Repetition in Performance
Returns and Invisible Forces
Eirini Kartsaki
Queen Mary University of London
London, Middlesex, UK
ISBN 978-1-137-43053-3 ISBN 978-1-137-43054-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-43054-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017939334
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identifed as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifcally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microflms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifc statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affliations.
Copyright @ Eirini Kartsaki
Photographer: Clarisse d’Arcimoless
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature
The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United Kingdom
For my parents, Antonis and Konstantina
A cknowledgements
I have had the pleasure of working on my monograph while being employed by the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary University of London. I would like to thank the School and the Drama Department for supporting my work in such a rigorous way. I would like to thank Nicholas Ridout (who was also my Ph.D. supervisor) for his wisdom and time, and for being so brilliant. Dominic Johnson (my second supervisor), who has been there all along, as a friend and mentor. My colleagues Jen Harvie and Michael McKinnie for answering all of my questions all of the time. Bridget Escolme, Catherine Silverstone, Daniel Oliver, Martin O’Brien, Pen Woods, Julia Bardsley, Nadia Davids, Elyssa Livergant, Shane Boyle, Ali Campbell, Caoimhe McAvinchey, Lois Weaver, Martin Welton and Aoife Monks for their support and guidance. My editors from Palgrave April James, Vicky Peters and Vicky Bates. My friends Owen Parry, Maria Agiomirgiannaki, Danai Pappa, Andriana Minou, Hari Marini, and Gareth Cutter for putting up with my repetitions for so long. My sister Angelina for being the mature one. Also, Joe Kelleher for leading the way, Emma Bennett for showing me it is possible, Rachel Zerihan for her limitless, inimitable love, Theron Schmidt for the journeys into repetition, Warren Garland for most things, Eirini Nedelkopoulou for being a comrade, Clarisse D’Arcimoles for the gorgeous cover, Antje Diedrich, Giulia Palladini, Lynne McCarthy, Eva Aymamí Reñé, Sarah Whitfeld, and Pavlos Kountouriotis for making the time to read and respond to the work when it was the hardest. Finally, I
would like to thank my parents, Antonis and Konstantina, whom I love and miss so much. I would never have been able to be writing these lines had it not been for you. Σας
An earlier version of Chap. 6 appears in vol. 20, issue 5 of Performance Research: On Repetition, ed. by Eirini Kartsaki and Theron Schmidt.
l ist of f igures
Fig. 1.1
Fig. 1.2
Fig. 1.3
Fig. 4.1
Fig. 4.2
Fig. 4.3
Fig. 4.4
Fig. 6.1
Fig. 6.2
Karen Christopher and Sophie Grodin in Control Signal by Haranczak/Navarre, image Jemima Yong
Karen Christopher and Sophie Grodin in Control Signal by Haranczak/Navarre, image Jemima Yong
Karen Christopher and Sophie Grodin in Control Signal by Haranczak/Navarre, image Jemima Yong
Come out, Fase: Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker/Rosas, image by Herman Sorgeloos
Come out, Fase: Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker/Rosas, image by Herman Sorgeloos
Piano Phase, Fase: Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker/Rosas, image by Herman Sorgeloos
Piano Phase, Fase: Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker/Rosas, image by Herman Sorgeloos
Marco Berrettini and Marie-Caroline Hominal in iFeel2, choreographed by Marco Berrettini, Tutu Production, image by Marie Jeanson
Marco Berrettini and Marie-Caroline Hominal in iFeel2, choreographed by Marco Berrettini, Tutu Production, image by Marie Jeanson
4
9
13
72
74
81
87
136
138
Fig. 6.3
Fig. 6.4
Marco Berrettini and Marie-Caroline Hominal in iFeel2, choreographed by Marco Berrettini, Tutu Production, image by Marie Jeanson 143
Marco Berrettini and Marie-Caroline Hominal in iFeel2, choreographed by Marco Berrettini, Tutu Production, image by Marie Jeanson 149
Fig. 7.1 Eirini Kartsaki, Rehearsing a Contorted Posture, photographic performance, image by Clarisse D’Arcimoles 157
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Invisible Forces
This is neither a sofa nor a bench. If there was ever a mattress, it now seems to be missing. Instead, there is a thin layer of a cushioned structure, a soft divan of some kind. A pale khaki pillow lies on the right hand side. There is a fgure on this divan, looking at us. It is not clear whether the fgure is male or female. What is most striking about the fgure is its posture. The pelvis seems pressed against the back of the divan, which rests on the wall, with one leg sticking up, taking over the picture. The right arm is extended and the head tilted back towards us. This could be a bedroom or a living room. There is also a red-orange semicircle at the bottom of the painting, which could be a table, with soft edges. This is not a very comfortable posture: it looks like the awkward position one would assume only if one had a broken leg, or a pulled muscle, or some kind of neck problem. It looks like an uncomfortable posture, but a necessary one. The fgure is naked apart from what looks like a faint sandal on one foot. The leg that is sticking up is swollen, perhaps cooling against the wall. This fgure is trying something out, or is waiting for something to happen. We know nothing about this scene. What is at stake here? A sense of anticipation, perhaps, or the body crumbling into itself. The body protesting, the body wanting to come frst. The body ignoring everything else and taking over. The naked, swollen, uncomfortable, reclining body.
The second fgure is standing on a precarious structure of some undefned furniture, perhaps an armchair; a really fat armchair. The fgure is bending forward as if to reach something. Or to look for something. We
© The Author(s) 2017
E. Kartsaki, Repetition in Performance, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-43054-0_1
do not know whether this precarious armchair rests against the wall, but if it does, the fgure has mounted the armchair to look for something behind it; perhaps a hairpin or the television remote. The brush strokes do not reveal the gender, which is not important anyway. What seems important is the bending, the going down, the looking for something. Everything else in the room fades away. Head goes down frst, at the level of the pelvis, knees bent, arm reaching. A careful balance is required; the muscles are really working. This does not seem like a momentary action (pick up the hairpin and go), but rather a prolonged act of bending.
The third fgure is sitting on a chair: this is a more relaxed posture, one leg on top of the other. Something weird is going on however; the right leg, on top of which rests the left, seems to be melting away. Looking closely, there is no leg to be seen but a pool of fesh on the foor, trying to escape through the black door opening. If there is no right leg, then the left is not quite resting; it is rather held in mid-air, pretending to be resting. A lot of effort has to be made in order for this to happen; the tummy muscles must be working, some pain on the side of the neck perhaps, and a faint smile. This is diffcult but enjoyable: holding the posture, working hard to hold the posture, allowing the leg to melt away.
of repetition And invisible forces
What interests Francis Bacon in his paintings, Gilles Deleuze tells us, is bodies: bodies that sit on a stool for many hours; bodies trying to escape the scene, feeing through a tip or a hole; sleeping bodies with one arm raised; ordinary bodies in ordinary situations of discomfort or constraint.1 Bacon’s fgures seem to be doing something, perhaps something subtle, or they seem to be having something done to them, as if some kind of force is being exerted upon them. This force may have to do with the effort to hold a specifc posture, to stretch on the divan with one leg extended, to bend down and look behind the armchair for a hairpin. What is happening with these fgures is something to do with their bodies. The force at work seems to have an effect on these bodies and their fesh, which is swollen or melting away. This force is not visible initially, but is rendered visible through the effect on the body. Bacon’s concern here is ‘not to render the visible, but to render visible’,2 which may happen like this: ‘A man ordered to sit still for hours on a narrow stool is bound to assume contorted postures’.3 The fgures in
Bacon’s paintings are still, in a prolonged bending posture, or frozen in the middle of a stroll, but at the same time something is moving within them. They contract and dilate, expand and stretch. This forceful movement becomes visible through the body, and at its ultimate moment it becomes a spasm; a movement in place, Deleuze suggests, which reveals what is at stake in Bacon’s work: ‘the action of invisible forces on the body’.4 What occurs between two spasms, two movements of contraction in Bacon’s fgures is the result of capturing these invisible forces and rendering them visible: ‘in art, and in painting as in music, it is not a matter of reproducing or inventing forms, but of capturing forces’.5 This is also what Paul Cézanne attempts to do through his work: ‘rendering visible the folding force of mountains, the germinative force of a seed, the thermic force of a landscape’.6 Van Gogh, we are told, goes further than that to invent unknown, unheard-of forces; the force of a sunfower seed, for example.7
So, the question that Bacon considers in his work is this: ‘How can one make invisible forces visible?’8 His fgures seem agitated, on the edge of their seat. They are awkward, uncomfortable at times, holding a contorted posture, waiting for something to take place. This extraordinary agitation, Deleuze suggests, is derived from ‘the forces of pressure, dilation, contraction, fattening, and elongation’ exerted on these immobile bodies. It is as if these invisible forces were striking the body from many different angles. The head of some of these fgures looks distorted, deformed, melted or wiped away, marking ‘the zone where the force is in the process of striking’.9 The deformation of the heads and bodies therefore becomes important; a deformation, which is bodily, static, happening in one place, or rather in-place, subordinating movement to force.10 These deformed bodies are not tortured bodies. Their postures ‘are the most natural postures of a body that has been reorganised by the simple force being exerted upon it: the desire to sleep, to vomit, to turn over, to remain seated as long as possible’.11 Such a deformation is both static and in movement; it happens to the body that seems to hold a posture for a long time, longer than usual, while the environment around it begins to stir: ‘walls twitch and slide, chairs bend or rear up a little, clothes curl like burning paper’.12
There is a moment in Karen Christopher and Sophie Grodin’s performance Control Signal by the company Haranczak/Navarre where both performers start to shake, to vibrate, to move with control from side to side (Fig. 1.1). Grodin and Christopher shake their arms from
side to side, moving as if they do not know that they are moving. They both look ahead. Christopher’s shoulders are relaxed, arms shaking by her side. Grodin’s right arm is stiff, shaking. This feels like a farewell, or a tired hand that is waving goodbye. It feels like someone asleep with one arm still raised. It is a signal in a traffc light, or trying to encourage the crabs to escape the fre. Go, go, go, now, while you still can. It’s also perhaps the smell of something rotten and the attempt to create an air current. I watch this with fascination (Lilian Baylis Studio, Sadler’s Wells, 2014). I lean in, sitting on the edge of my seat. The bodies in front of me are ordinary bodies in an ordinary situation of constraint; they are doing something, or they seem to be having something done to them, as if some kind of force is being exerted upon them. Something is moving within them, but they make an effort to hold a specifc posture. What is happening to these fgures is to do with some kind of force that affects their bodies, an invisible force that models the fesh or shakes it, that causes a spasm. Something is rendered visible here through the assumed posture of the two bodies on stage.13 But there is one more body here,
Fig. 1.1 Karen Christopher and Sophie Grodin in Control Signal by Haranczak/Navarre, image Jemima Yong
one more body that is waiting for something to happen. One more body that wants to come frst, to be taken into account, to take over. One more body that feels like it is standing on a precarious structure of some undefned furniture. A body that is holding a prolonged posture on the edge of its seat, one leg on top of the other, not quite resting.
That body is mine. Mine, watching. I am watching Grodin and Christopher standing still, holding their bodies, shaking their arms. I am watching them do that, and while this is taking place I am also watching myself do things, having things done to me. I make an effort: to watch, to stand still, to hold my body. The perpetual shaking acts on my body, it makes it assume a contorted posture. I seem to want something from this scene, yet I do not yet know what that is, and the force of wanting does things to me and my body.14
In his discussion of forces, Deleuze draws an interesting example from a different painter. This time, he directs his attention to French painter Jean Millet, who was criticised for painting peasants carrying an offertory like a sack of potatoes. Responding to the criticism, Millet suggested that he was not interested in painting the offertory, or a sack of potatoes, but rather the force of the weight.15 In the instance of Control Signal I experience the force of the weight of the bodies in front of me, but also that of my own body; I experience its contours, how the body folds into itself and expands again while I am watching. The scene is a scene of repetition in which the two performers of Control Signal repeat the same movement, the shaking of the arms, but also a scene where they repeat each other. They are standing there, wearing the same working dress, the same socks, the same shoes. As time passes, I can feel the force of the weight, like carrying a sack of potatoes, more intensely with time. My body bows under the weight, crumbles, folds into itself, and then opens up again. I experience a force exerted on my body, the force of the desire to see, to be part of, to take in.
I offer the above examples of Bacon’s work alongside the performance Control Signal because I want to consider how these examples create a specifc type of experience for me as a viewer. What I discuss in this book is the experience of repetition in performance. I fnd that describing such an experience is diffcult. Therefore, pointing towards different examples of experience and articulating what these may have in common is perhaps a more helpful way to consider experiences of repetition. Bacon’s paintings and Control Signal have something in common: they make my body feel a certain way. Moreover, they make my body assume
a contorted posture that is a similar posture to the ones Bacon depicts in his work. The scene of shaking in Control Signal might be a helpful instance of performance to use in identifying what is at stake in the viewer’s experience of repetition more generally. The shaking, which is diffcult to describe, functions perhaps as an appropriate example of how diffcult it is to account for repetition. The shaking may also function as a metaphor for the unrepresentability of repetition, the diffculty of writing about it. Repetition seems to perform a demand upon the viewer to come to terms with this unrepresentability. The movement of shaking escapes us; it is diffcult to pin down. This book asks, amongst other questions: How do we account for diffcult, evasive experiences of performance? The shaking bodies in Control Signal are like bodies trying to escape, fow out of themselves, disgorge through a tip or a hole. This is also, perhaps, how I experience repetition: I feel unsettled, ready to fee, on the verge of something, on the verge of what is about to happen. The body assumes a particular shape under such circumstances, experiencing what may resemble ‘the violence of a hiccup, of the urge to vomit, but also of a hysterical, involuntary smile’.16 The experience of repetition in theatre, I suggest here, may resemble the experience of holding a contorted posture. Through that posture, the invisible forces of repetition become visible, revealing their effects on the body of the viewer. When encountering repetition in performance, it is sometimes hard to explain what is happening to me. My experience feels on the verge of language. I experience the same type of thing when engaging with some other artworks. It is diffcult to know exactly what to say, how to describe the work, or to fully come to terms with what it does to me. (And I consider that as a sign of work that will stay with me for a little while.) Something happens which is diffcult to recount as it does not have to do with a story; in fact, it ‘avoids the detour or boredom of conveying a story’; it is, as Paul Valéry puts it, a sensation.17 Sensation is embodied, transmitted directly and goes beyond the illustrative and fgurative, Bacon suggests in an interview.18 There is a link here between sensation and forces: ‘for a sensation to exist, a force must be exerted on the body’.19 Holding a contorted posture, which is what repetition seems to be doing in certain instances, is such a sensation. Sensation seems to be useful in terms of describing the experience of repetition and foregrounding some of the key ways in which I articulate what repetition does to me as a viewer. I have turned to Bacon and Deleuze to create a vocabulary, in order to think about repetition and its diffculty.
Although Bacon’s paintings have, at frst glance, nothing to do with repetition, certain modes of experience and ways of describing these modes are made available through his work. I draw on three scenes of bodies: Bacon’s paintings, Christopher and Grodin’s shaking, and myself watching. In all of these scenes, the body is doing things or has things done to it. The body seems to assume a specifc, if subtle, posture. If repetition invites the viewer to assume a specifc posture, then that posture seems to resemble the ones in Bacon’s paintings described above.
So, the question arises: What kind of forces does repetition in performance capture and make visible, or felt in the body? What kind of force does repetition put forward? Deleuze has discussed elementary forces like pressure, inertia, weight, attraction, gravitation. Cézanne has tried to make visible the folding force of mountains, the germinative force of a seed, the thermic force of landscape. Van Gogh has gone further to invent unknown, un-heard of forces, such as the force of a sunfower seed. Bacon has made visible in his fgures the force of desire ‘to sleep, to vomit, to turn over, to remain seated as long as possible’.20 Repetition holds such forces, too; it holds the unheard-of, invented forces of repetition, of wanting more, of perpetually desiring. Repetition’s force is the force of desire for more; such force may do things to the viewer’s body, make it assume a specifc posture. Leaning in or sitting on the edge of my seat is one such contorted posture; it reveals a desire to take in, to be part of, to move closer to what is happening on stage. My body assumes that posture when I watch repetition, but also, after a while the contorted posture may turn into something else, a vibration of sorts, a shaking or a spasm. Repetition’s force, I will show, is an erotic one: one that establishes a sense of anticipation, that recognises resemblances, that remembers. It is a force that thrusts the viewer into an experience of repetition, again and again. It is also a force that drives this writing project forward, that wants to account for certain experiences of performance, that keeps me going. In doing so, I do no more than follow repetition and its force. I am captivated by its power to lead me through its reiterations, to know where to begin and where to stop. Sometimes this force may dissipate, so we have to wait, Gertrude Stein suggests, until repetition becomes forceful, and then we begin again. Repetition’s force invites me to participate in it, to experience its radical potential of recycling words, phrases and movement. I go to the theatre looking for the moment when something, even something subtle, is repeated. I take pleasure in it and revisit this experience many times after. I love
repetition. I long for it. Clearly, I am addicted to repetition: I am not sure what to do with myself when repetition ends, so I return to it, again and again; or I go looking for it. My love for repetition is such a force; also the force that drives this project forward; writing makes this force visible.
Yet there is something to be said about viewers who do not love or long for repetition. This book makes a case for these viewers too. It accounts for the diffculty of repetition and what shape that diffculty may take, while acknowledging that the experience of repetition is and can only be subjective. This book invites a consideration of repetition in relation to specifc types of experience that may be helpful in thinking about the pleasures we derive from the theatre, and the diffculty that arises from durational work, but also the ways in which we choose to account for such experiences. All examples discussed in this book function in three distinct ways: they use repetition as a compositional principle; they also draw attention to the way they use repetition, inviting viewers to experience repetition as ever-changing and non-ending; they fnally invite the viewer to return to these experiences in order to resolve their diffculty or complexity. As the author of this book, I have chosen these specifc examples, or rather, these examples have chosen me. These performances enable me to speak of the pleasures I have found in repetition, but these are not necessarily examples that the reader of this book ‘has to know about’ in order to engage with the considerations of repetition I put forward. The reader may feel compelled to bring in other examples of performances that repeat; my aim here is to discuss ways of experiencing, making sense of, taking pleasure in and writing about repetition.
Not all types of repetition are equally interesting or signifcant for me. In this book, I point towards the types of functions arising from repetition that I consider important or worth consideration. There are also boring types of repetition; bad, insignifcant repetitions. I am not interested in these. I am only interested in the ones that affect my body, that vibrate, that move, and move me from side to side. Repetition’s force invites me closer, but also pushes me away. Such a force may work in two ways: creating a continuity within the work, but also pushing against it; causing chaos, going against the current, muddying the waters, revealing that repetition’s force may have to do with fear and hope; the hope that repetition will keep going, and the fear that it may end. I will discuss such forces throughout this book. These may not be directly visible
to you, but they will be felt in one way or another, moving in and out, inviting you to come closer while pushing you away (Fig. 1.2).
whose body?
In this book, I open a discussion about pleasures of repetition that derive from a process of desiring. I discuss wanting things, desiring repetition to keep going. But who is doing the wanting here? I discuss spectatorship as an embodied, erotic experience that is active, unsettling, and unpredictable. But whose desire is this? Whose experience and whose pleasure? But most of all, whose body is this body I write about, the body which is driving this writing forward? It is, I suppose, the only body I know about in its ups and downs, ins and outs, day after day: my body. I experience the world through my body. I plunge into the world (to use Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phrase) with my body.
Fig. 1.2
Karen Christopher and Sophie Grodin in Control Signal by Haranczak/Navarre, image Jemima Yong
I have seen other bodies, I have touched them, pressed myself gently against them, pretending not to notice. But I have lifted the weight of my body every day for the last 36 years. It is therefore my body I am referring to, my female, desiring, unpredictable, libidinous, pain in the knees, a bit bloated, waving to strangers, refusing to settle down, scared of commitment body. My body plunges into the world and experiences these encounters with performance that tell me something about my body. The theoretical discourse I construct in this book springs out of my embodied experience of these works; my identity, as a result, matters to me and to this book; the theorisation of repetition stems from an embodied experience of the works I write about.
Thinking about the experience of repetition is a way to think more generally about the embodied practice of spectatorship. So, I develop an understanding of experience in relation to ‘the embodied and radically material nature of human existence and thus the lived body’s essential implication in making “meaning” out of bodily “sense,”’ following Vivian Sobchack, who deals with the body not ‘as an abstracted object belonging always to someone else’,21 but rather as the means through which one lives one’s existence. Sobchack points towards the lived body as ‘both an objective subject and a subjective object’,22 a sensual, sensible, material, and embodied experience not as naively direct, but rather as mediated by lived bodies:
our lived bodies (and our experience of them) is always also mediated and qualifed by our engagements with other bodies and things. Thus, our experiences are mediated and qualifed not only through the various transformative technologies of perception and expression but also by historical and cultural systems that constrain both the inner limits of our perception and the outer limits of our world.23
I acknowledge that in this book I engage with certain texts by male theorists (Barthes, Bergson, Lacan, and so on); however, I do so in a specifc way: I am refguring these readings through my encounter with them. I read these texts in my voice; a female, uncertain, desiring voice. The reading of these texts is an embodied reading, one that is clearly infuenced by my identity and culture. It is a committed reading, which allows me to confront and articulate my complex encounter with repetition, and offer an account of various affective dimensions of such experience. I propose here a discourse, which is theoretical, but, as
flm theorist Laura Marks suggests, also personal.24 The proposed discourse concerns my embodied encounter with these performances, which is inexhaustible. I cannot stay cool and discuss this work from a distance, nor do I want to. I plunge into these experiences, I lean from the edge of my seat, holding a contorted posture; I am involved in a physical, urgent, embodied way; I cannot but write about these performances, or for these performances, wanting to be part of them, part of performance’s forces (Fig. 1.3). This discourse is personal, performative, and wants stuff. It wants to do stuff and to have stuff done to it. Certain texts I engage with here (by Deleuze or Žižek, for example) do not engage directly with a body I understand or to an extent even identify with. Deleuze discusses a body without organs; Žižek is interested in organs without a body. I resist going along with not thinking which precise bodies these are, what their palpable characteristics are; I read these texts and develop them further in thinking about my desiring body.
In this book I think about experiences of performance and the representations of these experiences in writing. I understand experience as affective sensation, which is felt in the body, according to Henri Bergson, Adrian Heathfeld, and Laura Marks. I unpack the complex and nuanced relationship between experience and language where appropriate. I will show that Bergson thinks that affective sensations cannot be measured or counted, that they do not exist in space, but rather in time. Once rendered through language, they become something other than inner states; they are objectifed and quantifed. The only way to speak about such experience is to use ‘a very precise language’25 or a language that condenses the event, which re-explodes into experience through the process of reading; this is a reading that is invested, that does things, that has things done to the body.26
I refer to the signifcance of my body because it is impossible to encounter repetition from the outside. I offer my own experience in order to discuss what repetition makes possible for me; in doing so, I invite the reader to think about similar experiences or how my attempt to articulate such embodied experiences of spectating may enable others to untangle their complex encounter with repetition. The above clarifcation (Whose body?) attempts to draw attention to specifc bodies that desire, that want more, that have not had enough. My body is amongst them, in this very moment of writing.
methodologicAl gestures
The main aim of this book is to narrate stories. These are stories which have to do with actual or imaginary events; experiences that falter, that are incomplete and diffcult to describe. Stories, also, about theories, or theorists that may shed some light on the possible pleasures of repetition. These may be stories about performances that I have seen and read about, or stories about me, my experience of this world, which I strive to ft into. I use stories to discuss, to compare, to make space. Stories are used as pointers or placeholders that say something about experience. In this book, I write about these things. But I am also trying things out; I am rehearsing ideas, taking one context of study and applying it onto another to see whether it fts, whether anything spills out. I consider writing as a process of thinking. Throughout this book I repeat certain ideas and the vocabulary in which these ideas are articulated to observe the connections that may emerge. For example, I look at early twentiethcentury painting to see whether there are certain things to say about that in relation to performance; I turn to early twentieth-century painting because I sense there are. My aim is to fnd other types of experience (of painting, of literature) and see what these may have in common with performance. I want to be able to point at these experiences and say: This is it! I specifcally write about performance, because in certain cases, I cannot merely point at it and say: This is it! Because the moment I do, performance ceases to be it. So, I have to keep pointing at things, forever.
Reading Samuel Beckett, Martin Esslin argues that the shape of the work infuences the work’s meaning and reception.27 The shape of the performances I write about seems to affect me and my body, almost as if these performances have a concrete shape, or are matter; tangible objects that I can hold in my hands and press against my body. I adopt this approach (from Marks) and open a discussion around the different ways my body feels when it comes into contact with repetition. I therefore use a language that lingers and accounts for the body slowly and patiently.
In this writing, I have encountered what Bergson calls the problem of language; the problem that experience becomes quantifed, or an external object, once it is articulated through language. I have identifed the experience of repetition in performance as a diffcult, elusive one. Therefore, I turn to stories or examples of practice to account for this
diffculty (Fig. 1.3). These stories at times appear as ‘scenes with multiple valences that anticipate the ideas [Bergson] will eventually deploy, giving us time to feel them or to live them concretely before picking them up again discursively’.28 I will refer to my own experiences, but sometimes the writing will account for a certain ‘we’. I know that it is impossible, of course, to discuss other people’s experiences; I do not pretend to know anything about anyone else (I am interested in other people’s experiences of repetition, really intrigued by them, so give me a call); yet, in order to allow the reader to join me in my journey through repetition, I will pretend it is two of us here (or maybe more). Referring to ‘we’ simply enables me to think about certain modes of performance and spectatorship. Similarly, I never think about performance in general. One could claim that certain arguments I make in this book about performances of repetition could be applied to performance more generally. I am not interested in such a gesture. I am not attempting an ontology of performance; I discuss specifc examples of performance that repeat in one way or another, and my experience of them is contingent upon
Fig. 1.3 Karen Christopher and Sophie Grodin in Control Signal by Haranczak/Navarre, image Jemima Yong
specifc types of repetition. I write about performances, or paintings, or stories, or other types of texts and experiences that seem to be gesturing to me. What is that gesture? These texts or artworks seem to be waving at me, asking me to come closer, and then they point at something; their shape, what they are doing, and what they are doing to me. They say: There! There! You see, you can feel it there.
I use a lot of pronouns in this book. This is because pronouns are also emphatic gestures of pointing that I consider an important mode of identifying experience and resolving issues of writing about performance. Let’s call that ‘the pointing method’. At times, this writing may also be such a gesture, or a game; a game, perhaps, of topping hands, which is a children’s game of tapping one hand on top of the other, again and again. Writing could be thought of in this case as an emphatic, overwhelming series of gestures in a game that can easily go wrong. It may not always make sense, but it needs to be followed through, until something may eventually appear.
This book poses the following question: what types of pleasure does repetition make possible? Different types of repetition seem to point me towards different ways of thinking about and framing pleasure and desire. I discuss briefy here how I use the two terms in this book and the differences that seem to arise between them. Desire seems to be produced through repetition in many instances and to point towards some kind of pleasure or satisfaction. I think about pleasure through Barthes’s diffcult pleasure called jouissance (Chap. 3). Pleasure is accounted for as an overwhelming, affective sensation of things happening at the same time through writings by Gertrude Stein and Henri Bergson (Chap. 4). Returning to an experience of performance may also be pleasurable. I encounter these pleasures through theoretical accounts by Jennifer Doyle, Adrian Heathfeld, Rebecca Schneider, and Joe Kelleher (Chap. 5). Finally, I use Lacanian psychoanalysis to think about the shape of pleasure as circular, and Žižek’s reading of the shape of desire (Chap. 6). The use of desire in this book has different resonances and motivations. Repetition explores different types of desire and puts into question the process of desiring, which does not necessarily relate to lack, but rather gives rise to more desire, greater desire, and reveals that ultimately what we desire is desire itself. So, desiring has to do with a process, whereas pleasure may be seen as the outcome of such a process. Processes of desire, in other words, point towards, give rise to, or result in some types of pleasure.
I use the terms ‘performance’ and ‘theatre’ to gesture towards performances that draw from different genres: theatre and dance, dance and music, and so on. I do not make a distinction between these terms, as I do not want to create any false barriers between them; I go to the theatre to watch a performance or a theatre piece, and for me, every performance also draws on the context of theatre. I allow one to disperse into another and vice versa. I will often refer to performances of repetition, or performances that repeat. By doing so, I point towards the repetitions within the performance, repetitions of movement, text or structure. I will use the term ‘return’ to discuss the repetition of a performance as a whole, which is a function of performances that repeat, and the argument of this book. The question of documentation is of course an important one. I have watched all performances live (except Bausch’s performance in Chap. 3) and subsequently online, many, many times. I point towards the documentation of this work, where this is possible.
The narrative this book adopts has a deliberate structure for the reader who wants to follow the more creative aspects of writing, which attempt to account for my experiences of repetition: its rhythm, pace, and, at times, overwhelming nature; the rest of you can skip to the more discursive sections where I am setting up how repetition seems prevalent to me as a viewer and unpack the complexities I have encountered. This book is also an exercise in writing. I animate theory through storytelling and I offer spatial practices of repetition; as such, different parts of the book can speak to different people. As I suggest in Chap. 3, the reader can read on, skip, look up, dip in again, ignore, or accept language’s invitation to be seduced, to go with it all the way. In this writing, I make suggestions and ask questions: what repetition might be for me in this moment. I am not interested in proving the theory I engage with, proving Barthes, for example; instead this writing allows theory to do things, to open up spaces of experience, to shed light on diffcult questions.
Finally, I use the word ‘repetition’ to denote repetitive movement, speech or structure. I use the word ‘repetitive’ not to think about a tiresome or unnecessary event, as my dictionary suggests, but rather a necessary, important compositional principle of some performance work. I avoid the term ‘repetitious’ (apart from one instance of a specifc quote in Chap. 5), as I do not like it that much (repetitious feels indeed a little tiresome, and it does not feel as pleasurable or as repetitive). In this book, I use ‘feeling’ and ‘emotion’ interchangeably. In some cases, I follow the language of the theorists I use. For example, Stein uses
‘emotion’, therefore Chap. 4 also thinks about ‘emotion’. However, when discussing the body, I will mostly use ‘feeling’, as a word that also gestures towards an experience of touch: feeling relates not only to emotion, but also to a tactile experience: how things feel against the body, how the felt weight of the body makes me assume a particular posture.29
summAry of chApters
This book argues that repetition in contemporary performance is a source of some possible pleasures. What are these pleasures? I propose four different answers to this question. Pleasure may arise in: the experience of repetition as jouissance (Chap. 3); the experience of a sense of being in the present moment (Chap. 4); the process of returning to performance (Chap. 5); the perpetual process of desiring (Chap. 6). The titles of my chapters (‘After Barthes’, ‘After Stein’, ‘After Lacan’) gesture towards a double interpretation: the work I write about is situated after these artists and thinkers in a temporal sense, but also my work in this book is in search of the connections that arise when I place theories and practices side by side, or one on top of another. Being ‘After Stein’ denotes both work that has dealt with repetition after the Steinian repetitions, work that takes after some of these repetitions, but also work that is in pursuit of these connections, in pursuit of what these connections make possible.
Each chapter in this book discusses one example of performance and offers one answer to the question of pleasure. The Introduction (you may already have noted the slight irregularity here—the Introduction is counted as Chap. 1 according to the publisher’s guidelines) thinks briefy about Control Signal and the kind of experience this creates, and links that to repetition’s invisible forces. Chapter 2 discusses repetition as a methodology at work and thinks about it in relation to meaning, pleasure, and shape. It identifes specifc functions of repetition in the works of Gertrude Stein, Samuel Beckett, Yvonne Rainer, and Trisha Brown. The writings of Stein and Beckett, as well as Judson’s innovations in movement, have infuenced contemporary performance and this writing. They have also helped me articulate what seems to be at stake in certain performance works I discuss in this book. Chapter 3 draws on
Roland Barthes’s The Pleasure of the Text to consider repetition’s forceful promise of pleasure. Using specifc scenes from Pina Bausch’s Bluebeard: While Listening to a Taped Recording of Béla Bartók’s Duke’s Bluebeard Castle (1977) I narrate my experience as a viewer: the scenes invite me to not only watch repetition, but rather engage with it in a more active way. I propose that the role of the viewer is to perform repetition and its content, to come closer to repetition, to become part of it. An active engagement with repetition gives rise to diffcult pleasures, or, borrowing Barthes’s term, certain types of jouissance. Chapter 4 uses writings by Gertrude Stein to think about a particular experience of temporality. Certain types of repetition, such as the repetitions in Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Fase: Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich (1982) give rise to an overwhelming emotion of things happening at the same time; I discuss a mode of temporal unfolding which draws attention to the present and points towards an engagement with repetition that may be experienced as immediate. I use Henri Bergson’s understanding of time and real duration to unpack the Steinian simultaneity. Chapter 5 uses Lone Twin Theatre’s production Daniel Hit by a Train (2008) to discuss what emerges as a signifcant function of repetition, the process of returning to it across time. Certain types of performance that use repetition in movement, speech, or structure seem to invite us to go back to them in order to consider how repetition has changed over time, but also how we have changed in relation to repetition. Meaning in this case is contingent, and it is being produced in each encounter with repetition. Lone Twin Theatre’s work stages a particular way of looking and looking again. It seems to invite a return to it, and to make the viewer aware of the types of repetition that take place within it, saying something about these repetitions and demanding that the viewer says something, too. In Chap. 6, I think about the perpetual process of desiring, and how such process is connected to repetition. I use the theories of Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek (on Lacan) to offer an understanding of desire as a circular path that infnitely moves to and from its goal, the ultimate satisfaction, without ever reaching an ending. Marco Berrettini’s performance iFeel2 (2014) offers an opportunity to think about the impossibility of desire’s fulflment. The Conclusion considers repetition as an experience of rupture and works towards flling the gaps repetition creates.
n otes
1. Gilles Deleuze, Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation, trans. Daniel W. Smith (London and New York: Continuum, 2007), xii. In the above descriptions I have used Bacon’s paintings: Reclining Woman 1961, Bending Figure No. 2 and Triptych, August 1972.
2. Paul Klee in Deleuze, Francis Bacon, 40.
3. Deleuze, Francis Bacon, xii.
4. Deleuze, Francis Bacon, xii.
5. Deleuze, Francis Bacon, 40.
6. Deleuze, Francis Bacon, 41.
7. Deleuze, Francis Bacon, 41.
8. Deleuze, Francis Bacon, 41.
9. Deleuze, Francis Bacon, 42.
10. Deleuze, Francis Bacon, 42.
11. Deleuze, Francis Bacon, 42.
12. Bacon in Deleuze, Francis Bacon, 42.
13. Deleuze, Francis Bacon, xii.
14. There is a fourth body here, of course: that of the reader, doing things, reading this and having things done to their body.
15. Deleuze, Francis Bacon, 41.
16. Deleuze, Francis Bacon, xii.
17. Paul Valéry in Deleuze, Francis Bacon, 26.
18. Deleuze, Francis Bacon, 26.
19. Deleuze, Francis Bacon, 40.
20. Deleuze, Francis Bacon, 42.
21. Vivian Sobchack, Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture (London: University of California Press, 2004), 1–2.
22. Sobchack, Carnal Thoughts, 1–2.
23. Sobchack, Carnal Thoughts, 4.
24. Laura Marks, Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002), xiv.
25. Suzanne Guerlac, Thinking in Time: An Introduction to Henri Bergson (New York: Cornell University Press, 2006), 73.
26. Marks, Touch, xvi. For a discussion around the failure of language, see Heathfeld, ‘Writing of the Event’, in A Performance Cosmology: Testimony from the Future, Evidence of the Past, eds. Judie Christie, Richard Gough and Daniel P. Watt (London: Routledge, 2006), 179. For a discussion around language and experience, see Kate Love, ‘The Experience of Art as a Living Through Language,’ in After Criticism: New Responses to Art and Performance. ed. Gavin Butt (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 156–175.
27. Martin Esslin, ‘Introduction’ in Samuel Beckett: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Martin Esslin (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1965), 10.
28. Guerlac, Thinking in Time, 59.
29. In her book Hold It Against Me: Diffculty and Emotion in Contemporary Art, Jennifer Doyle writes: ‘I also avoid naming, once and for all, the difference between an affect, an emotion, and a feeling. I am not convinced that art defned by its work with affect, emotion, or feeling can be appreciated using a critical language that pressures (even provisionally) that feelings are self-evident, that emotions can be parsed and catalogued, produced and consumed at will. In any case, mastery over the terms diffculty, emotion and affect won’t lead to a better understanding of the individual works I discuss here. Each takes us to a different place, where emotion is a site of unravelling and dispossession. This book uses the terms diffculty and emotion in order to take up the questions of who is being dispossessed of what, who is being unravelled, how and why’. Jennifer Doyle, Hold It Against Me: Diffculty and Emotion in Contemporary Art (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2013), xiv. Following Jennifer Doyle and her gesture of not falling into the trap of giving a false explanation, or one for the sake of it, I refuse to differentiate between different types of emotion and feeling, but I use these following the practices and theories I work with here.
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Erstes Kapitel.
Schwere weißgraue Nebelwolken lagerten über dem Tal, hüllten die Berge ein in ihre dichten Schleier und drückten lastend auf das kleine romantische alte Städtchen im Unterinntal. Zu Füßen eines steilen Berges, eingeengt zwischen diesem und dem Flusse, liegt der alte Rest einer stolzen Vergangenheit. Düster selbst an sonnenhellen Tagen. Doppelt öde und bedrückend schwer an endlos langen Regentagen wie in letzter Zeit.
Nichts rührte sich da in der alten Stadt. Kaum ein vereinzelter Fußgänger war zu sehen in den engen Gassen oder auf der breiteren Landstraße, die als Hauptstraße das Städtchen von West nach Ost durchzieht. Nicht ganz fünf Minuten erstreckt sie sich zwischen den altersgrauen Häusern, dann mündet sie in den Hauptplatz ein und führt durch ein altes Tor wieder zur Stadt hinaus, hinunter ins Unterland.
Unaufhörlich fällt der Regen in schweren Tropfen vom grauen Spätherbsthimmel. Das eintönige Geräusch der Regentropfen wirkt traurig und melancholisch. Unlustig und kalt ist’s in den Gassen, trotz des lauen Windes, der vom Oberland kommend jäh in die dichten Wolken fährt, sie zerreißend und in zerstreuten Fetzen durch das Tal hetzend.
Wie eine wilde Jagd sieht sich’s an. Kleine weiße Schleiergebilde und wieder dunkle schwere Wolkenballen, die sich abermals bleiern auf das Tal herniederwälzen. Und neuerdings umzieht sich der Himmel mit noch schwärzeren Wolken. Langsam und schwer senken sich die Nebelmassen tiefer und immer tiefer ins Tal und lösen sich dann in dünnen grauen Regenschleiern.
So ist es nun schon seit Tagen. Endlos traurige Tage sind es. Wie ausgestorben liegt die kleine Stadt da. Nur ab und zu wagen sich ein paar lose Buben ins Freie und versuchen ihr Spiel im Schmutz und in den Pfützen, die sich überall angesammelt haben. Öfters steuert auch ein einsamer Bürger im gemächlichen Schritt, wohl beschirmt und vermummt gegen Wind und Wetter der Innbrücke zu und sieht mißtrauisch auf das unruhige Wasser.
Ein dumpfer Geruch von mitgeführten Erdmassen steigt aus den braunen Fluten des Flusses. Lange wird’s nicht mehr dauern, und Rattenberg kann in ein Klein-Venedig verwandelt werden, wie das bei Überschwemmungen des Inn schon häufig der Fall war.
Völlig eingezwängt zwischen dem steil ansteigenden Schloßberg mit seiner verfallenen Ruine und dem breiten Flußbett des Inns ist das altertümliche Rattenberg. Zu dem breiten Hauptplatz streben die engen Gassen mit ihren hohen Häusern, die an der Bergseite vielfach ganz knapp an dem Felsen des Schloßberges liegen, auf der Wasserseite nur durch einen Weg vom Inn getrennt sind.
Alte gewölbte Hausflure und enge krachende Stiegen finden sich in diesen Häusern, die auf Jahrhunderte zurückschauen und noch lebhafte Zeiten gesehen haben, da Rattenberg eine mittelalterliche Handelsstadt war, wo die Warenfrachten nach dem Süden durchgingen und vom Süden herauf. Auf diese Zeit schreiben sich auch noch die vielen Wirtshäuser des alten Städtchens zurück, die heute ein beschauliches Dasein zwischen den Bürgerhäusern führen.
Die Sonne scheint spärlich in die kühlen Gassen von Rattenberg, das im Schatten des felsigen Schloßberges liegt. Im Winter verschluckt der Berg für geraume Zeit ganz und gar das Sonnenlicht und verwehrt ihm den Zutritt in die alte Stadt.
Dumpf und feucht riecht es in den Häusern. Das Grundwasser des Inns steigt in die Keller und von dort in die Mauern. Auf der Bergseite nehmen sich die engen Höfe der Häuser, die sich zwischen die Rückenmauern und den Felsen des Schloßberges drängen, manchmal fast aus wie düstere Felsenschlünde.
Alte, längst vergangene Zeit träumt in diesen Mauern, Gewölben und Stuben. Sie liegt auf den Dächern und Zinnen, spinnt ihre Erinnerungen um die ausladenden Erker der Häuser, hockt unter den Toren und schleicht über Stiegen und Gänge.
Lang erstreckt sich am Inn das stattliche Kloster der Serviten, und die Kuppeltürme der Klosterkirche bilden ein weithin sichtbares Wahrzeichen von Rattenberg. Auf einem Felsen erhöht thront die Pfarrkirche mit uralten Gräbern in ihrem Schutz.
Drüben aber am andern Ufer des Inn breitet sich das Tal aus, freundlich und sonnenhell. Weit verstreut erstrecken sich die Häuser von Kramsach durch Wiesen und Obstanger. Stattliche Höfe und wiederum kleine Bauernhäuser mit ihrem traulichen Holzbau auf dem weißen Mauergrund des Erdgeschosses.
Über Hügel sacht ansteigender Wald führt zu den drei Reinthalerseen ... träumerischen Augen der Bergwelt im Schweigen der Waldeinsamkeit.
Felsige Anstiege recken sich zum mächtigen Sonnwendjoch. Zu seinen Füßen breitet sich dichter Nadelwald mit dem Einschnitt des Brandenberger Tales. Wo sich dieses Bergtal öffnet und das schmale steinige Bauernstraßel in die Höhe führt, da liegt wie ein stiller Gruß romantischer Weltabgeschiedenheit das alte Frauenklösterlein Mariathal mit seiner stattlichen Kirche und den paar Häusern der kleinen Gemeinde.
Wald und Berg, Wiesengrund und fruchtbares Ackerland. Ein liebes lachendes Land das Unterinntal, in dessen Mitte als ein altes, unberührtes Juwel das schattige Nest Rattenberg gebettet ist. Ein verblichenes Schmuckstück in längst verschollener Fassung ... auf dem grünen Samtgrund des breiten Tales ... selbst grau, dämmernd, verwittert ...
Und drunten, weiter drunten im Unterland, da schließt das herrliche Panorama des Kaisergebirges die Talsicht ...
Vom Turm der Rattenberger Pfarrkirche tönt jede Viertelstunde der dumpfe Schlag der Glocke. Und manchmal hört man gedämpft das Rollen der Eisenbahn, die außerhalb der Stadt, knapp an der
erhöht stehenden Kirche vorbei in einem Tunnel den Schloßberg durchquert.
Die Zeit der Maschinen und des Weltverkehrs stampft, saust und rattert durch den Leib des Berges, auf dem die alte Schloßruine träumt. Von vergangenen Jahrhunderten träumt, als da droben Wilhelm Biener, der Kanzler von Tirol, ein Opfer welscher Tücke und welscher Ränke, sein blutiges Ende fand. Ein edles Haupt fiel durch das Beil des Henkers, wo heute karge, rissige, von Wind und Wetter zerklüftete Mauertrümmer in den Himmel ragen.
Nach den endlos grauen Regentagen war heute zur Mittagsstunde Leben in die stille Stadt gekommen. Ein Wagen fahrender Leute, von einem Pferd gezogen und geführt von einem großen, finster dreinschauenden Mann, war langsam durch die Hauptstraße gefahren und zum Stadttor hinaus gewandert. Mit Peitschenknallen und Hüh und Hott hatte der Mann sich bemerkbar gemacht. Neugierig schauten die Leute zu Türen und Fenstern heraus, und die Gassenbuben liefen ihm nach und begleiteten ihn mit Gejohl trotz des Regengusses bis vor das Stadttor hinaus.
Dort lagerten nun die fahrenden Leute. Die Straßenjugend von Rattenberg wich nicht von ihnen. Eine solche Begebenheit war selten und mußte ausgekostet werden. Da spürten die Buben keine Nässe und auch keinen Hunger. Nur ab und zu lief so ein kleiner Bengel als Berichterstatter hinein ins Städtchen und erzählte atemlos von dem Tun und Treiben der Karrner.
Aber auch für die Erwachsenen, für die ehrsamen Bewohner und Bürger der kleinen Stadt bildete das Eintreffen der fahrenden Leute ein Ereignis, nur daß sie die naive Freude über die erwünschte Abwechslung nicht so unverhohlen zum Ausdruck brachten, wie die liebe Jugend dies tat. Man war jedoch froh, freute sich innig und kindlich über die Sensation des Tages und hoffte nur sehnlich, daß der Himmel ein Einsehen haben und daß der Regen bis zum Abend aufhören möchte.
Der Himmel hatte kein Einsehen. Es regnete und regnete in einem fort, und der Inn draußen vor der Stadt stieg zu einer immer bedenklicheren Höhe an.
Trotz der Unbill des Wetters durchzogen die fahrenden Leute in später Nachmittagstunde mit lautem Trommelgewirbel die Stadt. Voran der große, finstere Mann, ein Hüne von Gestalt, hellblond, mit gelblich braunem Gesicht und harten, stahlblauen Augen. Tiefe Furchen waren in dem wetterfesten, knochigen Antlitz eingegraben. Ein dichter, rötlich blonder Schnurrbart fiel über die dicken aufgeworfenen Lippen. Ein dunkler, abgetragener Filzhut saß ihm tief in der Stirne, und sein langer Wettermantel verlieh ihm ein noch unheimlicheres Aussehen.
Mit aller Kraft und mit einer Art verbissenen Ingrimms schlug der Mann die Trommel. Hinter ihm führte ein schwarzes, schlankes Mädel, als Knabe gekleidet, das mit bunten Bändern geschmückte kleine Pferd, auf dem ein allerliebstes, blondes Büblein saß. Weißblond waren die Haare und fein und zart die Glieder des ungefähr fünfjährigen Kindes.
Der kleine Kerl war in blasse, rosafarbene Trikots gesteckt, mit bloßen Füßen und ohne jeden Schutz gegen den Regen. So saß das hellblonde Bübel auf dem braunen Bosniakenrößlein und verteilte große, bunte Zettel unter die Straßenjugend, die von allen Seiten herbeiströmte und mit bewundernden Blicken nach dem kleinen Reitersmann schaute.
Das Bübel schien sich trotz der allgemeinen Bewunderung nicht sehr wohl auf seinem erhöhten Sitz zu fühlen. Das von der Sonne leicht gebräunte Gesichtel war blaurot vor Kälte, und der kleine Mund verzog sich krampfhaft und unterdrückte nur mühsam das Weinen. Die hellblauen Augen schauten verzagt und wie um Hilfe flehend auf das braune Mädel, das das Pferd sorgsam am Zügel führte.
Das Mädel nickte dem blonden Brüderchen aufmunternd zu, und manchmal blieb es etwas zurück und streichelte ganz verstohlen die nackten Beinchen des Buben.
„Sei nur stad, Tonl!“ flüsterte sie dann. „’s dauert nimmer lang, nacher kommst hoam zur Muatter!“ Dann war das flinke Ding wieder mit einem Sprung vorne beim Pferd und führte es am Zügel.
Das junge Gassenvolk hatte seine helle Freude an den fremdartigen Kollegen. Ein Mädel in Bubenkleidern war nichts Alltägliches in Rattenberg.
Einige unter den Buben, die ganz frechen, versuchten eine Annäherung und zogen das Mädel erst schüchtern und dann immer dreister an einem der kurzen, dicken Zöpfe oder zwickten sie derb in die Waden.
Da kamen sie aber schlecht an. Das Mädel verstand sich zu wehren. Wie eine junge Wildkatze war sie, kratzte und zwickte und stieß um sich mit einer Fertigkeit, wie es kaum die geübtesten Raufer unter den Buben hätten besser machen können. Wär’ auch kein echtes Karrnerkind gewesen, wenn es sich von den paar Lausbuben hätte unterkriegen lassen.
Das mochte der finstere Mann, der vorausging und unbekümmert seine Trommel schlug, wohl auch denken. Es entging ihm nicht, wie die Buben immer dreister hinter dem Mädel drein waren, aber er kümmerte sich nicht darum; tat, als bemerke er es nicht, und hieb nur um so energischer auf seine Trommel ein.
Heida, war das ein lustig Völkel, wie es trotz des strömenden Regens durch die alte Stadt zog. Das Mädel lachte schadenfroh und fletschte dabei die Zähne gleich einem jungen Raubtier, und die schwarzen Augen funkelten nur so in dem braunen Gesicht.
Am Stadtplatz, dort wo sich der schöne Blick in die Hauptstraße bot mit ihren alten Häusern und Erkern und mit den alten, kunstvollen Schildern aus Schmiedeisen, machte der muntere Zug halt. Der Mann mit der Trommel schlug noch ein paar extra kräftige Wirbel und fing dann mit lauter Stimme an, seine Einladung für die heutige Abendschaustellung vorzubringen.
Hier am Hauptplatz sollte die Vorstellung stattfinden. Seilkünstler und jugendliche Akrobaten würden ihre Künste sehen lassen. Der kleine Reitersmann schlug schon jetzt einen Purzelbaum über den andern auf dem Rücken des Pferdes, um eine Probe seiner Kunstfertigkeit zum besten zu geben. Das wirkte derart aufreizend
auf einzelne der Buben, daß sie trotz Regen, Schmutz und Pfützen den fremden Künstlern gleichfalls mehrere Purzelbäume vorführten.
Vor dem Stadttor lagerten die Karrner Dort stand das fahrende Heim, auf welches das braune Mädel sein frierendes Brüderlein vertröstet hatte. Ein grüner, schon recht baufälliger Wagen. Kleine Fenster mit roten Vorhängen waren an dem alten Rumpelkasten angebracht. Ein rauchender Kamin von Eisenblech reckte sich aus der Dachlucke. Zu der schlecht schließenden Tür des Wagens führte eine kleine wacklige Leiter empor.
Dies war das Heim der fahrenden Künstler und bot ihnen Schutz gegen Sturm und Regen. Gesundes Blut gedeiht überall, wächst auf wie Unkraut und vermehrt sich gleich ihm. Kümmert sich nicht um Lebensbehagen und um die einfachsten Satzungen der Hygiene. Krankheit ist ein unbekanntes Ding unter den Karrnern.
Erstaunlich viele Menschen birgt so ein fahrendes Heim. Schier stolpern sie einander über die Füße. Die Inneneinrichtung des Wanderkastens war höchst einfach. Ein Tisch, ein altes abgebrauchtes Ledersofa und mehrere Holzstühle und Rohrsessel, die schon halb zerbrochen waren. Knapp neben einem Fenster stand ein kleiner eiserner Herd. Der Rauch mußte nur schlechten Abzug durch den Kamin finden, denn der enge Raum war eingehüllt von beißenden Schwaden.
Anschließend an dieses Gemach befand sich durch eine Tür getrennt noch ein Abteil. Da drinnen war es ganz dunkel. Es war eigentlich die Theatergarderobe der fahrenden Leute. Der enge Raum war zum größten Teil angefüllt mit Schachteln, Lumpen und alten Kleidern. Ein breites, unordentlich gemachtes Bett stand an der Längsseite der Wand. Zu dessen Füßen erstreckte sich auf dem Boden ein Strohsack mit einem Polster und einer alten Pferdedecke. Darauf balgten sich ein paar größere Kinder, zankten und schlugen sich und verursachten einen Heidenlärm.
Draußen im Wohnraum beim Herd stand die Mutter der Kinder, eine große, schwarze Frau, derb und üppig, in nachlässiger Haltung, mit schlampig gekämmtem Haar und in schmutzigen, herabhängenden Kleidern. Auf dem linken Arm hielt sie einen
Säugling, der sich an ihrer Brust festsog. Mit der freien rechten Hand rührte sie in einer Pfanne Milch und Mehl zu einem Mus für das Abendessen. An ihrem Rock hielten sich ein paar kleine Kinder fest und zerrten an ihr, daß sie ihr den schmutzigen Kittel halb vom Leib rissen.
Ein anderes kleines Kind, das noch nicht gehen konnte und mit einem farbigen Hemdchen nur notdürftig bekleidet war, saß gravitätisch auf dem Sofa und schlug mit einem Kochlöffel um sich, unaufhörlich und nach allem, was ihm in die Nähe kam. Und es kam immer etwas in die Nähe. Eines der kleinen oder der größeren Kinder. Unbarmherzig hieb der kleine Wicht am Sofa auf die Köpfe seiner Geschwister. Die brüllten dann jedesmal aus Leibeskräften, liefen zur Mutter und wischten sich an deren Rockfalten die Tränen ab oder die schmutzigen kleinen Nasen.
Die Frau am Herd ließ sich durch keinen Lärm aus ihrer Ruhe bringen. Sie kochte unbeirrt weiter und preßte den Säugling mit dem linken Arm fest an ihre Brust.
Ein struppiger, häßlicher Köter umsprang mit lautem Gebell die kleinen, weißblonden Kinder, hüpfte an ihnen empor und drängte sich wedelnd und mit der Zunge leckend zwischen sie. An einem der rot verhangenen Fenster baumelte in einem winzigen Vogelkäfig ein einsamer Kreuzschnabel und zirpte seinen sehnsüchtig wehmutsvollen Sang.
Die Karrnerin stand mit einer Art stolzer und hoheitsvoller Genugtuung vor dem Herd. Wie eine Königin in ihrem Reich, so kam sie sich inmitten ihrer Kinderschar vor.
Es war aber auch eine ganz besondere Stellung, die sie unter ihren Standesgenossen einnahm. Einen Wagen, einen richtigen, echten Wagen als Wohnstätte und ein lebendes Pferd hatte sie. Zu solchem Besitz brachten es nur wenige unter den Karrnern. Es war auch gar nicht so lange her, seit sie zu diesem Wohlstand gekommen waren. Früher zogen sie herum wie die andern fahrenden Leute. Da besaßen sie nur einen Handkarren, der mit einem großen Segeltuch überspannt war und drunter die wenigen Habseligkeiten der Familie barg.
Den Karren zogen sie gemeinsam, sie und ihr Gaudenz, den sie ihren Gatten nannte, obwohl weder Kirche noch Staat diesen Bund besiegelt hatten. Aber bei den Karrnern nimmt man das nicht so genau. Das sind freie, ungebundene Menschen, sind Menschen ohne den Zwang strenger Sitten.
Die führen ihr ungebundenes Leben von Jugend an. Und wenn sich Männlein und Weiblein gefunden haben, so ziehen sie zusammen ihren wilden Ehestandskarren, ohne Pfarrer und Gemeinde erst lange um Erlaubnis zu fragen. Und trotzdem halten sie fest aneinander. Ohne Schwur und Gelübde nehmen sie es mit der Treue genauer, als viele in strenger Sitte und Zucht auferzogene Kulturmenschen.
Gemeinsam getragene Not ist ein fester Kitt. Und es ist ein hartes Leben, das diese Tiroler Zigeuner führen. Von Ort zu Ort ziehen sie. Durch das ganze Land wandern sie und noch weit über die Grenzen hinaus in fremde, unbekannte Gegenden.
Überall sind sie geächtet und überall gemieden. Aber sie ertragen alles, Not und Hunger, Frost und Regen, Sonnenglut und Straßenstaub, Schande und Verachtung. Ihr Freiheitstrieb ist so groß und unbändig, daß sie lieber in Gottes freier Natur elend zugrunde gehen, als daß sie sich den Gesetzen einer geordneten Lebensweise unterwerfen würden.
In Gottes freier Natur, ohne Hausdach, ohne Hilfe und Beistand bringt die Karrnerin ihre Kinder zur Welt. Es müssen kerngesunde, lebenskräftige Kinder sein. Wer nicht ganz fest ist, geht zugrunde. In Wind und Wetter, Schnee und Regen und im glühenden Sonnenbrand, ohne Furcht, in Freiheit und Ungebundenheit, so wächst das Karrnerkind auf.
Von der Hand in den Mund lebt die ganze Familie. Kann der Vater keinen Verdienst finden, so ziehen die Kinder zum Betteln aus, und wenn’s nicht anders geht, auch zum Stehlen. Sie lernen wenig Gutes von den Menschen. Überall werden ihnen die Türen vor der Nase zugeschlagen, oder man wirft ihnen Gaben hin wie jungen Hunden. Und gierig wie junge Hunde schnappen sie darnach. Denn
immer sind sie hungrig, und die kleinen Mägen knurren ihnen oft unbarmherzig.
Seit Gaudenz Keil, der Karrner aber den genialen Einfall hatte, sich ein Pferd und einen Wagen zu erstehen und seine Kinder zu Akrobaten heranzubilden, seit jener Zeit ging es ihm und seiner Familie viel besser. Woher der Gaudenz das Geld auftrieb zum Kauf, wußte niemand. Das Korbflechten und Pfannenflicken brachte ihm jedenfalls keine Reichtümer ein. Aber der Gaudenz war von jeher ein ganz gerissener Bursche gewesen, und einer seiner obersten Grundsätze war, sich nicht erwischen zu lassen.
Erwischt hatte ihn niemand. Und Benedikta Zöttl, die Karrnerin, die vielleicht über den plötzlichen Reichtum hätte Auskunft geben können, war verschwiegen wie das Grab. Sie hielten zusammen, diese beiden, trotz Zank und Streit und trotz mancher wüsten Szenen, die es oft zwischen ihnen gab. Die gehörten jedoch mit zur rechten Karrnerliebe. Streit und Prügel. Der Karrner muß fühlen, daß er der Herr im Hause ist.
Gaudenz Keil war eine ausgesprochene Herrennatur. Das Regiment, das er führte, war ein strenges. Wenn er seinen schlechten Tag hatte, dann fürchteten sie sich alle vor ihm. Die Benedikta und die Kinder, die großen wie die kleinen. Sogar der kleine, struppige Köter zog den Schweif ein und verkroch sich. Der Herr hatte einen festen Fuß, und so ein Stoß oder Tritt tat weh.
Am widerspenstigsten war von jeher die Sophie gewesen. Das war das braune zwölfjährige Mädel, das als Bub verkleidet herumlief.
Die hatte wirklich den Satan im Leib.
Wenn Gaudenz Keil ganz besonders schief gewickelt war, dann rannte sie ihm sicher im Weg herum, reizte ihn auf irgendeine Weise oder spielte ihm sonst einen Possen. Über die Sophie entlud sich dann gewöhnlich der ganze Groll des Karrners. Er schlug und prügelte sie unbarmherzig, wohin er sie nur traf. Drosch auf sie ein in blinder Wut, daß das Kind heulte vor Schmerz und es doch nicht lassen konnte, ihn immer und immer wieder in rasenden Zorn zu bringen.
Sie haßten sich gegenseitig, der Gaudenz und die Sophie. Gaudenz Keil haßte das Mädel, weil es der lebende Zeuge war, daß Benedikta Zöttl ihre Gunst einmal einem andern Manne geschenkt hatte.
Sie war schön gewesen, die Benedikta. Ein südländischer Typus, wie er unter den Karrnern nicht oft anzutreffen ist. Meist sind diese Zigeuner der Tiroler Berge hellblond, von einem unschönen, schmutzigen Blond. Ihre Gesichter sind knochig und häßlich, die Haut ist von der Sonne gelb gebrannt.
Benedikta Zöttl war ein wildes, unbändiges Mädel gewesen. Ihr heißes Blut hatte sie schon in früher Jugend von einem Mann zum andern getrieben, flüchtig und unstät, bis der Gaudenz kam und sie mit sich führte.
Das kleine, braune Ding, die Sophie, mußte er allerdings mit in den Kauf nehmen. Das Mädel war ihm ein Dorn im Auge. Es bildete zwischen ihm und der Benedikta einen Zankapfel auf Weg und Steg.
Die Sophie haßte den finstern, harten Mann, der so roh und grausam werden konnte. Das heiße, unbändige, wilde Blut der Mutter hatte sich auf die Tochter vererbt. Der Gaudenz hatte die Benedikta gezähmt. Es gibt ein sicheres Mittel, wildes Karrnerblut zu bändigen. Kinder auf Kinder entsproßten dieser freien Ehe. Die Mutterpflichten hatten das Weib milder und gefügiger gemacht.
Benedikta Zöttl war mit den Jahren ziemlich stumpfsinnig geworden. Nur wenn es der Gaudenz in seiner brutalen Art zu weit trieb, wenn er wie ein gereiztes Tier blindwütig Hiebe und Fußtritte austeilte und die Kinder sich wimmernd und heulend verkrochen, dann stellte sie sich dem Manne furchtlos gegenüber, schlug wohl auch kräftig mit einem Stock oder einem Scheit Holz oder sonst einem Gegenstand, der ihr gerade zur Hand war, auf ihn ein. Bis dann doch schließlich seine Kraft die Übermacht gewann.
Der Tonl, das hellblonde Bübel, hatte am meisten Angst vor dem Vater. Bei jedem rauhen Wort zitterte er und kämpfte mit den Tränen. Und gerade der Tonl war es, den die Sophie am meisten ins Herz geschlossen hatte. Seinetwegen hatte sie schon viele Prügel vom
Vater eingeheimst. Der Tonl, so putzig und zierlich er aussah, so herzlich ungeschickt war er. Das Akrobatentum wollte ihm gar nicht einleuchten. Und jedes neue Kunststück hatte er nur dadurch erlernt, daß er des Vaters harte Faust zu spüren kriegte.
Auch heute wieder stellte sich der Tonl ganz besonders ungeschickt an. Gleich nach dem Umzug in der Stadt hielt der Karrner draußen vor dem Tor eine Generalprobe für den heutigen Abend. Mitten in Wind und Regen. Das störte ihn nicht.
Mit harten Worten rief er seine Kinder zusammen. Der Tonl machte ein weinerliches Gesicht. Er war ganz durchnäßt, und es fror ihn jämmerlich. Der Tonl war überhaupt ein bissel aus der Art geschlagen. Empfindlich wie ein Stadtkind. So gar kein richtiger Karrnerbub. Das ärgerte den Gaudenz. Für das Zimperliche und Überfeine besaß er nicht den geringsten Sinn. Der Tonl hatte sich schon die ganze Zeit her auf die warme Stube und einen Bissen Brot gefreut. Und nun hieß es wieder an die Arbeit gehen, ausharren im Regen trotz Hunger und Kälte.
Die Sophie sah die Enttäuschung des kleinen Bruders. Wie ein Wiesel rannte sie dem Vater davon, sprang mit ein paar Sätzen über die Stufen der Leiter hinein zur Mutter und brachte dann triumphierend ein großes Schwarzbrot für den Tonl.
Das hellblonde Bübel kaute und kaute und putzte sich die Nase. Schips, der struppige Köter, erhielt auch ab und zu einen Bissen, weil er gar so schön betteln konnte. Und die Sophie stand vor dem Bruder, der mitsamt seinem schönen Staat auf dem aufgeweichten Erdboden saß, und suchte den Tonl vor den Blicken des Vaters zu verstecken. Denn der Vater duldete keine „Fresserei“ während der Arbeit. Das wußten die beiden Kinder, und deshalb würgte der Tonl auch das Brot hinunter, so rasch er nur konnte.
Trotzdem entdeckte der Karrner den kleinen Sünder. Der Gaudenz stand abseits und probierte mit zweien seiner Söhne, die auch nicht älter als sieben und acht Jahre sein mochten, verschiedene Kunststücke. Nun rief er die Sophie herbei. Das Mädel war der Kraftathlet der jungen Künstlerschar. Sie hatte die Aufgabe, zwei ihrer Geschwister mit freien, weit vor sich hingestreckten
