“First, you rebel, then you cry. Then you smoke a cigarette”

Excerpts from the letters of Nicoleta Esinencu’s mother

After the fall of the Soviet Union, family structures in the Republic of Moldova were faced with great economic challenges and at the same time were restyled into a traditional Christian asset. Nicoleta Esinencu links these circumstances with the experience of losing her parents, examining the term family in the 21st century. This is an excerpt from her mother’s letters to her.

Nica!
A long time ago, a mirror broke in my parent’s house. My mother said, “A misfortune awaits us”. And it happened: my father, your grandpa, went to prison. Unfortunately, drunkenness brought him there. Since then I’ve been afraid of drinking and of mirrors. If I happened to touch one, the first thought that would cross my mind was to make sure to not break it.  
One day, your dad (he would never unlock the door himself) came home late, as he usually did, and rang the doorbell. I was woken up by the shrill, uninterrupted sound of the buzzer. Half asleep and scared, I couldn’t find the bedroom door.
When I turned around, the mirror had broken into pieces.
That’s how the ordeal began. It took me many years to find God, begging him to forgive my sins.
Nica, despair comes later. First, you rebel, then you cry. Then you smoke a cigarette. Then you think of God and get yourself a Bible.
Then again you stumble upon a hidden syringe. You shudder. You run to God again. You beg him. You cry. You recall all your sins. You go to church. You confess. You repent in prayer. You take communion hoping that God will forgive you.
You begin to reproach yourself that you didn’t raise him well. Because you didn’t take into account... because you were too good, because you were too bad... because you didn’t buy him a guitar...
You recall that you sent him to the painting school, you sent him to the swimming school, you sent him to the dance courses, you read him books, you took him to school, you took him to the theatre, you served him food on the tray in bed.
You realize in horror that you didn’t read to him from the Bible. You start reading it on the same evening.

You search, search, search for answers in books... you get yourself accommodated with different theories.  
You’re afraid to pry in your daughter’s life. You regret that you haven‘t created conditions for her.
You can’t sleep at night.
You say “Our Father” 33 times. You realize that you’re alone. That no one needs you. You want to go somewhere out there. But you can’t go anywhere. You have no money, no childhood home, no friends. You leave the house. You stay a couple of days at the train station. You shave your hair in protest. You make a decision: to never speak again until the end of your life. You return home. You cry on your daughter’s shoulder. Your grandson calls and asks you, “Grandma, can you make polenta today?” You must answer him. You wipe off your tears.
At night, you talk to God. You pray for your husband, sons, daughter, daughters-in-law, grandchildren. You think that if it takes so little to ensure their wellbeing, then you have no right to not do it.

Mama, 24.01.2004

Translation from Romanian by Artiom Zavadovsky

 

Nicoleta Esinencu / HAU

Abolirea familiei / The Abolition of the Family
read more

Like a chain reaction

Isabelle Schad in conversation

The new work “Reflection” by Isabelle Schad will premiere at HAU at the end of May. The choreographer, who received an award at the “Deutscher Tanzpreis” 2019 for outstanding artistic developments in contemporary dance, completes her trilogy about collective bodies with this piece. In the interview she speaks about her research on movements and the stages at HAU1 and HAU2. 


“Reflection” is the final part of a trilogy about collective bodies that began in 2014 with “Collective Jumps” and continued in 2016 with “Pieces and Elements”. The word ‘reflection’ contains both physical and philosophical connotations. What does it mean for you, and how does your new piece differ from its predecessors?
“Reflection” is both a mirror and critical observation of realities and their respective perception. The reflection of movement plays an important role here, but also the point of view and perspective from which something is viewed. The term ‘reflection’ means many things: mirror image, self-examination, contemplation, reverberation, likeness, consideration and also retrospection – with my new group piece I look back in a certain way to the previous two works.
Central to “Collective Jumps” was the utopia of community as an (im)possible social model. We examined folk dances in terms of their order and structures. The interlinking of limbs, which functioned like individual performers, caused the appearance of a huge, endless group body. In “Pieces and Elements” an analogy with nature enabled us to organize bodies and body parts into choreographic arrangements that became a kind of cubist landscape. Here the individuality of single people was reduced to their specific physical contours, rhythms and characteristics – the audience rarely sees their faces in this piece.
In “Reflection” all the performers also appear as persons connected with the others in their own uniqueness. Everyone takes on every role in the course of the piece: that of protagonist, helper, victim or leader. A complex system of ‘taking turns’ comes about, leading to constantly changing figurations. The roles of the performers and their patterns of movement are repeated and reproduced so that the entire ‘organ’ appears to be an endless mirroring process, and every movement flows into the next, like a chain reaction.
The block-like structure of “Collective Jumps” and the landscapes of “Pieces and Elements” are replaced by a framework similar to muscle strands, within which leading involves following, and vice versa. The focus of attention has become the subjective uniqueness of moving oneself and others, of being a driving force and motor (or subject to one).
 

“In ‘Reflection’ all the performers also appear as persons connected with the others in their own uniqueness.”

“Collective Jumps” and “Pieces and Elements” were premiered at HAU2. With “Reflection” you’re going to HAU1, into a historical theatre building with special technical and architectural preconditions. How much did this place influence the choreography?
For me, HAU1 is like a character. It has its own presence; it’s full of stories, has its balconies and complex equipment. There’s an arch, a stage higher than the stalls, a former orchestra pit, a revolve, traps and flies. It isn’t a neutral place that disappears behind the events onstage, as is so often the case with the so-called black box. I find it fantastic, after all these years, to work in a traditional theatre. My strictly formal and abstract choreographies are challenged by the architecture and the history of this place. They can rub up against them.
During the performance we move from the space of the auditorium (which as a social meeting place is strongly influenced by history) towards the stage. We also interact with the apparatus, the stage machinery of HAU1, for example with the revolve. As soon as its motor gets going it releases a force that (along with gravity) acts on the biomechanics of the human body’s movements. At other moments it’s the mobile flies, curtains and so on that determine the events. So the stage hands have a great deal to do and are part of our choreography and processes …
 

“I’m fascinated by the ‘natural movement’, by its simplicity and by its beauty, sensuousness and complexity.”

The strong visual power of your work is based on continual movement research from embryology and somatic techniques like Body-Mind Centering and shiatsu. In “Reflection” you include elements from aikido. What is your relationship to this Japanese martial art, and how do you incorporate it into your choreographic practice?
The key to my research lies in the continuity of my own learning. I’m always learning, experiencing something new. Actually, my constant concern is with understanding ‘natural movement’. I’m fascinated by it, by its simplicity and – if it’s coherent – by its beauty, sensuousness and complexity. Up to five years ago I mostly nourished this fascination with BMC. In this ‘experiential embryology’ I was impressed by how the development of the human body as a biological process was connected with the exterior, that is, the visible form; how it predetermines directions of movement. This is like a choreographic process.
Shiatsu has very much to do with the connection between the self and others, and with how you can allow your own action to be guided by a counterpart. Aikido emphasises the understanding of one’s own movement in relation to gravity: how can forces be directed and reach an opponent? How can they influence one another effectively and become a free energetic flow, a unity with a partner? In principle all these practices share one thing: the idea of doing away with the inner/outer dualism through a physical practice, so as to understand inner/outer as a unity.
I see my artistic movement practice as a layering of experiences. So I wouldn’t really talk about different approaches, but rather about a continual development, a path – called ‘do’ in Japanese. I share this path with others, with the performers, some of whom have come a long way with me already. As far as aikido is concerned, in Gerhard Walter I was lucky enough to find a master who is certainly one of my most important teachers. In his daily training the emphasis isn’t so much on the technique of aikido as on the natural movement on which the shifting of weight is based. Being in harmony with gravity, finding a light, filigree balance with which to overcome gravity, exploring the shifting of weight and continually taking every movement back to the one constant basic principle – that’s the art we practice in the dojo, and it’s fascinating. Every technique is consistently taken back to the basic principle of the weight shift. One leads to ten thousand (techniques). The daily practice of these principles is what fascinates me, and what I pass on and then give a choreographic form of its own.

Interview: Elena Basteri
 

Isabelle Schad

Reflection

Part of the trilogy “Group Works”

read more