Death Meets the Absoluteness of Youth

Solo performance by the French artist Rachid Ouramdane entitled Les Mort Pudiques (Coy Deaths) is an extraordinary work about death. For his work, Ouramdane has examined how death is dealt with on websites dedicated to young suicide bombers and different ways of committing suicide.

Death is a difficult subject. On the one hand, it is ever present in the reality dominated by the electronic media but, on the other, it has been almost completely shut out of everyday reality. However, Rachid Ouramdane does not present death as abstract or faceless but rather as simultaneously personal and political. Ouramdane creates a mood in the performance through which handling of such subjects as identity or death remains concrete, specific and private. The performer’s background as a dancer and a Frenchman of Algerian descent is also strongly present in the performance.

SYMBOLS OF DEATH

Ouramdane arrives on stage in jeans and a T-shirt with a whitened face. At the same time, video screens show him wiping his face. With each wipe of the towel the face of the performer turns increasingly black until it is completely black. Masks are often symbols of death on the stage. Hiding or covering the face repeatedly reflects the complex networks of identity and roles.

The political nature of the performance is subtle and finds its expression in various ways. Through pantomime Ouramdane presents various stereotypes of Arab men. The stage is framed by a boxing rink made of garden hoses with liquids of various colours running through them. At times they are the colours of the tricolour, at others just blood red.

ABSOLUTENESS OF YOUTH

Les Morts Pudiques is a provocative and beautiful piece, in which action, deeds, videos and visuals lean heavily on the music, lighting and the presence of the performer. It is based on Roland Petit and Jean Cocteau’s popular ballet Le Jeune Homme et La Mort. The ballet created in 1946 is set to Johann Sebastian Bach’s music. Ouramdane’s performance begins like Cocteau and Petit’s ballet with Bach’s music but the musical range of the performance varies from electronic music to North African drumming and symphonies.

In his work, Ouramdane connects death to, for example, motorcycles, boxing and political fanaticism. Deaths of young men in the East and the West are parallel expressions of a power stronger than culture, maybe the absoluteness and tragedy of youth. The song in the latter part of the performance speaks of youth, greenness and strength which have been exchanged for the darkness and weakness of the deepest sea.

Human in the Main Role

One of the main ideas for ARS 06 is to examine art expressing humanity. When it comes to the performing arts, instead of humanity you could talk about the centrality of humans because it is precisely the presence and living interaction that are inherent in their nature. Energy created by different levels of expression and communication in the theatre is precisely what brings people together and creates an impression of power. The ARS performers’ presence and ways of expression vary sometimes wildly but at the centre of all the works is a human: narrator, dancer, performer, actor.

We have considered the power of a performance as trying to restore human strength and unity. At the same time, the belief in the body is also restored, not as a means and locus of consumption but as a world in which energies and powers are to be seized. We have attempted to make the ARS 06 performances an entity dealing with the culture, even cults, of the body and spirit. It offers a view of a culture dominated by sacrifice, martyrdom and self-denial. Performances combine the personal and political in ways which do not avoid human vulnerability but rather make it visible.

MESSIAH GAME

The German choreographer Felix Ruckert is a reformer and experimenter, who does not shy away from extreme solutions when examining taboos, boundaries and conventions. His performances often leave long-lasting effects on the spectators. Messiah Game consists of five interpretations of subjects drawn from the New Testament. The scenes get their names from the Bible: Baptism, Temptation, Last Supper, Crucifixion and Resurrection. Any one of the eleven dancers can take the place of the chosen one, the Messiah, during the performance. The power struggle emphasises the themes of subjugation and submission. According to Ruckert, master and servant meet in the character of the Messiah.

PLACEBO

In Ruckert’s other ARS performance Placebo, three dancers care for volunteer participants on special table. The performers have at their disposal packages of various sizes and shapes filled with glass, sand, metal, rubber, plastic and liquids. With the help of these packages the performers convey the experiences of, for example, weight, hardness, and softness to the participants. The physical properties of the objects are similar to the dynamics of the dancers as they move in space and time. With them the ‘therapists’ care for their patients. Placebo is based on the latest research on the connection of mind and body. The placebo effect would seem to mean that creativity has an important role in healing.

LOVE, ACID AND PEANUTS

In his work, the Canadian choreographer Daniel Léveillé examines being alone and loneliness. Léveillé seeks the truth about loneliness and especially about how it is manifested in human relationships. In Amour, acide et noix four naked dancers are on the stage. The work has been stripped bare of all aesthetics and only essential movement remains. Almost in a classical manner, Léveillé’s work is based on duets, trios and quartets, in which the dancers touch, lift and carry each other. Even though it deals with desire and longing, the performance is completely stripped of seductiveness or need to please. For Léveillé, nudity is a costume, a deliberate means to expose the relationship between movement and the body also on an anatomical level.

SWEET

Sweet – An evening with Charlotte Engelkes is actors’ theatre. It is Charlotte Engelkes’s evening in many senses. It is a story of passion, fear of sugar, the past in the entertainment industry – and of doing good. In the role of a surprise performer, she often gets herself in embarrassing situations, such as hiding in a birthday cake and having to wait in the kitchen. The wife of a director suffers a lifelong trauma from the cake incident and starts a global campaign against the sugar conspiracy. Sweet is one woman’s cabaret act, in which a bystander, the wife of a director, takes centre stage.

Virve Sutinen
producer