“I saw Swan Lake at Berlin’s Staatsballett on January 1st, 2012. I was still hung-over from the night before so during the intermission, I wolfed down three mini-sandwiches as I was telling my friends things like ‘Aren’t those swans just beautiful?’ and ‘What a masterpiece!’ I’m leaving Berlin to move to New York so I’m trying to do all the things I haven’t done in my entire ten years here. At any rate, it was the first time I’ve seen a classic ballet. The production was grand – breathtaking, really, with over 100 people on stage. They had these screens that they projected lights onto to create different layers on the stage, like parallel dimensions. Or different levels of perception. I was having a great time, and when it took the curtain a little while to rise before the second act, I was sitting with anticipation thinking ‘What the hell are they doing there?’ Then the curtain went up and it was just magnificent. They had this dry ice machine and it looked like a swampy lake that poured down into the orchestra pit. And then the dancers came out, forty white swans in the fogy meadows. Absolutely amazing.”
“I realized that I needed to see some classic ballet repertoires. I also realized that it’s not really high art. Every time the prima ballerina did a pirouette the audience clapped. I mean, what are they clapping for? It’s not the first time she’s done it, she’s not the first person to do it. It’s routine for her. She got it right the first time, so what’s the big deal? But I loved the dance with the four swans, the pas de quatre. I watched it over and over again at home on YouTube. Let me tell you, ballet is really something. I had so much fun that day.”
“A few months ago, I invited some friends to see my theater piece at the HAU, and they really suffered. As if they were watching a documentary about factory farming, seeing chickens being slaughtered. It was a back-to-back night with a piece by artist Phil Collins and they liked his work much better. They said at least it had a stage set, and costumes. And a plot. And then when I saw Swan Lake I understood what they were missing – Some grace. Beauty. I mean, the ballet costumes were spectacular and I could see, in my mind, the storage room where they’re kept and how there’s people who mend them and dust them out. If I could only go into that room! So I strongly recommend seeing it. And also Yvonne Rainer. There’s a retrospective of her work opening soon. I’ve only seen her stuff on YouTube. I think that she’s very important and classic, and maybe a little underestimated. But she’s being rediscovered by a new generation now, what’s with the retrospectives in Europe and in America before, at the DIA.”
“I copied her stuff when I worked on my dance pieces. Wait, no, I used her for ‘inspiration’.
In my work, the narrative is not the central thing, but it moves things forward. Also in Swan Lake. I didn’t know the story, I read it online later, so the ballet actually didn’t rely on the plot for me. What I didn’t like when I read the ‘story’ though was that thing with the names, Odile and Odette. It’s not like they speak in the ballet so why do we need to give them names? For Rainer, the plot is obsolete too. And I could actually see the development from classic ballet to Rainer: when I saw the pas de quatre with the four swans it totally reminded me of Rainer’s work, especially of her piece Trio A, but also of Samuel Beckett’s, who makes square patterns that repeat themselves, with four corners. You can see the formal development from Swan Lake to Beckett. It’s all about patterns repeating and small variations. It’s interesting that these developments make it more simplistic but at the same time, as in Beckett, render it more abstract. Discovering these connections was interesting for me, as was the idea of beauty and grace that I kind of forgot about. And so did Rainer. And Beckett. It may not be the most important thing but as you can tell, it left quite an impression. Especially the dry ice machine.”
“The choreography itself in my dance performances is also closer to Rainer than to Swan Lake. Obviously. Rainer was a minimalist in terms of stripping dance down to isolated movements and claiming that everyone is a dancer. She obviously hasn’t met me yet… I was ‘inspired’ by Trio A, meaning, I did the repeated patterns and the basic underlining feeling. I tried to copy the beauty of it, not the exact choreography. With Rainer, the patterns echo each other fluently and express one simple and singular thing. It’s one state of mind, presented in minor variations. So I can see the connection between my work and Rainer’s, but I’m probably also the only person who can find a connection between Rainer and Swan Lake. I hear she’s very nice and would probably be OK with the comparison now, but when she was starting out, Swan Lake was everything she worked against. ‘But I’m ground breaking! I’m anti’ she’d say.”
“In terms of stripping movement down, in Swan Lake the movements are there for beauty alone; otherwise it’s a fairy-tale, not a ballet. And with Rainer it’s movement for the sake of movement so really, what’s the difference? Especially in that pas de quatre? What do the four swans crossing arms and moving like a four-headed being have to do with the plot? They’re there because there’s music, there’s time and space, so there’s movement. “ As told to Hili Perlson.
From Sleek 33, The Brand New Retro.
Yvonne Rainer, Space, Body, Language.
Kunsthaus Bergenz until April 9, and Museum Ludwig, April 4 – July 29 2012
