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LILIA MESTRE PREMIERES "(G)HOSTS" AT BUDAFEST IN KORTRIJK
by
Jeroen Peeters
“How much myth do we build into our experience of
time?” The words are Don DeLillo’s, they reverberate in the theatre when a
white curtain is drawn down-stage. How much myth do we allow into our lives?
How much myth are we aware of? And which myths?
Referring
to Avery Gordon's sociological study of haunting, André Lepecki approaches the
ghostly as a critical agent at the borders of society's intelligibility,
prompting a heightened awareness, an alternative sensorial mode: "Such capacity
to experience what should not belong to experience proper should not be
confused with any sort of hysteria or histrionics. It is just a mode of
composing perception initiated by the ghostly." It is a suitable line in the
programme sheet of (g)hosts, yet the Portuguese, Brussels-based
choreographer Lilia Mestre doesn't shun embracing ‘improper' manifestations of
the ghostly, that after all make up a major part of our cultural imagination.
Not the pathological but the histrionic is what tempts her. (g)hosts is
Mestre's most complex and radical work to date, a compelling exercise in
reverse ghost busting. We are in the theatre, after all. And indeed, what can
actually be said or shown about that realm in which the ghostly
is taken for what it is? Listen!
Tuning
in
The theatre
is pitch black, nothing happens, apart from thoughts coursing through one's
mind – will we ever stop hearing our own persistent voice? Yet, the stage is
wrapped in silence. For a while, nothing happens. And then, we see a light
flash probing the space and hear a voice calling out and getting ready for
whatever will present itself. But still nothing happens. Or better: there is
nothing to be seen, heard or revealed. For that, we will need more tuning in – to realize eventually that there is indeed nothing to be seen, heard or
revealed, though on the way a great deal of illusions can be cherished, along
with their deconstruction.
The
prologue is not over yet. Some white presence is glowing in the dark. With the
lights slowly raising, it becomes a set of lines, two figures, then two
skeletons performing a mirror dance. It is a slow and contemplative dance,
supported by a sound design that travels through time, evoking narratives of
the ghostly, modernist music and science fiction. To end up front, lit and
clear: we see two women (performers Lilia Mestre and Michel Yang) in black
dresses, striped with white tape, which is taken off easily. Yes, we are in a
theatre after all: what you see is nothing but histrionics – or? Still, the
prologue has tuned us. It has invited us into a mirror dance with our own
thoughts, travelling beyond the visual into an acoustic imaginary realm, guided
by our ears.
Channelling
Michel Yang
announces a weekly radio show, dropping out into a possessed state while
continuing her speech as if she were untouched, all this just to warn us that
"maybe, this is not really something for you." She continues to list up the
music used and the radio play that is to follow. All the ingredients are
present, the construction is clear. But (g)hosts doesn't thrive upon an
alleged transparency: though obviously mock, this doesn't prevent its
histrionics from being profoundly weird and confusing. The performance keeps
transforming, takes you on a trip through an effective sound dramaturgy (in collaboration with
David Elchardus), that takes off as a ‘fifties radio show with Orson Welles' The
Black Museum. But when and where the transformation actually happens – both
on stage and in your perception – is never clear. The sound travels through the
space, speech is mostly disconnected from the bodies enunciating it, granting
the acoustic imaginary a central place.
We follow
visited bodies, silent though their lips move. They are moved by energy fields,
struck with tics and twitchings – merely as hints, the movement material is not
central to (g)hosts, which never moves into a demonology reminiscent of
Meg Stuart. These bodies are hosts, they have pricked up their antennas like
radio-receivers. A small radio is being installed on stage, the radio show
continues and is open for people to call in. More voices enter the theatre. The
two performers now construct a deserted living room around the radio, to then
deconstruct it in slow motion – not unlike a decaying memento mori still
life. The scene is moving in its evocation and detailed delivery, absurd in its
reverse ghost busting. When Mestre eventually unplugs the radio, the mock
character of the scene once again becomes clear – although the sound has long
travelled elsewhere and though we knew from the start that it was a
pre-recorded radio programme anyway. But again, this deconstruction of the
machinery isn't exactly soothing, as the transformations one can track cover up
myriads of other events, experiences and memories one hosts. Tuned in and
scanning an alternative sensorial realm, we'll always be late to track down the
ghostly, yet in a theatre with other people we are inevitably also ahead of
ourselves. The sound reminds us of our heteronomous subjectivity.
Myths
"How much
myth do we build into our experience of time?" A white curtain is quivering and
shimmering – yes, spooky, why not! (g)hosts spirals into the grotesque
and is ready to celebrate it, propelled by lights and music one would expect at
a party. Two masked clowns move jerkily in front of the curtain, ripping to
pieces some major newspapers (such as Le Monde and the Financial
Times) – strongholds and stakeholders of our all too humanist desire to
have an encompassing and transparent view upon the world we live in. Myths,
clotted and cluttered with our own desires. Yang takes off her clown mask,
reminding us that we are still on air, finishes the show and makes us listen
for a concluding 1'37" to Charles Bukowski – who happened to know wonderfully
well where not to find himself. And then the theatre is plunged into
blackness again.
(29.11.2007)
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