At the Ruhrtriennale, searching for the sublime among the ruins
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Thursday, November 21, 2024


At the Ruhrtriennale, searching for the sublime among the ruins
I Want Absolute Beauty, director: Ivo Van Hove. Sandra Hüller © Jan Versweyveld.

by A.J. Goldmann



BOCHUM.- “I Want Absolute Beauty,” the title of the opening production for this year’s Ruhrtriennale, sounds like a mission statement of sorts.

The event, one of Germany’s major arts festivals, lights up the former industrial sites that dot the Ruhr region, in the country’s northwest — though hulking power plants and abandoned steelworks aren’t where you necessarily expect to find beauty. Then again, this 22-year-old festival has always been about letting audiences encounter the sublime among the ruins. Everywhere I turned during the Ruhrtriennale’s opening weekend, I witnessed beauty struggling — fitfully, clumsily and sometimes stunningly — to be born.

This summer, the Ruhrtriennale welcomes a new artistic leader, the acclaimed Belgian theater director Ivo van Hove. His three-season tenure kicked off Friday night with “I Want Absolute Beauty,” a staged cycle of songs by English singer-songwriter P.J. Harvey that van Hove has created for German actress Sandra Hüller, presented at the Jahrhunderthalle, a former power station in the city of Bochum.

Hüller, best-known for her Academy Award-nominated performance in “Anatomy of a Fall,” gives gutsy and full-throated renditions of 26 of Harvey’s songs accompanied by a four-person band. It’s a heroic performance over an intermission-less 90 minutes. Van Hove doesn’t impose a narrative, in the style of jukebox musicals, but a journey of sorts can be followed through the titles (“Dorset” — “London” — “New York”) that appear on a screen where both live and prerecorded video is projected throughout the evening.

The stage area is covered in dirt, and dancers twirl, writhe and gyrate around Hüller. The choreography, by the collective (La)Horde, is earthy and elemental, sometimes joyous and liberating, but often menacing and with hints of sexual violence. Hüller is always front and center, her voice tough but with an edge of fragility. Sometimes she joins the dancers in their primeval thrashing. The results can be exhilarating but are just as often exasperating. Despite the high caliber of the performances, it’s easy to lose interest. Occasionally there’s an earsplitting crescendo or blinding flood light to jolt us back to attention.

It’s a production that hovers at the edge of several genres, never able to make up its mind whether it’s a concert, dance or theater. The Ruhrtriennale, with its unconventional locations, vast venues and even vaster resources (its annual budget is around $19 million), is well-suited to developing and presenting unconventional, multidisciplinary productions and artistic creations that do not easily fit within preestablished categories and classifications. In this case, however, the beauty that van Hove seeks, absolute or otherwise, proves elusive.

I witnessed a far more harmonious fusion of disparate art forms the next day at the Folkwang Museum, in the nearby city of Essen, during the premiere of “Y,” a new dance work by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.

De Keersmaeker has staged work in museum galleries before, but this time, she has also curated the works on the walls, which she has chosen from the Folkwang’s permanent collection. “Y” lasts for the better part of an afternoon, and visitors, who get time-slotted tickets, are welcome to stay however long they please.

As I entered, the dancers were grouped in front of Édouard Manet’s 1877 “Portrait of Faure as Hamlet,” imitating the epée-holding subject’s stance. They soon scattered over several galleries. In one featuring works by Manet and Yves Klein, dancer Nina Godderis seemed to channel both Hamlet and Ophelia’s madness during a twitching and virtuosic performance that incorporated spoken fragments of the “To be or not to be” monologue and featured several fitful costume changes. Elsewhere, Nassim Baddag spun on his head, his legs spreading out in a V that mirrored the shape of the mountains in a copy of a painting by Caspar David Friedrich.

I had to tear myself away from “Y” after an hour to dash back to Bochum for the German premiere of Philip Venables and Ted Huffman’s “The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions,” based on an underground queer manifesto published by Larry Mitchell in 1977. This remarkable production, first seen at last year’s Manchester Festival, felt unexpectedly intimate the vast Jahrhunderthalle.

For their third collaboration, Venables, a British composer, and Huffman, an American librettist and director, have created a joyous and affirmative musical theater work. Like its source material, the show lays out an alterative world history defined by the endless struggle between queer people and their allies on the one hand, and the guardians of the patriarchy, known simply as “The Men,” on the other. In celebrating the heterodox, the radical, the fringe and even the deviant, the show’s form matches its content, with a bold mixture of musical styles — baroque, folk, pop — and theatrical devices. As exuberant as it is slippery, its unconventional brand of beauty felt right at home at the Ruhrtriennale.

After hailing Venables and Huffman’s queer utopian warriors, I raced 20 miles to another former power station, on the edge of city of Duisburg, for “Legende,” a theatrical homage to the great Georgian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov. The show’s starting time had been brought forward an hour, and I nearly didn’t make it. The reason for the change was that the running time of Kirill Serebrennikov’s show, a co-production with the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, had swelled to more than four hours during rehearsals. Told in 10 chapters (the “legends” of title) inspired by Parajanov’s life and work, this German-language production aims for a monumentality that it never quite achieves.

Serebrennikov, a Russian director who now lives in Germany, spent 20 months under house arrest in Moscow on embezzlement charges that were widely seen as trumped up. So it is unsurprising that he has been drawn to another artist tormented by political persecution: Parajanov was hounded by Soviet authorities for his formally daring work, and for his bisexuality, and served several prison sentences.

The production, with its colorful costumes and bric-a-brac props, is a visual stunner, and the performances, from the Thalia’s actors and Serebrennikov’s Russian collaborators alike, are fiercely committed.

Beauty, Serebrennikov says in an interview in the playbill, “requires passion, even cruelty, and often a sacrifice.” And though “Legende” is drawn out, and sometimes overblown, it is clearly animated by passion. In its best moments, the theatrical wattage it generates seems sufficient to reanimate the former power plant itself.



‘Ruhrtriennale Festival of the Arts’

Through Sept. 19 at various locations in the Ruhr region of Germany; ruhrtriennale.de.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

August 21, 2024

REWIND: A CAREER REFLECTION

The British Museum is trying to recover gems, and its reputation

Italy's premier shotgun brands dominate Montrose's Aug. 31 Sporting, Classic & Collectible Firearms Auction

Michael Schreffler appointed director of new Notre Dame Arts Initiative

Scientists seeking life on Mars heard a signal that hinted at the future

By day, Sun Studio draws tourists. At night, musicians lay down tracks.

Art and Process exhibition opens October 24 at the Walters

David Kordansky Gallery to open a solo exhibition of new paintings by Hilary Pecis

Sikkema Jenkins & Co. announces a solo exhibition of recent work by Erin Shirreff

The Portland Art Museum presents psychedelic rock posters and fashion of the 1960s

Exhibition featuring the innovative work of Eritrea-born Canadian artist Dawit L. Petros will open in Chicago

Galerie Nathalie Obadia announces Nú Barreto's fifth solo exhibition with the gallery

Kate MacGarry announces an exhibition of Rana Begum's new Louvre series

Royal College of Art and The Virgil Abloh Foundation announce the RCA Virgil Abloh Scholarship 2024

The Third Line announces its first solo exhibition with Louisville-based artist Vian Sora

At the Ruhrtriennale, searching for the sublime among the ruins

Harold Meltzer, composer of impossible-to-pigeonhole works, dies at 58

He wants people restarting their lives to see themselves onstage

1876-CC Twenty Cent piece and George V Gold Sovereign lead Heritage's ANA Coin Auctions beyond $53 million

MCA Australia presents a multi-screen cinematic installation by Isaac Julien

Charles R. Cross, Biographer of Cobain and Hendrix, dies at 67

5 breakouts from classical music's most prestigious festival

Peter Marshall, longtime host of 'The Hollywood Squares,' dies at 98

Weiting Gao: AI is Liberating the Productivity of Designers and Artists

The Importance of Professional Planning Consultancy in Project Success

Streamlining Employee Compensation: Strategies for Efficient Business Operations

Exploring 1win Casino's Multilingual Support for Indian Players

Office Partitions: Enhancing Aesthetic Appeal and Functionality

The Rising Trend Of Hair Styling With Colour Blocking Among Teens

What Is No Digging Drain Repair?

Why Every City Should Have Medical Imaging Centres?

How To Find A Good Sunshine Coast Web Design Specialists For A Startup?

Decoding Your Skin's Signals - When To See A Skin Doctors

Why Are Electric Water Heater Best For Granny Flats?

How Can Time Management Courses Enhance Your Company's Profits?




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful