NEW DRAMATURGIES IN THE WORK OF SIDILARBI CHERKAOUI Choreographic negotiations of the nation, religion and language By Lise Uytterhoeven Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Dance, Film and Theatre School o f Arts Faculty o f Arts and Human Sciences University o f Surrey February 2013 Lise Uytterhoeven 2013 ProQuest Number: 27557448 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 27557448 Published by ProQuest LLO (2019). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLO. ProQuest LLO. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.Q. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Abstract This doctoral thesis presents substantial academic research of the work of Flemish-Moroccan choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. When locating Cherkaoui’s work within Flemish dance history, his complex, transnational, and interdisciplinary choreographic practice challenges the existing historical narrative based on generations and geographical narrowness. A review of discourses on new dramaturgies yields a proposed new analytical methodology, one that begins to account for the continuous dramaturgy o f the spectator by combining observation, conversation, spectatorship and writing. Away from the discursive focus on the role of the dramaturg in collaborative processes, this thesis explores the alternatives of dramaturgy as shared, interlocutionary, and permanent. The spectator’s engagement with the work’s content, imagery, aural landscape, stories, and poignant moments, is on-going beyond the performance moment, so that theatre can fulfil its potential for social change. The thesis exemplifies the diverging shapes that this continuous spectatorial dramaturgy may take in relation to cultural issues raised in Cherkaoui’s work, putting into practice the proposed methodology. Identity is choreographed as constructed, cosmopolitan and kaleidoscopic, destabilising undue emphasis on national identity in the context of the fracturing Belgian state and the Flemish populist radical right. Storytelling undergoes choreographic treatment in Cherkaoui’s work, impacting on perception and spectatorship, so that spectators might consider travel stories as transcultural and story as oral history, extending cultural exchange within an Appaduraian ‘modernity at large’. Cherkaoui carefully positions himself in the debates about religious fundamentalism, new totalitarianism and Islamophobia by choreographically negotiating the intertextuality of Holy texts and circumambulating the symbol of the cross, positing religion as myth. Cherkaoui’s heteroglossic dramaturgy of non­ translation problematizes signification and notions of dramaturgy as mediation between artist and audience. Postcolonial critiques of translation allow for Cherkaoui’s rejection of the role of translator to be understood as giving rise to the continuous dramaturgy of the spectator as cross-cultural conversation. Table of Contents Abstract p.ii Acknowledgements p.v INTRODUCTION p i PARTI Chapter 1 : Initial methodological challenges posed by Foi (2003) p.l2 1.1 Introducing Foz (2003) p.l2 1.2 A brief biography p.l5 1.3 Limitations of existing Flemish dance historical narratives p.l8 1.4 Extended description oiFoi (2003) p.43 Chapter 2: New dramaturgies: a new analytical method p.57 2.1 Overview of discourses on new dramaturgies p.57 2.2 Anxiety about the dramaturg p.67 2.3 Towards a continuous dramaturgy of the spectator p.80 PART II Chapter 3: The fracturing, multinational Belgian state and the nation as construct p.87 3.1 Litroducing (2010) as a geopolitical work p.87 3.2 Federal instability and political impasse p.91 3.3 The Flemish populist radical right p.99 3.4 Cherkaoui’s choreographic negotiations of the nation: towards cosmopolitanism p. 107 Chapter 4: The choreographer as storyteller_____________________________ p. 118 4.1 Choreographing against culture: the travel story p. 123 4.2 History or story? p. 132 4.3 Alternative modernities p. 13 5 Chapter 5: Re-choreographing the Word of God__________________________ p. 143 5.1 Contextualising and theorising fundamentalisms p. 145 5.2 Choreographing the intertextuality of religious texts p. 150 5.3 Circumambulating myths and religious symbols p. 15 7 Chapter Six: Heteroglossia and non-translation_________________ _________ p. 169 6.1 Mapping heteroglossic theatre in Flanders p. 170 6.2 Cross-cultural collaboration and heteroglossic dramaturgy p. 173 6.3 A dramaturgy of non-translation as postcolonial critique p. 175 CONCLUSIONS___________________________________________________p. 187 BIBLIOGRAPHY p.202 List of Figures Fig. 1 : A Belgium held together with stitches, glue and screws p.94 Fig. 2: ‘The crisis through children’s eyes’ p.95 IV Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Rachel Fensham, who has supervised my doctoral research project since its inception, for her inspirational guidance, patience and generous encouragement. I would also like to give special thanks to Dr Helena Hammond, who co-supervised my project in the beginning years, and to Dr Effosini Protopapa, who co-supervised the completion of my thesis in its final stages. In addition to these three key people, I would like to thank the other staff in the Department of Dance, Film and Theatre and my peers in the Postgraduate Research community for helping to shape my research by giving feedback during the biannual Research Weeks. The support that Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui has lent to my research over the years has been invaluable. Being a person of real kindness, generosity, positive energy and inspiration, he provided me with generous access to his performances, creation processes and archival material, and put me in touch with so many interesting people. Even when I could see he was extremely busy, he could still find little moments to talk to me, for which I am immensely grateful. I would also like to thank Cherkaoui’s artistic collaborators who took time to speak with me about their work: most notably Damien Jalet, Karthika Nair, Satoshi Kudo, Christine Leboutte, Darryl E. Woods, Ulrika Kinn Svensson, Laura Neyskens, Daisy Ransom Phillips, Helder Seabra, Damien Fournier, Patrizia Bovi, Lou Cope and Guy Cools. I am also grateful to the producers and assistants at Eastman, Frans Brood Productions and Toneelhuis for providing me with the necessary schedules and logistic support. Sincere thanks go out to my colleagues, students and graduates at London Studio Centre, and my students at University of Surrey and University Campus Suffolk over the past few years. I thoroughly enjoyed sharing my research findings with them in my classes and in corridor conversations, and engaging with their responses to Cherkaoui’s work, which I found to be very enriching. I would like to mention my colleague Dr Francis Yeoh in particular, because he has been an incredibly supportive sounding board with whom I could share my experiences. I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for awarding me a doctoral grant, which has allowed me to pursue my research with the necessary focus. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their genuine encouragement and loving support. Introduction This doctoral research project focuses on the work of Flemish-Moroccan dance theatre choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Since his choreographic debut in 1999 for Les Ballets C. de la B., Cherkaoui has become a prolific creator of new works in a variety of contexts. This thesis is the first substantial academic study of this choreographer’s body of works. It will refer to a number of key works from his oeuvre: Rien de Rien (2000), Foi (2003), Tempus Fugit (2004), zero degrees (co­ choreographed with Akram Khan, 2005), Myth (2007), Apocrifu (2008) and (co-choreographed with Damien Jalet, 2010). These works, and the processes that yielded them, are characterised by cross-cultural collaboration and on­ stage complexity. The staged works present certain challenges for the spectator, which will be articulated and analysed in this thesis. The main body of the thesis consists of two parts. Part I is concerned with the immediate historical, intellectual and artistic contexts Cherkaoui’s work emerged from and comprises two chapters. Chapter 1 centres around his work Foi (2003), using it as a typical work to introduce the reader to Cherkaoui as an artist and the kind of work he makes. Foi also signalled the start of my own scholarly engagement with Cherkaoui’s work, while I was undertaking research for my MA Dance Studies at the University of Surrey in 2004. The chapter includes a brief biography of Cherkaoui leading up to the moment when he created Foi. It is important to take note of some elements from Cherkaoui’s early life and career, as they seem to have relevance to the themes and issues he explores in his work. Biography seems to always be at play within the dramaturgy of his works, but also always expanded choreographically by it. The following section of Chapter 1 uses the brief introduction to Foi and the basic biographical information to attempt to locate Cherkaoui’s work within the context of Flemish dance history. It seems that this history, as it has hitherto been written, does not allow for Cherkaoui to be easily included within it. A literature review of key Flemish dance historical publications (Lambrechts, Van Kerkhoven & Verstockt, eds., 1996; Uytterhoeven, ed., 2003; De Vuyst, ed., 2006) reveals that the authors tend to focus on the division of choreographers into generations, while making an allowance for ‘outsiders’ from outside the established dance institutions and/or from outside Flanders, who have penetrated the Flemish dance landscape. It will be evaluated whether this generational dance history model is tenable when considering Cherkaoui’s work.