En forestilling om forestillinger om fremtiden – hvordan ser verden ud i morgen? Forudsigelser om hypotetiske fremtidsperspektiver. To performere, nogle paller – og en masse ord. Det er set-uppet i den legendariske engelske teatergruppe Forced Entertainments forestilling om fremtiden, Tomorrow’s Parties, der danner baggrund for dette stykke art writing om forestillingen, der behandler fremtiden som i virkeligheden ligeså meget allerede er nutiden som lige her og nu eller sågar fortid. Forvirret på et højere plan?
af Carmen Csilla Medina (stud.; psychomotorik) og Lotus Freya Omim (performancekunster; underviser)
Set-up:
To performere, en bunke paller, masser af ord. Engelske Forced Entertainment og Tomorrow’s Parties. Teatret Republique, Cph Stage Festival 2014.
Prolog
two people standing on a podium in front of colourful light bulbs
like if they were preparing a fiesta with piñata in Mexico
they stand here and you expect them to move
but they don’t move under the entire show
what does it do to you?
they talk about the possible scenarios of the future
they play with tension and release
they bring you down and lift you up
switching between tragedy and absurdity
utopias based on nowadays
problems and phenomena known today but exaggerated and more symbolic
Grafik: Line Larsen
Forestillingen Tomorrow’s Parties
En mand og en kvinde stiller sig på trækasserne i midten af scenen med ansigtet vendt mod publikum
climate change, capitalism, gender conflicts
racism, political systems, nature and biology
De taler om fremtiden
alianation, sexuality, aliens, emotions,
violation of the human rights in the developing worlds
Kredser om et tema ad gangen
uni-national dictatorship or feudal police-states, internet-democracy
police-state or criminal-state,
coorporations will be the new religion, or people indeed will become more religious
De starter deres sætninger med in the future eller or
radical permanent revolutions with jacobinus touch turning into carnivals
animal rights applied to human rights: the less intelligent have less rights
De taler tydeligt og artikuleret på engelsk om fremtiden
short-term slavery will be re-introduced
self-selling slaves also for one-night stands
Kvinden har sorte ballarina sko på og en kjole i brunlige farver
countries representing a historical theme like in Disneyland
or the whole world will become medieval because that’s what people like
horses and dragons
in Japan, samurais
“but in Europe there will be proper nights”
or history won’t interest people at all because they’ve learnt to live in the present
Manden er kældt i et grønt jakkesæt
only work and no dream, only dream and no work
robots that do the labour and humans that do the arts
De har ingen navne
women that do the service and only a few men left who enjoy this
these men are all on demand
and do not need to compete or to deliver
100 % female world with sperm banks
(men don’t dream about an exclusively masculine world)
Jeg ved ikke, hvem de er
a world where you mix your own gender day by day
Hvor de kommer fra
or where your physical appearence depends on your work
Hvor de er på vej hen
creating work-related human-machine hybrids
Hvad deres relation er
or alien-hybrids through transplanetarian love affairs
Hvorfor de står på to trækasser omgivet af kulørte lamper
or human-animal hybribs, a wide range of creatures
becuase your animal lover can give you something unique your human lover can’t
Hvorfor de taler til mig
or sex will be common on the streets and in the supermarkets
or sex will be old-fashioned, practised by nostalgic old people
(it is like with many Japanese nowadays)
De taler direkte til publikum
most people will be infertile and the born children will be kept in secret
De ser aldrig på hinanden
or children will run the world due to their innocent wisdom
and sing lullabies to parents who will have constant nightmares
Hvorfor taler de om fremtidsscenarier
or you just adopt a child on the internet to have good consciousness
and receive a picture of him once in a while
(that is already happening now)
Er der en mening med deres snak om fremtiden
people will become more and more alianated
people will become more and more mathematical
and the last 5 people left will rather live on 5 different continents
Der er et stort publikum
or they will all live in a collective, having a good time
people will get disconnected from nature and only see animals in the zoos
but with a weird anxiety due to alianation
De griner
or there might be artificial paradises with artifical tamed wild animals, doves and button-controlled climate
En brainstroming over fremtiden
or we will be like warriors in Sparta, living on the edge naked
the survival of the fittest, evolution-terror
or we will all be fragile and die young due to epidemic
Scenen er en sort kukkassescene
our life gets shorter and shorter like a buttefly’s
reduced at the end to only an hour
Envejsdialog med publikum
or death will no longer exist and it will only be a way to scare kids
like with witches, Santa Claus or the Spanish inquisition
De skiftes til at tale om fremtiden
or there will be only a few people, living for hundreds of years
or overpopulation forces people to share the same body
in a kind of rotatory system
Ingen diskussion mellem dem
or people will be seggregated in ghettos based on races and sub-races
and inter-racial connection will be prohibited
or to promote diversity, only mixed raced encounters will be allowed
De kunne blive ved med at tale, finde nye emner i fremtiden
or there will be no humanity, no animals, only plants due to climate change
or there will be humans and animals but eating meat will be very wrong
except human meat, cannibal-state, breeding humans in separated fields to be eaten
På et møde er der ingen slutning eller begyndelse eller midte
or people will only eat different kind of coloured pills
(but that’s almost a cliche)
everyone will get a suicide-pill at the age of 18
so there will be a bigger percentage of happy people on Earth
Kun lyset ændrer sig
society will be very controlled but there will be places like fight clubs
where you can do anything and anything can happen to you
Deres skygger ændrer sig
they will be very popular but will only open during the weekends
like wars will only happen during the summer
they will be like entertainments, sport events, like gladiator games
De flytter sig hverken i deres tale eller deres kroppe under hele forestillingen
executions will be broadcasted in a form of reality shows
and criminals determined to community work will have to be
presentators on the shopping channels
De underholder mig med fremtiden som er ingenting eller alting
humans will colonize other planets but feel homesick
although they filled Noe’s spaceship with a couple of each species
(they said a lot of things about the space and aliens
but I couldn’t be bothered to remember them all
I don’t like sci-fi)
De underholder mig med ingenting eller alting
or people will all live under the ground
Men jeg er underholdt
or under the seas due to the rise of the sea levels (global warming)
De kulørte lamper slukker
and will build domes under the seas like in the Little Mermaid
Lyset går ned
however, it wil not be pleasant at the beginning
De forlader scenen
Epilog
After enumerating a great range of possible future scenarios, one of the actors says: “Or everything will just stay the same”. And they start to talk about all the tragedies happening all around the world: about wars, starvation, exploitation of labour forces. The audience is tense, it is not humorous anymore, it is about the sad reality. The actors continue for a while to name global problems but then they release the tension by naming banal, everyday life problems like trying to fix things you don’t need, arguing about Xmas and the reading of a map. After talking about the present, the actress says: “Or” and holds a longer break before they turn back talking about the possible future scenarios.
This “interruption by the present” happens once more during the show but there is a more fluid transition, they don’t emphasize it with longer breaks. Here they name the lighter, micro problems first like people wasting their time on writing bad poetry or computers that loose data. Then they start to talk about how we mess up each others’ life: parents their children’s, couples each other’s etc. And there is silence and tension again in the audience, even a sort of deep sorrow. Release comes when they continue to talk about the future. The transition is fluid again.
Their final conclusion is that everything will stay the same but with smaller changes. As said before, all their suggestions were variations for this very same theme, only taking it to the extremes or expressing it through metaphores.
FAKTA:
Tomorrow’s Parties
af Forced Entertainment
Spillede på Teatret Repulique den 19.-20. juni under Cph Stage, som en del af minifestivalen Follow the Money.
Info: Forced Entertainment (UK)
Info: CPH STAGE (11.-22. juni)
ART WRITING
Dette stykke art writing er et samarbejde mellem Lotus Freya Omim og Carmen Csilla Medina, bygget på kreative skriveøvelser fra Livearts symposium om ”Artwritng and Critics”. I tre dage undersøgte diverse kunstnere andre måder at give kritik på gennem artwriting end traditionel kunstkritik. Et fokus var at bruge performancestrategier til at belyse værker, så kritikken i sig selv blev en form for værk, en respons på oplevelsen og ikke en analyse om, hvorvidt værket var godt eller dårligt. Ydermere var der mere end én kritiker til at give oplevelsen af værket bredde.
Processen: Først tog vi intuitive noter under forestillingen. Bagefter prøvede vi at genkalde værket i kronologisk rækkefølge ved hjælp af vores hukommelse. Dette blev komplementeret med de intuitive noter. Til sidst skulle vi skrive om coreaction(s) så objektivt som muligt.
Lotus Freya Omim mente, at hele værket (Tomorrow’s Parties) var en slags uendeligt loop, så der ikke fandtes coreactions i det.
Til sidst blev vores to versioner syet sammen, også meget intuitivt.
NB: Hvis nogle linjer rimer lidt, er det bare ren tilfældighed.
