Compagnie Maguy Marin in Maguy Marin’s Umwelt. Photo by Ganet.
When the iconoclastic French choreographer Maguy Marin premiered her Umwelt in 2004 at the Toboggan, on the outskirts of Lyon, the audience reportedly stormed the stage—in protest, it would seem. A subsequent showing in Paris elicited a duel of boos and bravos from the people who hadn’t already walked out. These facts alone would have lured dance aficionados to New York’s Joyce Theater, where it played June 17-22, but the piece is more than a bid for notoriety.
Umwelt (which I’d translate as All Around the World) consists of 60 unbroken minutes of now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t activity, with the addition of now-you-see-double. A smoky row of wide, squat slats stretches horizontally across the stage, just enough room between them to reveal a single body framed in a couple of inches of air space. The dancers travel longitudinally behind this slatted row, backed by a mirrored row of similar panels, which reflects the side of the moving figures that is turned away from us. When the nine performers (some trained dancers, some not) pass through the narrow openings between the second row of slats, they vanish into an upstage Nowhere. Repetition being one of Marin’s chief tools here, they will be back. Often.
Wind machines blowing full-blast from the wings make hair, fabric, and the leafy branches of a tree one man carries (yard work? Birnam forest come to Dunsinane?) alive with motion. And the slats themselves quiver violently from time to time, adding yet more animation to the scene.
Accumulating detritus on the floor (a fetish of our old friend Pina Bausch) enhances the reality of the action, which consists of tiny, volatile slices of life—movement bytes, you might say, from our ordinary doings. Commentators claim that Marin, inspired by Samuel Beckett, considers the actions banal and underlines that quality by reiterating them obsessively. I suspect she has a trick card up her sleeve. They certainly don’t look banal to me; I think they take on an epic radiance. I’d guess that Marin is observing the everyday world and saying “Wow! Just look at that!” Evidence: The costumes are striking—not just the polyesterish evening gowns whirling like cyclones of color and the subtly patterned Japanese kimonos in brilliant hues that almost obliterate the body, but even the commonplace work clothes. Surely Marin is asking us to join her in seeing the most pedestrian sights and motions, even ugliness of intent, as something worthy of wonder.
But what, specifically, do Umwelt’s performers do in their brief visible moments? you may ask. That is a good question, and here is your answer:
Eat. Lots. Messily.
Shoulder bulging black plastic trash bags. Haul huge animal carcasses—split open to reveal their innards—draped down their backs. Men wrap nude women across their chests or drag them by one limb, inert and supine, though clothed.
Spice the proceedings with a little male nudity, several guys baring their buttocks, one his penis. (Blink and you’ll miss this last; Marin can be oddly discreet.) Apply an extra layer of clothes against the unremitting wind.
Beam search-lights out to harass the viewers’ eyes. (How quickly the grander effect of blinding the public in Merce Cunningham’s Winterbranch is forgotten!)
Revel in millinery: cheap plastic rain bonnets and military-issue helmets. Most often and touchingly, they don crowns of shiny gold cardboard, as if participating in a children’s birthday party. Of course Everyman (and Everywoman) has a tendency—touching and perhaps fatal—to think of him/herself as a regent.
Hold a baby (represented, mercifully, by a doll) aloft and shake it just a little, watching to see its airborne, bird’s-eye-view glee. Later, drag the infant along the floor. Finally, kick it out of the way like a piece of junk crowding one’s path.
Embrace passionately. Shake a punitive finger and yell at an invisible enemy or blow a shrill police whistle. Enjoy hand-to-hand combat.
Scrub the floor. Apply shaving cream. Point a revolver. Snap tourist photos of the folks watching.
There is no narrative, no shift in tone, no climax. Stuff just happens. It is compelling because of its isolation.
Occasionally a single dancer stands between two front-row slats and just stares out at the public, long and hard. Toward the end, they do this in small groups. Finally all nine performers are out there, confronting the audience straight on and stock-still. Needless to say, their faces are carefully expressionless. This ploy is absolutely ancient, but here it does help you focus on the repeated enigmas and dream up stories to contain them.
The sound score of Umwelt, enhanced by some computer action, is made by a stage-wide string pulled across three supine electric guitars. I’ve heard a comparable ceaseless roar standing behind a huge waterfall.
