German dance group closes Art Summit festival

German dance group closes Art Summit festival

By C.G. Asmara

JAKARTA (JP): The curtain closed on the ambitious and well-
attended Art Summit Indonesia l995 on Oct. 11 and Oct. 12 with
performances of the dance Highland, choreographed by Joachim
Schlomer and performed by the Deutsches National Theater's Weimar
Tanztheater.

After 15 performances by contemporary dance and music groups
from nine countries, this German dance group provided a notable
close to the prestigious 20-day festival. It was an outstanding
performance that, along with its musical score or "soundscape",
offered, not only an unique interpretation of life in the
Scottish Highlands, but also an exploration of gesture and
characterization.

Highland is Schlomer's newest work. It premiered on Sept. 10,
l995, in Weimar. Aged 35, Schlomer assumed the leadership of the
Deutsches National Theater in Weimar during the l994/1995 season.
Between 1988 and 1991 he was a dancer with Mark Morris at the
Theatre de la Monnaie, Brussels. In l990, he formed his first
group, the Companie Josch, touring throughout Europe. In l993, he
attracted the attention of the legendary Mikail Baryshnikow, who
commissioned two works by Schlomer for his White Oak Dance
Theater.

With the sound of crashing stones, the house lights were
dimmed in the Graha Bhakti Budaya auditorium of the Taman Ismail
Marzuki arts center in Central Jakarta. Fluorescent light was
then brought up on stage, revealing an elegant woman in a black
dress. A puff of smoke from stage left gave the impression of
dust from falling stones, only to be transformed into car exhaust
fumes as the sound of traffic blared from the large bank of
speakers on either side of the stage.

Slowly the woman began to walk up and down stage, following a
line of fallen leaves that divided the stage in two. The focus
was drawn to her feet, as she walked with a gray brick-like stone
under each foot. Holding on to each brick was a man in a suit,
crouching behind her.

Throughout the 75-minute performance of Highland, the 15
dancers created a landscape of characters and situations that
contrasted everyday urban life with pastoral dreams of peace and
unity with nature.

Relying on detailed explorations of the body to express
character, each dancer concentrated on a specific part of his or
her body -- most often legs and feet -- which resulted in a way
of walking and moving unique to each dancer. As a result, the
choreography was at times highly subtle, almost repetitive; such
as when a couple, with their backs to the audience, wriggled
their toes along the floor, or when a female dancer, whose feet
appeared swollen, shuffled across the stage.

Yet these explorations worked and, along with varied costumes
and props, such as flowers and a red plastic raincoat that became
a matador's cape, gave the dancers and the audience the time to
imagine the histories, hopes, dreams and disappointments of this
odd group of characters, thrown together in Schlomer's imaginary
highland life.

Originally wishing to choreograph a work about the history of
a Scottish Highlands, Schlomer, along with stage and costume
designer Frank Leimbach, traveled to the region early in l995 to
conduct research. After making a number of recordings of
contemporary and traditional of the region, they realized that
they were much more fascinated by the Scottish people of today.

Upon their return to Germany, they scrapped their original
idea and, instead, focused on their impressions of contemporary
Scottish Highlanders, as well as people of other highland areas,
such as those in South America, and the link between humanity and
nature.

The final set was drastically reduced from the original
design, which featured an abstract glen, leaving only a backdrop
of clouds and a scattering of dried leaves. The piece therefore
relied heavily on the dancers, the lighting, and the music to
create certain atmospheres and locations.

The accompanying musical score, entitled Highland or The
Reverberation of the Stones, by Michael von Hinzensterna and Hans
Tutschku, is a "soundscape" (sound-landscape) of traffic, a train
station, bagpipes, military percussion, carnival music from South
America, courtly baroque music, folk songs and fully-composed
passages. Also using archetypal sounds, such as fire and water,
the highly-original score brought together these disparate noises
into a tapestry tightly interwoven with the images on stage.

As the piece drew to a close, the dancers moved with
increasing intensity, a burning energy, accompanied by the sound
of fire. In the final moments, the dancers fell to the floor, lay
motionless, and then, slowly, each raised a single flower into
the air. As with many of the dance performances seen during Art
Summit Indonesia l995, Schlomer ends his piece on a hopeful note:
Even though there is death and a feeling of hopelessness in the
world, there is also rebirth.

Hopefully, this optimism, shown by artists from around the
world, has boosted the determination of Indonesian choreographers
and composers to persevere in their creative investigations of
the world of contemporary performance -- despite the many
obstacles -- in the name of artistic pursuit.