ROMANIAN DANCE HISTORY

ROMANIAN DANCE HISTORY III -the social dance

2012-02-28T06:43:00.003-08:00

Cluj Napoka being the latest city in Europe to have been stricken by RDH

Romanian Dance History II in Oslo

2011-10-13T07:38:00.000-07:00

In the course of two days artists from all over met in the glory of Romanian Dance History II. Give up hope, leave your values behind and watch dance go down in history: Romanian Dance History II.

RDH and the IMPULS Scandal

2011-07-07T06:17:00.000-07:00

Do not disturb!
Or: The limits of spontaneity

29 July 2010, 6:45 p.m.

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s piece En Atendant

Vienna – It was a moment with great potential. The audience was about to leave after the final applause for the premiere of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s new piece En Atendant when two men came on stage and asked for the audience’s attention.

The two men were no less than Florin Flueras and Manuel Pelmus from Romania, leading figures on the Bucharest dance scene, known for its actionist works and political attitude. They have given a number of performances in Vienna as guests of Tanzquartier Wien and also at prestigious festivals across Europe: Many view Romanian choreography as the avant-garde of Eastern European contemporary dance.

Flueras and Pelmus asked the audience for three minutes to perform the Romanian Dance History. It appeared to be an intervention that had not been pre-arranged with the organisers. The organisers didn’t seem taken by this idea and the two were silenced like troublemakers. It’s a pity that these known artists weren’t able to attract the attention of the audience after the performance – after all, they had waited respectfully until the end of the show.

It seems unlikely that De Keersmaeker would have been against this action, even more so since in her school, P.A.R.T.S., young artists are trained to be freethinkers and not indifferent floor gymnasts. Parts of the audience would surely have stayed and listened to them, too.

The rejection of this request that had been presented in a most peaceful manner illustrates a phenomenon that is not only apparent in contemporary dance. Today, artistic works that are produced and presented on the international market are slick and predictable. The market obviously has no interest whatsoever in productive disruptions, or in the rebellious and unpredictable. However, the Vienna international dance festival Impulstanz is not known for showcasing shallow entertainment. Throughout its history, the audiences at this festival have been confronted with uneasy statements, be it by celebrities like Jan Fabre or by underdogs like Ann Liv Young.

Discursive bonus track

The intervention by the Romanians could have provided the audience with a discursive bonus track. It would have added a somewhat rough Eastern European edge to the perfectionist subtlety of the Western European choreographer’s piece. Perhaps it could have been an ideal complement to De Keersmaeker’s work, which is far too greatly influenced by the sound structures of ars subtilior, a rather formalistic music phenomenon that was common between 1377 and 1420.

The dancers’ movements are too well-formed and perfect, and the presentation of the three-aisled space of the former corn exchange as a dramatic, sacred room is just a step too far. And the way that the period of disaster during the Hundred Years’ War – a time marked by pain, violence, plague and the Inquisition – is now presented as a state of morbid twilight is too pretentious. The vain, strangely snorting Adonis-like figures and athletic, graceful characters build quite a contrast to the straightforward concept of the body in the Middle Ages, as illustrated in book paintings from that time. In this piece, which starts with a stunning C flute solo, De Keersmaeker simply failed to find the substance for a successful dramaturgy.

(Helmut Ploebst / DER STANDARD, print edition, 30.07.2010)

(English translation: Mandana Taban)

The Romanian Dance History haunts the Official Art

2011-05-15T23:53:00.000-07:00

The Romanian Dance History started to haunt the official art (maybe also because there is no stage/space for dance anymore in Romania). Yesterday was the Bucharest National Theater, who knows what's next... beware and be happy!

Romanian Dance History curates Swedish Dance History

2011-04-17T02:14:00.001-07:00

Romanian Dance History doesn't allow to be curated/programmed. So yesterday RDH refused to perform itself. It show up in Modern Dance Theater Stockholm just to curate the Swedish Dance History... And for the book launch...

Romanian Dance History goes (even further) north

2010-10-26T16:54:00.000-07:00

photos by stephen

Tonight Romanian Dance History appeared after the performance of Benoit Lachambre at Oktober Dans festival in Bergen:
A man, dressed in a romanian, traditional, embroidered shirt, entered the stage after the applause and announced that he is Romanian Dance History, and that what was happening was a postspectacle. Nobody from the audience got up or left. He then proceeded to perform the melting ice-cream from The Hammer Without A Master by Stere Popescu. He explained that the rest of the performance was going to be more cryptic as it was choreographed during a time of censorship, and that the audience would have to read between the lines of the movement for meaning. He then enacted the rest of the known choreography before exiting the stage. The audience applauded Romanian Dance History generously!

I'm the romanian dance history and I'm a terrorist

2010-08-31T15:00:00.000-07:00

The Romanian Dance History doesn’t wait politely in line when it feels to enter the stage and participate in an important dance festival. The Romanian Dance History despises the hierarchical protocols of validation and presentation of art and chooses to terrorize all institutions, authorities and hierarchies. The Romanian Dance History definitely prefers to do cultural terrorism than art. The Romanian Dance History is not something that you should identify with or be proud of, it is more something to be afraid of: beware!
So when you are ready, go on stage and say I’m the Romanian Dance History and I want to start a revolution tonight, and do it…

Romanian Dance History goes down in Swedish Dance History

2010-08-30T05:11:00.000-07:00

As the audience stopped clapping and started to leave the auditorium after a performance by Alan Platel at the Gothenburg Festival of Theater and Dance, two people, a young woman and a man, appeared on stage urging the audience not to leave. The two stated "We are Romanian Dance History. This is a bonus track, not a protest, and we would like to share with you four minutes from our short and not so great history." Approximately half of the audience stayed. They then continued to perform "the melting ice-cream" from the 1965-performance The Hammer Without A Master by Stere Popescu. The man continued dancing something that resembled modern movements, while the woman explained how this dance in it's time was revolutionary. The censorship of the communist party had the choreographer state his vision in a subtle and poetic way, and the audience had to read between the movements in order to see it. After performing for four minutes, the two thanked for the attention and as they left the stage the audience gave their approval. Later, at the Swedish Dance History stand, Romanian Dance History joined in on the dance floor.

Romanian Dance History at Tanz im August, Berlin 2010

2010-08-27T08:25:00.000-07:00

The Romanian Dance History strikes again, this time is the great Tanz im August that gets hijacked. But Western History was this time in a good mood, no more kick out of the stage, it has embraced the radical Romanian Dance History.

So the intervention was made right after the Merce Cunningham tribute by Boris Charmatz, at Akademie der Kunste in Berlin. It was a splendid night, double bill with Merce Cunningham and Stere Popescu.

Romanian Dance History at ImpulsTanz 2010, agressive reaction of the big history

2010-08-27T05:02:00.000-07:00

Va rog nu deranjati. Sau: Granitele Spontaneitatii
Anne Teresa De Keersmaekers Arbeit "En Atendant"

"Viena – ar fi putut sa devina interesant. Dupa premiera Annei Teresa De Keersmaekers cu noua piesa "En Atendant" la Impulstanz (Odeon), cand publicul a incetat cu aplauzele, doi barbati au urcat pe scena si au cerut putina atentie.

Nici unul dintre cei doi nu este un necunoscut. Ambii fiind membrii importanti si cunoscuti ai scenei Bucurestene prin munca lor politico-critica. Acestia nu sunt invitati doar in Viena la Tanzquartier, ci si la alte festivaluri renumite din Europa – atata timp cat coregrafia romaneasca este cea mai avangardista in momentul de fata din Est. Flueras si Dumitrescu (nn. Manuel Pelmus) au cerut trei minute pentru “Istoria Dansului Romanesc”.

Trebuia sa fie o interventie despre care organizatorii nu trebuia sa stie. Asta nu se putea intampla, asa ca cei doi au fost redusi la tacere. Pacat ca artisti recunoscuti nu pot in incheierea unei prezentari – nu pe parcursul ei, ci cu respect, la final – sa primeasca putina atentie. Este putin probabil ca De Keersmaekers, in a carei scoala P.A.R.T.S., artistii sunt educati pentru a-si sustine ideile, ar fi fost impotriva unei astfel de actiuni. Iar o mare parte a publicului ar fi fost incantati sa asculte. Impiedicarea unei actiuni clar neagresiva arata un fenomen, care nu exista numai in dansul contemporan.

Productia si prezentarea muncii artistice pe piata internationala este astazi neteda si previzibila, nu pare a fi interesata de tulburarile de productie, rebeliune sau imprevizibil. Impulstanz nu este doar o gazda pentru arta usoara. Pe parcursul anilor publicul a avut de a face cu tot felul de declaratii incomode, de la celebritati precum Jan Fabre pana la Ann Liv Young.

Bonus discursiv

Interventia romanilor ar fi fost pentru public un bonus discursiv. Ei ar fi adaugat subtilitatii perfectioniste a coregrafei vest-europene o declaratie est-europeana mai dura. Poate nu nepotrivita. Deoarece De Keersmaeker s-a lasat in munca ei oricum prea mult condusa de structura musicala a lui Ars Subtilior, extrem de formalista.

Dansatorii si structurile lor de miscare au fost puse in scena prea bine format... prea plastic. Iar aceste timpuri ale dezastrelor provocate de razboiul de o suta de ani care au fost determinate de violenta, ciuma si inchizitie sunt prezentate prea manierat. Dar apar contraste grotesti fata de abstractia plana a imaginii corpului medieval cum de exemplu reiese din vechile picturi. Acestei prezentari care incepe cu un solo de flaut remarcabil, ii lipseste un continut dramaturgic."

Helmut Ploebst / DER STANDARD, Printausgabe, 30.7.2010

(nn. Manuel Pelmus a fost confundat cu Ion Dumitrescu)

Romanian Dance History at the gates of Bucharest Atheneum

2010-08-27T04:55:00.000-07:00

Romanian Dance History is out of the closet!!!

2010-01-02T04:27:00.000-08:00

After getting out of the tribute and homage cultural frame, Romanian Dance History has shaken the prejudice dust out of its body and finally got out of the closet. Heterosexuality was never its game, after so many years of repressed desire it is time to enter the glam with pride.

Consider the dance history from the beginning, starting with the '30s, Gabriel Negry a famous dancer and choreographer, gay, but mostly in the closet!

Trixy Checais, another ghost of the romanian dance history, forced into canal labour in the '50s... the fact that he was gay was one of the tacit reasons for imprisoning him. Gabriel Popescu (the most famous classical dancer of the sixties), Gigi Caciuleanu, Gelu Barbu and of course our favorite Stere Popescu, they all fled in the west for artistic freedom but also for sexual freedom leaving a country were homosexuality was punished by law!! In the eighties also Gheorghe Iancu left the country, bisexual practices were of course unacceptable and "dangerous"!

Gay Romanian Dance History emigrated, the straight history stayed.

But it doesn't stop here, the trend continued and the gay tension was always there, this was not about the cliche homosexual sensibility that didn't fit in the totalitarian communist context, it was about being checked in the ass for anal seizures by the regime (this is not a metaphor), it was about social oppression and political violence.

Whether it was the fascist years of the thirties or the never ending communist period, or the recent transition towards capitalism, nobody talked about it openly but act accordingly, discrimination was, and still is, fierce.

It was always hidden, but yet with incredible effects on the lives of the protagonists of the dance history. At the Bucharest National Opera blackmailing dancers with their sexual orientation was common. After the revolution and decriminalization of homosexual practice the stigmata carried on... this time the prejudice was that if one had any success as a dancer and choreographer (as a man) in the western world it was surely because one sucked dick, as currency. The frustration of the hetero dancers at the Opera was unique in the field of classical ballet. Eastern ballet is a macho culture, make no mistake about it.

On the other hand, the Opera park, which is next to the building, was one of the only unofficial places for illegal love, in the bushes and behind the trees soloists of the opera were "living the dream"!

But no more, it is time to get out of the closet, to smile and dress camp, it's time for male breast feeding!

History wants its revenge, after a century of sexual claustration you can shamelessly shed a tear for the repressed past and enjoy male to male and female to female love.

Today the gay choreographers and dancers are stronger, they are here, in the history, the history is happier. But the artistic community is unaware of this repressed past, let's face it once and for all and put the queen crown!

In this video: Brynjar Bandlien and Paul Dunca doing male breast feeding!

The history is relaxed, finally out in the open!

some of the last twets of stere popescu

2009-11-15T05:27:00.000-08:00

"i'm not a part of history-i'm more a part of mystery.. the mystery of the romanian dance history tonight at Tanz im August Berlin"
"i'll kill myself, censored in capitalism as I was in communism. Romanian dance mystery kicked out of stage @ImPulsDance -i'm happy!"
"i suddenly realized that i want to present my art at @impulstanz.. beware!"

"im the romanian dance history and im happy.. be happy"

"worried about the romanian premiere from tomorrow, seems that they are not ready for my art.. im happy.."

"lets be honest - romanian dance history is very weak, be happy!!"

"history is dead, my art is alive, beware.."

"my art is international i dont want to be part of romanian dance history anymore"

"im still here. stop talking about me like im history! i have a premiere tomorrow.. be happy!"

"nostalgic - i prepare my 45 years commemoration at CNDB, im happy.."

"beautiful morning in brussels.. alone, some stupid suicide thoughts.. im happy"

more here: http://twitter.com/sterepopescu

2009-08-18T03:54:00.000-07:00

Stere Popescu from the performance macu rosu (the red poppy flower) dressed as Chinese pimp symbolizing american imperialism

2009-04-23T04:15:00.000-07:00

2009-04-23T03:54:00.000-07:00

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2009-04-22T04:10:00.000-07:00

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possible titles:
without
i am a flame
a scream from an unbelievable past
not easy to remember this title

After years of censorship Stere Popescu, a romanian choreographer wanted to put his entire life philosophy and art in one dance piece - the hammer without a master. 45 years later we (Brynjar Bandlien, Florin Flueras & Antonja Livingstone) want to do something around this piece. First we tried to reconstruct the aesthetic of the piece based on a documenting process and interviews of the protagonists. During the process we understood clearly that is not possible to get objective information about the piece. But the way how memory function and how the protagonists "performed" the interviews brought a new dimension in the process and oriented the work in the direction of playing with the remembering behaviors and with the relation reality-fiction, present-past. Now we go a step further wanting to be free from this frame and to go with the "reconstruction" at the level of attitude and concept. The approach goes from the level of object at the level of the intimate processes and attitudes that initiated the work, feed it and made the piece possible. We want to have the same burning passionate approach as Stere Popescu, the same intention to integrate our understanding of art, society and human condition, the same anvergure and courage to question and work with the big themes and concepts like love, affectivity, art, sexuality, time, society, transcendence and death. The hammer without a master is just a great pretext for us to go beyond ours deepest life philosophies using past aesthetics and big themes - like in the old times of art.

2009-03-27T05:36:00.000-07:00

what is archive for you?

It is a way to store, organize and evaluate information. This can happen in different ways; through recorded and written language in archives and computers, but it can also happen through physical action and personal history, that in turn shape our way of being and behaving. I think this kind of archive is closer to how the way our brain actually remembers. I will try to describe this process in my own words: When we are subject to a sensation, be that of our sight, smell, hearing, taste or touch, the neurological impulse travels through our nervous system as an electro-impulse to the brain. There it is transformed into a chemical-impulse that continues the travel into the brain. Instead of storing it in a place somewhere, the brain traces the pattern that the electro-chemical impulse takes as it enters the brain. The brain then records the path that this impulse takes as it ricochets through the different centers of the brain.
The next time when one is being exposed to that same sensation, it is the repetition of that same path through the brain that is the actual memory. Not the place to where it traveled. One can say that memory is a movement. But the repetition of that movement is never the exact same as the first time. The path is always slightly different from the previous time this occurred, and subsequently the memory is slightly different each time we remember it. I would like to work with memory, archive and history in the same manner. More like a living brain than a computer.
If this seems unclear I suggest reading “Descartes Error” by the American/ Portugeese neurology scientist Antonio Damasio.

what kind oh history are we talking about?

In this case it is Romanian contemporary dance history, but I think this can be applied to any history; personal, national or world history. I also don’t think it is very interesting to think of memory in national terms. Subjective memory is more interesting on a personal and global term.
In relation to the way I described memory as a movement through the brain, I remember something interesting that happened at the CNDB last year. There was a tribute to the Romanian dancer and choreographer Trixie Chechais* with a panel presenting and discussing his life, his work and the impact he had on Romanian dance. The audience consisted, apart from the usual suspects, of friends, family and colleges of the late choreographer and other people who had known him, worked with him or seen his work. During the evening it seemed that the stories and the photos presented by the panel started to ricochet through the room, very much like the electro-chemical impulses would in a brain. But this was a collective brain, as if a collective memory had been released, resulting in an avalanche of information coming in from all directions. People were talking at the same time, contradicting each other, and even contradicting themselves as their thinking got louder and louder. I remember looking through the room and thinking to myself ‘this is what remains of a lifetime of choreographic work: a lot of memories, emotions and vague notions of space and time’. In fact one of the loudest debates concerned whether one of Trixie’s performances had taken place before or after the infamous earthquake of 1977. I personally think that this messy rapport is the most honest account of dance history one possibly can have.

is each selection of events subjective?

No. Some of the knowledge we gain second hand, through other sources, and we can say that they have an agreed-upon-objective-value. But also these events were once experienced subjectively. Like the impact of war,
a natural disaster or a sexual-revolution can have on one person’s life.
But when an event is being experienced by a large group of people, individually and subjectively, it transforms through the shared experience into a historical fact, a so-called objective fact. But the memory-process is still subjective. Even the second-hand experience can subjectively be experienced, through empathy, one of humankind’s most refine attributes.

is history debatable?

Definitely! It’s only the survivors who write history, and thinking that the ones that didn’t survive took their stories with them in their graves, we should take into account that we only get to hear half of the story.

is each reconstruction a sum of absent events in the sense that when you
reconstruct you always face some absences?

Well, since it is the survivors that wrote history, and we know that that is only half of the story, then sure there must be made room for that absent part of history, doubt, contradictions and even self-contradictions in our reading of the past. After all history is a written story: partly subjectively experienced, partly indirectly experienced, partly fiction and partly absent. I think that we shouldn’t be so afraid to question history, and not bind it too close to our identity. To say that “without a past there is no future” is not true. It’s a trap to self-delusion. Instead we should allow ourselves to leave history behind and live our story now, knowing that there are gaps and absences in our ever-changing memories.

Brynjar Abel Bandlien

2009-02-11T12:23:00.000-08:00

Interview with Florin Flueras

My name is Tugiaru. I was the main character of Ciocanul Fara Stapan. It was a long time ago. The music was strange... to be honest, awful music, by Pierre Boules. It was so awful (goes to the piano and plays an example). The music was live. The orchestra was on stage dressed in colouful costumes, they were naked from the waist and down. Stere was very inspired by Vienna Actionismus.
I was ashamed of what I was doing. I did awful things, extreme piece, traumatical experience. (thinks to himself) I imagined that it would be…I don’t know if I can continue this… this is not art.. it destroyed the live of 12 people this choreography.. it was pornografic and very aggressive..
I remember entering with a hammer (not a real one, of different material) in the right hand.. and I would beat myself in the head. I had to move on a diagonal. I would move back with the music, and repeat the same again. I really damaged myself. Sometimes I had blood in my face. (Zombie movement)
Stere was inspired by Zombie movies. I had to walk around with very fragmentary movements, and I would go around and damage the brains of the other characters. From the hammer came a kind of paint that looked like blood came on the other actors. and now actually the piece started.
In the beginning Stere worked only with me, and with Adina Cezar. We were the main characters. She was wearing a kind of thing made from red bird feathers, covering only the front and back of her pelvis. She wore a wig like a flame on her head. She was very lascivious, erotical, but much more than.. I don’t want to say all the things hat she did in the piece.. it was a scandal!
The performances I see here at cndb now are not as contemporary or strong as what we did. We where much more contemporary.
At the beginning I tried to connect with the music, but I felt I couldn’t make any movement. We were twelve in the piece. I don’t remember but at some point in the performance I was completely naked. Stere wanted us to be very strong, and we tried with our eyes to hypnotize each-other. There were 10 people in two rows, masturbating.
And we came like this, (shows) walking in a kind of zombie-like, vampire-like way. We were completely in a trance. We didn’t hear the music anymore. And this transformed into a very violent movement, and again into a very erotical movement. we expressed everything, at the begining i tryed to conect with the music, to hypnotize each other, i don't here anymore the music, a big light, a zombie love, very sensitive moment, see everything and nothing, ecstatically subtle moment of pure love, exosting the brutal expression, the violence, porno, to came to a subtle sensitivity, pure emotion, Zombie love. A very sensitive moment. We touch subtly. The light came on us. A very ecstatically moment of love. So, going from violent expression toward pure emotion. He wanted to exhaust it into sensitivity.
A complete shock in Paris. the music and light, it was the most strange thing that happen in my life. We felt empowered, we produced a kind of.. it was the most strange experience in my life.
It was very minimalistic. I felt that if I did like this with my hand, I felt like I could touch the audience. That I could burn them. I was transformed, And when I do it together with Adina, it was that same. It was too much for the audience. Some people wanted to stop this, and the other half was in an ecstatic trance.
I don’t know what happened. Stere was a kind of genius or something. He asked us to go into this kind of states. He took a long time to convince me to do this. I thought I managed to get over this event, but now that everything is coming back to my mind, it is too much!
What was the set like? It was with reflectors, reflexes in different colors. The light came from everywhere. Kind of pulsating. The lights were the only set. Slow movement. Very warm light. Affective light. I’ve never seen something like that ever. He was a genius. The music also contributed to this mood. There was a good part and a bad part. Still after so many years I don’t understand what happened.
The dramaturgy was in us. Stere said this, because in both of these two performances, We damaged the brain, into violence, into this extatical, heavenly thing. Our gestures, almost levitating, we’re going in the space, completely changed how the audience were affected, no so careful to be expressive in the beginning. Going from one side to another. Banging with the hammer-violent zombie dance-into sensitive erotic movement.
Big light, like in a movie that he showed us, we feel the others, and from this we became a unity. And we finished in a kind of orgyastic unity. Very beautiful. Finish. It was suddenly over.
It is the only piece that deal with some important issues, like Vienna Actionismus, African Trance, Aggressive. Beautiful sometimes. It’s like a bomb. Like an explosion in front of you.
The piece premiered here, but we did it without the masturbation. The people who was doing the masturbation did instead this movement (shows), it was stylized. He couldn’t come back to Romania after it premiered, because of the big scandal in Paris.
I really don’t like that I can not control my emotion, I laugh, I cry, this I really don’t like. I think its from the hammer or from the light? Maybe it’s from Adina? She was very powerful! Anyhow, I was exposed to something that I couldn’t deal with it, and now I am completely modified. I cannot recover from it.
I like it a lot, this moment of unity with this ..mumbles (the orgy).. it was very beautiful.

2009-02-11T12:07:00.000-08:00

Interview with Brynjar Åbel Bandlien:

The personage was based on the story of Hammer Without A Master which again was based on the poems written by..(I don’t remember.. Rene Char) and the music that was written inspired by the poems by Pierre Boulez.
I was a character of corrupted youth, naivity, innocence. Starting from the beginning of he piece as a strong person, but is slowly during the piece being degenerated. Losing my form, shape, the naivete, being corrupted. From being in very straight, strong positions
with an innocent facial expression, I became more weak in the positions and soft in the movement, my facial expression became more dark.
The movement was illustrating the music and the poems. I never knew if the music had started or if the orchestra was just warming up?!
The piece started by the characters entering one by one, coming from the sides of the stage in a two dimensional way. Placing themselves on stage:
First came Ion Tugiaru who didn’t change his sturdy movements throughout the piece.
My character was more an illustration of what could have happened to Tugiaru.
The Libretto: The first part was an introduction of the personage.
First came Tugiaru. He was wearing a black hat, a white shirt with a black tie drawn onto the shirt. Second came Adina Cezar, dressed as the flame of desire. Red leotard, pointshoes.
(Shows her movement) Then came Magdalena Popescu and me. We were dressed in white. I wore shorts. I don’t remember if I had a tennis racket. Maybe it was inspired by Nijinsky?
Playing with the 2 dimensionality. When the flame of desire interacted with us, we got more corrupted.
Ion Tugiaru moved like this (shows). Then the light changed coming from behind, creating a silhuette of Tugiaru who remained in the position, pulling his head back.
Then from the right came Adina Cezar, as the flame of desire in silhouette at first, then in the lights, wearing a red leotard, like in the mind of Tugiaru.
She was brilliant, fierce, temperamental, seductive, very female, it was a very strong and much appreciated solo. She had also a few, very quick jumps.
Tugiaru wakes up from this dream, and he danced a duet together with Adina who tries to seduce Ion, putting her legs around him. Adina, as the flame of desire, is the only personage that goes through he whole piece, interconnecting the other characters.
After the duet, me and Magdalena, enter from the left, playing tennis with each other.
Tugiaru is still frozen in his silhouette in front. Adina interfere in the game, and the game is no longer a game, but becomes more violent, Magdalena get’s more and more shy, and in the end she refuse my desire, and I end up strangling her. From playing tennis to becoming more violent with the racket, until I do this movement with the arms (shows) towards Magdalena and she pulls back like this (shows), she ends up on the ground and I strangle her like this in a sort of stylistic/realistic stylized movement. Violent. Criminal. Due to the grown-up longing pf sexual desire, which leads me to kill Magdalena Popescu.
After this my movement change. I try o continue the game alone, but my movement are now corrupted, I also change my look, darker. I dissapear to the right.
After this Adina Cezar comes back in and try to seduce Tugiaru again.
Tugiaru who has stood still, frozen downstage, having somehow Magdalena and my duet in mind, is resisting her for the second time. He pretends that he has a kind of hammer with which her beats her, in a stylised way, killing the flame of desire. The hammering accelerated into a kind of movement (shows masturbating-like arm movement)
NO! it was not about masturbation.
I’ve heard that Bejart did a version of The Hammer, where somebody actually did masturbate on stage, but our version had nothing to do with that. There was no trace of any such gesture.
The set was simple. It was a back drop with a picture of a big hammer ready to beat down.
We were taking class every morning, as was obligatory for all dancers at the opera.
Stere worked with us separately, one by one. He told us where to come from, where to look, what kind of movements to do. It was not until the general-/dress rehearsal that we put it all together. I didn’t know what the overall piece was about. Stere didn’t tell us what was in his mind. I just made out a version from my own understanding.
I don’t know if it was expressionistic, modern or neonclasssic. It was a mixture of all.
It was very contemporary! We executed whatever Stere would tell us to do.
We did he same in Paris as we did here in Bucharest. Nobody was used to this kind of movements, neither here, nor in Paris. Here it was considered degenerated art, where as in Paris the piece provoked a scandal. Maybe they thought that it was a propaganda piece, since there was a big hammer on stage like from the communistic hammer and sicle, but it was not meant like that.
It was the first time we got to travel. A lot of people defected and continued their carrier abroad. I don’t remember the role of Gigi Caciuleanu. Maybe he was a young version of Tugiaru, who also got tempted by the flame of desire in his youth?
There were also other dancers, but they were just in the background to enforce the impact
of the main characters, representing the world.

I'll find out her name from Manuel

2009-02-11T12:06:00.000-08:00

Interview with Ion’s aunts

The performance in Paris was a triplebill with Czeheresada, Gizelle and Ciocanul.
This was in a period when Securitate and the sencorship was more relaxed.
Bradiceanu was both the conductor of the orchestra and the director of the opera.
Stere was an architecht. He was friend with all the avantgardists of the time.
They were all interested in doing something else than ballet.

He worked very hard. The period was very long and therefor things were kept undesided. Ciocanul was the debut and the end of Stere’s career. He was an amateur: he would teach them movements one day, and then the next day he would come and change them.
He really had to insist on the movements that he proposed, No ballet movements were allowed, but ”the woman with blue eyes” (Adina Cezar?) might have been dancing on point shoes. He was given space and time: 3 houres a day for six months. All that time for creating a 20-25 minutes long performance. The choreographer/ballet master (Stere) was the absolute boss. He desided how often and how long they would rehearse.
He didn’t necessarily know about the posibility to present the work in Paris when they started, so in that sense he didn’t have a deadline. (not sure)

There might have been a preview of Ciocanul before the tour to Paris. There was possibly some problems with this showing in terms of the work gaining support from the opera and passing the sencorship, but the manager from Paris might have been here and seen it and by inviting it, encouraged a continues support for the creation. I think there was..
We were able to do everything, but the movements was something copletely different.

There was a net with spoons, forks and knifes hanging down from above. The Manequin (Marius) was sometimes playing on this cutlery net like it was a harp. He was listening to it like there was sound coming from it. The duet between the manequin and the opulent woman in which they never touched, no they did touch, in fact it was quite erotic. It was very erotic.

The most beautiful woman in the world (Ion’s aunt)’s dress was move/bleu with a corsett. The dress ended below her brest, and the upper part was of skin in the color of pink.
On her head she had a big wig, Brigitt Bardot-like. She was moving down in grand plie, and her hand movements was like this.. (shows) hand movements abrupt, held still, qick again, a bit like a reptile or a gekko. Dancing like a bird, a bird that excite the others.

Omul Opulenta (Tugiaru) danced after her, very excited. With his hands like this (shows) pack-pack: jumps forward with his lower arms pointing forward from his lower belly,
his hips.

The piece started to take shape when they had the costumes and the set.
It was revolting that Stere didn’t communicate what everything meant.
Stere structured the different characters on the musical score.
There was a libretto, but the piece was more based on sympbols. Not so much on a story.
There was very little interaction between the different characters, at least until Omul de Fier appeared. Then there was interaction between the different characters.

It was with live music, directed by Bradiceanu.

The Rumanian Opera played two nights in Paris, but Ciocanul Fara Stapand was only presented once. There was a different program the other night.
Emediatly after the curtains fell, there were a few moments of silence, stupified, nobody knew how to react. Then there broke out a civil war in the audience where one half were applauding like they were going to break their hands, and the other half was booing, whisteling and shouting dissapproving comments. For Stere, this was a great success.
It was written about in the newspaper.

I (Ion’s aunt) entered into the creation around halfway-through. Stere thought of her as a very classical dancer. She sustained the pressure, and in the end she had a good communication with Stere. He told her to move low in grand plie all over the floor, and to find some feminine movements and to move her hands in a bird-like way. She found it.
-I improvised a little bit.

Musically it was absolutely fixed. We knew what we were doing.
-Ask Adina if she was dancing on point or not. Amato did a few arabesques.
-Someone was wearing basked shoes? I think it was Marius.
There was no décor. There was only this net with cutlery hanging from above, and lights.

Simona Stefanescu had an extra ordinary part. She was the only person that worked with Stere from from the beginning until the end. She didn’t abandon the project. A lot of the people who worked with Stere from the start, left during the creation. You have no idea how diffecult he was to work with: He was nervous, he had tiques, and his hands were shaking like this.. (shows*).

There was a second presentation of the performance in Bucharest after Paris for the polititians, the Securitate and a few audience members who managed to sneak in for the closed showing. There was no big applause or appresiation of he work. It was a kind of finishing off because of the scandal. Stere had defected. Bradiceanu got fired. But still it was not as badly punished as in some other ”trials” where they publicly staged artist spitting on other artists.

Stere had been arrested for being a homosexual earlier in the 50ies, in the same period as Trixi Cascais. He got married with a woman to avoid being replaced to some remote village.
Stere was dancing in the ballet Macu Rosu about Sovjetic-Chineese relation. He played the owner of a brothel and was supposed to represent american imperialism. He had one of his girls try to seduce the russians and to poison them. In the choreography Stere had to beat one girl, and he beat her for real. The girl came of stage in shock.

Interview with Liana Tugiaru

2009-01-23T10:25:00.000-08:00

Interview with Liana Tugiaru

I was not present during the rehearsal. I only saw the presentation at the opera here in Bucharest. It is very hard to define to day what was happening back then. It was not signed? Without the possebility to define the stile. Probably irt was moderen dance. The reaction of the audience waqs to applaud with enthusiasm. They were aplauding the conductor. Nobody would have expected something like that.
Were the political
Manifesting their opinion.
Exposition experiment
In the near of the .. there was a series of performances
What were the theme of the performance?
I think all the elements were shocking: The music. The choreography. The characters emblemated. The theme was how the contemporary/everyday society is destroying the humanity. Socialism. Capitalism. Both.
Gesticulated. All the characters were very expressive. Expresionistic.
There was no special ending. The world is how it is. That was the end. No message.
Ciocanul fara Stapan was about how Omul Razboiului was destroying everyone.
All the humanity.

Ion Tugiaru:
The theme of the piece was that Omul Razboi appeared and created
All the characters in the piece was from everyday life, and he destroyed them all.
Very spectacular. Very well performed by Adrian Georghiu. Moderen dancer.
But he said that if we would have introduced a battement tendu in between the other steps, The rest would just be pantomime. That was an insult in my opinion.
.

Liana Tugiaru:
Yes, we have Adrian Georghiu’s number.
Simona Stefanescu.

Interview with Ion Tugiaru

2009-01-23T10:23:00.000-08:00

Interview with Ion Tugiaru

He was playing the part of Omul Cuier (Clothhanger Man) and was dressed with a suit and fly. One fly in his neck and another under his nose, in the place of a mustache.
He had a big belly.
Very intense. They would rehearse until Stere was exhausted. It was not possible to interveene. Stere wouldn’t allow any balletic influence from the classically trained dancers. When, in the end of the piece, he was crawling, with lust, towards Christina Hammer?, Cel Mai Fromoasa Fata Din Lume, wearing a dress that reached down to her knees, and because she was dancing in grand plie reached all the way down to the floor so that you cannot see her legs, people were laughing of his expressiveness.
Individual characters. No intervention between. No story. It’s what happens in the society. Different types of personage. Omul Cuier moved with his hands and feet very abrupt, animated (Ion shows how). The only duett in the piece was between the Scarred Man and the Ugly Girl, it was the only dance part. An adagio.
The music was very interesting. (Listens to the music) This is the part of Marius Zilea, Omul Cuier. Even if one character is in the focus, all the other characters are also active. It is a kind of composition. I would like to do this performance. To re-create it again.
It is an exercise of memory. Back in 1965. There was only two presentations. Once in Paris with the scandal and one time in Bucharest. Two times was not enough to store it in the memory. It is 30 years ago.
I don’t remember the set, I think the set was done by lights because I don’t remember Stere telling me that here is a door or a chair.. There might have been some suggestions, some objects, but they were following the characters. A standing clothhanger. A siffon. Adina had a strange wig. Pants and a sweater. The women had dresses..?
The lights were very special. A light that didn’t compromise the costumes.
In the beginning all the characters were on stage. Once in a while they would dissappear out of the stage and reappear, one by one. There were 7 characters and there was an ensemble, a chorus in the back of the stage. Like a greek choir that commented upon the actions and situation of the characters, and amplified it by emotions.
When Omul Razboi (War Man) appear on stage, it has such an impact it affects all the other characters. Even if they were a group, all the characters were very distinct from one another. They were very well worked out by Stere. It was very contemporary. It was not classical, not modern. If it would have been presented today, it would have been a success.
Music: Stere stayed home listening to the music and composed the personage very carefully. The choreography was the slave of the music. Stere didn’t allow any freedom.
On every second of the music there was an action or movement. The music was not made for the dance, the characters, so the choreography had to follow the music.
Adrian Georghiu (Omul Razboi) was moving on his knees with brutality, contorsion, with angels, with extaordinary eyes, vicious, mean, falling, attitude, transforming into something else. Very expressive. This part was maybe expressionistic. It was very bold.
This part, character was similar german expressionism : Mary Wigman. War. Destruction.
Expression in the face:
My eyes was evidently , not possible not to express something in the face. The characters were so extreme. It was in the body. The feeling. The participation was total. All the personage were using their facial expression.
Stere would ask Ion; Don’t you feel it? Don’t you feel anything?
The world was very oppressive in 1965. Stere was very aware of what was happening in Romania and in the occident. He was a cultured man. He has specially observant eyes to understand what happened around him, and that together with the music was the inspiration to the work.
There was a big dispute between the french minister of culture and Pierre Boulez.
It became also an artistic dispute. There was a conflict. An accident. The terrain was already ripe for a scandal. Also the Hammer was shown after Magdalena Popa had won a goldmedal for her interpretation of Giselle, and the audience weren’t expecting to see such a different performance.
The Parizian audience was used with scandals. From Nijinsky to Bejart.
We came with a choreography that was absolutely new to them. They had never expected something like this to come from Romania. Even though the Parisian audience , the french is used to Debussy. And the music of Boulez was
This was the time before Cunningham, Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown and dance postmoderen.
Stere said to Ion Tugiaru; Don’t you understand what is happening? When the audience here in Paris, who are used to scandals are reacting like this, it means that is something happening to them. The piece has moved something . Don’t you understand that that’s why they are upset. Half are applauding, and half is booing.
The performance was well done, and the interprets were excelent. The parisan audience understood that. Besides the choreography and the music, they reacted to the quality of the performers. So in the end, after all the turmoil, they all clapped for the performance.
The 7 Characters:
Omul Opulent (Opulent Man) Ion Tugiaru and Fata Opulent (Opulent Girl) by Simona Stefanescu, Omul Cuier/Mannequin (Mannequin) Marius Zilea and Fata Frumosa (Beautilful Girl), Omul Razboinicul (War Man), Fata cu Urata ( Ugly Girl) and
Omul cu Cicatrice (Scarred Man)
Each character was presented individual. Between the War Man and the other character, there was no confusion.
The Ugly Girl meets the Scarred Man, and because they both have their problem.
This is a duet.
The greatest symbol was the cloth hanger stand of the Mannequin, who is being very mechanic/machine like, has a bold head, and has things hanging off of him, from his belt, a clock here, a chain there, and he was amazed when he met someone, but very quickly he would go back to his mechanical movements and would disappear.
The Mannequin and Beautiful Girl have a little duet.
The Opulent Man, as I said, was like an opulent man of today, going with his Jeep where he wants, when he wants. With a pappilon under his nose and a big belly and gestures like...
The Opulent Girl was like Josephine Baker, with an high hairdo and exotic make-up, and
shoes with very high heels, like nails. Simona Stefanescu was concerned because the fashion in Paris at the time was half-high heels.
The Beautiful Girl rejected The Opulent Man, because she preferred the Mannequin.
Nobody can claim to have contributed to the choreography, because Stere didn’t allow any interpretation. (Leni.. draga..?)
After we came back to Bucharest from Paris, and Stere and Gabriel Popescu (the first soloist of the opera) had defected, we were invited to a briefing/press conference at Casa Scentei (House of the Press) with the politicians, I remember with regret, that it was a mistake, because all the artists were exposed to strong aggressive from the politicians.
And one of the politisians said that the music was like a toilet flush. Tugiary was sad about this, because he was one of the few dancers who liked the music. They were all destroyed after this. The director of the opera and conductor of the orchestra fainted.
It was after that we came back we presented the performance here as degenerated art, it was for for free, no ticket sales, for anyone who wanted to see it. A lot of people came. The people in Bucharest had heard of the scandal. After the performance, when the curtains closed, there was an enormous applause. It was strange because the audience here was used with classical ballet. The president of the composers union got up from his seat, and was very upset, because the demonstration to show that this was bad had failed.
I am sad not to have appreciated it back then, but if I had had the chance to do it again,
I would have danced it now. If it had been filmed, I would have re-created it exactly.
I was sharing dressing room with Stere, and if it was something Ion didn’t like was that Stere was very explosive, nervous, he was constantly displacing himself. Some rehearsals were canceled because of his temper. As I said; he was much more cultured than the rest of the dance community. Many french choreographers have come here and influenced the dance scene here after that, but he did thid 30 years ago, before Christian Bastin came.

Interview with Adina Cezar

2009-01-23T10:21:00.000-08:00

Interview with Adina Cezar

There was in 1965 an opening up in the cultural field. This allowed Stere Popescu, a choreographer without a traditional classical background to enter as a choreographer at the opera where he was performing character roles in the classical ballets.

Stere Popescu was a poet and an architect. He was discovering and exploring new movement languages. He was an idealistic person with high ideas about the free world. He was jewish, homosexual, universial and a spiritual person. A real man. All of this helped him, inofficially, to get the oportunity to create The Hammer Without A Master for the opera.

Music:
-The first meeting with Boulez was really a shock. Boulez was really hard.
”The music sounded like I was in the kitchen and something was broken”

-It was impossible to take the mood from the music.

-In order to work with the music, we listened to the different musical frazes with Cornel Cezar on the magnetophone (reel to reel?), Stere showed us the movement frazes, and then we repeated the movements/steps over and over until we knew them.
Respecting every sound, every pause. Like a machine.

-Recorded music for the rehearsals. Live music for the performances.

-Characters: Fata Urata si Sensibila (Ugly and Sentitive girl) Adina Cezar
Omul cu Cicatrice (Scarred Man) Petre Ciorca, Amato Cociulescu
Omul Cotidianu (Everyday Man)/Omul de Fier (Iron man) Adrian Georghiu
Cel mai frumoase fata din lume (the most beautiful girl in the world)
Omul Cuier (Clothhanger man) Ion Tugiaru

Costumes: -The Most Beautiful Girl In The World had a costume that was like a bird..
The dress until her feet.. (shows with her hands how the dress was out from her hips). You can’t see her legs.

Movements:
-There was no improvisation at the time. Stere was developing the characters and he liked to work with how you look. The dancers were working like puppets. No freedom, like a machine. Not frazed. Incontinous. Because he was an architect, everything was like in a design. It was a mixage of different moods of arts.

-Fata Urata si Sesibila had to hold a 4th arabesc in 90 degrees angle. ”If you’re asking what was happening to me, I can’t remember because I was not lucid. I was like in a passion.”

Omul Cotidianu/de Fier was like a machine that take and eat everybody. A metaphore of the society that eat you.

-The Most Beautiful Girl In The World had to move all over the space in grand pliée,
like a georgean dancer, dancing low on the floor, toc toc toc toc toc toc toc toc. Very special in images. Very diffecult.

-Duett between Fata Urata and Omul Cicatrice was for the rumanian dance sceene like an atomic explotion.

Dramaturgy:
- The Libretto/the storyline was like this; the different coupples were intimate with eachother in the first part of the piece. The Ugly and Sensitve with Scarred Man, Omul Cuier with The Most Beautiful Girl in The World
- Then after The Ironman/Cotidianu appeared, everybody started to move like machines. No feeling. No brain. The characters entered into the system (capitalist/communist). Destroying everything human in them. This was the ending.
”I don’t remember if we dissapear. Or fall on the floor. We were anhilated.”

The Scandal:
-There was a presentation at the Opera in Bucharest before the piece toured to Paris.

-It was a scandal because it was not in the direction of the party (communist).
One was homosexual. Another was high ranking in society and was married with an actress. Stere was contemporary with his time.

-The Avant premier was a success. People knew that it would go to Paris.

-Nobody in Paris could expect that Romania could have produced a performance like this. Half of the audience was screaming and the other half was applauding and shouting.

-There was no presentation of The Hammer after the scandal in Paris. When they came back the performance was cancelled. The conductor fainted when he was fired. Everybody was afraid.

-The pressure of the atmosphere in the Opera affected the creative process of the piece.

-”I was in a state of a tranze”.

-Stere Popescu created the set. But Cezar doesn’t remember what it looked like.

-” You must feel like on a mountain looking down”. It was like I was on a mountain and howering over an abyss.

-Everybody before Iron man appear With intimacy f.ex. Cel Mai Fromoase Fata Din Lume with Omul Cuier. The Scarfaced man with the blessed something. The broken.
When Cotidianu came, everybody started to move like machines. No feeling. No brain. We enter in the sistem. Destroying everything human. This was the ending. I don’t remember if we dissapear. Or fall on the floor. We were anhilated.

-I don’t like the work. But I am thankful to Stere for giving me a hard time, because I developed very much after this. The fascinatian with Stere was like a drug.

poems by Stere

2009-01-21T06:54:00.000-08:00

translation of Stere's poems

2009-01-20T06:58:00.000-08:00

2009 translations and transvaluations

2009-01-03T10:39:00.000-08:00

THE HAMMER WITHOUT A MASTER
by Rene Char 1934

common presence

You are pressed to write,
as if you were late on life.
If it is like that, make a solemn procession to your sources.
Hasten yourself.
Hasten yourself to transmit
- your part of the marvellous rebellion of wellbeing.

Effectively you are late on life,
the inexpressible life.
It is only at the end that you accept to unite yourself.
that which you refuse everyday from beings and things
that which you obtain laboriously,
from this, from that, some emaciated fragments.
To the end with thankless battles!
out of these, everything is a submission to agony, a coarse end.

If you meet death during your labour,
receive it like your sweating neck receives a dry handkerchief,
incline your self to it,
if you want to laugh-offer your submission, never your arms.
You have been created fro such precious moments of communion.

Modify yourself,disappear without regret
at the mercy of that smooth rigor,
as district after district the liquidation of the world proceeds
without interruption
without misgiving.

Swarm with the dust
No one will disclose your union.

personal and unprofessional translation from the French
humbly submitted to your research by
a.livingstone

after viewing the flame of desire

2008-11-19T08:39:00.000-08:00

After viewing the first video of the rehearsals of the recovered traces of Ciocanul... or Marteau.sans.Maitre, and the newly explored personal approaches to expressionism in dancing, i found myself somewhat disturbed and somewhat satisfied.

I am satisfied by:( the perhaps unintentionally expressed ) the activity which was re-presenting in a very plastic and literal way, the title of the piece.

close up image of the hammer, zoom out of camera and set up of frame,

" am I at the boundary?"

"where is the boundary? can you still see me here? here? no thats too far? ok."

the figures of two people having a conversation (inaudible), which seemed very focussed on a plan of attack...communicating the rules to each other, establishing an understanding of expectations, desires to be realized, explored...

and then,

dissappearing,

and then

slowly and deliciously the hammer appears, and so does its lack of master!

I am satisfied by: the go for it attitude that the whole thing is standing for, your generosity of spirit, and inquisitiveness.

I am satisfied by: the flame of desire dance, the being mad ( both meanings) and happy at the same time dance and the performers explaining, breathlessly what they were doing, and finishing their work.

I laughed a lot and enjoyed this gift of a chance to look in on an intimate work in progress.

I am disturbed by: a lack of concentration on knowing (yet) the kind of eye which is seeing into the research of the piece and the kind of eye that is looking forward to performing something.

I asked this in our first skype meeting,

are you interested in parody?

are you interested in actually attempting to totally reproduce a gesture a short sequence? why?

are you wanting to show different approaches to re-covering a lost work?

are you interested in just playing around with what notions the title brings forth?

are you interested in just playing around with what notions the rumored theme of "Masturbation and the inability to control sex" brings forth?

its a rich situation very very layered, so i find it really important to focus in carefully.

i ask the basic disturbing questions:

if the viewer knows nothing of the research of the piece, nothing of its title or supposed theme, nothing of romanian dance, nothing of dance?

what is being transmitted?

...many long deaths, yearning for love, exhibitions of people apeing the movements of someone with autism, straight up in ability to express an inherent frustration...

so this is exciting to me..is one approach to working with expressionism showing the difficulty (ie: representing) one has in expressing something in life

or is there also the possiblity that one just

expresses something

ie : i sit here on the edge of my bed i handle my dick/ clit, i ejaculate, im still, im silent.i expressed it all.

I similarly expressed interest in understanding what makes a scandal? and Florin agreed but then what..?

I am still studying this and cannot report very well on this either.

I know that we would have better understandings by chatting in person about all this.

But i enjoy the limitation of distance.Our thoughts and approaches to doing this, have the opportunity to become well articulated to one another . If we can make these efforts now, I think we can enjoy agreeing and disagreeing and find it all fruitful for the process etc.

disturbed by: what is being assumed here about how one works on this together?

"the assumptions" could be maintained in good faith as good operating intuitions

it seems nonetheless essential. at the outset of a really special project to articulate these....

lets call them,

desires.....

Im wondering why we imagine expressionism after a certain historical style,

even when we are sourcing a performance from the past...what examples of this can we find today in different art forms?

(im wondering what you will think of my response dance *

of two zombies crying out searching in dead hunger for live flesh, stumbling around in an ornate anglican church in a forgotten village..)

I love being invited into this process with you.

I really adore you both as artists, and I have good feelings and energy for this inquiry.

My flame of desire is flickering...

I want to come to terms with approaches and visions and attractions/motivations

to doing this work

to clearly identify the different branches of a tree

understanding the practice for practice sake dancing/writing/brainstorming etc.*

to come to understand the governmentality of the source work

to come to understand the governmentality of the project now

id like to have an overview of the projects' body.

1) research and the history of M.s.M:

rendering texts and videos that could hold their own as art objects.

2) developing a collective approach on working on it:

including articulating independant approaches which can be linked together for making some kind of performance.

3) producing this performance.

this is a primary attempt to contribute to the process, excuse the rough edges...

this is also an invitation for some text of Manuel Pelmus early discovery about M.s.M

to enter the blog..

antonija livingstone, montreal

Questions for The Hammer Without A Master

2008-10-29T03:48:00.000-07:00

Mr and MrsTugiaru, Gigi Caciuleanu, Magdalena Popa and Mrs Cesar
(interview object in a theater. bring a recording of the music to the interview)

1: How did the piece start?
2: What/ how many characters were there in the piece?
3: How did the costumes reflect the idea of the characters?
4: What were the costumes?
The music by Pierre Boulez is quite abstract.
5: What was the relation between the music and the dance?
6: What were the movements like in general? Abstract? Concrete? Symbolic?..
7: How were the movements of the choreography generated? Stere Popescu made and taught them? You were associating to your character freely? Through improvisation?..
8: Do you remember any movements or movement sequences?
9: What was the set/ mise en scene/ like?
10: What were the lights like?
11: What was the dramaturgy like? A story told? Following the music? No red thread?..
12: What were the order of events?
13: How did the piece end?
14: How long was the piece?
15: What were the avant guard-elements of the piece?
16: What caused the scandal in Paris? The music? The choreography? The theme?..
17: What was the theme of Ciocanul Fara Stapand?

Expressionism

2008-10-18T03:41:00.000-07:00

Expressionism is the tendency of an artist to distort reality for an emotional effect; it is a subjective art form.

googled

2008-10-17T08:34:00.000-07:00

As a consequence of a relatively cultural thaw, the Opera ballet made a famous tour in Paris in 1965 with the work “The hammer without master” by Pierre Boulez, with the daring choreography of Stere Popescu. From that moment on, more and more ballet dancers chose to go on with their career abroad. Over the decades, most of them have still been working as ballet masters in Canada (Magdalena Popa, Amatto Checiulescu, Sergiu Stefanski), Italy (Gheorghe Iancu, Marinel Stefanescu , Stefan Banica, George Bodnarciuc), USA (Marin Boeru, Pavel Rotaru), Sweden (Aurora Rotaru), Germany (Cristina Hamel, Rodica Simion , Luminita Dumitrescu), Spain (Gelu Barbu) orchoreographers (Gigi Caciuleanu, France).

2008-10-17T06:17:00.000-07:00

The latest neurological studies points out how the body is the base of any emotion and finally of entire mind configuration. But, paradoxically, we are used to express an emotion - first to be produced in our mind and after to make it visible in the body. In performative arts the tendency is to take this mechanism for grounded or to prefer to totally avoid the work with emotions - to work only at a conceptual level. We want to question this - what's happen if we work with expression, with emotions, but reversing the approach of affectivity by going from the body to the mind, in a way from outside to inside.

Due with ours main approach to start from an exterior situation or inspiration we are very interested in finding references. And this references came especially from the expressionism. And also from a particularly period of time. We find challenging to place ourselves and what we are doing in relation with another period of time with a contemporary approach. Thats why we find interesting the Manuel Pelmus and CNDB proposal to work with Stere Popescu's choreography The Hammer Without A Master.

Another thing that trigger ours interest is the fact that the performance cannot be reconstructed, we have only some traces from that performance. For instance we know that the performance produced controversy and a scandal in Paris. We are interested what produced that collision and eventually how can be translated in our time. So a possible approach of that performance is to question or to try to reproduce the effects. Another thing that we can have are some subjective perspectives about the performance from people that watched or performed in it.

the hammer without a master

2008-10-17T05:58:00.000-07:00

”Ciocanul fara Stapan” (The Hammer Without A Master) - a contemporary creation.

A proposal for the ERSTE Bank project for documentation of Romanian contemporary dance during the 50ies and 60ies initiated by Manuel Pelmus.

This proposal comes out of the common interest that Florin Fluerasi and Brynjar Bandlien share in expressiveness and affect in a performative context, using external, pre-existing images to create new performative experiences.
In this project we would like to use as a reference the contemporary dance performance ”The Hammer Without A Master” by Stere Popescu that was premiered at the romanian opera in 1965 and later created a scandal in Paris.

Since much of the original choreography is lost, and a fully restored version of the work is impossible, we are interested in gathering all the information which is availeble and make a contemporary work. We will use the remains of the original piece, but with tools and aproaches contemporary of today. Much inspired by the approaches used in the work ”Last Seen” by Sophie Calle.

In 1990 Calle was invited to exhibit in a museum in Boston where six famous painting were stolen. After having interviewed the museum guards, cleaning personell and other employes of the museum who had been seeing the stolen paintings on a daily bases, Calle placed the descriptions of the paintings in the frames where the original works had been hanging. In this way, the performativity of the works became visible. Not the original works, but the intepretations of them.
We are interested in sampling poses, costumes and makeup from existing footage, frazes of choreography from descriptions of movements given by participants of the original work, dynamics from descriptions of qualities found in written critics of the work and any other piece of information we would be able to gather from statements by other vitnesses such as audience members.

Expressionism: Expressionism is the tendency of an artist to distort reality for an emotional effect; it is a subjective art form.

Expansion: Starting from the extremities: pre-set choreography, costumes, make-up, props, music and set design, facial expression, hand gestures, poses taken from pictures, paper critics, interviews and other historical sources, we would aim to explore even further. Since a restoration of the original choreography is not possible, we wish not to try and make a piece at all, but rather create an expanding structure based on the scraps of material, and explode their possible intepretation and meaning even further. For every new element, action, part introduced, the possible intepretations of meaning are opening up instead of narowing down e.g. every part we introduce, also introduce a myriad of new possible readings of the piece.
The actions stay concrete, but the context keep opening up.

Affect: Our aim would be for the performance to establish an affective expression, a mode of performing these expressions that transforms from being effective to becoming affectiv over time.

Working from the periphery and aiming for expansion, the only place where the different elements meet and are held together is the body.
What bodily state appears when confronted with so much external information?
If the body is given time in these conditions, will it adapt and form new behaviour/states?
What happens to a spectators perception when the references don’t add up and narow down, but are rather continuously being added to?
How will a spectator perceive a piece in which the only direct communication is happening on a body to body affective level underneath all the visual input?
The work process will last over a period of three months, in november 2008 and february and march 2009 at the CNDB in Bucharest.
The work will be based on the experiences we make during the process and upon the document’s that are available from the pre-existing piece ”The Hammer Without A Master”.
The process will culminate in a performance by the name”The Hammer Without A Master”.
The participants in this work are Florin Flueras and Brynjar Bandlien (see CV’s).
For the last two weeks of the process we would like to invite Antonija Livingstone, the canadian dance artist who presented her work at the CNDB last june (see CV), to join the final stage of the work process and to join us in the performance as a guest.

Brynjar Bandlien

2008-08-12T04:31:00.000-07:00

After years of censorship Stere Popescu, a romanian choreographer wanted to put his entire life philosophy and art in one dance piece - the hammer without a master. 45 years later we (Brynjar Bandlien, Antonja Livingstone & Florin Flueras) want to do something around this piece. First we tried to reconstruct the aesthetic of the piece based on a documenting process and interviews of the protagonists. During the process we understood clearly that is not possible to get objective information about the piece. But the way how memory function and how the protagonists "performed" the interviews brought a new dimension in the process and oriented the work in the direction of playing with the remembering behaviors and with the relation reality-fiction, present-past. Now we want to go a step further - to do the "reconstruction" also at the level of process of working, attitude and concept - to go from the level of object at the level of the intimate processes and attitudes that initiated the work, feed and made the piece possible. To have the same burning passionate approach as Stere Popescu, the same intention to integrate our understanding of art, society and human condition, the same anvergure and courage to question and work with the big themes and concepts like love, affectivity, art, sexuality, time, society, transcendence and death.
The main strategy is to work at all this layers; content, material and context, horizontally and in parallel.

Intentions:
-to not be focused just to do a piece but also to document the process of working (we've started a blog in which we mix our working process with that of Stere in 1965 ciocanul.blogspot.com).
-to do a real time documentation of a fictional present past
-to dislocate the present and the past (to document the past like is happen in the present, and the present like is history)
-to see how the history is in a way repeating, how is actualizing in the present
-to deconstruct the way how history function in order to create an identity (especially national)
-to play with personal identity to take them identity and to give them ours - not only on stage to extend this switch also online and maybe in real life. (as a result we can have a dead romanian choreographer from 60's who share his working process on twitter and facebook. twitter.com/sterepopescu)
-instead of reconstructing to see which is the contemporary equivalent for what they did then (how we can create a scandal now?)
-to use the hammer without a master as a pretext to go beyond ours deepest life philosophies using past aesthetics and big themes - like in the old times of art.

2008-06-18T03:41:00.000-07:00

Resumé

FLORIN FLUERAS (1978) is working and playing with performative behaviors, collaborating with artists like: Antonija Livingstone, Brynjar Bandlien, Marten Spangberg, Tor Lindstrand, Ion Dumitrescu, Jennifer Lacey, DD Dorvillier, Eduard Gabia, Fanni Futterknecht a.o. He worked as author and coauthor in projects like: a brave search of the ultimate reality, where life has no value, dead sometimes has its price, cooperativa performativa, postspectacle trilogy, Sweat, now you see the title, heaven, unu unu, little more real than necessary, process in progress. Presented his work in contexts like: Tanzquartier Wien, DeSingle Antwerp (Bouge B Festival), Impulstanz Viena, Springdance Utrecht, tanz schritt weise festival Graz, etc. He studied choreography at UNATC and psychology at Tg. Mures University. Has worked as a social worker, psychologist, web designer, studied film directing, ex glider pilot in the Romanian Team.

BRYNJAR BANDLIEN (1975) got his education in his native Norway at Staten Balletthøgskole in Oslo, and at Ballettschule der Hamburgische Staatsoper in Germany. In 1995 he joined Nederlands Dans Theater 2 in Den Haag with which he toured Europe, USA and South Africa. After 3 years in NDT 2 he started working as freelance dancer and choreographer with Manuel Pelmus, (Punct Fix) Philipp Gehmacher (Mountains are Mountains), Raimund Hoghe (Tanzgeschichten, Young People, Old Voices and Swan Lake, 4 acts), Vera Mantero (Until The Moment When God Is Destroyed By The Extreme Exercise Of Beauty), Antonia Livingstone and Heather Kravas (a Situation for Dance and No More Village). He presented his piece O in march 2006, and the piece Still in may 2008 at Dansens Hus in Oslo. He is currently working on a long term project named Mobile, with 7 different artists, on 4 different continents to be presented at Dansens Hus in Oslo in november 2010. In june 2008 Bandlien curated Zilele Strimbe (Crooked Days) in the course of 3 weeks at CND, Bucharest in the program Amprenta. He is also giving workshops for children in the Rahova/Uranus neighbourhood in Bucharest in the frame of Ofensiva Generozitatii organized by Maria Draghici and Irina Gadiuta. Since 2004 Bandlien has had his base in Bucharest, Romania.

STERE POPESCU (1920) was born in Galaţi. He got his dance education at the Floria Capsali school in Bucharest, and studied at the same time architecture. In the 40ies he was made first soloist at the Romanian Opera. Popescu published poetry in the magazin Fundaţiilor Regale and he also published texts on dance theory in Luceafărul and Contemporanul. In 1949, following the process of “cultural cleansing” initiated by the comunist party, of which Popescu refused to become a member, he was ousted from the Opera and sentenced to jail. After 1960, when Romanaia had a moment of liberal rule, Popescu was released and given back his position at the Opera. He also worked for the Romanian National Broadcast, and was given the chance to create performances. The director of the Opera, Mihai Brediceanu, concidered him talented and gave him the oportunity to create "Ciocanul fara Stapan" (The Hammer Without a Master) which was premiered in Paris on the 10th of november 1965. It was a scandal. After the premier, Popescu, together with half of the company, defected to the west. The other half of the company was met with severe criticism upon their return to Romania, and after a 'trial of shame' Brediceanu was fired. Popescu moved to London and started to teach at Central School of Art. He created two pieces for the Rambert Company. In march 1968, two days after the premier of his last work, Stere Popescu comitted suicide.

ANTONIJA LIVINGSTONE (1971) grew up in the midst of her family’s itinerant gold mining projects in Northern Canada. She believes in making performances that question her own boundaries and conceptions
of what bodies can do and how they can be seen - to contribute to evolving notions of presence and play with self and other. Her disarming dances continually search out and activate the real within the imaginary, and the imaginary within the real. Her performance practices have included classical ballet, drag-kinging and martial arts. More recently, she teaches to share her approach to making "- a
situation for dancing" and also acts as dramaturge for other performance makers. Internationally, Antonija has collaborated and toured with choreographers Benoit Lachambre, (Confort et Complaissance, Not to Know, Influence) Meg Stuart (Visitors Only, Somewhere in Between, Auf DenTisch) and Vera Mantero (Until the Moment God is Destroyed by the Extreme Exercise of Beauty). She has also worked with colleagues Frans Poelstra, Boris Charmatz, Steve Paxton, Lisa Nelson, Hooman Sharifi, Emil Hrvatin, Mark Tompkins, Jennifer Lacey and Nadia Lauro, amongst others, in a variety of improvised performance contexts. A laureate of the Pepinieres Europeenes desJeunes Artistes 02, her work has been supported through an artistic residency at Les Bains :: Connective Socio-artistic Laboratory, Brussels 99-03 and the Canada Council for the Arts. Since 04, Antonija has toured Canada and Europe with her celebrated solo “the part”, a transformance with the body of Father Christmas. Additionally, she has collaborated with artists Jonathan Inksetter,(son of wood) Antonia Baehr (Cat Calendar) and with Heather Kravas (- a situation for dancing. (K)NO(W) MORE VILLAGE). She lives and works in Montreal, on an island in Sweden and produces her dances in France.