Gangnam Style: a contemporary Macarena

Gangnam Style was a hit just a little after we had finished putting the show together which is a pity in a way as we would most probably have included it in the show if it had been around at that time. If the opportunity comes to work on the show again then I think we will have to master this one and work it in, most of the other dances are a little dated but this one shows that the impulse to dance in unison is as alive and well today as it ever was.

As with some of the other videos, this one is not so much a dance as a pop video that features a lot of dancing. This means there is not a very clear authoritative way to dance it.  There are people who will try and teach it to you but there is no precise original routine to go with the song. Compare it to the Birdy Song, for example, which is as much a dance as a song and which was doing the rounds before videos of songs became expected. The Macarena too is very clear as a dance, it's brutal simplicity makes it stand out from most of the other post video age dances.

Another song / dance that has come to my attention recently is Xiaopinguo (Little Apple) this, like Gingham Style, is more a song with a smart video featuring dancers which has become very popular (in China) and spawned countless imitators. When you start to see videos of kids doing it, friends, colleagues and shoppers at it too, then you are treading into Indifference territory. Embarrassing though it is to admit it, I have started to learn the lyrics to this one: in China it is always handy to have a karaoke number up your sleeve.

Berlin performances

Berlin performances 18 & 19 January at Theaterdiscounter

Here are the programme notes:

Indifference is a performance that takes the search for freewill as its starting point. This idea of freewill, of having the power of choice over our actions seems, the further one looks at it, like a phantom, something that cannot be proven to exist. Indeed, it completely contradicts most ideas of causality that underpin a scientific worldview. People have debated its existence since the Greeks and it remains central to many aspects of society yet it remains stubbornly elusive. It is precisely because it is forever elusive yet also necessary that it is interesting and the focus of Indifference.

Indifference looks at this old question of freewill in a way relevant to today, not attempting to provide answers or instructions but rather attempting to stage questions and paradoxes. In this way it aims to remain open to both intention and interpretation. We have attempted to create a structure that allows us to better visualize such questions as: Can we be free as individuals but doomed to species-specific behavior when acting collectively? What happens when we start to suspect that we are not completely free? What are the consequences of resigning ourselves to a fatalistic outlook? What happens to the whole idea of a person, of a self, if we are not responsible for some or even any of our choices? Why is the idea of freewill so enduring, what appetite does it meet? What are we if we have no freewill?

The performance features five popular group dances, dances that attracted us as they contain many of the dilemmas we are busy with. They are dances in which the individual must follow set movements: either you follow the steps or else you are not doing The Birdie Dance or Macarena.  In this sense the dancer has no freedom. Yet, when given this fixed framework to follow, the dancer then becomes part of a group and this offers another sort of freedom: the freedom to make a fool of yourself. This is a freedom that should not be under-rated. It’s a rare collective action, you make a fool of yourself with other people doing the same thing too. Given the success of Gangnam Style I would suggest that this vision of freedom is alive and well and is held just as dearly as the freedom to improvise alone. Maybe, it is even stronger than the freedom to act alone, as Alfred Jarry wrote in his play Ubu Enchained, “We are free to do what we want, even to obey. We are free to go anywhere we choose, even to prison! Slavery is the only true freedom!”

New stills from the performance

all photos Peter Empl 2011

English translation of Rheinische Post review

The Brit Bill Aitchison and his Brussels colleague Katja Dreyer. are dedicating themselves in FFT Juta to the concept of freewill and coercion. Their dance performance combines Marx with the Macarena. Dancing represents the feeling of freedom but the role of submission plays a bigger part than one would like to wish. Whom or what are we following here?

Popular dance music comes out of the loudspeakers. The music makes you want to dance. Five songs are constantly repeated. When one song starts, Aitchison and Dreyer step out from behind their table and dance, or a red light gives them the signal to appear.

Macarenca by "los del mar" starts with stretching your arms and then folding your lower arms. Everyone knows it. Like the Birdie Song by the Tweets: the hands imitate chirping beaks, followed by knee bends, ass slaps, hip shakes. It looks totally stupid. Usually it is the masses that dance these dances. Later on the music accelerates or slows down, then the Birdie Dance looks heavy, like work on big machines.

"You are an individual. You came here through your own free will" a voice announces authoritatively from the outside. Everybody feels addressed, everybody believes it. Then another announcement follows: "That decision was made long before you were even born." They talk about the Neanderthals and the five stages of history that lead to communism, "you are not responsible for the Euro crisis!" A highly amusing and intelligent little spectacle about the big question of freedom.

Melanie Suchy Rheinishe Post 2012

http://www.rp-online.de/nrw/tanz-spektakel-ueber-die-freiheit-aid-1.2858643

Rheinische Post Review (German)

Tanz-Spektakel über die Freiheit

zuletzt aktualisiert: 05.06.2012 - 02:30

Der Brite Bill Aitchison und seine Brüsseler Kollegin Katja Dreyer widmeten sich im FFT Juta dem freien Willen und dem Zwang. Ihre Tanzperformance "Indifference" verbindet Marx mit Macarena. Tanzen steht für Freizeit, fürs Freiheitsgefühl, doch Unterordnung spielt eine größere Rolle, als man wahrhaben möchte. Wem oder was folgt man da?

Populäre Tanzmusiken dringen aus den Lautsprechern. Sie gehen in die Beine. Fünf Songs werden ständig wiederholt. Beginnt einer von ihnen, treten Aitchison und Dreyer von ihrem Tisch vor und tanzen, oder eine rote Lampe gibt das Zeichen zum Auftritt. "Macarena" von Los Del Mar beginnt mit Armevorstrecken, dann Unterarme einklappen. Kennt jeder. Auch den Ententanz zum "Birdie Song" von The Tweets: Die Hände tun wie zwitschernde Schnäbel, es folgen Kniewippen, Poklatschen, Hüftevorschieben. Sieht dämlich aus. Normalerweise tanzen Leute das in Massen. Später spielen die Musiken mal schneller, mal langsamer: Die Ententanzbewegungen wirken dann schwerfällig, wie Arbeit an Maschinen. "Du bist ein Individuum, es war deine freie Entscheidung hierher zu kommen", tönt es autoritär aus dem Off. Jeder fühlt sich angesprochen und glaubt das.

Dann erneut eine Durchsage: "Dass du hier bist, folgt einem Plan, der älter ist als du", von Neandertalern wird erzählt und den "fünf Stadien der Geschichte" bis zum Kommunismus. "Du bist nicht verantwortlich für die Euro-Krise!" Ein amüsantes und intelligentes kleines Spektakel über die große Frage nach der Freiheit.

MELANIE SUCHY

Nächste Aufführung innerhalb der Performance-Serie im FFT Juta: heute und morgen, jeweils um 20 Uhr, Andreas Liebmann: "Wir – ein Solo"

http://nachrichten.rp-online.de/regional/tanz-spektakel-ueber-die-freiheit-1.2858643

Proletarian Dance 1

On tour with Indifference we finally came to the perfect spot to make the first video adaptation of our dances. Karl Marx Kopf, Chemnitz is a quite special place that, in spite of the rain, lifted my spirits immediately upon seeing so ambiguous a monument.

photo: James Dunn

There are of course still four more dances we have in store so maybe when the time is right we'll adapt another one. I already have a few dream locations in mind such as a leisure centre with fake palm trees in the North of England for Agadoo or an East Asian supermarket for The Papaya.  

Returning to Indifference

After a significant pause we'll be picking up Indifference again in a little over two weeks with the first, of a number of performances, taking place in Dusseldorf. This pause, during which we have all been busy doing many other things, can give us a chance to see the performance in a fresh light. I will therefore be studying the video closely over the next few days and making notes. I am only able to do this now as things have been so busy that it has been a case of rushing from one thing to the next and this Indifference performance is the next on the horizon. I was shocked when I recently reviewed videos of the other performance I made last year ahead of performances and noticed some elementary things that could be changed and which lifted it with no huge effort. My instinct is that Indifference is more tightly constructed and will not change as much, but only time will tell.

Even though I may not have been performing the show it has not disappeared from the body. That I know for sure as I do from time to time play the five songs and dance along to them as best I can in the living room, squeezing a line dance between the dining table and wall. I also became aware that my arms were not strong enough to maintain the God pointing action that I do at a certain point. Somehow it is really tiring to raise and lower the arms slowly from horizontal to vertical above the head for any length of time. I have therefore been training this using light weights that have hopefully firmed up the shoulders a little.

It will also be necessary to revisit the ideas, to reconnect with the performance on this level. The basic concepts are all fairly clear and I have had conversations developing them many times since last September. However, a performance is more than just a set of ideas, it provides a context for them and space where they come into relation with one another. How the many elements may connect is something that can only be properly considered within the performance itself as it creates the context for this. It is densely packed and multi-layered, resisting closure of meaning. This means I should be careful of cleaning anything up to much, at the risk of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. In reviewing it, it is necessary to consider it as a process and not just as a completed work, a process that we must reconnect with rather than creating a facsimile of the destination. While that is particularly true of me when making changes and editing the work it is also true of all of us as performers of the piece. Having access to the larger well of experiences makes for a richer performance.