Sigrid Gareis:
Reasons for Dance and Theatre Programmes in Times of Crisis - Panel:
Artistical Reasons
To be honest I would like to say in advance that it was rather difficult for me to
approach the theme of this congress, although I believe the implied questions
and the philosophical and political access the symposium chosed for its topic
“reasons for dance and theatre programmes in times of crisis” to be very
important – especially with a view to contemporary dance, whose existence
always has been severely threatened in times of crisis.
As a very young field of art, dance has received very little attention for decades.
A boom-like artistic development, accompanied by a lot of lobbying and
networking activities only recently achieved Europe-wide public and political
attention for this rather contemporary art form. For a long time, dance was only
shown at special festivals. Later, dedicated dance houses were the first to
provide specific structures for dance. In many places new dance schools and
training institutions were founded, and dance studies were hesitatingly
established at universities.
In the wake of the current economic crisis, this young development now seems
to be endangered at a point where the results of these manifold structural and
lobbying endeavours cannot even be evaluated.
Therefore, it suggests itself in this congress to investigate together reasons
which would make it clear why the support of dance and contemporary theatre
as often experimental, unwieldy or conceptual artistic forms of expression is
politically and socially important in times of crisis, too.
We could reflect and argument in various directions on the reasons for its
programming and support in the present. For instance we could ask the
following questions:
– How can creativity as a domain of art become the motor of an unsettled but
stagnating society in crisis?
– Has art in our secularised society become a contemporary way of lending
comfort, stability or meaning?
– Is the artist with his practised existence in precariousness a role model for
today’s working life?
– Has contemporary art developed specific methods of generating innovation
which can be transferred to other areas of society?
– Does art make better human beings, like for instance the film “rhythm is it!”
suggests?
– Does art have the potential to change society, like idealists wanted to make
us believe, or for example Bert Brecht, who currently experiences an amazing
renaissance?
We could go on like this …
I myself do not want to dismiss these and comparable lines of discussion out of
hand. In a desired lobbyistic discussion, they furnish us with important
arguments, which we should and must apply in order to be able to convince
politics in times of crisis, too.
Still – and this is where the preparation of my statement became difficult – this
discussion holds the danger of getting stuck in circles of justification and thus
drifting off into the trap of defensiveness … until finally – here I would like to
use a very theatrical and therefore in this context quite appropriate German
saying, and I hope that the translation will still convey its meaning – until
finally one is “driven through the village like a pig”, meaning that something is
loudly discussed today but already forgotten tomorrow.
And we all also are aware that it is hard for us to enter the competition in the
field of contemporary entertainment: not with musical which offers all-round
distraction, not with Holly- or Bollywood cinema which evokes the big feelings,
and neither with opera or (dramatic) theatre which look back on a long
historical legitimation.
How dangerous such a debate can in fact become is for example shown by a
current discussion in the German press: In the weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT, the
journalist and theatre director Benjamin Korn has powerfully evoked the great
cathartic effect of the stage. He modelled the theatre ticket into a ticket to
another life, transformed the theatre into the place of truth and styled it a
“northern star” in the search for a better world.
It seems obvious that there was disagreement – namely by a dance critic,
Helmut Ploebst on the dance website corpus, who more than rightfully charged
Korn with authoritarian thinking and incapacitating the audience.
So, what to do?
Since we are at the beginning of this symposium I would like at least to start off
differently: in a rather uninhibited way I want to search for ways of thinking
which do not immediately lead into the defensive in the first place. This is
meant as a kind of warming-up for the symposium, not as a closed analysis.
As a first step I will begin with a few theses, from which I will try to derive some
courses of action in the second step:
Thesis 1:
– isn’t a contemporary piece of art a contemporary piece of art because it
doesn’t so much follow up known judgments and values, but rather search for
the new and unknown? If so, it is clear that this art cannot easily be affirmed by
society.
thesis 2 in connection with thesis 1:
– So even from a logical point of view it is obvious that this art has a hard time
being “popular”. Or even more: isn’t it actually a contradiction if one demands
“ratings” from it?
Or thesis 3:
– Nowadays, the mere formula “change” is raising hopes – which makes art even
more important, since it has always been a seismograph of crises.
Or thesis 4:
- Does this pressure of “ratings” even gets a “smell” of selection in order to
legitimise consumable art whose critical potential can easily be filed into
familiar drawers?
Or thesis 5
- Are the neoliberal calls for “popularity” and “ratings” the measure we should
have applied to us? Doesn’t contemporary art rather have to prove its
relevance? Entertainment or a good degree of utilisation here are only possible
marks of relevance … among many other things …
So, how to act as an organiser or promoter? Here’s a few other proposals for
further discussion:
– Not in spite of, but because of the crisis we should increase our efforts to
support artists in their investigative and critical positions.
– We should intensify and elaborate our contemporary competence to create
maximum fields of possibility in the face of the crisis.
– We should be aware that in the crisis, qualitative efforts are more important
than catering to easily consumable mediocrity.
– With a view to art and artists in times of crisis, we should show even more
solidarity, and intensify our common intentions.
– Today especially we should be courageous enough to allow uncomfortable
truths to be uttered in our houses and festivals, or to utter them ourselves.
– We should learn to have more trust in our auditoriums and not to follow lines
of reasoning that impose a “taste” upon the audience which means conformism
instead of the joy of discovery.
- And finally – I’ll simply break off here – we should give “change” a chance with
our actions by enquiring into its political rhetoric, and at the same time
expressly demand its political implementation.
For we have a responsibility which we all know: We have to open up
perspectives for a better future for our visitors, auditoriums and guests as
much as for ourselves and for those who finance us – by making art possible
which is able to do that – even if it doesn’t necessarily mean wellness.