OUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE

We moeten de wereld redden, dat is de onomwonden en ook wat eendimensionale boodschap van Our house is on fire. Choreograaf Nicole Beutler stal de zin van Greta Thunberg en gebruikte hem als uitgangspunt van haar nieuwe werk. Talrijke malen herhaalt ze de kreet in een strak vormgegeven cross-over tussen dans, grafische vormgeving en fashion.

Our house is on fire; in grote, witte letters staat de zin geprojecteerd op een rood doek. Een soundscape laat zachtjes een licht geratel horen, dat zo nu en dan wordt verstoord door een indringend geluid. Dan verschijnen één voor één acht astronautachtige figuren in rode pakken op het toneel, ze nemen verschillende posities in voor het doek. Vanuit gebarentaal ontstaat een eenvoudige choreografie, ten slotte vormen de acht dansers de letters van de zin op het achtertoneel. Een exercitie die ze tijdens het stuk meerdere malen herhalen.

Our house is on fire is een bijna grafisch vormgegeven werk, waarin Beutler speelt met lichaam, tekst, projectie, licht en kostuum. Ze creëerde de choreografie eerder onder de vlag van het Zweedse dansgezelschap Norrdans, dat doorgaans ook werk produceert voor een jong publiek. Het stuk reisde al uitgebreid in het noorden van Zweden. Deze nieuwe versie creëerde Beutler met haar eigen gezelschap en werd live gestreamd vanuit Frascati, waar ik het als een van de weinigen live mocht zien (wel benieuwd naar die andere versie!).

Nadat de astronauten zijn verdwenen doemt het beeld op van een prachtig dennenwoud in mistwolken, gevolgd door drone-opnames van rauwe, hoge rotswanden. De kleur van de smalle, brede vloer parallel aan het filmdoek verandert mee als de muziekcompositie een dramatische wending krijgt. Het zijn de dansers die uiteindelijk weer een nieuwe en lichte toon zetten op het voortoneel als ze aan de haal gaan met de veiligheidsinstructies van een vliegtuig. Sec gezien is Our house is on fire best een ratjetoe. Maar Beutler weet haar materiaal slim te ordenen, daar is ze meester in. Waar nodig ondersteunt de soundscape van Gary Shepherd. Na al die jaren van samenwerking is een hecht tweespan ontstaan.

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It is common practice to accompany a performance with a small leaflet that offers some basic information on what you are about to see. The digital hand-out for Our House is on Fire by Nicole Beutler Projects, which was streamed live from Frascati Theater on 11 February, comes with a comprehensive syllabus. It includes links to online articles, podcasts, films and even offers suggestions for activities you can do with the whole family.

Originally, Beutler made the performance for the Swedish dance company Norrdans, for its Dutch tour the piece features a Dutch cast. ** Considering the subject matter, this call to action is not as surprising as it seems. The piece is a danced manifesto, inspired by the words of environmental activist Greta Thunberg. The sentence, “Our house is on fire”, is a recurring phrase in her speeches, and also the title of her autobiography.

These four words also form the main thread of the piece. It is spelled out several times in the eight dancers’ bodies, wearing three different getups. One of these outfits could best be described as ‘daily wear’, where the performers look like you or me, wearing the clothes they would wear when going shopping, or attending a protest march. At the end, all performers are wearing futuristic full-body suits in various animal prints. It is as if they were time travelers coming back from the future, imploring us – in eight different languages – to take action. NOW! ‘We can still fix this! It is not too late!’

The costumes the performers wear at the beginning are even more striking: red Hazmat-suits, with black protective gloves and boots. Red lights are flashing, the title of the performance is projected in white letters on a red background, the sounds of Morse code and alarms – soundscape by Gary Shepherd – can be heard over the speakers. With exaggerated gestures and signs the performers try to get our attention. Even if you are not quite sure what they are trying to tell you, the urgency of the message is clear. If the people in the animal prints are our ghosts from a far away future, the ones in the protective gear are from a future that is just around the corner, a future in which our children and our children’s children will grow up.

uit: Movement Exposed, door Bregtje Schudel, 15 februari 2021

Standing ovations at the emotionally charged world premiere in Härnösand

The message cannot be missed. Norrdans speaks, literally, in capital letters to beat in Greta Thunberg's ominous words. With "Our house is on fire", choreographer Nicole Beutler delivers a slap in the face - but also a painfully beautiful work that could hardly have been more urgent.

Despite the fact that the audience is sparsely populated, a world premiere in the shadow of corona, the atmosphere quickly becomes denser when nine dancers wearing red, full-covering protective suits step onto the stage. A siren sounds, the music falls into the same rhythm, the dancers draw their messages in the air. It is the same gestures over and over again, their movements becoming more and more intense, a repetition that eventually breathes desperation.

Meanwhile, words are projected onto the background, one by one, over and over again. Our. House. Is. On. Fire. The quote is taken from Greta Thunberg's speech at the Economic World Forum in Davos 2019. Five words that return again and again throughout the performance, five words that the dancers repeatedly shape with their bodies. Five words that are formed, fall apart, are transformed. Letters that are balanced, embraced, twisted, stretched, crouched and contracted. Letters are built and held together by the bodies' closeness, trust, touch and muscle power. By will. Letters that eventually collapse under their own weight. On a screen in the background, the same narrative is projected but in a different form. Calm movie sequences of forests shrouded in soft fog - or is it smoke? - followed by pictures of industrial complexes, wind power areas, paved road junctions with painted directions of travel.

The plot riminds me of Godfrey Reggio's iconic film "Kooyanisqatsi", a visual film poem that tells of man's ruthless exploitation of nature and life on earth - and the dead end we have ended up in. Nicole Beutler delivers the message crystal clear, explicitly and with a liberating simplicity and power that a child can understand. It is a force against all the studied lies about infinite growth on a finite planet.

A dancer speaks sadly in a megaphone about how difficult it is to do the right thing - "I recycle all my plastics but sometimes the metal goes in the wrong bin" - and thus speaks to the strong feeling of hopelessness and abandonment that the individual can feel.

Our. House. Is. On. Fire. The words are repeated over and over, staring us stubbornly in the face. The music degenerates into a roaring chaos; maybe it's the sound of doom. But suddenly it gets humorous; Jonathan Starr takes on the role of a cabin crew member on an aircraft, explaining the routines for our joint trip to apocalypse. He says that he regrets that the air conditioning does not work, that dazzling light and radiation can occur, but that fire suits and fire extinguishers can give us an extra half an hour. "We are all a part of this and we do not know how to get out of it alive," he says at the end, as if apologizing.

"Our house is on fire" is a liberating mix of genres; the dancers build artistic installations with their bodies, play theater, shout, speak sign language. The sometimes almost childish simplicity, like when the dancers throw around an inflatable earth ball, makes the performance extremely strong; it's like Greta Thunberg herself taking shape, a little girl with braids who sees the lies of power ,"How dare you!" But it is when the animals enter the stage that really burns. Lizard-skinned and leopard-spotted, green-patterned like the forest itself, they sneak out of the darkness. Pawing, sneaking, crawling, eeling. There. Is. No. Planet. B. The dazzling headlights are turned towards the audience and hold us accountable. We twist uncomfortably in their rows while the animals just stand there, facing us, with their supple bodies, their scaly skin and warm furs, with their gleaming eyes and their wordless appeal. Can. You. Help. Us.

It is an emotional slap in the face that does not go off for picks; it's not just me who wipes away the tears when the light goes out on stage and the dancers come out of the darkness to bow. And the small audience suddenly becomes large and generous; the standing ovations and shouts of joy make the salon suddenly feel packed with people. And, in fact, full of hope.

uit: Katarina Östholm, Allehanda.se
Read the review in the original Swedish at Allehanda.se