For the second part of their Tanz im August talkabout, Eli Frasson and Evgeny Borisenko attended the world premiere of Thiago Granato’s “The Sound They Make When No One Listens” at the Sophiensæle on 19 August 2021. After the show they sat together in the Sophiensæle’s brick-walled courtyard to discuss a show that explores the different facets and political connotations of the act of listening. The next day, on 20 August, Eli and Evgeny went to the Lilli-Hennoch-Sportplatz to attend the world premiere of “Breathe” by Milla Koistinen, in which she interacted with two huge brightly-coloured inflatable fabrics and the audience on the football pitch. After the show Eli and Evgeny found a spot near the ruins of Anhalter Bahnhof to sit and discuss the show.
“The Sound They Make When No One Listens” by Thiago Granato and “Breathe” by Milla Koistinen run until 22 August 2021. Read here Eli and Evgeny’s first talkabout in which they chat about “WEG” by Ayelen Parolin / RUDA.
*** “The Sound They Make When No One Listens” by Thiago Granato ***
Evgeny
Before I go any further, I must say that I was absolutely amazed by this show. I usually take lots of notes during a performance, but tonight, I just stopped writing. I wasn’t a dance writer anymore.
Eli
I felt this piece very physically and I was engaged bodily with the movement. As a result of this strong connection, I could feel the tension in my joints releasing. At the beginning of the piece I took some notes, but after that, I could only focus on the awareness of the dancers as they were so present to us all the time. This intention to be intense and concerned with the relationship with the outside audience was ever-present and increased over time. This might explain why we found ourselves unable to take notes during the performance. What do you think?
Evgeny
Exactly. When I read that we were going to see a show about active listening, I was expecting it to be slow and calm — and the work does start this way, with a long scene in which the three performers remain motionless, listening to the silence, and staring at the audience — but then the tension starts growing. Then when they pick up what appear to be long, metal rods, the show enters uncharted waters.
Eli
I think the way the performers proposed the listening was something beyond the choreography per se. They were requesting an active way of listening from one another and from us, the audience. They maintained a careful attention between themselves, always listening to each other and to the space.
Evgeny
Yes, the three performers were fully aware of each other — but I felt they displayed even more attention to the space around them than to one another. They scanned and probed the stage space methodically with the metal rods, their hands, and their feet, as though they were searching for something hidden. The way the dancers worked with the rods reminded me of bōjutsu, a Japanese martial art in which fighters use long bamboo sticks as swords.
Eli
The metal rods also seemed to be a way of measuring and exploring the space. There were poles fixed between the floor and ceiling across the centre of the stage. The dancers used the rods to explore this space. In this action, the dancers were focused not only on their movements, but also on how the rods entered into a relationship with the surrounding space.
Evgeny
I thought a lot about the act of listening while I was watching the show. In a 2020 interview with Tanz im August Magazine, Granato explains that his work is “about making it possible to see from another’s perspective and about trying to put yourself in someone else’s position.” He says that he wants us to “look through the bodily movement and go beyond” mere physicality to engage our “curiosity towards the act of listening”. Abandoning the ultimate importance of bodily movement is a bold statement for a choreographer working with bodies on stage, don’t you think?
Eli
The performers proposed, and also somehow requested, a kind of deep listening from the audience that was similar to the attention that they were holding between themselves. They persisted in a search for an intersubjectivity of gestures coupled with a continuous embodiment and negotiation of the movement patterns between themselves. Thanks to this persistence, I began searching for a trance state. What were your thoughts on the movement?
Evgeny
One image really blew me away. When the dancers picked up the metal rods and lay down, and then started crawling slowly across the stage, engaging in a series of odd, stuttering movements that reminded me of the semi-conscious gestures one might make when waking up from a nightmare. It was as if I was seeing myself lying on stage anxiously trying to shake off a bad dream.
Eli
This emotional state was proposed to the public as a choreographic experience within a bodily movement, and also, later on, when the dancers took the rods and made them into a kind of raft, it was as if they were looking for salvation, or a kind of survival. I found the reaching for a survival state to be a really strong need throughout the piece.
Evgeny
It seems as though listening is a survival strategy for Granato. We live in a world that constantly pushes us to produce content, to speak, to write, to occupy space. We hardly have time to stop and listen to each other. Granato offers us an alternative in that he invites us to become porous and receptive, to listen rather than speak all the time. In this sense, “The Sound They Make When No One Listens” has a very clear political agenda. And it’s quite a radical one.
Eli
Also, in this piece, we saw how we can be touched by a sound when it is made choreographically visible.
Evgeny
Do you remember that moment towards the end of the show, when the dancers dropped the metal rods and started walking as though gravity had suddenly increased and made it hard to unstick their feet from the ground? It felt as if they were struggling to stay vertical and keep moving, or as though they were fighting against invisible gusts of wind that threatened to knock them off their feet.
Eli
I loved that image! After that scene the dancers’ gestures were very restrained. For instance, when Arantxa Martinez was touching her chest, or when Granato made small movements with his right hand behind his back, it was like their arms and hands, now freed from the rods that had become a sort of extra joint, were looking for different ways of listening in their movements.
Evgeny
I recently read an article by Loup, a member of the Dance For Plants collective, in which they describe the act of listening as “the most radical gift that your body can give to the world. It is to let oneself be invaded by the world, to let oneself be mutated, to choose to be transformed by what you could have just ignored.” I think this sums up Granato’s work very well, which is, in itself, a very radical gift to us, the spectators.
***
*** “Breathe” by Milla Koistinen ***
Foto: “Breathe”, Milla Koistinen ©Jan Isaak Voges
Eli
I really appreciated how performer and choreographer Milla Koistinen used the football pitch and two huge coloured inflatable fabrics not only as choreographic objects, but also as two other performers. It was as though we saw three performers on stage instead of just one. What did you notice most?
Evgeny
I noticed how the spectators chose their places on that huge football pitch. Some of them were running around trying to find better viewing spots, while others preferred to keep their distance and watch the show from afar. I even saw one person sleeping, and a little girl was running after Koistinen everywhere and copying her movements. We had all downloaded an audio track before the show, and the fact that we were listening to the same musical score closed the distance between us and the performer. The music was soothing and relaxing, especially at the beginning, and I felt very mellow and comfortable laying on the soft ground watching the show.
Eli
I got a similar feeling of relaxation from the music. Though from my perspective, and I’m only speaking about the music here, I sometimes found it a little too didactic even though it seemed to be an appropriate soundscape for the movement score. I really liked having the possibility to move around, sit or stand, or to lie down and melt into the soft ground of the football pitch.
Evgeny
Speaking about the football element, in her 2020 interview with Tanz im August Magazine, Koistinen said that her father was a professional soccer player, and that she wanted to become a professional athlete, too. When she came across a newly-built football pitch in her hometown, she immediately thought of transforming the empty space into a dance venue. I find this personal approach to the creation of her work very touching! Her dance contained multiple references to soccer and to track and field. What were your thoughts about the dance score of “Breathe”, Eli?
Eli
I noticed that the score was based around some specific gestures that could be interpreted as physical, athletic, or political. For instance, at the very beginning of the piece Koistinen crossed the football pitch in the direction of one of the side doors and raised her left fist and gazed into the distance. I guess this was a reference to the African-American athletes John Carlos and Tommie Smith during the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. I also recognised movements that reminded me of a crowd reacting to a goal being scored, and some others that recalled athletes falling to their knees in celebration. I found this reenactment of well-known gestures helpful in allowing me to inhabit and recognise a particular set of circumstances. I also read them as a critique of the relationship between an athlete and the crowd transmitted through the intimacy of a solo performance.
Evgeny
Yes! I agree. I also noticed a reference to Usain Bolt’s signature victory pose! Do you remember that moment when Koistinen was standing with her arms aloft in the middle of the inflated objects, and the fabric started swallowing her up or sucking her in? She seemed to disappear, and then almost immediately emerged from beneath it as if she had somehow moved right through the fabric. It was like magic! I wonder if there was some kind of hidden wind-generating mechanism inside the inflated objects propelling them across the field.
Eli
I also found it interesting how she ran and moved the coloured inflatable fabrics around. It felt like she was really running, like an athlete or a football player. The effort and the joy of the exertion in the action showed on her face.
Evgeny
Absolutely. At one point Koistinen ran right past me and I noticed how happy she was! It’s quite rare to catch an expression of sheer joy on a dancer’s face, but she was clearly having a lot of fun while she danced! However, I have to say I find it hard to describe this piece as anything other than ‘feel-good’. But although Koistinen didn’t appear to be pushing any specific agenda, she did succeed in transforming and softening a football pitch into an open-air dance stage, where we all felt welcome. The show finale was also very beautiful. Koistinen just walked away, closed the door behind her, and disappeared into the night, leaving us alone in the space with a yellow smoke bomb and the inflatable fabrics. She didn’t come back to accept the applause. I personally love suspended endings like those when the audience is clapping but then eventually stops because there is no-one there to applaud.
Eli
I have to admit that I often like it too when performers leave the stage at the end of a piece and don’t come back. And in this case it was in tune with the atmosphere of the piece. I felt like I had ‘made friends’ with the inflatable fabrics and at the end of the piece I was there with them. I had the feeling that I was in good company, so I didn’t need Koistinen to stay. She had already built a kind of playground for us. By choosing to have the audience on the pitch with her felt like a political decision. As an action, it had the effect of reversing my perspective — both visually and physically. I found being where the audience isn’t usually allowed to be a transformative action and thus also a political one. Koistinen turned us into a temporary community. We were able to see the space with other eyes.
***
Both “The Sound They Make When No One Listens” by Thiago Granato and “Breathe” by Milla Koistinen premiered 19-22 August 2021 at Tanz im August – 33rd International Festival Berlin. The authors also recommend watching LISTEN.doc, a documentary about the creation of “The Sound They Make When No One Listens”.
“The Sound They Make When No One Listens”: Concept, Artistic Direction, Choreography — Thiago Granato. Co-creation & Assistant Director — Sandro Amaral. Created and Performed by — Arantxa Martinez, Roger Sala Reyner, and Thiago Granato. Dramaturgical Advice — Lisa Stertz. Light — Claes Schwennen. Sound — David Kiers. Sound Assistance — Andrea Parolin. Production Manager — Sandro Amaral. Administration — René Dombrowski.
“Breathe”: Concept, Choreographer, Performer — Milla Koistinen. Artistic Collaboration — Fanny Didelo. Dramaturg — Synne Behrndt. Artistic Advisor — Sergiu Matis. Music — Paul Valikoski, Grégoire Simon. Space & Light — Sandra E. Blatterer. Costume — Lee Méir. Production Manager — Jana Lüthje.
Read here Tanz im August 2021 Talkabout #1 by Eli Frasson and Evgeny Borisenko in which they chat about “WEG” by Ayelen Parolin / RUDA.
