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- Dancing to the rhythm of death - Laurent Chétouane's “Bach/Passion/Johannes”
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Dancing to the rhythm of death - Laurent Chétouane's “Bach/Passion/Johannes”
Something old or the smell of starch
The St John Passion (in German Johannes Passion) is a sacred oratori by Johann Sebastian Bach. The original Latin title is Passio secundum Johannem and translates to "The Suffering According to John". During the first winter that Bach was responsible for church music at the St Thomas and St Nicholas church in Leipzig, he composed the St John Passsion for the Good Friday Vesper service of 1724. This is what wikipedia offers and this how I imagine that service: a cold and gloomy atmosphere, hard benches, the smell of starch, mothers telling their children to be quiet and sit still.
Something new or let's move
There is no sitting still in Laurent Chétuane's (choreography) and Michael Rauter's (music) interpretation of the St John Passion. Exactly 1290 years after Bach's Good Friday Vesper service the main feature of this piece is movement. One singer (Senem Gökce Ogultekin), 7 musicians (Emmanuelle Bernard, Lotte Dibbern, Clara Gervais, Nari Hong, Tammin Julian Lee, Michael Rauter, Mari Sawada) and 4 dancers (Lisa Densem, Sigal Zouk, Nitsan Margaliot, Mikael Marklund) in “Bach/Johannes/Passion” interpret the story of Jesus' betrayel, imprisonment and cruxification without one moment of stagnancy.
All 12 performers are barefoot and all performers constantly move. They arrange, rearrange, change and challenge themselves in the surrounding space. For example: the violinists sit next to each other, one of them stands up, departs and joins the cello. The cello player grabs his chair, drags it to the organ where he only leaves his instrument in order to wander around briefly with one of the dancers. Or the singer often in her movements resembles a dancer. As a result of these movements the boundaries of on stage roles become blurry. Who are the dancers when the musicians through their movements constantly define and arrange the space on stage? Who is the main singer when Nari Hang (flute) also sings solos? The audience is not let out of this questioning of roles: the dancers approach it throughout the piece and by eye contact seem to be asking: who are you and why are you here?
Something borrowed or deconstructing Bach
Just as the borrowed object on a wedding day can look differently on the bride the borrowed oratori by Johann Sebastian Bach alters itself in ”Bach/Passion/Johannes”. It is stripped from its sacred aura. Not only because it is not played in a church but because the musical grandeur is left out. The musicians play Bach's sheet music but neither is there a dominant organ nor a huge choir. Instead of musical richness there are reduction and rearrangement. The notation is reduced to its skeleton - the basic sounds. The evangelist is sung by a woman. The former order of the original story is desontructed. ”Bach/Passion/Johannes” begins with the end of the oratori - the burial of Christ. One could say choreographer, musicians, singers and dancers use the 1290 years old composition to reenact the tragedy of Jesus' suffering and destiny and at the same time allude other options of understanding it.
Something blue or dancing to rhythm of death
Is it allowed to dance to Jesus death? In Bach's era the answer would have been a clear: NO! In the twenty first century everything goes. However, this postmodern expression would oversimplify Chétouane's piece to an experiment that is only about deconstruction as it is understood in the context of postmodern discourse. There is more to it. While watching the dancers movements I repeatedly thought about the rituals of mourning. What do we do when the loss of death suddenly hits us? How do we mourn and how do we overcome? After a phase of pure grief we eventually try to replace the sad thoughts by others. A difficult task because the blue and dark mood that we are in does not simply evaporate, we have to delibaretly shake it off. Knowing that sadness will reappear over and over again. It is exactly in this very manner of perpetual reappearance how the dancers move in “Bach/Passion/Johannes”. Every twirling, every streching of arms like a cross and every crossing the room is signified by sadness. As if they try but cannot completely shake off the burden of grief. These movements emerge repeatedly with minimal variations and reminded me that I am watching a dance to the rhythm of death.
