Performance at Kaaitheater, Brussels, February 3 of 2022
 
Review by Rudi Laermans
Published in ‘Etcetera’
Translated to English by Sara Jansen
For Dutch version see here
 
 
Dark Stage
 
The theatre apparatus is an incredibly powerful viewing machine. The interplay of the dark auditorium and the collective gaze focused on what is visible on the stage charges every action of the performer with suggestions of possible meanings, possible characters, possible communication. To “see do” (in the auditorium) and to “make see” (on the stage) intersect: that is the essence of the theatre apparatus. At the start of gone here (yet) to come, Heine Avdal and Ingrid Haakstad stage this quintessence in a slightly provocative minimalist manner in front of a black backdrop on the proscenium stage. Standing still and looking at one’s watch after a short time has passed (the waiting), folding a large piece of black fabric together in a somewhat awkward way, or slowly crumpling up a tiny piece of black cloth in one’s hand: simple movements, performed emotionlessly in the mode of non-acting – but the attention of the audience transforms them into potential profundities. In a theatrical situation, something is at stake, even if there is no acting and only actions, stipulates the pact between actors and spectators. Anyone who, like Avdal and Haakstad, deconstructs this convention by simultaneously affirming it and ignoring the desire for meaning, with a detached seriousness bordering on bureaucratic ritualism, ends up in the register of slapstick that Beckett provided with words in Waiting for Godot.
Also in previous performances, fieldworks, the company of Avdal and his partner Yukiko Shinozaki, examined the spatiality of the theatre apparatus. In gone here (yet) to come, this exploration revolves primarily around the demarcation of the stage as a space for performance. The black curtain falls, new sides and back walls appear – and fall, partially. The color matters, because once the front curtain, in front of which the opening scene is performed, falls to the floor, the stage space darkens. Immediately, what is at stake in terms of the medium explored in gone here (yet) to come becomes clear: the stage as a space in which, at any moment in time, a division is made between the visible and the invisible. This “distribution of the sensible” (Rancière) forms the core of the theater as viewing machine and as apparatus of power. In nearly three quarters of gone here (yet) to come, the theater bathes in near darkness. As a result, the interplay between “seeing do” and “making see” shifts to an evening chiaroscuro play to which the soundscape adds a dramaturgy.
               In the meantime, the stage is strewn with half-hanging black curtains and occupied by five performers who move cautiously in semi-darkness. Their actions are again minimal, even though they become increasingly lively as time goes on. Crawling develops into unsteady walking, for instance, but the general impression remains that of an aimless swarming: bodies move infra-humanly from left to right or in place, without making any contact with one another. Bird songs and the swelling sound of rain transform into an electro-musical soundscape that envelops the choreography. The apparent simplicity and informality of the executed movements make it seem like a non-choreography – as if the performers are just doing something, which is, of course, not the case. The composition moves towards a crescendo in an ingenious way. A musical climax towards the end suggests meaning but remains a mere image: “primacy of the signifier over the signified,” the medium is the message. Later it will become clear that it is an optical illusion.
               Cut, work lights, all curtains are scattered on the stage floor: restoration of the theater as spectacle, literally – as a “make see” site, as it gives preference to visibility over invisibility. The five performers again appear to be acting randomly: crawling under a curtain, rolling themselves into a curtain, using a curtain as a cape, … Once again, the impression that the movements are informal and spontaneous is contradicted by their noticeable timing, the far from coincidental distribution of bodies in the space, and the coordination of actions or gestures. Choreography as apparent improvisation has been a hallmark of much contemporary dance since the Judson Church; gone here (yet) to come excels in this paradox: (informal) virtuosity as negation of (formal) virtuosity.
Night follows day, the brightly lit scene is again followed by one in near darkness. Once again physical wriggling, also, until one repeated action dominates the cleared-out stage: two performers who, in the dark, pull a billowing black cloth from the back to the front. The three other performers appear and disappear as the rhythmic music swells. White words and letters are projected onto the moving canvas, including the message that the “curtain falls,” as a recurring notice. The simultaneous cut of the music and arrival of complete darkness on the stage suggests that the performance has ended, but it continues for a while.
A dim suspended light appears that seems to be searching for a sign of life. It finds it casually in the back of the stage, where the performers lie on the floor against the wall. Cut, work lights again, the five bodies roll forward, connected to form one line. Then they get up, look at the audience, grasp each other’s hands and slowly walk backward together: seeking and finding a sense of connection as the final chord.
Immediately following gone here (yet) to come, when the audience is leaving the auditorium, The Cure’s A Forest fills blares through the space at medium volume. It is a post-message that confirms that two things are at stake in this performance. It explores the theatre apparatus through a consistent negation of the dominant preference for the visible – for light, and the humanistic definition of art as a site of Enlightenment connected with the notion of “Bildung.” Simultaneously, gone here (yet) to come stages the blackness of the imminent future of the ecological crisis that is currently happening.
The wriggling movement in semi-darkness: people wandering, searching, after a flood, a tornado, a forest fire; people who are trying to survive like zombies in the in-between zone that separates living from surviving. The fidgeting with the black fabric scattered across the stage in work light: people using material remnants of civilization as a shelter from the revenge of nature; people who, after having lost their property and possessions, try to find a home, a house, a place amid the shared debris. Creating waves with the black cloth, made of a special synthetic material, that covers the performers: people engulfed by a real tidal wave; people who continue to move as usual, while an ecological disaster is taking place. A small light that scans the dark stage in a telescopic way: people who, after the ecological apocalypse, are in search of others; people who long for other people. One line of bodies rolling forward, a line of arms and interlocking hands: people looking for each other – people in solidarity.
The blackness (darkness, semi-darkness) on the stage represents the blackness in the auditorium and thus the condition of possibility for all seeing. That very same blackness also connotes doom, disaster, ruin. gone here (yet) to come focuses on the first meaning, as it relates to its medium/form, and in this way brings to light the second, content-related meaning, much more powerfully than a didactic or moralistic “eco-performance.” Exploring the theatre as a viewing apparatus while also making a dramaturgically unobtrusive but in terms of content extremely clear political statement: gone here (yet) to come demonstrates that engagement on the level of form and of content do not have to get in the way of each other at all.