Out of sight / „büro für zeit + raum”

Biggest surprise in „Past is in front of Ego” performed in Baltic Circle by German group „büro für zeit + raum” is that it was in French. Most of the performance walks slowly on the border of boredom and clichés Sure, the question how time really works is a fascinating one as are all abstract entities but the way it is mediated by the performance just lacks both the necessary intellectual challenge and gripping choreography.

Main concept of the performance is borrowed from native-American tribe called Aymara as one can read from the introductory materials. The latter states that one can only see what has already happened, that is the past and so the future lies somewhere out of one´s sight. It´s another question if a spectator should get to know all the press materials before going to theatre or if a performance should be able to speak for itself but let´s leave that aside here as performance was readable without background materials – although it did loose a layer or two if one didn´t know the background.

So it is that first we hear eight activities read out to us in the past tense*: I opened the door, I fell down to the floor, I stood to sit, I closed the door, I laid down on the floor, I slide myself on the floor, I made a cross on the chair, I stood up and stepped into a box drawn on the floor. Then we see a guy doing those activities, marking the landing points with a chalk. Then again. And again. There´s some intensity in watching him repeating the same very simple acts one by one, some sort of expectation rises in me. Then the guy starts to measure different phases of his journey, recording the results. He repeats it, plays back the tape to check. By that time the concept of the performance is more than clear to the audience and so a new kind of expectation takes it´s place – desire to see development in movement. It never comes. Should over-exposed methods like running around on stage to show one´s desire to break out of the routine and conquer the space be avoided at all cost even if they make sense in the logic of a performance just because the method is probably perceived as a cliché by most of the spectators? Probably not but it does exclude part of the audience. Since next scenes don´t really add anything new to the subject besides verifying that all we do is predestined and the choreography doesn´t really click with the simplicity of the eight movements (with the exception of the contact improvisation with a black board), one has nothing better to do than to hope that the moment in future one does not see yet, where the performance ends, is rather closer than further out of sight.

*Pardon my French – translations are not word by word.