REtransLATE – Unimages – Dark Dynamite / Oktoberdans 2022

Mining for Meaning

Before acquiring its modern-day figurative use of “meaning, signification, interpretation”, the word “sense” (originating from Proto-Indo-European root *sent-, “to go”) literally meant “finding one’s way”, or “travelling”. By embracing this etymology, it is interesting then to note how a major role in the collective and individual gnoseological journey that we call “life” is played by movement, its offshoots (spatiality, identity and alterity) and the narration we make of this experience – also known as communication. In an attempt to research this sense-making effort, the eight day of Oktoberdans 2022 proposes a triptych of performances that gravitate around the concept of understanding: REtransLATE by Mirte Bogaert, Unimages by Florin Flueras and Dark Dynamite by Rosalind Goldberg.

A 2022 BIT Teatergarasjen, Carte Blanche and RAS co-production, Belgian-born but Bergen-based dance artist Mirte Bogaert’s performance REtransLATE questions «the procedures of listening, interpretation and extraction in communicative situations – leaving the audience with the core of the matter: translating that transition». By deploying a carefully crafted, full-body sign language, the choreographer, together with other two performers (versatile Yoh Morishita and Erlend Auestad Danielsen), initiates a corporeal discussion on communication and (mis)understanding, exploring the linguistic potential not only of the body, but also of sound, light and image. Indeed, what really stands out in Bogaert’s work is the intersectionality and horizontality of its conception and development, which end up generating a piece of considerable quality.

As the artist herself disclosed in one of the many moments of exchange offered by the festival, by attempting to de-hierarchise the power structures that permeate a dance company (or any other “traditional” aggregation of people, for that matter), Bogaert strived to give space to every single member of the team to help steering the creative act towards the final piece, thus opening up a space in which the active and proactive listening of the otherness generated an entente and an harmony that magnified each member’s skills and strengths. The outcome of the process, then, is a rare gem in which every little facet shines just as brightly as the other ones.

Indeed, while the bodies palpitate and fall and deflagrate in their quest for comprehension (a struggle that, perhaps due to the overall length of the performance, gradually loses edge and bite), musician Stephan Meidell buoyantly plays with sound and acoustic feedbacks, making his fingers dance on the frets of the guitar and between the faders and knobs of his consoles, all the while light designer Randiane Sandboe manipulates colours, reflexes and refractions so as to prove that reality is as malleable as a piece of tinfoil and as changeable as a fire.

Albeit different in format, setting and, especially, corporeal language, Romanian choreographer Florin Flueras’ Unimages share a similar scope with the previous performance, that is intervening «in the implicit process of transforming reality into images and certainties» so as to question and refresh our capacity «of seeing and understanding». Within his exploration, which forms part of a larger body of thoughts called Unofficial Unworks (including, other than the piece presented at Bergen’s Hordaland Kunstsenter, also the performances Unexperiences and Unhere), Flueras seems to take inspiration form the cultural hijacking processes popularised by the Post-Spectacle artists of the 1960s French International Situationist group, who exposed the mechanisms of the artworld so as to denounce its inherent conformism to dominant capitalistic dynamics.

By proposing «performative anomalies that affect the automatic readings and perceptions», then, Unimages stimulates a renewed research of meaning within the institutionalised walls of performing arts, all the while problematising the political component in art as well as the aesthetic component in politics. «As visitors we usually conform, performing our roles, consuming quietly what is in front of our eyes. As artists we mostly follow artworld’s implicit codes, protocols, structures of validation, hoping to be seen, invited, appreciated. As people we conform to prevailing perspectives and certainties. Artists can and should sometimes deviate from these dynamics. And visitors too» (from the Unofficial Unworks description).

In the presence of such a cornucopia of complex thought processes, it was interesting to see how the audience of Oktoberdans 2022 reacted to the philosophical provocation carried out by the displacing unmovements of Florin Flueras, Eliza Trefas and Martina Piazzi. Indeed, the extremely polite and respectful spectators present at Thursday’s performance diligently decorated the walls of Hordaland Kunstsenter so as to leave the empty floor to the artists, who then had to struggle quite a lot to get their message across, especially considering that Unimages «are inserted in contexts where something else is already happening, adding an extra layer to their ordinary function» – and nothing was happening in the immaculate room.

Also the last performance of the day, Rosalind Goldberg’s latest creation shared in on the cerebral reflections of the previous ones, albeit focusing more on the perceptual imbalances that populate our inner world and define the external one.

Eighth in the prolific production of the Oslo-based choreographer (and research fellow at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in Oslo with the Ph.D. project Choreography as a meaning-generating aggregate), Dark Dynamite is «a choreography about the dark forces that inherently shape our bodies by accelerating or slowing us down, such as fatigue, lethargy, apathy, restlessness, negligence, despair, rootlessness» and it premiered in the Henie Onstad Art Center of Norway’s capital earlier this October.

In it, the physically potent and magnetic presence of Sigrid Hirsch Kopperdal animates a nightmarish mindscape inhabited by a «reserve of darkness, […] of dynamite» that inevitably partakes in the formation of both ourselves and life itself. Within this representation of a fractured soul often hidden by society «behind medical diagnoses», roots have fingers and nimbus-like formations weight heavily on the carpeted floor in a triumph of scenographic materiality and confounding light design.

Regardless of the overt and open-eyed invective against the medicalisation of mental disorder, however, Dark Dynamite’s declaration of intent does not meet a factual restitution in the choreographic text, taking the audience along for an uneventful stroll around the depiction of an internal void where shapes, movements and sounds burst out with unbending plasticity, the body (albeit capable and truly explosive) does not communicate much and the scholarly pursuit of meaning generation is easily misdirected towards an anodyne and solipsistic academic exercise.

The shows were played within Oktoberdans 2022 international dance festival
Bergen – Norway, various locations

Thursday 27 October

18:00
Studio USF
Georgernes Verft 12 – Bergen
REtransLATE
by Mirte Bogaert

artistic coordination/choreography Mirte Bogaert
sound design/music Stephan Meidell
co-creating dancers Yoh Morishita, Erlend Auestad Danielsen
light design Randiane Sandboe
dramaturg Alain Franco
costume design Olga Regitze Dyrløv Høegh
producer Sølvi Katrine Andersen
picture Linn Heidi Stokkedal
co-produced by BIT Teatergarasjen, Carte Blanche – The Norwegian National Company of Contemporary Dance, RAS (Regional Arena Samtidsdans)
supported by Bergen Dansesenter – Regional centre for Dance, KAAP (BE), KWP Kunstenwerkplaats Pianofabriek (BE), ATLAS – ImPulsTanz (AT)
supported financially by Norwegian Art Council, Fond For Lyd og Bilde, Fond for Utøvende Kunstnere (FFUK), City of Bergen, Performing Arts Hub Norway (PAHN)

 

19:30
Hordaland Kunstsenter
Klosteret 17 – Bergen
Unimages
by Florin Flueras

performers Eliza Trefas, Martina Piazzi, Florin Flueras.
production Artworlds Bucharest
with the support of CNDB Bucharest, BIT Teatergarasjen, Kunsthall Bergen, APAP 2020 Feminist Futures network

 

21:00
Bergen Kjøtt
Skutevikstorget 1 – Bergen
Dark Dynamite
by Rosalind Goldberg

concept and choreography Rosalind Goldberg
developed with and performed by Sigrid Hirsch Kopperdal
scenography Tarje Eikanger Gullaksen
music Camilla Barratt-Due
light design Anton Andersson
illustration Tarje Eikanger Gullaksen
co-produced by Henie Onstad Art Center, BIT-Tetatergarasjen Bergen, RAS – Regional Arena for Samtidsdans, Rosendal Teater Trondheim
supported by The Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Rosalind Goldberg, Camilla Barratt-Due, Tarje Eikanger Gullaksen, Anton Andersson