Kompleksno promišljanje plesa / Thinking of Dance in a Complex Way

Ivana Slunjski

Razmišljajući o oourovcima, prije svega o plesnim umjetnicama Selmi Banich i Sandri Banić te o glazbeniku Adamu Semijalcu, koji se od formiranja skupine nameću kao OOUR-ova pokretačka jezgra, o njihovim mijenama, vještini autorskoga ekvilibriranja, balansu, disbalansu ili rastu u proteklih pet godina, mnoge opaske završavaju u kontradikciji, jedna drugu čak i izuzimaju, da bi odmah potom tim izuzimanjem jedna drugu pojašnjavale. Mnogo se toga opet može činiti kao jednostrano iščitavanje neke ne pretpostavljene, već scenskim čitanjem izvježbane svijesti. No u jedno sam posve sigurna – uvijek se nekako događalo, bilo da se to prelamalo kroz opterećenost vlastitom egzistencijom ili je bilo potaknuto osobnim krizama i dvojbama o smislu pisanja o plesu u kulturi nesklonoj toj umjetnosti, da o OOUR-u nisam pisala onoliko koliko bih željela ili koliko bi o njihovu djelovanju valjalo pisati.

Od prvih izvedbi do danas, u OOUR-ovu se radu može prepoznati nekoliko konstanti. Na prvom bih mjestu izdvojila odnos s publikom, koji se mnogima, manje upućenima, ali i upućenima u ples činio vrlo problematičan. Naime, mnogi su propitivanje relacija s publikom zapravo doživljavali kao neodnos, prije se odlučujući za bezizlaznu hermetičnost negoli za komunikativnost. Na meti OOUR-ova traženja našla se perceptivnost gledatelja koja ne prinosi isključivoj konzumaciji gotovog umjetničkog proizvoda. Umjesto toga, oourovci nude gledatelju mogućnost aktivna sudjelovanja u izvedbenom procesu, navodeći ga da u naoko nebitnim ili možda njemu nedokučivim scenskim akcijama izabire vlastite projekcije koje će posvajanjem organizirati u jedinstveno i cjelovito značenje. Gledatelj se tako obvezuje na odgovornost prema činu tvorbe određene strukture koja se u širem smislu prenosi na društvenu sliku. Iako se prosječan gledatelj, gledatelj nenaviknut na učestalo uranjanje u teško prohodnu plesnu građu, mogao naći u nedoumici kako pristupiti OOUR-ovim predstavama, nastojanja oourovaca išla su u drugom smjeru. Izjednačujući, ako ne i pretpostavljajući gledatelja izvođaču, budući da gledatelj, iako nepripremljen kao izvođači, ima konačni uvid u scensko zbivanje, oourovci ne uljuljkuju gledatelja u lažnu sigurnost predstave, ne obećavaju nikakve eskapizme, neobvezujuće rasplesane sekvence koje bi nas udaljile od zbilje. Gledatelj je taj koji ples postvaruje objektifikacijom. Stoga ne bih rekla da je riječ o isključivosti ili mistifikaciji plesa njegovim podvođenjem pod, mnogo puta osporavanu, konceptualnost. Promišljanje odnosa prema publici i prozivanje gledatelja kao suodgovornog u zajedničkom kreiranju konačne recepcije dane plesne građe možda je najočitije u radovima Stvarajući Eve i Salon, koji se na određen način međusobno i nadopunjuju, te u radovima Chew i OK. Potonje dvije predstave razlikuju se od prvih dviju razinom čitljivosti citatnih naslaga, gustoćom asocijativnih slojeva, brojnih implikacija nametnutih medijskih i društvenih konstrukata, koje treba razgrnuti ne bi li se došlo do sama komunikacijskog kostura. U Stvarajući Eve izvedbena je građa ponuđena u nagovještajima mogućega scenskog tijeka, no kratke naglo odrezane slike gledatelju ne nameću ni jedan konkretan smjer razmišljanja. U Salonu je, rekla bih, još radikalnije uskraćeno scensko zbivanje. Dugotrajno postavljanje sitnih objekata nalik domino kockama iscrpljuje gledatelja u iščekivanju događanja, a tada ga iznenadnim obratom, gotovo sizifovskim ritmom sakupljanja kockica, a da iščekivani cilj nije dosegnut, izvođači prepuštaju samom sebi. Može se reći da je raščlanjenošću građe ili pak prikrivenošću građe naslagama konotacija kulminiralo u četirima navedenim predstavama, ali propitivanje percepcije gledatelja i naglašavanje doživljajnog plana osjetno je i u ranijim radovima the black box, the first box te u radu to be confirmed, pa i radu u orangecut. Orangecut zaokuplja razlamanjem sekvence i raslojavanjem građe na što jednostavnije elemente, a preuzimanje tih smjernica vidljivo je i u to be confirmed. Autorice u to be confirmed prednost daju osjetilnom planu doživljajnog, što se razaznaje iz dominantnih mantričkih glazbenih obrazaca koji aludiraju na ekstatičko uživljavanje, premda je gledatelj izložen analitičkoj dekonstrukciji izvedbene građe njezinim osipavanjem u niz sitnih pokreta, koji su tek minimalno različiti od svakog prethodnog. Zadana izvedbena forma istodobno se suprotstavlja aformalnom, autorski dovršenom djelu izmiču konačna određenja. U tom procesu gledatelj sam postaje plesač transformirajući plesnu aktivnost u mentalnu aktivnost gledatelja. Prva inačica orangecuta, pozivajući se na modifikaciju zapisa na osnovi kojeg reprodukcija postaje ključ konceptualizacije, dvostruko problematizira perceptivnost. Izvedba plesačica iz jedne se prostorije prenosi u drugu putem digitalnog zapisa. Taj zapis nije samo obična snimka izvedbe, u snimku su intervenirali sekundarni izvođači, glazbenik i videoumjetnik, ubacujući u snimku projekcije vlastita sjećanja izvedbe. Drugi pomak u percepciji događa se intervencijom gledatelja koji ima uvid u izravnu izvedbu i u posredovanu izvedbu i aranžira vlastitu doživljajnu cjelinu. 

Kao sljedeću važnu odrednicu OOUR-a, koja je već djelomično nagrižena prethodnim razmatranjima, naglasila bih probijanje granica plesnosti, odnosno onoga što se prihvaća kao ples. Često sam se i sama suočila s komentarima kao što su zašto oni ne plešu ili kak tak nekaj mogu nazvati plesom. Nakon pojave postmodernoga plesa ili postdramskoga kazališta, tako uopćavati ples zapravo se čini besmislenim. U obranu oourovaca ponovit ću po ne znam koji put, suvremeni ples nastaje u trenutku recepcije, ne virtuoznim plesanjem ni nemuštim bacakanjem na sceni, nego promišljanjem izvedbene građe. Prepuštajući gledateljskoj percepciji izbor, pojednostavljivanjem izvedbene građe sve do scenske neaktivnosti, OOUR aktivnost prebacuje na gledatelja koji ples konceptualizira životnim, uključujući i plesnim, iskustvom. Prijenosom nedjelovanja na sceni na razinu aktivnosti uma, otvara se prostor novom događanju, interpretaciji viđenoga kao posve drugačije slike, rasterećene plesnih ili društvenih kodifikacija. Na taj se način potkopava stabilnost autorskih pozicija kao manipulativne sile, a s druge strane potkopava se i jednostranost interpretacija. Takvo poimanje plesa vodi nas sljedećoj bitnoj odrednici OOUR-a, društvenom angažmanu. Osvrnem li se na Chew ili na OK, nagomilavanje različitih konotativnih slojeva ne može izbjeći upisivanju svih postojećih konstrukata tijela, stereotipna zaziranja od tjelesnosti, nevrijednosti tijela u odnosu na misaone procese, tjelesnost konzervativno poimanu ženskim atributom, pornografskoga tijela, tijela drukčijih mogućnosti ili sposobnosti, upisivanju homoseksualnosti, submisivnosti, repetitivnosti koja često upućuje na represiju, društveno poželjnih tjelesnih identifikacija. Gledatelju se nude konotacije s kojima se mora nositi, mora iznaći način kako da ih procesira, da okorjele konstrukcije razloži na prihvatljivije ili da ih uzurpira, ali ne i odbaci. Odbacivanjem postojećih konstrukata stvorio bi se paralelan sustav vrijednosti, no to ne znači da bi se prethodni sustav ukinuo. Opcija koja nam preostaje jest gerilsko nagrizanje postojećega sustava i njegovo prevrednovanje. Razmicanjem konotativnih slojeva dolazimo do posljednje odrednice koja je obilježila OOUR-ovo dosadašnje djelovanje, a to je autentičnost tijela. U okviru posljednjih radova, Chew i OK, kritika je dosta govorila o fenomenu zastrtosti (Sibila i Govedić). Autentično tijelo kakvo oourovci predlažu ne tiče se isključivo autentičnosti izvedbe, odnosno autentičnosti plesnoga izraza; autentičnost se odnosi i na izvođačevo postojanje na sceni kao stvarne osobe. Premda se ples događa u trenutku recepcije dvostrukim procesima, autorskim ispisivanjem i gledateljskim iščitavanjem, plesu ne možemo osporiti tijelo kao medij prijenosa informacije. Međutim, tijelo je podložno kulturalnim upisivanjima, ali nije svedeno na razinu prazne plohe, nego samo postaje subjekt proizvodnje značenja. Procesi identifikacije tijela u pokretu nikada nisu definitivni, tijelo neprestano izmiče uokvirivanjima. U tom se smislu ples i izvedbeno/izvođačevo tijelo približavaju performansu. OOUR skreće pozornost na stvarnog čovjeka u trenutku njegova kreativnog izražavanja, s njegovim stvarnim potrebama, emocijama, ranama i nadanjima, koji nešto izvodi, ali i postavlja pitanje zašto to izvodi na način koji je izabrao.

Krećući se unutar tih odrednica, OOUR je bitno izmijenio sliku hrvatske suvremenoplesne scene. Njihovo odricanje od plesa put je ka novoj plesnosti. Vitalni opstanak u uvjetima nerazmjernoga financiranja institucionalne i neinstitucionalne kulture pravo je umijeće, te oourovcima u sljedećih pet godina iskreno želim preraspodjelu snaga postojećih reprezentacijskih modela kulture.

Thinking of Dance in a Complex Way

Ivana Slunjski

Thinking about OOUR – primarily about dance artists Selma Banich and Sandra Banić, as well as musician Adam Semijalac, who has imposed himself as the moving core of the group from the very outset – thinking about their transformations, their skill of artistic balancing, disbalancing, and growth during the past five years, many remarks will end in contradiction or even exclude each other, only to be elucidated in the next moment through that very exclusion. Much of it may seem as some sort of one-sided interpretation of a mind that has been trained through theatrical reading, rather than preset. However, one thing is completely sure: be it because of overlapping with my own existence or triggered by personal crises and doubts regarding the sense of writing about dance in a culture that is hostile to that sort of art, somehow it always happened that I did not write about OOUR as much as I would have liked or as much as their activity should be written about.

From their earliest performances until today, a number of constant elements have been discernible in their work. First of all, I would like to emphasize their relationship with the audience, which has always seemed problematic to those who are not experts on dance, but also to those who are. Many have experienced OOUR's exploration of their own relationship with the audience as an actual lack of relationship, as opting for a hopeless hermeticity instead of communicability. But the target of that quest is the perceptiveness of the spectator, which does not lead to exclusive consummation of a ready-made artistic product. Instead, OOUR offers to the spectator the possibility of actively participating in the process of performance, challenging him to choose his own projections in seemingly unimportant or perhaps impenetrable stage acts, and to organize them into a unique and complete meaning by appropriating them. Thus, the spectator accepts his or her responsibility in creating a particular structure, which is then broadened to include the social picture. Even though an average spectator, who is not used to being repeatedly plunged into a barely passable dance material, might face certain doubts as to the right way of approaching OOUR's performances, the efforts of the group have taken a different direction. By equalling, if not preferring the spectator to the performer, since the spectator, although not prepared as well as the performers, has the final insight into the stage events, OOUR does not lull the spectator into a fake feeling of safety in their show; they promise no escapisms or casual dancing sequences that might get us away from the reality. The spectator is the one who realizes the dance by objectifying it. Therefore, I would not consider it exclusion or mystification of dance by subjecting it to some often disputed conceptuality. This reflection upon the relationship with the audience and inviting the spectator to be co-responsible in the joint creation of the final reception of the dance material is perhaps most evident in Creating Eve and The Salon, which even complement each other in a way, yet it is also present in Chew and OK. The two latter shows differ from the former ones in the level of transparency of the quotation layers and the denseness of association layers, as well as in numerous implications of the imposed media and social constructs, which must be cast aside in order to reveal the very skeleton of communication. In Creating Eve, the performance material is offered in hints of the possible flow of stage action, but the short, abruptly cut images do not impose any particular direction of thought upon the spectator. In The Salon, I would say, the stage action has been abolished even more radically. The prolonged placement of tiny objects resembling dominoes tends to exhaust the spectator who expects some happening, after which he is left to himself after a sudden twist, consisting in an almost Sisyphus-like collecting of dominoes before the expected goal has been reached. One might say that the principle of analyzing the material or concealing it behind the sediments of connotations has reached its pinnacle in the four mentioned performances, but the same type of testing the spectator's perception can be found in the earlier pieces of OOUR: the black box, the first box, and to be confirmed, as well as in orangecut. Orangecut catches the attention by cutting up sequences and analyzing the material into the simplest possible elements, a tendency that can also be observed in to be confirmed. In the latter performance, the authors have preferred the sensual level of experience, which can be discerned in the dominant mantric musical patterns, alluding to ecstatic immersion, even though the spectator is exposed to analytic destruction of theatrical material through its dissipation into a series of tiny movements, each of them only slightly different from the previous one. The given form of performance is at the same time opposed to the aformal, artistically completed work avoids all final definitions. In the process, the spectator becomes a dancer himself, transforming the dance activity into a mental one. The first version of orangecut, referring to the modification of recording that turns reproduction into the key of conceptualization, problematizes perceptiveness in two ways. The dancers' performance is transferred from one room into another through digital recording. That recording is not merely a recording of the performance, since the secondary performers – the musician and the video-artists – have intervened into it by inserting their own memories of the performance. The second shift of perception occurs through the intervention of the spectator, who has an insight both into the direct performance and into the mediated one, thus arranging his or her own unit of experience. 

As the next important determinant of OOUR, although partly eroded by the previous reflections, I would mention their breaking of the boundaries of danceability, of what is accepted as dance. I have frequently come across commentaries such as why aren't they dancing or how can anyone call this dance. With the emergence of postdramatic dance and postdramatic theatre, generalizing dance in this way actually seems pointless. In defence of OOUR, I will repeat for a hundredth time that contemporary dance comes into existence at the moment of reception, rather than in masterful dancing movements or silly hopping around the stage – it happens in the reflection on the performed material. By leaving the choice to the spectator's perception, by simplifying the material down to sheer inactivity on stage, OOUR transfers the activity to the spectator, who is expected to conceptualize dance with his experience of life, including that of dance. By transferring the inactivity on stage to the level of the activity of mind, some space is opened for a new event, an interpretation of the seen as an entirely different picture, freed from dance-related or social codifications. Thus, the stability of artistic positions as a manipulative force is undermined, but so is the one-sidedness of interpretations. Such understanding of dance leads us to the next crucial determinant of OOUR, which is social engagement. Looking back at Chew or OK, I may say that the accumulation of different layers of connotation cannot escape the inscription of all possible constructs of the body, stereotypes of aversion to the corporeal, unworthiness of the body with respect to mental processes, corporality that is conservatively understood through female attributes, the pornographic body, the body of different possibilities or capacities, the inscription of homosexuality, submissiveness, repetitiveness that often indicates repression, socially desirable bodily identifications. The spectator is presented with connotations that he must deal with; he must find a way of processing them, of analyzing petrified constructions down to more acceptable ones, or else to usurp them without rejecting them. Rejecting the existing constructs would create a parallel system of values, but that does not mean that the previous system would be abolished. The option that we are left with is a guerrilla-like corrosion of the existing system and its pre-evaluation. By pushing apart the layers of connotation, we reach the last determinant that has defined OOUR's activity so far, which is corporeal authenticity. In the context of these latter pieces, Chew and OK, art critics have often mentioned shroudedness (Sibila and Govedić). The authentic body that OOUR proposes does not concern only the authenticity of performance, or rather the authenticity of dance expression; it also refers to the performer's existence on stage as a real person. Even though dance takes place in the moment of reception through a double process, namely the artistic inscription and the spectator's interpretation, dance cannot be denied the body as the medium of information transfer. The body may be subject to cultural inscriptions, but it cannot be reduced to the level of an empty plane; it becomes the subject in the production of meaning. Processes of identifying the body in movement are never definite and the body permanently avoids being set into a frame. In that sense, dance and the performing/performer's body come close to performance. OOUR draws attention to the real person in the moment of his or her creative expression, with his or her genuine needs, emotions, wounds, and hopes, the person who performs something, but also asks the question why she performs it in the way that she has chosen.

Moving between these determinants, OOUR has crucially changed the picture of the Croatian scene of contemporary dance. Their rejection of dance has paved the way to a new danceability. Bare survival in the circumstances of disproportional financing of institutional versus non-institutional culture is a true skill and what I truly wish to OOUR for the next five years is to witness a restructuring of power in the existing models of cultural representation.