Pandemic and future
Working during the pandemic:
A work with young people in Düsseldorf, whom I and my colleague Kamila Kurczewski have never met in an analogue way.
Do you have to be productive and guarantee choreographic group work to save the situation? No, I didn't feel like it. I concentrated more on individual rehearsals or conversations; first of all, to create a space in which everyone could express what was bothering him or her, what the challenges were that we were dealing with, both privately and artistically.
On this basis, we could decide individually and discuss together which questions we wanted to pursue. Each of us could individually prepare short videos to generate performative material. Over time, I saw that each of us, whether consciously or unconsciously, was confronted with his or her own privacy: What do I allow to appear on the screen of my private space? How do I deal with making myself public?
Although there was an attempt by some to avoid privacy, much was inscribed invisibly in the material. An uncontrollable energy or aura. The private and the public have intersected in an invisible way and formed an interesting amalgam. Without the influence of the private environment, this quality would not have been possible. A material very open in its intimacy and fragility emerged without having shared it with the others, without having created in a real space for it. The paradox of digital and proximity?
In these times when real closeness has been missed and romanticised, digital space has made its place. With the young people, we have definitely enabled a new access to ourselves and an opening to others - out of the question: What do you send from your private space, or how do you address the outside? Were we allowed to do that? To be continued!
The future?
I don't have a crystal ball to look into to predict the future. No idea!
I hope we won't see money cuts in culture. I don't hope that cuts will cause a lack of diversity of aesthetics and formats in culture, and a lack of solidarity - that competition will gain influence within the cultural scene. I hope that we will say: "We have learned something from history, we look differently at the conditions of our market and also take them on structurally." I don't hope that the next motto will be "Take ... what you can", because the topic is not particularly exciting and not exactly newsworthy!
Josep Caballero García
