{"id":556,"date":"2024-12-04T14:05:32","date_gmt":"2024-12-04T14:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/30\/?p=556"},"modified":"2024-12-06T14:14:32","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T14:14:32","slug":"almada-festival-2024-a-community-festival-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/30\/almada-festival-2024-a-community-festival-and-beyond\/","title":{"rendered":"Almada Festival 2024: A Community Festival and Beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Savas Patsalidis<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almada Festival, 4 July\u201318 July 2024, Portugal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its 2024 edition, the Almada Festival featured nineteen theatrical productions across seven venues. As in previous years, the presence of Portuguese works was particularly strong, with notable productions such as Terminal<\/em> and Fonte da raiva<\/em>. Similarly, there was a significant representation of music-dance theatre, exemplified by productions like Full Moon<\/em> by Josef Nadj and Black Lights<\/em> by Mathilde Monnier. Peter Stein once again participated in the festival, this year presenting three Chekhovian one-act plays under the title Nervous Breakdown<\/em> (performed by the Milan-based Tieffe Theatre Milan and the Teatro Biondo from Palermo).<\/p>\n\n\n

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Mathilde Monnier\u2019s Black Lights<\/em>. Ecola D. Antonio da Costa. Photo: Marc Coudrais, courtesy of Almada Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
The Performances<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The first performance I attended was Olivier Py\u2019s renowned drag act, Et maintenant, Miss Knife est en couple<\/em>\u2026, a show he has staged for twenty-five years which some might see as his alter ego. Accompanied by pianist Antonis Sykopoulos\/Maestro S, Py\/Miss Knife performed songs from the French musical tradition, primarily from cabaret.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Olivier Py as Miss Knife in Et maintenant, Miss Knife est en couple<\/em> . . . Ecola D. Antonio da Costa. Photo: Julien Benhamou, courtesy of Almada Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Although the performance was well-executed, it could have been more dynamic and varied in tone, if the narrative interludes between the songs had been more substantial and impactful. Such an approach would have enhanced the theatricality of the overall spectacle, offering another channel of communication with the audience via intimacy, which was the main goal of the performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable performance\u2014humorous, at times melancholic, glittering and deliberately excessive in costumes and makeup. The audience, which filled the open-air theatre Ecola D. Ant\u00f3nio da Costa to capacity, duly applauded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samuel Achache, Sans tambour<\/em><\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

There are many good performances, but few display the added quality of intelligence that elevates them above mere competence. By intelligence, I mean an unpredictable yet functional use of theatrical dynamics that pleasantly surprises by vastly exceeding the audience’s expectations and imagination, often compelling them to rise from their seats.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The stage set of Sans tambour<\/em> in a state of complete disarray. Teatro Municipal Joaquim Benite. Photo: Jean Louis Fernandez, courtesy of Almada Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Sans tambour<\/em>, the musical performance of Th\u00e9\u00e2tre des Bouffes du Nord (France), staged at the Municipal Theatre’s main stage, was precisely that: an intelligent production, an anthology of cleverly managed reversals and surprises, woven together with imagination, mastery, knowledge and attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The play revolved around a couple, skillfully portrayed by Lionel Dray and Sarah Le Picard, whose relationship was on the brink of collapse. Robert Schumann’s Lieder<\/em> served as a focal point of both reference and conflict, and it was performed intermittently by five musicians and soprano Agathe Peyrat, alongside the group’s director, Florent Hubert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the heart of this deconstructive storm were the t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eates of the couple, who seemed incapable of finding peace. They quarrel and destroy everything: walls, partitions, shelves, pipes and wires collapse like paper towers; dishes and chairs are flung about; pure chaos results. For this aspect of the production, Lisa Navarro\u2019s scenic design was ingenious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As if the destruction of the stage space were not enough, other disintegrative subsidiary fragments from different stories, narratives and works are often woven into the main narrative. One such segment is from Tristan and Isolde<\/em>, the medieval poetic legend that inspired Richard Wagner to compose his eponymous lyrical three-act drama, fragments of which appear as commentary on love, tested in the couple’s relationship and further complicating an already convoluted, non-linear drama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Director Achache, who has been exploring the performative limits of his materials for approximately a decade, constantly seeking new modes of communication, has created multiple spaces of action in this work, where the dialogue between musicians, the soprano and the couple dominates. The musicians function as extensions of the couple’s emotions, serving as their shadow. As for the cherry on this cake of confusion, a third character enters the story: Spinel, skillfully portrayed by L\u00e9o-Antonin Lutinier, is a volunteer in a clinical experiment, who undergoes surgery to rid himself of the last traces of love, adding yet another layer of humor and parody.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The musicians of Sans tambour<\/em> react with their musical instruments or their voices (the soprano) to the couple\u2019s actions, conflicts, thoughts and deeds. Teatro Municipal Joaquim Benite. Photo: Jean Louis Fernandez, courtesy of Almada Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Postmodernism can easily devolve into chaos under the guise of generic inclusivity, but this was not the case in this production. Achache masterfully directed a hybrid spectacle with a perpetually shifting center, composed of codes derived from the New Circus, silent film, melodrama, opera, dramatic theatre, slapstick comedy and the tradition of the absurd, all in the service of a multifaceted, eccentric, yet oddly familiar world. All in all, Sans tambour<\/em> was a performance of pure enjoyment, where imagination runs wild without being sloppy or cheap.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Final act in Sans tambour<\/em>. Teatro Municipal Joaquim Benite. Photo: Jean Louis Fernandez, courtesy of Almada Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Lucinda Childs\/Robert Wilson: Relative Calm<\/em><\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The revival of a work that once belonged to the avant-garde presents a considerable challenge to the artists involved. In order to be properly appreciated, the work must at least convey to the audience why it was once special; otherwise, it can be judged unfairly. There are many such cases; for example, consider how difficult it is to revive Alfred Jarry\u2019s King Ubu<\/em>, which for many is the starting point of modern avant-garde theatre. When its once-shocking disruptions no longer resonate, the work loses its impact entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These observations are prompted by the performance of Relative Calm<\/em>, a creation by Lucinda Childs that premiered on November 16, 1981, at the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre National de Strasbourg, and a few months later at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, with designs by Robert Wilson and music by Jon Gibson. The original production consisted of four parts. In the more recent 2022 version, only the first part of the original was kept, Gibson\u2019s Rise<\/em>, paired with John Adams\u2019s Light Over Water<\/em> (1985) and Igor Stravinsky\u2019s Pulcinella <\/em>(1922), which served as the centerpiece (hence the name \u201ctriptych version\u201d). As Wilson himself commented on choreographing Stravinsky\u2019s work: \u201cI really liked the idea of Stravinsky as a central counterpoint to two musical compositions by contemporary authors. . . . So we structured the work in three parts to compose a complete show of dance, music, lights and images\u201d (qtd. in Giuliano Picchi). This version featured dancers from the MP3 Dance Project, directed by Michele Pogliani.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The collaboration between Childs and Wilson dates back to the mid-1970s, when Wilson was preparing Einstein on the Beach<\/em>, a landmark in contemporary theatre history. Five years later, Childs commissioned Wilson to handle the stage and lighting design for her new work, Relative Calm<\/em>. Later, in the midst of the pandemic, she invited him to collaborate once again, aiming for a revised version of Relative Calm<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Relative Calm<\/em>, first act. CCB Grande Auditorio. Photo: Lucie Jansch, courtesy of Almada Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The main challenge in this renewed collaboration was to determine how these two artists could successfully coalesce, as each had developed a highly personal poetic language over the course of the intervening decades. On the one hand, we have Childs\u2019s well-known minimalism, her love of repetitive patterns, her focus on the precise movement of bodies; on the other hand, we see Wilson’s iconoclastic, geometrically structured and immersive universe, with projections of shapes, straight and diagonal lines, circles and soundscapes. The performance showcased several instances of successful convergence between these two performative languages, creating images that unfolded in a wave-like manner, repeating the same motifs as if trying to solve a difficult crossword puzzle with well-considered movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Particularly in the first part, with dancers arranged in a continuous diagonal formation and movement, initially in pairs and then individually, passing the baton from one to the next, we witnessed a stage event in a constant state of reconfiguration, a choreographic challenge demanding clarity of mind and absence of sentimentality. In such instances, the whole resembled exactly what Wilson himself describes: a clock that measures time. Where the alignment of perspectives deviated from such clockwork precision and balance, there was a relative disharmony in the prominence of the two performative languages. Childs\u2019s austerity and simplicity receded, thereby opening more space to Wilson’s idiom, particularly in the third part, Reach<\/em>.  At this point, Wilson\u2019s visual environment was more dominant, as he used lighting to divide the background and floor into triangles of darkness and yellow light, aiming, as he stated, to create the sensation of a mask behind which sound emerges, akin to ancient Greek theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Relative Calm<\/em>, third act. CCB Grande Auditorio. Photo: Lucie Jansch, courtesy of Almada Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

As a lay spectator rather than specialist in dance, I admired many elements of this revised version of Relative Calm<\/em>, particularly the disciplined movement of the bodies, yet I did not feel that I was witnessing something truly distinctive, let alone avant-garde. I do not doubt that this piece was avant-garde in 1981 when it made its world premiere. However, much has changed in dance since then, both aesthetically and physically. Above all, the audience is not easily surprised anymore, as they are familiar with and accustomed to the once distinctive language employed by these two eminent creators; hence, I observed a competent performance that subtly revealed its age. Indeed, it is remarkable how rapidly avant-garde art can become familiar and, for some, even unremarkable, as sociocultural shifts occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional Remarks and Observations<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

A recurring and unresolved issue I have observed of late concerns lack of translation. For instance, I attended the performance of Alexander Zeldin\u2019s dark and humorous play Beyond Caring<\/em>, directed with care and due attention by Rodrigo Francisco and presented solely in Portuguese. Without prior knowledge of the play\u2019s plot, it would have been impossible for a viewer to follow the story line, given the heavy reliance on dialogue. For me, the lack of translation undermined the proper reception and evaluation of the entire production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In general, the absence of translations in English, a key lingua franca of our time, detracts from the potential impact of an otherwise warm, welcoming, well-informed and engaging international festival. I hope that in future editions, the organizers will address this concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bibliography<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Picchi, Giuliano. \u201cLucinda Childs and Robert Wilson: Relative Calm<\/em><\/a>.\u201d Scenography Today<\/em>, 22 June 2022. Accessed 23 Sept. 2024. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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*<\/a>Savas Patsalidis<\/strong> is Professor Emeritus in Theatre Studies at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He is the author of fourteen books on theatre and performance criticism\/theory and co-editor of another thirteen. His two-volume study, Theatre, Society, Nation<\/em> (2010), was awarded first prize for best theatre study of the year. In 2022 his latest book-length study Comedy\u2019s Encomium: The Seriousness of Laughter<\/em>, was published by University Studio Press. He is on the Executive Committee of the Hellenic Association of Theatre and Performing Arts Critics and the editor-in-chief of Critical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em>, the journal of the International Association of Theatre Critics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9<\/strong> 2024 Savas Patsalidis
Critical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em>, #30, Dec. 2024
e-ISSN: 2409-7411<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Creative<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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