Dossier - Key Performance

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THE FRONTIERS BETWEEN REPRESENTATION AND REALITY A ceremony celebrating the horrifying: the march of the Perchten In order to tackle the issue of the shift from fiction to reality in the expression of fantasies, I have chosen to focus on one type of performance, the Austrian custom of the “Perchten”, which has gone through many precarious interpretations and even ideological hijackings. “Perchten” are creatures symbolising fears and anxieties. They appear each year at the beginning of January to chase evil demons away and to steal cursed souls as a punishment for the sins of their owners. This custom was alive and well throughout the country until the Inquisition, when representations of evil characters were outlawed. It then only survived in remote, hard-to-access mountainous areas of the Alps, where the Church could not easily impose its rules. Being of Austrian origin, I was able to witness the more recent evolution of the custom. Groups of mainly young people have tried from the early 90s onwards to bring this tradition back to life. The constant aesthetical evolution of the wooden masks and fur garments traditionally worn by the Perchten and designed to increase and renew the fear of the heart of men, means this custom remains alive and kicking today. Not only the aesthetics and codes of the ceremonial constitute elements of the play, but they also serve to feed the issues raised. A custom stripped of its ritualistic function Traces of this custom can be found in the 90s in the culture associated with certain types of music, such as black metal. The characters of the Perchten continue to serve their original purpose: scaring people - creating not only anxiety but also desire, and raising issues linked to our relationship with death. Some bands of young male musicians proudly claiming to be part of the black metal movement have, particularly in Norway, mixed this fantastical, traditional universe with reality. Acts of vandalism have been committed, their perpetrators thinking they would thus become part of a certain Germanic and Scandinavian heritage, and showing their confusion through the transposition of fantasies - which were originally part of a ritual - and through their out-of-context expression. I have taken these confused teenagers and the way they modified an old tradition, in order to examine the shift from fantasy to reality and the separation between fantasy and rational thinking. Although this issue was in previous work placed in an erotic and intimate setting, it now tackles our political behaviour and collective fantasies.
KINDERTOTENLIEDER, A REPRESENTATION OF SHIFTING FANTASIES When fantasies turn to reality Kindertotenlieder invites us to examine our own experience of the interpretation of reality and fantasy when faced with various registers of representation. It also leads us to question the expression of our own fantasies, fears and obsessions as well as our awareness of these elements, within their setting or within the hypotheses drawn from our imagination. On the stage, two teenagers within a group experience this confusion between fiction and reality. They are attending what seems to be a representation of a sort of concert for a funeral. The music is played by Stephen O’Malley and Peter Rehberg, among others, and it is a calm, dark and powerful score, like a bewitching version of black metal. Twenty-odd characters perform the various aspects of the play, from realism to obvious artificiality, through a sort of alphabet that links in one same flow body language, speech and a visual treatment of bodies (through make-up, masks, etc.) from the most schematic to the most realistic. Dancers, musicians and life-sized dolls all play a role, in an often-disturbed logic, and share the roles and words of the dead, the living, and the ghosts. The narrative grows in an environment favourable to the projection of fantasies, reminiscent of the dark romantic look of many alpine landscapes in winter. It allows for an interaction between romantic aesthetics and the aesthetics of the traditional custom of the Perchten. The above interaction often influences the aesthetics of black metal. Links and contradictions existing between these visual universes from different historical eras drive the aesthetics of this show. As the show progresses, the status of what is represented changes. The scene the two young boys and ourselves are watching represents the mourning ceremony for the funeral of one of them. The story then goes back to what lead the teenager to his death. The death itself is shown three times. First is the representation imagined by the murderer, then comes the fantasy representation of the victim, and finally what is presented to the public as the reality. This scene is strewn with elements hinting that these are the real facts. A crime has been recorded. The record is told to the audience, but the veracity of this document cannot be confirmed nor infirmed. Finally the play becomes more of a concert, but the theatrical aspect and the tricks used are exaggerated, offering a new possible interpretation of the whole play, i.e. if what preceded this moment does not belong to the performance of the same concert. The two teenagers are haunted by the idea of suicide and of their own death. Through the realisation, presented as ‘real’, of their fantasies, they show us how their passions and the play shift, and thus how we can go from fiction to reality. Fiction is shown through the funeral and the concert, and through the imagination of the murderer and of the victim. Reality is represented through the third crime scene, which closes the narrative and precedes the last concert. The distinction between the two spaces is also palpable in what separates the teenagers from what they see. The representation of reality thus loses its certainty. The representation of the horrifying and the “uncanny” I wish to examine the representation of dread, in relation to the representation of death, and the constant proximity in which it remains with human properties such as the body physical appearance and behaviour. The representation of dread and the horrifying leads to what Sigmund Freud called the “uncanny”: the representation of something both familiar and alien, and consequently disturbing. It therefore constitutes a great trigger of cathartic experiences characterising ceremonies, rituals and shows, such as the one we are concerned with. The stage, in this case, and in general, is a place where one can call to and resuscitate the dead. Between dream and reality, performers blend in the play, through their appearance and movements, with other characters represented by artificial or altered bodies - moving or limp - who create this feeling of the uncanny linked to death by mimicking life.
Page 1 and 2: Gisèle Vienne _ DACM Production an
Page 3: KINDERTOTENLIEDER Created by Gisèl
Page 7 and 8: Photo Igonta Passe 2003
Page 9 and 10: As a designer and visual artist, O
Page 11 and 12: He also works with Geisha Fontaine
Page 13 and 14: Moved to tears by the dolls of deat

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