View From Vienna. - dance review

Dance Magazine, Nov, 2000 by George Jackson

VIEW FROM VIENNA FESTIVAL WEEKS VIENNA, AUSTRIA JUNE, 2000

A container, the sort used to ship cargo across oceans and aboard trains, became Vienna's emblem last summer. Strategically situated at one of the city's busiest corners--in front of the State Opera House--this dull metallic object was the setting for a happening instigated by stage director Christoph Schlingensief and sponsored, initially, by Vienna's annual arts celebration, the Festival Weeks.

The goods inside the container were people, and Schlingensief designated them as ILLEGAL PEOPLE. No one knew for sure whether they were real refugees or actors, but they existed, suggestive of desperate Asian refugees being smuggled to uncertain futures. But it was evocative, too, of the sadistic European television show Big Brother (which hit the American market shortly thereafter). In it, a group of recruits living together round the clock is video monitored for a mega-audience and the viewers vote on the order of their release--which can stretch out for days and weeks.

By itself, Vienna's container, with the shadowy images of its inhabitants that appeared on an outside screen and on TVs throughout the land, was mundane and boring. As symbol, though, or more properly as enigma--because it meant very different things to different people--it stuck in the imagination of Vienna's residents and visitors alike. There wasn't a day during my stay when events that involved the container didn't make the front pages of the newspapers, whether it served merely as a gathering place for the curious, or as the podium for speeches, or when it was stormed by a crowd. Inside the newspapers, too, in lengthy editorials and terse letters to the editor, the container became a catalyst for outpourings on the nature of art, the terms for political debate and the meaning of life.

Context for all this excitement, of course, were the last Austrian elections that resulted in a rightist majority that included the outspoken Jorg Haider and his Freedom Party, with its obstinate anti-immigrant stance and other Fascist overtones. The European Union quickly imposed sanctions on Austria, and numerous private organizations and individuals began to boycott the country. Haider then resigned from the leadership of the Freedom Party, but the party itself remained in the ruling coalition and ostracism of Austria continued. Within Austria, protest against the Haiderites and their "respectable" rightist partners has been healthy. There's none of the oppressive inaction that accompanied the Nazi assumption of power in 1938. Austria remains a democracy, and the ruling party cannot object to protests--as long as they are political.

The "Container Action," however, belonged to the Festival Weeks and, presumably, had governmental arts funding. This the ruling coalition could object to and did. Schlingensief then removed the sign that linked the container to the Festival, incurring the wrath of some former supporters. He posted a replacement that read "Our honor is called loyalty"--a slogan that had been used by the Nazi SS troopers. Although his intent behind using these words was ironic, rightists threatened Schlingensief with legal action for reviving Nazi practices. Not long thereafter, the "Container Action" was terminated. While that commonplace object stood, however, refugee writer and political activist Hannah Arendt's comment on Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann and "the ordinariness of institutionalized evil" kept coming to mind.

Other than prompting the creation of protest art, has Austria's political situation affected the arts and, in particular, dance? Edith Wolf Perez, editor and publisher of Austria's dance magazine, tanzAffiche, says yes. As in most places, foreigners have been part of the country's dance scene forever, even in times when the profession was nominally restricted to citizens (and such honorary Austrians as the Lipizzaner Stallions and The Spanish Riding School). Currently, foreigners, who have helped make this nation's cities and towns into a hotbed of international dance instruction, and whose numbers in Austrian dance companies have increased, are feeling threatened. Wolf Perez has opened the pages of her publication to give them a voice. Moreover, she is meticulous in monitoring the effect of budgetary restrictions--which have always had more impact on experimental, alternative and socially critical work than on traditional productions and conventional pieces.

The dance portion of the Festival Weeks hadn't yet begun in June, but there was no lack of things to see. The premiere of The Flood at the Volksoper, Vienna's second lyric theater, showed different animals in Noah's ark locked into separate cages, not living peaceably side by side. Noah himself is caged for a while. Did this imagery refer to the container? In other respects, this piece by Verena Weiss, with assistance from Ingo Diehl (both German choreographers), was simpleminded and predictable despite strong production values and intriguing music from three composers: one American, one a Luxembourger, one Italian; i.e., all foreigners. Of choreographic interest in Flood were three solos--Noah's, in which he sizes planks of wood to build the ark, and the Raven's and the Dove's--the birds sent out to scout for dry land. These passages started strongly but petered out in typical tanztheater fashion. Despite the generally skimpy choreography, Eugene van den Boom as Noah gave the character dignity, and everyone was well rehearsed. There's no doubt that the Volksoper ballet has come up a step from American showbiz choreographer Kim Duddy's regime. In charge now is postmodernist Liz King, who sometimes integrates her own Dancetheater Vienna into the Volksoper's ballet ensemble. Yet I preferred the all-balletic days under Susanne Kirnbauer, and before her, Gerhard Senft, who succeeded Dia Luca. From that line, Ivan Jakus remains as ballet master, and one still finds a few of the old waltzy numbers in the Volksoper's operetta productions.