The late 60s had the Theater artist to be ready at all times to: Feels the audience provoked, he might storm the stage. Claus Peymann had gladly served this together with Peter Handke and still pushed by hand at the legendary “Offending the Audience” the audience of his stage. In a subsequent “staging” of a piece entitled “The There’s only one”, he denied equal all the drama, leaving viewers simply a stage full of requisits- and they, betrayed in viewing a real performance, entered the stage and destroyed all props around. Also Marina Abramović documented once the violence of the audience and the vulnerability of the performer, as in 1974 with “Rhythm 0″ their viewers weapons ranges and delivers the flickering aggression. At the end she was half-naked, bloodied wounded, threatened with a gun.
Today, however: docile forbearance in the audience, regardless of whether excess or monotony dominates the stage. There probably needs only another artist come without penchant for collegial solidarity, but with large private ego and ideological principles so that a piece is unplanned becoming an interactive Happening. This is what happened now at the third edition of the Cologne “Katalyst festivals” that actually wants to inspire artists to peaceful crossover with a mixed program of dance, performance, clubbing and workshops. But instead of collaboration – open conflict.
On stage: A white sofa in the “crack” (and the word we may in this context quiet ambiguous understand) buckets of honey, or hopefully artificial honey, is tilted. Then wallow two naked Graces, one blond, the other brunette. Their skin drips already from the sweet mass, when a naked, thin man joined with a golden crown on his head to them. Gertjan Franciscus, choreographer with a penchant for prophetic figures and this evening: “The Honey Queen” – which obviously is but a Honey-King, however, the court can be unabashedly of his two “Honey Bees” in gold bath. The three of them slipping on the cramped space of the sofa for a while in the goo around, devouring the limbs.
But sensuality is turning into senslessness at the latest when the unboxed Honey King raises to speak. A thin voice of Franciscus whispers in English a nonsense series of words: “Hello, Guckguck, epileptic attack, Click Clock, Electric Shock” he says, and that’s almost been a highlight in the People’s speech, because here the king gets a little jitter accumulation. So Franciscus makes a bit the “Klaus Kinski” in a vulgar erotic setting that could have come from the Belgian state Mash expert Jan Fabre. He plays a megalomaniac-hazardous regent, the one divine epiphany believes close. This is moderately funny satire, on the institution ‘theater’ itself, which sees itself as a place for like revelations.
But then: appearance of colleague and improvisation teacher Katie Duck. She had earlier in the evening, together with eleven performers presented the naturally-baked result of their improvisation workshops “Dance and Music”: While the dancer’s body tumble and Krauch, also the instruments are maltreated and processed electric guitar as the instrument of handyman – from spatula until the monster screw everything scratches as a tool over the strings. Normal stage madness.
Whereas for her colleagues, Katie Duck wanted not to recognize the irony of the product but suspected the chauvinism of their production, thus: ‘male choreographer committed two nude model and staged himself as king.’ After verbal disturbances Katie Duck enters the stage and challenged Franciscus to fight for his crown. Not just playful, but aggressive and physically encroaching, so that the little power struggle, unfortunately, ends in the embarrassing debacle for both. The artist-life – no picnic.
And the work of art itself? The effect, to coat the body with honey and leave them as looking like Amber sculptures, may be great – beyond this Gertjan Franciscus offers only tough banality. The long-drawn-Flushed act on the couch followed by a much longer drawn techno dance scene, which reveals in particular that the performers are more danceprofessionals than nude models. Finally, the King shall, in the red-faced contractions, lay a golden egg. From Bee to ‘Chicken? ‘Gaga, gagack’ – one might account for itself in the language of the royal lyric effusions.
