The torrent of voiced phrases of Cheap Lecture does not involve any movement phrase. ‘Real’ music is reduced to some lost notes and ‘real’ dance never exceeds the one step forward. It is the words that dance, the mutual exchange of looks and glances between the two performers, between them and the public, it is the leaves from the bunch of papers in their hands as they throw them with a small sway to the floor after each spoken word or sentence, it is the humour that dances through the score. Likewise all of those elements are turned into music. The performers do not play with pitch or volume: everything is centered around the force of rhythm and timing.
Timing
It is this sense of timing that Cheap Lecture shares with the trilogy the previous two festival days. Burrows and Fargion command timing as few others do, they can stand the comparison with the world’s best clowns or comics. One critic called them the Laurel and Hardy of avant-garde dance - but that would do injustice to their added value as dance and music performers. Their work does have that comical aspect that is present in the perfect placing of a glance, a sigh or one of those typical movements of the head with which they conclude a voiced phrase or a movement phrase. Fargion especially is good at that, he also has the classical physiognomy of a clown, a somewhat melancholy expression that matches his short and sturdy build. All in all, the kind of physical appearance that discerning women swoon for.
On the other hand, Burrows and Fargion shrink back from an excess of humour because they want their public to keep in touch with the fact that their work is a serious proposal.
Their humour is indeed part of a broader range of significance in their work – work which for that matter is quite indescribable. When watching Burrows and Fargion on stage for the first time I was quite happy not to have to write about the event. My only attempt at putting into words what I had seen stopped at a comparison with watching a game you do not know the rules of, but that is clearly so much fun that you would absolutely love to be part of it. That description still goes in Maasmechelen. There is something in what these two performers do that entices one to keep on watching expectantly in order to see what they will be up next in their intricate game that one cannot, as yet, make head or tail of. And it is exactly that created sense of expectancy that is, according to musicologists, at the core of timing. Music scientist Henkjan Honing
(1) proposes that timing (the playing with time between two notes of music) is what keeps the attention of the listener going at a primitive cognitive level – and in a more fundamental way than what harmony or tone setting can bring about. Even more intriguing is the fact that Honing makes the link with the human body. Here is a citation from the scientist in a letter on his project for computer-generated music:
‘(...) I believe we have overlooked something very crucial. Timing of course not only has to do with the placing of notes, it is also about the musician himself, about what some refer to as “embodied music”.’
Attitude
That certainly goes for Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion: it is the way in which they physically use timing that catches and holds attention. Their specific ‘attitude’ towards their movement material, their movement and musical score constitutes a significant added value in their work.
On the one hand the makers deliberately use movement and sound material that is impossibly intricate, nipping any attempt at perfect execution skilfully in the bud.
This self-imposed impossibility is then turned into the motor for their performance, which they execute with high concentration and sharp focus because, yes, the will to excel is there. 'The best we can' was one of the rhythmically spoken phrases from Cheap Lecture. On the other hand, within this format, they allow themselves mistakes. In their more movement-oriented performances the result is a laid-back way of moving, and even when they do not move, their relaxed self-relativism results in infectious fun that effortlessly generates the spectator’s direct involvement. One might describe this ‘attitude’ as a kind of work ethos with a highly hospitable tinge. In the hierarchy between the spectator and the performance it helps to pull down the glass wall of authoritative complexities. The distance with what is shown on stage is bridged, however abstract or incomprehensible the performance may be.
In the virtuosity of the movement material or in the lack of it, Burrows and Fargion again play with the element of ‘attitude’. Their technical skills are very different: Burrows’ incorporated ballet background gives him a physical control that is much more finely tuned than that of Fargion; Burrows tends to do more, to repeat movements more often or to execute them faster. Fargion is not a trained dancer and adds rest to the whole through a certain slowness. Within those differences their execution puts forward the dignity of their individual qualities. ‘The informal crashing into the formal’ – a music principle of John Cage they quote in Cheap Lecture is thus applicable at several levels – the virtuoso ballet alignment of Burrows versus the lack of it on the part of Fargion, their virtuoso scores that clash with the use of ‘everyday’ movements.
What they bring about on stage can be summarized from the phrases they keep on throwing at the spectators during Cheap Lecture: 'If we accept that our hands are empty then something usually turns up to fill them.' or also, 'Composition is about making a choice, including the choice to make no choice. Music is a negotiation with the patterns your fingers are thinking.'
Is it any surprise that the chief source of inspiration for Cheap Lecture is John Cage’s Lecture on Nothing?
After the festival in Maasmechelen the duo stated that Cheap Lecture was to be the first part of a new trilogy that they want to put on stage before the end of 2009. On top of that Jonathan Burrows is planning a theoretical publication that clarifies his work. Something to look forward to impatiently.
A new perspective
What Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion do is quite effective. They show a happy, open and intelligent mode of being on stage that has no need of intricate elucidation or big technical means.
Body language and sound do the trick. Their specific ‘attitude’ opens a space for resonance between the work, the performers and the spectators without having to make artistic concessions. That is impressive.
Lieve Dierckx
© Flemish Theatre Institute, Corpus Art Criticism 2009.
Notes
1) Henkjan Honing in: http://cf.hum.uva.nl/mmm/papers/honing-2004e.pdf