Berlin, in and out of lockdown, November 2020 - Vancouver Ballet Society
By Veronica Posth
Berlin had been dealing quite well with the COVID-19 pandemic — theatres that were closed during summer reopened in September, though with necessary restrictions regarding performances. Then, from the beginning of November, due to a quickly increasing number of infections, the lockdown started again, condemning theatres to close once more, for at least a month. This unexpected closure meant the cancellation of Animala, a work made up of two solos by Paul White (a former dancer with Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch) and Martha Hincapié Charry (who won the Pina Bausch Fellowship for Dance in 2019). Also cancelled, to my great disappointment, was Orfeo, the Monteverdi opera choreographed by Sasha Waltz in 2014.
In October, though, while things were still rolling, I was happy to be back in the theatres to enjoy a few works developed during the first lockdown.
Staatsballett Berlin, since August 2020 under the provisional artistic directorship of Christiane Theobald, presented the last of three galas, From Berlin with Love III, at Deutsche Oper Berlin. It featured a diverse range of choreographies, all by men, ranging from traditional work by Balanchine, Petipa and Patrice Bart, to neoclassical pieces by Ben Van Cauwenbergh, George Williamson and Heinz Spoerli, to contemporary works by Arshak Ghalumyan, Johnny McMillan and Ross Martinson.
Despite having to keep a mask on for two hours, the night was delightful. In particular, the male dancers revealed their mastery in astonishing jumps in three pieces: Les Bourgeois by Van Cauwenbergh, Le Corsaire by Petipa and Diamonds by Balanchine.
The gala’s final offering was Parliament by McMillan, a Canadian dancer with Staatsballett Berlin, and also a talented young choreographer. McMillan surprised the public with an engaging performance by 18 dancers who stood facing the back of the stage throughout. Their sculpted naked torsos shifted in slow motion to the left, then to the right, as if they were searching for steadiness. Slowly, the half spirals they made with their backs transformed into small undulations and then into full rotations. The flexible dancers recalled bodies forced into repetitive labour and also moving sculptures, their vocal accents of laughs and screams rising up in the dim, yet warm, light.
The endurance and repetition of the fluid movements evoked a trance experience, something that takes form individually within a community. The choreographer wrote in the program notes that his “aim was to recondition the individual experience through purposefully developing the collective consciousness.”
Parliament, with just eight dancers, was shown a few days later in a more intimate performance, at LAB_WORKS COVID_19, held at the Komische Oper Berlin. All the choreographies presented were developed in isolation by dancers from Staatsballett Berlin.
Audiences saw another work by Martinson, The Zero, a peculiar yet engaging solo that he dances while responding to the recorded voice of a man who keeps coughing. The man repeats the same questions, such as “Why do you sit like this?” Martinson’s replies — while launching his limbs up and down, turning, and doing twisted, agitated grand battements — seem like nonsense; for instance, “They sat inside the sanatorium, this fish tank for dogs, on their four feet since around 900 years as they caught it on a piece of paper.” Their conversation, in English, is abstract, but the dialogue evokes a doctor-patient talk in a sanitarium. Images of a psychiatric clinic and its typical safety restrictions came to my mind, and to a certain extent resonated with the restrictions caused by the pandemic.
On a less distressing note, Waves of flesh by Dana Pajarillaga and Lukas Malkowski is a beautiful and delicate representation of two bodies making love. Desire, sensuality, care, playfulness, abandonment and unity shone through the alchemy of their duet. C-020 by Ghalumyan, danced by two men and a woman, is a passionate love story featuring poetic dynamics of chasing and running away.
Four other pieces — LOve distaNT by Vivian Assal Koohnavard, 91_DIVOC (COVID_19 spelled backwards) by Olaf Kollmannsperger, Control Shift by Alexander Abdukarimov and Aubert Vanderlinden, and Du Bist Die Ruh (You are peace, the mild peace) by Andreas Heise, titled after the Schubert song to which it was set, were beautifully crafted and performed. Also part of the versatile evening was an intimate short dance film, I am here now, by Tara Samaya and Pippa Samaya. In different ways, these solos, duets and group works made me think about the need for human contact, and the heaviness perceived during the ceaseless and endangering pandemic.
A few days before the November lockdown, at Dock 11, a small but active theatre in the neighbourhood of Prenzlauer Berg, ASPHALT BODIES / Concrete Cities by Alexander Carrillo was shown. This work in progress was based on the impact that cities have had and continue to have on its five performers, including Carillo, a Colombian-born, Berlin-based artist.
A bizarre stage design by Carrillo himself featured several seemingly disparate elements, including ropes, mannequin legs hanging from the ceiling, two bowls of water, two little Buddha statues and a giant pink inflatable plastic elephant. The set doesn’t seem to have a connection to the idea of concrete cities nor to asphalt bodies, but does evoke a queer and tawdry surrealism.
The dancers embody traits of aggressiveness, shyness, sensuality, composure and childishness. They seem to be lost souls, scarred and full of eerie behaviour — crawling, screaming, shouting, fighting with their own demons — as we witness daily in big cities. At the end of the evening, during an audience talk, Carrillo explained that what we saw is part of ongoing research for an intended trilogy. Let’s withhold judgment until the mission is accomplished.
On the whole, the general resilience that dancers, theatres and dance schools have been showing in this catastrophic historical moment assuages the note of impatience at the limitations prevailing within Berlin’s dance community over the last nine months. What comes next is still unclear.
