| Flash Review danceinsider.com, 14.11.03: Berlin Sascha Waltz from the 'Insideout'; Video no Game for Paasonen By Aimee Ts’ao BERLIN -- It was supposed to be a vacation, but somehow when I got to Berlin to see Tomi Paasonen's newest work, I learned I also had the chance to see Sasha Waltz's latest piece. I had seen Waltz's "Zweiland/Zweiland" in 1999 and "Allee der Kosmonauten" in 2001, both presented by Cal Performances at Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall, but hadn't written anything about either. I immediately e-mailed PBI to see if he could use a review. "Insideout" had just premiered the week before at Waltz's home base the Schaubuehne am Lehniner Platz when I saw it on October 17. It is an impressive extravaganza, an installation rather than a proscenium stage performance… (for the entire review, please log onto www.danceinsider.com) …Almost at the other end of the stylistic spectrum, and clear across town in the former East Berlin at Dock 11, I had seen a premiere from Tomi Paasonen, the former LINES dancer, the night before. I have watched Paasonen's development since 1998 when, after dancing with Alonzo King's company, he founded Kunst-Stoff with Yannis Adoniou in San Francisco. While he used to be far more theatrically "over the top," he has begun exploring more internal and intimate themes concerning memory, repetition/difference, self and identity, and he has stripped down both his aesthetics and choreography without any loss of impact. The emphasis is simply put on other elements or aspects of the work and the result is a crystalline brilliance. Paasonen is the only choreographer I have ever seen who uses video projection as an integral element of what he is trying to communicate. I can't begin to count the number of times that video is really just a part of the visual design, or a means of allowing the audience to see facial expressions in great detail. With Paasonen the video is another performer on stage, evoking responses from other performers, or from the same performer who is being video-taped, either at the very moment the action is taking place or at a later instant when the video is shown. In fact, the cast for the three pieces on the program is two dancers, one cameraman, and one projectionist. Paasonen himself is responsible for the concept, direction, choreography, costumes and video direction. Lights and sound are by Markus Schulte and Mike Koloska, while a special installation by Carle Lange and Ulf Knudsen is discussed later. As the audience finds seats, the performers have already begun with an introductory section. Fernando Pelliccioli stands on one leg in the middle of the floor. Carlos Osatinsky walks very deliberately around the perimeter of the space. A perky Japanese woman, Yuko Matsuyama, playing off the stereotype of the smiling, obsequious Oriental, periodically rushes to the front to announce how happy she is to be here. She disappears and the first piece, "RE: Repetition and differencE" starts. Osatinsky dances a movement phrase to some German oompapa music, an almost militaristic waltz, as Pelliccioli aims a spot light at him. When he finishes, Pelliccioli puts down the lamp, runs forward and gives a video tape to Paasonen, who inserts it in a video camera. Osatinsky begins the same phrase to the same music again. Halfway through Paasonen projects the video of the version he just danced before. Sometimes the steps match up perfectly, at other times there are distinct variations between them. Matsuyama comes out in the first of a series of elaborate costumes and delivers a speech in German while Pelliccioli grovels at her feet, wiping the floor. Then the whole process of solo dance being video-taped followed by a speech is repeated several times. In the final version, somewhat like the effect you see when you sit in the middle of a room with mirrors on the opposing walls, you see five video dancers, one above the other, on the wall behind Osatinsky. Each version is different, some only slightly and others drastically, as the dancer has both tried to repeat and deliberately vary the movement phrase. "W (double you)" was first performed in San Francisco in October 2002. I loved it then, and thought it was one of the very best choreographic works last season in the Bay Area. This time around it is expanded and because it is performed by two entirely different dancers, it almost is like another piece. In brief, the image of one dancer is projected onto the other dancer as they move either alone or together. There is also a section where the dancers literally chase their own projected images. In the end, we realize that the two dancers are struggling to individualize themselves from each other and yet can't help seeing how much they are alike. The way in which Paasonen brings us to that realization is very impressive as it is done only with movement and the superimposed projections. The last piece, "O (lOOp)," utilizes an ingenious instrument/lighting tool created and played by Carle Lange and Ulf Knudsen. They’ve built a panel of twelve iron nails connected to 1000W of electrical current, and by stroking it with a piece of metal, electrical circuits control the lighting and create part of the sound score. As Matsuyama sings Osatinsky runs and hurls himself against the wall, I suspect that most of us can relate to the experience of wanting to flee from oneself. While the idea comes across clearly, the dance itself could be tightened up considerably. The difference between the two choreographers' work I saw here is akin to the difference between Henry Fielding and Emily Dickinson. Sascha Waltz, like Fielding, takes on life with all its dimensions and layers, as if a caterer had laid out a smorgasbord of food from every ethnic street vendor in the world, allowing one to sample a limitless array of concoctions. Paasonen, like Dickinson, distils facets of that same life down to pure essence, then concentrates and purifies the liquor into a potent elixir that frees the imagination to muse upon the meanings that were previously elusive, but have now been brought into clearer focus. To partake of one or the other is only a matter of personal taste. Ultimately, I feel that with Waltz, in this particular piece, art imitates life a bit too much. I don't experience enough of her own individual point of view. I value Paasonen's artistic process, because his ability to shape his work into new forms leads us along uncharted paths. He opens up our eyes to see his unique perspective, to hear his voice. While with some choreographers the journey is through all too well-known territory, Paasonen allows us to explore his country with unjaded senses. |
| Review by Katrin Kruse, 28th of February, 2004, TAZ Berlin The Return of a Class of Bananas Is recollecting nothing but repetition backwards? The performance “Nahme Wieder Gabe Auf” in Dock11 plays with this idea. A time tunnel opens and dancers run after their own projected images. The evening began with a request: ”Don’t let us surprise you!” But isn’t this exactly the reason why one has come, to be surprised by things one hasn’t seen before? “Nahme Wieder Gabe Auf”, the piece by Finnish choreographer Tomi Paasonen at Dock11 wants to be a play on all meanings the words of the title can be combined into. He plays with the role of the performer just as much as the spectator. But foremost his theme is: repetition. And where it’s about repetition, lection number one says: it is about difference. Yuko Matsuyama, who in the role of a radiant Conférencier numerously has greeted the audience welcome, leaves through the steal door at the back of the stage. She will return, over and over, repeating the same words, with the same class of bananas in her hands. Only: every time in different clothes. To tones of a cembalo lights fade to dark, and the body of Yannis Adoniou, who crosses Matsuyama’s path, becomes a puppet on a string. He is pulled off balance, he gives in, reaches in different directions, slides back into his axis. The movement reverberates through his body, at times like a sigh, at times like a thump, he surrenders, he dissolves into it. Matsuyama returns, with the bananas in her hand: "May I present, a presentation! A presentation representing our present perception! Consider it a present! If the presentation doesn't represent your perception of a presentation, don't resent us. Promptly picture your own representative presentation while we finish presenting the presentation representing our present perception. Pleas should be presented after the presentation please, I repeat, after the presentation please. At present we wish you a pleasant presentation!" She leaves, Adoniou dances again. What he just danced the time before will be projected onto the back wall. Thus he dances following his own image, which is always faster, always there before him, where he wants to go. Consequently the dancer is quadrupled: there are his three pasts, there is his ominous shadow on the wall, biggest of them all, and there is himself. It reminds me of the drama of a silent film, how they all follow the leader, seemingly accelerating. The multiple projections tear up spaces and open it for a past. When Carlos Osatinsky, the third co-player, is superimposed by his own image, leans against the wall, the wall is transformed into a time tunnel, like a narrow street. Years ago he might have stood there, remembering a far past. These are the strongest moments of the evening where the overlapped images open a spectral time. Repetition and recollecting, it says in the program, are the same movement, only in the opposite direction. What one remembers has been and is repeated backwards, repetition is remembered forwards. Also to learn dancing functions so, over and over the same movements. Repetition being the theme, lection two is, boredom is never far. “Nahme Wieder Gabe Auf” plays with this annoyance with malicious enjoyment. It’s fun until at the end it becomes obviously bizarre. The industrial noise of a projection walking down metal stairs, gradually grows into veritable noise. Wearing giant puff sleeves, hounds-tooth leggings and a golden belt, Matsuyama acts rope balancing. At first she sings, then screams out ‘Frère Jacques’; then slowly pantomimes her way towards the metal door, and a seamless eternity one hopes, she finally would reach it. The denser images remain in the memory. |
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