disposable camera. Gradually the battling begins to escalate and without warning one of the men strikes another in the face, the sound of palm to skin cutting through the air and triggering surprised gasps of horror from the audience. This surprise is pushed even further as suddenly from behind a backlit cyclorama a drummer begins a wild improvisational solo. Crashing and banging and wildly attacking the drum-kit, a huge ominous shadow of this female performer showing her drum-kit who’s boss is an interesting backdrop to the male brawn on stage.

The every-day pedestrian paradigm coupled with the invitation to raw violence set up by these performers instils an immediate sense of unconventionality. Contact Gonzo take their name from the rebellious style of ‘Gonzo’ journalism made famous by American journalist Hunter S. Thompson. The exposing of what is normally hidden from an audience such as the warming up, the training clothes and the replenishing of oneself with a drink of water runs parallel to the raw and un-edited subjectivity of the Gonzo style of writing, in which grit is favoured over polish. Thompson would also document a lot of his own actions whilst he was immersed in journalistic projects, a reflexive technique also realized in Contact Gonzo’s use of video and stills cameras on stage.

As the men continue to grapple with each other, a cell-phone rings in the audience. As we know, the rules of theatre etiquette state that this is highly disrespectful and automatically garners negative reactions from audience members when it occurs. A group of people seated around the ringing cell-phone show their disgust with forceful shushing, which is then addressed by one of the performers who simply says to them, “No it’s okay. It’s okay.”

More violent slaps to the face are thrown from every which direction, more piles of bodies rise, tumble and loudly crash to the floor. A modern urban realization of traditional sumo-wrestlers at times, Contact Gonzo continue to battle away with themselves. And for what reason? Does it all just come off as highly charged testosterone gratuitously taking advantage of the theatre space to flex a bit of muscle? There is no emotional narrative here to suggest the reasons behind their fighting. They just are.

To me it is no surprise that this young team of performers are currently being invited to perform this work in festivals all over the world, which comes off more as an uncontrollable event rather than a finely-crafted performance piece. It is clear however that this group has a precise agenda, and their unique antics ensure that they stand out among the rest. Contact Gonzo is a highly innovative ‘dance’ company who unabashedly challenge the established norms of the theatre. Representative also of a contemporary consciousness in which violence and technology are implicit, I’m sure their work will act as an interesting reference point in critical dance discussions for years to come.

Darkness Poomba by Kim Jae Duk - Reviewed by Cat Ruka

Two male dancers ignite Darkness Poomba with a duet performed under severe top-light. A fast and furious exchange of angularly choreographed movement, hands mechanically grasping for each other’s faces, and bodies regimented in a forward facing stance. Creating the illusion of a robotic pair of Siamese twins, the two young men are a fashionable modern day fruition of an ancient cog-like machine. Five dancers clad in chic black clothing sharply enter from the peripheries to join the machine and expand upon the gothic energy that has been created.

A spot is brought up on a man standing with a microphone in one of the aisles. Both the ears and eyes are immediately drawn to this powerful presence and we are captivated as the space swells with his voice – he is chanting the traditional South Korean Poomba, scattering sounds of desperation and yearning. Sound manipulation gives an echoing reverberation as if to suggest that we are all inside a cold and mysterious vault of some sort, liminally suspended between hallucination and reality. The performer displays extraordinary command over his dexterous instrument, and his sensitive commitment to the dancers on stage help them to devote themselves to the dark abrasiveness of this space.

Later in the work, a dance with metallic dinner trays between the two male dancers who opened the piece brings an oddly domestic sensibility to the abstract world that has been established. The device of sound is again utilized in this instance, as dinner trays become percussive instruments as well as hats and items of clothing. The chorus of dancers behind them acts as a strata of strange shadows that morph from one contained image to the next. All ensemble dancers solidly support this duet and other highlighted moments of the work with crisp articulation of movement and un-wavering performance energy. It is as though they are there to tease out the dark underbelly of this work with a quiet ferociousness.

The darkness of this rich work is both deeply set into the bones of its body and ironically woven into its surface. Even when the whole theatre is clapping and singing in delight as they would at a concert of their favourite musician, the haunting atmosphere never lets up. In fact it is in these moments of ‘light’ that the gothic undertone is somehow heightened, demonstrating a sophisticated approach to the creation of atmosphere. Funereal organs and regular pumps on the smoke machine provide a parody that is both easing and unsettling for its viewer participants.

As one of the ensemble dancers leaves the stage to join the vocalist in the aisle, we realize that it is choreographer Kim Jae Duk, maestro and master of this frighteningly ironic series of happenings. As he takes to the microphone to join in harmony with the vocalist, two men enter the stage from the wings and pick up red electric guitars at either ends of the stage. Before we know it the traditional lilt of the Poomba has become the waling power vocal of the rock concert, the guitars providing the metallic grit for this transition. All of a sudden we are waving and clapping our hands high in the air, having been transformed from formal theatre spectators to rock-stadium crowd.

In a return to the opening duet, the two dancers from the opening segment perform a gradually accelerating version of the robotic Siamese twin dance as they walk in procession down the aisle toward the stage. As it speeds up, this phrase cleverly functions as the peak of the work, causing a kind of ‘Mexican wave’ effect on the crowd, whose vocal eruption is evidence of the direct affect this work has had upon them. After the excitement has subsided, a gentle and virtuosic harmonica solo performed by choreographer Kim Jae Duk is a clever return to the opening eeriness. And as the creator lays his final delicate mark, the piece closes.

Not one sense is privileged over the other in this haunting re-contextualization of the traditional South Korean melody of Poomba. A truly interdisciplinary and multi-layered work, audience members are taken on a strange and unexpected voyage through the realms of contemporary dance, traditional song, stadium rock, and festival reggae music. Although such a journey may sound schizophrenic and disjunctive in nature, this collage of contexts and performance genres is executed seamlessly. Darkness Poomba is a work that manages to constantly transform our environment before we have even noticed, each world almost functioning as a sinister critique of the one that has come before.

Playing Savage

Playing Savage A Dance / Solo Protest by Cat Ruka Friday 29th may Kenneth Myers Centre


At the outset let me make this clear; my role as mentor / advisor to Cat in the making of this work means that this is not so much a review as a personal endorsement. Written as a review. 'Playing Savage' was a solo work that I consider to be significant by dint of its astute conceptual clarity, and its wholesale trashing of cliche and catharsis. It was a powerful politically charged piece of performance art that transcended its makers artistic ego. Instead it succinctly foregrounded the performed image. Those images ultimately called the broader culture out on its own complacency. Yes that's right....us. Not the government, not the corporations, but us. Ruka touched on a fleshy hypersensitive collective unconscious that is lil ol New Zealand. And I felt it flinch. From Ruka's program notes - "Playing Savage is a performative ritual that attempts to re-organize, hyper - extend, and subvert some of the ideas, symbols and images that wahine Maori (Maori women) are perceived in relation to. " Gwynne's opening image was of a sexually aggressive seated figurine. Her face made up like a cartoonesque skull, torso naked save for a fake gold neck chain with a chunky dangling gold dollar sign, and a piupiu (traditional skirt). This was a brash and dense image to greet the already intensified crush of a predominantly white audience. It both set the tone for the work and set the barre for an extraordinary hybridisation of thefictitious and the realistic within each of the characters that emerged throughout the performance. This character made her way off the chair and moved on her knees emphasising femininity and precision within a spectrum of 'beautiful dance' postures. Intelligently though in placing herself low to the ground whilst making direct eye contact with her audience Ruka distorted status, simultaneously undermining herself and confronting the gathered crowd. This continual undermining/confrontation became a signature cycle making the uncomfortable images weirdly palatable. As her character began to eat her own hand in a self cannibalizing gesture to the hyper sexualisation of pop culture Ruka made her graphic vulnerability opaque. Taking the performance into a kind of 'solo as heroines journey' territory Ruka made physical pathways through the performative space via stations. Each station had its own objects. Each object with its subsequent discovery along the pathway carried its own dense narrative and triggered a transformation of Ruka's character. Although predictable as a device this was easily forgivable given the power and heft of her character images, and the content of the work itself. Images such as the washing off of her mask / make up with a sodden Tino Rangatiratanga flag, Or the self sellotaping of a plastic Maori girl doll to Ruka's mid riff which provoked odious connotations. For me though the most pleasurably jarring image was that of an intimidating leather jacketed (and patched) cigarette smoking solo mother wielding an over sized poi. It was in this character that Ruka made her naturally powerful presence shine through and spark up the warning lights on the dashboard. The music of Currer Bells (Angeline Churnside, Tim Coster) defragmented thus completed the design of this section. As this character swung her poi in a perpetual warning, the aggressive tone of the gesture was ultimately made futile by its repetition. An empty gesture brokering no mutual agreement as to its meaning, and garnering no sympathy it just died. Ruka's final image was defused by a slow lighting fade out during which a highly processed version of the John Key victory speech was played. Directly evocative of that moment in the last election when it seemed New Zealand had signed its own political suicide note. Jill Singer wrote in Sydney's Herald Sun "New Zealanders had voted for change...a leap from right to left - with all the enthusiasm and reasoning power of a doped slug." And our resolve was dissolved. Fade to black. Although this all may sound like essay on wholesale hopelessness I came away from the performance with a quiet optimism. This was borne out of the experience that I had just been witness to someone saying something important with depth, humour, skill, and from a deeply informed position.