An Argument against Aboutness

Ariel Efraim Ashbel in conversation

Ariel Efraim Ashbel talks about his new work “no apocalypse not now”, his poetics and his role as director. “no apocalypse not now” premiered at steirischen herbst this September.

“no apocalypse not now” is quite the ominous title. It almost seems like a prayer or mantra to me that references an imminent catastrophe but wishes desperately for it not to come true. Can you tell us how this title came about?
I like that it sounds like a prayer or a mantra, I guess it is some kind of a plea, an ethical orientation and a spiritual wish. But I’m not that naïve, and the simpler answer, at least about how we got to it, is way more mundane: it’s just stolen (laughs) all my pieces always take their titles from existing films—for example “The Empire Strikes Back,” “Do The Right Thing,” and my graduation piece back in the day at the school of visual theater—“Jaws”—and with this one we started by simply calling it “apocalypse now.” As my partner in developing the concept Romm Lewkowicz and I went deeper into our research on different aspects of the apocalypse we came across this text by Jacques Derrida called “No Apocalypse, Not Now”.

“There’s something refreshing in the rejection of the notion of the apocalypse.”

So this time you ‘stole’ your title from a text?!
Yes. He published it in 1984 at the height of the Cold War, as the annihilation of humanity seemed like a realistic scenario and was discussed in politics, culture, and the humanities. Throughout seven mini poetic arguments (he calls them missives/missiles), he draws a portrayal of humans at the edge of the 20th century; accelerated, anxious, racing towards a phantasmagoric accumulation that will blow up not only us but also our concepts of meaning and procedures of meaning-making. So that’s when the decision was made to change the title.

In light of this, how do you position your piece in relation to the apocalypse?
There’s something refreshing in the rejection of the notion of the apocalypse; again not as a naïve call for optimism, but first of all as sheer resistance. In eight years of living in Germany, I grew suspicious of a nihilism which seems prevalent in the arts, and to the best of my understanding stems from a dated ‘enfant terrible’ culture, mixed with the gradual acknowledgement in the failure of the liberal project; some kind of self-deprecation mixed with wild narcissism, through which the imminent destruction of the world is being celebrated; a “we fucked up this much, so we might as well, and the world doesn’t care about us anyway” attitude, which I find uninspiring. I’m done reveling in destruction and glorifying decadence, I think we have the possibility and thus the responsibility to propose a more subtle, pleasure oriented articulation. I think among many other things that’s what “no apocalypse not now” means for me. Also, I really love the ‘not now’ part—it feels like a way to keep ‘the contemporary’ at bay—at the risk of contradicting myself, I dare say that I think asking ourselves what’s right for ‘now’ or what is ‘contemporary’ is a tedious 20th-century trope which we don’t need anymore.

“I am highly interested in the dynamics of appropriation as an alternative to authenticity.”

The uncanny similarity of your title to Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” (1979), as you described, is no coincidence. But is it fair to call the film an inspiration for the piece? I believe you said together with Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” (1899) it inspired some of the themes. For example the crisis of white male identity, which is tackled in a very particular way in both these works, and for many other reasons seems somewhat ubiquitous these days. Can you give us a hint of how you and your team are going to tackle this crisis more concretely in the piece? And maybe more generally which parts of the material struck a chord with you?
Both “Heart of Darkness” and “Apocalypse Now” are indeed sources of inspiration for the work. Generally, I love dealing with how narratives reincarnate through culture at different moments and I am highly interested in the dynamics of appropriation as an alternative to authenticity. But more specifically, these two pieces are interesting exactly because, as you mention, they describe not only a crisis of white male identity but a total collapse of that subject position as a result of being confronted with the colonial order. As soon as the western subject has to deal with the physical reality of the colony, when he faces what the other side of his domination looks like, he can’t take it and his world falls apart—hence the apocalypse links the destruction of personhood with a moral awakening or a shift, indeed a revelation, in worldview. For the first time, the subject acknowledges his unavoidable entanglement with the world, and at the same time experiences how this new entangled self is losing its grip on the world as he knew it. Of course both narratives are still focusing on the white perspective, so I’d like to think that in a way we’re proposing a continuation and a critique of what they were trying to do. Conrad was a fierce critic of European colonialism in Africa and Coppola orchestrated an epic anti-Vietnam War film, and at the same time they were (white) men of their time, in various ways perpetuating with their practice the very structures they’re seeking to criticize. In relation to the discourse you’re referring to in your question, I understand my job not as a crusade to ‘call them out,’ a fashionable practice nowadays, but to address and disrupt the space/time coordinates that western artistic narratives have rendered universal. So the ‘critique’ or analysis of that subject position is really a struggle against ‘aboutness,’ essentialist logics, and representationalist identity politics. Ultimately, it’s an unromantic invitation to reevaluate humaneness and humanism. So that’s a way of understanding how we will address this issue in the piece: we are striving towards a sci-fi speculation that doesn’t focus on obliterating certain bodies but dismantles the oppressive logic of identity altogether, believing that there’s a lot to achieve by leaving its constructs behind.

First Published by Vorherbst Magazine, 12.8.19
Interview by Dominik Müller / steirischer herbst
Read the full interview here.

Ariel Efraim Ashbel and friends

no apocalypse not now

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”