Andrej Drapal

MATJAŽ – THE KINDEST THING TO HAPPEN IN SLOVENE ART

Luckily the times have passed when I had to think about Slovene theatre and dance art as a critic (before) or a producer (after). Also, the time has passed when I saw a hundred and more performances around the world per year. Not to forget the passed times of calling the Yugoslav creative basin »home«; when that basin seemed unbearably small compared to the »wide open space« of the world. Today I can go see the performances when I feel like it – and think about them in an uninhibited manner, not taking into account how the Slovene audience would accept one. This is a privilege that enables me to write, hopefully, a slightly different text on Matjaž.

A lot has changed since 1988 when I first cooperated with Matjaž in Cankarjev dom in the ungrateful role of a producer. At the time we were getting loose on the ideas of Kolpa becoming a bordering river of Slovenia – today it seems self-evident that it is not on the Karavanke mountain range. At that time we used the old-fashioned analogue four-numbered telephone dial and communicated via teleprinters (telefaxes were at that time the forthcoming technology, while 'www' was anticipated somewhere else and mobile telephones were a thing of science fiction). These comparisons with time that is now less than twenty years foregone are not being made to stir up nostalgic memories or out of a wish to explain to someone, who at that time perhaps didn't operate with a full conscience, that »back then it was all different«. Let me explain it otherwise: I am sure that an average 25-year-old today knows about the technology of teleprinting as much as he knows about the technology of teleporting. Nothing. Frustrations were the same while roaming around Yugoslavia as they were while travelling across Europe. Technologies change virtually on the day to day basis, the borders follow – regardless of all these changes, however, people remain, individuals with ideas and the power to consistently express the ideas throughout longer periods of time – and the others, who seem not to have them.

Certain stars are remembered after their shiny flash – while the others from the very beginning shine from some periphery, at first sight less scintillating due to their lack of wish to break into the centrefold. But if one observes the sky long enough, it starts to tell its story of persistency. The reactions of critics to the first performances of Matjaž were positive if restrained. At the time when the independent dance scene in Slovenia was stirring, the attention was commanded by many who were more provocative, more obvious, more... while after the Sixth of April, Breakdown and The Red Alarm (of his trademark Eastern dance project) Matjaž kept on going. To some extent hypersensitive to the response evoked by his work, he has in those years managed to prove that every appearance, every dance performance was a realisation of some larger story that is present in him and is being continuously built in all of his projects. The story is present in Matjaž as a dancer, in him as a choreographer and most of all in Matjaž as the narrator of the meta-story of all his performances... how large has their number become up till now?

One of reasons why I used to like working with Matjaž, and today enjoy attending his every single show is that, in his own way, he keeps chasing the line and reviving the dialogue between the so-called independent dance theatre and the classical ballet. This very characteristic was presumably the reason for the slightly suspicious and underestimating look on the part of the alternative circles which were at the same time too »alternative« for institutional ballet. I appreciate it very highly that in his latest performances, through new dancers and new movements, he strives to retain this conflicting context. Matjaž’s work relays an essential message: there is no sense in nervousness if the sense is not attained at the first move, first word, first tact. It sends a message that parallel worlds exist in art – each one with its own sequence of values, each one perfect in its own way. Trends have basically very little to do with these worlds. If someone has got something to tell, he says it out loud, regardless of the current trends; just like we are able (or unable) to communicate with or without mobile telephones.

I could also say: trends come and go, while Matjaž remains. Great. Hopefully, I will get the chance of expressing a similar view on his creativity in 2015.




P.S.
Not a thing on the kindness implied in the title of the article has been written. Purposely: some things are not to be written about – they are to be felt.