DasArts / Master of Theatre

Block 29
Who is I?

Mentor to the Block 29 participants:
Titus Muizelaar (NL)

Block 29 runs from 15 September 2008 – 21 November 2008
Semester 29 starts on 1 September 2008 and ends on 28 February 2009

Condemned
Letter from the mentor to the participants, stating the intentions of the Block.

Being condemned is freedom. I love you. That’s hard to say. But my heart can tell you. So, who am I? When walking, doing the dishes, searching the market for ingredients, jumping off the cliff in Cinque Terre in Italy, I am with you and my heart flows. And I don’t know you. I condemn you to me, because I am condemned to you. In Block 29, anyhow. Why condemned, you may think. Why that word.... Because that’s not what you want to hear right now. Surrounding is. You behold something gentle. The word has action. Both words were created but also polluted. So, again: Condemned. I grant you the transformation of this word, as I want to condemn you and make you experience how liberty thus will surround you. For the rest is illusion. And that is fundamentally different from a dream. The dream is the condemnation you don’t want to stay in.

You don’t want obstructions on your road. But you are your own obstruction. Who is I? Who are I? And what is a closet falling open? Your starting-point is DasArts, by your own choice. But when DasArts was there, you transformed it into possibility. I would like to ask you to let yourself be surrounded by DasArts. So, to be condemned.

Strindberg. August, not Augustus Strindberg. That ‘us’ shouldn’t be there. Every closet falling open does not want to be ordened, it wants to be lived. Let your closet fall open...and what do you see? That ‘us’ is the first to fall out, and you certainly don’t want that. That is how the world named you, but not who you are. And to emphasize that is condemning yourself. You focus on the detail, the law is on your side, but once again you’re in the illusion... Still with me? Essentials and details. Discernment.

Why are you here? Why did you come? A flyer, a website, a possibility to shape your illusions. I’m not interested in that. The NOW is your capital.

Strindberg. The Father of Surrealism, according to Breton. Stindberg himself, as an open-falling closet, The Father of Naturalism. Not that anyone ever learned the minutest details of his personal life, but read his plays, his novels and look at his paintings, they ARE his life. The Founding Father of Soap! You shudder if I ask you to do it. And yet I ask. Condemn yourself to the mess that you are. Don't vain, don’t hope, don’t believe and don't shudder. Observe like a scientist. Research like a child and Act like an animal. Wriggle in your colleagues’ herd. Re-find the soil of your roots and don't do anything resembling civilisation. A poppy doesn’t wonder how to open. It pops.

When I open my closet, the horrible essentials pop out: disorderly bank-statements, a shoebox with pictures - stuck together by damp decay - of my last love and my first. A bad pension-plan and far too many cookery-books. Because I can't define my taste. So what is who I am? Somebody who keeps looking for taste-defining. In everything. From a better-shaved cunt to a really brilliant Bouillabaise Soup. Soup! Soup! Soup! Why always that Dutch spirit? I hate soup. It’s not sophisticated enough. Not one specific taste enough. Sauces! The basis of every exquisite cuisine. They are made of soup. I am Soup. And that pops out of my closet. That spits me in the face when I open it. How do I make sauce of that?

Strindberg. Phew! That’s daring....Yes. What? That’s daring to sauce. That’s daring to simmer down. Live. That’s daring to answer the question: Who is I? Who are I? That’s all.
That’s all I ask of you.

Participants Block 29

Elina Cerpa (LV); Gertjan van Gennip (NL); Petter Alexander Goldstine (N/USA); Steven de Jong (NL); Miguel Angel Melgares (E); Snejanka Mihaylova (BG); Nir Nadler (IL); Christian Thompson (AUS); Nadia Tsulukidze (GE)

Guest teachers

Peter van Bergen (NL); Imko Binnerts (NL); Peter Delahay (NL); Coot van Doesburgh (NL); Sam Gerrits (NL)
Tania Goryucheva (RUS/NL); Bas Haring (NL); Lina Issa (LB); Jan van de Lande (NL); Aernout Mik (NL); Adelheid Roosen (NL); Ionica Smeets (NL); Karin Spaink (NL); Wim T. Schippers (NL); Boudewijn Tarenskeen (NL); Wim Vandekeybus (B)

Week by Week

Week 1: 15-19 September

‘Who is I’ started with an introduction day at DasArts on 12 September.
The participants and the staff were introduced to each other and Titus Muizelaar stated the intentions of the Block.

We collectively visited the following performances:
-14 September: The Sound of Silence by New Riga Theatre and Zone of Silence by Belarus Free theatre in The Rotterdamse Schouwburg
-16 September: Spiegel by Ultima Vez in the Stadsschouwburg, Amsterdam
- 28 September: Rambo Solo by Nature Theater of Oklahoma and Im linken Rückspiegel by Neuer Tanz
- 20 September Wuivend Graan, by Wim T. Schippers, featuring: Titus Muizelaar as the professor at the Kleine Komedie in Amsterdam

The participants worked for 2 days in Amsterdam with the Belgian choreographer Wim Vandekeybus. The workshop continued in the studio of Ultima Vez in Brussels from 17-19 September, whereby the participants were confronted with the way of working of Wim Vandekeybus. Assignments were given and the participants visited several locations in Brussels. The atmosphere of the city and certain distinctive and remarkable places influenced perfomative responses that were developed in the workshop. The workshop was brought to a conclusion with individual and group presentations ion 19 September.

Week 2: 22-26 September

Workshop 'Politics, the Body & Identity' by by writer/journalist Karin Spaink.
Quote by Karin Spaink: 'In the three weeks that I'll be coaching and providing you with ideas, stories, images and questions, I hope to seriously – but kindly – undermine your notion of self, your sense of 'I': to shatter your (probable) belief that there is an inner coherency to you that you yourself understand and that only you command. I'd like to leave you with a feeling that the boundaries between 'inside' and 'outside', between 'me' and 'you', between 'us' and 'them' are not as strict as we tend to believe, but are rather permeable and flexible. (...)'

Assignments and projects during tre workshop:
- Meet and greet. What made you you – according to you?
- The Century of the Self. The participants saw a four part BBC series on the development of the notion of the self. It deals with politics, religion, culture, psychology and marketing.
- Surveillance and digital traces. We'll talk about the social and personal surveillance that is becoming common, how everything that we're doing is being recorded, traced and kept. Is anonymity still possible?
- Task: visualising your own data. This summer, a wonderful contest was held in which people were asked to collect personal data – about their heart rhythm, their daily intake of fluids, their mood, the amount of steps they took each day, the spam they received – anything was possible. Karin gave the participants the task to come up with their own visualisation of some personal data.

Week 3 & 4: 29 September – 10 October

Workshop with chef cook Imko Binnerts.
Imko Binnerts took the participants to the ecological farm Lindenhoff in Baambrugge. Here they acquired all the ingredients for a festive 5 course meal, that the participants collectively prepared at DasArts and that was served in Studio East. Each participant was asked to invite one person, whom they would like to offer this celebratory dinner.

Workshop with Adelheid Roosen and Peter Delahay.
From 2-10 October the participants took part in a workshop on location: we departed to the South of France.
In the beautiful mansion callled 'Le Bois des Dames' in Chantemerle-les-Grignan, and in the surroundings in the Drome De Provence, a week was organisesd whereby the participants were asked to find their true inner passions and personal motivations. In the mornings Peter Delahay gave lectures on astrology and personal session were held. In the afternoon assignments were given by Adelheid Roosen; the participants created performative answers to the offered material with short performances and visual works.

Week 5: 13-17 October

Workshop with Boudewijn Tarenskeen and Peter van Bergen.
In response to the workshop by composer Boudewijn Tarenskeen and composer/multi instrumentalist Peter van Bergen a group performance and individual presentations by the participants in an Open Lab on 17 October were presented.

Week 6: 20 - 24 October

Workshop 'Bodies & Senses' with Karin Spaink.
The main topics of the second workshop by Karin Spaink were health, body experience and body politics.
Collectively the participants watched the BBC series 'The truth about female desire', in which eight women team up with researchers from Kinsey, and together they explore science and their bodies.
- On 22 October: Sensory workshop with Leflounge
- On 23 October: Instruction and diving session at the Floraparkbad in Amsterdam-Noord
- On 24 October: Dining in the dark at Restaurant Ctaste in Amsterdam

Week 7: 27 - 31 October

Workshop with Wim T. Schippers
On 27 October Margriet Schavemaker gave an introduction to the verstile oeuvre of visual artist, playwright, actor Wim T. Schippers. This was followed by ‘Langs de Amsterdamse Grachten’ with Wim T. Schippers: a tour by boat through the canals of Amsterdam on 28 October. Schippers gave his personal comments to the standard tour during the boat trip. The rest of the week the participants worked individually with Schippers, making installations and diverse drawings and paintings.

Week 8: 3 - 7 November
Workshops with Tania Goryucheva and Aernout Mik.
In the workshop with Tania the participants investigated their indentities in the digital world. Virtual identity is becoming increasingly important in nowadays' reality. Weblogs, chatboxes, Second Life and other virtual reality environments require a certain level of consciousness of these new forms of identity.
Aernout Mik held a presentation about his own work.

Week 9: 10 - 14 November
Workshop 'Journalism into the Intimate' by Lina Issa.
In this project, the participants inhabited a different place every day - from Friday evening until Wednesday morning. Those places belonged to strangers, whose houses were borrowed. The days were designed with the hope that the participants could engage and indulge themselves in the (im)possibilities the situations offered, exploring the encounters with themselves, the place and the others.
- On 13 November the project was presented in a logbook, representing sketches, rituals and written reports of the experiences in the borrowed spaces and their intimacy.

Week 10: 17- 21 November
Preparing the final Open Lab presentation Open Lab 154 on 21 November 2008.
During this Open Lab the participants showed their performative answers to the material that was offered during the 10 weeks of the Block.

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