Onformance ^{2 0 1 0}

Ferlin’s Onformance is an experimental project based on a system. This system is an original “performing assumption”, deconstructing anything that is pre-scribed to the body, and, on the other hand, based solely on personal, or creative premises of dancing. It is not a choreography, neither a choreographic pre-script, although it entertains a suspicion that all of the body’s movements are usually (socially) choreographed. Goran Ferčec, a dramaturg of this performance, even argued that a term used for Croatian version of the title, “Nastup” - in Croatian, almost a synonym for “performance” - denotes: first, strong or rapid approach of something, a disease, a feeling, an army, etc.; second, the act of standing in front of the audience, as part of a show, programme, etc.; and third, an attitude, initial impression when dealing with people. It is obvious that these three meanings often obtain an extended and more complete meaning when translated literally into English - as on-formance. Interestingly, it collides with a variety of prefixations in English language, i.e., to inform, to reform, to disform, to conform, etc., all dealing with substances of creation by attributing form onto or into something. A body in pursuit of this new tension, producing new dynamics, that naturally comes afterwards, is called a decisive, or decided body, and it fully collides with Ferlin’s quasi-employment and quasi-translation of “on-formance”: as a structure whose roots could be found in the notion of performance, but only as its inner deviation, as well as in the notion of information, but only as its deconstruction “towards outside”, e.g., towards something being imposed to it, or, furthermore, in the concept of performance as a continuum, a state of on-going, on-formance, which lasts, and, finally, as the metalevel of information, an on-formation, a speech, opinion, comment about something. The group even created a manifesto, “The System or Notes from Rehearsals”, trying to underline its theoretical importance for the piece. Therefore, the system is a result of a certain methodology applied to dance. It is defined as a manifest, even though it looks as a “set of decisions”, “a set of rules”, which, during twelve choreographic units, directed an idea behind the dancers’ bodies exclusively towards purest movement possible, devoid of all gestures pre-inscribed in it. Bodies should be gradually newly in-formed, set against their own on-formance, by erasing choreography for the sake of creating a complex, artificial intelligence of dance. Everything is split in its own in-betweenness, and even the bodies of dancers are not comfortable in full positioning, in their forms, but exist only as transitions. The main purpose fails if one’s manner is not disintegrated, if a performer’s habitus is not deviated, and deconstructed. Errors should be presented as non-errors, in order for the new virtuosity to occur, and the dancing presence or the dancing code is avoided, precisely by intervening into the dancers’ morphologies, gestures, expressiveness, and movements. Again, a minus-procedure is activated, first appropriating and then re-attributing a content, then de-contextualizing it, generating new elements and fine-tunning it with the system, in order to finally impose movement as a topic, beyond any kind of performative mannerism. Nevertheless, these rules are not only based on a premise that it is possible to manipulate a movement and that a movement itself is still dynamic enough to be a topic for itself, but on the idea that the body as such, is devoid of all concepts of prior dance knowledge and that its morphology, without prior knowledge, will be translated into - an active body of a dancer. Nevertheless, the originality of his approach stems from a selective isolation of different idiorrhytmic patterns of dance-like-morphology, derivates or even (unabandoned) leftovers of dancers’ lab-like togetherness, which he uses to create a new anti-grammar of dance movements, freeing it from its meaning, from its gestural impotencies, imposed script or narrative, and its danceness as such. Liberated from space, liberated from any kind of referencing, somehow free from topic, or narrative, nevertheless affirmed with a complexity of movement and revealing new possibilities for physicality to emerge, Ferlin’s anti-structure of Onformance tends to disintegrate all of the dance-basics: physical endurance, the set-choreography, sound and space restrictions, its proxemics, etc. Instead, he offers “cultivation” of stage presence, stationary performative exposure, and unshackling the “over-educated” bodies. He endeavours to provide avenues for the body's deconditioning, even for the sake of creating a physical disconnection from dance-art itself. During performance all dancers are invited to reflect on their body's systematic over-education over time, to on-form, if not to dis-form their habitus, a realization that impel them to treat dance as a final recourse, an ultimate choice, within the realm of performance’s reality. Twelve performance units are separated by darkness and the exits and re-entrances of five dancers, dressed in skin-coloured leotards. Their nakedness is a make-believe; they are only “performatively” naked. The structure of scenic units is visibly fixed: while some are freer, and even separated, they intertwine in certain ways, whether through transfer of movement, its variations, or through the overall questioning of movement sequences, and their dependence on the different spatial positions of the dancers. A scenic background is of suprematism-like nature, based on geometric grammar, where pure visuality comes forth. Hence, each of these twelve units is determined not merely by the performance space, its mise-en-abîme, but also by its musical background taken from different authors of Constellation Records, an independent record label, often connected with post-rock. Idiorrhytmic models of living-togetherness in the process of creating a work of art are, thus, being dismantled into its elementary particles. Ferlin is rather convinced that a separation of dance form from its content is not utopian, and that pursuit for a semantically emptied bodies on stage, unencumbered by dance knowledge, is not a futile mission. The transformation of dancer’s body as objet trouvé, thus, involves stripping it of its original purpose, leading to its rebirth, with a new significance. This duality of being, both, found and lost, is akin to a signifying process of creating something novel, but often inspired by the old. Consequently, the experience of encountering the body of a dancer as objet trouvé in Onformance hinges on the observer's recognition, and awareness, making visible what was once obscured by indifference.