DasArts paper 2011

Autumn 2011 www.dasarts.nl

The Soul at Work Climates of Attention

Page 3

Page 5

Page 10

Page 11

Mentor of the Block Joe Kelleher:

Simon Vincenzi:

Matthew Goulish and Lin Hixson:

Claudia Castellucci:

‘How do we excercise the muscles of perception?’

‘We rarely give ourselves the time to look’

64 Questions from artists at work

‘Work is a striving, a straining’

?

2

DasArts Paper – Autumn 2011 The Soul at Work – Climates of Attention

The Soul at Work – Das Arts

Editorial How do artists put their soul at work? environment where excellent young theatre makers from all over the world can contemplate their work, rethink their methods, experiment, try out new forms, meet new collaborators and confront new audiences.

The ‘hard working Dutch’. The term first appeared in Dutch political discourse when a new right-wing government was installed a year ago. ‘We will give The Netherlands back to the hard working Dutch’, prime minister Rutte promised us, suggesting that for too long the country had been in the grip of a bunch of un-Dutch lazy bastards.

For this government, contemporary artists are certainly part of them. Their addiction to subsidies has alienated them from entrepreneurship and made them oblivious to the needs of a broader public. The Dutch state secretary for culture Zijlstra claims that only major budget cuts in the arts will finally wake up artists and compel them to make high quality – and thus highly acclaimed work. What does that say about hìs drive in life?

What annoys me particularly regarding this discourse is the total lack of consideration for the genuine, intrinsic motivation that makes people – not only artists! – work and enjoy what they do.

The search for job satisfaction We all work. We all want a job that allows us to commit our heart and soul. Nowadays it has even become a status symbol and personal duty.

Working overtime without complaining has become the standard, thereby blurring the line between work and life. Has the risk of burn-out and depression become tangible? Personal job

coaching, business fitness, life-long learning and a surplus of books on the subject are all tools to enhance your satisfaction and work performance.

And if the improvement measures your boss has on offer don’t work, it’s time you started looking for a better job.

‘Attention is exactly what DasArts offers theatre makers’ Yet, by instrumentalizing the pursuit for job satisfaction, the soul of the endeavor might escape you.

What do we really know about our soul at work?

So subtle it’s hard to measure, but it definitely has to do with attention to detail.

Attention is exactly what DasArts Master of Theatre offers participating theatre makers who are keen to develop their artistic work. Until now this unique location has not been directly affected nor threatened by huge budget cuts – touch wood.

We can continue working. Students enroll for two years in an effective programme alternating ‘Blocks’ – semesters based on themes, consisting of lectures, workshops, assignments and field trips – with semesters focused solely on a participant’s individual work. We can still create a stimulating

Love and life This year’s block was designed by mentor Joe Kelleher, head of department for drama, theatre and performance at Roehampton University in London.

That’s quite a title and a heavy job as well. I prefer introducing him as a true enthusiast of the (performing) arts, and a virtuoso in connecting artistic practice with philosophy, literature and theory.

He is guiding the students through his three-month programme called The Soul at Work, a title borrowed from a book by the Italian philosopher Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi. Whereas Berardi focuses on the way our soul is exploited nowadays, Kelleher creates ‘climates of attention’ or working environments, in collaboration with internationally renowned guests like Simon Vincenzi, Lin Hixson, Matthew Goulish and Claudia Castellucci. These climates allow participants to create and carefully contemplate working modes and strategies. They aim to give an insight, a hint of how a performing artist can put his/her soul at work…

This DasArts Paper will give you an insight in how they operate during The Soul at Work block.

It describes the thoughts behind the programme and offers luminous ideas by those involved.

The participating artists are being introduced, as well as three students who are currently preparing their Master Proof.

We all work. We expect artists to make good work, however hard that is to define. We expect artists, more than anyone else, to devote their love and life to the work they do. As if this could serve as a proof for quality.

This autumn, the performing artists at DasArts are working. They are accompanied by notions like attention, practice, precision, time, space, constraint, the virtuoso… This is how they explore The Soul at Work.

What can we learn from them? Read the paper and be welcome at our final Open Lab on November 17 and 18! (Written in my free time, on a warm autumn Sunday) Barbara Van Lindt DasArts Managing Director

Colofon Concept development and editing Petra Boers – Buro Vonkstof Design Thonik Editorial team Barbara Van Lindt Petra Boers Wouter van Loon Communication and production Wouter van Loon Photography Thomas Lenden Pierre Planchenault (Claudia Castellucci) English copy editing Gosse van der Leij Gregory Ball Text corrections Petra Boers John Meijerink Wouter van Loon Publisher DasArts – Master of Theatre Mauritskade 56 1092 AD Amsterdam The Netherlands www.dasarts.nl

Cartoons by Julian Hetzel

The Soul at Work – The Mentor

DasArts Paper – Autumn 2011 The Soul at Work – Climates of Attention

3

Joe Kelleher, Professor of Theatre and Performance:

‘I am more able to work, when I am animated by what I do’ This autumn Joe Kelleher, Professor of Theatre and Performance at Roehampton University, London, is hosting a provocative programme at DasArts: The Soul at Work. Together with the participants and a selection of international guests Kelleher investigates two important questions: How to put your soul at work, and at the same time: How to make sure you don’t exploit it?

‘Work should be the serious practice of happiness’, philosopher Franco Berardi says in his book The Soul at Work, which you took as the starting point of this block.

Do you agree?

‘Yes, I think work, for those privileged to choose what they like to do, should be the site of the practice of happiness. Which doesn’t mean that all work should be fun. Or that we can be happy all the time, ‘without a care in the world’ as we named the first weeks of our programme.’

‘Schools should enable us to discover what animates us best’ What attracted you in Berardi’s book?

‘I picked up this book, because I liked the title The Soul at Work. It’s a theoretical book about how people, not only artists, work in the contemporary world, about the ways in which work is exploited and we are made unhappy, and what to do about it. I also liked the fact that the soul in the title has little or nothing to do with spirituality or religion.

The soul, for Berardi, has to do with what a thinking and feeling body is, it is whatever animates us. Berardi reminds us of a definition of the soul, drawn from Spinoza, as simply ‘what the body can do’. He talks about the soul as being the forces of thinking and feeling which make the world,

through things like caring for ourselves, caring for others, caring for the things we do, through things like communicating and being communicated with, and paying attention to things, being in relation with things around us that matter. A lot of what he is writing about is attention. How to pay attention to things.’

Do you manage to keep your soul at work in your own working life?

‘My basic experience in my working life is: one does not have enough time to do things. In a typical working life, the life of students, artists, people working at universities, professionals, there are many, many things at the same time. There is that pressure, that obligation to do, and to do, and to do, the working rhythms in which we do it, the competing forms of time in which we are allowed to do it. I am interested in questions like: what is the time that is available to us when we are not working? Is there any such thing?’

Does this pressure and lack of time make us unhappy in work?

‘Indeed, Berardi points out that the contemporary form of ‘alienation’ – an old Marxist term – is putting the soul to work. The soul is what is most puttable to work, and therefore what is most exploitable. We live lives where our rhythms are perpetually disrupted. We are perpetually producing things just in time. This is part of the structure of work. On top of this, there are overwhelming flows of information that we have to take in and which have to compete with each other. “Our attention is under siege everywhere”, as Berardi puts is.

What disturbs us these days is the uninterrupted noise, which we haven’t chosen to organise ourselves. Cognitive space is overloaded with nervous incentives to act, the space in which we think, the space in which we are able to produce knowledge, is being rushed, pressured by the demand to act, to produce, to do. This, says Berardi, and I agree, can lead to depression, psychosis, burn-out, in short: being sad and going mad.’

The work of Joe Kelleher The DasArts block The Soul at Work is conceived and mentored by Joe Kelleher.

Joe Kelleher is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Roehampton, London. He is Head of Department for Drama. He has been closely engaged with twenty-first century developments in experimental theatre in Europe, in particular in Italy where he has developed working relationships with groups such as Kinkaleri and Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio. His publications include Theatre & Politics (Palgrave Macmillan2009), Contemporary Theatres in Europe (co-edited with Nicholas Ridout, Routledge 2006), and, with Romeo Castellucci, Claudia Castellucci, Chiara Guidiand Nicholas Ridout, The Theatre of Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio (Routledge 2007). His current book project, provisionally titled The Illuminated Theatre: Essays on the Suffering of Images, explores issues of rhetoric, image and spectatorship.

4

DasArts Paper – Autumn 2011 The Soul at Work – Climates of Attention

So when are people happy in their work, according to you?

‘I am very interested in what animates us: what do we get excited about, when do we find enthusiasms, attachments, affinities to things?

Myself, I am more able to work, when I am ani­ mated by what I have to do, when I feel myself woken up by it. What animates us in our practice is what we feel most happy about. For me, The Soul at Work is about this issue, it is about what animates us in our work, our practice. Without animation we can’t work.’

How can we stay animated? Many people look for new impulses all the time to solve this problem…

‘Now we are at the heart of the problem. Attention is crucial for animation. To be able to pay attention to things outside of us. One can be animated by finding oneself strange, being foreign to oneself.

When I get animated, I am not in a comfort zone.

I am in some strange space. This is also something we reflect on in the programme. Let’s see how we animate ourselves from the beginning. For instance with Simon Vincenzi, the participants will work with very little, for example just themselves in a familiar space. They will very closely look at the act of looking.’

If animation is crucial to happiness, how can we find best what animates us?

‘I think school is a very valuable and privileged place – I mean privileged in very, very positive terms – where we should be able to discover what animates us best. One of the things that disturbs me is that schools nowadays have been taken over by agendas of demand, students are forced to pass assessments, to make themselves employable, universities are being marketized, students are situated as consumers rather than learners. DasArts has the potential to be a school that doesn’t work like that, that doesn’t make the same sort of demands on the students to commodify themselves. It offers the privilege of the space in which a student can learn to pay attention, can learn to select their own objects of attention, find their own animation.’

Open Lab I

The Soul at Work – The Mentor And exactly these kind of schools are under pressure…

‘Yes, and that is a sad thing. Because I think it is crucial. Why should we not as human beings give ourselves the privilege to put ourselves to work?

To discover and imagine what might animate us best. And to take charge ourselves of the value that we place on art, which is not just the value of marketization. The organisation of value needs space and time, and care and attention.’

‘The soul is what is most puttable to work, and therefore what is most exploitable’ How did you translate these ideas about work and happiness, about animation and attention into the programme?

‘I wanted to do something simple, in a simple structure. Simple, but also demanding. I wanted to create a climate of working from which the creativity of the soul could be expressed, a climate in which the work of the soul can be exercised, a climate of attention. I also wanted to make a climate in which, as well as work, reflection could take place. In which the intelligent body can do, but can also reflect upon the doing, upon the risks and values of what we are doing. And I wanted to make more than one climate of attention.’

You invited guests to create different climates: theatre and performance makers Simon Vincenzi, Claudia Castellucci and Lin Hixson and Matthew Goulish. Why did you choose them?

‘I wanted to bring to Amsterdam and share with the students people who have been amongst my important teachers, people whose work over the years has transformed my understanding of what

the theatre can be; and indeed what the body – and the soul of creative labour – can ‘do’.

Simon Vincenzi, Lin Hixson, Matthew Goulish, and Claudia Castellucci are all artists who have succeeded in sustaining, and continually renewing, a practice at the cutting edge of contemporary theatre and performance making.

They are also people who have given serious consideration to the possibility of what a ‘school’ can be. Claudia, in her development of the Stoa (or School for Rhythmic Movement), Lin and Matthew at their Goat Island Summer Schools and more recently School of Abandoned Practices in Chicago, and Simon in his work with students in London and in Norway and elsewhere, have made vital contributions to re-imagining the possibilities of art and performance pedagogy. It is a pleasure to be working with each one at DasArts.’

As a teacher, what do you hope participants will get out of the programme?

‘The students here are already artists, so we are not teaching them how to make work.

What I hope is, that after this block, they will be better equipped to recognise the value of their own work, to value their own activity, their own practice, why it matters, why they should con­ tinue. What necessarily goes along with this, is recognizing the value of the work of others.’

So you won’t give them a recipe how to become happier artists?

‘No, I don’t have the answers. We offer them a particular space, with very different and particular experiences, and the opportunity to reflect on them, without competing demands. They are going to find their own answers.’

The block The Soul at Work has been prepared with the assistance of Snejanka Mihaylova.

A presentation concluding the work with Simon Vinzenzi, entitled ‘Without A Care In The World’.

The Soul at Work – Climate of Attention 1

DasArts Paper – Autumn 2011 The Soul at Work – Climates of Attention

5

Theatre-maker Simon Vincenzi:

‘We very rarely give ourselves the time to really look’ London-based theatre director, choreographer and designer Simon Vincenzi was invited to DasArts to work with the participants on the theme The Soul at Work. What climate did he create?

‘I trained as a theatre designer, and started out working in both experimental and classical theatre and opera. There was a point in this career, working on large operas, that the conditions of making this work became untenable – to do, in part, with the political structures of these opera houses and their expectations.’

Taking the time and space ‘What has become important to the making of my own work is the process in which the work is allowed to develop. This work is often collaborative and the process of making it constantly changes, to do with the ideas that I’m interested in exploring and the space that exploration needs to inhabit. One example of this is a seven-year research period that became The Invisible Dances.

We didn’t start this project with the idea to make it last for seven years, that was just the time the work needed. The last piece I presented, Luxuriant, was made physically in a week. It just happened, but with performers that I’d worked with for many years and who were familiar with the type of questions I wanted this work to address. They were ready and their attention was fully focussed.’

being made in. This landscape contained various provocations for participants to respond to. The first provocation was the title of the three weeks: Without A Care In The World. I was interested in the possible double meaning of this phrase – of both the state of being without a care, in a joyous way and a question of whether we actually have care in the world. Another element I brought to this landscape was the fiction of Scheherazade in The Tales of The 1001 Nights*. The infinite act of telling stories to save both her own life and the lives of other women from being executed. These stories were told with care – both in their narrative construction and their purpose of eliciting total attention. The idea of care became an important question over the three weeks – about how we care for our work and what the consequences of this are: the consequences for both the artist making this work and the audience’s participation within it.’

‘Attention is crucial for how I work’

Lack of fear ‘Attention is crucial for how I develop work and I ask for the same attention to detail from everyone involved in it. The process of rehearsal is about gaining an understanding of each other. It asks for an inquisitiveness as to what this ‘thing’ might be, what is it we are working on and what form does this work need to take. I ask my performers to bring themselves and this demands a lack of fear, to enter a space of the unknown. It requires a complex concentration. It also allows for a type of chaos I’m particularly interested in.’

Time to look ‘I was interested in setting up a climate that is about looking. How do we look at space, at the image and at the act of looking itself? To give time and attention to this act and to spend time to reflect upon it. Because we very rarely give ourselves this time to really look – and question. This work began with long periods of the participants being blind-folded, questioning how we experience the space we are in without sight. This led to responding to different spaces in the city of Amsterdam and finding ways of translating this experience of space we had not visited before.’

Without A Care In The World ‘What I brought to this DasArts programme was a landscape somehow for us to inhabit for this three weeks. A frame that insisted upon certain ‘conditions of attention’ – of both the space of making work and the space in which that work was

Different interpretations ‘A parallel provocation I brought to this time was the viewing of the 13-hour film OUT 1 by Jacques Rivette. The film begins with two theatre groups rehearsing two different plays in Paris in 1970.

As the film progresses, it becomes a labyrinth

of these peoples journeys, a labyrinth of mystery and conspiracy, journeying out, travelling back, infinitely expanding. Rivette’s answer to the question of why this film was 13 hours long was: ‘It happened’. It was the length it arrived at, the necessary length for the complexity of the story being told.

This time, without a care in the world, has attempted to explore what our work needs. What are the demands our work makes on us and, as a consequence, what form does that work need to take? And like in 1001 Nights, what is important in the relationship with the audience of this work?’ *In the Tales from The 1001 Nights Scheherazade marries King Shahriyar, who, because of his first wife’s infidelities, takes a succession of virgins to his bed, only to have each one killed the following morning. On her wedding night Scheherazade plots to entertain the king with a story that she does not finish when morning comes. Entranced and curious to hear the conclusion, the king forestalls Scheherazade’s execution and when night approaches, the story continues, again without ending, and she sees another day.

Simon Vincenzi is a London-based theatre director, choreographer and designer who has created a huge body of experimental theatre work over the past twenty years, often pushing the boundaries of expectation.

His work frequently taps into the unconscious – taking the audience into an uncertain and unknown landscape.

Between 1996 and 2007 Vincenzi worked with Frank Bock in Bock & Vincenzi. In 1999 the duo began a seven-year research period culminating in two works: Invisible Dances…

From Afar, made to be heard on the telephone, and The Invisible Dances, a work in three acts performed over three years, presenting a disturbing visual world of abandonment and beauty.

In 2007 Vincenzi started his on-going project Operation Infinity – a series of theatre works that inhabit different spaces and time frames and that are performed by the fictional theatre company Troupe Mabuse.

6

The Soul at Work – The Participants

DasArts Paper – Autumn 2011 The Soul at Work – Climates of Attention

Snapshots of Attention Looking at what we see. Listening to what we hear. Attending to the situation in which our work is made. This is what the participants of the Soul at Work program worked on in the first ‘Climate of Attention’. They were asked to write a postcard, a brief bulletin, a report or a snapshot to the outside world. From a specific place, a specific moment, a specific passage of thought or observation.

21 September 2011, RitSael, Amsterdam Date: Monday 26 September 2011 (I think) Place: Somewhere close to the Amstel crossing in Amsterdam Time: Around 3pm Polar bears, whales and the rest.

A poster of hell & high water.

I am standing in front of a canal-side hotel.

The hotel sign is made of five cubes with four red letters in each.

HHHH OOOO TTTT EEEE LLLL Hot hole Hotel to hell TE Icebergs are melting.

Sonja Jokiniemi

It’s Thursday September 29, 4.05pm.

I am about to enter a room. I am not ready for it. But then again, I’m never really ready. I put on my purple wig.

I pull on my black tights. I tie my shoes. I breathe in and breathe out hoping this will settle my wandering soul back into my body. I walk the long corridor lit by neon lights and enter the room at the end. Everyone is seated around a table, waiting for the show to begin. Everyone is watching me.

Pierced by a thousand arrows, eternity is squeezed into a moment of my flickering body but I can’t stand it. I feel sick. I am no longer myself, I am her. Simon says: ‘Shall we go to your room?’ My pink character doesn’t get it: ‘What room? All of us?’. She hesitates. She’s trying to comprehend what’s going on. Who the hell is he? Who is she herself? A fictional scene was to take place about the possible meeting of two people in the middle of a crowd of passersby and strangers. A happy promise. But the utterance of Simon’s words mark its new beginning. Crushed, the scene becomes something else now. What do you want from me? And for what price? It’s all she can think of while she guides her audience to her room. What’s the price of a body? What’s the price of fiction? My soul is on strike. But I’ve escaped Theresienstadt.

I

I’m blindfolded with a piece of black fabric.

I’m having my eyes closed.

I’m not seeing anymore.

I’m not looking.

I’m blind.

I begin to listen more intensely. My ears become my eyes.

I cannot close my ears. I’m hearing, and so I start listening…

Julian Hetzel

Dear world I am standing upside down now, on my hands. With a blindfold before my eyes. It is the first of a series of unexpected and surprising moments I will find myself in during the first weeks of DasArts. I would never think I would violate my audience or sing Kumbaya my Lord, holding hands, under a curtain. I’ve also collected lots of concepts already, that I can use in creating work. I’ve met interesting people and the lunches are great. I think I’ll stay here for some time.

Would love to hear all about you soon!

Keep me informed!

Emke Idema

Mala Kline

Tchelet Weisstub

Manolis Tsipos

The Soul at Work – The Participants

DasArts Paper – Autumn 2011 The Soul at Work – Climates of Attention

Maika Knoblich

Amsterdam (CEST) translation of a moment 10/7/11 12:56 PM Dear future, At the end of this block you will be witness to a catastrophe: All great enterprises are about logistics. Not genius or inspiration or flights of imagination, skill or cunning, but logistics. Simple timing. I stayed up all night, my friend and thought of it.

And indeed it could take more space than we have here because I planned it, down to the very last detail and played it again and again and again: but what if time and space died yesterday? What if it ended right before it begun?

Yesterday, I almost missed a flight due to iCal’s handling of time zones. And I’m going to show you how you can miss your very own flights - as well as other important life events - for free! You don’t even need to do anything special to miss your important appointments. All you have to do is use iCal as your calendar and then travel to a different time zone.

Your appointment has now shifted to 1:00pm.

Your appointment, which was actually supposed to take place at noon, is now supposedly taking place at 1:00pm. And low and behold, every other appointment on your entire calendar - past, present, and future has shifted 1 hour later because you switched time zones.

Do you think the future will be boring? I still hope tomorrow will be three minutes and 57 seconds longer.

P.S: What time is it in London right now?

The future, culturally speaking begins with a crash!

Sincerely, past

Alexander Giesche Go ahead and try this simple experiment on your computer right now: Let’s say, for example, that you’re living in Amsterdam. In your Date & Time system preference, click on the Time Zone tab and make sure that your Time Zone is set to CEST, which can be accomplished by choosing any city in The Netherlands, such as Amsterdam.

Now let’ say that you’re travelling to London this weekend and you have an appointment at Trashing Performance Festival scheduled for noon on Saturday in London. Go ahead and add an appointment to your iCal calendar for noon this Saturday. So far, so good.

Okay, now let’s pretend that you’ve landed in London and you want to change your system clock to match the time zone where you are currently travelling.

Naturally, you will go back into your Date & Time system preference, click on the Time Zone tab, and change your Time Zone to GMT by choosing London for your city.

Go ahead and do that now, then take a look at your iCal calendar. What remains is an imploded mulch of pasts and presents.

Laila Solimon

10.10.2011 Amsterdam i would like to sleep so that i would really sleep or i would like to be awake so that i would really be awake but neither of those work now Location N 55 35 28 E 13 0 35 just as dreaming is wakefulness, dreaming is unreachable ..

827,9 km away from THE ROOM. so i send myself on a mission i have a limited time to find an image I enter the unknown space late in the evening at 22:16, the image Thursday night. As there are no directions how to challenge this, i have no certain knowledge what this image looks like I choose to go for what I know and feel safe with. I bring the blindfold. but i would recognize it on first sight it is just before 6 o’clock (...) The room is empty, rather big? There is a slight scent of humidity and fungus(?). when i step out the door At a distance somebody is playing the piano. Can’t tell what it is. Wagner comes to my and i realize – there is no way back mind. I think about Anders Breivik, the Norwegian mass murderer. He liked Wagner. I like no way back Wagner too. I hear a weak buzzing sound from an unknown source. Everything I ever laid eyes never ever on in my life exists in my head as a reference to play with. The pictorial references enhance, the keys are inside amplify, diminish, romanticize what I see in the here and now. Do memories hampers the and i have lost my phone present? On the other hand, so do odours and the feeling in my palms. But differentand i have to find the image ly, it offers more space for concentrated consideration. For some strange reason so it might happen that i start to rush a bit - hearing - feels less pre-programmed when blindfolded? It pinpoints the which is not nice or wise sounds I pick up. I hear life happening around me and feel calmly rushing only makes you sweaty and anxious concentrated and present. Thinking about suggesting this to but you cannot be sweaty and anxious if you are on a mission my yoga teacher, who´s always talking about the i slow down importance of presences (...) and i decide to focus on the intermediate to really dig through this Gustaf Iziamo until i’m sick or mad or dead or there and it makes some sense

Riina Maidre

7

8

DasArts Paper – Autumn 2011 The Soul at Work – Climates of Attention

The Soul at Work – The Participants

The Participants at Work

Tchelet Weisstub (1984, Israel)

Sonja Jokiniemi (1983, Finland)

Manolis Tsipos (1979, Greece) Riina Maidre (1982, Estonia)

Laila Solimon (1981, Egypt) Maika Knoblich (1986, Germany)

Gustaf Iziamo (1977, Sweden) Julian Hetzel (1981, Germany)

Mala Kline (1977, Slovenia)

Alexander Giesche (1982, Germany) Emke Idema (1980, The Netherlands)

The DasArts participants were photographed during the workshop of guest Simon Vincenzi, working at one specific moment in time. Some participants were abroad or travelling, so their photos were taken on location.

The Soul at Work – Master Proof Presentations

DasArts Paper – Autumn 2011 The Soul at Work – Climates of Attention

9

Master Proof Presentations

Side effects In Spatial Lost paradise 1 Tuning What is your final presentation about?

‘Side effects – Lost paradise 1 is a dance theatre solo performance in which I use sound, my body and walnuts in order to question what is normal and what is not, what is alive and what is dead, what is clean and what is dirty, what is soft and what is hard. After liberating myself from my essence by incorporating the physical presence of Mike Tyson, Grace Jones and Mickey Rourke, I will liberate a teacup from its conventional function by making it emit the noise of a Formula 1 race.’

Why do you incorporate Mike Tyson, Grace Jones and Mickey Rourke?

‘I work against the hierarchy of expected meaning.

By infiltrating an object or event with an incompatible meaning, you alter the attributes of that object or event. When the prescribed function and new meaning collide, new possibilities arise for the object or event to become something they were not intended to be.’

Is that how one can find the ‘Lost paradise’ your title refers to?

‘Lost paradise for me is the ability to look with unswerving attention next to the point of interest… next to where our focus is naturally concentrated.’

As an artist, how do you keep your Soul at Work and find inspiration?

‘After acknowledging the voracious nature of my soul, I keep it working by feeding it with exotic fruits, roots, steaks, roe meat – from time to time –, and stinging nettles – daily. Also, I feed it by moving, remaining motionless, listening, touching, changing skins, changing patterns, changing choices, changing countries, committing to the lack of focus or inspiration, staying connected to my body, walking, staying in bed, being alone, being with others, suffering, falling in or out of love, failing, being at the edge of what is bearable for me, opening my senses, by isolation, by committing to the absolute necessity of going further, by committing to the absolute necessity of staying with what is.’

Fizzing in colour measured by sound vibrations What is your final presentation about?

‘In In Spatial Tuning, I will expose my own background, points of reference and prejudices as a so-called ‘black South African’. I am the instrument occupying the space. Through singing, story telling and performance I relate to the space I have chosen to occupy – currently Amsterdam and sometimes Bern, Switzerland. My ‘relating to’ has led to a lot of misunderstandings, funny moments that I hope to share with the audience.’

What kind of funny moments?

‘Black people have been coming to Europe long before I even thought I would be able to travel here. This is why I never considered I could be gazed at, a “sight”, a mental perception, a judgment. I am interested in how this gaze affects my interaction. Who am I today?’

Why did you choose your South African identity as a theme?

‘When I arrived in Amsterdam two years ago, I felt the need to free myself from the burden of having a South African identity, in order to choose for myself who I want to become. Now I have realized that I cannot change my history, as it is embedded in the way I express myself and interact with the world. However, I can gain a better understanding of the world by first looking at myself and how I function.’

As an artist, how do you keep your Soul at Work and find inspiration?

‘I am trying out a new routine of worrying less about everything, in order to fully do what I am capable of and feel happy in my life and work. I trick my mind to take myself less seriously. I make lists of things I would like to achieve each week, I am thankful for waking up every morning, I try to laugh more, I try to like myself with or without any visible achievements. I rely mostly on looking for the simplest things in my life, acknowledging them and through this I retain my passion.’

Luca Andrea Stappers The Netherlands, 1971

Ntando Cele South Africa, 1980

Maria Kefirova Bulgaria / Canada, 1975

During this semester, three master-students will complete their studies.

They are working on performances as an artistic conclusion of their individual study aims at DasArts.

This is Water Flowing, floating, drifting, and cleansing ‘Why am I crying? Why am I throwing up?

Why am I chewing on an electric cable while it’s still connected?

I wish it would start raining. Let a deluge wash away everything.

Let me float on waves of rainwater through the streets of a dazed city, gently bumping against parked cars.

Please let a window open to reveal a child, laughing when he realizes that today he can go to school in his yellow inflatable boat, the one with printed flames on it. Joined by his friends, sailing between buildings and trees, all in small boats, carrying their schoolbags over their life jackets, his dream finally fulfilled.’

What is your final presentation about?

‘In This is Water I want to create the feeling of being adrift. I’m interested in effects, in the theatrical machinery and the emotions it triggers.

In my Master Proof I’m looking for ways to link those emotions to a context, in such a way that the experience reverberates in the bodies of the audience, creating a lingering after-effect. I research this by using water: as element, metaphor and effect. I invite the audience to join me at my experimental pool to plunge into this experience.’

As an artist, how do you keep from ‘drowning’ in everyday practicalities and manage to keep your Soul at Work?

‘Luckily there is no way of switching off either the soul or one’s inspiration. Practicalities are a more serious problem, but to stick with the metaphor: to avoid drowning, one has to swim.’

The Master Proof Presentations will be shown on 22 and 23 February 2012 at DasArts, Mauritskade 56, Amsterdam.

10

The Soul at Work - Climate of Attention 2

DasArts Paper – Autumn 2011 The Soul at Work – Climates of Attention

Compiled by Matthew Goulish and Lin Hixson

64 Questions from our Soul at Work During their Das Arts workshop The Formation of Attention, theatre makers and teachers Matthew Goulish and Lin Hixson compiled 64 questions The work of Matthew Goulish Matthew Goulish co-founded Goat Island in 1987, and Every house has a door in 2008.

His 39 Microlectures – in proximity of performance was published by Routledge in 2000, and Small Acts of Repair – Performance, Ecology, and Goat Island, which he co-edited with Stephen Bottoms, in 2007.

He was awarded a Lannan Foundation Writers Residency in 2004, and in 2007 he received an honorary Ph.D. from Dartington College of Arts, University of Plymouth. He was awarded the Ziporyn Fellowship of the United States Artists in 2009. He teaches in the MFA and BFA Writing Programs of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

(October 13) What makes an activity into a practice?

At the zoo, why do the camel and the zebra quarrel?

When do substances aggregate; when do stars constellate?

What is a constraint, and what does it do?

When does survival begin?

What happens when nothing happens?

(Georges Perec)

How can a performance think differently?

To whom has the performance been dedicated?

What is the difference between tired and exhausted?

How does chance differ from contingency?

How does obligation differ from requirement?

Pearl. What did you say. (Gertrude Stein) How does feedback differ from response?

When watching an action decay, do I watching, perish with it?

Can we begin in the middle?

Does the end of the performance know its beginning?

What is the ground on which a performance turns?

How does temporality differ from duration?

When we restrict the horizon of a performance, can we see what is boundless in it?

What parts of a stuffed bird can children identify by name?

How can we present the movement of thought as well as the meaning of thought?

When does ordinary become extraordinary?

Does a performer standing-in, the actor as substitute, create a gap between the one and the other that can be filled with a minor revelation?

Through which door should I exit?

Can you repeat that gesture to exhaustion in two minutes?

Could you please repeat the question?

(October 15) How can I sense what is there?

How can I show what I sense?

How do I divide my attention?

What will be my perceptual frame?

How do I divide an edge by three?

How does a public landmark differ from a private one?

How do I dedicate this activity to you?

How does the poet send off the poem?

What envoy can I compose, in the time of three minutes, and the space of four feet?

How do I say good-bye?

How do I send a messenger?

When does research become practice?

How does a score become the director?

When is an idea at stake?

Can meaning arrive retroactively?

When does the ordinary become more ordinary?

When does strangeness turn to recognition?

When does practice form into knowledge?

Is attention impersonal?

How do I map my body onto a place?

Who is attentive in attention?

When does the performance overflow thought?

(October 18)

(October 19)

How does the performance introduce itself?

At what time do we open the theatre?

How do I make myself known?

How long is the intermission?

What arrival can I invent in the time of three minutes, and the space of four-feet?

Where do we place the bar?

What instructions did the guest performer receive?

Where will the audience be?

What does stillness mean on a path?

Can the lights be outside shining in?

How do I collect three memories in one hour?

Is there a smoke machine?

You came north to Detroit in winter.

What were you thinking? (Philip Levine)

What happens when three things happen at once?

The work of Lin Hixson Lin Hixson co-founded Goat Island in 1987, and Every house has a door in 2008.

She is full Professor of Performance, and Chair of the Performance Department, at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

She received an honorary doctorate from Dartington College in 2007. Goat Island created nine performance works and toured extensively in the US, England, Scotland, Wales, Belgium, Switzerland, Croatia, Germany, and Canada. Her writing on directing and performance has been published in the journals P-Form, TDR, Frakcija, Performance Research, Women and Performance, Whitewalls, and Poetry Magazine; and included in the anthologies Small Acts of Repair – Performance, Ecology, and Goat Island, Live Art and Performance, Theatre in Crisis?, and Performance and Place. She was awarded the Ziporyn Fellowship of the United States Artists in 2009.

Have you seen my notebook?

How can there be returns without investment?

How is time like a house?

?

The Soul at Work - Climate of Attention 3

Open Lab II An evening of performances after working with Lin Hixson and Matthew Goulish.

DasArts Paper – Autumn 2011 The Soul at Work – Climates of Attention

11

Written by Claudia Castellucci

Striving and straining

Every time I come to Amsterdam I find, insuppressible, the powerful shadow of Baruch Spinoza, which still runs through the streets between horses and footsteps. From Spinoza I learn the necessity of encouraging encounters, so as to enhance our power to act.

Spinoza says, more precisely, that we must ‘strive’ or ‘strain’ to encourage encounters.

It may be that these encounters do not last and do not generate anything. But we must strain to recognise those that are most appropriate for increasing our power to act.

This is a first definition of the work. The work is a striving, a straining.

Here at DasArts my straining is the dimming, the diminution, the denuding myself of ideas. I must foster a soul under-strain, which must give birth.

I must be in the condition of having absolutely no ideas, if I want to enable the generating of ideas in others, in the students. No pre-position. No proposition, on my part.

Of course I must myself, one time, have given birth to ideas; I must understand how to be pregnant and how to give birth, but for now I must strain to be sterile, and to recognise the nothing that precedes and that will follow this work of encounter with the students. I originate from and I shall disappear into nothing, for these students, but this is the fundamental condition for anyone who is preparing to create. The nothing guarantees a certain freedom and a total absence of preconceptions: without reference to any antecedent Meaning or any proceeding Personality.

The Soul at Work is necessarily a soul that is suffering, and the task of the teacher is to encourage birth Precisely the same thing happens with the forms that we generate and which we choose to generate. The nothing is necessary if that minimum deviation is to take place that enables an atom in free fall and perpendicular movement to encounter another atom and thus generate another thing.

The Soul at Work is a soul under-strain, and whoever favours the generation of the new must not be afraid to deal with pain and suffering, which are two objective characteristics of creation, not two romantic gradients of pathetic inspiration.

Suffering is simply a technical term, not a psychological state.

The Soul at Work is necessarily a soul that is suffering, and the task of the teacher is to encourage birth. But the dissolution of pain is the consequence and not the objective, because if the objective were a freedom from pain, it would not be possible to provoke birth, the Greek word for which is basanìzein, ‘torture’. The generation of the new is characterised by stress and aporia, and whoever has the task of encouraging birth must be completely in this striving, this straining of the soul.

The work of Claudia Castellucci The Cesena-based Italian artist Claudia Castellucci (1958) founded the theatre company Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio alongside Romeo Castellucci, and Chiara and Paolo Guidi. She works on a continuous basis with Societas, writing dramatic and theoretical texts, while continuing to work as an actress involved in several performances. In her work, Claudia Castellucci highlights rhythmic movement in relation to music, with pieces such as Ballo capace di agonia (2006) and Pro loco isto (2007).

In 2003 she brought into being La Stoa, a school for rhythmic movements and philosophy. In 2009 she founded the dance company Mòra, and produced the piece Homo Turbae. Claudia Castellucci has published several writings, including Il Teatro della Societas Raffaello Sanzio, dal teatro iconclasta alla super-icona (Ubulibri Edizioni, Milano,1992), Les Pèlerins de la matière, théorie et praxis du théâtre (Les Solitaires Intempestifs, 2001), and The Theatre of Societas Raffaello Sanzio (Routledge, London and New York, 2007).

de Theaterschool

Amsterdam School of the Arts

Georg Weinand

Column Which way to go?

Once you have realized the profound meaning of this statement, the disaster hits you.

Depression is only one of the consequences Berardi shows us. He convincingly points out which disaster semio-capitalism might finally lead us by giving the example of the recent crisis in the global economy. The markets have crashed, among other reasons, because the system took over. Because, as he quotes a conservative economist: ‘I worry that we are operating far beyond our economic knowledge.’

This book tells us in a whisper where our creativity might be locked away.

Recently, driving through the Dutch countryside, followed the advice offered by my Tom-Tom’s sweet voice, I heard: ‘Next roundabout, third exit’. On arrival at the roundabout, the third exit turned out to be closed. Damn! The Tom-Tom stuck to her story, and I, still going round the roundabout, didn’t dare type in ‘alternative route’. While locked in this absurd situation, I was trying to regain my own orientation.

I needed a map that could show me which way to go.

Franco Berardi’s book The Soul At Work (2010) is a map of orientation, but one in a completely different dimension. Berardi sharply analyses and diagnoses our era, in which meaningful human exchange has been influenced by the constant overload of signs from all the technological devices we use every minute – our smartphones, our navigators, our apps. According to Berardi, our soul, ‘once wandering and unpredictable’, is suffering under permanent domination by signs: ‘semio-capitalism’, as he calls it. All these signs and devices force us silently into the pre-described paths of pure productivity and goal-orientation. (Did you ever try to tell your Tom-Tom: ‘let’s wander around a bit’?). What is the result of this, of our being at work all the time? ‘Mental alienation’, Berardi writes, ‘is no longer a metaphor, as it was in the industrial epoch: it becomes, rather, a specific diagnosis.’

So how can we reconnect? How can we survive this ‘mental alienation’, all of us who live in these post-fordist times, in which physical work has largely been replaced by creative mental work?

The subtitle of the book gives us a hopeful indication of an answer: From Alienation to Autonomy.

Of course, Berardi doesn’t offer us a list of shortterm indications like ‘next roundabout, third exit’.

He carefully maps the connections between the ingredients we need for our existence and which we have seriously neglected. He outlines his understanding of a body, the soul, work, enjoyment, depression, wealth, happiness, and many other essential notions that are combined to make us creative and satisfied humans.

Berardi uses a specific notion of ‘the soul’. In his view the soul is what enables our bodies to connect with what surrounds us; it is ‘what we can do’, it’s our capacity in its outbound potential.

Our soul is immaterial and unique, but not exclusively individual: our soul is ‘at work’ by being in ‘connection with’.

of how and where art may find its place at the present time. Art has the potential to ‘build devices that can temporarily model chaos’. A chaos we humans need – outside of the pre-described paths of pure productivity. However, the book is definitely not of interest only to artists. Its scope is much broader, because the ways we may achieve enjoyment and wealth are varied. The book offers auto-didactic orientation for those of us who – artists or not – are interested in the connection between happiness and work in today’s marketoriented society.

It is pure joy to follow Berardi’s clear reasoning.

It is somehow the opposite experience to the above-mentioned going round and round a roundabout indecisively: The Soul at Work is full of promising exits. Like this one: ‘Wealth does not mean a person who owns a lot, but refers to someone who has enough time to enjoy what nature and human collaboration put within everyone’s reach.’ If we put this notion of wealth at the centre of our daily creative work – and at the centre of the current debate about the future of the arts in the Netherlands – we might achieve some real enjoyment.

DasArts is part of ‘de Theaterschool’, the theatre faculty of the Amsterdam School of the Arts that has a total of 12 Bachelor and 2 Master courses.

Question-based study DasArts offers a questionbased study programme that allows students to gain specific artistic competencies, outlined at the beginning of the study during an intake procedure. The intake yields a self-portrait of the student, outlining his/ her current situation, artistic motivation and the specific goals that motivated his/her DasArts application.

Residential Master The curriculum consists of collective formats, such as Blocks and Contextuals, and a wide range of individual study activities, which demand that the student is present at DasArts on a regular basis.

How can we reclaim our soul?

Berardi’s powerful book not only offers explanations of the circumstances and the reasons why our creative potential has been chased out of reach, and how it happened that some of our deepest human ambitions have become locked away, it also tells us in a whisper where our creativity might be locked. It calls upon us to listen again and really care about our deepest human ambitions: For our own sake - and for the sake of our society. The Soul At Work succeeds particularly well in giving an up-to-date picture

European Credits Within the European legislature of higher education is the DasArts Master a 120 European Credits course: A student can gain a maximum of 4 X 30 Credits by successfully completing each of the four full-time semesters.

from the performing arts, who act as mentors, guest teachers and advisors and bring with them a wide range of expertise.

Monitoring The Educational Team monitors the student’s entire development from the admission procedure through to the Graduation Ceremony. The managing director, the dramaturge and the student counsellor, who make up the team, share joint responsibility for this task.

Staff DasArts works with a dedicated permanent staff consisting of a managing director, dramaturge, student counsellor, production manager, facility manager, caretaker, office manager and communications advisor.

Building DasArts is located in a historic school building in the vicinity of the Oosterpark close to the Amsterdam city centre. The building houses facilities that include studios, a library and light-, sound-, video- and digital equipment. It is also open during evening hours.

Professional Network The institute can count on an impressive international network of professionals

Budgets DasArts provides project budgets for all study activities: both collective and

Presented at DasArts, Mauritskade 56, 1092 AD Amsterdam

Open Lab 17 & 18 November at 20:00 By mid-November the artists will have investigated all the Climates of Attention. We invite you to an evening of performances that have arisen out of the block The Soul at Work.

Georg Weinand DasArts Dramaturgy

Open Days 13 & 14 January 2012

DasArts in key notions DasArts is a laboratory for contemporary theatremakers that encourages ‘significant collisions’. It is an international residential Master of Theatre based in Amsterdam. The programme is question-based and focusses on artistic development.

Agenda Public Events

individual, including the Individual Trajectory and Master Proof.

Language Due to its international character DasArts’ lingua franca is English.

Who can apply?

Ambitious young artists who want to sharpen their individual signature and makers who want to develop working strategies for their theatre practice should consider applying. DasArts welcomes candidates who wish to develop certain competencies to further their own artistry and innovation in the theatre.

A Bachelor diploma (or equivalent) and professional experience are required.

How to apply Students can apply by filling in the digital application form at www.dasarts.nl.

Candidates must provide a written application and supporting visual documentation. A first selection is made based on this material.

A second round takes place at DasArts and consists of a three days programme with interviews and a workshop.

host of leading educational art institutes that in turn make it a rendezvous for upcoming artistic talent.

Combining study and practice It is possible to take breaks between the four study semesters. The entire curriculum needs to be fulfilled within a maximum period of three years.

DasArts Council The DasArts Council:

Practicalities The website www.ahk.nl of the Amsterdam School of the Arts contains all relevant info about: Visa / residence permit / health insurance / accommodation / tuition fees. DasArts will undertake to help students find financial support for their studies.

Studying in Amsterdam DasArts maintains cooperative ties with many theatres and production houses in Amsterdam, the surrounding region and abroad.

Amsterdam has built up a singular reputation as European ‘capital for artistic development’ thanks to a

Anke Bangma – Associate Professor National Academy of the Arts, Bergen, Norway; curator contemporary arts Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam Marijke Hoogenboom – Art Practice and Development research group, Amsterdam School of the Arts Florian Malzacher – Dramaturge/curator Steirischer Herbst, Graz, Austria Karim Benammar – philosopher specialized in Thinking Techniques and the Philosophy of Abundance

Interested candidates and all other curious people are welcome to visit the Open Days at DasArts. On Friday 13 and Saturday 14 January student presentations will be shown in the evening. On Saturday 14 January the staff members and the students will give you an introduction to all aspects of the study trajectory. If you would like to register for the open days send an email to: dasarts@ahk.nl 13 January 20.00 Presentations of student works 14 January at 15:00 Information meeting 14 January at 20:00 Presentations of student works

Master Proof Presentations 22 & 23 February 2012 Ntando Cele, Maria Kefirova and Luca Andrea Stappers will be showing work that finalizes their studies at DasArts.

More information: dasarts@ahk.nl