A different prospective on the performance »Shown and Told » through the words of the two artists.
Shown and Told is a show performed by Meg Stuart and Tim Etchells for the Next festival at « De Shakel » theatre in Waregem in Belgium. As being part of the Teenexters’ project we had the chance to interview them right after we assisted to their performance.
Tim Etchells is a British artist and writer, leader of the artistic group Forced Entertainment, performing since 1984. The American Meg Stuart is the driving force of Damaged Goods and works from Brussels and Berlin. Although they usually work with their respective companies the two artists have known each other for many years and « have been in a conversation since the early ‘2000″.
The first fragments of this show were the result of some improvisation that the two made during a workshop together. Having seen a potencial in these first improvised sequences they continued to work on them and built a more structured performance. In fact, improvisation it’s a crucial element of this work that even when not improvised, wants to « look improvised ».
During the show the stage is bare. The spectator’s attention is all drawn by the moving bodies of Tim Etchells and Meg Stuart. Tim Etchells is manly in charge for the linguistic and speaking part, Meg Stuart for dancing and moving, but in a versatile way the two try to create a dialogue that goes beyond their usual identities as artists. The roles sometime get mixed: Meg Stuart is speaking, Tom Etchells is moving as he says laughing « I wouldn’t call dancing what I do ».
It’s a performance that wants to explore some of the possible meeting points between these different practices of language and movement. However, the two artists are not looking for a perfect correspondence between spoken words and the use of body. Sometimes the two are corresponding and miming each other but for most part
the balance between the two is uneven, « going back and forth between the two » using Tim Etchells’ words . » The language is only one thing while there are always many more layers of interpretation of the movement ». But at the same time moving and speaking are not conceived as completely different practices. « For me talking is also moving, there is a physicality in the talking that I pursue ».
Another standing out feature of this performance is its fragmentary structure. Fragments of movement and spoken words follow one another, as Meg Stuart underlines « is important to build something and then leave it and move to another ». In this poetic and comical flow of fragments, repetitions, sounds, words and movements, as spectators, we don’t have to look for a particular sense, as Tim Etchells concludes our interview: « Lack of balance is important, I think keeping the meaning in this state of trembling uncertainty is maybe the biggest thing ».
Written by Nora Figari, from the Teenexters’ program
Photos : Next Festival
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