Dancer and choreographer Truus Bronkhorst initiated a collaboration between Antwerp-based Kunst/Werk and Tilburg-based T.R.A.S.H. The double programme and duet combines choreographies by Marc Vanrunxt and Kristel van Issum. Ende der Zukunft has become a wondrous staging of gaping gaps: of time of life, of artistic experience, but above all of artistic conception.
Intergenerationality (oui, c'est un mot) concerns relationships that skip generations. There are a few between Jens Van Noten and Truus Bronkhorst. She is in her sixties, he is twenty-one and has yet to graduate. Vanrunxt has created an extremely linear choreography for them, rarely dancing simultaneously, let alone really together. The old dancer and the young dancer constantly take each other's place, echoing and mirroring each other's gestures and position. The straightforwardness typical of Vanrunxt, his highly principled minimalism, suit Bronkhorst perfectly, but the duet with Jens Van Noten seems to succumb to it. The accumulation of gestures in time, revealing desire and loss, mute difference and telling distance, are right up Bronkhorst's alley for the phenomenal performer. Jens Van Noten, on the other hand, at least at the premiere, cannot add the depth to his performance to give the steadily expanding sequence a certain necessity. Initially, in terms of life or theatre experience, the distance between the two is confrontational and moving, an entirely justified curse. But in time, it flattens the duet, losing dynamism and subtlety in the all-too-fixed contrast.
As consistent and radical as Vanrunxt's work is, Kristel van Issum's is campy and cliché. Where Vanrunxt questions the consequences of a love affair between partners who are more than 40 years apart, Van Issum evokes the degeneration of an already consummated sexual bond, which apparently cannot be anything other than idiotic. Accompanied by smartlaps and soap opera excerpts, the two perform a somewhat kinky duet, overwrought and over the top, preying on what lust and anguish bring about. It is quite unapologetic and funny, and both Van Noten and Bronkhorst visibly enjoy the transition from serenity to exhibitionism and clownery. But again, the difference in experience avenges itself. Sense of timing and theatre time make Truus Bronkhorst not only a great dancer and performer, but also a real clown. As a choreographer, Van Issum has unfortunately not found a way to make the difference in experience between the two performers meaningful.
And then the third gap also forces itself upon us: the difference in artistic opinion. Whereas Vanrunxt questions social mores and subtly exposes an apparently inevitable embarrassment between generations, Van Issum throws a spanner in the works and washes the baby out with the bathwater. That an older woman is dating a young boy can apparently only end in a frustrated and degenerate feast.
The performance, as a composition or contrast, raises questions. What is the artistic motive for this collaboration? Is Ende der Zukunft born out of necessity, the collaboration as a means of generating attention together? Or is the collaboration a gesture of solidarity between artists who, however different, are fighting the world together? Is it perhaps a resistance to the ubiquitous, restrictive conditions of art policy, which mean that everything has to be justified in advance and must be liked in advance, leaving no future for free-spirited artists, whether young, old, radical or campy?
Long after seeing the performance, the pink cross that dominated the black floor of the show as catwalk and Catholic circus floor continues to emit afterimages. The crisp simplicity or blunt directness of the proposal, the open-mindedness with which middle-of-the-road dance theatre and radical art share the stage together, the experienced performer entering into the gig with a rookie without any pardon - it's painful, it has predictable consequences, but the tenacity that emanates from it is significant. Ende der Zukunft is certainly not excuse-Truus theatre, but suggests a certain rawness in the face of general expectations and a world of projections. It is about what can and cannot be done in theatre, in art, in the world, private ende public. That graces and challenges, and remains difficult.
For performance dates and more information, see website Truus Bronkhorst. See also the websites of Marc Vanrunxt and Kristel van Issum.
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