Ruhrtriennale festival, Young Fathers, and Palestinian rights

Open letter published today by a large group of artists to support the three members of the Scottish band Young Fathers:

Ruhrtriennale festival wrong to expel Young Fathers over support for Palestinian rights

Letters

Tue 26 Jun 2018

Guardian:  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/26/ruhrtriennale-festival-wrong-to-expel-young-fathers-over-support-for-palestinian-rights

Massive Attack, Patti Smith, Danny Glover and Viggo Mortensen among signatories to letter in defence of BDS movement

 Young Fathers performing in Glasgow in 2015. Photograph: Ross Gilmore/Redferns

We are disturbed by attempts in Germany to impose political conditions on artists supporting Palestinian human rights. We are glad that the international outcry has convinced the Ruhrtriennale arts festival to reverse its repressive decision to cancel a performance by the Young Fathers, after they refused to distance themselves from the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights.

Ruhrtriennale’s earlier decision was a particularly alarming form of censorship, “blacklisting” and repression.

We welcome the stance of another German festival, Morgenland, in resisting a similar attempt to suppress free speech.

We stand firmly against all forms of racism and identity-based discrimination, including anti-blackness, sexism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and homophobia. Conflating nonviolent measures to end Israel’s illegal occupation and human rights violations with anti-Jewish racism is false and dangerous. It denies Palestinians their right to peaceful protest and undermines the struggle against antisemitism.

 While we may hold diverse views on BDS, we are united in considering it a lawful exercise of freedom of expression. Boycotts that are anchored in universal human rights and aimed at achieving justice for marginalised and oppressed communities are a legitimate nonviolent tactic. They have been used worldwide, including against apartheid in South Africa and the Jim Crow segregation laws in the US.

This is the view of the EU, hundreds of US rabbis, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and hundreds of European NGOs. 

Mai Abu ElDahab Director, Mophradat 
Tunde Adebimpe Musician
Antonia Alampi Artistic co-director, Savvy Contemporary
Nir Alon Artist
Julia Aranda Artist
Mohammed Bakri Actor
Saleh Bakri Actor
Jeff Barrett Founder, Heavenly Recordings
Yves Berger Artist
Judith Butler Philosopher
David Calder Actor
Noam Chomsky Linguist, philosopher
Julie Christie Actor
Caryl Churchill Playwright
Jarvis Cocker Musician
Molly Crabapple Artist, writer
Liam Cunningham Actor
Angela Davis Political activist, academic
Lawrence Dreyfus Director, Phantasm viol consort
Tania El Khoury Artist
Brian Eno Composer, producer
Reem Fadda Curator
David Farr Writer, director
Chiara Figone Archive Books/Kabinett/Journal
Marina Fokidis Curator, writer
Rebecca Foon Musician
Peter Gabriel Musician, founder, Womad festival
Dani Gal Artist
Danny Glover Actor
Carl Gosling Heavenly Recordings
Ian Ilavsky Co-founder, Constellation Records
Iman Issa Artist
Ghada Karmi Writer, academic
Aki Kaurismaki Film director
AL Kennedy Writer
Naomi Klein Writer
Judith Knight Co-director, Artsadmin
Hari Kunzru Writer
Paul Laverty Screenwriter
Mike Leigh Writer, director
Mason Leaver-Yap Associate curator, KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Ken Loach Film director
Jens Maier-Rothe Curator
Jumana Manna Artist
Miriam Margolyes Actor
Yann Martel Author
Massive Attack Band
Thurston Moore Musician
David Morrissey Actor
Nicholas Mirzoeff Cultural theorist
Danny Mitchell Heavenly Recordings
Leil Zahra Mortada Film-maker
Viggo Mortensen Actor, writer, artist
Karma Nabulsi Professor of politics
Mira Nair Film director
Bonaventure Ndikung Founder, Savvy Contemporary
Paul Northup Director, Greenbelt Festival
Rebecca O’Brien Film producer
Ilan Pappe Historian
Jocelyn Pook Composer
Cat Power Musician
Jeremie Pujau Artist
Fanny-Michaela Reisin President, International League for Human Rights
Michael Rosen Children’s poet, broadcaster
Eran Schaerf Artist
James Schamus Screenwriter, producer, director
Eyal Sivan Documentary film-maker
Harry Leslie Smith Writer
John Smith Artist, film-maker
Patti Smith Musician
Jesse Smith Musician, activist
Desmond Tutu Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa
Alice Walker Writer
Roger Waters Musician
Eyal Weizman Architect
Vivienne Westwood Designer
Don Wilkie Co-founder, Constellation Records
Tim Wilson Founder, Vault festival
Tim Wise Writer

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Also publisher on the site of Artists for Palestine:

https://artistsforpalestine.org.uk/2018/06/26/patti-smith-massive-attack-viggo-mortensen-demand-free-speech-on-palestine/

Patti Smith, Massive Attack, Viggo Mortensen among 70+ artists demanding free speech on Palestine

Artists for Palestine UK is publishing (below) a longer version of the open letter published in tomorrow’s print edition of the Guardian, with the full list of signatories.

The statement responds to news that the award-winning band Young Fathers were invited, disinvited and re-invited to the Ruhrtriennale arts festival in Germany, following demands that they renounce their support for the global movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) in support of Palestinian rights. The band refused, and re-affirmed their support for human rights principles. Now, 79 artists, writers and producers from all fields of the arts in the UK, the US, Germany and beyond, plus public figures including Desmond Tutu, Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky and Angela Davis, speak out about what they say is an “alarming form of censorship, “blacklisting” and repression”.

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No Palestine Exception to Freedom of Speech[1]

We, the undersigned artists, writers and public figures, are disturbed by attempts in Germany to impose political conditions on artists supporting Palestinian human rights. We are glad that the international outcry has convinced the Ruhrtriennale arts festival to reverse its repressive decision to cancel a performance by Young Fathers, after they refused to distance themselves from the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights.

Ruhrtriennale’s earlier decision was a particularly alarming form of censorship, “blacklisting” and repression.

We welcome the stance of another German festival, Morgenland, in resisting a similar attempt to suppress free speech.

We stand firmly against all forms of racism and identity-based discrimination, including anti-Blackness, sexism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and homophobia. Conflating nonviolent measures to end Israel’s illegal occupation and human rights violations with anti-Jewish racism is false and dangerous. It denies Palestinians their right to peaceful protest in pursuit of freedom, justice and equality and undermines the struggle against antisemitism.

While we may hold diverse views on the Palestinian-led BDS movement, we are united in considering it a lawful exercise of freedom of expression. Boycotts which are anchored in universal human rights and aimed at achieving justice for marginalized and oppressed communities are a legitimate nonviolent tactic. They have been used worldwide, including against apartheid in South Africa and the Jim Crow segregation laws in the United States.

In affirming this position, we are in agreement with the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the European Union, several European governments, hundreds of European legal scholars, international progressive Jewish organizations and figures, more than two hundred U.S. rabbis and hundreds of European NGOs.

At a time when far right and xenophobic forces are gaining ground, we need to be more vigilant than ever in defending and advocating democratic values, including freedom of conscience and expression.

Signed:

Mai Abu ElDahab,  Director, Mophradat

Tunde Adebimpe,  Musician

Antonia Alampi,   Artistic co-director, SAVVY Contemporary

Nir Alon,  Artist

Julia Aranda,  Artist

Mohammed Bakri,  Actor

Saleh Bakri,  Actor

Jeff Barrett,  Founder, Heavenly Recordings

Yves Berger, artist

Judith Butler,  Philosopher

David Calder,  Actor

Noam Chomsky,  Linguist, philosopher

Julie Christie,  Actor

Caryl Churchill,  Playwright

Jarvis Cocker,  Musician

Molly Crabapple,  Artist, writer

Liam Cunningham,  Actor

Angela Davis,  Political activist, academic

Lawrence Dreyfus, Director, Phantasm viol consort

Tania El Khoury,  Artist

Brian Eno  Composer, producer

Reem Fadda,  Curator

David Farr,  Writer, director

Chiara Figone,  Archive Books/Kabinett/Journal

Marina Fokidis,  Curator, writer

Rebecca Foon, Musician

Peter Gabriel,  Musician, founder, WOMAD Festival

Dani Gal,  Artist

Danny Glover, Actor

Carl Gosling,  Heavenly Recordings

Ian Ilavsky,  Co-founder, Constellation Records

Iman Issa,  Artist

Ghada Karmi,  Writer, academic

Aki Kaurismaki,  Film director

A.L. Kennedy,  Writer

Naomi Klein,  Writer

Judith Knight,  Co-director, Artsadmin

Hari Kunzru,  Writer

Paul Laverty,  Screenwriter

Mike Leigh,  Writer, director

Mason Leaver-Yap, Associate Curator, KW Institute for Contemporary Art

Ken Loach,  Film director

Jens Maier-Rothe,  Curator

Jumana Manna,  Artist

Miriam Margolyes,  Actor

Yann Martel, Author

Massive Attack,  Band

Thurston Moore,  Musician

David Morrissey,  Actor

Nicholas Mirzoeff,  Cultural theorist

Danny Mitchell,  Heavenly Recordings

Leil Zahra Mortada,  Filmmaker

Viggo Mortensen,  Actor, writer, artist

Karma Nabulsi,  Professor of Politics

Mira Nair,  Film director

Bonaventure Ndikung, Founder, Savvy Contemporary

Paul Northup, Director, Greenbelt Festival

Rebecca O’Brien,  Film Producer

Ilan Pappe,  Historian

Jocelyn Pook,  Composer

Cat Power, Musician

Jeremie Pujau,  Artist

Fanny-Michaela Reisin,  President, International League for Human Rights

Michael Rosen,  Children’s poet, broadcaster

Eran Schaerf,  Artist

James Schamus,  Screenwriter, producer, director

Eyal Sivan,  Documentary filmmaker

Harry Leslie Smith, Writer

John Smith,  Artist, filmmaker

Patti Smith,  Musician, poet

Jesse Smith, Musician, activist

Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa

Alice Walker,  Writer

Roger Waters,  Musician

Eyal Weizman,  Architect

Vivienne Westwood,  Designer

Don Wilkie,  Co-founder, Constellation Records

Tim Wilson,  Founder, VAULT Festival

Tim Wise,  Writer

[1] https://ccrjustice.org/the-palestine-exception

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Boom For Real: A new film on Jean-Michel Basquiat's early years

Out in the UK now:

Boom For Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat - Trailer

Boom For Real explores the pre-fame years of the celebrated American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. In theaters May 11th. #BoomForReal http://www.boomforrealfilm.com/

"Boom for Real review – a vivid portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat" 

- Guardian

Banksy's take on our cruel immigration policies, Paris, June 2018

Update on Monday morning: the first mural shown hereafter has already been vandalised... Covered with blue spraypaint.


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Been paying a visit to these murals.

Appeared mid-week in Paris, around World Refugee Day, June 20, they are attributed to Banksy.

This one is on a wall aside a centre for migrants. About 20 young men from Sudan, Eritrea and beyond, are currently staying outside of it, on the street with no water and no food.

This one is in the 19th arrondissement.

It's obvious the artist wants to highlight the lack of compassion Europe has shown to refugees in the past three years.

Let's hope it will draw the right attention to the crisis, the right way, with humanity and respect.

"Mezzanine": the highlight of the British multicultural dream...

I did reply to a few questions asked by a journalist from Dazed and Confused magazine.
I would not have chosen this title... For sure Not. More like "Mezzanine": the HIGHLIGHT of the British multicultural dream...

It's not over yet.

Change is inevitable in every society. And when newcomers bring so much talent, they're an inspiration.

"Massive Attack’s music is a testimony for sure of the richness of any social mix and diversity. It’s a beautiful story, and a rare story that can only inspire in our days of neo-conservatism and division.”

http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/40387/1/massive-attack-mezzanine-20th-birthday-retrospective

Massive Attack’s Mezzanine and the death of the multicultural dream

June 2018

Massive Attack for Dazed & Confused, 1998

MUSIC OPINION

Following its 20th anniversary and with a new book about the Bristol band on its way, we look back on their fraught third album

16June 2018

TextAlex Denney

“When the Wild Bunch started,” Andrew ‘Mushroom’ Vowles told Mixmag in 1998, cutting a haunted figure in a cover story on the return of Massive Attack, “we called it lover’s hip hop. Forget all that trip hop bullshit.” Apparently, Vowles couldn’t stand doing interviews, because he always got “the same bag of questions they’ve pulled out the journalists’ vending machine”. It sounds like sour grapes now, but read the whole story, and another picture starts to emerge.

Massive Attack were formed in Bristol in 1988. Rising from the ashes of The Wild Bunch, a sound system crew that helped establish the beginnings of the ‘Bristol sound’ (“lover’s hip hop” refers to lover’s rock, a smooth reggae subgenre originating in London), the group were a loose coterie of collaborators focused on a trio of key players. There was Vowles, a hip hop fanatic with mixed Dominican-British ancestry; Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja, a graffiti-artist and punk of Anglo-Italian extraction; and Grant ‘Daddy G’ Marshall, a second-generation Barbadian immigrant whose love of soul and reggae began with the ‘blues parties’ his parents used to throw when he was a kid.

Exploding out of the scene in 1991 with Blue Lines, the group’s sound spoke to romantic ideals of a modern, multicultural Britain that’s constantly embattled in 2018. But the trio were a combustible mix in the studio and, by 1998, long-simmering tensions within the group had come to a head. “You’ve talked to the other two and they’ve said something different, haven’t they?” Vowles says later in the Mixmag interview, which is actually three interviews for the price of one: Vowles, Del Naja and Marshall all taking turns to hold forth without the inconvenience of having to listen to each other speak. Suddenly, Vowles seems unsure of himself, paranoid: less like a man with low opinions of the music press, more like a man who’s scared the thing he helped build is being taken away from him.

The group conducted all their interviews separately for the release of Mezzanine, their landmark third album which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. They recorded it separately, too: if Radiohead’s OK Computer was Sgt Pepper’s for the ‘Xennial’ set – that sub-generation of kids who came of age on the cusp of the digital era – then Mezzanine was its White Album, a creative tour de force that was also a portrait of a group in the process of unravelling.

Released in April 1998, the album was hit by delays resulting from Del Naja’s compulsive tinkering, and internal disagreements that would eventually see Vowles leave the group. Del Naja, stung by criticism of the group as making ‘coffee table music’, wanted to bring a post-punk direction to their sound. He professed to have “grown out of” hip hop to anyone who would listen, much to the annoyance of B-boy Vowles, who famously rowed with him over the merits of Puff Daddy in one interview. (Another feature from the time took its title, simply, from an accusation levelled by Vowles during the record’s making: “Are we a fucking punk band now?”)

With backing from Marshall and producer Neil Davidge, Del Naja eventually got the upper hand in the unfolding civil war within the group, but not without Vowles landing a sneaky suckerpunch or two along the way. Mushroom wanted a soul singer to lay down the vocal for “Teardrop”, a glittering highlight of the album he built around Davidge’s circling harpsichord melody, but Del Naja and Grant pushed for Liz Fraser, lead singer of shoegaze pioneers The Cocteau Twins. Vowles, in retaliation, offered the track to Madonna in secret, which the rest of the group discovered by way of an email from the pop star’s manager, saying she would love to sing on the track.

In the end, Mezzanine had a harder, dubwise edge inspired by Del Naja’s love of post-punk luminaries like PiL, Wire and local heroes The Pop Group. It felt like a logical end-point of British punk’s flirtation with reggae some 20 years previous, a dense, paranoid swirl enveloping tracks like “Inertia Creeps”, “Risingson” and “Man Next Door”, a moody cover of John Holt’s 1968 reggae song about a noisy neighbour. In its prevailing mood of paranoia, the record was in tune with other albums from the Britpop hangover years (OK Computer, Pulp’s This Is Hardcore, Blur’s self-titled 1998 effort). But there’s another side to this story, one that goes to the heart of Massive Attack’s story as one of the most compelling adverts for multiculturalism Britain ever produced.

Mezzanine broke the band in America even as it broke the band full-stop. Vowles left Massive Attack in 1999; Marshall followed him out in all but name two years later. Their follow-up, 2003’s 100th Window, abandoned sampling altogether in what felt like a pointed break with the past. When Grant returned to the studio full-time in 2007, the group’s sound had evolved to the point where he was able to joke that he was “here to put the black back” into Massive Attack.

Massive Attack on the cover of Dazed & Confused, 1998Rankin

But Melissa Chemam, author of the forthcoming book Massive Attack: Out of the Comfort Zone, cautions that the group’s evolution should not be read as a simple transition from ‘black’ to ‘white’ sounds. “One dimension of the band’s music disappeared with Mushroom’s departure, for sure – the hip hop way of producing tracks, based on beats and samples,” she says. “But the band would have evolved anyway. That’s part of their DNA. They produced the equivalent of an album of new songs for the compilation album, Collected, in 2006, and one of the highlights was ‘Live With Me’, a song 3D wrote with Terry Callier, probably the most ‘soul’ song the band had written since ‘Unfinished Sympathy’.”

In fact, says Chemam, one of the keys to Massive Attack’s success as a group was the fact that, due to Bristol’s melting-pot scene of the 80s, its members had internalised influences from across the musical spectrum before they even played a note. “They grew up  with a passion for both reggae and punk, because Bristol has long been a multicultural city. Each member inherited different tastes regardless of their own family and culture. Because Bristol had a small but fascinating underground scene... DJs with a Caribbean background became passionate about punk, and Anglo-Irish-Italian MCs and musicians learned early about African-American trends in music and reggae from Jamaica. Massive Attack embody this hybridisation inside each of their members.”

The group’s celebrated debut, Blue Lines, arrived in 1991, bringing trip hop into the public consciousness at a time where hip hop, house, baggy, rave and, later, reggae all enjoyed a moment in the sun on the singles charts. But Mezzanine feels rife with intimations of darker times ahead. It was released less than 12 months into Blair’s Labour administration, in 1998, a year that saw a threefold increase in the number of migrants coming to the UK. The following decade saw rising immigration figures reflecting the realities of an increasingly globalised workforce, especially after the expansion of the EU in 2004, but the numbers only told part of the story. As a 2015 Guardian investigation into New Labour’s immigration policies observed, the 7/7 terrorist attacks, global financial crisis of 2007 and media scapegoating of immigrants combined to lay the ground for the ‘hostile environment’ policies of today, abetted by the failures of neoliberal policies in creating social cohesion. From there it’s a direct line to Brexit, and the arguments that continue to swirl around national identity today.

In fact, the group might never have materialised at all had Grant’s parents been forced to leave the country when the musician was a child. “I remember when I was a little kid in the late 60s, when they really clamped down on the immigration laws,” he told Dazed in an interview from 1998. “They said that anybody who’d been living in the country for less than seven years had to reapply for immigration. Quite a lot of my dad’s friends didn’t qualify for that and some of them had to go back. Even my dad and mum were going around trying to make sure that they were all right.”

I was interviewed on BBC Radio Bristol - by Laura Rawlings, yesterday (28/05/2018), to talk about my book on Massive Attack, Bristol and social change through music & art.
You can listen here:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p066rpnl …

— Melissa Chemam (@melissachemam) 1:58 PM - May 29, 2018

Britain had extended UK citizenship rights to all Commonwealth subjects in 1948, as a means of attracting labour to rebuild the country after the second world war. But successive governments spent much of the 60s and 70s attempting to row back on this position, finally leading to the Windrush scandal of this year, when it was revealed the Home Office had been deporting legal immigrants who’d been resident in the UK for over half a century.

“(In the 70s) the British government struggled with unemployment,” says Chemam. “And by then, the former Caribbean colonies like Jamaica and Barbados had become independent. So the supply workers called in the 1950s, after World War II, to rebuild the country, were suddenly not so welcome any more. And many had to face paperwork issues, visa refusal and so on. Many had to leave.”

For Chemam, who spent time reporting on Brexit and the refugee crisis of 2015 for the different radios, the parallels with today are clear: “The situation is indeed quite similar for foreign workers today, except that the UK isn’t exactly in a financial or commercial crisis in 2018. Now, despite the fact that Britain is one of the richest countries in the European continent, it is also one of the most unequal. And by far the least open to receiving immigrants from warzones. (Massive Attack’s) music is a testimony for sure of the richness of any social mix and diversity. It’s a beautiful story, and a rare story that can only inspire in our days of neo-conservatism and division.”

Two years on from Brexit, the battle for Britain’s soul is still raging. Mezzanine stands as a thrilling reminder of what can be won – and lost – when we decide how we feel about the proverbial man next door.

Massive Attack played the Eden Project on June 15 and 16

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That Guardian's list of the "Best films of 2018 so far" includes our "Young Karl Marx"

Raoul Peck's "Young Karl Marx" made it to this very prestigious list!!
Thank you The Guardian!
Along with "The Shape of Water", "Black Panther", "Loveless", "The Square" and "The Post"!!
Very proud...

Best films of 2018 so far

The very best of 2018, from Black Panther rewriting the rules for superheroes, Gary Oldman going to war as Churchill, and Maxine Peake blazing her way through 70s sexism 

by Tamsin Bracher and Andrew Pulver

The Young Karl Marx

Raoul Peck’s film is an account of the birth of communism and the blossoming friendship between its key movers – a sort of bromance between Marx the poverty-stricken thinker, always spoiling for a fight, and rich-kid Engels, a dandy from a well-off background.

What we said: It gives you a real sense of what radical politics was about: talk. There is talk, talk and more talk. It should be dull, but it isn’t. Somehow the spectacle of fiercely angry people talking about ideas becomes absorbing and even gripping.

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This film is still shown in England and Scotland!

Don't miss it!!

Martina Topley-Bird returns with 'Solitude'

MARTINA RELEASES A NEW SINGLE, ANNOUNCES AN UPCOMING EP 

June 15, 2018

Martina Topley-Bird returns with Solitude, a candid statement in Martina's trademark detached, strong yet fragile, sensual style. 

“You said you needed me, you said I promised, you being honest, depended on your mood, you took solitude for food.” 

Recorded in Baltimore where Martina has been based over the last 4 years, created in conjunction with new US-based team, the single is an introduction to her upcoming 4 track EP titled MTB Continued.

Born out of themes of internal and external discord, Solitude explores the journey through a troubled world and a reflection on human conflicts, the comfort and torment of solitude and the fragility of life’s balance.  

​

The release comes 8 years after Topley-Bird’s last album Some Place Simple, and a string of acclaimed collaborations.

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Listen on her website: https://www.martinatopleybird.com/news

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All rights reserved 

Solitude

Composer: Tiadiad, Martina Topley-Bird

Lyricist: Ashatan

Producer: Ashatan, Tiadiad

Mixing Engineer: Richard Morel

Mastering engineer: TJ Lipple

Photograph by Martina Fornace

Artwork by Francy Z Gharam

Executive Producer: Ashatan

Management: Old St James Arts Management

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MARTINA WILL PRESENT HER NEW PROGRAM AT THE KOKTEBEL JAZZ FESTIVAL IN UKRAINE

Jules Beckman, performeur chamanique post-moderne

Portrait : Jules Beckman, performeur chamanique post-moderne

La 5e édition de « Danse Élargie » a lieu ce week-end, les 16 et 17 juin 2018, au Théâtre de la Ville à Paris, Espace Cardin. Parmi les spectacles, celui de la chorégraphe basée à Oslo Mia Habib, « ALL-A PHYSICAL POEM OF PROTEST », avec les danseurs et artistes Povilas Bastys, Tarek Halaby, Hanna Mjåvatn, Linn Ragnarsson, Ingunn Rimestad, Jules Beckman. L’occasion de se pencher sur le travail unique de ce dernier. Jules Beckman est un musicien, danseur et performeur américain basée dans le sud de la France. Régulièrement à Paris, il répand un art chamanique incroyablement poétique et radicalement novateur. Portrait.

Crédit photo: Emeline Guillaud

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Par Mélissa Chemam

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Jules décrit Danse Elargie comme un « genre de concours international de danse ». 18 compagnies sélectionnées à partir de 400 dossiers sont invitées à présenter une pièce de dix minutes. La leur comprend une « chorégraphie de 30 corps représentant une forme d’incarnation humaine tourbillonnante du système solaire »…

La chorégraphe, Mia Habib, la décrit ainsi : Un « poème physique né de l'observation des mouvements de migrations et de soulèvements populaires. Les corps investissent l’espace par deux actions : la marche et la course. Les interactions sociales et le rythme des sons apparaissent pour donner lieu à la progression du groupe ».  Mia Habib est une interprète et chorégraphe résidant à Oslo. Elle a dansé pour Carte Blanche, la compagnie nationale de danse contemporaine norvégienne dirigée par Hooman Sharifi.

Poésie et protestation. Thèmes particulièrement présents dans le travail de Jules Beckman, l’un des danseurs, qui lui réside dans le sud de la France, près d’Aubagne, et se produit régulièrement en solo à Paris, Marseille et Bruxelles. En octobre 2017, il était au Théâtre de la Colline pour le spectacle « Le Poète aveugle », créé par Jan Lauwers et la NeedCompany dont il fait partie avec Grace Ellen Barkey, Anna Sophia Bonnema, Hans Petter Melø Dahl, Benoît Gob, Maarten Seghers, Mohamed Toukabri, Elke Janssens et Jan Lauwers. Mêlant musique, danse, théâtre, performance et intervention, ce spectacle raconte, inspiré par le parcours des artistes qui composent la compagnie, une série d’aventure de migrations… D’Indonésie à la Chine, de la Tunisie à Londres, des Etats-Unis à la France, etc. Leurs références vont d’Homère au  poète syrien aveugle Abu al ‘ala al Ma’arri. Le message : Si l’histoire est écrite par les vainqueurs, par des hommes, par des individus qui dictent à la masse ce qu’elle doit faire... D’autres versions existent...

Le parcours de Jules l’a mené de New York à la Californie puis à la France. Compositeur, chanteur bilingue, multi-instrumentiste, il est aussi danseur, poète et performeur. Son propre spectacle, « Pleasure Test », présenté au Silencio à Paris en mai dernier, il le mène en ce moment dans plusieurs villes européennes.

Vidéo – trailer : 

« Pleasure Test » : Le spectateur à l’épreuve du spectacle

Le spectacle se présente d’abord comme un concert, celui d’un musicien américain à l’hypersensibilité perceptible… Il parle à son public et passe de la guitare à la batterie, du clavier au triangle, puis perd le fil… C’est pour nous parler de ses fragilités qu’il est là, en fait, pour « connecter avec son public ».

L’humour guide le travail et l’écriture de Jules Beckman. Passant aisément de l’anglais au français, il s’inspire de sa passion pour les philosophies existentielles, occidentales et asiatiques, mais sans le moindre sérieux académique, pour les questionner, et ainsi les ramener à la vie. Et pourtant, ses compositions rock and folk n’en sont pas moins éblouissantes. D’où le sous-titre du show peut-être : « Rock Ritual Stand Up Anarchy »…

« Jules Beckman retourne à l'excitation, à la joie, et à la terreur, avec sa propre marque spéciale de rituel, de performance ‘soul’ », selon Neva Chonin du San Francisco Chronicle. Beckman combine la chanson et la danse dans une incroyable présentation.

« Les êtres humains ont une pulsion de mort, un esprit destructeur », explique Jules en parlant de son spectacle. « On peut aussi reconnaître cette force de manière mondiale. On vit collectivement un moment dans l’histoire où la question de l’autodestruction est difficile à nier. Le seul fait inchangeable : la mort. L’homme voudrait maitriser sa mort. Il veut prendre le contrôle de la seule chose incontrôlable : sa propre mort, détenir le pouvoir de décider du moment. C’est comme un caprice d’enfant, une crise de nerfs, une réaction contre le fait de notre vulnérabilité. L’antidote serait-il d’apprendre à supporter le vide, d’accepter notre fragilité ? »

Réflexions sur la masculinité, sur le deuil, sur notre dialogue avec l’au-delà, sur la place de l’homme et surtout de sa capacité à créer dans nos sociétés occidentales, enfin sur le nomadisme et le besoin naturel de l’individu d’explorer et de se déplacer, son concert se mute en performance et en voyage, presqu’une quête de sens dans laquelle il espère amener le public. Il s’adresse pour cela directement à lui, puis pour la dernière partie, culminante, implique quatre personne du public dans un rituel puissant : il leur confie la tâche de verser de l’eau sur quatre caisse de tambour sur lesquelles il s’acharnent…Vêtu d’un nouveau costume, muni d’un couteau aiguisé, le performeur entreprend de lâcher ses fantômes et ses démons personnels, mais non sans les avoir reconnu et regardé en face d’abord.

« Partout dans le monde, des gens cachent leurs visages pour parler à Dieu », ajoute Jules, « pour faire leur rituel, pour transcender l’ordinaire. Le sacré magique nous oblige à rompre la linéarité et l'identité quotidienne. La question ‘Qui suis-je?’ peut vous rendre fou. Le masque donne un répit à cette question sans réponse parce que, pour une fois que je suis libre de ne pas être moi ».

Tour à tour poétique, hilarant et chamanique, « Pleasure Test » est une sorte de miroir déformant de notre culture, où le spectacle peut être tellement codifié qu’il n’a plus rien à dire de nouveau. Ici, point de codes. La liberté et la folie reprennent leur droit. Et tout le monde se sent plus léger après cette cathartique mise en danger collective…

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Lien :

http://www.danse-elargie.com/projets-selectionnes

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Lire l'article sur Toutelaculture.com : http://toutelaculture.com/spectacles/danse/portait-jules-beckman-performeur-chamanique-post-moderne/