In Ne mosquito pas performing artists from different disciplines come together to perform their ‘failed’ work. This can be scenes that were cut out of a show right before the curtain went up, ideas that never escaped the pages of one’s notebook or lingering fascinations from the past that for one reason or another never got expressed. The participating artists are invited to dive into their notebooks from recent or not so recent creative processes, their archive of rehearsal videos, their (often unreliable) memory of projects they were involved in, etcetera. These function as a starting point or breeding ground for a short solo performance that renders the failure within one’s artistic practice visible. Failure here must be understood broadly. It is ripping your pants while doing a grand écart during a performance in the Opera, but it is also coming to Europe with the American Dream of a successful career in contemporary dance, only to realize years later that “America is actually in America”. The failure rendered visible in the Ne mosquito pas-solos is of different sorts. It could be slapsticky but might just as well have a strong socio-economical dimension. The solo’s deal with experiences that took place both on stage and backstage: addressing the failure that is inherently part of performing but also bringing out of the shadows different forms of failure that often remain invisible for the spectator.
Ne mosquito pas aims to transform this failure and loss into elements that are no longer considered obstacles but rather a possible source for creation, fuel for creativity. They are no longer to be hidden or avoided, they are reformulated as an invitation to question the standard which decides what is considered failed or successful. What norms are consciously or unconsciously part of one’s artistic decision making, and what happens if this norm is left aside? Some sort of negative version of one’s practice emerges, by assuming the potential of that what one would ‘normally’ consider not being part of one’s taste and interests. In extremis this means looking for one’s bad taste but instead of staying away from it, making it even worse.
In the line of queer icon Quentin Crisp’s motto “If at first you don’t succeed, failure might be your style”, failure is adopted as a possible attitude to think and create through. In that way it attempts to open space for reflection on the specific conditions in which artistic work is being produced, and more generally a society that promotes competition as one of it’s main forms of social relationships, is characterized by a need for constant self-enhancement of it’s subjects and driven by a never ending desire for success and profit (usually at the cost of others).
“If at first you don’t succeed, failure might be your style”
Quentin Crisp
The artists that participate in Ne mosquito pas are invited to interpret the notion of failure from their personal perspective. The collection of the different performances that emerges is often eclectic but characterized by a collective effort to undo a preconfigured idea about what ‘works’ on stage and what does not. It are autonomous contributions, but it is in relation to each other that the solo’s offer a glimpse of failure’s potential to resist the constant quest for succes as the default mode by which neoliberal lives are lived.
To reserve your tickets and get more information on the solos that will take place on June 28th and July 3th @ wpZimmer, head to this link
[PART 1: Rosie Sommers, Simon Baetens, Sophia Danae Vorvila, Nathan Ooms, Willem De Wolf]
[PART 2: Micha Goldberg, Musia Mwankumi, Jacopo Buccino, Dahlia Pessemiers, Anna F. Jäger]