More or Less Infinity

CIE 111
More or Less Infinity
Aurleian Bory and Phil Soltanoff

written by Nataša Tepavčević

The hybrid play, the visual spectacle that opened 42Bitef08 in Belgrade, was made by Phil Soltanoff, the MAD DOG theatre troupe director and Aurelieane Bory, the CIE 111 art director. The object of their theatre study is line as the art element, a time line, a line which turns into a body gaining a shape whereas the performance itself is a part of a collaborative project called Space Trilogy which had a common task of exploring the language of gestures and choreography.
In the first part of the performance, a line made of plastic hose, a thread and light effects dances-draws on its own, while in the second part it becomes accompanied by actors-acrobats whose shapes are dematerialized by their stage movements.

The coined phrase more or less infinity stems from two types of discourse. One is taken from mathematics and is based upon the definition that line goes from minus infinity to plus infinity, while the other one speaks by the language of abstract modernist art. The authors of the performance use the logic of creating an abstract painting as a method which is somewhere between dance, circus, theatre…

The performance does not aim at representing some particular situations or events, states or individuals. We are faced with a, so called, universal, non-verbal language of spectacle which offers fun for the eyes, as Schlemmer has put it. Is it the same language used by Bitef as a specific form of social and institutional spectacle? Can we use the visual-theatre spectacle to detect the very qualities Bitef would like to be recognized by? We are aware of the fact that gestures always belong to politics as well as to aesthetics, i.e. that there is no such thing as non-political aesthetics, no matter how much it might be trying to hide its political quality.

What kind of gesture does the performance deal with, anyway? Mechanics of body movement and psycho-motor coordination are structured in accordance to the rules of mathematical constructing or similar to the procedures which are used to create an animated character in digital technology. An image of digital era – as a social era which does not fit within any context or any historical moment – is created by the use of abstract painting. Visual art is introduced into the theatre art by means of minimalism, constructivism and mostly by means of optical art based upon illusionist principles. After we have clearly understood the stylistic fusion, we realize that we can neither feel nor envision the spectacle which is happening in front of us and because of us, no matter how much it is required by the form itself. Actually, the network of instructions, knowledge we possess prevents us from simply enjoying because the joy as such does not exist. What we felt, saw and read is what we had been educated to perceive as important.


Asked to reveal the message of the performance, the authors said: “There isn’t any, just plunge into pure sensation”, to which I would add: Plunge into pure sensation as if it was possible.

Who talks about soul anymore?

Alvis Hermanis, the director of the performance “Sonja” (based on Tatiana Tolstoy’s story) shown on 22nd September at Bitef, thinks that the reality exists only in the real life whereas theatre is an illusion, mimicry. In this performance, he shows the “hoax” by the means of an actor’s explicit transformation in front of the audience. Male actor is in the role of Sonja – a woman. Hermanis already presented his attitude in the performance we saw at Bitef several years ago, “Long life”, also dealing with problem of time, personal development and ageing. The metamorphosis takes place on the very stage where the actors are being masked into their own fathers.
However, giving a female role to a man confirms yet another Hermanis’s belief – that actors are much better in playing a thought, concept of a woman whereas actresses put in too much of the personal and get involved into psychological analyses. The transformation of the man into Sonja, who resembles a sad clown, serves simultaneously as an allusion to the experience that people go through in the course of altering their real identity. Wishing to create something new, they dismantle it to the point of destruction.
The other line of the performance follows the tragicomic tone of the fabulous story. A person who indulges in any kind of sensitivity receives punishment, is exposed to ridicule, and turned into a clown, a tragicomic character. While he is reading the text from a love letter written by an unknown person Sonja is in love with (as a victim of a prank) the other actor is brutally laughing. The permanent contrast between the main character’s sensitivity (albeit clumsy) and the cynical mockery of it, creates an unusual amalgamate which turns tragic – by the means of comic – into a nauseating experience. The hilarious scene itself in which the narrator gets smudged with a cake seems shocking. In that scene, Sonja is stuffing a chicken, putting her hands deep into its inside, taking intestines out; the sight acquires symbolic power: the repugnance of the world in which Sonja is not the only inhabitant.
However, this shock and brutality, at times – where the director uses hyper-realistic details after an ironic severance from the reality as well as the fact that he lures the audience by the space and non-verbal expression – create the astonishment offered to the audience of Bitef as a unique experiment.

Ana Isaković

The Second Act Giovanni: Leporello, Leporello!... Signore? (recitative secco)

The Second Act Giovanni: Leporello, Leporello!... Signore? (recitative secco)
Don Giovanni is thinking up new conquests. He exchanges clothes with Leporello and they venture a new action.


Bojana Cvejić directed and showed Mozart’s Don Giovanni at this year’s Bitef and, calling it a composition of body, sound, light and movement, she intentionally made a distance from opera – the classical product of bourgeoisie. As if she used the very definition to point out to the contents which were neglected by the old opera in favour of voice spectacle yet which are recognized by the new opera as the crucial way to make its concept relevant in the contemporary society. Despite the opera being present all along, it lightly moved around the Belgrade fair hall. It was as seductive as Don Giovanni. It toyed with our expectations, it made us chase it, search for it and recognize it in the most varied modes of its existence.

But why did we want it so much? If we could dissect the desire/opera we could obtain information about its new body. We would see the opera flowing through the vein of the audience and revitalizing it; we would see the light impulses change the perception of the space it moves through… we would see its architected structure made possible due to the specific space treatment. We would detect its parasite dependence on the elements of the reality. Furthermore, we would notice a gap existence, a scare of a subject, of the other, shown through orchestra division and the very scenes. We would see that the opera speaks a false language but that, during the process of interpreting, it visually shows ideological influences subconsciously brought in by opera. Actually, we would notice many mechanisms disturbing and transforming the old body of an opera into a new age product. But we would still not discover what is it that it contains that we can never get enough of…

In the course of XX century, many authors were systematically trying to ‘kill’ opera but never managed. Unlike those, Bojana Cvejić gave it a new figure which she put into new clothes, shaped it with demanding physical practices and left it somewhere between reality and fiction. Thus she opened new possibilities of interpreting it and offered an unforgettable opera experience to the audience. She let them get under the skin of the opera and discover the making of unyielding life forms out of the well-fit mechanisms for meanings’ creation.

Jovana Dukić

Hansel: Maybe eternal, but more or less forever

This year, Bitef danced at the very beginning. It was clumsy, as if done by a beginner or maybe it was just an impression caused by the fact that it was at the very beginning. Both dancing performances left an impression of inexperience. Does it mean that the only criterion regarding selection of the performances for the main programme is how spectacular they are? Is it really enough to use nothing more than well-made optical illusions, superficially used new technologies or great names from the world of choreography?
Maybe forever may be based on a tangible topic – unlike the attractive performance we saw at the beginning – but it does leave a gap filled with unanswered questions. The questions are various – form those concerning Love as a topic and possibility to present it by the means of contemporary dance, to those dealing with types of links between the two approaches to dancing. Eventually, it all comes down to one or two questions – what is the point of this performance and why is it at Bitef? In order to promote a young artist on non-European markets? Is it the very coming of Meg Stuart to Belgrade? Okay, but, couldn’t she have come with some other performance?
Another omission was made regarding the announced time spent on preparation of the performance. It said, five days. The audience was barely reassured by Meg Stuart herself. And I am sure I am not the only one who thinks that Maybe forever was being created yesterday, spontaneously, during the performance. Anyhow, whether it was made for five days, two months or it was completely improvised (which I would cheerfully support), Maybe forever will be remembered by Niko Hafkenscheid's music and the fact that Meg Stuart came to Belgrade.
In the end, Bitef wouldn't be what it is if there hadn't been any mistakes on the part of the organisation. What ever has happened, you wonder? Nothing much. Some of you will probably not even understand the remark. But, isn’t it unusual that there was no translation during the performance? I am aware that the (post)modern society imposes computer literacy and knowledge of English but wasn’t that gesture a sign for the so-called less educated that Bitef is not for them? Mr. Bitef, is that how you imagine emancipation?

Dušan Milojević

More or less

42Bitef08 began in a more or less usual way – the grand opening in Centre Sava in front of, give or take, 3000 guests and, naturally, with a dancing performance which, more or less, have been coming to Bitef from France. It is, more or less, a spectacle similar to those performed in Berlin by Blue man Group which is, more or less, the most popular product of German pop culture.
The opening itself was, more or less, not a pompous one. Milena Marković opened the festival in a, more or less, nervous fashion, sharing an anecdote concerning her visiting Bitef as a student and the change of fate – from the times when she jumped over a wall to see a performance till the present day role and, more or lass, a honour to announce the festival opened.
The performance was, more or less, ok. Several rounds of applause during the performance given to, more or less, virtuous dance of the performers, were the only ‘incidents’. More or less, the authors achieved what they had intended. It turned out that this kind of performance can satisfy, more or less, the entire audience. All of us, more or less, came because of the more or less spectacular announcement of the more or less spectacular performance. The audience was well-dressed, more or less. More or less without tracksuits. I guess they’d had time to go home after work and dress up for the occasion.

The audience was, more or less, filled with famous people – artists, bankers, politicians. All of them were, more or less, smiling – both while entering and while leaving the performance. The rounds of applause during the performance were more or less insignificant anyway. We are more or less used to them. Those moments might more or less represent the division within the society. The difference between educated audience and the one which is considered uneducated is, more or less, characterized by the spontaneous reaction. While the ‘uneducated’ more or less enjoy the performance, the more or less educated are appalled. We could, more or less, pose a question of different expectations. While some see this as a, more or less, ideal opportunity to be seen with a new hairstyle or in a new piece of clothing, the others expect to see some, more or less, new theatre tendencies. The question which, more or less, arises is – how long are we going to have such divisions? More or less infinitely?

Dušan Milojević

Corporative correct

After he had shown us his performance To Whom it may concern, some ten years ago, in which he attempted to explain that corporations have life to them, that they are likeable and pretty because, hey, they are people too, so we should rather admire them than let ourselves be turned into diligent and perfectly trained machines, Phil Soltanoff is now taking us several steps further in the process of the corporative super-system pushing human beings even deeper into the abstract.

Where does the parallel with corporations come from? Entering the performance, one passes under a huge Société Générale bank banner and at the performance which is, believe it or not, from France as well as the bank, one watches dancers dressed in the same grey suits the employees of the bank wear. I am not going to mention the name of the bank. The one mention should be considered a free advertisement. I might sound paranoid but if we remember Catherine Bigelow’s film Strange Days, and days of Bitef are always strange days in Belgrade, we cannot but remember the main villain line: “It’s not about whether you’re paranoid but are you paranoid enough!” that is how it goes in the world of big corporations and capitalism and high technology.

Though not musically educated, I have noticed traces of song “Old McDonald had a farm” and “United States of Europe” corporation anthem in the fanfare intonation announcing the beginning of Bitef. Speaking of the anthem, Schiller’s words which were left out are: “Milions of people, embrace!” The performers in More or less Infinity embraced bars and lines but never each other.

People and things are both well organized and at a disposal. The audience showers the same points with rounds of applause as it does at the Olympics or a circus. Implants and braces run away from people (or people run way from them) but the grey suits bring everything back to its place and everything resumes its perfect state. Thus the performance constitutes the ideological plane which tells us that perfection, aim and sense are blending in the mechanism of depersonalized people and bits in computerized corporative game – or can those creatures be called people at all? And, let’s not forget the meaning of the word profit: it is the unpaid work!

Naturally, none of it would work out if everything wasn’t so excellent, perfect, beautiful, extraordinary, fascinating, just like a TV commercial… and that’s as it should be when corporation’s money is invested.

The level of fascination depends on the ticket price and on the position of the seat. The mathematics in the performance serves to fascinate not to teach. “Line as a form and line as a metaphor” shows various uses of a line in diagrams until the people turn into lines as well.

Idea of More or Less Infinity is meager (unless it is a well hidden evil which is more than my paranoia), neither tragic, nor comic nor tragicomic, but it does show a huge tragedy of our times. We witness a financial ritual as art becomes fascination, as a mirage is the only aim of the author who boasts using illusionist principles developed in optical art, saying that “object of research is a literal and metaphorical juggling with the possibilities”. What does it tell us about the ethics of the author, of the financier and of the Bitef festival?”

Ivan Pravdić

Bodies without souls

Everything being both retro and modern - was proved once more to be the paradigm of postmodern theatre. Theatre poetics of Bertolt Brecht, which states that the underlying principles of art in the modern society are to be socially engaged and well thought through, is still a fertile ground for establishing art practices aiming at provoking audience to think and critically analyze its position within the society. It is not by coincidence that Andraš Urban’s choice is Brecht’s Buckow Elegies, a selection of poetry with the main topic to position the human in times of repressive political systems, critical situations, national uprisings and wars. Urban uses a hardcore approach in reading Brecht’s critique of “swallowing a subject” by systems of state political apparatuses, turning it thus into a contemporary critique of reducing a person to a body by the means of biopolicy as a particularly transparent practice during the II World War and the concentration camps. The reference is well established by the actors wearing military uniforms. Dressed in such a fashion, the performers do not present themselves as actors who lend their bodies to a purpose of staging certain content or a play but as the masters of both their bodies and of the bodies of other actors. It led to a perception of there not being four characters but four bodies on stage. The narration is destroyed by deducting a verbal or bodily expression, so the only effect it had on the audience included body work. That is the reason Urban defines his theatre as a physical one. The physical bodies are those which burn from the inside yet do not speak; those which make monstrous gestures, go on rampage on stage and torture each other. “They are machines”, the audience started whispering at one point, hardcore machines, individuals reduced to bodies without souls. Such bodies do not make contacts or form connection but they do not contradict each other either. Urban takes Brecht’s text which, from time to time, refers to the writer’s adherence to Marxist ideas and the unity of contradiction as the main law of nature, society and thought, putting it into binary “structure” of human entity, into union between body and soul. However, stressing out that the body is what is left of human beings, the hardcore machines point out at a missing item in the dialectical unity. Therefore, if certain performances provoked universal, mythical questions about interpersonal relationships, Urban’s concept seems to probe much deeper into issues of human existence; the question of being human today. Does it still have a soul or is it reduced to body? Or is it actually a soul trapped within a body? “Except if…?” – a question arises during the performance. Except if - what? If we accept the art nowadays as socially engaged practice and we demand it to be so, then each of us has an obligation to find the answer to this question. Within this Bitef’s programme, Urban’s performance presented itself as one of the most remarkable ones which does not merely show the tragedies of our times but makes us aware of them too.

Sanela Radisavljević