Meg Stuart's 'Sketches/Notebook' frees us from dogged individualism (HF16)

From scene 1, 'Sketches/Notebook' by Meg Stuart and her group Damaged Goods engulfs the audience in a plethora of experiences. Bending over and making quick spins. Swinging a lamp and putting some fellow performers in a circle of light. Making figures with your hands. Laying stones on the floor and walking intently around them. Choosing from richly stocked clothes racks to make a colourful, bizarre creation of yourself. Put up a wall around yourself and then watch what the other does with it: imitate, move, break down, dissolve in space. Playing with beams of light and rope. Running around. Jumping in place. Rattling wildly on and drum kit. Lingering musical motifs.

 

From choreographer Meg Stuart has shown work at the Holland Festival before: 'Alibi' (2002) and 'Forgeries, Love and Other Matters' (2004). This year, 'Sketches/Notebook' surprises, being more playful and lighter than her previous work.

From her artistic roots in 1970s New York, Stuart has inherited, among other things, that she sees dance as something collective. A choreography is something that is created collectively and radiates collectivity. She therefore gives all disciplines - illuminators, musicians and costumiers - a role in the performance. In our age of dogged individualism, 'Sketches/Notebook' is liberating and inspiring.

One by one, the players are performers you want to watch for a long time. You can tell from everything that they are themselves in their playing. However quirky, what they do is not emphatic or demonstrative. The performance is based on improvisations and although much of it is recorded, the casual atmosphere gives the feeling that everything is created on the spot. The performers live out their fantasies, but do not lock themselves in their own brains with it. Every time, the audience is involved in the performance, in a fun, non-intrusive way. Consequently, there is a lot of reaction, especially when one of the performers tells a story that starts at his fingers and eventually encompasses the universe.

The fact that the audience goes along so easily is because the play is so infectious. The show is full of simple, instantly appealing inventions. For instance, suddenly masses of marbles roll across the floor. The group freezes, slowly getting over its surprise. Even as a spectator, I immediately join in the fascination with something as simple as marbles. Then you watch with fascination what the performers ánd the spectators in the front row do with them.

Another example of something so infectious - to me the thought immediately comes to mind: I want to try this too. Two performers face each other and move their arms stretched forward in exactly the same way up and down, faster and faster. They are not touching each other, but this is contact, funny, focused, exciting and clever.

Thus, it teems with raids. Remarkably, not for a moment does the question occur to me what it all means, even in bizarre moments. It just is what it is.

'Sketches/Notebook' may be lighter than Meg Stuart's earlier work, but amid the playfulness there is still room for seriousness. Meg Stuart herself shines in a dance solo of great poignancy. Meanwhile, the other performers hit the floor and crouch together to form a tightly closed circle. And then - surprisingly and amusingly - Stuart dives into this flower of flesh to disappear completely into it. Stuart calls the performance a series of sketches and therefore fragmentary. That doesn't take away from the fact that there are beautifully crafted developments in it. What happens to that flower of flesh is a fine, compelling example of that.

After the performance, I was home late, too late to start writing this play immediately. I had to leave it overnight. Then I found myself with a problem. The performance had continued unabated in my dream. Space appeared to be limitless. So how could I be sure that all the images and scenes I have touched on here really occur in the performance? In case anything has crept in that did not take place at De Brakke Grond, I hereby apologise. But it's not really a big deal, because even though it comes from my dream, it is ultimately a creation of Meg Stuart and Damaged Goods. And that creation makes me feel good.