[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.

http://www.leipzig-almanach.de/buehne_zeit_ist_geld_auch_beim_tanz_ta...