Breaking down the borderlines of dance, visual and plastic arts, theater, architecture and multimedia

Four artists and the director of the National Theater talk about the complex spectacles that contemporary performances are offering

By Maria Katsounaki - Kathimerini

The days when classical ballet called the tune are long gone. Not only do dancers not raise their legs at a strict 30- or 90-degree angle anymore, they might not raise them at all. Dancers may slouch, remain immobile, or keep repeating the same actions. Sometimes they start a dialogue together or form part of digital reality.

William Forsythe, who has brought about a revolution in the art of dance over the past 30 years, is already researching “the effects of the contemporary social shift from individuality to the networked global model.” In “Three Atmospheric Studies,” no music accompanies the dancers. They dance in silence coordinated by the breath, obeying an internal rhythm. “Heterotopia” is a wild, noisy oratorio which is rendered in “incomprehensible” tongues. There are strange sounds and a weird collection of beings that move under large flat tables. Forsythe mixes together dance, performance, the plastic arts, architecture and multimedia.

In theater, experimentation is nothing new. According to Belgian director and visual artist Jan Lauwers, theater has been a radical art since the time of Shakespeare and Moliere. In recent years, though, theater productions have frequently included other forms of art (dance, music and installations) to create a complex spectacle.

The challenge involves both classical plays (we have seen Phaedra and Hippolytus playing badminton, the Furies on a TV panel and Apollo as a drag queen), and modern ones, such as “Isabella’s Room” directed by Lauwers.

Born in Antwerp, Lauwers – with Jan Fabre and Wim Vandekeybus – led the radical movement in early 1980s Belgium.

In his work which was staged at the Pireos 260 venue in June, Isabella is an elderly woman who spends the last days of her life in a room taking part in a experiment. Wired up, she watches her memories come to life on a screen and then become flesh on stage.

For the past two years, the Hellenic Festival has been filling a gap of many decades by bringing the public into contact with a new artistic reality. We had heard about it and occasionally seen it, but it had never been presented in any consistent, organized, thought-out way.

We asked four artists (Bob Wilson, Karen Neuhauser, Jan Lauwers and Frank Castorf), and Hellenic Festival Director Giorgos Loukos a question that arose from this year’s festival: The borderlines between the arts seem to have disappeared in the contemporary era. Theater, dance, music, and visual multimedia are mingled, creating a hybrid spectacle. What is the future of the theater (or dance) in this setting? Is theater still a radical art?

All four artists work in theater with their own personal idiom. Bob Wilson, 66, has also been in involved with painting, architecture and design. He has directed opera and loves “breaking the rules of works and creating them anew.” His lighting creates an entire stage environment, and his collaborations with musicians always give his productions a special identity.

Karen Neuhauser started out as an actress in theater and cinema. She has worked with leading German directors and since 2001 has directed Schiller’s “Mary Stuart,” and Chekhov’s “Three Sisters.” Her production of “The Oresteia” at Epidaurus was daring, with a strong dose of deconstruction, while respecting Aeschylus’ text.

“The deeper you get into the text, the more you stay with it,” she says.

German Frank Castorf, 56, believes in the subversive role of the theater, in its ability to unsettle, surprise and shock. He has become known as the director “who crushes the classics.”