sarma

This text was commissioned by ImPulsTanz in Vienna and first published on Sarma. It provides a framework for the project Afterwords, curated by Jeroen Peeters for the festival ImPulsTanz Vienna in summer 2002. Every night, three critics in residence shared their impressions and thoughts on the performances immediately after having seen them, in an act of instantaneous writing. During the process of writing, these comments were projected in the theatre lobby and later that night made available on the websites http://www.impulstanz.com and http://derstandard.at.
A selection of the texts written by Jeroen Peeters is available on Sarma, in a slightly edited version, sometimes with a postscript. Two essays (including this one) elucidate the project Afterwords and reflect on its poetical and political implications. To retrieve the material, search under: ‘Afterwords’.

The set-up of Afterwords is easy to describe. Throughout the ImPulsTanz 2002 festival, critics in residence share their impressions and thoughts on the performances immediately after having seen them, in an act of instantaneous writing. Every night three laptops are available in the theatre for an international critic (Jeroen Peeters), a local critic (alternating Lisa-Maria Cerha, Nicole Haitzinger and Martina Huber) and one guest sitting in, mostly an artist from within the festival (choreographers, dancers and teachers). During the process of writing, these comments are projected in the theatre lobby and later that night made available on the websites http://www.impulstanz.com and http://derstandard.at.

However concise Afterwords might appear in these few lines, its effervescence in a particular artistic and political context moves it far beyond the instant, releasing a nebula of questions and reflections. What follows is an attempt to twine a few threads out of my personal experiences during the project.

Criticism fostering proximity?

Scintillating afterimages on the retina. Resonances of a performance in one’s head. Reflections crystallising. Right after a performance, one bursts with a heightened perception, eager to be externalised, uttered in language. Though words are always coming afterwards, they seek to stay close to these initial impressions and thoughts, even close to the movements themselves. Why not look for a criticism that fosters this immediacy, the proximity of a performance?

I formulated this question as an issue before the project began. Indeed, writing ‘fifteen lines in fifteen minutes’ doesn’t leave a broad temporal gap and speeds up the writing to an almost performative extent, as if it seeks to arrive at proximity by imitating the very act of performing, or even by performing itself. On the other hand, writing leaves a gap, logically speaking, for words are always coming afterwards. Reflection and language are nachträgtich, the event is gone when they arrive. I’d say that criticism lives by this paradox of proximity, unlike theory, which wallows in the comfort of distance, and unlike art or performance, which seeks to embrace the event (looking for discomfort?). Incessantly travelling back and forth between event and language, criticism creates choreographic figures in writing, to make the visible readable and the readable ‘eventful’.

Does the temporal proximity in Afterwords enhance a critical proximity as such? I have my doubts, as the thoughts uttered are necessarily only these which already emerge in a verbal structure (as noted by Ludwig Wittgenstein), but moreover one easily falls back upon known ideas, reflections, formulations etc.. Compare it to a dance improvisation (another common paradox): the ‘event’ is mostly not guaranteed by an instantaneous initiation, but achieved through a long process of preparation and rehearsal. Nevertheless, the participants in Afterwords are trained writers, able to perform a critical event in writing. And still, writing the texts in quick tempo leaves traces in sloppy formulations and unaccomplished fragments, giving Afterwords an accidental feel – but is this what we are after? Thus the question is: how does the fact of writing on the spot affect criticism and perhaps even displace certain well-known tools and structures?

Displacing structures

The particular format of presentation utilised by Afterwords, namely its live projection in the lobby, paves the way for a different writing. Not only does one have a clear idea about the audience one is writing for, the shared background allows a transformation of the traditional structure of criticism: one can omit description, for all these people have seen the performance – although one could argue that a trained eye might see more and describe differently. One can omit evaluation, for the spectators know mostly whether they ‘like it or not’ – although one could also argue that a personal and a critical evaluation have different presuppositions. Analysis remains, something that often drew my attention while writing Afterwords and functioned as a means to address the readers/spectators directly.

Remark that the direct dialogue between writer and reader is also to be taken literally: the texts appear on the screens while growing, so they appear firstly as illustrations of the writing process. This aspect of the project was highly fascinating for many readers: seeing formulations emerging, words being crossed out and amended – as if the readers could look into someone’s brain!

Assuming that the spectators leave the performance with some impressions, thoughts and so on, I propose that the writer’s task is to introduce a certain reflection (analysis) that might interfere with the audience’s mental inventory. And moreover: a reflection that could possibly enhance the perception of these spectators and function as a tool which enables them to articulate their own questions in a more precise and profound way. Several people told me Afterwords often succeeded in this. In the words of one reader: "I really like the dryness of your writing (in the sense of not being sticky) and how ‘unexerted’ or calm or cool, or what’s the word I mean, something like gelassen, your thoughts are. They follow a path, one or more, are not forced to say everything about all… they leave space for the reader."

I soon found out that this procedure of writing Afterwords was rather successful, although we seem far away from the instantaneous. Or better, the instantaneous locates itself between writer and reader, as a real performance of reflections. The most successful is not necessarily the most adventurous form of writing though, so I wanted to challenge myself by experimenting with other possible text structures, mostly commuting between several aims while still trying to keep up the specific quality of the dialogue with the spectators/readers – which transforms itself from the usual imaginary dialogue into a tangible one.

The Afterwords were not only projected in the theatre lobbies but also printed on the website, thus available for everyone interested in reading them (being informed about the performance or not, having seen the performance or not). The community of readers turns out to be broader and far more diverse than in the ideal situation sketched before. This is a main problem with Afterwords: only having one text that should serve dual purposes. For uninformed web-readers the Afterwords might indeed appear as odd outpourings and provoke some confusion. Possibly the unruliness of the texts when regarded as critiques is overcome by the fact that one can always read three texts in conjunction. (This might convey a more consistent ‘image’ of a performance, for readers longing to find out whether they should reserve a ticket or not. Well, this is obviously beyond any interest of mine.)

Perhaps the question is: how to fiddle about with the very structure of the critical texts to arrive to a point where they gain autonomy. I mean: texts with a structure intelligible and readable in itself, but leaving behind the canonised ‘description-analysis-evaluation’ version. To list a few examples I tried out:

• Including a reflection about the process of writing itself – which I found important on the opening night, writing about Arco Renz’s Mirth, to initiate Afterwords also as an ongoing process of research about critical writing.
• Using in a general way dramaturgical aspects of the performance to construct the text, as if it were itself a performance score (about Jérôme Bel, Jérôme Bel or Lynda Gaudreau, Document 2).
• Ignorance often occurred as a theme in the writing, sometimes crystallised in the text structure itself (about Hans Van den Broeck/Les Ballets C de la B, Lac deS Singes)
• A circular text structure, which involved a loop and repetition as well as ignorance (Michael Laub, Total Masala Slammer).
• Text based on a particular element related to the location (‘Kasino’ in the case of Jonathan Burrows and Jan Ritsema, Weak Dance Strong Questions)
• Performing text experiments, such as free writing and revisiting free writing (about Ko Murobushi, [Edge 2])

Listing a few possible text structures makes clear there is a moment of choice, where the writer decides which particular form to use, which particular discourse to draw upon. In Afterwords this moment has an instantaneous quality: one has to decide here and now what would be important to write about and then write. For criticism is principally never exhaustive, and ‘fifteen lines in fifteen minutes’ makes this only more apparent. One single detail could have caught the attention of the writer, an accident perhaps, unexpected and thus ultimately performative, which happened in a juncture of time and space that has been shared by spectators/readers and writer (see for example about Heddy Maalem Cie, Black spring). Embracing the event and tracing it – at last, the instantaneous!

A critical stance?

Still several questions are left open, mainly about context. Every night, Afterwords invited an artist from within the festival to write some lines, undoubtedly a different approach than a critical one, an important counter-figure and enrichment (a separate essay is devoted to the experience of the artists sitting in). Three young local critics (all with international professional experience in the field of dance and performance) were given exposure, in part to stimulate and enhance the poor level of dance criticism in Austria, especially by promoting a new generation of writers. Let’s hope Afterwords spurs some changes in the upcoming years – the collaboration with Der Standard is significant in this matter.

One last question which might burn on the tip of your tongue: could Afterwords possibly develop an autonomous critical stance or really make a difference, in light of the fact that it is criticism paid for by a festival to be presented in the very framework of the festival? A few remarks to clarify. The writers have carte blanche and retain their independent status as critics. Always two critical perspectives/opinions are juxtaposed (even three if one includes the guest). The project is developed in collaboration with an external curator and a newspaper, the posters announcing it mention only the writers and the media, not the producing festival. But does Afterwords appear only as appropriated criticism in a political frame and therefore merely affirm a festival policy by performing a recalcitrant role?

One should keep in mind that Afterwords is in the first place about performances, secondly about criticism as such and ultimately about a broader context of operation – I point especially to the current state of criticism in Austria. Afterwords gives a platform to ways of writing that highlight an ideological gap, for they contain an international and contemporary scope, they focus on analysis in order to be receptive in an open-minded way, in short, they act as an inversion of the romantic and reactionary ideology common in Austrian dance and performance criticism. Regarded as such, the mere fact that a festival has the guts to address this context explicitly is brave, and moreover it makes Afterwords a political event – understood in a performative sense.