PARCOURS II - Open Academy: Sandra Noeth on „Choreography and social responsability"

Sandra Noeth is Dramaturg of Tanzquartier Vienna How the body can act out. Sandra Noeth talks about the essay "Über das Zaudern",Joseph Vogl, and about William Forsythe choregraphic objects: "Unwort". People who hesitate before they answer a question, who don’t find their words quickly, who sometimes don’t know what to choose; we put them away as spineless and lacking determination. We appreciate those who respond and decide quickly, always have ready answers, who know what they want. In the essay Über das Zaudern, the German philosopher Joseph Vogl re-assesses the space between action and inaction: the space of hesitation. This reevaluation of hesitation as a positive act is of great importance, not only within the domain of philosophy but also in the arts, politics and business. Vogl’s argument deserves our attention because it proposes an alternative strategy in which the pause, the reexamination and the act of questioning are given a central position. "Unwort" William Forsythe choregraphic objects: At first glance, the work presents itself as a performance based on language, an itinerary in which the spectator-visitor comes across three dancers who play with words, in the stripped-down space of the Église des Célestins. William Forsythe connects this poetic gesture to his preferred domain: choreography. Unwort (which could be translated in English as "unword") belongs in fact to the series of "choreographic objects" that he has been creating for over 10 years. The artist likes to apply to choreography that phrase that Magritte published in 1927 in Les Mots et les Images (Words and Images): "An object really clings to its name because another one that suits it better cannot be found for it." And he adds: "Today, I make works without dance and without dancers that are nevertheless choreography. The choreographic ought to be under permanent investigation, as a natural product of it's practices." For the artist, this idea covers an enormous field that is complicated to define, that finds its privileged expression in dance, but is not limited to it. If you ask William Forsythe what the principle at work in his new creation Unwort is, he mischievously answers: "Mental agility". This shows in the skilfulness of the interpreters in creating neologisms, "imaginary words" that are linked to each other metonymically. Unwort unfolds like silent music, which eludes the traditional categories of language. Before this verbal juggling, the spectator gets caught up in the game, trying to anticipate the lexical interventions, colouring them with an imaginary and unstable meaning. A poetic space opens below words (Unwort). Meaning thus constantly slips away and shows through in an underground manner, in a permanent and intoxicating instability.