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Badrum Badrum cast: Irene Coticchio, Daniel Aschwanden, Elisabeth Löffler,Cornelia Scheuer, Mathias Gmachl, Michael Strohmann, Claribel Koss, Andi Strauss, Yosi Wanunu

"Badrum Badrum" Basics

by John Wójtowicz

"Badrum Badrum", a Net-based multimedia dance performance, confounds the audience's expectations from the moment they enter the performance space, since it's not easy to figure out where they're supposed to sit. Yosi Wanunu and Daniel Aschwanden, co-creators of the performance, present them with a ragtag environment assembled and equipped in an apparently slapdash way: no risers, no rows of chairs, no scenery to speak of — just tables, cables, wires, video monitors, mixing desk and other gadgets, bare floor, etc. Projections on screens appear not only where the scenery and stage would ordinarily be, but on each of the other three walls as well. Seats for spectators are placed around the entire periphery of the space, at points interspersed with the cameras and chairs that the actors will later use in performance.

The audiovisual tech crew (Michael Strohmann and Mathias Gmachl) occupies an island of tables and gear in one corner, though during the show they're often wandering around elsewhere, engaged in motley shenanigans and functioning something like the "sundry mechanicals" of some Elizabethan drama. At a computer station opposite from the crew stands the director (Yosi Wanunu), whose own lectern-high setup lends him a slight "Mr. Wizard" air — he's clearly the Prospero of this little madcap world. In still another corner of the room is a short-order cook (Andreas Strauss) at work at a grill; throughout the duration of the show he will silently serve up Asian-themed comestibles (egg batter filled with sprouts, tofu, scallions, other veggies, and so on) to any who ask. And discreetly located in the fourth corner, opposite the cook, is a very reasonably priced, decently stocked bar. At the performance that I attended, I took a seat in the vicinity of the cook, hoping to snag some of the free chow.

By the time the audience enters, the actors have already started reading the transcript of a "nerd chat" whose text also appears on the screens — "I will eat your brain" "oh yeah, well I can teleport!" — first a male and female voice, and then joined by other female voices reading the same text, so that the voices overlap and interrupt each other. After several minutes, Yosi the director cuts in, asking, "Can you give it a bit more mood?" Accordingly, the voices shift gear, while the crew adds Satie's famous piano composition, "Gymnopédie" as background, along with a video animation of a cartoon brain-eater. All told, there are four actors plus director and crew, all dressed ultra-casually and equipped with fanny packs (which hold equipment for their remote mics).

Inspired by the Satie, the two performers in wheelchairs (Elisabeth Löffler and Cornelia Scheuer) assume center stage, accompanying the music with classical dance moves from the waist up and delicate choreography with their vehicles. The pacing and motion are not unlike water ballet. The initial actors continue trading their nerd insults according to the script, but begin introducing cartoon voices, e.g. a squeaky female mouse and male sinister villain.

At roughly the eight-minute mark, the male actor steps out and introduces himself: "My name is Strange Dance Moves. Please help me — I cannot dance very well, and do so with strange robotic movements..."

Something is obviously already wrong with this picture. For one thing, this show is being presented as part of Vienna's "Imagetanz04" series — yet right at the outset one actor announces to the audience that he cannot dance, and two of the others are occupying wheelchairs and therefore seem to face other constraints vis-à-vis traditional conceptions of dance.

"... strange robotic movements, as though I'm dancing like an uncle at a wedding reception," and then the actor launches into a monologue about his Uncle Alois, an acid casualty who enjoyed dancing like a bird. The director interjects, "Can you show me?" Daniel, the actor, proceeds to offer his impressions in herky-jerky movements, and the other cast members join in as the crew adds music. The music is then cut — and Daniel begins spazzing out! He's losing it! The director asks, "What's wrong, are you not feeling well?" In response, crew member Mathias yells, "The squid is no good!"

It is at this point that I decide to pass regarding the free food. Daniel continues to go spasmodic and staggers across to the other end of the room. Meanwhile, to accompany the similar moves of the other actors, the music has jumped from John Pizzarelli's smooth, suave "I'm Your Guy" to the robotic synth-funk of the Headhunters' "Chameleon". One of the women breaks away, picks up a mic, and begins relating a dream she had about Bill Gates in which he's not a computer mogul, but the head of a pizza empire.

There's something misleading and even specious about the above account of the show's first quarter-hour, however: it overlooks the essential aspects of open-endedness and simultaneity, which continue as things progress. At any given moment there usually exists a general focus of activity — e.g. when one or more actors are using or riffing off of the video output being displayed on all of the screens — but at the same time, the others may still be working with material from a previous segment (e.g. dancing long after the music has stopped), or developing some new shtick of their own, either something previously tried out in rehearsal or even a routine that occurred to them just at that particular moment.

Meanwhile, there is the group's overall "Internet-based" method of working to also take into account: the director and crew members can access audio/visual material pre-selected and saved down from the Net ahead of time, and also use materials spontaneously found while the performance is taking place. The three computers are networked with each other; typically, for instance, Yosi does a search on Google using keywords related to the video dance clip currently being projected, and then Mathias and/or Michael, seeing the resulting hits on their own screens, use the search results to locate and project additional images or related text. Thus at any given moment there may be video taken "live" from the Net, a live video feed from the cameras onstage, and/or any additional video clips previously saved down.

Clearly, this method places certain demands on all members of the company. The actors must continually respond to whatever music is being played or video projected, tailoring their own improvisations to it. The production calls for individual, spontaneous contributions from each performer, but nothing should be egregiously out of synch with the other events taking place simultaneously. In the performance that I attended, everyone's timing was impeccable and the flow was exemplary — but all involved admit that this has not always been the case, and in this regard I can't help but wonder about the 12-hour version of this show that was recently staged in Graz.

This method — improvising on the basis of input taken live from the Net — also throws a monkey wrench into certain already complicated conceptual issues, beginning with the blending of performance space with virtual space. Tadeusz Kantor (with whom director Yosi Wanunu has studied) once observed that "It is difficult to call an auditorium a real place," and therefore, in such a sterilized place "where everything is justified by fiction", the already-existing ambiguity of communication is increased.(1)

This becomes most apparent in the show's use of transcripts taken from Net chat rooms — specifically, the ones involving sex with vegetables ("My zucchini caresses your carrots. Damn baby, this shit is hot!"), sex with a rhinoceros, and a lovers' quarrel between George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden — since these constitute re-enactments of dialogue that was typed out and transmitted but never before actually spoken, between two "real" people, neither of whom presented their "real" identity or acted as their "true" self; the dialogues have been transferred from "virtual" chat-room space to performance space. Furthermore, the sex chats often involve misunderstandings, e.g. that one of the participants really is into vegetables, or really is (or thinks he is) a rhinoceros.

(Problematic communication shows up in the very title of the show, since "Badrum" apparently derives from some anonymous Net user's mishearing of "Bodrum", though it could well also suggest "bedroom", "bad room", and "boardroom".)

Thus the ambiguities pile up: What is planned, and what is improvised? Is "Badrum" a work in progress, or is the audience seeing a finished product? How is authorial intention involved if even the director must immediately react to a shtick that an actor has sprung on him by surprise at a particular performance? And if this indeed occurs, how does that affect the director's authority? What is being performed in real time, and what is being played back? And in this context, what exactly is "dance", as opposed to "not able to dance", "not really dancing", and "not really part of the Dance World"? What is culture qua popular culture, and what constitutes just plain trash and kitsch? Which erotic perversion is presented in and of itself, and which one is there purely for its inherent comic potential? (As we know, carnal relations with our friends in the vegetable kingdom historically trace back at least as far as 1967, when Frank Zappa first invited his listeners to "call any vegetable", promising that "the vegetable will respond to you.") And of course in "Badrum", in addition to mankind's relationship to other species, there's also the relationship between human and machine, whether it be computer, camera, or wheelchair.

Happily, despite all of the ensuing onstage chaos — by which I mean "non-linear, unpredictable development" rather than "unappealing lack of order" — high points appear which indeed conform to those of a traditional musical, and along with them, some semblance of form. For example, the first genuine show-stopper is the "Tequila" number, where the entire ensemble dances, sings, and scat-sings to the old war-horse familiar to us all — and the video projections feature a mustachioed Mexicano with sombrero and blanket, saying "hey amigo, pass the lemon!" while accompanied by "Chile and Pepe, the dancing peppers"(2). And when the video clip ends and Mathias shouts "Rewind!" to cue the cast's reprise of the number, the encore also suggests that of traditional Broadway musicals.

Other forms similarly emerge from the chaos: for instance, true to the time-tested comedy formula, Daniel's account of his acidhead Uncle Alois really does become screamingly funny the third time that he attempts to tell it. Likewise, the sex-chats function analogously to the romantic interludes and duets of a musical placed between the large-ensemble numbers. And the tunes are occasionally reprised — e.g. Nino Rota's theme to "La Strada" is played as background to both of the sex chats.

The music selected for the show also creates a delightful communicative ambiguity, since it is generally so familiar to the listener that additional associations and meanings are unavoidable (where were you when you first saw Fellini's "La Strada", who were you with, where else have you heard the theme, etc.). Interestingly, this tactic also seems to fit in with Tadeusz Kantor's stated aim of bringing theatre close to real life by pointing up the mechanisms that evoke memories, in part in response to the mass character of the modern world(3), notwithstanding the way that "Badrum" doesn't react to mass culture as much as it wallows in it.

At the appropriate point in the show, "Badrum" also offers its own dramatic climax, in the form of the re-enactment of a Net chat between "Bin Laden 9151" and "XprezbushX" (an exchange which I hereby nominate to the Found Materials Hall of Fame). Against the background of the famous moody, doomed-romantic Miles Davis soundtrack to Louis Malle's "Ascenseur pour l'échafaud" (elevator to the gallows), actress Irene Coticchio, in a seductive, sexy voice, asks, "Did you get my message?" Daniel, defensive, earnest, and generally uncomprehending throughout, replies, "What message?" She answers, "It was delivered by air mail ... right into your trade towers." Giggling, she continues to provoke and needle him: "The only way I can get through to you is by blowing something up" and "Your military is up in our holy land ... it's pissing us off," to which he replies, "Whatever, dude." The exchange predictably degenerates, becoming more hilarious as it does so, eventually succumbing to insults and retorts like "I know you are, but what am I?" and "I can't hear you, nya-nya-nya-nya-nya."

Why are we allowed to laugh at such a nasty encounter about such a horrific historical event? Because the context in which it is presented points to Bakhtin's notion of the carnivalesque, and thereby includes elements such as the body, the presence of abundant (in this case, free) food, of sex, and along with the sex, of practical jokes (e.g. not really knowing who it is who is asking you, "wanna cyber?"), and the element of chance (in the form of improvisation and on-the-spot web searches).

In fact, in his discussion of the carnivalesque, Bakhtin touches on many characteristics which apply to "Badrum": skits which feature the lengthy exchanges of elaborate insults (here, Bush vs. Bin Laden especially); parodies of church rituals (cf. the sermon Daniel delivers toward the end, "Did Jesus use a modem at the Sermon at the Mount? Did Moses use a laptop at the parting of the Red Sea?"); and the pig masks donned by the entire cast for the "happy ending" following the Bush-Bin Laden chat, where they cavort about to the cartoon music of Raymond Scott. And of course one must note the general inversion of hierarchies and customs inherent in "Badrum" whereby a dance production can co-star two women who normally spend much of their time in wheelchairs — and likewise, the inversion in having those wheelchairs appropriated, occupied, and played around with by other people who don't normally spend any time in them(4).

In the spirit of such carnivalesque conviviality and celebration — as well as satire, mass culture, and more food — the Vienna performance of the show ended with a Jewish comic's parody of Louis Bega's "Mambo #5", found on the Net and called "Bagel #5". Instead of a highbrow dance performance, I felt like I was at a wedding at a resort in the Catskills. I just hope that the next time I see the show, the squid is edible.

Footnotes:

(1) cf. Paul Carter's "Ambiguous Traces: Mishearing and Auditory Space", found at: http://www.sounddesign.unimelb.edu.au/site/papers/mishearing.html

(2) found on www.sillyhumor.com

(3) cf. www.rundetaarn.dk/engelsk/kantor.html

(4) The observations which relate to Bakhtin's carnivalesque are derived from material in Chapter 14 of Mikhail Bakhtin by Katerina Clark and Michael Holquist (Belknap Press: Cambridge, MA, 1984).

-- YosiWanunu - 19 May 2004