Paul Hermant
COLUMN BY PAUL HERMANT ON OLGA DE SOTO
Dear Olga de Soto, what news of the war? What news of the dance? And what news of memory? And then, what news of the gaze? I ask you because we are beginning to understand what you are committing to in your work (committing, yes, I said ‘committing’, and I meant it deliberately). Indeed, we are starting to understand that it isn’t enough for you to simply observe something or even to create something. But, like Blaise Pascal, you cannot understand the whole if you do not know the parts, and you cannot know the parts if you do not understand the whole…
This Green Table, for example, you wanted to literally place it on the table. As a centerpiece to dissect, as a body to auscultate – almost as if you have committed yourself to uncovering how things become what they are. It is not enough for you to know that this work by Kurt Jooss is widely considered the origin of political dance – or, as you say, socio-political dance. It’s not really this history that seems to matter to you, but all the others: the ones leading to it and those that flow from it.
At the heart of your work lies the word ‘process’ – that is, progression. And that’s so important, because we are seriously lacking in people who focus on pivotal moments. At what precise moment things shift, how a movement, a change, an upheaval, a disaster takes shape, and how that gains momentum…
Just the other day, a friend said to me: “The fall of the Wall, 1989. The Oslo Accords, 1991. The end of apartheid 1991. We thought the old business was settled. Can you explain to me, why, then, the Gulf War in 1990, Yugoslavia in 1992, Rwanda in 1994?” Where indeed were we looking, dear Olga de Soto, that we failed to see? What is the exact moment when the ratchet effect engages? And afterward, how do we try to deal with that – what tools do we have, and what are we lacking?
For instance, this Green Table, created in 1932 as a kind of forewarning – a cautionary attempt to warn us. In it, we see all sorts of ridiculous diplomats flailing about, declaring that yes, war is pretty. This Green Table was not rejected outright at the time by the Nazis, for whom, no doubt, the Expressionism recalled something of the German spirit… But its choreographer, nonetheless, chose to leave the country with his troupe and with those homosexuals and that Jewish musician whom he was asked to remove from his show. His art was not considered as degenerate, but his collaborators – dancers and musicians – were. And that was enough to force their exile.
Because even though a ballet cannot be burned in the public square like books were, there comes a moment when you realise, precisely, that the process is already underway. From this, we also understand that your research and your work are not really about the past, but about the present.
When asked why he had created this ballet, Kurt Jooss answered: “It had to be done, because it had to happen”.
Column of November 10, 2012, Musiq3, RTBF / Belgian National Radio