Space for time
More than the multicoloured, multiform mats and blankets and cushions, it’s putting my shoes next to others on the bench at the entrance that transforms the studio into a quiet room at a kindergarten. Drowsy and child-like, the three performers straighten themselves up between the fabrics, “finding themselves” at some distance from each other. They do not find their way into movement, not just yet, but first, it seems, into the state – of things, of bodies with things, or, in this case, under things. The cushions and blankets are not set aside, do not serve as starting blocks from which to push oneself into the “actual” piece. Instead, Lisa Hinterreithner, Rotraud Kern and Jasmin Schaitl savour this peculiarly layered blur of being “awake, but not yet fully awake”, exploring it. Tenderly and playfully, they put themselves in relation with the materials, into relations. Lying down, crawling, hinting at somersaults in slow motion, then again completely hidden under cushions, they follow impulses and find gestures that, at first glance, stand for nothing but themselves: What if I put on the fabric body – circular, table-sized, with a hole in the middle – as a hat? How much does it weigh? Will I still be able to sit upright? If it’s heavy, do I have to yield to the weight abruptly or can I, can we – the material and I – lower ourselves together gradually? All of this happens so slowly that the three performers cover the few metres separating them only by the end of the piece. (It may well be that they cover the distance sooner in another performance and not at all in yet another one.) One then touches one another not with increased but with continued interest; encounters the human counterparts – compared to the fabric bodies – as equally idiosyncratic structures and refuges.
All programmatic impartiality aside, this is exactly what the audience gets to see: a programme. padded is a space for time; perhaps also a time for space. And since both are limited resources, it is important to find one in the other, to counteract the facts: TQW Studio, three evenings with three performances of 45 min each. For this purpose, Hinterreithner, Kern and Schaitl have developed strategies of regulated comfort and security: for example, they remain close to the floor at all times, avoid sudden movements, and, while they do utter sounds every now and then, they never drown out the wall of sound (by Lisa Kortschak and Elise Mory) coming from the Bluetooth boxes visibly distributed throughout the room. (A primeval forest? A glacier? A stomach? The inside of a trouser pocket? An accidental phone call which, instead of declining it, you listen to with the utmost concentration.) Plus, it takes time to grasp the choice of colours and materials in all its details, the peculiarities of the fabric casings specially designed for the performance by Brigitta Schöllbauer and Michaela Altweger. padded is as dedicated to the situation as it is to the image of the situation. Think of the semi-authentic drowsiness of a child who lets themselves be carried to bed by their parents at the end of a long car journey. It is precisely this element of representation, calculation (“How tightly may the child’s arms be wrapped around the parent’s neck before the claim that they cannot manage the hundred metres from the car door to the house door by themselves loses credibility?”) that takes the performing body deeper into the desired authenticity of the feeling.
But what about the other, non-performing bodies of the audience? In contrast to e.g. Hinterreithner’s This is not a garden (2022) – like padded, this was a place of slowness and encounters in slowness, where the spectators were invited to participate through interaction (in that case: both with plant objects and with each other), to be part of and expand the space –, padded does not extend such an invitation, not even implicitly so. We enter the studio in socks and, instead of rows of seats, we sit on cushions by the wall. However, we don’t let our heads fall into them but watch the performers drop theirs, diving into the cushions, hiding themselves, turning away – while we remain facing them. padded does not bring about a state of security and comfort, at least not for me. It presents secure and comforted bodies to me, sensuous yet restrained; it proposes security and comfort, and in doing so, it generates – formulates – a desire it doesn’t fulfil, doesn’t presume to be able to fulfil. However, I gladly accept the desire and take it with me, balancing it all the way home.
Sean Pfeiffer, born 2000 in Frankfurt/Main, lives in Vienna. Writes poetry, prose and stage plays as well as about contemporary dance and performance; the latter primarily for ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival since 2022. He has been studying Language Arts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna since 2021.