This text is about a piece I created long time ago in 2016, at the beginning of my career as a choreographer and freelance dance artist. Actually my first attempt for a professional dance production. “The other F word” was about a society that learns to be silent through consumerism, that forces us to forget the most important F word. FREEDOM. It is about losing the individual’s identity, the struggle of the collectiveness and the need to create a safe HOME for all.
So here are some thoughts I found on a paper:
Art is a way to speak about things we see or hear about and make us angry or sad or disappointed or hopeless. It is a way to ask questions without necessarily needing the answer. And a way to create , express, confess.
It took me a while to put these thoughts down. I don’ t know if I was trying to be politically correct or not rude or just very clear on what I was thinking.
It started by reading the reviews of the piece I presented on Resolution 2016! at the Robin Howard Theatre in London. And then I just kept thinking once more about art, it’s role, whether it should tick boxes or remain a rebel?
So… What is to be free? How do we perceive the concept of freedom? and how do we maintain it? Is it primarily connected to money?
Is Art free?
Well…As it seems not even art is free anymore. It is not free for the people to watch or access, not free for the artist to totally express himself/herself without thinking of ticking the boxes, not free for the people to accept it, perceive it, digest it in any way they want.
In any way we think about it freedom is lost in any and every aspect of our lives.
On stage, during the performance one of the performers screams: “We don’t belong here.”
and another one mentions that we should go back where we came from.
But for people that never felt unwanted, that were never forced to move or travel or migrate or for people that have decided to stay in their own bubble and refuse to look outside, these phrases are similar to: “Let’s go shopping today!”. For people that never wondered how it feels to not have a home, how it is to lose a child in the sea because someone else decided they need more land, more wealth, more money, more power, these phrases are just making a work “too political”. For people that think they are free because they have access to facebook and can buy anything they want. For people that are bored to think, bored to question, bored to live, this work is characterised as “too literal”.
And these opinions once more reinforce my belief that art belongs to the people.
To the real people out there.
To those that describe life with emotions and feelings not just with words. To those that understand because they experience oppression, aggression, unity, togetherness, individuality, control, power, fear and not because they have learnt to be observers of a society well decaying through money.
So, I learned from the beginning of my career that in this field to have some people against you is a sign that you are on the right path. I am glad we are not ticking their boxes because as the group “Gracefool Collective” pointed out on the same night, ticking boxes can be dangerous!
Art is not to get criticised (and undermined) by the opinion of the few.
Art is not to be ticking boxes. Not to aim for good reviews. Art is there to open debates. To be painful and uneasy sometimes. To make people cry, think, get angry, happy. It’s not just to entertain.
So, I think it’s time for art (and not only) to make some noise.
It’s time for art to stop being subject to reviews and fundings.
And to finish with my favorite quote: In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.
(Ernst Fischer)
A(r)CT 