What is it that animates us, what is the cause for movement, what spins us around and dances us?
Every dancing body has a specific materiality, its own “exterior”. Between bodies and between other physical objects, collisions and interactions happen, which are or are not the fruit of their will, which arise from volition or reflex, from desire or necessity. We coordinate movements knowingly and unknowingly when they are in the function of an activity and in interaction with the material world. When we sit down on a chair, its shape choreographs our body.
That which moves us like a kind of drive, can move into partial objects – separate from us, such as in Andersen’s rather morbid fairy tale, into red shoes, when a girl’s feet, dressed in enchanted shoes go wild and force her to dance like in some dance mania, such as were actually recorded in the Middle Ages. Dorothy, from the movie The Wizard of Oz, also has red shoes, and for her they are the magical accessory that take her exactly where she wishes to go, with a triple click of the heels. At the beginning of the 20th century, a harmonious, centered movement and independent dance emerged, arising from a self-contained, unrepeatable self, the origin of which Isadora Duncan (then a pioneer of modern dance) discovered in the ‘solar plexus’, in the centre of the body, somewhere between the ribs: the ‘solar plexus’, that red-glowing source, has moved all throughout the body in the exploration of all dimensions of movement, and has sometimes even located itself outside the body, in objects and coincidences. It is also no coincidence that this same time is also a time of intensive research of the human psyche and a time when Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalytic theory, and in a way also located our motor for movement: the drive. It is reservedly present in all interpersonal relationships and persists in the relationship with the ego. Jacques Lacan later summed this up in the formula, »desire is the desire of the Other.« A desire that is elusive.
What happens when the red shoes start to multiply, come into possession of their own mind, and a not always predictable will, which changes speed and direction, altering bodies and flattening the field. The development of artificial intelligence and other findings have led us to the necessity of considering non-human beings as agents, and this has decentralized us in our actions. The boundary between manipulation and free action is difficult to detect and reconstruct through the agent networks. Who or what moves whom or what? It appears that the engine for movement in late capitalism has gone schizophrenic – not only is it unfocused, but it is also fragmented, evasive, accumulating, and it forces toward a constant search for a new object. It absorbs energy and depletes.
And how can this foolishness be reversed? Who is the captain of the Red October submarine, and »for whom« do they work? How to re-saturate all this dispersion of things with meaning, how to summon back the momentum? How to color desire more – red? In Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari say: “The thesis of schizo-analysis is simple: desire is machine, a synthesis of machines, mechanic allocation – desiring-machines. The order of desire is that of production; all production is desiring production and social production.” The event Red October allows us to enter the guts of the desiring-machine. We are all constantly assembling ourselves into desiring machines – with people, non-humans, objects, bots, codes, feelings. Maybe October will once again be that revolutionary month when everything will – coincide and assemble.
BON21
Tickets can also be purchased with the BON21 voucher at the Kino Šiška box office from Monday to Friday between 3 and 6 PM or on the day of the event. You can read more about the requirements for using the voucher on the Financial Administration of the Republic of Slovenia website.
COVID POLICY
When entering the venue during public cultural events, applicable public health regulations must be observed, including presenting required proof of recovery, vaccination or negative test result. As proof of compliance with the requirement, an EU digital COVID Certificate in digital or paper form, equipped with a QR code (text messages are not valid), may be submitted, or another certificate or proof in accordance with regulations, which the competent person shall verify by inspecting the submitted certificate or proof.
Tickets on sale online and at Eventim sales outlets.
Idea and choreography: Mateja Bučar
Visual concept: Vadim Fiškin
Movement/dance/co-creation: Kristina Aleksova, Katja Legin, Tina Valentan
Sound, music: S.Kurjohin, F. Chopin, J. S. Bach, B. Savski,…
Light: Jaka Šimenc
Mechanisms: Zavod Zet
Production: The DUM Association of Artists,
Coproducers: Kino ŠIŠKA, LGL, Ljubljana Puppet Theater
Special thanks to: Aleša Valič, Zavod ZET, Katarina Bogataj
Organization: Kino Šiška
