IVANA MULLER (HR/FR): WE ARE STILL WATCHING
20.9. 20:00h ● 21.9. 21:30h ● 60 min ● &TD big hall
We Are Still Watching is a show performed by spectators; by an instant community of “audience members” that changes every evening of the show. And as they change, the piece also radically changes every time that it is performed. We Are Still Watching has a form of a “reading rehearsal” in which spectators encounter each other while reading a script together. During approximately an hour spent in the company of each other, spectators create and perform a community, making decisions individually and collectively while « simply » reading a text that someone else has written for them. In the “mini-society” that gets created each evening of the show, everybody slowly but surely acquires his or her role… Everybody speaks in the “I-form”, everybody reads badly and engages one way or another although no one ever read the script before and no one knows what will happen next. We Are Still Watching is a piece in which the idea of “spectacle” slowly shifts to where we least expect it. Something that for a moment could resemble a bad theatre piece becomes an invitation to look beyond of what is being scripted. While still staying in the realm of theatre and representation, We Are Still Watching leaves space for something “real” to happen.
Ivana Muller, We are still watching, photo by Ian Douglas
INTERVIEW
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR “WE ARE STILL WATCHING“ TO A RANDOM PASSER-BY?
I don’t think I would even try to describe my shows to a random passerby. “Describe your show to a random passerby” sounds like “do it in a simple way, so that everybody gets it”… and that has something patronizing in it… as if the “passerby” is someone that needs instructions and I’m the one that has the answers. That is how people speak in politics… or on television, or in commercials. I think that the relationship between artist and spectators doesn’t work this way, especially not in theatre. It is not that I propose something and the spectator should «get it» this way or the other. We are basically doing it all together: the performers, the spectators, the technicians, the director, and the dramaturge… all of us on stage, backstage and in the audience. And I think that theatre (or any other art form) gets exciting when it offers a possibility for as many versions as there are spectators in the audience. We are all looking at the «same reality», we all make part of the same event, but we all see it slightly different. … and we don’t need to agree. In fact, it is even better if we don’t.
WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THIS FORM TO TALK ABOUT REALITY?
I’ve always been quite skeptical (as artist) and scared (as spectator) of participatory theatre in which you have ‘trained’ performers (those that “know”) that tell those that are not ‘trained’ (those that “don’t know”) what to do. And then the rest of the spectators watch those who “don’t know” surviving or enjoying in the dramaturgy of those who “know”. In We Are Still Watching we were trying to make a performative context in which everybody is in the same situation. Everybody reads the script for the first time in their life and nobody knows how all of it will end. During the show no “authority” of any kind is present in the room. It is “only” spectators that perform for each other. This brings an enormous sense of responsibility. If things go wrong there is nobody there to “help”, and if the spectators- performers don’t do something the piece is going into pieces. So people engage differently than they would as spectators in classical theatre situation, especially because they don’t want to perform badly. They want to produce a good show (after all they are paying for that). Another thing is that the experience of performing a piece together creates a weird sense of intimacy. There are not many people in the world that you share that kind of experience with. While performing the piece the space of theatre is moving somewhere between public and private and some notions of representations are radically changing because of that.
WHY SHOULD WE, AS AUDIENCE, CARE ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE DOING?
I think that spectators are essentially interested (or not) in the pieces already after reading the text in the program, or after reading about my work in general on internet, or they might be interested because they have seen my previous work or because it is performed at the festival or the venue that they like, in this case Ganz New Festival. Or because someone told them about it. This is generally why I get interested in somebody’s work as a spectator. Again, I don’t think that it should be me to tell the spectators why they should or should not come and see my work. They are smart enough to know that themselves☺.
IF YOU HAD ANY MEANS AVAILABLE (‘IDEAL WORLD SITUATION’) WHAT KIND OF PROJECT WOULD YOU DO?
Exactly those that I made.
WHAT THREE THINGS NEVER FAIL TO BRING YOU PLEASURE?
That really depends on the contexts. I don’t think there is anything that by definition “always” makes me happy…Anyway, I think that the economy of “happy” is rather tricky☺
Ivana Muller, We are still watching, photo by Telan Douglas
BIOGRAPHY
Ivana Müller is a choreographer, artist and author of texts. Müller’s dance and theatre pieces, performances, installations, text works, video lectures, audio pieces, guided tours and web works deal with the idea of body and its representation, principles of self-invention, place of imaginary and imagination, notion of authorship and the relationship between performer and spectator. Although she creates through various forms, theatre remains the principle context in which she develops and presents her work. Her work has been presented and produced in some of the major theatre festivals/venues in Europe, USA and Asia over the last 12 years. In her practice she often collaborates with other artists/writers/theoreticians. In 2007 Müller received the Charlotte Koehler Prize from the Prins Bernhard Funds (NL) for her oeuvre, as well as the Impulse Festival & Goethe Institute Prize for her piece While We Were Holding It Together. Next to her artistic practice, Ivana Müller curates festivals and teaches as a guest lecturer (at, amongst others, Piet Zwart Institute Rotterdam, School For New Dance Development, Amsterdam, Institute For Applied Theatre Studies Giessen, Performance Studies – University of Hamburg, University of Paris etc.). Ivana Müller was born in Zagreb, she grew up in Croatia and in Amsterdam. She lives in Paris and works internationally.
Ivana Muller, We are still watching
CREDITS
Concept and text by Ivana Müller in collaboration with Andrea Bozic, David Weber-Krebs & Jonas Rutgeerts
Light design & technical direction: Martin Kaffarnik
Produkcija: I’M’COMPANY / Chloé Schmidt and Gerco de Vroeg
Production We Are Still Watching was developed as a part of Encounters project (Frascati, Amsterdam 2012) financially supported by Dutch Performing Arts Funds, Amsterdam Funds for Arts and SNS Reaal Fonds with a kind support of Het Veem Theatre, Amsterdam.
This project is supported by APAP network and L’Institut Français/ TRANSArte project.
