1 / TASK 04 - MILKO ŠPAREMBLEK - 2012.
TASK 04 / MILKO ŠPAREMBLEK
ORDER / COMMISSION
(not neccessarily the name of the performance)
1. THEME
…therefore I suggest the number and type of participants, clothing and props… Within remains an
unlimited freedom of decisions and actions…Only the framework is given, as if you were ordering a
fresco from a renaissance painter. So and so many square meters of wall, ceiling, or any other space,
and you also offer a theme…The rest is freedom, idea, talent, knowledge…imagination…
It is very similar to the „tasks“ at music academies, as well as at architecture studies:
Material framework, duration, theme, purpose!!!
2. MATERIAL FRAMEWORK
3 persons…gender…all the same:
1.person…long coat…large hard suitcase…hat…
2.person…medium-length coat…small hard case…cap.
3.person…trousers…T-shirt or shirt…backpack…headscarves…
Bare feet, shoes, boots, slippers, scarves…gloves…the decision is with the performers…
Makeup…masque…free decision…
This way, we gave the participants a sort of social status, maybe a certain age…where from also their
behavior can emerge, the way of moving – dance form - as well as the relations, without entering
(pseudo) psychological analysis, or the banality of primitive narration.
3. DURATION
The duration of a work has also its limitations…not too much..not too little, some 20 or 30 minutes.
This would be enough to reflect all relations and all situations this trio can „experience“…
4. RELATIONS
But, all this stays subjected to the idea that dance is at the same time a skill, meaning a craft, then a
profession, and then eventually art!!! Relations, conflicts, encounters, situations and solutions are
defined by the authors of the venture…
5. GESTURE, MOVEMENT, FIGURE
As a formal imperative, the performers are given a small number of formal elements (gestures,
movements, figures), which they have to use in the choreography…How many of them in which
dynamics, how many times?...that remains their decision, not prejudging all other elements of the
movement and moving.
Again, the same remark: Express yourself through dance, body, gesture, dynamics, energy, space
and do not forget that you have clothing and props…
6. MUSIC
…one day, completely by chance, you've heard Bach's Cello Suites, and the day before, while visiting
a friend, you listened to Philip Glass… and … you were amazed by the strange, organic connection of
these two and a half centuries apart authors…and with a vague imperative you wished, in your next
work, to invite them to cooperate - an agreement. To establish a closer, more intimate relation.
After this little, private introduction, I can, about music, tell just what we already all know.
It is possible to enter a detailed analysis of the partitura and follow its meanders strictly, without
resistance and it can be a true pleasure.. to feel the pulse of the music… in all nuances and
complexity… We can install the music into an already designed choreography, or decide about
„random encounters“… we know this was proposed a long time ago… (Laban) and that it was
practiced frequently (Cunnigham)… and that we are confronted with - let me tell this mildly - an
excessive use - an exploitation of this concept, which was, little by little, brought to destruction…It is
not sure that any random encounter is possible…and this is subject to a very careful decision…
We can, simultaneously with creating the choreography, include the composer into the process
(Graham - Jooss).
We can relieve us from any musical cooperation and listen to the quality of silence in us and around
us, as well as to the unique music created by the wind, water, or the rolling stone…
About music, you could write hours and days…I would like to remind you that we have lived
thousands of years in agreement with music, whatever music it was…
Therefore - think!
Of course that a text is possible too…as a metaphor, a soundtrack, or thought… But: Do not
translate!!!
7. SPACE
The space is, before a person enters, the movement, dance, even a prop, or any other element;
a sculpture, a painting…static entity…although it speaks through its largeness or narrowness…it is
low, high, wide or narrow, pleasant or repulsive.
Although it has its own personality and existence, this will reallize only after an intervention in it.
Some sort of relation with the matter that is called space is created, it is adopted and claimed, it
receives a new partner's identity and experiences its transformation into a new, different space, to a
homogeneous integration…
It is an interlocutor and one of the decision makers…a friendly partner, or a harsh associate, if we did
not understand it.
Dance is the only art, where the space is essential. Capturing the space in this, or that way, is one of
the declarations of the choreographer. In fact, it is part of his dance philosophy, because the
purposefulness of the dance trajectories is free of everydays imperatives and this way the
performance could maybe turn into an artistic act…maybe…
But, it is not default. It is our job and these are our decisions!
I understand that the theater space, we are operating in, comes from the historical tradition of the
shown and watched…our black box with one voyeuristic, open side…
Yes, the old-fashioned theater magic…I am not quite sure that it is an obstacle…
Even that space can and must be our space…“the language of space“ is the result of the inner
landscape, volumizing a given space into some new „our space“ and the ancient black box is still a
useful space for us…let's take it, because it belongs to us too. We are entitled to it, it is our creation,
it arises from our dithyramb, from the dancer's bodies!!!
MILKO / REMARK
It is not my intention to unreel wide and long about art, soul, inspiration, structure, concept, hidden
meaning, intention and motivation, that bring us to a decision to express our-selves through a
gesture, dance…
I would like to underline the last words: to express through dance…
This would be the imperative of participation… not through talking, poses, or statical (sometimes
interesting) presence on the scene, but the real and a bit old-fashioned order - „commision“…which
was the everydays bread for many artists through many centuries…
I will not quote any of the french philosophers, anglo-american analysts, or russian historians,
I suggest an assignment, which can appear anytime in your choreographers future, where you will be
confronted with the offer to solve some scene in a dramatic performance with your choreographical
intervention, or in some musical, or any other production. You will be forced to move away from
your usual practice and search for solutions for situations, spaces and events, you never met
before…(by the way, Laban - whom many people are referring to, in his book „The Mastery of
Movement“ suggests a sequence of short anecdotes - scenario - events, with a sequence of
encounters and intrigues with the character traits of dance scenes, offered to a young choreographer
for exercise)…
DISCLAIMER
TASK Interactive journal for performed dance arts and a festival evening within
PLATFORM.HR
Every issue of TASK is a template for the production of your own project, respectively a dance
performance in 7 steps. The steps are given and it is preferable for the TASK performer to follow
them, but the creative freedom to interpret in your own way is there. They are the skeleton of the
projects, that will be realized as a reaction to the given TASK. Every TASK is given by a single croatian
choreographer, presenting, through the articles connected to the TASK steps, his previous work, as
well as the work of the entire dance and contemporal arts. This year, three TASKs will be realized (04
Milko Šparemblek, 05 Rajko Pavlić and 06 Matija Ferlin) and all works of the TASK performers will be
presented through PLATFORM.HR, living up this way and presented to the public. One of each TASKs
will be given to a renowned and to a not widely known (young) choreographer, to react on it and to
realize his own project.
Authors of the TASK projects: Martina Granić, Sonja Pregrad, Larisa Lipovac, Tamara Curić, TALA
(TASK originates as an idea from the student project by Martina Granić at Design StudiesAF, during
the fourth (4.th) semester of the student years 2009./2010. , Typography course (Tutors: Damir
Bralić, Nikola Đurek). Participation at the Croatian design exhibition 0910, in the Museum of arts and
crafts, HDD, 2010.)