Corporeality in the Body

Words by Maria M. Dolorosa

Ed. by Helen Bentley

Finland

The title of “legendary” upon a performance is the highest form of compliment: whether it is true or not. In the case of Kӧrper, the appraisal of “legendary” fits like a glove.

Sasha Alexandra Waltzis a Germanchoreographer,dancerand leader of the dance company Sasha Waltz and Guests. Waltz studied dance in Amsterdam and New York and, in 2000, was named one of the artistic directors of Berlin Schaubüne am Lehniner Platz where — among others — she created the pieces Kӧrper, S and noBody as well as the installation insideout. On 26 Aug. 2013, Waltz presented Kӧrper on the main stage of the Helsinki City Theatre as a part of the Helsinki Festival 2013, which ran from Aug. 16 until Sept. 1.

Kӧrper, literal translation bodies,engages 13 dancers in a particularly rich variety of movement. Linking architecture and body, Kӧrper asks the questions: What is the body and how is it constructed?

The dance analyzes morality, the quest of immortality and investigates reproduction in the age of genetic manipulation. Waltz looks at the bodies in everyday situations. She observes their matter, their rhythm and their nudity. She measures and weighs them, counts hairs, pours the liquid out, trades the organs. She arranges the bodies of 13 dancers in order to create a series of spectacular tableaux vivants (living picture).

Several minutes before curtain time at the Helsinki City Theatre, people are still shuffling down the aisles to their seats when they notice that something is already happening up on the main stage. A couple of black-garbed figures are busy doing what dancers do — rolling around, pushing each other here and there — looking very industrious and completely impersonal as they stride about. Behind them is a huge black wall with a small hole in it. A couple of hands are poking through the hole, waving at the audience, it seems that they are engaged in their own little dance. But they are so frantic! It is as if we are looking at someone who is trying to escape or is calling for help. The dancers pay no heed. Suddenly, the hands are gone and an arm protrudes through the hole and a leg sticks out, bare and helpless. If this is a warm-up, it is utterly chilling.

Thirteen dancers offer a feast of flesh as they manipulate, observe and investigate their own skin. The dancers systematically and efficiently reduce their body to fragmented pieces, presenting a parade of disjointed limbs and heaving, sweating flesh. Startling images emerge from the writhing bodies. Strange creatures like Frankenstein’s monster scuttle and slide. Disturbing conglomerations of flesh are like horrific human pantomime horses, tragic and darkly comic. There are repeated motifs of spinal columns and cracking bones as the dancers grab handfuls of each other, dragging and draining the body of water in a methodical ritualistic procedure. The subterranean sound design by Hans Peter Kuhnemits clangs and muted drippings, enveloping the space and encasing the audience, later building to a throbbing climax.

InKörper, the body is not the same anymore. The actors point out how human beings live in a jail created between the soul and the flesh. A naked woman says: "This is my body: back side, profile and front side. I did not really choose it. I was born more or less like this".

Then, a group of people are measured accurately on the black wall behind them. Breast, feet, face, lungs, liver and nails, all are assigned a dollar price tag. Following this sequence, the stage reflects the madness, drug abuse, stress and compulsiveness of our society. How man disrespects his inner body. Then a thunderous sound fills the room, the black monolith has fallen down, man's body has collapsed, its force does not exist anymore. The audience is left speechless.

It is impossible to try to pull the bodies together: they are being cloned, following mathematical rules. Then people can see how each becomes the other's replica. A big mass-body is following the same tide. If one moves, another moves as well. If one decides to stand up the group decides to do it too. They do it as a group, never alone.A metaphor for our society. Reflections of how we are losing our unique beauty and at the same time how everyone is fighting to keep it. The powers of the images grab the mind of the people. Everybody is still and quiet.

Corporeality, in every sense, is brought under the magnifying glass as Sasha Waltz makes her Finnish debut. In Körper, the Berlin-based choreographer strips the human body naked to observe its capabilities and limitations, through a series of themes shifting from life to death, love to violence, science to religion. The13-strong ensemble creates a series of tableaux capable of evoking both pleasant and disturbing responses in the viewer. Körper is the most important work of Waltz’s career to date and firmly established her place on the German contemporary dance scene.