ZAGREB RESIDENCY FESTIVAL NOVOG ... - Unpack the Arts

perception of speed when in a fast car, as well as
the rare neurological disorder akinetopsia where
the patient cannot perceive motion, instead
seeing the world as a series of frozen pictures,
stop frames prior to animation. Interested in the
magic of cinema special effects and seeking to
blur the boundaries between movie and stage
magic, Hakkarainen tried to recreate slow-motion
performances from cinema live in a theatre. So
we see him driving, trying to stay awake as words
are projected on the (wind)screen in front of him.
Trees, houses and fields flashing past him, again
and again and again, his tired vision tunnelling.
Bulbs flare and flash and red cables tangle with
his thoughts.
A trained visual artist, Kalle Hakkarainen’s
intensely repetitive piece is not an easy fit in the
circus box. There is very little of the physical in his
theatre, and the one trick he does use, an old and
classic move, is hampered, as Cie 14:20’s piece
before his, by the visibility of the harness that
makes it possible, and so any small chance of
magic is dispelled. It does not work well as avantgarde
theatre either, for he gives no expression,
no presence, no character, and no drama. The
viewer grasps for something that is not offered,
and again they are not in awe purely of the skill
involved in his work. The glorious soundscapes by
Múm’s Samuli Kosminen cannot save it, and the
audience leaves disappointed.
Saturday brings a lot more joy, and the festival’s
outstanding highlight – the surreal Kafka-esque
dream world of L’Autre. Conceived and
choreographed by Claudio Stellato in Brussels in
collaboration with Martin Firket, it explores the
physical language of a body with “no shape or
joints, yet a body that is strong and meticulous”.
Claudio is a highly driven performer who
undertakes intense periods of research to perfect
his art, drawing on mime and acrobatics to create
his cleverly choreographed contortions: “This
piece is the result of a long investigation (begun in
2008) focusing on movement language and the
relationship between body and object. What I
have been pursuing (and am still researching) is
the possibility of giving life, through movement, to
my deepest impulses, hidden desires and every
other part of my unconscious mind that does not
usually manifest itself.”
The piece begins, in pitch darkness, with the
unnerving sound of scratching. A light comes
up to reveal Stellato edging across a furled red
carpet with a small cabinet supported on his back,
his progress forward a struggle. As the show
progresses, Stellato turns feline, moving from
cabinet to wardrobe, as the red carpet breathes,
furniture levitates and doors open and close by
themselves. In the end, rather than
anthropomorphising the inanimate, all is
animated, and Stellato is objectified, becoming
one with his surroundings. As he explores his
landscape, the wooden containers tilt and fall,
and he falls and rises with them with a deft
humour that draws us into the magic of his world,
and the genius of his simplistic invention. Like
Chaplin in Le Cirque Invisible, Stellato makes the
everyday into the extraordinary, turning the
mundane into magic with his movements.
“Through this performance I put on stage the
possibility that a hidden part of myself takes a
human form, free from constrictions, and comes
to disrupt the conscious and rational part of me,
along with its sense of reality. I call this inner part
my ‘Autre’. On stage, I incarnate both: ‘me’ and my
Autre (‘other’). They co-exist together in one body
that is torn between two different ways of being:
the conscious ‘me’ and the subconscious,
imaginary ‘me’. L’Autre lives in a world made of
living objects (furniture and other warped/
reinvented objects) that come to life one after the
other. He manipulates them, discovers them.”
Watching the piece, it feels like a solo show, but
at the end it is revealed to be a duet. In the
shadows lurks someone ‘invisible’ (Martin Firket)
who makes the visible illusion possible. Stellato
explains: “He is controlling everything the eye can
see. A technician, a master of ceremony, a wizard,
a puppeteer, or perhaps simply the person that
makes the world of L’Autre possible and that
defines it. With this piece, I am not trying to
convey a clear message or to tell a tightly knit
story. I’m looking to stimulate the senses of the
audience and to provoke instinctive reactions,
as in a dream…”
SUSIE WILD 60