Performance Impressions: living matter(s) — compagnie O. (English version)

living matter(s) — compagnie O.

Tanzhaus Zürich, Zurich, September 17, 2023
Dance: Alice D’Angelo, Naomi Kamihigashi, Ambra Preyer 
Artistic direction: Marie Alexis
Impressions- Tanznachtisch by Tanz LOBBY IG Tanz Zurich 
Moderator «Tanznachtisch» (audience talkback): Tina Mantel 
Text: Mary Staub
https://tanzlobby.ch/
Audience members frame two opposite sides of the central stage-space, rising on bleachers on either side, peering down on a rectangular black rubbery, crumpled tarp that covers most of the floorspace in between. An oil spill that suffocates that which lies beneath? A wrestling ring for living versus non-living matter?

Some audience members already wrestle with the non-living matter of their seat cushions— seemingly scrunched up plastic in a gauze-like pillowcase. They try to adjust it just so for comfort, while taming the crackle and rustle it emits. Living matter?

Three dancers in glistening, scaly tight rubber unitards slide down rubbery ramps that run down the center of the bleachers. One limb oozes over the next, heavily, slowly, passively, without will or muscle—the only sign of volition when the dancers climb back up to the top of their side of the bleachers, in a dreamlike trance. A softly crackling soundscape contrasts the smoothness of the sliding bodies.
One by one the bodies slither under the black tarpaulin center-stage, the details of the dancers thereby disappearing, but not their form—the tarp bubbles, rises and falls from the bodies moving underneath. These breathing pulses create cracks and crevices in the plastic surface. Various forms of seemingly non-living matter slowly spill forth—grey rubber foam, translucent cellophane, white gauzed netting, a hand, a leg, an eye, a head. Or is it living matter?

The title itself begs the question. “living matter(s)”. Matters of life? Matters that live? The meaning of living? Is matter alive? What matter lives? Does living matter? Is it important to live? Who is alive? What is alive? The questions are endless.

Occasionally the dancers connect with one another, at times forming and reforming malleable sculptures, limbs heavily flowing over one another. At other times, the formations are angular, jerky, like mobiles, a pull on a knee, a hexagon of limbs, a lunged diagonal. Embodied chemical compounds?
Throughout the piece, more matter enters the stage. While initially invited by the dancers through a soft tug, jerk, or jolt, the matter soon seems to flow onto stage as though on its own.

In one section, all three performers heave themselves over one another, pushing and tugging, but passively, to drip back up a ramp. At its top, they unleash, first slowly then rapidly, endless
reams of cellophane-like material from an infinite-seeming reel. They tug as though trying to empty the role, but soon the ribbons of tape take over, carrying the bodies down the ramp on a slippery slide of cellophane. The bodies run up, slide down, dash up, tumble down, a stream of cellophane gushing and ripping underneath.

Or are the dancers ripping at it after all?

In another section, the dancers start pulling on lengthy drapes attached high overhead on reels in the rafters. Again, first they tug slowly, but soon a waterfall of drapes releases ever-more- rapidly from the rolls overhead, inundating the world beneath.

Other matter enters the stage, giving rise to various images—waves of gauze swirling and rising and crashing; ripples of tarp, glistening like water in the sun; the glistening sculptures of three bodies slicked together as though by oil; vibrating nets with either the nets themselves swinging in resonance or being swung by fish caught therein (screaming “living matters”!?).

In this way, there’s a constant interplay of living and non-living matter, frequently blurring the boundary of who or what is which.

The program notes raise similar questions: “Matter surrounds and permeates us, can be shaped and manipulated, but can also affect the human body in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways. How does our approach to the world change when we consider matter not as manipulable and lifeless, but as effective, capable of action, vital and self-effective?”

After “living matter(s)”, during Tanznachtisch (the audience talk-back led by members of TanzLOBBY), a small group of spectators—some were regular dancegoers, but others weren’t—exchanged their impressions from the piece. For most of them, while the movement and staging were abstract in nature, “living matter(s)” created concrete images or even full-blown narratives. An oil slick that suffocates everything and continuous to develop and take new forms throughout the piece. Three bodies in bridal gowns of gauzed netting swaying together. Waterfowl unable to move as intended by nature because their feathers are glued to their bodies by sheets of oil-slick matter. Fishing nets. Undulating waves.

What stood out was that the piece gave produced many questions related to living and matter—is it possible for the living to fuse with matter? Has it already? Were the workers (dancers) slaves to the matter, heisting and heaving their way through ever-growing heaps of non-living matter, a Sisyphean task? Or did the workers shape the matter, thereby creating the world they wanted?

(One question of a more practical matter was: who’s going to clean all this up?)

The movement of the performers captivated most of the Tanznachtisch participants, as did the images created by the materials onstage. The abundance of these non-living materials also gave rise to the question of whether it’s ok to aestheticize plastic when we know of all the harm it does. Some in the audience commented that the performers rarely showed emotion, only an occasional inner smile when they connected with one another. Those moments were relished. Some people would have liked more such moments—a clear presence of the living within the non-living surrounding matter. Or maybe that was the point—to have the living disappear into the matter and make us think about what that means.

living matter(s)
Artistic direction - Marie Alexis
Concept - Marie Alexis, Ivalina Yapova, Mona De Weerdt
Choreography - Marie Alexis in cooperation with the performers
Dramaturgy - Mona De Weerdt
Stage, light, props - Ivalina Yapova
Costumes and props - Karen Feelizitas Petermann
Composition and sound design - Serafin Aebli
Text - Mona De Weerdt, Marie Alexis
Performance - Alice D’Angelo, Naomi Kamihigashi, Ambra Peyer
Co-conception performance - Lyn Bentschik
Production - Marie Alexis, Karolina Sarre
Choreographic assistant - Soraya Leila Emery
Dramaturgical advisor Tanzhaus Zürich - Jessica Huber
Scenographic assistant - Hannah Förster
Graphic design, photography - Pascale Lustenberger
Video - Esther Petsche (camera), Marie Alexis (editing)