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Croatian to English: Representation of ballet in film General field: Art/Literary
Source text - Croatian Tijelo u/prkos boli:
sretni krajevi i tragični počeci u filmskim reprezentacijama baletne pedagogije
And don't forget, a great impression of simplicity can only be achieved by great agony of the body and spirit.
Boris Lermontov, The Red Shoes
Sretan kraj: balet kao klasni simbol
Početak prvi: Mlada plesačica ubrzanim korakom ulazi u prostor prestižne baletne akademije koji odiše rigidnom elegancijom te prolazi teškim mramornim hodnikom ispunjenim baletnim tijelima kao skulpturama u pokretu. Dok se protagonistkinja ogledava po kabinetu za prijemni ispit, kamera klizi od njezinih radničkih cipela preko baletnih papučica pored laganih bež tenisica sa štucnama do crnih cipela na visoku petu. Osjećaj vlastita tijela kao stranog bezbojnoj prostoriji natjera junakinju da se naglo okrene i istrči iz neprijateljske institucije kojoj će se ipak prema kraju filma trijumfalno vratiti.
Flashdance1 se često smatra više kompilacijom video spotova u karakterističnoj estetici osamdesetih, nego punokrvnim filmom, no iako je riječ o filmu u kodu romantične pop-glazbene drame, zanimljivim ga čini upravo izostanak pretenzija uz mnoštvo začudnih elemenata kroz koje se plete priča koja se poigrava rodnim, rasnim i klasnim binarizmima. Središnji lik nosi androgino ime Alex i radi kao zavarivačica danju te kabaretska plesačica noću u lokalu koji je ujedno pečenjarnica. No Alex sanja o baletnoj karijeri koja će joj omogućiti izlaz iz radničkog univerzuma u kojemu igra naizmjence apsolutno maskulinu i apsolutno femininu ulogu, u svijet izmješten iz njezine realnosti, u apsolutnu umjetnost i apsolutnu artificijelnost. Balet vibrira u kontrapunktu prema oba pola njezine svakodnevnice, sterilno čist i savršeno sofisticiran u suprotnosti prema prljavom i grubom dnevnom poslu, te lišen seksualizacije i vulgarnosti njezinih večernjih angažmana. Baletna je škola u Flashdanceu, ali i nizu filmova srodne narativne linije, simbol više klase te višestrukog elitizma, samim time noseći obećanje neodređenog prosperiteta i društvenog statusa za pripadnike marginaliziranih skupina kojima je svijet baleta daleki ideal i fantazija do koje su došli zaobilaznim putem, budući da s njime nisu mogli imati kontakta organski u svojoj okolini. U ovom plesno-filmskom podžanru baletne škole redovito rezoniraju kao ekskluzivna mjesta koja po definiciji izazivaju tjeskobu junakinjama koje se u njega ne uklapaju, djeluju kao hladna i neprijateljska mjesta koja ipak trebaju biti pokorena kako bi se film razriješio u sretan kraj. No taj se sretan kraj realizira kroz sudar baletnog univerzuma i njegovog pretpostavljenog antipoda te tako Alex dolazi na audiciju i izvodi (kasnije do iznemoglosti citiranu) koreografiju na pjesmu What a Feeling baziranu najvećim dijelom na jazz dance vokabularu s elementima breakdancea i gimnastičarskim eskapadama, koju pred kamerama izvodi čak četvero različitih ljudi2. Začudo, iako je cijela fantazija koja vodi radnju smještena u instituciju klasičnog baleta, samoga baleta u izvedbi naprosto – nema.
Iako balet u filmskom mediju simbolički figurira kao prostor negacije tijela, idealizacije discipline i privilegiranja artificijelnosti nad organskim, ovi i ovakvi filmovi kontriraju tom idealu, koji uvode kao nasljeđe i premisu, naznačujući da je strast i opuštenost u pokretu ono što daje umjetničku nadgradnju čistoj tehničkoj moći3. Alex će osvojiti komisiju ujedno zahvaljujući i usprkos svojim nedostacima, unoseći u baletni okvir slobodu pokreta te elemente koji pripadaju svijetu popularne i masovne kulture iz kojega potječe4.
Popkulturna reprezentacija značajna je zbog načina na koji reflektira i perpetuira strukturalne danosti u kojima nastaje, istovremeno ih filtrirajući i na različite načine modificirajući, ponekad proizvodeći učinke onkraj i mimo vlastitih namjera. Masovno raširene predodžbe o baletu većim su dijelom proizašle iz popkulturnih reprezentacija, negoli iz znanja o samome baletu te iskustva baletnih izvedbi. Dok je konzumacija baleta kao izvedbene forme ograničena samom svojom performativnom prirodom, zatim i relativnom ekskluzivnošću i naslijeđenim elitizmom baleta kao umjetničke forme i institucije, njegova instrumentalizacija pokazala se plodnom unutar filmskih narativa, pri čemu balet pruža ne samo element za estetizaciju, nego i značenjski zasićeni topos za različite žanrove. Iako balet figurira na različite načine u filmskoj umjetnosti kroz čitavu njezinu povijest, načine na koje figurira moguće je shematski prikazati kroz nekoliko motiva koji se neprestano variraju5. Pritom je jedan od načina na koje je moguće grupirati filmove u kojima je balet bitan dio cjelokupnog tkanja podijeliti ih na filmove u kojima je pristupanje baletnoj školi ili trupi – sretan kraj ili početak tragičnog narativa. Kad namotamo nit do sretnoga kraja, prihvaćamo da magični svijet iščezava u svoju utopiju kad jednom padne zastor, a ako bismo zavirile iza njega, u točki gdje je zablistao sretan kraj, kad nam se jednom oči naviknu, priča nastavlja posve drugim smjerom. Na neki način početak svake tragedije sadrži sretni završetak neke druge priče.
Sretan početak: balet kao prostor strave
Početak drugi: Mlada plesačica samouvjereno korača prema impozantnoj zgradi prestižne baletne akademije, gdje je kruta atmosfera tenzične discipline prožeta paučinom tjeskobne jeze koja će se postepeno materijalizirati u nadnaravne prizore čistog užasa. Prilazeći ulazu susreće djevojku koja u užasu bježi iz škole, (ne) sluteći da srlja u grotesknu smrt. Kako se radnja rastvara, glavna junakinja shvaća da plesnu akademiju vodi krvoločni vještičji koven koji kažnjava i najblaži otpor čvrstoj arhitekturi autoriteta.
Suspiria6 je visokoestetizirani horor koji se unatoč gotovo komičnom izostanku razrade same priče i brojnim nezgrapnostima produkcije prometnuo u klasik žanra primarno zahvaljujući estetskoj istančanosti uvelike u ekspresionističkom duhu. Baletna je škola ovdje topos koji rezonira gotovo kao kult u kojemu je žestoko kažnjen svaki čin volje koji se opire volji institucionalnog vodstva, odnosno vještičjeg kovena. Zanimljivo je da je prije svega nekoliko godina izašao istoimeni hommage film, koji bi bilo nesretno nazivati remakeom budući da mu je snaga upravo u radikalno drugačijem pristupu materiji, obrađenoj kroz složenu intertekstualnu mrežu motiva iz i oko originalne produkcije7. No dok original stravu uprizoruje na filmskoj pozornici škole baleta sa svega nekoliko prizora samih klasova, nova se Suspiria odmiče od klasičnog baletnog koda prema tradiciji tada suvremenog suvremenog plesa po koreografskim modelima Marthe Graham i Pine Bausch8 s citatima i ranijih revolucionarki moderne paradigme u plesu, primjerice ekspresionizmom inspirirane Mary Wigman9. Nimalo slučajno, riječ je o tradiciji koja je kao jednu od središnjih ideja još početkom stoljeća imala oslobođenje specifično ženskoga tijela od stega baletnog nasljeđa.
Balet je dušu dao za okvir kojemu je osnovna premisa potiskivanje boli, kao i potiskivanje iracionalnoga, intuitivnoga. Reprezentacije baleta koje su najdublje prodrle u javnu svijest definiraju ga kroz hijerarhičnost koju predvodi redovito muška figura okrutnoga autoriteta i pod njegovom se voljom tijela savijaju i lome, lišena slobode10. Dok je originalna Suspiria taj model zadržala zamijenivši mušku figuru maskuliniziranom ženskom inačicom baletne pedagoginje, nova je verzija promijenila čitavu paradigmu, oblikujući znatno ambivalentnije odnose u kompleksnijoj priči, no ujedno indikativno posve napuštajući balet kao topos i okvir.
Same su vještice osobito zanimljive kao likovi nadnaravnih horora jer je njihova povijest i priroda dvostruka: jest da su u najvulgarnijoj predodžbi vještice nadnaravna, mitska bića, no one su i tradicionalno nositeljice ženskog znanja mimo patrijarhalnog naslijeđa, u nekim varijacijama vezane za (neo)poganska vjerovanja usuprot hijerarhičnosti judeo-kršćanskih patrijarhalnih sustava te su u prošlosti bile i u samome središtu vrlo stvarnih masovnih ubojstava primarno žena diljem zapadnog svijeta. Vještice su projekcijsko platno za sav užas koji patrijarhat osjeća u odnosu na ženu i alibi za jezive načine na koje je taj strah izbio u paroksizmu straha, bijesa i nemoći. Vezane za prirodu, iracionalno, seksualno proždiruće i destruktivno, vještice su radikalno utjelovljenje patrijarhalnih predodžbi o ženskosti, koje izmiču kontroli. No dok ih prvotna Suspiria koristi samo kao odabrane iz itinerara međusobno zamjenjivih motiva strave koji upogonjuje radnju klasičnog horora (koji ne preže pred za žanr karakterističnom estetizacijom i fetišizacijom mrtvog ženskog tijela), nova inačica gradi znatno nestabilniju i slojevitiju priču. U pojednostavljenoj shemi stvari, balet ostaje sputan očinskom paradigmom, dok je pomak prema modernom-post-modernom-suvremenom plesu obilježen upravo smjenom paradigme u korist oslobođene ženskosti kojom dominira figura Majke11.
Baletni trokut: proždiruće majke i autoritarni očevi
Mnogi baletni filmovi oblikuju zasićene tenzične odnose prema varijaciji na trokut tradicionalne nuklearne obitelji, osobito se oslanjajući na dinamiku kćeri i proždiruće majke uz neprisutnog oca kojega kao figuru autoriteta mijenja koreograf. U tom je smislu shema u savršenom skladu s lakanovskim psihoanalitičkim modelom u kojemu majka kao primarna njegovateljica i najvažniji kontakt za dijete s njime formira dijadnu vezu koja ih prožima i isključuje sve ostalo. U taj odnos zatim mora intervenirati funkcija oca koja će prekinuti dijadu i omogućiti konstituciju subjekta kroz njegovo napuštanje imaginarnog i inauguraciju u simbolički poredak u kojemu se može dalje razvijati i stupiti u druge odnose. Pojednostavljeno, imaginarni je poredak određen stapanjem u kojemu budući subjekt ne može razlučiti granice svojega sebstva, da bi zatim prolaskom kroz stadij zrcala, zahvaljujući razaznavanju vlastitog odraza, artikulirao svoje postojanje kao istovremeno dio svijeta koji tek sada može percepcijom obuhvatiti i izdvojeno iz svijeta. Neprekinuta dijada majka-dijete destruktivna je za obje strane, ne dopuštajući im da dišu i rastu, stvarajući bazu za auto/destruktivno ponašanje i psihozu. Najbeskrupuloznija je transpozicija ovih obrazaca u filmski medij s baletnom tematikom u filmu Black Swan12, u kojemu se narativ plete oko ultimativno prepoznatljivog baleta Labuđe jezero. Protagonistkinja je pritom balerina koja ima pored labuđe princeze plesati i ulogu crne labudice, njezina mračnog odraza koji će suparnici oduzeti jedinu priliku za ljubav i oslobođenje od labuđeg obličja. Po zakonima neodrživih binarizama među kojima i psihoanaliza gradi svoju teoriju ljudske duše, bijela labudica simbolizira čistoću i nevinost, dok je njezin antipod nositeljica animalne strasti mračnih sila. Tako balerina, koju upoznajemo kao nepodnošljivo suzdržanu i seksualno potisnutu, za potrebe nove uloge mora otvoriti vrata svemu onome što je dotad držala pod ključem, a što se zatim, također po psihoanalitičkoj formuli, vraća u demoniziranoj formi. Njezine boli po potiskivanju najprije se naznačuju kroz sklonost samoozljeđivanju, odnosno kroz opsesivno-kompulzivni poremećaj ekskorijacije, te sugestiju poremećaja prehrane da bi se kroz narativ dalje otvarale do njezinog konačnog psihotičnog sloma.
Glavna je junakinja-labudica pri početku karijere u trupi izvjesnog renomea u trenutku kada je s trona uklonjena dotadašnja miljenica koreografa i prima balerina, čija je karijera na zalazu. Generacijska je smjena također često zastupljen motiv u baletnim filmovima, intenzivirajući inherentnu tragiku baletne karijere kao sveprožimajuće i u krajnjoj liniji proždiruće, kao i karijere nužno relativno kratkoga vijeka. U Crnom labudu generacijski je moment dvostruk: balerina prisiljena abdicirati predstavlja se na samome početku kroz kliznuće u bijes, ludilo i autodestruktivnost, s implikacijom pokušaja samoubojstva, što pruža uvid u budućnost glavne junakinje, Nine, pod pretpostavkom da ostvari sve svoje ambicije. S druge strane, karijera protagonistkinje realizira se pod budnim okom samohrane majke kojoj je ta sudbina izmaknula, po svemu sudeći barem dijelom upravo zbog trudnoće. Stoga je središnja labudica na račvanju između dviju zastrašujućih sudbina, nerealizirana života punog žaljenja za propuštenim prilikama i apsolutne realizacije težnji koja vodi u ludilo i smrt.
Kada se u kompaniji pojavi nova plesačica, koja se iz mase izdvaja opuštenim, pomalo divljim ponašanjem, ona za Ninu postaje nositeljicom njezinih potisnutih žudnji, zrcalni odraz i dvojnica koja markira psihotični rascjep. Ninino seksualno buđenje odvija se kroz ono što je faktički masturbacija, realizirana kroz fantaziju, odnosno halucinaciju, seksualnog odnosa s kolegicom koju prepoznaje kao svoj antipod. Film prati narativ koji je u osnovi reprodukcija opisanog lakanovskog obrasca: dijadni odnos s majkom prekida intervencija očinske figure koreografa, no krhka se psiha slama pod pritiskom i rascjepljuje u dvojništvo koje teži integraciji, no integracija, koja uvjetuje i savršenu baletnu izvedbu na pozornici, realizira se po cijenu samouništenja. Halucinacija ubojstva dvojnice razotkriva se kao pokušaj samoubojstva, prema narcističkom modelu u kojemu žudnja prema idealu vlastita odraza vodi u smrt.
Balet u Crnom labudu stvara savršenu podlogu za pomicanje figurica po jasnoj shemi te razotkriva nekoliko elemenata ključnih za holivudizaciju baleta. Najprije se baletna rigidnost predstavlja kao savršena okolina za središnji lik čija se fragilna psihička dinamika održava dijelom zahvaljujući jasnim imperativima koje postavlja baletni svijet u svojoj čistoći i negaciji organskoga. No prvi poticaj u razvoju radnje pruža labudici mogućnost dosezanja samoga vrha u ansamblu isključivo kroz afirmaciju kvalitete koja dijelom narušava te zadanosti i otvara prostor strasti, seksualnosti i bijesu. Dakle, u tjeranju vlastitih ideala do krajnosti, doseže se njihovo naličje.
Kratki ekskurs o rodnoj pristranosti
Kontroverzni belgijski film Girl pripovijeda o trans djevojci iz radničke obitelji koja upisuje prestižnu baletnu školu istovremeno postepeno prolazeći tranziciju13. Film svoju poantu poentira do besvijesti, lomeći preko tijela protagonistkinje klaster duševnih poremećaja koji nastaju u neprijateljskoj tenziji uma i tijela pod pritiscima rigidne kulture: tjelesnu disforiju, poremećaj prehrane i samoozljeđivanje. Taj splet boli zatim je uokviren i potenciran kontekstom baletne škole koja smješta jedva izdržljivi pritisak na tijelo koje je istovremeno u razvoju i tranziciji. Zbog fokusa koje balet ima istovremeno na «prirodno» tijelo i njegove mogućnosti te njegovu estetsku modifikaciju s vremenom i treningom, transrodni narativ s vlastitom borbom između dvije «prirode» akcentiran je na osobiti način. Film je originalno inspiriran pričom iz biografije transrodne plesačice koja je pored privatne tranzicije prolazila i rodnu tranziciju unutar baletnog binarizma, odnosno prijelaz iz specifično muške pozicije u ansamblu i odgovarajućeg vokabulara u poziciju balerine14, no ta je dimenzija priče u filmskoj preradbi uvelike zapostavljena u korist spektakularnijih borbi i tenzija. Iako film uz najbolju volju ipak u konačnici djeluje eksploatacijski i kontraproduktivno prema vrlo zanimljivoj temi s kojom se hvata ukoštac, u ovom ga je kontekstu od izvjesnog značaja spomenuti jer spaja klasnu mobilnost sa specifično baletnim rodnim binarizmom na način na koji dosad drugi baletni filmovi o tome nisu progovarali te balet postaje nositeljem bitnog sloja nasilja nad tijelom, potencirajući okretanje junakinje protiv vlastita tijela.
Baletno-filmski fatalizam: balet ili smrt
Baletni prostori iza kulisa, bilo da je riječ o pedagoškom procesu ili radu unutar kompanije, obilježeni su u filmu kao prostori fantazije, idealizirani i teško dostupni, i/ili kao prostori tenzije, agresije pa i duboke traume. Kako bi postalo instrumentom unutar baletnog umjetničkog djela plesač/ica se sustavno modificira do svojega ideal tipa, fizički i psihički podjednako, unutar izrazito hijerarhičnog i kompetitivnog okruženja. Sadomazohistička je dinamika u osnovi ovog univerzuma, pretpostavljeni užitak, u koji moramo vjerovati da bismo progutale priču koja je toliko premrežena patnjom, postiže se kroz nevjerojatnu količinu boli.
Bol je do krajnosti subjektivna, nesumnjiva samo ako je naša, dok je tuđa bol uvijek suspektna15 jer je po definiciji vidljiva samo u svom performativu. Balet poseže onkraj boli, na neki način i onkraj samoga tijela, koje savršenstvo postiže kroz vlastitu negaciju. Fantazija baleta je fantazija tijela koje samo sebe nadilazi, i upravo taj se njegov aspekt nameće kao jedna od najprivlačnijih dimenzija za filmske spektakle. Balet, osobito kako je posredovan u filmskom mediju, traži posvemašnju uronjenost, posvećenost koja se prelijeva u sve dimenzije pojedinog života, drži biće u neprestanoj tenziji zauzimajući cijeli prostor identiteta. Onkraj baletne karijere ostaje samo polu-život ili smrt.
Kada umjetnost funkcionira kao važan motiv u svijetu djela mainstream produkcije, gotovo je uvijek riječ o melodramatičnoj idealizaciji umjetničkog rada. Tada umjetnost dobiva dimenziju sudbine, jedine svrhe pojedinog života kojoj je alternativa maltene, ili sasvim doslovno, smrt.
Umjetnost je tada poziv, osnova identiteta, uzvišena i posvećena svrha koja umjetnika izdvaja iz opće populacije običnih smrtnika. Ista se fatalistička logika upliće i u filmove o balerinama i baletanima, no sa zanimljivom dualnom pozicijom, budući da su središnji likovi narativa redovito plesači/ce, dok je koreografija sporedna u odnosu na samo plesno umijeće (ne samo tehniku nego i apstraktnu kvalitetu pokreta) ili je posve pripisana kao djelatnost figurama autoriteta. To će reći da je iznimnost plesač/ic/a smještena ne u kreativnoj moći koja odlikuje reprezentaciju drugih umjetničkih vještina, nego kao neodređeni duh koji unose u krute forme koje su im zadane te u fiziološkim zadanostima njihovih tijela na način na koji to nijedna druga umjetnost ne traži. Zato baletno umijeće i umjetnost oblikuju fantastične, fantazmatske i fantazmagorične filmske vizije, proizvodeći kod publike jouissance, kao užitak koji nastaje iz boli da bi u svome suvišku ponovno skliznuo u bol; užitak u privremenom trijumfu ljudskog nad ljudskim, u ekstremu i ekstremnom padu, tenziji svih binarizama koje balet aktivira. Balet kao utjelovljenje art-ificijelne ljepote nužno skriva mračno naličje te ga stoga u njegovim filmskim posredovanjima volimo promatrati kao daleko obećanje savršene ljepote, a izbliza kao Narcisov uron u bezdan.
Translation - English The Body in (spite of) Pain:
Happy Endings and Tragic Beginnings in Cinematic Representations of Ballet Pedagogy
And don't forget, a great impression of simplicity can only be achieved by great agony of the
body and spirit.
Boris Lermontov, The Red Shoes
Happy ending: ballet as a class symbol
Beginning no. 1: A young dancer briskly enters the premises of a prestigious ballet academy that emanate rigid elegance and passes through a massive marble hallway filled with ballet bodies as moving sculptures. While the protagonist looks around the entrance exam room, the camera glides from her working-class shoes over ballet slippers and light beige sneakers with knee socks, towards black stilettos. Feeling her body alien to the colorless room, the protagonist abruptly turns around and runs out of the enemy institution, which she will nevertheless triumphantly return to by the end of the film.
Flashdance1 is often considered more of a compilation of ‘80s music videos than a full-fledged movie. In spite of belonging to the genre of romantic pop-music drama, what makes it interesting is precisely the lack of pretentiousness and numerous offbeat elements that the story weaves through, playing with sex, race and class binarisms. The central character bears an androgynous name Alex and works as a welder by day and a cabaret dancer at night in a bar that is also a grill. But Alex dreams of a career in ballet which would enable her to escape her working class reality, where she alternately plays both absolute masculine and absolute feminine roles, into the world separated from her reality, into absolute art and absolute artificiality. Ballet represents a counterpoint to both of her everyday axes, sterile clean and perfectly sophisticated in contrast to the rough and dirty day job, while also deprived of sexualization and vulgarity of her night job. In Flashdance, but also in numerous films with a common narrative, the ballet school functions as a symbol of the upper class and a space of multifold elitism, thus holding a promise of distant prosperity and social status for members of marginalized groups, for whom the world of ballet is a remote ideal and a fantasy they reached in a roundabout way, seeing as they could not have had organic contact with it in their own environment. In this sub-genre of dance film, ballet schools invariably resonate as exclusive settings which by definition cause anxiety in the heroines that do not fit in. They come across as cold and hostile places that need to be conquered for the film to unravel into a happy ending. Yet, this happy ending is realized through the clash of the ballet universe and its presupposed antipode, and thus Alex comes to the audition and performs the (later on endlessly quoted) choreography to the song What a Feeling, based mostly on the vocabulary of jazz dance with elements of break dance and gymnastic escapades, that are performed by as many as four different people2. Surprisingly, although the fantasy driving the plot is set in the institution of classical ballet, during the performance, the ballet itself – is nowhere to be seen.
Although in the medium of film ballet symbolically represents the negation of the body, the idealization of discipline and the privilege of artificiality over the organic, these films oppose this ideal, which they introduce as a legacy and premise, underlining that passion and nonchalance in movement is what creates the artistic upgrade to pure technical power3. Alex is going to win over the board, both because of and in spite of her shortcomings, introducing the freedom of movement and the elements of popular and mass culture she stems from into the framework of ballet4. Pop culture representation is important because of the way it reflects and perpetuates the structural presumptions within which it is created, at the same time filtering and modifying them in different ways, sometimes producing effects beyond own intentions. Mass spread preconceptions about ballet have sprung more from its representations in pop culture, than from the knowledge about ballet itself and the experience of ballet performances in public. While the consumption of ballet as a form of performance is limited by its performative nature, its relative exclusiveness and the inherited elitism of ballet as an art form and an institution, the instrumentalization of ballet in film has proven prolific, as ballet not only offers an element to be aestheticized, but also provides a meaning-saturated topos for different genres. Although ballet performs different roles in film throughout history, the ways in which it performs these roles can be schematically illustrated through several motifs that vary. One way to group the films where ballet presents an important piece of the narrative is to divide them into films where joining ballet school or troupe is either a happy ending or the beginning of a tragic narrative. After fast forwarding to the happy ending, we accept that the magical world disappears into its utopia once the curtain drops. But if we peak behind the curtain, from the point where at one time a happy ending shone bright, once our eyes accustom to the change in light, the story moves onward in a completely different direction. In a way, the beginning of every tragedy contains a happy ending of some other story.
Happy beginning: ballet as horror
Beginning no. 2: A young dancer strides confidently towards the majestic building of a prestigious ballet academy, where the rigid atmosphere of strained discipline is impregnated with anxious shudder that gradually materializes into supernatural scenes of pure horror. Walking up to the entrance, she meets a girl running out of the school in horror, (un)suspecting of the grotesque death she is running into. As the plot unravels, the main heroine begins to understand that the dance academy is led by a blood-thirsty witch coven that punishes even the remotest resistance to the firm architecture of authority.
Suspiria5 is a highly aestheticized horror that has despite almost comically under-elaborated plot and numerous production blunders turned into a classic of its genre, primarily due to the aesthetic sophistication largely in the expressionist tradition. Here the ballet school represents a topos that comes across almost as a cult, where every act of will defying the institutional leadership, the witch coven, is severely punished. Interestingly, only a couple of years back, we have witnessed the release of an homage of the same name, which would be unfortunate to consider a remake, since its strength lies precisely in the radically different approach to the subject, analyzed through a complex inter-textual net of motifs from and around the original production, setting its plot in Berlin of the seventies6. But while the original piece, containing only a few scenes of the training itself, uses the ballet school as a stage for the horror narrative, the new Suspiria moves away from the classical ballet vocabulary towards the practice based on the then contemporary contemporary dance with choreographic models such as Martha Graham and Pina Bausch7, also containing quotes of earlier revolutionaries of the modern dance paradigm, for example, the expressionism-inspired Mary Wigman8. It is no accident that this is a tradition that has since the beginning of the century put forward the idea of liberation of specifically female body from the hold of the ballet legacy. Ballet has always been eager to find a framework whose central premise is the suppression of pain, as well as suppression of the irrational, the intuitive.
The representations of ballet that have most deeply penetrated the public consciousness define it through a strong hierarchical system always headed by a male figure of cruel authority, under whose command bodies deprived of freedom bend and break9. While the original Suspiria kept that model by replacing the male figure with a masculinized female variant of the ballet pedagogue, the new version has shifted the whole paradigm, forming much more ambivalent relationships within a complex story, but at the same time tellingly and completely abandoning ballet as topos and framework. The witches itself are particularly interesting as characters of supernatural horrors because their history and nature is twofold: it holds true that in the most vulgar conceptions witches represent supernatural, mythical beings, but they are traditionally the conveyors of female knowledge that extends past the legacy of patriarchy. In some variations they are associated with (neo)pagan beliefs opposing the hierarchicality of Judeo-Christian patriarchies, while in the past they were at the center of very real mass killings of (primarily) women throughout the western world. Witches are the canvas onto which all the terror that patriarchy feels towards women is projected, as well as an alibi for the gruesome ways in which this fear has erupted in a paroxysm of masculine fear, anger and impotence. Bound to nature, the irrational, the sexually devouring and destructive, witches are a radical embodiment of patriarchical conceptions about femininity spinning out of control. But while the original Suspiria uses them only as one of many interchangeable motifs of horror serving as the vehicle for the plot of a classical horror film (which does not refrain from aesthetization and fetishization of the dead female body characteristic for the genre), the new version builds a story that is much more unstable and layered. In the simplified scheme of things, ballet stays bound by the paradigm of the father, while the move towards the modern-post-modern contemporary dance is marked precisely by the paradigm shift towards the liberated femaleness dominated by the figure of Mother10.
The ballet triangle: devouring mothers and authoritarian fathers
Many ballet films depict relationships saturated with tension, based on variations of the traditional nuclear family triangle, in particular, relying on the dynamics between the daughter and the devouring mother with a mostly absent father replaced by the choreographer as the authority figure. In this sense, the scheme is perfectly in tune with Lacan’s psychoanalytical model where the child and the mother, as its primary caregiver and most important contact, form a dyad bond that pervades them and shuts off everything else. Then, the function of father needs to intervene by undoing the dyad, enabling the constitution of the subject through its abandonment of the imaginary and the inauguration into the symbolic order where it can further grow and enter into other relationships. Put simply, the imaginary order is defined by integration inside which future subjects are unable to discern the boundaries of their self-hood, and after which, by going through the mirror stage and recognizing their own reflection, they articulate their existence as both part of the world that can only now be comprehended by perception, as well as separate from the world. The undisrupted mother-daughter dyad is destructive for both parties, not allowing them to breath and grow, thus creating a basis for auto-destructive behavior and psychosis. The most unscrupulous transposition of these patterns into film that takes up ballet as subject has been in the film Black Swan11, where the narrative is built around the immediately recognizable ballet Swan Lake.
Here the protagonist is a ballerina who, apart from the role of the swan princess, also performs the role of the black swan, her dark reflection that will take away from her opponent the one opportunity for love and liberation from the swan form. Under the laws of unsustainable binarisms, also utilized by psychoanalysis to build its theory of the human soul, the white swan is a symbol of purity and innocence, while her antipode is the conveyor of animalistic passion of dark forces. And so, for the purpose of her new role, the ballerina, presented in the film as unbearably inhibited and sexually restrained, needs to unleash everything she has kept under key, which, also following the psychoanalytical formula, comes back in a demonized form. The pain resulting from this suppression is first indicated through the propensity for self-injury, namely through the obsessive compulsive disorder of excoriation and the suggested eating disorder, only to continue to take shape through the narrative, resulting in her complete psychotic breakdown.
The main heroine/swan dances in a relatively acclaimed troupe at the beginning of her career, when the company’s prima ballerina and the choreographer’s favorite is removed from the throne at the twilight of her career. The generational shift is also a common motif in ballet films, intensifying the inherent tragic structure of the ballet career as all-pervading and, ultimately, all-consuming, as well as a career of inevitably short span. In Black Swan, the generational aspect is twofold: the ballerina forced to abdicate is at the very beginning depicted through scenes of her slipping into anger, madness and auto-destruction, implying a suicide attempt, which anticipates the future of the main protagonist, Nina, given that she fulfills all of her ambitions. On the other hand, the career of the protagonist is being realized under the watchful eye of a single mother that had this fate slip away from her, most likely because of the pregnancy that brought Nina into the world. Thus the central swan is at the crossroads between two terrifying fates, an unrealized life full of regret for the missed opportunities and the absolute realization of aspirations that leads to madness and death.
When the troupe is joined by a new dancer that stands out for her relaxed, somewhat wild behavior, for Nina she becomes the conveyor of her repressed desires, a mirrored reflection and a double that marks her psychotic chasm. Nina’s sexual awakening unfolds through what is basically masturbation, realized through a fantasy, a hallucination, of a sexual intercourse with a colleague she recognizes as her antipode. The film follows a narrative which is basically the reproduction of the described Lacan pattern: a dyad relationship with the mother is disrupted by the intervention of the choreographer as the father figure, but the fragile psyche breaks under pressure and splits into doubleness that longs for integration, while this integration, that also conditions her perfect ballet performance on stage, is realized at a price of self-destruction. The hallucination of the murder of the double is imparted as a suicide attempt, according to the narcissistic model where the desire for the ideal of your own reflection leads to death.
Ballet in Black Swan provides a perfect blueprint for revealing several elements crucial for the hollywoodization of ballet. The rigidity of ballet is first represented as the perfect environment for the central character, whose fragile psychological dynamics is sustained partly because of the clear imperatives the ballet world imposes in its inherent purity and the negation of the organic. Yet, the first impetus for the development of the plot offers the swan the opportunity to reach the very top in the ensemble exclusively through the affirmation of the very quality that partly violates these preconditions and opens the room for passion, sexuality and anger. Thus, by pushing your ideals to the extreme, you reach their opposites.
Brief excursus on gender bias
The controversial Belgian film Girl recounts a story about a working-class transgender-girl that enrolls into a prestigious ballet school, simultaneously going through transition12.
The film stresses its crux tirelessly, using the body of the protagonist as a meeting point of mental disorders that arise through the hostile tension of the mind and body under the pressures of the rigid culture: body dysphoria, eating disorder and self-injury. The resulting pain is then framed and exacerbated by the context of the ballet school that places an almost unbearable pressure on the body that is at the same time developing and transitioning. Because of the focus that ballet shares both with the “natural” body and its potentials, as well as its aesthetic modification with time and training, the transgender narrative, with its own struggle between the two “natures”, is highlighted in a specific way. The film was originally inspired by the experience of a transgender dancer who, apart from her own private transition, went through gender transition inside the binarism of ballet, that is, a transition from a specifically male position in the ensemble and its respective vocabulary into the position of a ballerina13, although this aspect of the story has been largely ignored in the film adaptation due to more “spectacular” struggles and tensions. While in the end, even with the best of intentions, the film does appear to be exploitative and counterproductive to the very interesting subject it grapples with, it is important to mention it in this context because it connects class mobility with a gender binarism specific for ballet in a way that no other ballet film has done before, where ballet becomes a conveyor of a specific layer of violence against the body, stressing the protagonist’s turning against her own body.
Ballet-film fatalism: ballet or death
The ballet realms behind the curtains, be it the pedagogic process or work within a company, are marked in film as realms of fantasy, idealized and inaccessible, and/or as places of tension, aggression, even deep trauma. So as to become an instrument within a ballet work of art, the dancers are systematically modified until they reach their ideal, both physically and psychologically, within an exceptionally rigid hierarchical and competitive environment. In the essence of this universe lies a sadomasochistic dynamics – the assumed pleasure we are to believe in in order to fall for the story so permeated with suffering, is realized through unimaginable amount of pain.
Pain is extremely subjective, unquestionable only if it is our own, while pain of the other is always uncertain14 because it is by definition visible only in its performative aspect. Ballet reaches beyond pain, in a way even beyond the body itself, which achieves perfection through its own negation. The fantasy of ballet is the fantasy of the body which overcomes itself, and it is precisely this aspect that cinematic spectacles find most attractive. Ballet, especially as depicted in film, demands complete immersion, devotion that extends into all dimensions of an individual life, it keeps the being in constant tension, capturing the whole of his or her identity. Beyond career in ballet there is only half-life or death. When art represents an important motif in the world of mainstream production, it is almost always about melodramatic idealization of artistic work, where art assumes the role of destiny, the only purpose of an individual life to which the alternative is basically, or very literally, death.
Here art is a calling, the basis of identity, the enlightened and singular purpose that separates the artist from the population of mere mortals. The same fatalistic logic is found in films about ballet dancers, but holding an interesting twofold position – the central characters of the narrative are always dancers, while choreography is either secondary in relation to the dance mastery itself (not just the technique, but the abstract quality of the movement) or, as a profession, completely ascribed to the authority figures. This means that the exceptionalism of the dancers does not come from the creative power that marks the representation of other artistic crafts, but from (some sort of) a vague spirit they introduce into the rigid and already assigned forms, as well as from the physiological givens of their bodies, in a way that no other art form asks of the artist. For this reason, the craft and art of ballet form fantastic, phantasmal and phantasmagoric cinematic visions, creating jouissance for the audience, as pleasure that is born from pain, only to slip back into pain in its surplus; the pleasure of a temporary triumph of the human over human, of the extreme and of the extreme fall, the pleasure in the tension of all the binarisms ballet activates. Ballet as the embodiment of the art-ificial beauty necessarily conceals its dark opposite. Thus, in its film depictions we enjoy perceiving it as a distant promise of perfect beauty, while from up close, as Narcissus’s dive into the abyss.
Croatian to English: Aesthetically modified organisms General field: Art/Literary
Source text - Croatian “A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together. “ (Margaret Atwood)
Nametnuta šutnja ili glas
Trideset dvije godine svog baletnog života doživljavam kao nijeme. Dolazeći iz diskursa baletne dvorane koja još nije došla do povijesnog trenutka u kojem njezini članovi traže pravo glasa, zakoračila sam u prostor u kojem mi je glas dân kroz obrazovanje i mogućnost odabira vlastitih tema, a da ga nisam morala zaslužiti. Ovim radom pokušala sam kroz dijalog premostiti, kako procjep između znanja i neznanja, tako i otpor prema pronalasku autentičnog glasa koji je godinama bio instrument reproduciranja diskursa autoriteta kroz šutnju. Prema Jennifer M. Bolt1, koja govori o fenomenu nametnute šutnje u baletnim dvoranama, bitno je razlikovati svjesno odsustvo verbalne ekspresije plesača i plesnog učitelja od psihičkog suzbijanja učenika koje sprečava propitivanje i promišljanje. Iz mog osobnog straha rodila se potreba kritičkog preispitivanja svega onoga što obavija baletnu tehniku i «tijelo ideja» koje je modificirano baletnom estetikom jer kao baletni i plesni pedagog, preispitujem (sa)znanja, vrijednosti, ukus i estetiku koju, svojim pedagoškim radom, prenosim svojim učenicima/polaznicima. To preispitivanje smatram posebno bitnim stoga što sam svjesna kako sam od devete godine života i sama uronjena u baletne prakse koje možemo/trebamo percipirati kao diskriminatorne i koje su neizbježno utkane i utjelovljene u moj cjelokupni habitus. Pod egidom osobno je političko ovaj projekt progovara o osobnim iskustvima i dispozicijama nastalim unutar baletnih institucija škole i profesionalnog okruženja (kazališta i/li kompanije) te također, kao bitan doprinos, uključuje i «glasove» dvadeset šest osoba2 iz (internacionalne) baletne zajednice koje su, kroz formu intervjua, svojevoljno odgovorile na pitanja. U kontekstu izrečene teze o nametnutoj šutnji, čini mi se kako je najveća važnost ovog projekta upravo u tome što daje mogućnost osobama nijeme profesije i osobno progovoriti o baletu.
Estetski modificiran organizam
Središnje pitanje ovog teksta je, moramo li baletnu estetiku prihvatiti kao nešto neminovno ili je možemo i kritički analizirati kao povijesno konstruirani mit koji se ideološki stvara u baletnoj dvorani škole, a nastavlja svoj život u profesionalnoj instituciji. Sintagma baletno tijelo u ovom tekstu ne predstavlja samo fizičko tijelo već i sve ono što obavija to tijelo, što to tijelo utjelovljuje kroz ideje i stavove, a stečeno je bavljenjem baletom. Baletno tijelo definirala sam kao estetski modificiran organizam jer je estetika pojam koji ima simbiontsku vezu s baletom. Od prvog dana ulaska u baletnu školu učenik postaje i subjekt i objekt «manifestacije razlučivanja», živući korektivni binarni sustav pretvaranja «iz ružnog u lijepo», a pri čemu je prethodno navedena šutnja jedna od estetiziranih kvaliteta onog što je «lijepo i poželjno».
Balet kao umjetnička forma i plesna tehnika3, traži, modificira i prikazuje ljudsko tijelo koje je određeno nizom rigidnih pravila i prohtjeva formuliranih kao apsolutno “profesionalno nužnih”, a koja su zapravo isključivo rezultat određene estetske dogme, pa se nameće pitanje možemo li baletno tijelo promatrati/definirati kao EMO - laboratorijski stvoreni estetski modificiran organizam?
Baletna audicija - dijete Prokrustove postelje i princeze na zrnu graška
“osjećala sam se diskriminirano kada bih poslala svoj životopis u neku kompaniju kako bih pristupila audiciji, a najčešći odgovor je bio ’Vi ste preniski’. Uvijek kažem ‘mogu plesati da pokret izgleda veliko, mogu izgledati puno viša na sceni od moje stvarne visine, zašto mi ljude govore da sam preniska’. Ali istina je, niska sam, pa ne mogu ništa reći! Haha”
Slušajući mnoga svjedočanstva, baletne audicije su nalikovale čudnovatom spoju Prokrustove postelje i sindroma princeze na zrnu graška, jer plesaču ili nešto nedostaje, ili ima nešto previše, ili oboje, a one koji biraju žulja svaki milimetar plesačevog tijela ako odstupa od nepropusnog “baletnog kalupa”. U engleskom časopisu Dance Europe napravljen je intervju sa šesnaest umjetničkih direktora europskih profesionalnih plesnih (baletnih) kompanija, a glavno je pitanje bilo što traže od svojih plesača.4 Najčešći odgovor glasi da se traži ono „uobičajeno/očigledno“, a to je lijepa i pravilna forma nogu i stopala, otvorenost (kukova), pravilne proporcije tijela, duljina ruku i nogu, mala glava. Naglašava se da je estetski izgled bitan jer je to „vizualna umjetnost“, traži se „klasični baletni izgled”. U velikom broju kompanija ističe se visina plesača, neki su precizni do u centimetar. Ako neki plesač odstupa od propisane visine mora biti po nečemu izuzetno poseban da bi „zaslužio mjesto” u tako homogenom ansamblu. Plesači također moraju biti muzikalni i inteligentni, biti sretni i uživati u svom poslu (jedan direktor navodi kako su na nedavnoj audiciji odustali od tehnički možda najboljeg plesača jer je djelovao/djelovala ozlojeđeno). Traže se i „one neobjašnjive stvari koje čine plesača uz specijalne kvalitete, otvoren i pozitivan stav, iskrenost, smisao za humor i mogućnost da brzo uči”, dok drugi pak preferira plesače s dugačkim rukama i dugim vratom te vjerojatno ne bi zaposlio plesače s kraćim rukama jer to na sceni ne izgleda dobro. U svega par kompanija ne inzistiraju na određenom tipu tijela i kako najviše inzistiraju na dobroj plesačkoj tehnici i koordinaciji, a samo jedan umjetnički direktor iznosi stav kako želi snažne i zdrave plesače i želi ih različite jer je različitost prikaz društva u kojem živimo, „apsolutno suprotno od corps de ballet“. Zanimljivo je kako se u pitanjima nigdje ne spominje dobni okvir plesača niti etnička/rasna pripadnost plesača. Time se navodi pogrešan dojam o multikulturalnosti i heterogenosti plesnih skupina.
“Ponekad sam osjetila diskriminaciju u baletu (za neke uloge, kod nekih koreografa) jer sam azijskog porijekla, ali rekla bih da je to normalno za ljude koji diskriminiraju (rasizam) u svijetu baleta jer povijesno balet dolazi iz Europe. Ponekad je jako teško kontrolirati svoje misli i mentalno stanje, kada osjećaš rasizam od nekoga.”
Estetika baletne somatofobije
Ishodište stvaranja idealnog baletnog tijela je obrazovni sustav u kojem se od učenika, kao od sirovog materijala fizičkog predloška (blueprint), oblikuju visokoestetizirana poslušna tijela.
Svi se parametri odnose isključivo na fizička obilježja djeteta, a većina parametara ističe dominantnu estetiku baletnog tijela koja ne pridonosi boljem ili uspješnijem izvođenju tehnike, već isključivo “ljepoti linije tijela”. Baletna fiksacija na tijelo upisuje kompletnu vrijednost pojedinca u njegovo tijelo i upravo taj kapital najčešće određuje sudbinu pojedinca od ulaska u školu, kroz školovanje, pa do profesionalne karijere u kojem mu “rok trajanja” isključivo ovisi o potentnosti njegovog fizičkog kapitala5. Dijete koje upisuje baletnu školu, već se od same audicije susreće s osjećajem objektivizacije, koji se gradirano i kapilarno umnožava kroz sve godine školovanja. Ako se u kontekstu zapadne filozofske misli koristi riječ somatofobija kao prezir i odbojnost prema tjelesnom, baletni svijet gaji paradoksalnu somato-filiju kao ono što je dominantno i poželjno. Ili ako pojednostavnimo jezikom današnjice, baletna umjetnost diskriminira isključivo po tjelesnim obilježjima stvarajući specifičnu somatofobiju – strah od tjelesnosti u njenoj punini.
“Prekinula sam nakon 6. razreda ne svojom voljom ni željom, nego je mojim roditeljima rečeno da više nemam tijelo za balerinu. U pubertetu su mi rekli da sam debela i da ne postoje balerine s velikim grudima. (...) Imala sam tada 13 godina. N nakon što sam se u pubertetu razvila, doživjela sam ignoriranje. Tadašnja pedagoginja prestala me ispravljati, premjestila me sa srednjeg štapa i rekla mojim roditeljima da me ispišu jer ću ionako pasti razred.”
U baletnoj dvorani ne postoji egalitarizam u distribuciji znanja koje se prenosi usmenom predajom isključivo kroz habitus učitelja, a znanje se mora zaslužiti. U mikrosvijetu baletne dvorane djeca su vrlo rano upoznata s pojmom hijerarhije: štap na kojem stoje određuje njihovo mjesto/vrijednost u socijalnom polju baletne školske dvorane, pozicija učitelja u baletnoj dvorani je kod ogledala, a srednji štap je nasuprot učitelja. Foucaultov unequal gaze ovdje dobiva novo značenje jer osim što definira nejednaku distribuciju moći (budući da onaj koji promatra posjeduje znanje, a onaj tko je promatran ne posjeduje znanje), također doslovno objašnjava preraspodjelu znanja u dvorani jer se najbolja transmisija znanja događa na relaciji učitelj-srednji štap (posebno središnja pozicija srednjeg štapa), dok su desni i lijevi štap marginalizirani i teže dostupni učiteljevom oku. Margina također ima svoju hijerarhijsku vrijednost, pa su učenici na desnom štapu “manje loši” od učenika na lijevom štapu. Tako djeca od najranije dobi uče o “svojoj vrijednosti” kroz svoje tijelo, i tijelo ih određuje da li su “dobri” ili “loši”, koliko su “dobri” ili “loši” i od najranijih dana kategoriju svoje vrijednosti vežu s osjećajem vidljivosti ili nevidljivosti u prostoru. U baletnoj školi završni ispit je uvijek, između ostalog i vizualna demonstracija hijerarhijskog prikaza vrijednosti. Ekstrapolirajući vrijednosti vidljivosti i nevidljivosti na profesionalni život baletnog plesača, dobit ćemo uobičajenu konfiguraciju klasične baletne predstave u kojima su oni najbolji izvučeni naprijed na vidljivu poziciju (solisti), dok masa mnogobrojnih svojim tijelima tvori geometriju pokretne scenografije, ili, kako je rekla balerina Pariške opere Véronique Doisneau u istoimenoj predstavi Jérômea Bela, ljudski dekor.
Locus dominacije i submisivnosti
U baletnoj školi disciplina baletnog sata zauzdavala je i krotila naše prirodno “neposlušno” tijelo kroz baletne korake i učenje submisivnom ponašanju. Ono što je dozvoljeno i prihvatljivo nije bilo propisano samo od škole, već je ovisilo i o estetici/dispozicijama/habitusu učitelja. Baletni učitelj jedini je izvor učenikovog znanja i ne postoji način kako savladati gradivo ako učitelj ne radi na tebi/s tobom. Napravit ćeš sve ne bi li zadobio njegovo poštovanje, pažnju i ljubav te tako zaslužio znanje. Stvara se emocionalna ovisnost prema učitelju, neobičan spoj “Stockholmskog sindroma” i kognitivne disonance, koja objašnjava zbog čega nekad učenici (a kasnije profesionalni plesači), neobjašnjivo trpe razna emocionalna zlostavljanja i diskriminacije. Takvo ponašanje kod učenika postaje strategija opstanka ako je alternativa prestanak bavljenja baletom.
“U mojoj zemlji učitelj je imao dugačak štap kojim bi nas udarao po tijelu. U Kini ne možeš niti zamisliti koliko su učitelji zastrašujući! I naravno, udaraju te često kako bi se sabrao i ispravno odradio korak. Čak mi je i iskustvo u Francuskoj bilo slično. Ali svi učitelji uz koje sam odrastala su bili dragi i ljubazni ljudi koji su neizmjerno voljeli svoje učenike. I nikada ne razmišljam o takvom načinu učenja kao o fizičkom zlostavljanju, jer to rade iz ljubavi i naravno da učitelji znaju koliko je to bolno..jer tada bih se sabrala i mentalno bih bila još jača (puno puta uz suze!haha).”
Jedan od najzanimljivijih paradoksa baletnog školovanja jest što ne opstaju uvijek oni “najbolji”, odnosno djeca koja su u startu imala najbolji fizički kapital ili predispozicije. Sebičan gen preživljavanja unutar baletnog miljea ne odnosi se samo na fizičko tijelo već i na osobnost. Češće preživljavaju oni koji su usto i izdržljiviji i uporniji i vidljivo je koliko je tolerancija na bol (tjelesnu, psihičku, emocionalnu) utjelovljena disciplinom u plesačev habitus.
Čini mi se kako smo osim battement tendua ili demi-pliéa izvrsno uvježbali i submisivne obrasce ponašanja kojima smo prihvaćali/opravdavali takvo nedopustivo ponašanje nekoga koga smo doživljavali ultimativnim autoritetom.
Differently young is the new black
Prva tijela su tijela profesionalnog plesa “kakva smo navikli gledati na mainstream pozornicama i koje svjesno ili nesvjesno želimo gledati, moćnije je i samostalnije od svakodnevnog, neplesačkog, “pješačkog” tijela. (…)Tijela koja su nedovoljno virtuozna, nedovoljno istrenirana, nedovoljno mlada, nedovoljno vitka ili nedovoljno bijela naziva drugim tijelima plesa. Pokazivanje nekontroliranih tijela, odnosno ulazak tih tijela u javni prostor, negdje je duboko u građanskom moralu zapisano kao “nepristojno ili vulgarno”, a kao scenska (ali i društvena) pojava smatraju se neprihvatljivim 6
Čitajući intervjue ispitanika razotkrila sam svoju slijepu pjegu7 u pitanjima intervjua. Shvatila sam da sam zapostavila bitan segment fizičkog kapitala i habitusa8 plesača u pitanjima o diskriminaciji i/li elitizmu, a to su godine plesača, odnosno starosna dob. Zanimljivo je kako je, iako je raspon godina ispitanika bio od osamnaest do četrdeset osam godina, samo jedna od dvadeset pet ispitanih osoba, spomenula dobnu kategoriju plesača, odnosno vremensku granicu do koje plesač može profesionalno plesati. Također je zanimljivo kako u potpitanjima, pod pojmom elitizma, nisam naznačila inzistiranje na imperativu mladosti karakterističnom za profesiju, a to je tema koja mi je bliska ne samo zbog godina u kojima se nalazim, već i zato što me ta tema dulji niz godina intrigira. Često se ističu iznimke koje su se pojavljivale na sceni zbog stečenog simboličkog kapitala poput baletne ikone Margot Fonteyn koja je aktivno plesala glavne uloge u svojim pedesetim godinama ili kubanske balerine Alicije Alonso koja je plesala i u svojim sedamdesetim godinama, no provlačilo se pitanje je li (ne)prikladno plesati glavne uloge u tim godinama. Baletne heroine današnjice, poput Alessandre Ferri i Sylvie Guillem u pedeset trećoj, Wendy Whelan u pedeset prvoj godini i u (baletno) zrelijoj dobi posjeduju uz simbolički i izniman fizički kapital, te još uvijek demonstriraju nevjerojatnu fizičku snagu i moć, plešući glavne uloge klasičnog suvremenog repertoara, usprkos navršenim godinama. Pitanje koje mi se nameće je, zašto uvijek ističemo jedino nesvakidašnje iznimke, plesne olimpijce. Ono što intrigira je mogu li se i ona manje izvanredna, istrošena i iživljena tj. obična plesna/baletna tijela s patinom dugogodišnje profesionalne karijere, iskazivati plesom.
Ulaskom u četrdesete godine plesači iskuse baletnu drugost, jer su bez obzira na svoju zrelost, kvalitetu i dugogodišnje iskustvo, smješteni na marginu baletne izvođačke zajednice. Ono što uznemiruje je što nelagoda ne dolazi samo zbog promatrača koji imaju takav stav o mainstream prvim tijelima, već što sami plesači/ce nose taj kastrirajući stav o samima sebi. Osjećaj nedostatnosti zbog normalnog životnog ciklusa kroz koje svako pa tako i plesačko tijelo prolazi, manifestirao se na različite načine, ali često je dominantan osjećaj „srama što nastupaju na sceni u tim godinama”, kao i strah hoće li na sceni izgledati lijepo i dostojanstveno. Možda je došlo vrijeme u kojem mit o mladom baletnom tijelu koje se percipira kao normalno ili jedino-moguće možemo modificirati stvaranjem novog mita, kako je i to drugo tijelo, staro i iživljeno baletno tijelo jednako sposobno i normalno jer je starenje normalna biološka pojava. Godine 2015. proslavljeni švedski koreograf Mats Ek u svojoj sedamdesetoj godini ponovo je zaplesao sa svojom ženom, balerinom Anom Lagunom (60), sa Susanne Linke (71) i Dominiqueom Mercyjem (65) u predstavi Quartet Gala: Differently Young Stars9 duhovito se poigravajući s riječima „drugačije mladi”. Eventualna pretpostavka o postojanju sve većeg broja ovakvih (scenskih) reprezentacija u kojima se prikazuje raznolikost, “s više od 200 godina iskustva” kako je bila najavljena dotična predstava, mogla bi percepciju takvih predstava udaljiti od njihovog poimanja kao subverzivnog čina ili vizualne anomalije.
Rekreativni balet - EMO vs. NEMO
Alva Noë10, američki filozof, smatra kako nas umjetnost (životno) uči mijenjajući nam percepciju tako što promjenom naše percepcije ono što gledamo postaje “drugačije”.
Ako ikada dođe do demokratičnosti unutar baleta, hijerarhijske strukture i estetike tijela, ono što intrigira je hoće li to i dalje biti balet i hoće li i dalje biti (tako) privlačan.
U tom smislu, zanimljivo područje amaterskog baleta kao samorazvojne prakse predstavlja izazov za svako konvergentno razmišljanje, za svaku tiraniju dominantne percepcije estetskih dogmi, za sve sudionike uključene u tom procesu i za one koji to samo promatraju izvana. U kontekstu pedagoškog rada u rekreativnom/amaterskom baletu, pitanja koja se nameću su mogu li svakodnevna tijela, tijela nemodificirana baletnom tehnikom/estetikom, tijela bez baletnih predispozicija i idealnih proporcija, tijela različitih dobnih skupina, tijela koja ne streme profesionalnoj karijeri učiti te vježbati klasični balet? Ako mogu, što zapravo uče i je li to još uvijek klasični balet ako amaterski balet predstavlja/sadrži sve ono čega se klasični balet odriče? Ako oljuštimo sloj po sloj, sve nametnuto, konstruirano od i oko baleta ostaje ono nešto neuvjetovano, specifična plesna tehnika zahvaljujući kojoj se može plesati na specifičan način.
Iz potrebe da ne nagađam što balet znači polaznicima rekreativnog baletnog tečaja, kako djeluje i što znači samorazvojna plesna praksa za njih, anketirala sam 21 polaznicu tečaja u rasponu od 19 do 61 godine. Najveći broj ispitanica je izjavilo kako im uz psihičku i fizičku dobrobit, vježbanje baleta izaziva osjećaj sreće. „Za vrijeme baletnog sata osjećam se kao da radim na sebi, a to je za mene način da poštujem i volim sebe. Uživam u svom tijelu jer mi dozvoljava da se izražavam kroz pokret.” Mnoge polaznice pišu kako doslovno otkrivaju svoje tijelo, a i stimulira ih pomicanje vlastitih granica. Iako ih ponekad frustrira odraz u ogledalu jer neminovno imaju stereotipnu mentalnu sliku hiperfleksibilne balerine, ipak cijene svaki mali pomak te ističu „osjećaj veće povezanosti sa svojim tijelom te načinom kako ono izvodi neki pokret, a osjećaj postignuća je neizmjerno bogatstvo za samopouzdanje i doživljaja sebe”. Bitno je istaknuti također kako svi odlaze na profesionalne plesni izvedbe, klasične i suvremene, te često ističu kako ih bavljenje plesom kinestetički „izoštrava” da prepoznaju pojedine korake koje uče, uživaju u profesionalnom plesu te još više cijene plesnu profesiju.
William Forsythe u intervjuu iz 1999.g u časopisu Dance Europe na pitanje kakva je idealna publika odgovara da „su svi idealni. Publika je idealna.“ Translatirajući njegovo promišljanje u prostor rekreativnog, amaterskog baleta, ulazim u prostor baletnih dvorana, koje također možemo promatrati kao heterotopije jer su one „baletne dvorane“ samo kada ih ispune polaznici baletnog tečaja te traju onoliko dugo koliko se u njima izvode baletne vježbe, a kada završe, to su samo pravokutni višenamjenski prostori. U tom neobičnom vremenskom i prostornom okviru u kojem se odigrava igra kao fenomen kulture nastanjuju ih prava mitološka, nestvarna bića. Nestvarna i mitološka jer su svi savršeni i idealni u svoj svojoj tjelesnosti, u cijeloj njenoj punini. Sva neprobrana tijela svake životne dobi, sa svim baletnim (ne)predispozicijama, sa specifičnom patinom fizičkog kapitala životne dobi, sa svime što donose sa sobom u to ne-mjesto baletne dvorane koja postoji onoliko dugo koliko traju te vježbe, poput plesne budističke mandale koja nestaje one sekunde kada završi baletni sat te time uprizoruje još jednu bitnu značajku plesne umjetnosti, njenu neuhvatljivu efemernost. Sve je savršeno takvo kakvo jest. I svako tijelo je osoba. Grupa vrlo prepoznatljivih specifičnih jedinstvenih individua. Neuvjetovani estetski modificirani organizmi, NEMO.
Translation - English “A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together. “ (Margaret Atwood)
Imposed silence or voice
I perceive thirty-two years of my ballet life as mute. Being brought up within the discourse of a ballet hall that had not yet reached the historic moment of its members asking for the right to speak, I have entered a space where my voice was given to me through education and freedom to choose my own subjects, without having to earn it. Through dialogue, this paper tries to bridge both the gap between knowledge and ignorance, as well as the resistance towards discovering the authentic voice that has for years been the instrument of reproducing the discourse of authority through silence. According to Jennifer M. Bolt1, who discusses the phenomenon of imposed silence in ballet halls, it is important to make a distinction between conscious absence of verbal expression of a dancer and a dance teacher and psychological repression of students that prevents questioning and reflecting. The need to critically re-examine all that envelops the ballet technique and the “body of ideas” modified through ballet aesthetics arose from my own personal fear, because as a ballet and dance pedagogue, I question the insights, knowledge, value, taste and aesthetics that I transfer to my students through my pedagogical work. I consider this re-examination particularly important because I am aware that, since the age of nine, I myself have also been immersed in ballet practices that we can/should perceive as discriminatory and that have inevitably been weaved and embodied into my habitus. Under the aegis that personal is political, this project speaks about personal experiences and the dispositions created within ballet institutions of school as well as professional environments (theater or/and company), and also, as an important contribution, includes “voices” of twenty-six persons2 from the (international) ballet community that have voluntarily been interviewed. Within the context of the said thesis of imposed silence, I think the greatest importance of this project lies precisely in giving persons belonging to a mute profession an opportunity to personally speak about ballet.
Aesthetically modified organism
The central question of this text is whether we have to accept the ballet aesthetics as something inevitable, or we can critically analyze it as a historically constructed myth that is ideologically produced in ballet halls of schools, and continues to live in professional institutions. In this text, the phrase ballet body does not represent only the physical body, but all that envelops the body, what the body embodies through ideas and attitudes, and which is acquired by doing ballet.
I have defined the ballet body as an aesthetically modified organism because aesthetics is a notion symbiotically bound to ballet. From day one of enrolling in ballet school, the student becomes both the subject and the object of the “manifestation of telling apart”, a living corrective binary system of transforming “ugliness into beauty”, where the above mentioned silence is one of the aestheticized qualities of what is “beautiful and desirable”.
Ballet as an art form and a dance technique3 demands, modifies and depicts the human body as defined by numerous rigid rules and notions formulated as absolutely “professionally indispensable”, which are actually the result of a certain aesthetic dogma. Thus, the question arises, can we observe/define the dancing body as an AMO – artificially created aesthetically modified organism?
Ballet audition – the offspring of the Procrustean bed and the Princess and the Pea
“I’ve felt discriminated sending my resume to companies in order to take up an audition, while the most common answer was ‘You are too short’’. I always say: ‘I can dance in a way so as the movement to appear big, on stage I can appear much taller than my real height, why do people keep telling me I'm too short’. But it is true, I am short, so I can't really say anything! Haha”
Listening to many testimonies, the ballet auditions have seemed like a peculiar combination of the Procrustean bed and the Princess and the Pea syndrome, because the dancer either lacks something, or has too much of something, or both, and those doing the selection are bothered by every inch of the dancer’s body if it deviates from the hermetic “ballet mold”. In the English magazine Dance Europe there was an interview with 16 art directors of European professional (ballet) companies, and the main question was what they were looking for in their dancers4. The most common answer was they were looking for the “usual/obvious” – a beautiful and correct shape of legs and feet, the openness (of the hips), the correct proportions of the body, the length of hands and legs, a little head. They emphasize the importance of the aesthetic appearance because it is a “visual form of art”, they are looking for a “classical ballet appearance”. A large number of companies stresses the height of the dancers, while some of them require them to be inch perfect. If a dancer’s height departs from the prescribed formula, they need to possess something extremely special in order to “earn their place” in such a homogeneous ensemble. Dancers also need to be musical and intelligent, be happy and enjoy their work (one director notes that on a recent audition they gave up on what was technically maybe the best dancer because he/she seemed displeased). Also, they look for “those unexplainable features that make a dancer, but they also need to possess special qualities, open and positive attitude, honesty, sense of humor and the ability to learn fast”, while others prefer dancers with long arms and neck and probably would not hire dancers with shorter arms because it does not look good on stage. Only a few companies do not insist on a particular type of body and instead insist on good dance technique and coordination, while only one art director claimed to wish for strong and healthy dancers that can be diverse, because diversity is the reflection of the society we live in, '”absolutely contrary to corps de ballet”. Interestingly enough, the questions never mention the age or the ethnicity/race of the dancer. This leads to a false impression of multiculturality and heterogeneity of dance groups.
“'Sometimes I would feel discrimination in ballet (for some roles, with some choreographers) because I am Asian, but I’d say that's normal for people who discriminate in the world of ballet, because, historically, ballet comes from Europe. Sometimes it can be very difficult to control your thoughts and your mental condition when you feel someone is racist to you.”
Aesthetics of ballet somatophobia
The origin of creating the ideal ballet body is the educational system which shapes students, as if they were raw material, or a physical blueprint, into highly aestheticized obedient bodies. All the parameters concern exclusively the physical attributes of a child, and most of them emphasize the dominant aesthetics of the ballet body which does not contribute to performing the technique better or more successfully, but solely to the “beauty of the body line'”. Ballet's body fixation ascribes complete value of the individual to his/her body, and it is this capital that most often defines the fate of individuals from their enrollment in school, through their education, to their professional career where their “expiration date” depends solely on the potency of their physical capital5. A child that enrolls in ballet school encounters the feeling of objectivization from the very audition, which gradually and systematically multiplies through all the years of schooling. If the Western philosophy uses the the notion of somatophobia as contempt and repulsion towards the body, the ballet world treasures a paradoxical somato-filia as something dominant and desirable. Or to put it in simpler contemporary terms, the art of ballet discriminates exclusively on the grounds of physical attributes, creating a specific form of somatophobia – fear of corporeality in its totality.
“I quit after sixth grade not because I wanted to, but because my parents were told I no longer had the body to be a ballerina. In puberty they told me I was fat and that there were no ballerinas with large breasts (...) I was thirteen years old. After I went into puberty, I was ignored. The pedagogue stopped correcting me, she transferred me from the middle barre and told my parents to withdraw me from school because I would fail the grade either way.”
In the ballet hall there is no egalitarianism regarding knowledge distribution. Knowledge is transferred orally and solely through the teacher, and it needs to be earned. In the micro-cosmos of the ballet hall children are very early on acquainted with the notion of hierarchy; the barre they occupy determines their place/value in the social coordinates of the ballet school hall, the teacher is located next to the mirror, while the central barre is opposite to the teacher.
Here Foucault's unequal gaze takes on a new meaning, because it not only defines the uneven distribution of power (since the observer possesses knowledge, while the observed does not), but it also literally explains the distribution of knowledge in the hall – the most efficient transmission of knowledge occurs between the teacher and the central barre (especially the middle of the central barre), while the right and the left barres are marginalized and more difficult for the teacher's eye to reach. The margin also has its own hierarchy, so the students at the right barre are “less bad” than the students at the left one. Thus, since earliest childhood, children learn about “their value” through their bodies, their bodies determine whether they are “good” or “bad”, how “good” or “bad” they are, so from the onset they associate their value with the feeling of visibility or invisibility in space. In ballet school the final exam is always also a visual demonstration of value within a hierarchy. By extrapolating the values of visibility and invisibility onto the professional life of a ballet dancer, we come by a usual configuration of a classical ballet performance, where the best performers are brought forward so as to be seen (soloists), while the bodies of the many create the geometry of a moving scenography, or, as the ballerina of the Paris opera, Véronique Doisneau, put it in the performance of the same name by Jérôme Bel, human décor.
Locus of domination and submission
In ballet school the discipline of the ballet lesson has reined and tamed our naturally “disobedient” body through ballet steps and learning to be submissive. What was allowed and acceptable was not prescribed only by the school, but it also depended on the aesthetics/disposition/habitus of the teacher. The ballet teacher is the only source of student's knowledge and there is no way to master the lessons if the teacher does not work on/with you. You will do anything in order to gain their respect, attention and love and thus earn the knowledge. This creates an emotional dependence on the teacher, an unusual mixture of the “Stockholm syndrome” and a cognitive dissonance, which explains why sometimes students (and later on professional dancers) endure different forms of emotional abuse and discrimination. For students, this kind of behavior becomes a survival strategy if the alternative means quitting ballet.
“In my country the teacher had a long rod he would use to beat us. You can't even imagine how terrifying the teachers are in China! And of course, they often hit you so you’d focus and do the step properly. Even in France it was similar. But all the teachers I grew up next to were nice and kind people who loved their students immensely. And I never think about this way of learning as physical abuse, because they do it out of love and of course they know how much it hurts.. because then I would collect myself and become mentally even stronger (a lot of times with tears! Haha)”
One of the most interesting paradoxes of ballet schooling is that the “fittest”, the children with the best physical capital or attributes, do not always survive. The selfish gene of survival within the ballet milieu does not only refer to the physical body but also to the personality. Most often, the ones who survive are, in addition to possessing physical attributes, more enduring and perseverant, and it is very clear how discipline enforces pain tolerance (physical, psychological, emotional) into the dancers' habitus. It seems to me that, apart from battement tendu or demi-plié, we have also practiced to perfection the submissive models of behavior which we accepted and used to justify this kind of impermissible behavior of someone we considered the ultimate authority.
Differently young is the new black
First bodies are the bodies representing professional dance “that we are used to watch on the mainstream stage and which, consciously or unconsciously, we want to watch, they are more powerful and independent than the everyday, non-dancing, 'pedestrian' bodies (...) Bodies that are insufficiently masterful, trained, young, slender or white, are called second dance bodies. Showing uncontrolled bodies, that is, their entering into the public space, has been dismissed by the civic morality as 'improper or vulgar', and is deemed unacceptable both as a scenic and social phenomenon6
While reading the interviews, I have uncovered my own blind spot7 regarding the questions in the interview. I realized I neglected an important segment of physical capital and habitus8 of the dancers regarding questions about discrimination and/or elitism, which is their age. Interestingly, although the age span of the interviewees was between 18 and 48 years old, only one of the 25 interviewees has mentioned the age of the dancers, that is, the time constraint until which a dancer can professionally dance. It is also interesting how in the sub-questions, under the notion of elitism, I have not mentioned the insistence on the imperative of youth characteristic for this profession, since that is a subject close to me not only because of my age, but because it has intrigued me for many years. Oftentimes, the exceptions are pointed out, those that appeared on stage due to their accumulated symbolic capital, such as the ballet icon Margot Fonteyn, who actively danced in lead roles in her fifties, or Alicia Alonso, a Cuban ballerina, who danced until her seventies, but the question remained whether it was (in)appropriate to dance in lead roles at that age. The ballet heroines of today, such as Alessandra Ferri and Sylvia Guillem at the age of 53, Wendy Whelan at the age of 51, possess both symbolical and exceptional physical capital at their mature age (in ballet terms), dancing in lead roles of the classical contemporary repertoire, despite their age. The question that emerges is – why do we always emphasize only the exceptions, the renowned dance veterans? What is intriguing is whether those less exceptional and worn out, that is, ordinary dance/ballet bodies with a patina of a longtime professional career, can also express themselves through dance.
Entering their forties, dancers experience ballet secondariness because, despite their maturity, quality and lifelong experience, they are put on the margins of the community of ballet performers. What is disturbing is that the uneasiness does not only arise due to the observers, who think of mainstream first bodies in this way, but that the ballet dancers see themselves in the same castrating manner. The feeling of insufficiency as a result of a normal life cycle that every human body, as well as the dancing body, goes through, has manifested itself in different ways, but often the dominant feeling is the one of “shame that they perform on stage at this age”, as well as fear of not looking beautiful and dignified on stage. Maybe it is time that the myth of the young ballet body which is perceived as normal or the only kind possible, is modified by creating a new myth – that this second body, old and lived-through ballet body is equally able and normal because aging is a normal biological process. In 2015 the renowned Swedish choreographer Mats Ek, at 70 years old, once again danced with his wife, ballerina Ana Laguna (60), Susanne Linke (71) and Dominique Mercy (65) in the performance called Quartet Gala: Differently Young Stars9, humorously playing with the phrase “differently young”. Possibly, if these kinds of diversity illustrating plays (“over 200 years of experience”, as the play was announced) were to increase in number, this could change their perception from understanding it as an act of subversion or visual anomaly.
Recreational ballet – AMO vs. NAMO
Alva Noë10, an American philosopher, believes that art teaches us about life by changing our perception – that which we perceive becomes “different” precisely through the change in our perception. If ballet, its hierarchy and aesthetics of the body ever become democratized, what is intriguing is whether this will remain ballet and whether it will be (so) attractive anymore. In this sense, the interesting area of amateur ballet as a self-development practice presents a challenge for any kind of convergent thinking, for every tyranny of the dominant perception of aesthetic dogmas, for all the participants of the process, as well as those who perceive it from the outside. Within the context of pedagogic work in recreational/amateur ballet, the questions that arise are whether the everyday bodies, bodies that are not modified by ballet technique/aesthetics, bodies without ballet predispositions and ideal proportions, bodies of different ages, bodies that do not aspire towards a professional career, whether they can learn and practice classical ballet? If they can, what is it that they are learning, and is it still classical ballet if amateur ballet represents/entails all that classical ballet renounces? If we strip down, layer by layer, all that is imposed upon and constructed around ballet, there remains something unconditioned, a specific dance technique that enables one to dance in a specific way. Out of the desire not to guess what ballet means to the students/participants of recreational ballet courses, how it affects them and what self-development dance practice means to them, I have surveyed 21 participants of the course between 19 and 61 of age. The majority of the participants declared that in addition to psychological and physical well being, practicing ballet makes them happy. “During a ballet lesson I feel as if I'm working on myself, which is for me a way to respect and love myself. I enjoy being in my body because it allows me to express myself through movement.” Many participants wrote that they were literally discovering their body, while they were also stimulated by pushing their own limits. Although they sometimes get frustrated by their mirror reflection because they inevitably project a stereotypical mental image of a hyper-flexible ballerina, they still appreciate every little step forward and they point out a “sense of closer connection with their bodies and the way it performs a movement, and that the feeling of achievement is invaluable for their confidence and self-image”. It is also important to note that they all go to professional dance performances, classical and contemporary, and they often point out that taking up dance kinesthetically sharpened their senses, enabling them to recognize particular steps they learn, as well as enjoy professional dance and appreciate the dancing profession even more.
In an interview from 1999 in the magazine Dance Europe, William Forsythe, when asked about the ideal kind of audience, replied that they are “all ideal. The audience is ideal.” Translating his musings into the realm of recreational, amateur ballet, I can apply this to ballet halls, which we can also consider heterotopias, since they exist as “ballet halls” only when they are filled with participants of ballet lessons and they last only for as long as ballet is practiced there, and when that ends, they are just rectangular multi-functional rooms. In this unusual temporal and spatial framework, where we witness a game as a cultural phenomenon, they are populated by true mythological, unreal beings. They are unreal and mythological because they are all perfect and ideal in all their corporeality, in its complete totality. All the imperfect bodies of all ages, with their ballet (in)abilities, with a specific patina of the physical capital of their age, with everything they bring into this non-space of ballet hall that exists for the duration of the lessons, like a dance Buddhist mandala that disappears the moment the ballet lesson ends and through which it stages another important feature of the art of dance – its elusive ephemerality. Everything is perfect the way it is. And each body is a person. A group of very recognizable, specific and unique individuals. The non-conditioned aesthetically modified organisms – NAMO.
Croatian to English: Valentina Turcu: Theatre is not ‘aesthetic surgery’ - interview General field: Art/Literary
Source text - Croatian Maja Đurinović
Valentina Turcu: Teatar nije „estetska kirurgija“
„Female ballet choreographers are still in short supply, but I suspect it won’t be long before Valentina Turcu’s name is more widely known on the strength of this, her first full evening ballet.“ Maggie Foyer, Romeo and Juliet, „Dance Europe Magazine“, January 2013.
Valentina Turcu je „majstor perfekcionizma visokoestetskog koreografskog rukopisa, nepogrešivog dramaturškog ritma, moćne emocionalne ekspresije i neprocjenjivog kazališnog senzibiliteta“. (iz obrazloženja Prešernove nagrade, 2018.)
Valentina Turcu je bila iznimno dojmljiva, poetična i izražajna plesačica koja se nakon tri godine intenzivnog tesanja zanata kod Mauricea Béjarta vratila u Balet SNG Maribor1. Kao posljedica teške operacije zabranjena joj je daljnja plesačka profesija, nakon čega je prešla na drugu razinu osobnog umjetničkog ostvarenja prenoseći svoj specifični plesački habitus na druga tijela – umnažajući i modificirajući vlastitu interpretativnu kreativnost. Danas je koreografkinja, redateljica, dramaturginja i autorica libreta i glazbene koncepcije s impresivnom brojkom kazališnih ostvarenja. Njezina koreografija Rožmarin (2007.) nagrađena je kao najoriginalnija na Slovenskome baletnom natjecanju. Godinu dana kasnije u svojem matičnom kazalištu Slovenskom narodnom gledališču u Mariboru postavlja svoj prvi cjelovečernji projekt La Callas u kojem spaja plesače, glumce, operne pjevače i orkestar najavljujući svoj široki i nepodijeljeni interes spram kazališta, odnosno: potpunu i bezrezervnu opčinjenost kazališnom čarolijom.
Posljednji veliki autorski projekt Valentine Turcu Dama s kamelijama praizveo je Balet Nacionalnog kazališta Brno u velikoj dvorani novouređenog Teatra Janeček 6. ožujka 2020. Tim događajem svečano je obilježena 100. obljetnica Baleta u Brnu, i – riječima ravnatelja Baleta Marija Radachovskyja započeto „novo stoljeće baleta“ u tom gradu. Godinu i pol ranije, pišući osvrt na Smrt u Veneciji Valentine Turcu (praizvedba 5. lipnja 2018. u HNK Zagreb) zaključila sam nešto slično: to je balet 21. stoljeća! Prema osvrtima, priznanjima i nagradama čini se da je to opći stav europske baletne kritike i efekt koji prati rad ove posve osebujne međunarodno prepoznate i prisutne autorice. No, što bi to konkretno značilo „balet 21. stoljeća“ u kazališnoj viziji i interpretaciji Valentine Turcu, rijetke umjetnice u dominantno muškoj profesiji? Na stranu datiranje vremena i mjesta izvedbe; riječ je o velikoj koreografskoj formi ostvarenoj u nacionalnim kazalištima s ansamblima koje čine školovani plesači klasičnog baleta. Pristupajući klasičnom baletu kao nadpovijesnom stilu Andreja Jeličić2 obrazlaže pojam kojeg definira „način izvedbe temeljen na načelima i kvalitetama akademskog, klasičnog plesa, artikulirajući prepoznatljivu suštinu“ koja kao živa i dinamična struktura „proizvodnje ljepote“3 kroz povijesna razdoblja evoluira. Dakle, što se dogodilo s baletom u 21. stoljeću? Kako je narastao, evoluirao, zrcalio suvremenost s obzirom na plesačka tijela, libreto / dramaturgiju, glazbu i vizualnost inscenacije? U ovom razgovoru4 s Valentinom Turcu nastojat ćemo promisliti i koliko je moguće posvijestiti snažnu impresiju koja se tijekom gledanja njezinih predstava utiskuje u svijest našeg tjelesnog bića.
Valentina Turcu je između ostalog iznimno dobra poznavateljica glazbe osjetljiva na dubine i zaumne prostore koje ona može otvoriti. Na neki „klasičan“ način, pripremajući se za rad na predstavi i kreirajući i slažući koreografiju djela ti prvo biraš i slažeš glazbenu partituru, gradiš glazbeni predložak, koji zapravo čini dramaturgiju baleta?
V.T.: Nakon odabira naslova glazba je moj prvi imperativ. Ona inspirira, prati, ponekad čak preuzima vodstvo nad velikim dijelom procesa stvaranja, nad mojim odlukama unutar režije, dramaturgije i koreografije. Postoje faze koje traju mjesecima, koje provodim istražujući unutarnje atmosfere različitih kompozitora i tema kojima su se bavili, kojima su bili predani, pronalazeći suštinu koja me interesira. 'Slušajući' njihov život, njihove intenzivne trenutke, osjetim 'ono nešto' što je esencijalno živo, osjetim ljubav kojom su bili uznemireni, opčinjeni, to o čemu su govorili kroz svoju glazbu i koliko je svjetlosti ili mraka prolazilo kroz njih. Istražujem njihove strasti. Neizmjerno poštujem maestralna djela; neprestano učim, godinama putujem uz njih i rastem. Podjednako je sa literaturom i piscima. Na početku projekta, intuitivno ali vrlo jasno vidim spoj, logičan suživot dvaju autora, dvaju suvremenika kao npr. Gustava Mahlera i Thomasa Manna. Čajkovski je bio logičan i jasan odabir za Anu Karenjinu ili izbor Rahmanjinova u odnosu na Puškina. Dama s kamelijama pratila me dvije godine, prije nego se definitivno predala i našla unutar Schubertove anksioznosti. Jedno je zanat, a drugo je prava mjera i feeling za ovu vrstu umjetničkih 'brakova' unutar novonastalih, autorskih partitura. Putujući neopterećeno, odvajam se od vlastitih ambicija i predajem se još nepoznatom 'duhu djela' – da preuzme i progovori kroz moje tijelo. Dramaturgija se kroz taj dugotrajni proces sama prepliće, nameće, zahtjeva svoje mjesto, razvija uspone, padove, zatišja i emocionalne trenutke, koji se kasnije jasno pronalaze unutar likova, scena, glazbenih fraza, i tako postaju narativ predstave. Nakon dugotrajnih putovanja dobivam cjelinu i onda je vrlo malo potrebno da završim sa koracima, koje u principu koristim umjesto riječi u verbalnom teatru. U završnoj fazi laparoskopski operiram s elementima cjelokupne predstave, pri čemu odabirem instrumente svjesna mjere unutar svakog segmenta u odnosu: ples – smisao – režija – glazba – dramaturgija – prostor – ekspresija – atmosfera – detalj – vizualna i emocionalna percepcija.
II.
Što je prvo: tema baleta (kao osobna ideja i preokupacija ili ponuda Kazališta) ili glazba koja probudi asocijacije, provocira temu / scensku situaciju, počinje „pričati priču“? Tvoje tri posljednje velike uspješnice su Evgenij Onjegin, Smrt u Veneciji i Dama s kamelijama, sve su poznati književni (i scenski) predlošci koje je trebalo dramatizirati i transponirati, „prevesti“, u neverbalni medij baletnog djela. (A možemo se podsjetiti i da si radila dramaturgiju djela i glazbe za veliki i nagrađivani balet zagrebačkog HNK Anu Karenjinu u koreografiji Lea Mujića.) U čemu je stalni izazov tih svjetskih naslova? Može li to biti podilaženje provjerenom ukusu (publika voli prepoznavati poznato) ali i klopka formiranih očekivanja?
V.T.: Apsolutno podilazim mom osobnom ukusu i senzibilitetu. Tek kad osjetim odnos spram naslova, tad ulazim u rad. Teško ulazim u kompromise. Zapravo nikad ne pristajem na nešto, što nije u skladu sa mnom. Imam neposredan odnos s naslovima koje stvaram. Do sada sam, prirodnim putem osobnog i umjetničkog sazrijevanja birala izazovne naslove. Ponekad biram, a ponekad puštam da situacije dolaze same od sebe... I naravno, glazba uvijek odigra presudnu ulogu unutar odluke – s kojim se naslovom bavimo moj autorski tim i ja. Velikim zahtjevnim djelima potrebno je pokloniti svježu interpretaciju, zaljubiti se ponovo u njih i udahnuti im život. To su vječne i moćne teme. Nikad se nisam smatrala talentiranom za apstraktne priče. Ili me možda nikada nisu uvjerljivo preuzimale. Ne znam. Teško podnosim blef na pozornici i nisam ravnodušna prema prosječnim produkcijama. Dubina, rizik i savršenstvo velikih svjetskih naslova budi u nama neizmjeran izazov i 'THRILL' unutar kojeg se osjećam potpuno živom dok stvaram. Svaki taj naslov kao da je prošao kroz moje tijelo i protkao moje životno iskustvo. Kao kad čovjek ima potrebu nešto ponovo doživjeti, interpretirajući to na svoj način da bi onda mogao sve to ostaviti iza sebe. Često mi se desi da na trećoj ili četvrtoj reprizi pogledam vlastitu predstavu i potpuno zaboravim da je moja!
Ponekad za mene neočekivan, iznenađujući naslov izabere nacionalna kuća, umjetnički direktor, kao što je to izvrsno pogodio Leonard Jakovina s izborom naslova Smrt u Veneciji, a nekad sama osjetim nepodnošljivu potrebu, da napravim upravo taj i baš taj balet! Postoje faze u životu kad je lakše osloboditi se nekih životnih trauma i prolazeći kroz poznate priče „sakriti se“ iza likova; kreirajući, izrađujući npr. ubojstvo najboljeg prijatelja Lenskog u Onjeginu ili Merkucija u Romeu i Juliji, izdaju Ekaterine ili kasnije Ane, kroz stvaranje likova ponovo upoznajemo život. I pri tom, naravno, kazalište oplemenjujemo svojim životnim iskustvima i strašću. Divno je bilo stvarati Carmen, ubiti Romea i Juliju, osjetiti bol Tatjane i Onjegina, proživjeti Valmonta, zavoljeti Gustava von Aschenbacha do ludila i zaljubiti se u Anđela Smrti.
III.
Danas su plesačka tijela tehnički i izražajno moćnija no ikad. Razvidna, sačuvana baletna tehnika: „vertikala, otvorenost nogu iz kukova prema van, izrazita izduljenost, pruženost, elastična i precizna artikulacija nogu i stopala te dojam lakoće i gracioznosti prepoznatljiv u izrazitoj vještini koja graniči s virtuoznosti“, jasnoća „oblika i ritmova“ i izloženost pokreta „koji se pokazuje, svraća na sebe pažnju“5 obogaćena je i prožeta iskustvom somatskih praksi. Plesači su angažirani plesački i glumački, izvođački, snažnih osobnosti, i kao da unutar suvremenog dramskog baleta sve više blijedi formalna podjela na prvake, soliste i ansambl. Tvoj koreografski rad se sada već uspostavio kao neka nova kvaliteta i estetika plesanja, profinjena, čista, brza, snažna. I nadasve izložena u osjetljivosti, ranjivosti, proživljenosti. Zadivljuje hrabrost u ustrajanju na toj istinitoj ljudskoj krhkosti i, rekla bih, ženskom rukopisu. Poznata je tvoja nježnost i pažnja spram plesača (i glumaca, ali o tome ćemo poslije), smireno ali odlučno insistiranje na maksimumu njihovih izvođačkih potencijala, tehničkih i izražajnih u koje si, nekako, od početka sigurna; filigranskoj izradi detalja i dubinskoj prožetosti likom. U više naših razgovora rekla si da svaki pokret, svaku sekvencu, koreografsku cjelinu prvo isprobavaš, istražuješ na sebi? Da li si pritom svjesna na koje tijelo ćeš to prenijeti?
V.T.: Još prije nego što krenem u rad sa plesačima svjesna sam svakog trenutka predstave. Imam vrlo jasnu sliku likova koje stvaram i tijela koje koreografiram, možda baš zato što radim kroz sebe. Veliki je luksuz danas raditi s baletnim ansamblima u kojima su plesači spremni mentalno, emotivno i tehnički – na sve! Pripremam se mjesecima za svaki projekt, izuzetno su mi važni detalji, smisao svakog kadra unutar svake scene. Ništa ne prepuštam slučaju i vjerujem u snažne i suverene umjetnike s kojima stvaram i koji zajedno sa mnom otvaraju unutarnje i vanjske svjetove. Plesači danas grade interpretacije na preciznosti i virtuoznosti plesne tehnike, a režijska i koreografska vizija kreira jasne odnose, nosi literarno djelo kroz tijelo i ekspresivnu interpretaciju plesača. Treba ih precizno voditi, da nikada ne pređu rampu na način da tendenciozno 'nastupaju', nego da grade istinsku atmosferu unutarnje moći lika kojeg donose na scenu. Teatar nije i ne smije biti „estetska kirurgija“, naš posao su „unutarnji vitalni organi“. Uvjerena sam da predanost i veliki rad daju velike rezultate, jer svi mi pobjeđujući vlastite limite nadograđujemo sebe. Govorim o iskustvu ekstaze nakon probe u kojoj vidiš kako se plesač otvara do neslućenih granica i prelazi sva koreografska očekivanja. U tom trenutku se spaja naš pedagoški rad, rad baletnih majstora i strast svih umjetnika u jedno neopisivo iskustvo, koje još niti nije izašlo pred publiku, još je daleko od premijere, ali nazire se vulkan emocionalne hrabrosti i drskosti – biti! Da bi se postigla ta vrsta vrhunca potrebna je silna disciplina, čistoća, preciznost, fokus, uzajamno povjerenje i mir.
IV.
Tvoje predstave zrače čudesnom vizualnom ljepotom filmske jasnoće. Svaka scenska slika se snažno utiskuje u percepciju. Očito je riječ o vrlo promišljenom i koreografsko/dramsko skladu sa scenom, kostimima i svjetlom. Imaš svoj relativno uski krug autorskih suradnika, koji te prate i razumiju. Koliko oni uopće imaju „slobode“ uz tebe?
V.T.: Posljednjih nas godina prate kritike u kojima piše da moje predstave imaju snažan stav. Hrabrost. Stil. Neposrednu komunikaciju. Preciznost. Možda zato, što sama kao autor imam snažan stav prema djelima kojima se posvećujem i izuzetno poštujem krug ljudi – ostvarenih ličnosti, umjetnika sa stilom, snažnih rukopisa, jasnih vizija, s kojima mogu otvoreno diskutirati, nadograđivati i artikulirati svoje ideje. Godinama surađujem s divnim umjetnicima, našli smo se: imamo savršen ritam, povjerenje i sigurnost i neprestano iznenađujemo jedni druge. Alan Hranitelj je kostimografski mag - čovjek redukcije, izuzetnog znanja i čvrstog stava. On čak kada ja i pomislim na neku otkačenu boju, radikalno skine sve što je suvišno i ne dozvoljava prostor za kič. Marko Japelj kao scenograf i arhitekt, pronalazi smisao u minimalizmu i funkcionalnosti te donosi besprijekorna rješenja zahtjevnih ideja. Njegova gondola naprosto klizi i pleše po pozornici. Izgleda jednostavno, ali je silno kompleksno i zahtjevno to što čini kazališnu iluziju jednostavnom. Aleksandar Čavlek je zasigurno najtraženiji i najzaposleniji majstor svijetla širom Hrvatske i Slovenije. Njegova estetika, preciznost i ne-pretencioznost i kirurška jednostavnost, ima snažan potpis u mojim predstavama. I Anton Bogov – umjetnik koji me prati već 25 godina, moj asistent i veliki baletni prvak i majstor, plesač na kojem sam gradila Romea, Josea, Onjegina, Valmonta i najzad ponovo Gustava von Aschenbacha. Bogov je tijekom procesa neumorno provokativan u postavljanju zahtjevnih pitanja, i pri tom potpuno lojalan, pošten i posvećen. Plesači visoko cijene njegovo jedinstveno znanje, humanost i način na koji to prenosi na njih. Poštujem i potpuno vjerujem u njihov rad i oni u moj. Bitan je uzajamni smisao za humor kao i ležernost s kojom stvaramo. U fazi nastajanja projekta znamo mjesecima razgovarati, lansirati zamisli, širiti mogućnosti, a onda u nekom trenutku, osjetim kad je pravi trenutak – radikalno povučem ručnu kočnicu, reduciram i selekcioniram i otvoreno komuniciram sa svima. Uvijek postavim čvrste okvire, kako bismo mogli u nekom trenutku slobodno eksplodirati onkraj očekivanja. Na toj točki uvijek kažu da je moja specifična odluka, perfekcionizam, odgovornost i profesionalnost – njihova najveća sloboda.
V.
Citiram iz Pojmovnika teatra Patricea Pavisa pod jedinicom „koreografija“: „Izvedbena praksa danas briše granice između govornog kazališta, pjevanja, mime, plesnog kazališta, plesa itd. (…) Jer svaka glumačka igra, svaki pokret na pozornici, svaka organizacija znakova posjeduje koreografsku dimenziju. Koreografija se tiče glumčeva kretanja i gestike, ritma predstave, sinkronizacije riječi i geste, koliko i rasporeda glumaca na sceni.“ I nastavlja: „Režija ne može kretnje i ponašanja iz svakodnevnog života reproducirati kao takve. Ona ih stilizira, ispunjava skladom i čini čitljivima, usklađuje ih u odnosu na gledateljev pogled, dorađuje ih i ponavlja sve dok režija ne postane takoreći 'koreografirana'“. Tvoje predstave su nesumnjivo plesni teatar pa ih vjerojatno stoga i potpisuješ i kao koreograf – u smislu plesa i redatelj – u smislu teatra. Stoga mi se ne čini čudnim taj još jedan novi korak u osobnom istraživanju kazališta. U Varaždinu si režirala dramsku predstavu Tramvaj zvan žudnja Tennessee Williamsa. Predstava je vrlo „tvoja“ vizualno i izvođački; ima preciznost (scene i odnosa), toplinu, ritam, tjelesno angažirane i prisutne glumce. Zapažena je po tom nekom novom, drugačijem rukopisu, pozvana je na festivale, ali je nekako i prilično uznemirila, da ne kažem uzburkala, ovdašnju kazališnu profesiju? Lijepa mlada žena, još gore – balerina(!) koja se usudila prvo koreografirati a sada i režirati, to je ipak malo previše?
V.T.: Da! Enfant terrible!!! Nikako da stanem u okvir…
Zapravo, usudila si se pri svemu tome ostati svoja, izloženo krhka i osjetljiva, ženstvena i topla. I to je uistinu specifično, jer i izvrsne redateljice vrlo često zavede ta u kazalištu uspostavljena pozicija moći i onda preuzimaju muške principe. Tvoja Blanche – Hana Hegedušić ističe tvoju hrabrost i spremnost na izazove: „Ima puno iskustva u radu s glumcima, zahtijeva predanost, spremnost i disciplinu. Stvorila je odličnu radnu atmosferu i spojila ekipu u jedan izuzetan kolektiv.“ Katarina Arbanas mi je između ostalog napisala: „Neuobičajen i inspirativan proces. Njezin odnos prema svim suradnicima bio je izuzetno odgovoran, podržavajući i pun poštovanja.
Valentinine su upute primarno bile vezane uz tijelo i pokret, ali su bile izuzetno suverene, jasne i specifične. Što je glumac bolje mogao svladati fizikus uloge koji je Valentina od prvog dana procesa nevjerojatno precizno vidjela za svako lice, više bi mu se prostora otvaralo da u taj precizni gestus unese sebe, svoju kreativnost, autentičnost, svoje razumijevanje i osjećanje lica koje igra. U tom smislu njezino se režiranje približava koreografiranju…“
V.T.: Još od djetinjstva, odrastajući uz baletne prvake Maju i Marina, moja ljubav, strast i radoznalost unutar kazališta obuhvaća sve; od portira, inspicijenta, krojača, frizera, električara, vatrogasaca, administracije, tajništva, marketinga, produkcije, post-produkcije, svjetla, kostima, radionica, tehnike, scene, i naravno svih vodećih autoriteta i vitalnih kazališnih organa, naprosto sveobuhvatno doživljavam umjetnost, te nikad kazalište nisam dijelila na Operu, Dramu i Balet. Srdačno poštujem hram umjetnosti, unutar kojeg, vjerujem, mnogi stvaramo ponizno, predano i istinski – bez blefa! Nije važno u kojoj ulozi se nalazimo – dramaturg, koreograf, režiser, plesač, glumac, pjevač, pedagog, autor glazbenog koncepta, jer sve su one odlučujuće i sve zahtijevaju ljudski i umjetnički integritet. Važna je vizija. Evolucija. Misija. I naravno Eros, humor i mašta!
P. S. Na večer 4. svibnja Valentina i ja smo dogovorile zadnji (telefonski) prolaz kroz ovaj tekst. Javila mi se veselo jer je upravo dobila novi broj „Dance Europe“ - svibanj 2020. u kojem je objavljen izvrstan osvrt Alison Kent na premijeru Dame s kamelijama u Brnu. U opširnom prikazu Kent kaže: „„Together with her team (…) Turcu has produced a twenty-first century take of high society life of the 1800s in Paris injecting modern technology and a little essence of social media into the author's tale of the fragile world of the courtesan.“ I na kraju zaključuje „… and with the addition of Valentina Turcu's superbly sensitive edgy
choreography this very talented group of performers looks well prepared for the foreseeable
future.“.“ Dodala bih, s obzirom na više poziva za nove projekte diljem Europe, da je i Valentina Turcu spremna za daljnje izazove.
Translation - English Maja Đurinović
Valentina Turcu: Theatre is not ‘aesthetic surgery’
‘Female ballet choreographers are still in short supply, but I suspect it won’t be long before Valentina Turcu’s name is more widely known on the strength of this, her first full evening ballet.’ Maggie Foyer, Romeo and Juliet, ‘Dance Europe Magazine’, January 2013.
Valentina Turcu is a 'master of perfectionism, possessing a highly aesthetic choreographic signature, infallible dramaturgic rhythm, vigorous emotional expression and invaluable theatrical sensibility’. (from the text of the Prešern Foundation Award 2018)
Valentina Turcu was an exceptionally impressive, poetic and expressive dancer who, after intensively honing her craft under Maurice Bejart, returned to the SNG Maribor Ballet.1
As a result of a difficult surgery, she has been forced to retire as a dancer, after which she embarked on a new direction of personal artistic fulfillment, transferring her unique dance signature onto other bodies – multiplying and modifying her own interpretative creativity. Today she is a choreographer, director, dramaturge, librettist and an author of music concepts with numerous theatrical productions. Her choreography Rožmarin ('Rosemary') was awarded a prize for the most original choreography at the Slovene Ballet Dancers Competition in 2007.
A year later, she stages her first full-evening piece La Callas in her parent theatre, SNG Maribor, where she unites dancers, actors, opera singers and the orchestra, declaring her wide-ranging and undivided interest towards theatre, in other words: her total and unquestioning enchantment with the magic of the theatre.
Valentina Turcu’s last great project, La Dame aux Camélias, was premiered by the Ballet of the National Theatre Brno, in the great hall of the newly renovated Janeček Theatre on March 6, 2020. This event has celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Brno Ballet, and has, to quote the director of the Ballet, Mario Radachovsky, marked the beginning of a 'new century of ballet' in this city. A year and a half earlier, while writing the review of Death in Venice by Valentina Turcu (premiered on June 5, 2018, in HNK Zagreb), I came to a similar conclusion: it is the ballet of the 21st century!
Judging by the reviews, accolades and awards, it seems that this is the general opinion of the european ballet critics and the effect this distinct and universally acclaimed author brings about.
But, what does the phrase 'the ballet of the 21st century' mean specifically in the theatrical vision and interpretation of Valentina Turcu, a rare artist in a predominantly male profession?
Historiography aside, this is a large-scale choreographic form performed in national theatres with ensembles consisting of educated classical ballet dancers. Interpreting classical ballet as a trans-historical category, Andreja Jeličić2 defines it as a 'manner of performance based on the principles and the qualities of academic, classical dance, articulating a familiar essence' which evolves through historic periods as a living and dynamic structure of 'producing beauty'3. So, what happened to ballet in the 21st century? How has it grown, evolved, mirrored the present with regards to the dancing bodies, libretto/dramaturgy, music and the visuality of the staging? In this conversation4 with Valentina Turcu, we will try to reflect upon and closely inspect the strong impression her plays embed in our consciousness.
Among other things, Valentina Turcu is a connoisseur of music, sensible to the depths and the unknowns of the mind it can unlock. In some sort of a 'classical' manner, so as to prepare yourself for the play and the construction/writing of the choreography, first you choose and arrange the music score, building a musical template, which actually operates as the dramaturgy of the ballet?
V.T.: After deciding on a particular work, the music is my first imperative. It inspires, follows, sometimes even steers a great part of the process of creation, my decisions within directing, dramaturgy and choreography. There are periods that take months, during which I explore the inner moods of different composers and the subjects they pursued, that they were devoted to,
finding the essence that interests me. By 'listening' to their lives, their intense moments, I feel 'that something' which is essentially alive, I feel the love that troubled them, that they were enthralled by, what they spoke through their music and how much light or dark passed through them. I explore their passions. I immensely respect masterpieces; I continuously learn, travel by their side for years and grow. I feel the same way about literature and writers.
At the beginning of the project, intuitively, but very clearly, I see the connection, a logical co-existence of the two authors, two contemporaries, for example, Gustav Mahler and Thomas Mann. Tschaikovsky was a clear and logical choice for Anna Karenina, as was Rachmaninoff for Pushkin. La Dame aux Camélias followed me for two years, before she definitely gave in and found itself inside Schubert's anxiety. Craft is one thing, but to find a true measure and touch for these kinds of artistic unions within newly formed original scores, is something else. Wandering freely, my ambitions give way to the still unknown 'spirit of the work' to take over and speak through my body. Through this long process, dramaturgy weaves its own way, imposes itself, requests its own place, rises, falls, briefly lulls only to erupt with emotion, which all eventually finds its way into the characters, scenes, and music phrases, thus becoming the narrative of the play. After these long journeys, I get a hold of the whole and from there on, it takes very little to finish the steps, which I mostly use in verbal theatre instead of words. In the final stage, I perform laparoscopy with the elements of the whole play, where I choose the instruments, while keeping in mind the extent of the each respective segment in the relationship: dance – meaning – directing – music – dramaturgy – space – expression – atmosphere – detail – visual and emotional perception.
II.
What comes first: the subject of the ballet (as your personal idea and preoccupation, or the theatre's offer) or the music which stirs association, provokes the subject or the scenic situation, and begins to 'tell the story'? Your three last great successes, Eugene Onegin, Death in Venice and La Dame aux Camélias, are all well-known literary (and theatrical) templates that had to be dramatized and transposed, 'translated' into the non-verbal medium of ballet. (We also remember your work on the dramaturgy of the text and music for the renowned and award-winning ballet of the HNK Zagreb, Anna Karenina, choreographed by Leo Mujić.)
Why do these classics present a continuous challenge? Can we think of it as playing up to the established taste (the audience likes to re-discover the already known), that can potentially turn into a trap of formed expectations?
V.T.: I absolutely play up to my personal taste and sensibility. Only when I feel that I have established a relationship with the piece do I start working on it. I struggle with making compromises. I actually never agree to anything which is not in tune with me. I have a direct relationship with the titles I create. So far, by naturally maturing as a person and an artist, I've been choosing challenging titles. Sometimes I choose, and sometimes I let it happen by itself.
And of course, music has always played a crucial role for me and my creative team in deciding on a piece. Great and demanding works need a fresh interpretation, they need someone to fall in love with them again and breathe life into them. These are timeless and powerful subjects. I have never considered myself talented for abstract stories. Or I have never found them convincing enough.
I don't know. I have trouble watching someone bluff on the stage and I am not indifferent towards average productions. The depth, risk and perfection of the great classics present an immense challenge and a great thrill, within which I feel completely alive when I create. As if each piece has gone through me and permeated my life experience. Like when a person feels the desire to experience something again, interpreting it in their own way only to leave it all behind afterwards. It often happens that after a third or fourth repeat performance, I watch my play and completely forget it's mine! Sometimes the National Theatre or the art director chooses a surprising, unexpected piece for me, for example, when Leonard Jakovina perfectly paired me with Death in Venice, and sometimes I personally feel an overwhelming urge to do this and only this ballet! There are periods in life when it is easier to liberate yourself of some life traumas and by going through familiar stories, 'hide' behind the characters: setting up the murder of his best friend Lensky in Onegin or Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, the betrayal of Ekaterina, or later on, Anna. By giving life to characters we re-experience life. While, of course, refining the theatre with our own life stories and passion. It was beautiful to create Carmen, kill Romeo and Juliet, feel the pain of Tatyana and Onegin, to experience Valmont, to love Gustav von Aschenbach madly and fall in love with the Angel of Death.
III.
Today, the dancing bodies are, from a technical and expressive point of view, more powerful than ever. The distinct, preserved ballet technique – 'vertical axis, openness of the legs from the hips outwards, pronounced elongation and extension, elastic and precise articulation of the legs and feet and the impression of ease and grace identified in the pronounced proficiency, almost mastery', the clarity of 'the shapes and rhythms' and the exposure of the movement 'which presents itself, brings attention to itself'5 - is refined and permeated by the lessons of somatic practices. Dancers have strong personalities, they are engaged both in dancing, acting and performing, and as if the formal division between principals, soloists and the corps de ballet within contemporary dramatic ballet is fading away. Your choreographic work has already been established as possessing a new kind of quality and aesthetics of dancing – refined, clear, swift, strong. And above all, exposed in its sensitivity, vulnerability and personal experience. Your courage in insisting on this truthful and human fragility, and, I would say, women’s writing, is astonishing. You are known for your gentleness and attentiveness to your dancers (as well as actors, but we will discuss that later), calm but decisive insisting on the maximum of their performing, technical and expressive potentials, which you are, somehow, sure of from the beginning; for rigorous attention to detail and a deep imbuement with the character. In several of our conversations you said that you first explore and try every movement, every sequence, every choreographic unit on yourself? At that moment, are you aware to which body you wish to transfer it to?
V.T.: Even before I start working with dancers, I am aware of every moment of the play. I have a very clear picture of the characters I create and the bodies I choreograph, maybe precisely because I do it through myself. It is a great luxury to work with ballet ensembles today, where dancers are ready for everything, both mentally, emotionally and technically! I take months to prepare for each project and details are extremely important to me, the meaning of each shot within each scene. I don't leave anything to chance and I believe in the strong and autonomous artists I create with, and together with whom we open inner and outer worlds. Today dancers build their interpretations on the basis of precision and mastery of the dancing technique, while the director's and choreographer's vision creates clear relationships and carries the literary work through the body and the expressive interpretation of the dancer. They need to be carefully guided, so that they never cross the line by tendentiously 'performing', but instead, they build a true atmosphere of the inner power of the character they bring to the scene. Theatre is not and must not be 'aesthetic surgery', our job is the 'vital inner organs'. I am convinced that devotion and hard work produce great results, because by pushing our own limits, we are upgrading ourselves. I am talking about the feeling of ecstasy after rehearsals where you see the dancer opening up to the levels previously undreamed of, exceeding all the choreographic expectations. In that moment, our pedagogic work, the work of the ballet masters and the passion of all artists come together as one indescribable experience, which hasn't even yet been shown to the audience, there's a long way to the premiere, but you can sense the volcano of emotional courage and the nerve – of the essence! In order to reach this kind of a climax you need great discipline, purity, precision, focus, mutual trust and peace.
IV. Your plays radiate with incredible visual beauty of cinematic clarity. Every scenic image strongly embeds itself in the perception. There obviously exists a very elaborate choreographic and dramatic harmony between the scenes, costumes and light. You have your own rather small circle of associates that understand and follow you. How much freedom do they actually have with you by their side?
V.T.: Lately, the critics have been pointing out that my plays share a strong conviction. Courage. Style. Direct communication. Precision. Maybe this is because, as an author, I feel strongly about the pieces I commit myself to and I deeply respect this type of people – actualized personalities, artists with style, with distinct signatures, clear visions, with whom I can openly discuss, upgrade and articulate my ideas. For years I have been working with wonderful artists, we have truly found each other: we have a perfect rhythm, trust and confidence, and we continue to surprise each other.
Alan Hranitelj is a master of costume design – a man of reduction, of great knowledge and strong opinions. Even when a funky color pops to my mind, he radically cuts out the excess and doesn't allow room for kitsch. Marko Japelj, as a scenographer and an architect, finds meaning in minimalism and functionality and thinks up immaculate solutions to complex ideas. His gondola simply glides and dances on the stage. It looks simple, but that which makes the theatrical illusion straightforward is very complex and demanding. Aleksander Čavlek must be the busiest and most sought-after light designer in Croatia and Slovenia. His aesthetics, precision, unpretentiousness and superb simplicity perform a great role in my plays. And Anton Bogov – the artist that has been working with me for 25 years, my assistant and a great ballet principal and master, the dancer I founded Romeo, Jose, Onegin, Valmont and Gustav von Aschenbach on. During the process, Bogov never gets tired of asking tough and provocative questions, while remaining completely loyal, honest and devoted. The dancers hold his unique knowledge, humanity and the manner of communicating it in high esteem. I respect and completely believe in their work as they do in mine. The mutual sense of humor and easygoingness with which we create are important. During the beginning of the project, we sometimes talk for months, bring in ideas, widen our potentials, and then at some point, I just feel when the time is right – I slam on the brakes, I reduce and select and openly communicate with everyone. I always set up clear boundaries, so at some point, we can explode beyond expectations. At that point, they always say that my particular decision, perfectionism, responsibility and professionalism is their greatest freedom.
V.
I am quoting Patrice Pavis’ Dictionary of theatre, where under the term 'choreography', it states: ‘The performative practice today eliminates borders between spoken theatre, singing, mime, dance theatre, dance, etc. Because every game of acting, every movement on the stage, every composition of signs entails a choreographic dimension. Choreography relates both to actor's movements and gesticulations, to the rhythm of the play, the synchronization of words and gestures, as well as the arrangement of the actors on stage’. It goes on: 'Directing cannot reproduce movements and behaviors from everyday life as such. It titivates them, makes them harmonious and legible, aligns them with the eye of the observer, brushes and repeats them until the directing itself becomes almost 'choreographed’'. Your plays undoubtedly belong to dance theatre, so that is probably why you are signed as a choreographer (dance-wise) and a director (theatre-wise). That is why I do not find it strange, it is just another step of yours in exploring theatre. In Varaždin you have directed a play 'A Streetcar Named Desire' by Tennessee Williams. The play is very much ‘you’, both visually and in a performance sense – it has got precision (of stage arrangement and relationships), warmth, rhythm, physically engaged and present actors. Its new and different signature has been noted, it has been invited to festivals, but at the same time it has unsettled, not to say, agitated the theatre scene? A beautiful young woman, even worse, a ballerina (!), who dared to choreograph, and now even direct, isn't that a bit much?
V.T.: Yes! Enfant terrible!!! I can't seem to fit the mold…
Actually, through all of this, you have dared to stay yourself, exposed your fragility and vulnerability, your feminineness and warm-heartedness. And that is really unique, because even great female directors are no strangers to the seduction of the theatre’s power structures, where they then assume masculine principles. Your Blanche – Hana Hegedušić, stresses your courage and readiness to take up a challenge: ‘She is very experienced in working with actors, requires devotion, readiness and discipline. She has created an excellent working environment and transformed the team into an outstanding collective’. Katarina Arbanas also wrote: ‘Unusual and inspirational process. Her relationship towards all the colleagues was very responsible, supportive and respectful. Valentina’s instructions were primarily concerning body and movement, but were exceptionally autonomous, clear and specific. The more the actor has been able to master the physique of the role that Valentina imagined for them with incredible precision from the very beginning of the process, the more room would open for them to insert themselves, their creativity, authenticity, their understanding and feeling of the character, into this precise gestus. In this sense, her directing is very close to choreography...’
V.T.: Since childhood, being raised by ballet principals, my love, passion and curiosity about the theatre has encompassed everything: from the doorkeeper, stage manager, dressmaker, hairdresser, electrician, firemen, administration, secretary’s office, marketing, production, post-production, to lights, costumes, workshops, technical equipment, scene, and of course, all the authorities and vital theatre departments. I have always understood it as a whole, and I have never thought of Opera, Drama and Ballet, as separate elements. I have great respect for the temple of art, within many of us, I believe, create with humility, devotion and truthfulness – without bluffing! It doesn’t matter which role we take – dramaturge, choreographer, director, dancer, actor, singer, pedagogue, author of the music concept, because all of them have a decisive role and require personal and artistic integrity. The vision is what is important. Evolution. Mission. And of course, Eros, humor and imagination!
P.S. On the evening of May 4, Valentina and I were scheduled to go through the text one last time (by telephone). She picked up the phone cheerfully because she just got a new edition of ‘Dance Europe’ - May 2020, where she received a great review of her Brno premiere of ‘La Dame aux Camélias' by Alison Kent. In a lengthy review, Kent writes:
‘Together with her team (…) Turcu has produced a twenty-first century take of high society life of the 1800s in Paris injecting modern technology and a little essence of social media into the author’s tale of the fragile world of the courtesan.’ And concludes ‘… and with the addition of Valentina Turcu’s superbly sensitive edgy choreography this very talented group of performers looks well prepared for the foreseeable future.' Considering several invitations to new projects throughout Europe, I would add that Valentina Turcu also looks well prepared for prospective challenges.
Croatian to English: Commentary as a part of the public debate on the Strategic environmental impact assessment of exploration and exploitation of oil and gas in the Adriatic General field: Other Detailed field: Environment & Ecology
Source text - Croatian Predmet: Komentar u sklopu javne rasprave o Strateškoj procjeni utjecaja na okoliš
istraživanja i eksploatacije nafte i plina na Jadranu
Poštovani,
udruga Prijatelji životinja želi se ovim putem uključiti u javnu raspravu o Strateškoj procjeni utjecaja na okoliš i istraživanja te eksploatacije nafte i plina na Jadranu.
Vođena mišlju da je Republika Hrvatska zemlja kojoj je jedan od osnovnih temelja gospodarstva očuvani okoliš, udruga Prijatelji životinja smatra da se pristupanjem istraživanju i eksploataciji nafte u Jadranu, direktno ugrožavaju okoliš, životinje u tom okolišu i turizam.
Iako je doba recesije, potrebno je razmotriti dugoročne posljedice, a ne samo kratkoročnu korist. Treba imati u vidu i goleme štete po okoliš i životinje do kojih će, unatoč svim planiranim mjerama opreza neminovno doći.
U slučaju velike nesreće, posljedice za zdravlje i živote ljudi i životinja bile bi nesagledivih razmjera.
Primjeri su naftna mrlja nakon nesreće u Montari, u Australiji 2009. godine veličine gotovo 2/3 hrvatskog dijela Jadrana, zatim ENI-jevih 471 izljeva nafte u Nigeriji u prvih devet mjeseci 2013. koje za rezultat imaju 471 krađe i terorističkih napada. Također, unatoč vrhunskim standardima, primjeri Norveške i Škotske dokazuju da kontinuirano ispuštanje nafte i drugih štetnih tvari u okoliš ima vidljiv negativan utjecaj na ekosustave. Već samo seizmičko snimanje Jadrana koje je prethodilo natječaju za koncesije imalo je itekakav utjecaj na Jadran jer je riječ o korištenju zvučnih topova koji puštaju izrazito snažne zvučne valove u podmorje u kojem žive životinje koje svijet doživljavaju sluhom.
Do zagađenja okoliša, štete po ljude i životinje, došlo bi i utjecajem isplaka koje se koriste pri bušenju jer su iznimno toksične, a njihovo ispuštanje u okoliš nije moguće u potpunosti spriječiti te ostaju u moru i na morskom dnu, a provedbom projekta zanemarile bi se biološke i socio-ekonomske vrijednosti morskih nacionalnih parkova i parkova prirode te bi se ugrozila ekološka mreža Natura 2000.
S obzirom da studija ne predviđa mehanizme kontrole od zagađenja, ne razmatra značajan utjecaj eksploatacije nafte na klimatske promjene te posljedice istih, ignorira biološke i socio-ekonomske vrijednosti morskih nacionalnih parkova i parkova prirode, udruga Prijatelji životinja izražava svoje neslaganje i protivljenje bilo kakvom istraživanju i iskorištavanju Jadrana koji će zasigurno imati štetne posljedice.
S obzirom da projekt u javnosti izaziva glasna protivljenja, molimo da donošenje odluke o ovom pitanju bude vođeno zaštitom javnog dugoročnog interesa te uvažavanjem stava javnosti i lokalnih zajednica kao i važnošću zaštite životinja i njihovog okoliša.
Ujedno izražavamo nadu da će naredni dani pokazati da Jadran nećemo pamtiti kao biser Europe bogat životinjskim i biljnim svijetom koji je nekada postojao, već da će Hrvatska i dalje s ponosom moći hvaliti svoje more kao jednu od rijetkih čistih kapi u čaši zagađenih i izumrlih mora i oceana te zaštitu Jadranskog mora i njegovih stanovnika svakim danom stavljati na veću razinu.
Sa željom da razum pobijedi interese u službi isključivo profita, koji prečesto gaze sve pred sobom u ostvarivanju svojih ciljeva, ovim putem dajemo svoj glas za očuvanje Jadrana i životinja u njemu u interesu postojećih i budućih naraštaja.
Translation - English Subject: Commentary as a part of the public debate on the Strategic environmental impact assessment of exploration and exploitation of oil and gas in the Adriatic
Dear Mr. Vrdoljak,
the organization Animal Friends Croatia is using this opportunity to take part in the public debate on the Strategic environmental impact assessment of exploration of oil and gas in the Adriatic.
Led by the notion that preserved environment is one of the basic pillars of the economy, Animal Friends Croatia believes that the exploration and exploitation of oil in the Adriatic is an immediate threat to the environment, the animals as its inhabitants and tourism.
Despite the recession, it is necessary to examine the long-term consequences and not only the short-term profit. It is also crucial to take into account the enormous damage to the environment and the animals that will inevitably follow, despite the planned safety precautions.
In the event of a serious accident, the consequences on the health and the lives of the people and the animals would be disastrous. Some of the examples of this include the oil slick after the Montara oil spill in Australia in 2009, its size covering almost 2/3 of the Croatian Adriatic, and ENI's 471 cases of oil spill in Nigeria in the first nine months of 2013, resulting in 471 thefts and terrorist attacks. Also, despite high standards, the cases of Norway and Scotland prove that the continual release of oil and other harmful substances into the environment has a noticeable negative impact on the ecosystems. The seismic recording itself had a considerable impact on the Adriatic since it included using airguns, which release extremely strong soundwaves into the sea inhabited by animals relying on their sense of hearing to live.
Environment pollution, as well as harmful effects on the people and the animals, would be further exacerbated by the impact of the drilling mud used in the drilling process. It is highly toxic, and its release into the environment can not be completely prevented, resulting in their stay in the sea and on the seabed. The implementation of this project would also mean a disregard for the biological and socio-economic values of marine national parks and nature parks and would endanger the ecological network Natura 2000.
Since the study does not provide for any mechanisms of pollution prevention, nor does it take into account the considerable impact of oil exploitation on the climate change and its consequences, but ignores the biological and socio-economic values of marine national parks and nature parks, the organization Animal Friends expresses its disagreement and opposition to any kind of exploration and exploitation of the Adriatic which would surely have a harmful impact.
Since the project has been strongly opposed by the public, we request that the decision on this matter is based on protecting the long-term interest of the public, respecting the opinion of the public and the local communities, as well as the importance of protecting the animals and their environment..
We also express hope that the following days prove that we would not remember the Adriatic as a Europe's pearl, rich with animal and plant life that once existed, but that Croatia will be able to keep priding itself in its sea as one of the rare pristine drops in the glass of polluted and extinct seas and oceans, and that it will continue to improve the protection of the Adriatic Sea and its inhabitants with each day..
Wishing that common sense prevails over interests guided exclusively by profit, which is too often blind in pursuing its goals, we cast our vote for the preservation of the Adriatic and its animals, in the interest of current and future generations.
Croatian to English: Letter to the Ministry of Agriculture General field: Other Detailed field: Agriculture
Source text - Croatian Poštovani,
obraćamo Vam se jer smo zabrinuti zbog čestih prijava građana vezano za vodstvo Skloništa za životinje Pokupsko Cerje i kršenja mnogih zakonski propisanih odredbi poput programa udomljavanja i edukacije, informacijskog centra, programa kastracije, a najviše zbog ubijanja zdravih životinja.
Prema dostupnim saznanjima, vlasnik skloništa Predrag Baraba: onemogućava volonterima pristup skloništu, kako bi pokušali udomiti pse kojima nakon isteka roka od 60 dana prijeti usmrćivanje; daje na udomljavanje pse koji su bolesni i preplašeni, a kujice skotne; ne provodi kontrolu razmnožavanja životinja u skloništu i ne kastrira ih; proizvoljno određuje kome će dopustiti udomljavanje psa, pri čemu radije odlučuje ubiti psa nego ga dati na udomljavanje; ne odgovara na e-mailove, često se u skloništu nitko ne javlja; ne trudi se previše niti da sklonište oglašava životinje - internetska stranica skloništa je s nepotpunim podacima, iz kojih se ne vidi niti kad je životinja došla u sklonište, a npr. za listopad oglašen je samo jedan pas, i to 6. listopada, nakon čega nije oglašen nijedan novi pas za udomljavanje; u skloništu nema izvješenih podataka o psima pod obrazloženjem da vlaga brzo uništi papir; sklonište drži otvorenim samo radnim danom i to samo četiri sata (od 10 do 14 sati), čime radno vrijeme nije prilagođeno građanima koji u to vrijeme većinom rade.
Grad Velika Gorica temeljem koncesijskog ugovora dosad je financirao rad skloništa u Pokupskom Cerju. Unatoč nepostojanju informacijskog centra, koji je propisan Zakonom o zaštiti životinja, životinje se i dalje usmrćuju u tom skloništu, a da se pritom nisu iskoristile sve zakonske mogućnosti za njihovo oglašavanje i udomljavanje. Sklonište ima mali broj udomljavanja, pri čemu je većina pasa udomljena isključivo zahvaljujući angažmanu volontera.
Prema Zakonu o zaštiti životinja, životinja se može (ali i ne mora) usmrtiti nakon 60 dana, i to samo ako je oglašavana, ponuđena na udomljavanje i ako je dobila pravilnu skrb. Osim toga, Zakon ne obavezuje na ubijanje pasa nakon 60 dana, već daje tu mogućnost kao krajnju mjeru, i to samo ako su svi uvjeti u potpunosti ispunjeni, među njima i uvjet da nema mjesta u skloništu i da nakon ponude drugim skloništima ili udrugama zaista nije bilo druge opcije. Iz toga slijedi da sklonište u Pokupskom Cerju krši Zakon ako je životinja ubijena nakon 60 dana, a mogla je biti udomljena. Sklonište koje usmrćuje pse ne može potencijalne udomitelje sprječavati u udomljavanju ili im postavljati uvjete. Samo no kill skloništa koja su voljna držati psa do smrti mogu postavljati uvjete i davati ugovore, jer su u slučaju neprihvaćanja uvjeta i ugovora i dalje sami u mogućnosti skrbiti za životinju. Dakle, sklonište koje ima namjeru ubiti životinju ne može se postavljati kao policija ni veterinarska inspekcija i postavljati uvjete za udomljavanje.
Očito je da u poslovanju skloništa u Pokupskom Cerju nedostaje transparentnosti, da se krše zakonski propisi, a građanima se otežava i onemogućava udomljavanje, na štetu zdravih pasa koje vlasnik Baraba radije usmrćuje.
Zbog navedenih nepravilnosti u radu smatramo da je nedopustivo trošiti sredstva nezadovoljnih građana na neodgovarajuće i protuzakonito rješavanje problema nezbrinutih životinja na velikogoričkom području i drugim područjima koje su sklopile koncesiju sa skloništem u Pokupskom Cerju. Prema najnovijim informacijama, Grad Velika Gorica povjerio je sada zbrinjavanje pasa Veterinarskoj stanici Sisak, no sklonište u Pokupskom Cerju i dalje preuzima napuštene pse iz Pokupskog, Kravarskog, Siska, Oborova i Sv. Ivana Zeline, što je zabrinjavajuće.
Velika Gorica već je je do sada mogla imati vlastito sklonište koje bi bilo izgrađeno na gradskom zemljištu i vođeno neprofitno te koje bi bilo u interesu građana i napuštenih životinja. U takvo sklonište mogla bi se dovoditi vrtićka i školska djeca s ciljem edukacije kako se brinuti o životinjama, bez bojazni da će pri posjetu skloništu svjedočiti usmrćivanju životinje. Primjeri takvih skloništa već postoje u gradskom skloništu u Zagrebu, Čakovcu i Varaždinu, a karakterizira ih veći broj udomljavanja za osjetno manji novac od onog koji se izdvaja za ubijanje u profitnom skloništu.
Stoga Vas molimo za inspekcijski nadzor rada skloništa u Pokupskom Cerju i provođenje konkretnih zakonskih mjera kako to sklonište ne bi postojalo samo radi ispunjavanja forme nego kako bi se omogućilo učinkovito provođenje zakona te zbrinjavanje i udomljavanje životinja. Ujedno apeliramo na vas da, ako vlasnik skloništa nije voljan i sposoban provoditi zakon i udomljavati životinje umjesto njihova usmrćivanja, odredite mjere za zatvaranje skloništa.
U očekivanju Vašeg odgovora, srdačan pozdrav.
Translation - English
Dear Sir,
we are writing to You out of concern about the frequent complaints of the citizens regarding the owners of the Animal Shelter in Pokupsko Cerje and the violation of many legislative provisions such as programs of adoption and education, information centre, spaying/neutering programs, and mainly about the killing of healthy animals.
According to what we know, the owner of the shelter Predrag Baraba is: preventing the volunteers from accessing the shelter, while they are trying to adopt the dogs which are in danger of being euthanized after the 60 days period; offering sick, pregnant and terrified dogs for adoption; not controlling the reproduction of animals in the shelter nor spaying/neutering them; arbitrarily deciding who may or may not adopt the dog, while at the same time favouring killing the dogs, instead of offering them for adoption; not responding to e-mails, while often there is no one answering at the shelter either; not trying too hard to advertise the shelter – the website is incomplete, where it remains unknown when the animal entered the shelter – in October there was only one dog registered, on the 6th of October, after which no dogs were advertised; there is no board with information on dogs, under the pretext that damp destroys the paper too fast; keeping the shelter open on weekdays only for only four hours (from 10 AM to 4 PM), and thus making it difficult for citizens, who usually work during these hours, to visit the shelter.
The City of Velika Gorica has been financing the shelter in Pokupsko Cerje through a concession agreement. Despite the fact that there is no information centre, which is prescribed by the Animal Protection Act, animals are still being killed, without first exhausting all legal possibilities for their advertising and adoption. The shelter keeps the rate of adoptions low, while most of the dogs were adopted entirely due to the efforts of the volunteers.
According to the Animal Protection Act, the animal may (but does not necessarily have to) be killed after 60 days, and only if it has been advertised, offered for adoption and received proper medical care. Also, the Act does not stipulate killing the dogs after 60 days, it rather offers this possibility as the last resort, and only if all the requirements have been met, such as the requirement that there is no room at the shelter and that after offering the animals to other shelters or associations there was no other option. A shelter which kills dogs may not prevent the potential adopters from adopting the animals and imposing conditions on them. Only the no kill shelters, which are ready to take care of the dogs until they die, may impose conditions and sign contracts, since in the case of not accepting the conditions or the contract, they are able to take care of the animals themselves. Thus, the shelters planning on killing animals cannot behave as police nor veterinary inspections and impose conditions for adoption.
It is obvious that the shelter in Pokupsko Cerje lacks transparency, and that legislative provisions are being violated, while it is made difficult and impossible for the citizens to adopt animals, to the disadvantage of the healthy dogs the owner Baraba rather kills.
For the mentioned irregularities in their work, we consider it is inadmissible to spend the funds of the dissatisfied citizens on inappropriate and illegal solutions to the problem of homeless animals in the area of Velika Gorica and other areas that gave the concession agreement to the shelter in Pokupsko Cerje. According to the latest information, the City of Velika Gorca has trusted the taking care of the dogs to the Veterinary Office in Sisak, but the shelter in Pokupsko Cerje is still accountable for abandoned dogs from Pokupsko, Kravarsko, Sisak, Oborov and St. Ivan Zelina, which raises concern.
Velika Gorica could have already had its own shelter, built on the city land and organized for non-profit purposes, which would look after the interest of citizens and abandoned animals. Kindergarten and school children could be brought to this kind of a shelter in order to educate them on how to take care of animals, without the fear of them witnessing the killing of the animals. These kinds of shelters already exist in Zagreb, Čakovec and Varaždin, and are characterized by a larger number of adoptions, using considerably less funds than for-profit shelters, which kill their animals.
For these reasons we ask for an inspection of the shelter in Pokupsko Cerje, as well as enforcing concrete legislative regulations, so that the shelter would not exist pro forme, but so as to enable efficient enforcement of the law and taking care and adoption of animals. At the same time, we appeal to you that, if the owner of the shelter is not willing or able to abide by the law and adopt animals instead of killing them, You issue the decision to shut it down.
Waiting for your response, kind regards
Croatian to English: Letter to the animal shelter General field: Other Detailed field: Environment & Ecology
Source text - Croatian Poštovani,
ponukani brojnim reakcijama građana, ovim putem podnosimo prijavu zbog mogućeg zanemarivanja i zlostavljanja životinja, neposrednog ugrožavanja njihovih života i držanja u neprimjerenim uvjetima u Trgetu kod Labina te tražimo inspekcijski nadzor.
Prema reakcijama građana, u navedenoj luci životinje se masovno dovoze izdaleka te utovaruju u brodove. Po ljeti do utovara ostaju u kamionima cijele noći, ali i cijele dane, na nepodnošljivim temperaturama, u užarenim kamionima, dok po zimi podnose izuzetnu hladnoću. Bez vode i hrane čekaju gurajući glave kroz rešetke kamiona kako bi uhvatile zraka.
U tom periodu vozači kamiona provode vrijeme u obližnjem restoranu umjesto da daju životinjama piti i da ih puste van iz kamiona u kojima zbijene stoje u izmetu i urinu.
Postoje nastambe za privremeni odmor stoke, ali je broj životinja prevelik i ne mogu u njih stati.
Ovo se događa svakodnevno i stoga molimo da inspekcija izvrši nadzor i poduzme potrebne radnje.
Također, naglašavamo da je nadzor potrebno vršiti redovito jer se radi o ponavljajućem, krajnje nehumanom postupanju sa životinjama koji su prešli u praksu, a što je regulirano važećim zakonima Republike Hrvatske.
Tako čl. 205., st. 1. Kaznenog zakona navodi: "Tko usmrti životinju bez opravdanog razloga ili je teško zlostavlja, nanosi joj nepotrebne boli ili je izlaže nepotrebnim patnjama, kaznit će se kaznom zatvora do jedne godine. St. 3 istog članka navodi: "Tko iz nehaja uskratom hrane ili vode ili na drugi način izloži životinju tegobnom stanju kroz dulje vrijeme, kaznit će se kaznom zatvora do šest mjeseci" te st. 4 kaže da će se životinja iz ovoga članka oduzeti.
Uz sve to, ovi se događaji odvijaju na javnoj površini te se radi o izravnom kršenju čl. 30. Zakona o prekršajima protiv javnog reda i mira koji zabranjuje mučenje i ubijanje životinja na javnome mjestu i to izričito navodeći: "Tko [...] na javnom mjestu zlostavlja životinje ili na drugi način loše s njima postupa, kaznit će se za prekršaj novčanom kaznom."
Zatim, Zakon o zaštiti životinja u čl. 4., st. 1 navodi: "Zabranjeno je životinje ubijati, nanositi im bol, patnju i ozljede te ih namjerno izlagati strahu, protivno odredbama ovoga Zakona", a u st. 2., toč. 13 kaže: "Zabranjeno je izlagati životinje nepovoljnim temperaturama i vremenskim uvjetima, protivno prihvaćenim zoo-higijenskim standardima za pojedinu vrstu ili nedostatku kisika, čime se kod životinja uzrokuje bol, patnja, ozljede ili strah."
Također, Pravilnik o uvjetima i načinu prijevoza životinja jasno navodi obvezu pružanja primjerene njege životinjama tijekom prijevoza, zabranjuje prijevoz životinja na način koji ih izlaze ozljedama ili nepotrebnoj patnji, nalaze da se za prijevoz životinja upotrebljavaju prijevozna sredstva koja udovoljavaju uvjetima propisanim za osiguranje dobrobiti životinja tijekom prijevoza itd.
Zbog svega navedenog, tražimo da se što prije izvrši inspekcijski nadzor, a životinje sklone iz neprimjerenih uvjeta.
Unaprijed zahvaljujemo i molimo da nas pismenim putem obavijestite o poduzetim radnjama i mjerama.
Translation - English Dear Sir or Madam,
prompted by numerous reactions of the citizens’, we are hereby filing a complaint about the potential neglect and abuse of animals, directly putting their lives in danger, keeping them in unsuitable conditions in Trget, Labin, and we are requesting an inspection.
According to the citizens, animals are brought in great numbers from far away to the above-mentioned harbour and are loaded onto ships. During the summer, they are staying in red-hot trucks whole nights and days, waiting under unbearable temperatures, while during the winter they are experiencing extreme cold. Without food and water, they are pushing their heads through the bars of the truck so as to grab some fresh air,
At the same time, the truck drivers are spending their time in the nearest restaurant instead of giving animals something to drink and letting them out of the truck where they are overcrowded, standing in feces and urine.
There are resting facilities for cattle, but the animals are too many and they cannot all fit inside.
This is happening on daily basis so we request the inspection to carry out an investigation and take necessary measures.
Since this extremely inhumane animal treatment has become a habitual practice, it is important to stress that the inspection needs to be made regularly, as this is stipulated by the Croatian law.
Article 205, paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code states: “Whoever kills an animal without reasonable grounds, abuses it severely, inflicts unnecessary pain upon it or exposes it to unnecessary suffering, shall be punished by imprisonment up to one year. Paragraph 3 of the same Article states: “Whoever by negligence or by withholding food or water or otherwise exposing an animal during its transport to a difficult condition through a long period of time shall be punished by imprisonment not exceeding six months”, while paragraph 4 states the animal shall be taken away.
In addition, all of the depicted events are taking place in public space, which is a direct violation of the Article 30 of the Act on Criminal Offences Against Public Order which prohibits torturing and killing animals in public space explicitly stating: “Whoever abuses animals in public or treats them badly in any other way, shall be punished by a fine.”
Furthermore, the Animal Protection Act, Article 1, paragraph 1, states: “It is forbidden to kill animals, inflict pain, suffering or injuries upon them, and intentionally exposing them to fear, contrary to the provisions of this Act”, and paragraph 2, part 13, states: “It is forbidden to expose animals to adverse temperatures and weather conditions, contrary to accepted zoo-hygienic standards for a specific animal, or to lack of oxygen, causing animals pain, suffering, injuries or fear.
Also, the Rulebook on the conditions and the means of transport of animals clearly requires providing animals with appropriate care during transport, forbids transport of animals which in any way exposes them to injuries or unnecessary suffering, requires that means of transport for animals comply with the conditions prescribed for ensuring the well-being of the animal during transport etc.
Due to all of the mentioned, we require that an inspection is carried out as soon as possible and the animals are removed from inappropriate conditions.
We thank You in advance and ask you to notify us in letter about the taken measures.
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Years of experience: 3. Registered at ProZ.com: Sep 2021.
After receiveing my MA in English and Russian (specialization: translation) in 2015, I worked for a couple of years with environmental associations, translating legal documents, memos, official letters, recipes etc. I also have experience in the art / academic / literary niche, translating articles for magazines or different exhibitions. Furthermore, I went through a very thorough training in subtitling at the university and I have an art background, so creative and transcreative translations come naturally to me. In 2023 I started working as a subtitle translator in a large media company in Croatia. I offer quality and reliable translations for your every need. Looking forward to working with you.
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