I Am a Mistake
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I am a Mistake A creation by Jan Fabre, Wolfgang Rihm and Chantal Akerman November and December 2007 I. THE PROJECT Jan Fabre has been commissioned by ECHO, the European concert halls organisation, to produce I am a Mistake, a creation in which music, film, dance and theatre are organically fused. A concertante to new music by Wolfgang Rihm for one actor, four dancers of Troubleyn|Jan Fabre, eighteen musicians, with accompaniment from the first note to the last in the form of a film by Chantal Akerman. The Belgian artist Jan Fabre has invited the German composer Wolfgang Rihm to join him for the creation of I am a Mistake. The basis for this creation is an original text by Jan Fabre, entitled I am a Mistake. It is a manifest that amounts almost to a profession of faith by the artist. The blunt confession I am a Mistake is like a mantra that repeats and divides; the voice in this text weaves his web of confessions and meanings, sometimes as a metaphor of an artist sometimes in a protesting tone. Protest against reality and its laws, against matters of fact and their conformism. It comes as no surprise that this piece is dedicated to the subversive film-maker (and amateur entomologist) Luis Buñuel and to Antonin Artaud. I am loyal to the pleasure that is trying to kill me ‘I am a mistake because I shape my life and work organically in accordance with my own judgement with no concern for what one ought to do or say’, this is the artist’s frank summary of his world view. And the ‘first person’ knows that there is a price to be paid for this: that of gradual self-destruction. This urge for self- affirmation and disregard for man-made and natural laws is made very clear by the repeated and incorrigible smoking on stage and the open praise of the cigarette, despite its harmful effects being known, ‘I am loyal to the pleasure that is trying to kill me’. After a lyrical and delirious monologue this is a certain end, because ‘I am immortal’. Wolfgang Rihm created a composition for a ‘music-infected actor who can speak the words in the context of my music’. The Flemish actress Hilde Van Mieghem will pronounce the text by Jan Fabre. This exceptional collaboration should result in a multidisciplinary performance in which film images, live-music (by the Ensemble Recherche & guests), words, song and dance scenes complement and enhance one another. Chantal Akerman has made a special film on location in Antwerp, with a number of Jan Fabre’s dancers and actors, which will be projected during the concert/performance. 2 II. DISTRIBUTION Text, scenography and direction: Jan Fabre Choreography: Jan Fabre and the dancers Film: Chantal Akerman Musical Composition: Wolfgang Rihm Assistant to Jan Fabre & dramaturgy: Miet Martens Speaking voice: Hilde Van Mieghem Dancers: Sylvia Camarda, Manon Avermaete, Eleonora Mercatali, Tawny Andersen Live Music: Ensemble Recherche: Martin Fahlenbock (flute), Jaime Gonzalez (oboe), Shizuyo Oka (clarinet), Melise Mellinger (violin), Barbara Maurer (viola), Asa Akerberg (cello), Christian Dierstein (percussion), Klaus Steffes- Holländer (piano), Jean-Pierre Collot (piano) Guests : Markus Schwind (trumpet), Andrew Digby (trombone), Laszlo Hudacsek (percussion), Beate Anton (harp), Ulrich Schneider (double bass) Singers: Matthias Horn, Johannes M. Kösters Conductor: Lucas Vis Producer: Troubleyn|Jan Fabre Technical coordination: Geert Van der Auwera Technician: Jeroen Van Esbroeck Production manager: Helga Van den Bossche Stagiaire: Elodie Sicard (dancer) Management Ensemble Recherche: Tanja Ratzke, Beate Rieker, Dr. Sabine Franz Guest transportmanager: Peter Härringer Film direction: Chantal Akerman Image: Raymond Fromont Assistant to Raymond Fromont: Leslie Vandermeulen Editing: Claire Atherton Make up: Gerda Van Hoof Colour correction: Isabelle Laclau Executive Production: Paradise Films, Marilyn Watelet Production: Chemah I.S Technical Equipment: Sylicone, Vidi-Square Additional film performers: Ann Eysermans, Beatrice Kessi, Elodie Sicard, Ivana Jozic, Lie Anthonissen, Lisbeth Gruwez Commissioned and produced by the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) Productie: Troubleyn|Jan Fabre & BOZAR MUSIC Coproductie: BOZAR THEATRE Support: Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung | European Commission Sponsor: Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam 3 Jan Fabre is ‘artist in residence’ at Kunstencentrum deSingel (Antwerp, BE) Troubleyn|Jan Fabre is supported by the Government of Flanders, the city and the province of Antwerp. The text of Ik ben een fout, theaterscripts & theaterteksten (1975-2004), Jan Fabre was published by Meulenhoff/Manteau, 2004 and by L’Arche in 2005: Je Suis une erreur – Cinq pieces, Jan Fabre. Hilde Van Mieghem is dressed by AF Vandevorst, shoes by Biography. All dancers are dressed by Just in Case. The film was shot on location in Antwerp. Troubleyn|Jan Fabre would like to thank: St-Willibrordus church, Eddy Borry of café ‘De Kroon’, restaurant ‘De Druiventros’, grocery ‘De Bakkerij’. Eleonora Mercatali is supported by: GAI (Giovani Artisti Italiani, IT) 4 III. TOUR DATES Thursday 29-nov-07 Athens: world première – The Athens Concert Hall http://www.megaron.gr Saturday 1-dec-07 Vienna - Wiener konzerhaus http://konzerhaus.at/ Monday 3-dec-07 Amsterdam - Concertgebouw www.thsh.co.uk Thursday 6-dec-07 Birmingham - Symphony Hall www.thsh.co.uk Sunday 9-dec-07 Luxemburg - Philharmonie www.philharmonie.lu Tuesday 11-dec-07 Brussels – Centre for Fine Arts www.bozar.be Saturday 15-dec-07 Cologne - Kölner Philharmonie www.koelner.philharmonie.de Wednesday 19-dec-07 Paris - Cité de la Musique www.cite-musique.fr 5 IV. INTERVIEWS Interview with Jan Fabre I spoke with Jan Fabre in the middle of rehearsals with the dancers and Hilde van Mieghem. Next week, Chantal Akerman will film by night in the vicinity of the Troubleyn/Laboratorium in the Antwerp Seefhoek, the working class district where Jan Fabre was born. After editing, it will be the Ensemble Recherche and Wolfgang Rihm’s turn to rehearse. Then, finally, all the pieces of the puzzle will come together. Jan Fabre is visibly ecstatic about the outstanding combination of artists. On Wolfgang Rihm: “I once put Rihm on the cover of my magazine, Janus, because I thought he was an interesting composer. I discovered his music through Peter Sloterdijk, the writer-philosopher. I worked with the latter, among other things, for my film, The Problem. Sloterdijk is a friend of Wolfgang Rihm’s and the art historian, Hans Belting, who once wrote about my work. Together they constitute the so-called Karlsruhe Schule. It was inevitable that I would one day work together with Wolfgang. There is music throughout the entire performance with Sprechstimme towards the end. Wolfgang Rihm completely analysed the text and has included pronunciation guidelines in his manuscript. He has been very intensely engaged with the project.” On Chantal Akerman: “Chantal and I both had solo exhibitions in Madrid last year. We went to each other’s openings, talked to each other and it clicked. Jeanne Dielman, Toute une nuit, that feeling of night, of loneliness. I saw a nice link between my work and hers and immediately proposed that we do the film together. A great artist.” On Hilde van Mieghem: “I love her intensity, her vivaciousness. I was also looking to insert some distance between myself and the character and thus consciously opted for a woman. She is now turning fifty and has incredible composure and a voice coloured by smoke and booze and that has experienced a lot.” You wrote Ik ben een fout (I am a Mistake) in 1988. Why are you only now bringing the text to the stage? I was just talking to Hilde van Mieghem about that – and I hear the same thing from my assistants: twenty years ago I was an arrogant, young artist who thought he was going to conquer and change the world. In growing older, that ambition has been focussed more on the work than the outside world. There is now a certain distance. Through all that earnest and hard exterior, a sense of humour has started to appear. A lot of the sentences, however, are still to the point I think. “I am a mistake / Because I hate fashion.” Fashion is like the news. Current affairs is fashion, fashion is current affairs. It has to change every day. And that is a very different attitude, a different kind of entry point or undertaking than that of the artist. A different intensity and relationship towards capitalism and the outside world. Fashion is based on the power of the economy. At the academy, the fashion designers, though they had a lot of tricks, had precious little content in my opinion. They just wanted to earn money quickly. Along the way I did, however, develop respect for certain fashion designers. 6 The I-figure has some divine quality. It thinks of itself as immortal and at the same time kills itself by smoking cigarette after cigarette. It is an ode to smoking. All the more reason to produce the performance precisely now. In some small cities in America it is already forbidden to smoke indoors. The smoker has become the Negro of contemporary society. At airports you have to stand in a tiny booth. The artist who stands there smoking knows he will die of cancer and still keeps on smoking. He wants to choose whether and how he will die and what he does. He stands there coughing, wheezing, sweating but he is not sick. He knows perfectly well what he says, does and wants. In that sense, he is a god. Also because he assumes his work will survive him. The text is a plea for individuality. Making one’s own choices, which are not limited by social rules. While artists these days are expected to have a certain social commitment.