SCORES NO 0 - Tanzquartier Wien

Ivana Müller
into
the
night
Ivana Müller,
into the night, 2007
originally commissioned by LISA for the occasion of the festival LISA Live(s) in Theatre Kikker, Utrecht, The Netherlands ( 2007),
also presented at Tanzquartier Wien as a part of On possible and other encounters, 15th/16th October 2009, and » staged « on
http://www.ivanamuller.com/works/into-the-night/
10
SCORES NO 0 — Autumn 2010
hello, (slight coughing)
hello
I am here,
sitting in the darkness,
here,
on the other side of the big black room,
in a very big group of people,
together with you,
anticipating the event that is going to happen
in just a couple of moments…
And although we are many, this moment feels
strangely intimate.
It makes me want to whisper.
So, it comes handy that I have this microphone
because it allows me to speak very quietly, and
you can still hear me,
even though you are maybe on the other side of
the room.
It is funny, and it must be because of the
darkness, but it seems that in this moment,
although we don ’t even know each other, we are
doing something together.
and in fact we are doing something together,
we are getting ready to spectate.
I love this moment:
this moment belongs so much to the experience
of theatre:
this blackout before it all begins.
there is something slightly romantic and very
powerful about the anticipation of a beginning.
11
IVANA MÜLLER into the night
Because now everything is still possible.
It is almost like getting dressed for a first
date…
I often go to theatre but it happens very
rarely, maybe only once a year or even less
than that, that I see a really good show… a
show that I remember for a very long time.
And even though it occurs so rarely, every time
I sit in the darkness before the show begins I
know that potentially it can be this show.
Actually, that is why I don ’t really like shows
that start in the » light «,
in which performers are on stage already when
the audience is coming in. Off course,
sometimes the choice to start with the light is
» conceptually correct « and there is a rational
or dramaturgical reason for it, which I can
accept… off course.
But I really much more prefer a show that
starts in darkness.
Like this one.
It is as if this dark moment provides a
necessary space and time to switch
concentration and attention from one kind of
here and now to another kind of here and now.
The first kind of here and now belongs to the
time before the darkness, the one of getting
into the theatre, buying a ticket, choosing a
seat, saying hello to all the people we know,
reading the evening program, or pretending to
read it so that we don ’t need to say hello to
somebody we don ’t want to talk to.