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THE RAVEL OF US AND THEM (THEATER HEUTE)
Via Intolleranza II in Brussels: What can become of Luigi Nono's high modern seriousness when Christoph Schlingensief crosses it with his life, his projects, with colonialism, and critique.
By Diedrich Diederichsen
Right at the beginning, when Christoph Schlingensief's Via Intolleranza II has just got going a little, they start picking on the "false texts of Mr Nono". Only briefly. After that, we don't learn much about Luigi Nono's Intolleranza 1960, which according to some announcements was to be produced by Schlingensief and his ensemble, cast around the opera village in Ougadougou and in other centres of the Schlingensiefian sphere of influence. Now, the piece, which had its world premiere in 1961, only delivers the title and a little choral music that mixes creatively with all sorts of sound sources, and is only allowed to remain alone briefly. But perhaps such a slight reference, which most of the time is not even latently noticeable in the colourful activity on stage, contributes more to the consistency of this latest attack from the Schlingensief camp than the direct addresses to the "perverse Europeans" that are also there. The recipients of course don't have a problem with the compliment "perverse", especially not in Brussels, where the show premiered.
Nono's radicalness
A refugee, working abroad as a miner, wants to go back to his repressive home country. He ends up in the universal demonstration of 1960 against both "discrimination" and "la sale guerre", and he shouts "Morte al fascismo!" He is arrested, tortured. Sartre himself is, with his original voice, is "outraged". The struggle continues. "The yearning for my homeland changes into the desire for freedom." In the second part, the story is transported to a higher level of abstraction: the present consists of absurd bureaucracy and the empty prattle of the culture industry. But the refugee has found a companion. Pictures of the great political crimes of the century plague the couple, and on the land, they get caught up in a natural catastrophe (the flooding of the Po Valley) with a background of ecological crime. Everything goes under, a Brecht poem gives dry comfort.
That is roughly the plot of Luigi Nono's Intolleranza 1960, called a "scenic action", but in early German versions also simply an "action", and also an "opera", based on an idea by Angelo Maria Ripellino. At its time, the work represented in every respect a radical break. The rigorous Darmstadt high modernism of the 1950s, now recognized and critiqued by some of its students as a noble form repressing history, is opened up in all sorts of directions in Intolleranza, including some rather illustrative passages that are quite hard to take nowadays, like when the text mentions torture, and this is musically illustrated by a sudden increase in volume and a rising pitch. Choruses of the tortures, the captured, the Algerians, a plot reduced to symptomatic scenes, masses of literary quotations, current politics (the Algerian War, racism in the US, flood disasters in Italy) form a mixture of political radicalness (that to this to this day remains difficult for some opera houses) at the moment of breaking with its teachers, who had already themselves been regarded as radical.
A master of going out on a limb
Not least the replacement of the proletarian subject of history with an ideational generally suppressed is bold. On the one hand, this anticipates what was best about 1968: the transformation of a Marxism that had become a state doctrine during the Cold War into a theory of current and (for the first time) global struggles, from anti-colonialism to the early ecology movement; on the other hand, also an anticipation of those subsequent times when around 1980 slowly identificatory consternation replaced politicization. Pathos, kitsch, boldness, dryness – Christoph Schlingensief's aesthetics of going out on a limb unprotected is also stretched between these poles. Like Nono's work, it wants to anticipate without being able to decide between apocalypse and revolution, or between personal catastrophe and having one's wishes granted. As a model, this piece, which wanted to invent a new political idea with a new theatre form in one move, this was probably a better point of departure for Schlingensief than his favourite composer Wagner, who also briefly howls a bit here. Gesamtkunstwerk, almost a century later. After a bone-dry beginning with a stage set that looks like something made in evening classes, and lamentations about the difficulties of this production – between citizens of Burkina Faso stuck because of the ash cloud to the sick chief dramaturg Hegemann, who was said to be absorbed by the stir caused by the debut novel of his daughter –other actors take over the stage in various waves. Berlin musicians playing a bit of Nono from a tape with strange radio receivers, and later jamming officially; an about twelve-year-old super talent from Burkina Faso, who takes up and mixes plotlines, sometimes as a child, sometimes as an adult, as perpetrator and as victim, for a brief moment he is also Nono's refugee; a rapper appears, then an angry intellectual; a woman who is announced as Burkina Faso's Björk; she starts to sing and utters mainly phrases by Adorno.
In the meantime, the stage set becomes successively more complicated, until the by now typical visuality is reached that Schlingensief has refined since his Bayreuth Parsifal with a special highpoint in Mea Culpa, always in cooperation with Voxi Bärenklau: varied projections on uneven walls and textiles, a village-like stage set with labyrinthine paths between tables, band stand, cabins, and built elements; barbed wire and the projection of L'inferno (1911) by Guiseppe de Liguoro, whom Schlingensief had already shown at HAU during the most recent Berlinale, mark the borders of the seemingly continuously expanding events.
The history of colonialism
Because even if new plot lines becomes recognizable all the time – spin-offs from earlier Schlingensief productions, stories of his illness and from the village – nonetheless one theme determines the throng and polyphony almost consistently. In always new single contributions, motifs from the history of colonialism and European racism are parsed: from the human displays in Hagenbeck's zoo in Hamburg and the excesses and the normality of scientific racism of the 19th century all the way to the post-colonial world order and its rules for the representation of Africa and Africans.
Two things here are particularly successful: before the syncretistic sound background of abstract electronic beats from contemporary global dance musics, the dialogues and monologues in French, German, and Moore (the language spoken by half of Burkina Faso's population) become a pull of knowledge and intentions that surpasses the fragility and precariousness of the individual performances. Of course most of the colonialist crimes are too well known to upset us merely by being mentioned, and too enormous to make their mere mention not seem frivolous.
In such a brief appearance, the angry intellectual comes across on stage too much as a figure (and this is obviously intentional) to do justice to the object of his anger. And the central circus director and guru-performer also does not do justice in either of his roles to his goals (which are both ambitious and never clearly formulated) of making all of this plausible as a contribution on the path to his African opera village. But the dense series that rains down on us takes the status of last words away from these interludes; in the juxtaposition of performers running about, nobody purports to be a frontal prophet, or if so, then only as a pose. What remains is a substrate which attempts to derive an ideational overall gestalt from the postcolonial facts in a similar way as Nono tried to do that with his refugee out of the various factors of the early 1960s.
The intellectual as an actor
The second thing is an unusual humour. I read in one review that you never know who means what seriously here. That is indeed unclear, and that's a good thing. The angry intellectual is an actor who simultaneously voices the good reasons why an African intellectual can be angry, while at the same time parodying the figure of the angry black man who ever since Fanon has been so beloved by a certain intelligentsia of the north – a love which might also finally play a role in the project which we currently marvel at. Thirdly, however, he positions himself as an authentic person of today in relation to the good reasons articulated in his text, as well as to the problem of being possibly instrumentalized for the life dream of a guy from Oberhausen. Throughout, a scheme is used where an authentic person appears beyond his or her stage function, then plays a role which in turn positions itself to a stereotype, which refers to an ideological context.
But there are no clear transitions between these stations which would deflate this principle into a pale didacticism. Nothing of the complexity is in this case – or in the many similar cases of this fast-paced and entertaining performance – spelled out, everything is elegantly and with great accuracy played and danced in the performances. A performed self-reflexivity is developed here that never lapses into the well-known irony that on principle finds the primary concerns and the possibility of articulating them only funny and thus invalid. Precisely because the project, due to its asymmetries, its various exploitative relationships, its projections about a completely different world, is quite questionable, it here gains a dynamism that articulates itself above all as breakneck humour. All participants make a profit from the swirling contradictions.
With this, we've almost reached a reversal of the Nono constellation, where only the emergency brake of a sacred-humanist identification of personal dismay could do justice to a newly sensed complexity of political globality. Its naivety was then later a cause of amusement for postmodern irony. Here, a seriousness becomes visible in the self-reflective gaiety that allows for complexity; a seriousness that is no longer naïve, even if some of the goals of the work, intended to make the world a better place, seem rather child-like on paper.
However, at the end it was almost a renouncement of this style of thinking and presenting when the boss very simply and a little patronizingly declared that the opera village would now be handed over to its inhabitants, and we Europeans would have to start learning from those Africans. Working with such a clearly posited dichotomy of "us and them" was something Via Intolleranza II had just relegated to a past world.
Source: THEATER HEUTE #7, July 2010, Translation: Wilhelm Werthern
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON VIA INTOLLERANZA II
| - VIA INTOLLERANZA II WEBSITE - Additional information on Schlingensief's Via Intolleranza II |
 VIA INTOLLERANZA II AT THE TT 2011 - 3sat Foyer, May 2011 (47 MB) |
| - VIA INTOLLERANZA GALLERY BERLIN - Berlin Theatertreffen 2011 |
| - VIA INTOLLERANZA GALLERY CAST - Backstage pictures, Theatertreffen 2011 |
| - VIA INTOLLERANZA GALLERY BRUSSELS - Brussels premiere images, 15.5.2010 |
- ART IS MAGIC / IT CANNOT SUCCEED - Theatertreffenblog, May 2011 |
| - THE RAVEL OF US AND THEM - Theater Heute #7, 2010 |
| - DAS WIR-UND-DIE-KNÄUEL - Theater Heute #7 vom Juli 2010 |
| - SCHLUSS MIT DEM GUTMENSCHENTUM - Donaukurier vom 25.6.2010 |
| - GUTMENSCHEN FÜR AFRIKA - Merkur Online vom 25.6.2010 |
| - SCHLINGENSIEF MACHT DEN GUTMENSCHEN SCHLECHT - SZ, 25.06.2010 |
| - VIA INTOLLERANZA II IN MÜNCHEN BEJUBELT - dpa vom 25.06.2010 |
| SCHLINGENSIEFS AFRIKA - SF Kulturplatz vom 16.6.2010 (39 MB) |
 IM KÜNSTLERZIMMER - ORF Ö1 Kultur, 20.6.2010 |
| - WENN AFRIKA WIEN WIRD - Der Kurier vom 15.6.2010 |
| - EINE SZENISCHE IDEENORGIE - Der Standard vom 14.6.2010 |
| - FESTWOCHEN: LANGES WARTEN AUF CHRISTOPH - Die Presse, 14.6.2010 |
| - KRITIK: »VIA INTOLLERANZA II« - Kurier vom 13.6.2010 |
| SCHLINGENSIEF BEI WIENER FESTWOCHEN - ORF ZIB vom 12.6.2010 (9 MB) |
| - VIA INTOLLERANZA II - Kultur aktuell (ORF Ö1) vom 14.06.2010 |
| - WENN KULTUREN AUFEINANDER PRALLEN - SHZ vom 26.05.2010 |
| - POST-MODERNE REVUE ÜBER DIE VERGEBLICHKEIT - NZZ vom 26.05.2010 |
| - WARUM WOLLEN WIR NUR STÄNDIG AFRIKA HELFEN? - Stuttgarter Z., 26.05. |
| - RAUS AUS AFRIKA - taz vom 25.5.2010 |
| - VIELEN DANK FÜR IHR GEHEUCHELTES INTERESSE - Hamb. Abendbl., 25.5. |
| - RÜBERDÜSEN, MITTROMMELN - Frankfurter Rundschau, 25.5.2010 |
| - DAS VERSAGEN GEGENÜBER AFRIKA - dpa vom 24.5.2010 |
| - WORK IN PROGRESS DER BEWUSSTSEINSWERDUNG - Nachtkritik, 15.5.2010 |
| - KÖNIG MIDAS IN BURKINA FASO - Süddeutsche Zeitung vom 17.5.2010 |
| - SCHLINGENSIEFS AFRIKA-CORPS - Die WELT vom 16.5.2010 |
| - DER EUROPÄER VERSTEHT GAR NICHTS - Die WELT vom 17.5.2010 |
| - WAS DU SIEHST, IST NICHT IMMER, WAS DU BIST - Hamb. Abendblatt, 19.5. |
| DER AFRIKANISCHE BLICK TEIL 1 - 3sat Kulturzeit vom 7.5.2010 (25 MB) |
| DER AFRIKANISCHE BLICK TEIL 2 - 3sat Kulturzeit vom 18.5.2010 (27 MB) |
| DER AFRIKANISCHE BLICK TEIL 3 - 3sat Kulturzeit vom 20.5.2010 (28 MB) |
| VIA INTOLLERANZA II IN BRÜSSEL - ARD Tagesthemen, 15.5. (14 MB) |
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Project information
- Overview
- Via Website
Photo gallery
- Gallery I Brussels
- Gallery II Berlin
- Gallery III Backstage
English coverage
- The ravel of us and
them (Theater Heute)
- Art is Magic / It
Cannot Succeed
(tt11 Blog)
Videos
SF Kulturplatz
vom 16.6.2010
(Video, 39 MB)
ORF ZIB Beitrag
v. 12.6.2010
(Video, 8 MB)
ARD Tagesthemen
Beitrag v. 15.5.2010
(Video, 14 MB)
3sat Kulturzeit
Beitrag v. 7.5.2010
(Video, 25 MB)
3sat Kulturzeit
Beitrag v. 18.5.2010
(Video, 27 MB)
3sat Kulturzeit
Beitrag v. 20.5.2010
(Video, 28 MB)
External Links
- KDFA Brussels
- Kampnagel Hamburg
- Wiener Festwochen
- Bayer. Staatsoper
- Helsinki Festival
- Holland Festival
- Goethe Institut
VIA INTOLLERANZA II
Premiere on March 15, 2010
Kunstenfestivaldesarts Brüssel,
Kampnagel Hamburg, Wiener Festwochen,
Bayerische Staatsoper München
Idea/directed by: Christoph Schlingensief
Stage: Thekla von Mülheim, Christian Schlechter;
Costumes: Aino Laberenz;
Light: Voxi Bärenklau, Michael Dietze;
Video: Meika Dresenkamp;
Music and conducting: Arno Waschk;
Sound: David Gierth;
Dramaturgy: Carl Hegemann, Anna Heesen
With:
Brigitte Cuvelier,
„Kandy“ Mamounata Guira,
Kerstin Graßmann,
Claudia Sgarbi,
Olivia Stahn,
Isabelle Tassembedo,
Jean Marie Gomzoubou Boucoungou,
Jean Chaize,
Alexander Jovanovic,
Issoufou Kienou,
Stefan Kolosko,
Amado Komi,
Johannes Lauer,
Christian Radovan,
Christoph Schlingensief,
Ahmed Soura,
Nicolas Ulrich Severin Tounga,
Abdoul Kader Traore,
Arno Waschk,
Wilfried Zoungrana
Assistant directors: Nicola Ahr, Agathe Chion;
Kostümassistenz: Charlotte Pistorius, Michaela Muchina;
Technical coordinator: Christian Schlechter;
Assistants stage: Susanne Fehenberger, Kerstin Junge, Nanna Neudeck, Julia Ries
Assisted by students of the HfbK Braunschweig: Armagan Aydin, Sina Dunker, Martina Gromadzki, Maria Manasterny, Imke Meyer, Nina Olczak, Christian Retschlag, Doreen Schwarz, Sabine Sellig, Deborah Uhde
Translation and artist assistance: Wilfried Zoungrana;
Coordination and artist assistance: Lisa Herkenhöhner;
Translation: Agathe Chion, Anne Hosemann;
Prompt book: Natascha Gangl;
Direction interns: Anne Hosemann, Marie Ohl;
Brussels interns: Aurore Jacquemot, Melanie Zimmermann;
Hamburg intern: Franziska Schnoor;
Casting and rehearsals Ouagadougou: Sophia Simitzis;
Correpetition Ouagadougou: Roman Lemberg;
Video documentation: Lionel Some;
Technician: Ingo Keller, Bertfried Wetzel
Production managers: Katharina Benecke, Johanna von Rigal
Producer: Celina Nicolay
VIA INTOLLERANZA II wurde in Ouagadougou/ Burkina Faso und Berlin ab März 2010 entwickelt und geprobt und erstmalig im Mai beim Kunsten Festival des Arts in Brüssel und auf Kampnagel Hamburg, sowie im Juni 2010 auf der Probebühne Arsenal des Burgtheaters Wien und schließlich an der Bayerischen Staatsoper München gezeigt.
Production: Festspielhaus Afrika gGmbH; Coproduction: Kampnagel Hamburg, Kunstenfestivaldesarts Brussels, Bavarian State Opera Munich, Burgtheater Vienna, Impulstanz and the Wiener Festwochen.
Supported by: Goethe-Institut, Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Berlin, ECC - European Creative Center, Uferstudios GmbH.
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