Transmutations
The group Sine Qua Non of Apostolia Papadamaki presented recently the work Transmutations. Transmutations is in two parts, the music played by collaboration of the music Ensemble Skalkotas (music by A. Schoenberg and R Strauss) at the Kylindromylos factory of Keratsini, in Piraeus. The first part unveiled in front of the standing audience who came forward in the front part of the big room to watch a short video projection until imperceptibly the space below the screen lit to reveal 5 concave surfaces (resembling screens), one next to the other on a horizontal plane through which one could see the bodies of the dancers moving slowly, slightly distorted due to the front concave surface. The audience could choose to watch anyone of the dancers on any of the screens for as long as they wanted to.
In the second part, the punters sat down at the back of the room, as usual during a performance whilst the orchestra now moved below the screens. Between the two, the audience and the orchestra, on an arena covered with earth, the dancers performed occasionally leaving this space, and approaching towards the area where the orchestra was. It is particularly interesting to follow the voracious reactions of the audience vis-à-vis the naked, on full view body of the dancers who most of the time are protected by the stage designs. Each time the stage parameters break up, those reactions can be fascinating.Lately, in our country, many dance teams have turned towards the subversion of the traditional relationship between audience and spectacle. This move has occurred belatedly (as many things to do with dance come to Greece late) and perhaps in a hurry but with all the “glamour” provided by technology (there no temporal gaps in this area).
The Transmutations by Sine Qua Non did not contribute much to the subversive discourse of modern dance about the human body. More than anything, they resembled a narcissistic game like a child in front of a mirror. It is not enough to distort the human body when reflected through the concave glass (or any other material for that matter) in order to disrupt the narcissistic whole of the omnipotent and complacent “dancing human body”, particularly when in the nude, inserted into a transparent installation, calling only for adoration in its journey in front of the eyes of the audience.
I must say that I would have preferred the aggression of accepting the exhibited body like a “peep-show” fully conscious of the theatricality of the spectacle, rather than the pompous and painful confinement into boxes-wombs which in the second part (surprise!), concluded in the “reborn-innocents” marching symbolically towards civilisation, consideration and support, given through contact improvisation or in any case, its echo and transfiguration into other idioms. There were far too many inconsistencies in what was presented at Kylindromilos, for us to accept the notion of revolt against tradition as far as the spectacle, the body, the relationship between the audience and the performers are concerned; first and foremost the reduction of the dance to a narrative tool, and second, the symbolic use of techniques which, although developed in the times of “ Peace and Love” can not be representative as typical codes (that is to be reduced in empty mimicry and gimmicks) of i.e. social solidarity, presented on stage.Sine Qua Non have the talent to create works for mainstream stages and deal with similar topics: the struggle between Good and Evil, man and his fate, etc. And will do it, because the group know the way to “transmute” the modern into the cornerstone of –any- tradition.