FIEBRE, by Tamara Alegre, Lydia Östberg Diakité, Nunu Flashdem, Marie Ursin, Célia Lutangu. Winner of the [8:tension] Young Choreographers’ Series. Photo © Nelly Rodriguez

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A week at ImPulsTanz Vienna

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FIEBRE, by Tamara Alegre, Lydia Östberg Diakité, Nunu Flashdem, Marie Ursin, Célia Lutangu. Winner of the [8:tension] Young Choreographers’ Series. Photo © Nelly Rodriguez

Lena Megyeri

27 September 2021

To complement our snappy 1-line reviews of 26 ImPulsTanz shows, let Lena Megyeri be your in-depth guide to one week at the month-long festival

For one month every summer, Vienna’s ImPulsTanz festival can make you believe that contemporary dance is important enough to take over a whole city. Festival posters are everywhere, you bump into people carrying the festival tote bag at each corner, and in the evening, it feels like everyone is going to or coming from one of the countless events. When you attend one of these events yourself, it can give you the feeling of belonging to a pretty cool community. To sum it up: it’s a special time of the year for dance lovers.

With 155 performances, 185 workshops and thousands of participants, the 2021 edition of ImPulsTanz felt like a new beginning after last year’s pandemic-related hiatus. Of course, it was a bit different from before: there were safety measurements to keep, some performances could only take place with modifications, and most importantly, this was the first festival without one of the founders of ImPulsTanz, Brazilian choreographer Ismael Ivo, who died of Covid-19 in April 2021.

Most of the performances in this year’s line-up were created before the pandemic, as the festival made a pledge to show all the works that had been invited to the cancelled 2020 edition during the next three years. It was a wide and diverse programme, the imprint of the issues that have concerned dance makers in the previous couple of years – mostly before the turbulence of the pandemic, but already in rapidly changing times. In this article, I try to give an overview of some of these issues through the seven performances that I was able to see during my seven days at the festival.

Ruth Childs recreates Lucinda Childs’ Judson-era Carnation. Photo © Gregory Batardon

The last few years has seen a growing interest in dance history among creators: many choreographers have been inspired by dance heritage, especially of the 20th century. This was traceable at Impulstanz as well, in the form of reconstructions, homages and new creations. Seventy-year-old French dancer Elisabeth Schwartz showed her lecture-performance Isadora Duncan, created by Jérôme Bel. There was an evening dedicated to Viennese Dance Modernism and its leading female dancers. And then there was Ruth Childs, niece of Judson Dance Theater member Lucinda Childs, who brought three of her legendary aunt’s early solo pieces to Vienna: Pastime (1963), which was Childs’ first ever solo; Carnation (1965), which made her famous in Europe; and Museum Piece (1965). There are no surviving recordings of these pieces, and except for Carnation they have never been presented outside the USA, so it was a rare chance to be able to experience them live.

Pastime explores the relationship between movement and object. We see Childs taking up different shapes and imitating different objects – a boat, a crib, a bathtub – while moving inside a piece of stretchable fabric that is expanded between her feet and shoulders. Carnation, called “a perfect and meticulous nonsense” by one critic at its 1965 premiere, revolves around the animation of everyday objects, like hair curlers, sponges, a rubbish bag and a salad bowl, accompanied by exaggerated facial expressions. In Museum Piece, the performer explains Georges Seurat’s painting Le Cirque by putting enlarged coloured dots from a section of the painting on the floor, and thus placing herself inside the work of art.

Reconstruction is always recreation at the same time, and Ruth Childs managed to make these works her own. Instead of interpreting a piece of dance history, she made the solos look personal and contemporary. Common to the three pieces is humour, and she has enough wit and a strong stage presence to be authentic in them. The evening was completed by the video recordings of two other Lucinda Childs works: Calico Mingling (1973), a piece for four dancers, and a solo, Katema (1978), which made for an interesting meeting of aunt and niece, past and presence on the stage.

Michiel Vandevelde’s The Goldberg Variations. Photo © Tom Callemin

The Goldberg Variations by Belgian artist Michiel Vandevelde is inspired by another iconic figure of the American postmodern: Steve Paxton. The title is an allusion to Paxton’s solo improvisation that he performed from time to time in the 1980s to Bach, here played live on stage by Philippe Thuriot on the accordion. Like Paxton, Vandevelde is interested in the social and political contexts of our time, and questions the relationship between dance and democracy. Like many choreographers of the American postmodern era, Vandevelde also builds up his choreography from seemingly simple, everyday movements, strung together in highly complex sequences and rigorous geometrical shapes. While Vandevelde and his two partners, black dancer Audrey Merilus and Oskar Stalpaert, a performer with Down’s syndrome, dance on stage, we see clips of riots and demonstrations from recent years from around the world. The choreographer – this time the embodiment of the white male dancer next to his co-performers – politely puts himself into the background and gives more space to the other two, who are not afraid to use the chance. Stalpaert charms with his clown-like attitude (his first passion being, as he mentions on stage, acting), but it is Merilus who really steals the show with her intricate, airy dancing.

It seems that a lot has happened in the democratisation of dance since Paxton’s time, as it is now quite common to see dancers with different abilities and skin colours (and gender identities etc.) on stage; but as the videos in the background show us, society still faces many of the same prejudices, and segregation is just as common as decades before. Vandevelde’s choreography is remarkable, but his message remains unelaborate and didactic.

Contemporary dance, after some years of blissful ignorance, is getting more socially conscious again

One of the many things that was made very hard by the pandemic was travelling, and discovering new talent in the performing arts scene. Luckily, ImPulsTanz was able to present its 2020 selection of ten performances for the [8:tension] Young Choreographers’ Series almost in its entirety, except for one performance. The three that I saw showed very different artistic approaches, one of them also winning the festival Young Choreographers’ Award – but let’s get back to that later.

Ruth Childs is present in this selection as well, this time with her own solo. While contemporary dance, after some years of blissful ignorance, is getting more socially conscious again, fantasia joins a vast number of pieces (mostly solos) from the last few years that feed on personal stories and autobiographical details. In five sections, wearing five t-shirts of different colours with matching wigs, Childs steps into dialogue with the musical memories of her childhood. The classical pieces (mostly parts of Beethoven symphonies, but there’s a bit of Nutcracker as well) evoke spontaneous and involuntary moves in her body. Sometimes she repeats the same sequence over and over again, sometimes she interprets the music, at another time she tries to fight and distort it. At these times the classical music is replaced with contemporary sound, and we see Childs moving childlike, almost surprised at her own body’s actions. It’s an experiment in discovering her personal performing style, based on – and partly going against – the memories carried around in her body and soul since she was little. Interestingly, Childs’ stage personality is much less convincing here than in her aunt’s pieces. The wit is there again, but she lacks the charisma that kept our attention throughout the restaged works.

Emmilou Rößling, FLUFF ([8:tension] Young Choreographers’ Series). Photo © Johanna Malm

Postmodern ideas are no strangers to German choreographer Emmilou Rößling either, who, in her piece FLUFF, deliberately avoids the spectacular and creates a piece that withdraws from representation. As the title suggests, fabrics and materials, starting with the impressive white military net backdrop, are important in the performance, especially in creating a certain mood. The show can be divided into three sections: in the first one, Rößling moves around in slow motion, gradually sitting up from a lying position and exploring the stage, mostly with her back to the audience – as if she needs a bit of time before she can face us and really start the show. In the second section, she creates an installation from tree branches covered with yarns – slowly, meditatively, like monks create a mandala. Except she doesn’t destroy it in the end, but lets it swing and mesmerise us. In the third section she dances and repeats longer sequences, made up of easy and common movements.

FLUFF was originally planned to be shown in a museum space but had to be shown in a theatre because of Covid regulations. Being able to walk around would indeed have suited the piece and its contemplative, immersive atmosphere much better. Rößling tries not to look like a performer at all: she greets friends in the audience at the beginning, and she maintains a civilian attitude throughout. Even her movements are a bit clumsy in the last part, as if she could be any of us, not a professional dancer. But her attempt at dismantling the wall between performer and spectator and creating an intimate ambience cannot be completely successful in a traditional theatre setting. Sitting in the auditorium, I was reminded of a feathery pillow, comforting and lulling. Whether these qualities are as beneficial for a performance as for a pillow, is probably up to personal taste.

How FIEBRE manages to talk about female solidarity, body positivity, sexualisation and many other burning issues in such a bizarre setting is quite a mystery

At some points, FIEBRE has an installation-like quality as well, but in a very different way than FLUFF. With a concept by Tamara Alegre, choreography by Alegre, Lydia Östberg Diakité and Marie Ursin and performed by Diakité, Ursin and Nunu Flashdem, the piece is set in the MUMOK Hofstallung, the former imperial mews building in today’s Museumsquartier. The torturing summer heat and the lack of air inside the building somehow fits all that we’re about to see. We sit on two sides of the room, and the three performers take their place on a rectangular space on the floor that is richly smeared with purple slime. The dancers, who are representing different types of female bodies – white, black, thin, plus-size (Flashdem is a plus-size model too), glide, slide and crawl across the room in swimsuits that have more cut-outs than material. They drink the slime from long tubes and then place the tubes into each other’s costumes. Each element of this performance – the half-naked bodies, the excessive lube-like material, the women climbing and gliding on each other – could be erotic, and none of it is. Flashdem moves around with a tormented look on her face, and the other two don’t seem to have the time of their lives either. The slime-drinking, slurping and spitting is more disgusting than anything else.

And then, at some point they start climbing on each other and grab each other like sumo-fighters, and it just gets ridiculous as they constantly slip on the slime, and I find myself laughing out loud. It’s all like a sexual fantasy gone really bad, and that’s intentional. These women take back the control over whether they want to be perceived as sexy; they hold the male gaze up to ridicule, and they manage to do that among all the most blatant clichés of eroticism. How FIEBRE manages to talk about female solidarity, body positivity, sexualisation and many other burning issues in such a bizarre setting is quite a mystery: it doesn’t want to impress, and you may be sceptical at first, but unnoticed it gets under your skin. At least that’s how it worked for me. And it must have worked in one way or another for the jury of the Young Choreographers’ Award as well, as this was the production that won the prize at the end of the festival.

Akram Khan Company, Outwitting the Devil. Photo © Jean-Louis Fernandez

Former [8:tension] participant, now international contemporary dance star Akram Khan has been a regular guest at Impulstanz from the beginning of his career. This time he came with Outwitting the Devil, a piece inspired by a story from the ancient Sumerian epic, Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh makes friends with the wild man Enkidu, and together they travel to the Cedar Forest, which is home to many animals and spirits. Gilgamesh decides to destroy the forest and kill its guardian, Humbaba, in order to establish his own fame. But the destruction angers the gods, and they punish Gilgamesh by taking the life of Enkidu.

Outwitting the Devil wears some of Khan’s trademarks – strong and charismatic performers and enthralling choreography – but it disappoints in many respects compared to his best works. The storytelling is languid and confusing, and since the dramaturgy and the role of the characters are unclear, it doesn’t make sense why there’s an Indian woman dancing – beautifully but pointlessly – a completely different style from everyone else. After Khan’s Giselle, Vincenzo Lamagna’s music once again feels like a Hollywood score in its scale, often replacing dramaturgy and choreography in expressing emotions – and very much overdoing it on the way. This time, Tom Scutt’s set design – its most important element being a black tomb-like wooden box – doesn’t find its right place in the piece either: it feels more like a visual nuisance on the underlit, oversmoked stage than something with actual meaning.

Chris Haring’s Stranger than Paradise (Liquid Loft). Photo © Liquid Loft

ImPulsTanz closed with a double bill by one of Austria’s most important contemporary dance companies, Liquid Loft. Choreographer Chris Haring’s Still and Stranger Than Paradise are complementary pieces (the first a live performance, the second a film) that belong to the few creations at the festival that are already products of the pandemic period. Although the movie came first (it premiered during lockdown, in January 2021), it is Still that kicks off this live event. The nine dancers constantly walk in and out of the stage, while they perform short choreographies or movement sequences often reminiscent of different animals. They change costumes all the time, at first offstage, later onstage as well, as the pool of clothes gradually starts growing there. Identities shift, they become interchangeable, just like costumes. The lines between animal and human, man and woman, human and machine blur. The creatures all act individually to the rhythm of the mechanical music, but with time they form a kind of group that moves together, as often happens with herds of animals as well.

A screen slowly comes down mid-action, and the live show gives space to the film Stranger Than Paradise. Cinema has long played an important role in Liquid Loft’s work, and this time they reference Jim Jarmusch’s movie of the same title. Still’s costumes and emblematic movements reappear, but the identities are further reinterpreted here with the help of concave mirrors that distort already familiar faces and bodies. Mirrors have been common metaphors in art history for centuries (Liquid Loft’s programme notes mention Lewis Carroll’s Alice and Jean Cocteau’s death-yearning poet), and although Chris Haring’s take on the subject doesn’t offer any ground-breaking revelations, it is still an intimate, yet somewhat unsettling experience to watch the dancers face their distorted selves and reflect on them.

The whole double bill represents another kind of identity shift as well: the double life of dance performances on screen and live, brought forward by the pandemic. It’s not just a simple case of turning an existing show into a film, as we have seen so often now: Still and Stranger Than Paradise have a lot in common, but they both use their respective medium’s strengths to emphasise different aspects of the same topic.

Body Parkour – a Public Moves workshop with Ákos Hargitay

No matter how much time you spend at ImPulsTanz, with its incredibly rich programme of workshops, performances, lectures, residencies, education projects and parties spreading across four weeks, you can only scratch the surface. As we know: every cloud has a silver lining, and that is true of this festival as well. Last year’s official programme may have been cancelled, but as a sort of substitute, a new format was born: Public Moves offered free, open-air dance workshops for everyone at several locations around the city. And although Arsenal’s wonderful workshop spaces filled up again this year with dancers from beginners to professionals, Public Moves stayed on the programme as well, reaching about 20,000 participants in almost 200 classes, and skyrocketing the total number of festival visitors above 100,000. The pretty cool community of dance lovers is growing. ●

Vienna, Austria

For a complementary and entirely contrasting overview oClaire Lefèvre’s snappy 1-line reviews here: ImPulsTanz Vienna: one-sentence reviews by Claire Lefèvre

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