When the brain becomes a cage
When the lights died down for the last time, the audience did not move for minutes and remained seated in absolute silence until the lights slowly came on again. When the actors Marion Bosetti, Louis Combeaud and Gregory Frateur came back on stage, the audience burst into applause. After the final scene of Zooming in on Loss in the Spielboden in Dornbin there was a somewhat spooky atmosphere; most likely an accurate reflection of the mood of the audience, which was a mixture of confusion, consternation, and dismay. Ann Van den Broek and her company WArd/waRD proved with their much-delayed premiere in Austria during ‘Tanz ist surprises’, the fall edition of the ‘Tanz ist’ Festival under the direction of Günter Marinelli, that she can rightfully be counted among the experiment-loving and extraordinary companies of Europe.
The strict separation between the audience and the stage is completely removed in the Spielboden. In the center of the space, they have built a high-tech, cage-like installation which was the epicenter of the happening. Outside of that were seats in a row with irregular intervals. The audience was encouraged to move around the space during the performance to observe what was happening from different perspectives. However, only a few took that advice because people were captivated by the spectacle no matter where they were seated in the venue.
The brain visualized on stage
The brain is the central, multifunctional, driving and organizing nerve center of the body. Usually, this complex organ, which is not only responsible for our conscious activities and sensory observations, but also for the vital vegetative functions through the autonomous nervous system, operates without us having much influence on it. But watch out if this structure starts malfunctioning due to an illness like dementia.
The compact installation made of steel rods and fitted with a great number of switches, levers, cables, lamps, screens, and microphones visually plants the damaged brain center stage. There is usually one person in that confining cage who rapidly makes specific electrical connections after which the next actor comes in and just as rapidly makes different connections. Harsh lights flicker, short blackouts make one insecure, the audio landscape consists of obnoxious white noise and electronic noise fragments – the microphone dangling from the ceiling swings back and forth and sets the beat.
Gregory Frateur, also known as the lead singer of the experimental jazz-gospel-drama-band Dez Mona, sings a kind of mantra: Prepare Yourself… to handle it. Marion Bosetti and Louis Combeaud also pass on obscure messages when they are not walking around in circles with measured steps outside the cage or moving back and forth toward the audience. The atmosphere increasingly becomes hyperactive, emotionally charged, desperate, oppressive. The faces of the actors projected in extreme closeups on the monitors attached to the cage intensify everything. They lose control, contacts are broken, there is the fear of loss; frustration, grief and anger make way for acceptance and mourning. A precisely planned, ritualized, and choreographed chaos in the head. The lengthy cables laid out around the cage are pulled in. All connections with the outside world are now cut off, there is no escaping it, the inner struggle was doomed from the start. – Seven years at last from now on you are someone else. Followed by the aforementioned final blackout.
Triptych about dementia
Ann Van den Broek was one of the most acclaimed dancers from Belgium until the year 2000 and has since become equally successful as a choreographer. In her multiple award-winning works she minutely studies human-behavior patterns, states of consciousness, and emotions. But she had a direct connection to dementia: ‘My mother was diagnosed with dementia and went through all the phases of the illness. I analyzed the physical behavior of people with dementia as well as the emotional and physical behavior of the healthcare workers. I talked to specialists about this topic and was inspired by my own observations. After this process of analysis, I isolated the movements down to the smallest details and created variations. During that process I also created a data base of the essential expressions; later I combined it all into a structure.’
Zooming in on Loss is the middle part of a triptych about dementia, which unfortunately is unbelievably relevant now. In Austria approximately 147,000 people are currently suffering from ´the decline of the mental abilities‘, and scientists project that the number will double by the year 2050. In the interview with the maker after the performance, Van den Broek then called on society and politicians responsible for healthcare to focus more on this illness and to demand more scientific research into it. The basis of Blueprint on Memory, the first part of the Memory Loss Collection, is a sort of linear chronology of the all the phases of dementia and the research into it. The third part, Memory Loss, contains all the elements, though not in chronological order. Wouldn’t it be exciting to see all three productions back-to-back? That would certainly merit a trip to Belgium!
Peter Füssl, Kultur zeitschrift November 3, 2022