[review part 2: economics] Jochen Roller, "No Money, No Love", July 7th, 2005 - Melkweg Theater, Julidans Festival, Amsterdam (NL)
Maria Technosux
[review part 2: economics] Jochen Roller, "No Money, No Love", July
7th, 2005 - Melkweg Theater, Julidans Festival, Amsterdam (NL)
NOTA BENE: At Julidans, Jochen Roller only performed "No Money, No
Love", the first part of the trilogy "Perform Performing". I have not
seen the other 2 parts, I've only read about them.
[This review consists of 2 parts. This here is "review part 2:
economics". I am still working on the first part, which is more about
the performance itself, but I thought I could already post this part.]
As for the economic theme of the work, my first reaction was a very
cynical one: "If the German government can discontinue something
prestigious like Frankfurt Ballett, what makes you think they'd toss
you some grub?"
My main problem with the economic theme has more to do with the
reception of it in the German media than with Jochen Roller himself. I
am very much bother by reviewers who use hyperbolic terms, such as:
"politischer Provokateur und gesellschaftlicher Idealist"
http://www.welt.de/data/2005/05/07/715094.html
"Anarchofatalist"
http://www.zeit.de/2004/08/Tanzplattform
I find it rather disappointingly amusing that simply discussing one's
economic needs onstage would automatically brand the artist
"political". This only shows how easily much politics and economics
have become conflated under capitalism. These hyperboles very much
remind me of all the Artforum dumbasses who use terms such as
"practice of resistance", "enormously risky", "critical practice" to
characterize Andrea Fraser's cynical self-promotion, slapping these
terms onto anything and everything they just happen to like in an
attempt to legitimize it.
All belletristic hyperboles aside, Jochen Roller's performance is
certainly NOT political, not even activist. In fact, the utter
political anomie of the work is explicitly stark. There is absolutely
nothing political about "I am doing this for love", as if "love of the
arts" were self-evident rather than a matter of social prestige.
According to one newspaper- review, after the work was first performed
in 2002, Jochen Roller was able to find two private "patrons" to
finance part 2 and 3. In a way, this work has provided a temporary
solution to his problems, along the lines of "If you complain and nag
loud enough, someone will hear you and toss you some money". Despite
the two patrons, the work itself is hardly an attempt at effectively
addressing the problems that prompted it.
First of all, the work is personality-centered on Jochen Roller alone.
According to some of the reviewers I found online, the 2002 early
incarnations were a collaborative effort whereby Jochen Roller was
assisted by a female dancer; she danced while he spoke, fake-limping on
clutches which he threw aside for the final dance-scene[1]. The work
later mutated into a solo, but even that early collaborative version
was centered on him alone and not on his female collaborator (don't
women dancers have economic needs?).
Other people, other acting agents such as co-workers, customers,
managers, are totally made flat and occasional, as if they are merely
props in the background, as empty and disposable as the grocery-bags.
Surprisingly, the work contains to Tem Slave-esque "Rants against my
former Supervisor" or attempts to caricature such manager-types. The
"employer" H&M is presented as a transcendental entity that provides
one with a job and income; likewise the call-center or any of the other
employer providing him the scutjobs he needs to finance his art. The
human face acting out the policies of the corporation is totally
absent.
Equally abstract, monolithic and in more than a way "absent" is the
Arts Council ("Senat Berlin") that once provided Roller with a state
grant. In one of the newspaper articles, I read about the Council
actually having given him a grant which it later retracted "due to
shortages". According to this article, Jochen Roller was forced to pay
back the sum he had received, and working scut jobs was part of his
attempt at paying back the sum:
"Ursprünglich wurde Jochen Roller vom Senat Berlin gefördert, doch
der forderte aus Geldnöten den Betrag noch während der Probenphase
zurück. Jochen Roller machte aus der Not eine Tugend und genau dies
zum Thema seiner Performance "No Money, No Love". Die diversen Jobs,
die er annahm, um das Geld zurück zu zahlen und das Stück zu
finanzieren, lieferten das Material für die Performance und dienten
gleichzeitig als Probengelegenheit."
http://www.tanz.at/KRITIK_2004/texte/KRIT_04_11.html
None of this, which sheds a *whole* different light on the economic
necessity behind this work, was made evident during the performance. To
be honest, I really don't think that Dutch artists would have accepted
this kind of unprofessional behaviour from the Dutch Arts Coucil, i.e.
a council first giving an artist the grant, and later saying: "Woops,
we made a mistake, we have shortages, now give us back the money we
gave you!". I really think that Dutch artists would have immediately
and mercilessly sued the Arts Council. Such blatant (not to mention
opportunistic) unprofessionalism should not be accepted, and once-given
money is GIVEN, period. I really wonder why Jochen Roller didn't (are
German artists more docile/accepting of unprofessionalism? Sad.)
The objectification of others in this manner occurs throughout the
work. [cautionary: please remember that I haven't seen part 3 of the
triptych, only part 1; the interviews with the other Jochen Rollers
might have done something to redeem this.]
This work is not about politics or political actors, but about economic
survival and art as an escape from economics, particularly about how
that survival enables that escapism. The sense of indignation basically
boils down to: "Why am I not allowed to escape for a living?". Once
again, this is NOT politics people.
As long as artists condemn solidarity as "old fashioned" or
"impractical", and dismiss the insistence on state-funded art as
"giving into paternalism", "infantilism" (or whatever anti-welfare
insult they want to pull out of the hat this week), things will get
worse and worse, and art will become a less and less accessible
escapist sanctuary from capitalist violence.
As for my personal analysis of the unpronounced motives behind this
work, it'd go something like this:
In free market obsessed capitalist economies, there are primary and
secondary jobs; the former are well-paid, include benefits, often
prestigious and relatively stable, the latter are scut work for temp
slaves.
Under the welfare state with its structural/long-term grants,
state-sponsored art-jobs are classified as primary jobs. With the
destruction of the welfare state comes the destruction of
structurally/long-term subsidized art. A free market obsessed
capitalist economy doesn't give a rat's ass about such immaterial
values that were important and meaningful to welfare states, such as
"national prestige" or even a "varied workforce" (i.e. allowing people
to pursue jobs they want to and have studied for, instead of forcing
them into jobs that they have to do for plain dumb economic survival.
Labouring in a free market obsessed capitalist economy, artists can
never be sure of their next grant (whatever grants are left all become
project-based), and are thus forced to exist in a twilight-state
between primary and secondary jobs, peddling back and forth between the
two, using the latter to finance the former: a Pay To Play model,
whereby the secondary job is used to buy the artist access to the
"prestigious" (if no longer the security of the) primary job.
Hence why Being Christina Aguilera *costs* the artist himself 60 euro a
minute. Because the job of "artist" (or in this case, "dancer") is what
Jochen Roller considers to be his real job, a job worth PAYING for
rather than GETTING PAID for, this being a socio-emotional designation
based on socio-psychological issues not just of "interest" (elusive) or
"love of the arts" (extremely fucking elusive), but also of "societal
self-worth" and "prestige".
IMO, contrary to what Roller himself claims (in the latter two parts of
the show, which I haven't seen but have read about), it is not so much
his "love of the arts" that would inspire him to do this work, but
rather his frustration over being forced to peddle to and fro between
his "real job" and the scut work that he needs to do to *buy himself
access to* the real job. The uncertainty over his artistic status (how
can I be an artist if I pay to play instead of getting paid to play?),
and being forced to reassert himself over and over as someone who
"really" is an artist, is what IMO would eventually lead one to the
desperate but understandable resort of having to use the dance
performance itself as a way and a forum for that assertion.
The physical investment of the creator himself in the work, the
bringing of his body into the spotlight not just as a dancer but as
someone with economic needs, is really an effort to thwart the
capitalist violence to efface both the dancer and his economic needs
that are used against his artist needs.
There are asshole economists like Erasmus Rotterdam University
economist (and *alleged* part-time "artist") Hans Abbing, author of the
book "Why Are Artists Poor?", who argue that it would be better for
artists like Jochen Roller to give up on art altogether and to
concentrate fully on their scut work in order to allegedly maximize
their incomes from the scut work, leading to... maximum consumption!
Hey, we all know that you can make real money real big by only working
scut jobs, right? *rolls eyes* Oh, and working to finance ones
dance-career alone is apparently not "maximum consumption", but
"amateurism", whatever the fucking difference.
For me, Jochen Roller's performance is a big "NO FUCKING WAY!" answer
to asshole economists like Hans Abbing urging artists to commit
artistic suicide and to give up on their desperate attempts to buy back
access.
I am also reminded of the long held (Situationist inspired)
anti-capitalist critique that there is no such thing as "time for
oneself", because work-time extends into leisure-time; one does take
one's job home in many different ways, thus doing all sorts of unpaid
labour for the man. Very true so for Roller, even more so due to him
having to do two jobs, a real one and a survival-one. He can't leave
his dancing home when he's folding clothes at H&M or at a call-center.
Likewise, he can't leave his frustration (over having to work scut jobs
to finance his dancing) off the dance stage or out of studio; "leave
your ego/daytime wage job at the door" simply doesn't work here, and
this frustration eventually does make it onto the stage.
Unfortunately, the future doesn't hold much in the way of improvement
for Jochen Roller. Germany is about to elect a Xian-capitalist
government. The Netherlands has been labouring under such an
ideologically similar government for several years now, and things have
only gotten worse for artists. In the Netherlands, artists aren't just
dealing with the destruction of state funds, but with actual censorship
and urban gentrification/encroachment against and destruction of
artists' independent spaces such as squats. Xian governments in the
20th century have been aggressively hostile towards artists, and it is
unlikely that their anti-art attitudes will change in the 21st century.
I'm certainly not suggesting that Jochen Roller wasn't already
suffering under Schröder's government, but once the Xians take over
Germany, well, he's got another one coming. Berlin will no longer be a
sanctuary for either the Dutch artists (some of whom have actually
expatriated to Germany and other places) or for the German artists
themselves.
In one of the online articles, I read something like: "It's just
waiting for the contract killer in Jochen Roller's dark vision of the
dance world in Perform Performing, perhaps not even until 2045."[2].
Under the upcoming German Xian rulership, this might very well become a
lucrative business.
Tex.
[1] An dieses hinkt nun Jochen Roller und erzählt, auf Krücken
gestützt, von seinen Beobachtungen aus dem Leben eines Tänzers, der
in die Rolle eines H&M-Verkäufers schlüpft. Angela Guerreiro performt
seine Worte.
...
In einer Tanzeinlage kurz vor Schluss zeigt uns Jochen Roller, dass
auch sein Hinken nur eine Rolle war. Seiner Krücken entledigt, wird er
einen kurzen Moment lang zum Tänzer, um, erneut hinkend, den Applaus
in Empfang zu nehmen.
Maria Technosux
Woops, forgot to add:
The artist's website, duh! :-)
http://www.oskarhenn.de/ps-galerie-TWE04-jochen-roller/index.htm
OK, so I haven't seen part 2 of Perform Performing, but I have found
this on the good ole internet.
Thanks to this photo-gallery I now have a very good impression of what
"Art Gigolo" must be like.
Tex.
Maria Technosux
[review part 1: aesthetics] Jochen Roller, "No Money, No Love", July
7th, 2005 - Melkweg Theater, Julidans Festival, Amsterdam (NL)
NOTA BENE: At Julidans, Jochen Roller only performed "No Money, No
Love", the first part of the trilogy "Perform Performing". I have not
seen the other 2 parts, I've only read about them.
Outside the Melkweg venue, at a nearby bar/club, Destiny's Child's hit
"Bills, bills, bills" blasted through the speakers and onto the street
as I walked by. Was that an omen? Maybe something to get me into the
groove for the "No Money, No Love" performance I was about to see.
Jochen Roller's music was a cheesy as this. But what to expect from
someone who does choreographies with titles such as "Being Christina
Aguilera"? (I kid you not!) I suppose that this is the same headfucking
music he's forced to listen to when he's folding clothes for H&M. This
is the kind of music that would make people like me go postal. Better
make the most out of it, right? The most he could make out of it was a
choreography.
[nice little trivia note: At the time of the "Bills, bills, bills" hit,
Destiny's Child were accused of telling black women to rely on men to
pay their bills - yeah right, as if black women might need DC to tell
them this... DC got on MTV and insisted that they were not telling
black women to rely on men to pay their bills, just that they should
any chase after men who are able to do so. Ah yes.]
Jochen Roller isn't the only artist in the dance scene who makes work,
or rather an artists need to seek work outside the art field a primary
topic of concern. Just a few weeks ago at the P.A.R.T.S. choreographic
showcase, there was a choreography (which I did not see, I only read
about it) called "Portrait of the artist as a worker", by an American
P.A.R.T.S. student (Eleanor Bauer) about pretty much the same. For yet
more of this, just go down to your local bohemian sanctuary and you'll
find several artists who've made their (hatred of their) odd jobs into
an excuse for art. Andrea Fraser basically made a whole career out of
nagging about her inability to earn enough money to survive solely on
her art.
Nagging about your crap job also becomes a good excuse for good books:
"The Best of Temp Slave", "Bad Jobs", "The Murdering of my Years"...
I've got them all! If I were to choose the books stalled at the front
of stage for "No Money, No Love", it would've been all of the above
titles (plus The Managed Heart). Certainly not those body-language HRM
brainwashing books of his, lining the front of the stage: "So bewerbe
ich mich richtig", "Körpersprache", you get the message. I'd rather
have an onstage Satanic Book Burning Fair where I'd make a nice hot
fire with all these fucked up HRM books.
I am also very surprised at how everyone in the audience (and the
reviewers too) basically accepts Jochen Roller's stories about "his"
odd jobs at face value. Everyone thinks it's perfectly normal for
artists to have to go through this! Furthermore, everyone accepts that
Jochen Roller has really worked all these jobs - at one point, he lists
them all on a flipchart and it is obvious that this list of jobs is
exaggerated and absurd. But the overall sentiment seems to be that
everything he tells us onstage is based his own experiences. I am not
so sure. I strongly suspect that some of the anecdotes presented are
based on funny stories others might have told him about their jobs,
stories he heard and liked and decided to incorporate into his
performance to make it more entertaining.
I have a very weird emotional response to this work and having analyzed
the source of the impulse, I'm not very happy with it. I'm very much
against using a person, an individual in his own right, as a projection
screen for other people in one's life. Unfortunately, that's the
impulsive response I had to watching him.
You see, Jochen Roller is a cute little piece of German ass. A scruffy,
messy, nasty, perfectionist, lanky German whiteguy with a proper
middleclass accent... who reminds me of two other of-German-origin
lanky whiteguys, both (starving) artists, with proper middleclass
accents, both of whom I love, one of whom I've been intimate with.
Seeing (t)his torso reproduced onstage was a slap in the face. I truly
hate seeing men as multiples, because that's what men do to women. But
in being truly honest, I have to say that my response was that of
righteous indignation at seeing "a body that I know"(!!!) forced to
suffer capitalism. This "a body that I know"-impulse is total nonsense
of course. I don't know Roller or his body... but there you have it.
Yes, I have a, eh, "history" falling hard for lanky German guys, and
his body looks familiar. There are the totally irrational and unfounded
impulses that nonetheless provoke intense involvement and interest on
my part.
Lots of talking on his part, lots of objects, all very kitsch and
fetishistic, but none of them redeeming. Just dumb stuff lying there.
The only redeeming element amongst all this stuff is his own dancing.
Which certainly isn't as light and lithe as I had expected (maybe
something to do with his Laban background?). Some of the movements are
not brought to conclusion. He's clearly well-trained, but precision is
sometimes lacking. It also feels very grounded. For example, when he
stands up from having done something on the floor, there is no upwards
shift, and the thrust that pushes him upwards is barely noticeable; it
feels as if he has been on the ground all the while and continues to do
so.
Take a good look at this picture:
http://www.oskarhenn.de/ps-galerie-TWE04-jochen-roller/pages/TWE04-Rol_OH0138.htm
The sloppily upheld arms (hardly a *port* de bras), the oddly-crossed
legs... there is no airbourne quality here at all.
I would also encourage you to look at the whole series:
http://www.oskarhenn.de/ps-galerie-TWE04-jochen-roller/index.htm
There isn't a single jump here in the dance sequences. Below is the
only instance of a (hardly related to the dancing) jump that I was able
to find in the series:
http://www.oskarhenn.de/ps-galerie-TWE04-jochen-roller/pages/TWE04-Rol_OH0227.htm
"German humor" said a girl afterwards on the stairs behind me. If there
is any such thing as German humor I'm sure I hate it as much as Dutch
humor (sorry, but the Dutch are simply NOT funny). But his humor, I
really like. Yes, I actually like his humor, German or not. The kitsch
Hello Kitty bag, the glaringly white floor, the cheesy Top 40 Music,
the kind of music that would chase "customers" such as yours truly
straight out of the store (not that I'd ever shop at H&M, but still).
His sneaky humor, fantasies of a call-center where the dancers wear a
wireless phone headset and practice dancing while servicing
unsuspecting customers. Aren't these the type of fantasies one needs in
order to survive such brainkilling scut work?
When was the last time that an onstage CBA (Cost-Benefits Analysis) of
the performer's past choreographic endeavors was an integral part of
the performance? Look at this picture:
http://www.jochenroller.de/_microsite/_images/nomoney_1.jpg
Yes, he actually did just that.
Let this be a stab at all the dumb MBA-in-a-nutshell courses that
artists (and students) are forced to sit through so that they might
become proper capitalists *sneer*. Roller would do a CBA, having danced
a segment of the choreography in question. So we actually got to see a
segment out of "Being Christina Aguilera"; what I remember most is him
thrusting his back behind him, as opposed to Aguilera's usual frontal
pelvic thrusts in her musicvideos. Then he'd nod to the music and smile
contently as if to say: "Ah, those were the days!".
But the overall ruling sentiment for me is not "oh, itsn't it all
german-funny, hahaha", but that of a damoclean fear at being forced,
because of economics, to give up [see part 2 of this review for more on
this].
At one point he pulled out a five euro bill. For 3 minutes, he said, an
audience member, whoever felt like it, could to come onstage, claim the
five bucks and dance a little dance while Roller stood there licking
cards into envelopes, assembly-line style. Don't believe me? Check out
this photograph from his website:
http://www.jochenroller.de/_microsite/_images/nomoney_3.jpg
This is him, card and envelope in hands. He did this for 3 minutes.
There was something sad about him standing there mechanically stuffing
the envelopes, while nodding at people in the audience: "come on, pick
up the 5 euro-bill and dance for me! There's the money, pick it up and
dance!". No one did. No one in this audience would dance for him in
exchange for 3 bucks. According to the reviews I've read on the
internet, no one ever does.
Did anyone, ever?
In my mind's eye, I ask him this question:
"Mr. Roller, did anyone ever pick up the 5 euro bill and dance for 3
minutes in your place while you stood there stuffing envelopes in the
background?"
I imagine him asking me, in response:
"Well, why wouldn't YOU dance? You were sitting right there, first
row!"
I blush. "Well, I don't like the music. I can't dance to music I don't
like. I'm not a professional dancer who can dance to anything and
nothing whatsoever. If the music sucks, I can't dance. Next time play
some DEVO or something..."
He looks unconvinced.
"And besides, I'm too embarrassed to dance in front of a professional
dancer. What if you, or even the audience for that matter, go away
thinking: "Did she really think that THAT was worth 5 bucks?!" I don't
want you people gossiping behind my back about my fat lame ass!"
Roller picked up the 5 euro bill from the ground and walked towards me.
I still had a look of utter disbelief on my face ("You gotta be kidding
me..."), so he quickly darted away from me and gave the 5 bucks to some
older people to the left of me. "Here, please take this," he told them
in German, "It's a gift.". Thanks for skipping me over Mr Roller! I
could've used that money, I'm on welfare too you know...
It would be too easy to concentrate on Roller's economic survivalism
art as a trendy and engaging response to the capitalist violence that
is the source of all his trouble. However, an (anti-)capitalist
critique is completely absent from his work, and (as I've said before)
the reality he's forced to survive in is taken at face-value. The
capitalist attack against and destruction of the welfare state (esp.
where it concerns structural/long-term grants for artists) is never
explicitly pronounced [see part 2 of this review for more on this].
Am I bluntly political about such things? You bet your ass I am. It
might make for cool art, but I still have to deal with my own boys
complaining to me and telling me "I expect it any day to just sort of
end, and I'll be selling yogurt, in the mall..." (actual quote from my
friend).
The performance ends with Jochen Roller in a plastic bag, the lights
slowly fading out, as Madonna's "Vogue" intro music is oddly looped
over and over into silence. Right before this scene, he told us: "When
no one pays for my dance, my dance is worth nothing.". The reference to
unclaimed groceries was painful. But there is absolutely nothing I can
do for him. All I can hope for is that some "enlightened" (hahaha!)
curator or programmer might invite him back to perform the whole
trilogy, but this is highly unlikely.
Tex.
POSTSCRIPT: dingdong the dingdong = blingbling!
I still want to see part two and three of Perform Performing, but, for
the record, I do NOT want to see his cock! I have read the online
reviews, and apparently, towards the end of either part 2 or 3, he just
stands there shacking his dingdong to Jennifer Lopez' "Love Don`t Cost
a Thing" for three minutes (bah! this guy has NO taste in music! He
puts even Ohad Naharin's use of m.f. gangstarap to shame!)
I already know that I can't stand this. What would I have done had I
walked into this unprepared? I probably would have unlaced my shoelaces
and would then proceed to demonstratively tie them up again, as I
usually do when a performer annoys me.
Yet every damn German reviewer seems to be impressed with Jochen's
exhibitionism and just *has* to comment on that:
"Am Schluss kommt Jochen Roller nackt auf die Bühne und wedelt zu
Jennifer Lopez "Love Don`t Cost a Thing" sprichwörtlich mit dem
Schwanz."
http://www.tanz.at/KRITIK_2004/texte/KRIT_04_11.html
["He metaphorically shakes the tail"? Maybe he can replace the
gawdawful Jay Lo song for Ray Charles/The Blues Brothers: "C'mon, let
me see you shake a tail feather! Ahhhhh, twist it, shake a shake a
shake tail feather!" Hahaha!]
"Am Ende zieht Jochen Roller sich splitternackt aus, stellt sich vor
sein Publikum und wackelt sachte mit den Hüften. Das traurige Hin- und
Herklatschen seines Geschlechts ist der Applaus, den der kluge
Anarchofatalist der blöden Welt zollt. Jochen Roller war natürlich
nicht der einzige Nackte auf der Tanzplattform. Aber er war der
Einzige, bei dem das Ausziehen aufklärerisch wirkte."
http://www.zeit.de/2004/08/Tanzplattform
[hehehe, the argument employed here by the reviewer to justify his
liking of the dingdong is rather interesting: "Oh, we don't accept all
the dingdongs, not just any ole dingdong, we only like the
*aufklärerische*, analytical dingdongs!" *rolls eyes*]
"Sein Geschlecht klatscht an die Oberschenkel, rechts, links, hin und
her baumelnd, wie vergessen. In die Stille der Tanzfläche hinein
klingt es, als klatsche ihm sein Penis Applaus."
http://www.kampnagel.de/ycms/sites/kampnagel/cms.php?template=pressespiegel_detail.tpl&Ps_ID=793
[Best of all! "It's as if his penis is applauding for him"...Wuahahaha!
If I were the performer, I'd take this as an insult!]
Some of you might say: "Hey, you just said nice things about Dave St.
Pierre getting his whole company out of their pants!" True, but that
really was the exception to the rule because it was a GROUP of naked
people, and not one person alone (oh, and the Dave St. Pierre male
soloist got his dingdong out of the way!). 99% of the time I can't
stand nudity in dance-performances and I particularly can't stand
people playing with their genitals. There is absolutely NOTHING
intelligent or progressive or whatever to be said through such acts.
I breathed a sigh of relief when, earlier that week, at the Le Salon
dance-theater performance by The Peeping Tom Collective, the demented
family-patriarch refused all forms of nudity last-minute. It was great!
He last-minute refused to fuck the servant, and he last minute refused
to show off his dick as the servant slipped him on a pair of diapers.
More of that, please! After decades of artists desacralizing (excuse
the religious term) their own bodies and throwing their privacy and
sanctity of the body to the dawgs, some dance-people are *finally*
coming to their senses. They are now realizing that there are other
ways to address and display loss of privacy and loss of personhood,
ways that are a relief to the audience (and I imagine the performer
too!) and provoke a sympathetic feeling towards the onstage character
as opposed to mere abjectness and dissociation.
If he ever returns to the Netherlands with the whole trology (which I
hope he will, all joking aside!) he'd better barricade the fucking
doors because I *will*, I *promise*, walk out the moment he comes
onstage with the dingdong trick. Bah. What is it about losing ones
grant that inspires such exhibitionism in artists? (Andrea Fraser got
her ass out after she lost her Art Matters Inc. Fellowship...) I don't
care HOW pissed off you are at having lost your grants, I don't have to
take this crap from anyone and I will not.
Maria Technosux
Maria Technosux schreef:
> Jochen Roller's music was a cheesy as this. But what to expect from
> someone who does choreographies with titles such as "Being Christina
> Aguilera"? (I kid you not!) I suppose that this is the same headfucking
> music he's forced to listen to when he's folding clothes for H&M. This
> is the kind of music that would make people like me go postal. Better
> make the most out of it, right? The most he could make out of it was a
> choreography.
[forgot to add]
Jochen Roller also playbacked to the following segment of the song
"When You Look At Me" by Christina Milian (again, the kind of top 40ies
crap that they'd play in H&M):
Tell me who do you think you see
You're standing in your corner looking out on me
You think I'm so predictable
Tell me who do you think I am
Looks can be deceiving
Better guess again
Tell me what you see
When you look at me
According to Roller, this is what the homeless in Berlin sing to
passerby's :-\
Tex.
Jeffrey E. Salzberg
maria_t...@yahoo.com says...
> Jochen Roller also playbacked to the following segment of the song
> "When You Look At Me" by Christina Milian (again, the kind of top 40ies
> crap that they'd play in H&M):
What is "H&M"?
--
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<
Jeffrey E. Salzberg, Lighting Designer
http://www.jeffsalzberg.com
"...it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be
interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl."
-- Anne Frank, 1942
Maria Technosux
Jeffrey E. Salzberg schreef:
> What is "H&M"?
Hennes and Mauritz, H&M, is a fashion company. Hennes and Mauritz sells
fashion and cosmetics in Europe and USA.
Jochen Roller has worked at H&M folding clothes and was making fun of
the fact that H&M patented their "folding technique". Roller then
proceeded to incorporate that same patented folding technique in a
choreography he had made up allegedly while on the job.
Tex.
Maria Technosux
Maria Technosux schreef:
> Yet every damn German reviewer seems to be impressed with Jochen's
> exhibitionism and just *has* to comment on that:
>
Oh, and I discovered that there are even *more* dingdong praises to be
found on the net:
"Nackt steht er da, ihm bleibt nur noch, zaghafte Schritte zur Seite zu
absolvieren, innezuhalten und auf der Stelle zu treten, dieweil sein
Geschlechtsteil wie ein Glockenklöppel hin und her schwingt - so
kläglich, lächerlich sieht der unsubventionierte, aller Förderung
entblößte Künstler aus."
http://www.tanznetz.de/kritiken.phtml?page=showthread&aid=43&tid=2685
[Hahaha! There you have it, black on white: "wie ein Glockenklöppel".
It's the dingdong that does it!]
"In der letzten Szene entledigt er sich konsequenter Weise aller
Kleidung und wackelt mit allem, was er zu bieten hat, provozierend hin
und her."
http://www.hamburgtheater.de/Frame1546.html
"So kehrt Roller noch einmal auf die Bühne zurück - nackt - scannt
wie ein Roboter in mechanischen Schritten die Zuschauerreihen ab,
bleibt stehen und beginnt mit den Hüften zu wackeln, dass sein
Gemächt im Takt hin und her schwingt. Das ist so göttlich komisch wie
entlavend dämlich."
http://www.taz.de/pt/2003/05/02/a0008.nf/text.ges,1
["Godly amusing" eh? Well, I certainly don't see the gawdly humor in
someone willingly debasing themselves and their privacy onstage in this
manner - Gawd has NO sense of humor in my book!]
And just as I assumed that this to-the-reviewer obsession with the
dingdong was merely a "German" thing, it appears that the Flamish too
were very much charmed with the dingdong:
"Staat naakt voor het publiek. Zwaait minutenlang met zijn
piemel...Maar wat voor dans zet mij op het puntje van mijn stoel, neemt
me mee, duwt me weg, zet zijn weerhaken diep in mijn vel?...deze dans
van Roller, dus?"
http://www.ccbe.be/daprice/archives/2004/10/perform_perform.html
That's a total of seven online references to the dingdong of the
dingdong in Perform Performing. Well, make that 8 references, if you
count my rant about the references to dongdong, but at least I haven't
seen it, lucky-lucky-lucky me... are these reviewers copying one
another or what?!?
Tex.
Maria Technosux
Maria Technosux schreef:
> Jochen Roller's music was a cheesy as this. But what to expect from
> someone who does choreographies with titles such as "Being Christina
> Aguilera"? (I kid you not!)
The CBA as well as the Being Christina Aguilera segment (where Roller
dances to her song "Underappreciated") can be viewed online over here:
http://www.goethe.de/kug/pro/media/clips/roller_no_money_no_love_s.ram
(narrowband)
http://www.goethe.de/kug/pro/media/clips/roller_no_money_no_love_b.ram
(broadband)
OK, so I was wrong about him not jumping. He does dart around the place
at one point, but it is so close to the ground as to be barely
perceptible as what one would normally consider a jump; particularly
when you don't know what to look for the first time you see this.
His Laban studies are IMO self-evident and very prominent (he starts in
equilibrium and ends in equilibrium, movement is explicitly
delocalized/i.e. good use of the whole space around him, etc.), and it
reminds me a lot of a male P.A.R.T.S. student who was doing *identical*
"in/out folding at the joints" kind of movements towards the end of
Forsythe's "Die Befragung des Robert Scott".
Tex.
Maria Technosux
Maria Technosux schreef:
> Maria Technosux schreef:
>
>
> > Yet every damn German reviewer seems to be impressed with Jochen's
> > exhibitionism and just *has* to comment on that:
> >
>
>
> Oh, and I discovered that there are even *more* dingdong praises to be
> found on the net:
I found yet another online reference to the dingdong! This is # 9 so
far:
"In der letzten Szene entledigt er sich konsequenter Weise aller
Kleidung und wackelt mit allem, was er zu bieten hat, provozierend hin
und her."
http://www.hamburgtheater.de/Frame1546.html
["mit allem, was er zu bieten hat"... Is the dingdong all he has to
offer? I would take this as an insult, and I think it is incredibly
unfair towards Roller. ]
However, I have also discovered something very unique. I found *one*
review where the reviewer references the use of nudity, yet
miraculously resists the temptation to comment on the dingdong! Amazing
but true:
"Die sanftlippige Gesellschaftskritik könnte letztlich ergiebiger
sein, als sich als ,,Kunst-Gigolo" in nackt gestrippter Tänzer-Haut
zu verkaufen."
http://www.merkur-online.de/nachrichten/kultur/kunstakt/art282,307114.html
Hmmm, I'd rather NOT have him apply for a position with Bruno Jonas,
whoever that is, but I agree in that I too would rather have Roller
onstage being witty than slutty.
Tex.
Maria Technosux
Maria Technosux schreef:
> "Ursprünglich wurde Jochen Roller vom Senat Berlin gefördert, doch
> der forderte aus Geldnöten den Betrag noch während der Probenphase
> zurück. Jochen Roller machte aus der Not eine Tugend und genau dies
> zum Thema seiner Performance "No Money, No Love". Die diversen Jobs,
> die er annahm, um das Geld zurück zu zahlen und das Stück zu
> finanzieren, lieferten das Material für die Performance und dienten
> gleichzeitig als Probengelegenheit."
>
> http://www.tanz.at/KRITIK_2004/texte/KRIT_04_11.html
>
> None of this, which sheds a *whole* different light on the economic
> necessity behind this work, was made evident during the performance. To
> be honest, I really don't think that Dutch artists would have accepted
> this kind of unprofessional behaviour from the Dutch Arts Coucil, i.e.
> a council first giving an artist the grant, and later saying: "Woops,
> we made a mistake, we have shortages, now give us back the money we
> gave you!". I really think that Dutch artists would have immediately
> and mercilessly sued the Arts Council. Such blatant (not to mention
> opportunistic) unprofessionalism should not be accepted, and once-given
> money is GIVEN, period. I really wonder why Jochen Roller didn't (are
> German artists more docile/accepting of unprofessionalism? Sad.)
Oh, and I've also discovered some online traces of the funds that were
made available for his performance:
[Once upon a time, in 2001, things were really good:]
*** Kulturbehörde fördert Freies Theater Hamburg
Jochen Roller ???Around the world" 70 000 DM Kampnagel
http://www.coram-publico.de/meldungen2.asp?c=5209
[well, well, 70 000 DM is my current income over a period of 3 years.
Not bad Mr. Roller! That's what a I call a Subsidy! However, things got
ugly real soon:]
*** Übersicht über die Projektförderung 2002 für
privatrechtlich-organisierte Theater und Theater-/
Tanzgruppen in Berlin
Roller, Jochen. "Perform Performing". 6.000 euro
[I don't know how or what this looks like to American artists, but 6
000 bucks is peanuts compared to what some Dutch projects are
getting... was THIS the sum that the Berlin Council just had to
retrieve because of "shortages"? Scandalous. Fortunately, Hamburg
jumped in and tossed him some bread:]
*** Kulturbehörde für die Spielzeit 2002/2003 Hamburg
Jochen Roller Perform Performing 9.000 € Kampnagel
http://www.senwisskult.berlin.de/4_kultur/inhalt/
3_stipendien_projektfoerderung/2_theater/ivb/uebersicht2002.pdf
[In 2004/2005, he isn't even listed, so I assumed he had to apply for
this:]
*** Kulturbehörde für die Spielzeit 2004/2005 Hamburg
Basisförderung
Dachverband Freier Theaterschaffender Hamburg 6.000 €
http://fhh.hamburg.de/stadt/Aktuell/pressemeldungen/2004/maerz/16/2004-03-16-kb-freies-theater.html
[I feel a little weird about being able to read such things online, but
there you have it: evidence of diminishing subsidies for independent
German artists, black on white.]
Tex.
Maria Technosux
Maria Technosux schreef:
> [review part 1: aesthetics] Jochen Roller, "No Money, No Love", July
> 7th, 2005 - Melkweg Theater, Julidans Festival, Amsterdam (NL)
>
The Jochen Roller saga is not over yet. Just yesterday I was reading
about Mexican camp TV performances (in the Coco Fusco compilation
"Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas")... and I realized
that I should have done a queer reading of (certainly certain elements
of) No Money No Love (and even the whole of Perform Performing).
My suspicions that this piece should/could be read in a queer manner
were vague at first (and were crystallized by reading Corpus Delecti).
In my mind's eye I imagined Jochen Roller for a tacky Hello Kitty bag,
the salesperson in the shop giving him a questioning/dirty "Gawd, what
a fag!"- look, Jochen Roller gleeful at his secret intentions with the
tacky bag.
I had also read a Dutch review which commented on something that every
single other review I've read online didn't even bother to comment on:
in the second part, Jochen Roller playbacks/lip-syncs to Tina Turner's
"Dancer For Money". A reference to/parody of stereotypical gay
entertainment? In the second part, he even explicitly quotes a Village
People sample: "I am a gigolo".
I am also forced to consider those few critics who felt that his show
is approximating cabaret, rather than dance theater. I also have to
reconsider my own use of the term "exaggerated". Obviously it is not
camp at all; Jochen Roller is too distant and calm to be characterized
as "camp". Jochen Rollers soft and reasoned deliverance is as far from
catty drag queens as you can get. But consider his use of R&B "divas":
Tina Turner, Christina Milian, Christina Aguilera, Madonna even. How
else to describe cool, collected, middleclass Jochen Roller lip-syncing
to the r&b divas but "exaggerated"... or "queer"?
To put it bluntly, Jochen Roller does use (stereotypically) queer
signifiers: the shaved head, the body tight athletic wear, the slick
sunglasses, the soft and eloquent/middleclass pronunciation of his
German. However note: any of the cliched bodily mannerisms are absent.
I am also thinking of a French video-interview/intro-presentation I
found on the net, where JR describes the other Jochen Rollers (the 3
other Germans of the same name he interviewed for the third part) going
to see the show. I am thinking of them sitting there, watching *this*
Jochen Roller, the Dancer, shake his dingdong at the audience, at
*them* too, and I sense a gay-pride sensibility at work there. While I
totally applaud confronting the audience with any latent homophobia
they might have, at the end of the day I still think that it's a tired
old way of dealing with the issue of loss of privacy/personhood, the
banal crotch-centered way.
Finally, I'd like to raise the possibility that his use of several
stereotypical queer (or gay) signifiers could very well be a reference
to the (traditionally assumed to be) feminized service industry
stereotype of the emasculated men working there. These are men who, not
unlike Jochen Roller, are softspoken, polite, (simulation)middleclass,
with proper accents, or otherwise eloquent smooth-talkers,
white/autochtone Germanic Caucasians. Ones use of the service
industries here includes the consumption of normative privileged
EU-whiteness, a whiteness which, because of its feminine poise, cannot
dodge allegations/accusations of homoeroticism ("these salesmen are so
smooth and slimy, just like a buncha fags.")
Obviously I do not know what his "real" sexual preferences are (does it
matter all that much for my argument? What if he is straight as an
arrow and merely "metro"?) Therefor, this queer reading should NOT be
taken as if to suggest that JR is or isn't gay; there is no way of
knowing and he doesn't explicitly make it into an issue in this show
(only, I suspect, implicitly if you know what to look for).
I have so much more to say about the bodily investment, the queer
reading I just did being just one possible avenue to pursue. Lest my
review become novella-sized, I will have to stop. Gawddammit, and there
were so many more things I wanted to explore, such as text versus/plus
movement, how Jochen Roller The Speaker is offset by Jochen Roller The
Dancer; the manner in which he walks into/out-of a dance-sequence, the
Dancer/Speaker contrast at the point of transition is startling!
STOOOP! Great performance, so much food for thought! :-)
Tex.
Maria Technosux
Maria Technosux schreef:
> "German humor" said a girl afterwards on the stairs behind me. If there
> is any such thing as German humor I'm sure I hate it as much as Dutch
> humor (sorry, but the Dutch are simply NOT funny). But his humor, I
> really like. Yes, I actually like his humor, German or not. The kitsch
> Hello Kitty bag, the glaringly white floor, the cheesy Top 40 Music,
> the kind of music that would chase "customers" such as yours truly
> straight out of the store (not that I'd ever shop at H&M, but still).
> His sneaky humor, fantasies of a call-center where the dancers wear a
> wireless phone headset and practice dancing while servicing
> unsuspecting customers. Aren't these the type of fantasies one needs in
> order to survive such brainkilling scut work?
Found this online today (in the Googlecache, since it's no longer
online at the Goethe-Institut):
***
Contortions of the artist in the subsidy jungle
Jochen Roller presented a similarly well-aimed, if less classical, form
of defiance. Perform Performing is a two-hour self-marketing
presentation in the sign of the incessant commercialisation of all
areas of life, dance included (to which an event such as the
Tanzplattform nolens volens also contributes). Roller was one of the
few artists who dealt directly with the framework established by
globalisation, superficiality and social conformism. From the pressure
to be entertaining, he made an entertaining but also subversive
parlando piece about the contortions into which the artist must twist
himself in order to survive in the subsidy jungle.
Franz Anton Cramer
This article first appeared in the Frankfurter Rundschau
of 2.10.2004
Translated by Jonathan Uhlaner
***
This ("the pressure to be entertaining") is a theme that another critic
(from Etcetera magazine, dec 2003 issue) picked up. He suggested that
what we are seeing onstage isn't what I suggested it was (the feminized
slimy service-industry worker at the call-center) but Jochen Roller's
parody of the user-friendly artist (who, in fact very much resembles
the feminized slimy service-industry worker at the call-center). This
critic used the Dutch word "behaagziek", the English equivalent of
which is "slimy", as in "excessively friendly", and all the other
related terms ("sticky", "deceitful").
This would explain the use of the word "ironic" to describe Perform
Performing, suggesting that Jochen Roller doesn't "really" want to make
user-friendly shows with kitsch backgrounds and Top 40 crap, and that
what we are seeing onstage is all tongue-in-cheek: "Oh, I don't
*really* mean it! I'm just using it to make fun of it!".
But I personally can't use this word (though I did use the word
"sneer"), "ironic", because I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume
that Jochen Roller actually likes the Top 40 crap music he uses in PP.
What if this were true?
What if Jochen Roller really does like Christina Aguilera?
Would that scare away all his intellectual fans?
Would Adorno spin a pirouette in his grave?
For the record: Jochen Roller has a Hello Kitty themed webaddress (it's
online too)! Can you still look at that cheesy Hello Kitty bag onstage,
or that web address, and say: "Oh, it's all merely ironic isn't it!"?
I'm sure I'm not the only one who chuckled at the addie.
What if he actually walks around Berlin carrying this Hello Kitty bag
around while people mutter "Fag!" behind his back?
Would that be such a faux pas as to be unbearable (to those who want to
mutter "Fag!" at something like this)?
Would that prove that Jochen Roller hasn't successfully unbrainwashed
himself from mainstream culture that he is "supposed" to oppose as a
"serious"/non-user-friendly artist?
What if the use of such kitsch/Top 40 music is both a comment on
"serious" artists' fear/denial of these things, as well as on "the
pressure to be entertaining"?
What if this critique is pointed both ways, low as well as high?
Who are these people who want to silence their conscience through the
use of the term "ironic"?
Tex.
Maria Technosux
Maria Technosux schreef:
> I found yet another online reference to the dingdong! This is # 9 so
> far:
>
And I hereby present # 10! (Can you believe it? You must now!):
"Nackt steht er da, ihm bleibt nur noch, zaghafte Schritte zur Seite zu
absolvieren, innezuhalten und auf der Stelle zu treten, dieweil sein
Geschlechtsteil wie ein Glockenklöppel hin und her schwingt - so
kläglich, lächerlich sieht der unsubventionierte, aller Förderung
entblößte Künstler aus."
http://www.tanznetz.de/kritiken.phtml?page=print&aid=43&tid=2685
This collection of 10 reviewers who just can't avoid mentioning the
dingdong has been very insightful indeed.
Tex.
Maria Technosux
Maria Technosux schreef:
> What if this were true?
> What if Jochen Roller really does like Christina Aguilera?
> Would that scare away all his intellectual fans?
> Would Adorno spin a pirouette in his grave?
There you go, just as I suspected: Jochen Roller really does like
mainstream pop-music!
And what is also very refreshing in the quote below is the subservient
role that he assigns to "proper" (i.e. professional) dancing: according
Roller, attending a professional dance-performance is but an
"appetizer" for the audience, who will then move on to dance the night
away at a club, their own dancing at the club being the real deal/meal.
***
Neben klassischem Ballett fasziniert Roller vor allem die Welt des Pop:
"Pop bedingt ein anderes Bezugssystem als die klassische Musik. Pop ist
in seiner Machart viel knalliger und direkter als alle Klänge, die
bisher für Aufführungen verwendet wurden. Tanz ist immer deshalb so
hip, weil sich die Leute wieder vorstellen können, zuerst eine
Aufführung im Theater zu besuchen, um danach in einem Club abzutanzen.
Sie benutzen die Choreographie als Appetizer für ihre langen
Clubnächte.
http://www.taz.de/pt/2001/12/13/a0230.nf/textdruck
***
Tex.
Ian Johnston
<maria_t...@yahoo.com> wrote:
: This collection of 10 reviewers who just can't avoid mentioning the
: dingdong has been very insightful indeed.
As a matter of interest, was that all you looked for in the reviews?
It certainly seems to be all you cared about ...
Ian
--
Maria Technosux
Ian Johnston schreef:
> As a matter of interest, was that all you looked for in the reviews?
> It certainly seems to be all you cared about ...
>
Nope, and it is clear that you haven't read all my posts in this
thread. If you did, you would have seen that I also collected the terms
that some of the critics used in order to frame Jochen Roller's work as
"political" commentary. So the dingdong comments were certainly not the
only thing I was looking for. It is not my fault that most critics are
more willing to comment on the dingdong-trick rather than the economic
themes of his work.
What is even more frustrating: hardly anyone makes an attempt to
*describe* Jochen Roller's dancing. At best, they will say that they
would have liked more of it. Or, they will write something like this,
which for me is not very useful: "[he looks] like a green frog hopping
around the stage" :-/
Tex.
Jeffrey E. Salzberg
maria_t...@yahoo.com says...
> they will write something like this,
> which for me is not very useful: "[he looks] like a green frog hopping
> around the stage" :-/
Do green frogs hop differently than brown frogs?
Maria Technosux
Ian Johnston schreef:
> As a matter of interest, was that all you looked for in the reviews?
> It certainly seems to be all you cared about ...
Hmmm, "Ian Johnston"... *does a check* ... Ah, I remember you now. I
shouldn't have replied at all. You are the guy who likes to flame me,
not someone who is interested in a serious reply. Believe it or not, I
am really not looking foreward to yet another flame with you. So please
don't read my reply that I just posted, I had no idea I was addressing
you; just avoid this thread all together.
Tex.
Maria Technosux
Jeffrey E. Salzberg schreef:
> Do green frogs hop differently than brown frogs?
I don't know, but what I do know it that this doesn't look like a
hopping frog to me at all:
http://www.goethe.de/kug/pro/media/clips/roller_no_money_no_love_s.ram
(narrowband)
http://www.goethe.de/kug/pro/media/clips/roller_no_money_no_love_b.ram
(broadband)
Tex.
Ian Johnston
<maria_t...@yahoo.com> wrote:
:
: Ian Johnston schreef:
:
:
: > As a matter of interest, was that all you looked for in the reviews?
: > It certainly seems to be all you cared about ...
:
: Hmmm, "Ian Johnston"... *does a check* ... Ah, I remember you now. I
: shouldn't have replied at all. You are the guy who likes to flame me..
Oh dear me, not at all. You misunderstand me. I find your writing
quite intriguing.
Ian
PS I'm still not American. Did you ever manage to find a "library" for
the books you couldn't afford?
twitte...@aol.com
You misunderstand me. I find your writing
quite intriguing.
Ian
PS I'm still not American.
Did you ever manage to find a "library" for
the books you couldn't afford?
Eternal Libraire.