Philipp Gehmacher - Goethe-Institut TanzConnexions

Melbourne

nospam@example.com (Philipp Gehmacher) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:15:32 +0200

26.6.2010

Winter in Melbourne. We do four shows with an unusually quiet audience. Reading the reviews I gather they were quiet because they were either with us throughout the whole performance or bored but respectful. The good reviews enjoy the reduced aesthetic of the work, seemingly the experienced time we give to small details, allowing the spectator to dive into an atmosphere, a sense of tenderness and question, rather than just reading signs.
The work is often described as reduced and I guess it is. But somehow I can’t help but think of some of my other work; the even more ‚abstract’ and ‘held’ ones. Would ‘they’ accept those pieces? How spectacular does dance need to be in this country? It was difficult to dig beneath the surface, as most Australians that I met were open but reserved at the same time. I however felt we were appreciated and I also appreciated the reserved kindness of the people we met, the fresh air (again), the comfortable life I am so used to in Europe.

Throughout the whole tour Meg and I discuss the talks, the reviews and comments we receive and ever so often the piece seems like a very fertile ground, so rich an object, so ready to be unpacked. Maybe Forever became a site on which not just two, three, four… artists met but a place that was enriched by our journey to all those places and the people that intentionally and accidentally crossed our way.

Jakarta

nospam@example.com (Philipp Gehmacher) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:15:19 +0200

17.6.2010

Jakarta: on the last night of the Indonesian dance festival I am sitting in the audience watching a triple bill of two Indonesian choreographers, Jecko Siompo and Eko Supriyanto, and the South African choreographer Vincent Mantsoe. Maybe this is another turning point for me during this tour. It is a moment of for once watching other artists on stage rather than performing myself. I think about the festival that made a choice to put those artists forward, their curatorship on the one side of the auditorium and the belief feel in the expressivity of ones own medium on stage. The three works are distinctively different and performed with great conviction. A multiplicity of styles on one evening that seems to say: it’s okay to be different as long as we put ourselves forward completely – no hiding, little doubt.
This evening makes me think of my own fears, questioning and generalising then some European and my own tentative notions of possible straightforward expressions in my dancing and the verbal language I use to describe it.
I realise that everything I describe in our talks is always multi-facetted, complex, polysemic, pluralist. Every physical movement is more than just one thing. Maybe here lies a cultural difference between my work and the language about it that I keep sharing on this tour. I feel neither for or against complexity but notice how reluctant I am when interpretation of the work seems too one-dimensional to me.

Singapore

nospam@example.com (Philipp Gehmacher) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:14:58 +0200

12.6.2010

Singapore: After both performances, a talk with the audience is moderated by Lim How Ngean. He does his job extremely well and many issues regarding the piece and its possible readings come up. Meg explains her side, I my own sense of it all. I like those talks with Meg as we learn as much about the piece as about each other as artists when speaking in front of an audience. I like the situation of sensing Megs’ and my own relationship to the public. What she and I reveal through our words and how we do it is part of the game and a completely different ball game to when we speak to each other, following the very different rules of intimate dialogue.
How Ngean has a very comfortable and discerning way of retrieving issues out of the piece. He presents them to us and lets us dwell and expand on them. Our thoughts on the set as a scenographic element creating space while using a picture, the body we use and the physical language we believe in, are all issues discussed throughout those evenings. The piece becomes an archaeological site and the biggest themes and beliefs in relationship to the work and my collaboration with Meg become clearer again: we do give form, shape ideas physically in a way that always already encompasses meaning in itself. Our technique lies in fading, in appearing and disappearing, it lies in the still that we keep passing through.

Different themes come up on this tour, generosity being one of them. I want to be generous and not feel my work is just reduced and illegible to my audience. Singapore seems up for it on there own shy level. When I leave Singapore I am however a little overwhelmed with all the pain that people saw in the work. Like if it is unusual to show sensitivity and feelings. I guess I am used to being within those sensations, don’t have to read them as a spectator from an outside.
Emotions and time become fragile concepts on this tour however and come up again and again in different interviews. I always try to find the right words, start to avoid the issue of time as I feel it’s misleading and try to give names to sensations and desires I feel. I tell that a sense of loss, disbelief and melancholy are nearly always in my body when I am in the studio and that it takes me time to work through those sensations. But they make me feel alive as much as joy and therefore I allow them to be on stage with me. But I also try to share that I think of presence much more and how I embody different sensations in various physical states of articulation and actualisation. But that seems often harder or too abstract to share.

Ho Chi Minh City

nospam@example.com (Philipp Gehmacher) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:14:42 +0200

8.6.2010

For our second show in Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City the head of Goethe Vietnam Dr. Almuth Meyer-Zollitsch decides to fly down from Hanoi to HCMC to see the show again. I am touched that she is intrigued with the work and wants to see it again. You might think we are only here to ‚share with a local audience’ yet it feels rewarding when ‚Goethe people’ appreciate our work.
After the performance the Goethe team invites us for a beautiful dinner next to the market of HCMC. Local dancers and choreographers join us. What did they make of the show? I really can’t figure it out. But meeting them makes me think of physical technique and my training, and that body that I have partly left behind. I somehow feel that I am a different kind of dancer to them, not showing athletic and physical excellence anymore. I at least imagine that some of them would value that kind of physical expertise.
One of the main questions for this tour comes up at this moment. What is my technique nowadays? I do have a skill; I use technique in what I propose physically. I have strategies as a performer. How can I share those on this tour, make visible how I treat and use the medium of dance, becomes my concern. It becomes my mission for the whole tour to see how I can share what I believe in, be it through the performance, talks or casual conversation. I start to feel a responsibility being here and try to voice my thoughts as much as I can.

Hanoi

nospam@example.com (Philipp Gehmacher) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:14:05 +0200

4.6.2010

Hanoi. We arrive at this incredible Hotel Metropole. I am not quite ready for the kind of luxury offered there and maybe even slightly ashamed but I will enjoy it later on anyway. The classic situation you encounter and have heard of from many travellers occurs however soon after our arrival. I leave my air-conditioned room and hit the streets: the heat, the noise, and the real or mistaken poverty of some gets to me. I don’t know how to digest it really. I am the white man now, somehow uncomfortable with my appearance, somehow feeling ignorant.
I am walking through the streets of Hanoi, next to its City Lake and there are always many people in the streets and the noise of their motorbikes constant and everywhere. I walk to rehearsal, always catching a glimpse of different sights and knowing that this tour could only be the beginning of understanding a country like Vietnam and hence will give me food for thoughts for time to come.
Throughout this tour I am opting for an in-between state, between work and tourism: I am a working visitor that has come here upon the invitation of the Goethe Institute. I represent my work and try to be open for its possible readings. I am as curious about the people who watch our performances as about the ones who invited us. How they got to their current jobs and what they are trying to achieve through their work with Goethe. What is that cultural exchange we are all part of all about? Does it work? What is its function?

The first show takes place with an audience that seems partly enthusiastic and intrigued, partly confused. Many play with their mobile phones and even take calls whilst watching. As we walk on in darkness the audience starts to take pictures, photographers and camera crews even make their way on stage. My concentration is not the best that evening, realising that I have no idea how this piece is being read over here at all and what my role is in presenting it.
Huynh Thi Thu Huong from Goethe Vietnam reassures us that it’s good that we are here, and that contemporary dance that doesn’t give a straightforward narrative is still rare in Vietnam. At this point it’s still hard for me to really grasp the impact of our performance. We do not meet any spectators and leave for a dinner together with the head of Goethe Vietnam.