I will be there when you die?: John Fleischer on Alessandro Sciarroni

To spark discussion, the Walker invites Twin Cities artists and critics to write overnight reviews of our performances. The ongoing Re:View series shares a diverse array of independent voices and opinions; it doesn’t reflect the views or opinions of the Walker or its curators. Today, John Fleischer shares his perspective on last weekend’s performance of UNTITLED_ I will be there when you die by Alessandro Sciarroni. Agree or disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts in comments!

Friday evening. The house lights in the McGuire Theater dim, gently signaling the imminent beginning of Alessandro Sciarroni’s UNTITLED_ I will be there when you die, and the room falls silent. After a few moments, five male performers walk quietly onto the bare white stage. Four of the performers arrive carrying sets of juggling clubs, and after each deposits all but one of his clubs to one side of the stage or the other, he moves to one of four staggered positions on the expanse of marley. Each stands motionless, eyes closed, facing the audience. The fifth performer, dressed in black, arrives empty-handed and moves to a station of electronic devices off in the shadows.

I watch the performer closest to me for a while — Lorenzo Crivellari. Pastel green trousers. Eyes closed. Breathing. The performer in the back — Pietro Selva Bonino. Head tilted. White high-tops. Eyes closed. To his left and slightly forward — Victor Garmendia Torija. Curly hair. Eyes closed. Broad shoulders. Left and slightly forward again — Edoardo Demontis. White T-shirt and jeans. Thin beard. Eyes closed. I revel in moments like this, the focused pause before the act, the viewer present and participating. Sometimes it can get a bit sticky, of course. Extended? Indulgent? Almost theatrical? But this feels natural — the time it takes to fully arrive. Eventually Demontis opens his eyes. I try to imagine the harsh intensity of his visual experience as he looks slowly around the house, at each of his fellow performers, and then up, directly into the lights. I feel him shift his attention to the object in his hand. And finally, still looking upward, he tosses the club into the air above his head.

Empathy?

I arrived this evening still processing my experience of yesterday’s performance in the Walker’s Cargill lounge, where Sciarroni presented CHROMA_don’t be frightened of turning the page. Waiting there in the lounge for the performance to begin, I overheard someone say the words work-in-progress. I think I heard someone else say meditation on spinning. When the artist finally arrived, he began by walking. He paced back and forth along a diagonal, the distance between his counterclockwise turns contracting until he was spinning. Yes, slowly at first, but increasing in speed and intensity over time, arms rising, hands folding and unfolding overhead like a double helix, gradually down the forehead to the mouth like a baby, spinning like summer afternoon in the grass, spinning because it’s just so incredibly wonderful to spin, but also intentional and precise. Heroic? I’m thinking about practice. I’m thinking about endurance. I’m thinking about skill. All this to a slowly shifting pulse of electronic sound particles, punctuated at first by every twelfth beat, and then dissolving into increasingly complex waves and washes. Sciarroni spins for … fifteen minutes? Twenty? Still spinning, arms extended, he moves outward toward the viewers circled around him. He spins a counterclockwise lap at the edge of the crowd, increasing the risk of falling into the the group, and then moves back to the center, gradually coming to rest. Yes.

Dimensions of time?

Still looking upward into the lights, Demontis catches the club with the opposite hand. Although I know he has done this thousands of times, I feel in my chest the real possibility of a miss. All of us focusing now on this isolated catch. He pauses for a moment, and returns the club to the air. Another catch. Another toss. The slap of the club in his palm gradually becomes a rhythm. Another performer opens his eyes, looks around, upward, and tosses his club in the air. Soon there are a pair of rhythms, then a trio, and finally a quartet. The rhythms phase in and out of sync with each other. They synchronize again, and the performers simultaneously catch and release the body of the club instead of handle, shifting the timbre of the percussive beat. The fifth performer — Pablo Esbert Lilienfeld — introduces a sparse mix of recorded clicks and slaps from somewhere in his stack of electronics, and the piece is spinning.

Obsessions, fears, and fragilities?

Occasionally, one of the performers walks over to the side of the stage and grabs another club. Are the cues for this shift in the music? The lights? Or do the performers decide when to shift? I sense a negotiation taking place, but I’m not sure. Sometimes one, sometimes another? Gradually, more and more clubs are flying through the air. Two clubs per juggler. Then three. Four. I find myself wondering where I placed those bean-filled juggling bags I picked up a few years ago. The bags came with an instruction manual, and I still remember practicing the first lesson — the drop. Throw all three bags into the air and let them hit the ground. It was a bit on the nose, but I recall appreciating the intentional space it created for failure, the miss, the mistake. UNTITLED cultivates a space like this, and occasionally one of the performers misses a catch. He watches the pin as it rolls along the mat, and after it slows to a rest, he calmly retrieves it. Usually he looks around at his fellow performers for a moment. Sometimes he smiles. And then he begins juggling again.

Theatrical framework?

Witnessing a demonstration of the skills that emerge over hours upon hours upon hours of practice is a pleasure and an inspiration. So I must confess I am a bit disappointed when the music and lights interfere with my ability to see and hear the jugglers excel at what they do. When the music gets louder and more dense, I can no longer hear the rhythms of catching. I no longer hear the performer nearest me breathing. I suppose an argument could be made that — like the clubs — the sound samples are being juggled in real time. But there is also this slow, emotional progression of piano chords, and I feel manipulated.

Finally, after a patient, slowly shifting display of juggling tricks and patterns, the music stops, and Crivellari launches five clubs into the air. His breathing is more strained now, and his feet scuff sharp sounds from the mat as he positions and re-positions his body beneath the clubs hovering above him. I’m amazed at how they seem to hang there, spinning in midair. At times it even appears that the clubs are juggling the performer. Yes. Wonderful. Just this man repeatedly tossing objects in the air, keeping them afloat. I see the precise, mundane, sweaty reality of years of practice, and its relationship to a skillful performance.

When the music begins again, the overhead lights go down, and the jugglers are dimly lit from the floor. They cast tall multicolored shadows on the scrim behind them as they pair off and begin passing clubs as duets. I immediately recall another tidbit from my misplaced juggling manual — juggling is not about making great catches, it is about making great throws. The passing continues as the duets entwine, cycling around and between each other. I struggle to watch their exchanges, but the colored background takes over. Dozens and dozens of spinning colored shadows are difficult to ignore. I try again to focus on the jugglers, their amazing entangled performance, but I keep seeing sperm.

Traditional definitions of gender?

Tomorrow I will think about how much I enjoyed the way Bonino sometimes separated his tosses into three distinct heights, one club spinning quickly near his chest and face, another more slowly above his head, and the third almost languid toward the ceiling. I will wonder what this bit of writing would have looked like if I had chosen to excavate the layers of time in this single toss. I will try, repeatedly, to make sense of the line in the program about gender, and I will swap texts with a friend who will critique Sciarroni’s use of talent from other disciplines. I will wish I could witness yesterday’s spinning performance again. Maybe I will even spin a bit. I will also try to find those juggling bags.