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Jorge Clar

Jorge Clar

Jorge Clar

Text Jorge Clar

 

We caught up with poet and performance artist Jorge Clar in his home in New York, and talked about words, sounds, and image. An ideal for living.

Initially, you came to New York because you wanted to be close to the disco scene.
That was the main reason. While growing up in Puerto Rico, I spent my time daydreaming and playing records. I became enthralled with the layers of sound in disco—the music became medicine. Everything about the genre, from the quality of the recordings to the way the arrangements are structured—featuring classical strings and horns, electronic textures, and rhythm—is alchemical. Disco pulled me through my adolescence. A few days after moving to New York in the fall of 1987, I went to the closing of the Paradise Garage discotheque. Larry Levan’s musical selections, and Richard Long’s sound system, were so mind blowing. The clubbers danced with such freedom and expressiveness—I knew right there and then I was home. I had gone to the Garage with Jesse Díaz, my first roommate in New York, with whom I had spent many summers in Puerto Rico, hanging out in discos and constantly listening to music. Through him, I developed a love for dancing and pulling looks together. In the early 90s, I would meet DJ Freddy Turner, with whom I would write record reviews on house music 12-inch singles for underground music magazines, in the process meeting many of my heroes in music, like David Morales, Kerri Chandler and “Little” Louie Vega.

When did you start writing poetry? 
I always loved books, and ever since I started reading authors like Borges, Ginsberg, and especially the short story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place by Hemingway, I knew I had to write poems. I remember reading Howl and thinking it was like my stream of consciousness. So I sat down on an old cast iron typewriter my father had given me and started to write, imagining myself a tape recorder of phrases and sounds I heard. My first poetry collection was called In a Singapore Hotel Room. I imagined myself as Somerset Maugham in the Raffles Hotel, which I had visited during a summer vacation, even I was able to get the best hotel credit card. This was one of the first instances in which I was inhabiting a different character in a work of art, something that continues to this day in my performances. Through poetry—and through making cassette mix tapes, which to me were like building blocks of sound and words—it became easier to make friends and demonstrate who I was. I was a very shy only child, and mostly related to adults, until I decided I wanted to be friends with more of my classmates. Initially, I imitated the style and idioms of all that surrounded me, trying to fit in. But I soon realized the more I delved into my eccentricities, the more I had to share. After graduating from Syracuse University, where I studied Newspaper Writing, I eventually started combining between performance and poetry readings. People enjoyed the extra aspect of showmanship. A few years later, in New York, I worked at Penguin Books and started to come together with a group of friends. My friend Douglas Rothschild invited me to read at mythical places like the St. Mark’s Poetry Project. We would organize salons or read at people’s houses. My friend, the playwright Adam Rapp, would perform as a “human prop” with me. Those were formative years. Living with painter roommates Alberto Álvarez, and later Michael Brown—who still shares an apartment with me—has honed my eye for visuals and the notion of what makes a painting work. Hanging out with my college friend Paul Weinstein, with whom I would spend every Friday night and Saturday morning in his Park Slope apartment, focused my appreciation of great graphic design, modernist radios and electronic equipment, new wave music, and all sorts of collectibles.

What else did you learn during those days? 
When my father passed away, I spent 7 years in Puerto Rico taking care of my mom. It was wonderful to relate to her as an adult and also explore other sides of my personality. I became the perfect homemaker and sometimes, when I would see objects from my life in New York, I would wonder where that person had gone. Eventually, I was offered a job at a marketing firm back in the city and mom was well enough to stay with a caregiver. I returned to living in New York full time. At a party, I met my friend Dominic Vine, and he introduced me to the Radical Faeries, a grassroots countercultural movement seeking to redefine queer consciousness through self-exploration. They were founded as a reaction to gay culture towards the end of the 70s. Back then, there was an emphasis on a ‘clone’ aesthetic, which presumed a masculine stance and set of rules. The faeries, on the other hand, established sanctuaries in rural areas where men could explore aspects of their femininity. Becoming involved with them was a milestone in my life. I explored questions about relationships, sexuality and freedom. I discovered there is no “one size fits all” to relationships, for instance. They can be endlessly customized beyond paradigms like ‘husband’ or ‘boyfriend.’ Also, it was around this time that iPhones came into the scene, facilitating the capability of taking photos on the go. Dominic photographed me constantly, and we became collaborators in photo, writing and mix CD projects.

You’ve come a long way. How do you look back?
When I was little, I imagined myself on a dance floor like the one in Saturday Night Fever (I actually did visit the dance floor featured in the movie one Halloween, when my friend Katsumi Miki and I went to the now extant Spectrum disco in Bay Ridge, where the movie was filmed…I danced to Madonna’s “Vogue” on its wonderful lights and cried), moving to the rhythm of disco music and being exactly in the moment. I imagined myself in a sort of monumental stasis, frozen in ecstatic bliss. It heartens me that everything I envision actually manifests. It all becomes true. In my dreams, I wanted to interact with other artists, have lots of records and enjoy life everyday—and here I am.

 


I get the feeling that people are way more focused now on creating, expressing their freedom and celebrating who they are. It’s almost like a statement.’

So you’ve found your peers?
Yes, I think we’re on the brink of a movement. I’m humble and grateful to be a part of it all and facilitate connections between people, supporting each other and working together. For example, I never considered myself someone who draws, and now I do so in a spirit of play and discovery. At my friend Joel Handorff’s place, Kelly Bugden, Scooter LaForge, Van Wifvat and I often get together to draw, and more friends like Rafael Sánchez, Gail Thacker and Gerardo Vizmanos also join in. We like to call these sessions “The Magic Mirror,” where we are all reflections of each other. Johnny Rozsa will often serve as a model. Connections happen serendipitously. I met Bubi Canal when he came to see a performance I did with José Joaquín Figueroa. That meeting led to much collaboration, and I’ve played characters in both Bubi’s and Jose’s video art. Bubi and I meet almost daily to discuss social media and work on projects at Little Skips, a café in Bushwick which we call “the office.” I commissioned a t-shirt with a painting of Allen Ginsberg from Scooter years ago, and that dialogue led to countless painted garments, which I often wear during my performances—both live and in photos—and often within the context of his shows. I wrote poems about the atmosphere of his painting process and they were included in the catalog for one of his shows. Dietmar Busse invited me to his apartment to take my portrait, and from there he has taken many photos which are so dear to me. In Van’s house in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, a Victorian cottage full of good spirit (I think I lived there in a previous life), many of us get together and make drawings and take photos. The greatest beauty of all this is that through creativity, we all have become dear friends who participate in a constant conversation that generates new realities.

What do you think of the political climate of the United States at the moment? 
There’s a lot of political anxiety nowadays. The day after the last election almost felt the same as the day after 9/11. There was this stillness, based on anger and pessimism. A lot of people felt very scared and wanted to leave the country, thinking, for instance, that gays would be more marginalized as a minority group. However, I get the feeling that people are way more focused now on creating, expressing their freedom and celebrating who they are. It’s almost like a statement. Everything has a political implication. It makes art stronger and it is going beyond the framework of what has been before. It’s getting richer and more focused. And it comes straight from the heart. Like an act of magic. Now more than ever this whole idea of following your intuition takes everything to a different level. Do you know the saying that the darkest part of the tunnel is just before the end? Well, I think that’s where we are right now.

And your personal work? 
I have my blog, which is basically a photo-performance as well as a writing project. It’s both an archive of all the personas in my imagination as well as a documentation of the artistic community. I write stories about what I’m wearing on certain days. I explain where and with whom I was when I found a particular shirt, for example. What we were talking about at that moment. What caught my eye and convinced me to buy. Or about the friend who gave me a pair of pants —what he is doing with his life, where he comes from and why he felt he needed to offer me that present. The stories go into the details of what happens every day, in Proustian fashion. My biggest influences in writing are Andy Warhol, 80s nightlife chronicler Stephen Saban, Charles Baudelaire and Bill Cunningham, the late New York Times fashion journalist. On the blog photos, I’m often wearing clothes made by friends, which adds an extra layer to the narrative. I become a mannequin—or a canvas, if you will—for their artwork. The images connect people and events in daily life. I’m weaving together a world that seems recognizable, and yet has a dreamlike quality. Jorge Clar Diary is a never-ending novella.

You make time capsules.
Yes, time documents, literally and figuratively. Like a diary. I’ve always loved diaries because of the way they talk about the small things. I love the idea of giving these tiny details their moment in the spotlight. By doing so, even the most banal thing can become very meaningful. It’s a pure reflection of my thinking process.

Tell me about your work on physical transformation.
When I first came out as a gay man, I was travelling through Israel. I felt very comfortable there, mainly because I was in a different environment. Being in Jerusalem, I could feel the place was very charged. Generally, people go to this city with much anticipation, due to whatever significance they give to to the place, which makes for a particular energy. The only other place that has the same energy is New York City, as people tend to come here with a specific purpose in mind. In Israel, I felt like I could see things within a sense of protection. Up until that point, I had repressed my attraction to men, and it was in Tel Aviv that I had an epiphany and was through with denial. I “came out” to myself. A veil lifted, and after that I transformed very quickly. It wasn’t as much about sexual liberation, but more about freedom of expression. And one of my main tools of expression is through clothing. I’ve always been enamored by an abstract sense of glamour and the epiphanies I often have late at night, when I listen to music. By accessing that magic and expressing it through clothes, I create subtle characters that deliver a message.
People react to this expression. I say this very humbly and with much gratitude: sometimes I am told I give hope. That my work inspires or cheers up the day. I think that’s so amazing. I love walking down the street and having someone smile at me. When one wears even the most surrealistic outfit with conviction, there is almost a air of reverence.

You sound very spiritual. Are you? 
I feel the universe has always taken care of me. I’ve been through hardships, but in the end they made me strong enough to now enjoy every moment. You’re taught to be happy when you have achieved something, but I think it’s of upmost importance to be happy—in other words, to have a generalized sense of wellbeing—and enjoy the process as you go along. If you follow your intuition and are a kind person, things become way easier to navigate. Art becomes very helpful, bringing forth a meditative state. When your work is based on play, more possibilities come to light: you can do and be more. I strive to think constructively, and manage my emotions consistently. When I do what feels good, I know I’m on the right path. I can then manifest with utmost efficiency.

 

www.jorgeclar.com

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Et Alors? magazine. A global celebration of diversity.

Annelies Verbeke

Annelies Verbeke

Annelies Verbeke

Text & photos JF. Pierets

 

The press called your latest book, Thirty Days, socially relevant. Is it?
That’s a tough one because I don’t like to be put into a box. For me, Thirty Days is just a continuation of everything I’ve written before. I’m working on an oeuvre, which I started in 2003, and hopefully will be able to build up till the end of my days. So for me it’s a clear evolution with its own variations and perspectives, yet they all existed deep inside of me. It did bother me a bit that the book got a very defined market. “What type of book is it?”, “how should we label it?”, are fundamental questions in the literary world nowadays. They say Thirty Days is about the refugee problem, yet that doesn’t quite cover its content. For me it’s about being a good person in a world that doesn’t promote goodness. That’s the essential theme. I always write about what comes my way and the topic of racism and refugees came into view. That’s why I write about them, not because I necessarily needed to write a social critique.

You once said that as a writer you have to write good books, not criticize.
I used to say that as a writer you don’t have to think in terms of social obligation but my opinion on that has changed a bit over the years. Nowadays it doesn’t bother me anymore to use social media or my column in the paper to promote what’s dear to me. For example, foreign writers that nobody’s heard of. We get so little input about European literature that I’m always on a quest to bring suppressed genres and languages to the surface. Did you know that 80% of the books in our Dutch language area are translated from English – a language that almost everybody can read? And only 3% of the books in the American market are translated from other languages? All languages? Just to give you an idea of its dominance in the field and that we are not always aware of how much we are controlled in the choices that we make.

What makes you sit down and write every time? 
I think I have to call it an urge. From a young age I was very certain that I would become a writer. The first literary prize I ever received was from a Dutch foundation called ‘Roeping’ (Dutch for Vocation. Ref.), a very Christian word yet I think it kind of fits. I do believe that there is something like a calling. I think that certain jobs like being a teacher or a nurse can only be managed if you have that kind of calling, which is the same for writers. Luckily I got the confirmation that it was the right thing to do.

Did you need that confirmation in order to keep going? 
I think that I needed some kind of permission, yes. And of course you have to be a megalomaniac in order to be a writer because let’s be honest, who needs another one?

How do you feel after you’ve finished a book?
After every book there’s the need for time until something else comes bubbling up. I’m always empty when I’ve finished another novel, which is pretty freaky because you never know if it will come back.

Currently you’re writing short stories again.
Yes. And I love it. Each of my short story collections have only one theme, which makes me feel free and happy, and able to look at that one theme from 15 different angles. Whereas in a novel I have to follow the path that I have chosen, be more consequent in a certain train of thought for about a year and a half or two years. A novel asks for a larger consistency whereas a short story is much more playful and offers me another approach. Let’s say it makes me happier.

You’ve been a published author for over 13 years now. Do you still love what you are doing? 
When you’re a writer, there’s a constant repetition of events. You finish a book, it gets published, you have to defend it, talk about it, and then you have to start all over again. For the first time it started to feel like a prison after I finished Thirty Days. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful and there is still nothing more liberating than the feeling I have after a great day of writing. There is nothing in the professional field that can replace that. So obviously I’m not going to quit. Yet all of a sudden I saw a glimpse of the dark side. What kind of fate gives you the highest freedom and equally keeps you in prison? I’ll probably get over it, but you need a lot of energy to keep up with the ever-repeating chain of events and I kind of lacked that amount of verve. I was exhausted when I finished that book, but unfortunately that’s the precise moment when the whole circus is about to begin. When I think of myself being in my 70’s or 80’s, I don’t know if I will still have the energy to go through all that again. Sometimes I would like to find something in which I can disappear. At least for a few years. An obvious question now would be; ‘why don’t you just write and not get published?’ But the duality of it all is that a book is not finished before it’s been read. I keep on traversing between a huge gratitude and oppression. Maybe it’s just because I recently became 40. However great my life is, there are still moments when I think ‘is this it?’

Can you imagine doing something else? 
I do have those romantic and foolish fantasies about being a hairdresser or a masseuse. Sometimes I would love to have a profession where I can touch people – in a non-erotic manner. That fantasy keeps coming back.

That sounds like an eagerness to please.
I don’t know, maybe I should call it ‘relating’ instead of ‘pleasing’. People wouldn’t even have to thank me for a job well done; it’s really about making them happy

What keeps your mind flexible? 
I know it sounds contradictory, but I’ve set out a few rules in order to keep a flexible mind. Every year I want to read 52 novels. There has to be at least one book from every continent – with the exception of Antarctica and Arctica because there’s not much writing going on there – and spread over three centuries at least. It probably sounds more epic than it actually is because it’s quite doable. It allows me to read the writers that you do not stumble upon easily.


‘A female critic once accused me that I was afraid of being a woman. I found that pretty surreal. You might read something neutral in my work, yet that’s who I am. I don’t have to pretend, do I?’

Are there certain things that have determined your growth? 
Notwithstanding certain life events that mess you up, I think that the older you get, the more life experience you gain and the more you read, the more you grow. I’m lucky to be able to pour the sad things from my life into literature. Which is often a salvation. Being able to transform your pain into something creative is a huge victory. And that’s a gift. Imagine being a bookkeeper, or a shop owner, how do they handle that?

What do you like to write about most? 
If I would have to point out a common theme running through my little oeuvre, it’s ‘what is reality?’, which most of the time is based upon assumptions. In the beginning of my career a lot of reviews spoke about my fascination for madness. Yet I’m not necessarily interested in madness, but I am intrigued by what someone with a psychoses experiences as reality. Even better, you don’t have to go as far as having a neurosis to see that every one of us has another reality. It’s both interesting, funny and tragic how hard people are trying to fit into that. The absurd is omnipresent. Just think about war, or placing a gnome figurine in your garden, just because your neighbors are doing it. There are so many delusions wherein people are finding themselves or basing their identity on. It’s very innocent when it’s about gnomes, but it can also escalate into resistance towards refugees. If you agree that a certain branche of our population doesn’t have any human rights, just because your neighbor is thinking the same thing. Absurdity dwells in the constant threat of chaos. On the one hand you have the efforts to keep it all on the right track and on the other there’s pure escalation. That’s where absurdism comes from. And it’s constantly around us.

Is that what you are doing as a writer? Creating a new reality?
That’s exactly how it feels, but it’s more like filling something in instead of creating. Céline once said that the stories that we write are the invisible castles above our heads which we have to reconstruct on paper, stone by stone. I still find that a great image. When I’m writing I can always feel when it’s good and when it’s not. And not only when it comes to style, rhythm or grammar, but also if it’s right for the story. Which is weird, because this possibly implies that the story is already there. That there’s an ideal, which you merely mirror.

Is it self-portraiture? 
I consider myself a parade of people where one takes the lead until the next one takes over. In my novels my narrators were the ones leading in a certain period of time whereas in my short stories, I’m looking at who else is in that parade.

What is literature about? 
It’s about insight and all kinds of thoughts and feelings. You have to confront the things that happen to you. It’s an introspection without you being behind the wheels. For me it’s also very double; part of me is writing freely while the other part is controlling the quality of what I write as a reader. And I can tell you it’s not a reader who is easy to please. But then it gets read and criticized and that’s even worse because it’s always colored by someone’s prejudice. I don’t care about someone saying or writing that they don’t like the book for reasons of taste, but I do care if someone offers criticism coming from resentment, or if someone is holding a grudge or just doesn’t like female writers. That said, fortunately there are many literary critiques in which I’m completely understood, which offers a sense of ease.

Let’s talk about the female writers.  
I have a lot to say about female writers. When I made my first appearance as a 27-year-old writer I had more of the aura of a rabbit in headlights than of someone with an impressive personality. I can give numerous examples of how I’ve been patronized or intellectually underrated. In the beginning of my career people actually asked me what it was like to be a woman while my male colleagues were never asked that question. But I’m not only talking about men, because for me, feminism is not the opposite of men being against women. Some women are also biased and judgmental about women. And what I definitely cannot stand is being treated that way by people whom I find less intelligent than I am.

Anyhow, I do think people read very judgmentally. People start off with tons of assumptions that they then actually read in the book. I know it’s impossible, but sometimes I wish that things like awards would happen anonymously. A lot of women are still not nominated so I wonder if this would make a difference. A female critic once accused me that I was afraid of being a woman. I found that pretty surreal. You might read something neutral in my work, yet that’s who I am. I don’t have to pretend, do I? The same for men. When a book is from a neutral position, I often find it more interesting – this compared to some Hemingway-ish kind of writing because how many times can one go fishing and hunting? Let’s say there’s still a lot to do on the gender front.

 

www.anneliesverbeke.com

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Sarah Bettens

Sarah Bettens

Sarah Bettens

Text JF. Pierets    Photos Frank Clauwers

 

I’ve always been very much intrigued by Sarah Bettens. When I saw K’s Choice perform in 1994 they had not yet recorded their monster hit “Not an Addict”, which opened doors not only in Europe but also lead to touring across the US with, amongst others, Alanis Morissette and the Indigo Girls. Yet in 1994 I saw a girl run to her microphone, hold onto it for the entire song and who looked at her feet for the duration of the applause. A lot has changed since then and that girl cannot be compared to the über-fit and charismatic front woman she is today. We catch up in the backstage area of a Dutch music festival to talk about change, identity and challenges. 

 

You once said you were lucky K’s Choice became popular. What’s luck got to do with it? 
I think there was a lot of coincidence involved. My brother and I have been making music for as long as I can remember but we never thought about it as a future job. The idea itself was even too unrealistic to dream about, so let’s just say we never considered it a possibility.Then someone asked me to sing something in a studio and before we knew it we had a hit-single on the radio and things started evolving. There wasn’t any plan behind it. If I contemplate our position right now, I can see the amount of work and effort that we have put into it, yet I must say that we did indeed get very lucky. We met the right people at the right time. Of course you have to be present in order for those people to find you, but we were very lucky to kick off mid-’90’s, when record companies still had a lot of money and room for development. We’re talking about a completely different era here. They allowed us time to grow, which is almost impossible nowadays. We’re also lucky that we’re still – after 25 years – able to make music for a living. We still have fun and we’re still doing things that challenge us, both as musicians and performers. There’s nothing worse for creativity than routine so once in a while we have to shake things up a bit.

How do you shake things up? 
Well, for example we changed our working method when making The Phantom Cowboy – our last record. Normally Gert and I write separately and then bring things together to see what happens. This time we started with a concept and actually knew how we wanted the record to sound. Things like this, and also things like introducing The Backpack Sessions – an intimate tour with only our pianist – are our means to keeping it fresh.

Do you need challenges? 
I think so, I’m not a stressed out person but I like change, both in my job and in my personal life.
At the moment we’re on the verge of moving to California and there’s a lot to do, but that’s fun. We’re going to start over. It’s like making a new record and working with a new producer, even though the previous one was great, you never know what it’s going to bring. My sense of adventure is far greater than being comforted by foreseeing the future.

A couple of years ago you started working as a fire fighter? Why?  
I needed it because music started to become somewhat of a routine. I needed to do something that was completely different, a job where I had to show up and go back home after 24 hours. As a musician you can start working at 2 in the afternoon or you can work the whole night through. You work on your music, your plans, your career, your writing, you name it. It never stops. You can work all day and there will still be that feeling that you can do more. It’s never finished. So I looked for something that was defined, which I found in being a fire fighter. You cannot imagine how much I learned there and it still brought me the eagerness to learn even more. Because of that, being a musician made me happier again.

Do you have any creative rituals when you start composing? 
We did in the beginning, but I’ve kind of abandoned the idea of needing hours of time, the right mood and even the perfect star constellation – in order to write the perfect song. Now we just sit down with a guitar and start. The Phantom Cowboy was written in two weeks time. Gert and I sat down in a room from 9 to 5 and just worked. We stopped waiting for the right light interval or the most opportune emotional state of mind.

Is art inevitably self-portraiture?
I think so. You keep talking about things that are close to you. Its shape changes but the subject doesn’t. As you get older your world changes, you get married, have children, yet there are themes that keep returning. Now we’re moving I found some old interview from when I was 20 years old. How stupid and serious I was! Nowadays I take my music, my job, very seriously but not myself. Now we’re able to write a song that’s ‘just fun’, it doesn’t always have to be about the most deep down, thorough, detailed emotion. At this point we’re able to lighten up.

You are outspoken about being gay. Do you feel you have a moral responsibility?
I do like taking my moral responsibility. I like it that young girls or boys can look at me and know that I’m married to a woman and yet look very normal. When I was young I only had Navratilova, and even she was not very outspoken. The issue just wasn’t discussed. It took me so long to discover who I was and I think that if I was born now, I might’ve found that out by the time I was 16. There are so many possibilities now, people can talk about being gay, being transgender. Things that weren’t discussable twenty years ago. Of course there’s still a lot of work to be done, but as a public person I hope to make the world just that little bit more normal for gay people. Writing and making music is a very nice way to communicate with people and to discover that you have much more in common than you would think. When you’re a teenager that can be quite therapeutic.

Jeff Koons once said: ‘Being an artist is not a job, it’s an identity’.
I think I rather identify myself as the wife of my wife, the mother of my children and the daughter of my parents, my friends, than as an artist. Don’t get me wrong, music is a great platform and making music is something that can’t be compared to many things. When you leave the studio at night and you’ve created something you didn’t know existed that very morning, it’s incomparable. That little bit of fear, that you’re never going to be able to do it anymore, or the feeling that you’ve given everything but aren’t sure if there’s anything left. I have to admit that’s a unique and an on top of the world feeling. But to say it’s an identity, that’s too much. I identify much more as a human being than as a musician.

It took me so long to discover who I was and I think that if I was born now, I might’ve found that out by the time I was 16. There are so many possibilities now, people can talk about being gay, being transgender. Things that weren’t discussable twenty years ago.’

You and your wife adopted 2 children a few years ago. As a mother, what would you like to teach them? 
I want them to be able to be themselves. The world won’t always appreciate or understand that, but at least they have to try. I also want them to work hard. I enjoy my life very much because I work hard for the things that I find important; to be happy, to do things with my family. If you feel very good about something, then it’s often something that took a while for you to get there. For me, getting divorced wasn’t an easy road to take, nor was adoption or moving to the States. But they did make me happy in the long run. I feel very strongly that I’m the happy person I am today, because of all the decisions I have made in my life. I’m very grateful about the circumstances and being lucky at the same time, but I also made it happen through the choices that I made along the way. Next to getting sick or loosing somebody, your fate lies very much in your own hands. So how committed are you to work for it?

So in retrospect, you wouldn’t change anything? 
I’ve gone through some painful stages yet I’m very happy with who I am right now. Everything that’s happened has made me into the person I am today. Fortunately I’m quite forgetful so that might help (laughs). I can’t imagine anything more drastic than what happened to me when I met my wife. Before that I wasn’t really happy but I thought that was just the way people were. When I found out who I was I literally stepped from a world of darkness into the light. All was black and white and I changed from being – I’m not saying depressed because that’s too strong of an emotion – but from heavy hearted and melancholic to one of the most joyous people I know. Almost in the blink of an eye.

A question I also ask myself: How could you not have known?
I have absolutely no idea. Maybe it has to do with the era in which I was born. I think that if I would be 16 years old at this very moment, I would probably jump right in. In retrospect I conformed a great deal. Especially because I wanted to dress like a boy but I didn’t want to embarrass the people around me. If it would only have been about me, than there would’ve been no boundaries. I always had to fight for my place in high school, something you don’t quite understand when you’re so young. That’s what I like so much about the whole gender conversation. Who cares about all that? You could say that it’s safe to fit in, but is it really? How many people are there that get a wake-up call when they’re 30. I’m longing for a world where everybody can be more relaxed into doing what they want to do. Everything feels so restricted.

What do you think is your purpose in life? 
It depends on when you ask the question. Sometimes you feel so small wondering what’s your part in this larger entity. When you dare to think about the concept of time, the universe, or the fact that we are standing on something circular, then it’s almost impossible to ponder the meaning of your own life. Everything is so grand and you are so small in comparison.Yet when I do have to answer on the meaning of ‘my’ life, I think it’s trying to change and affect the world around me by being happy and treating people with respect. I’m a bit too cynical to be able to positively say it’s going to change the world, but it would be a good start. When I hear those terrible stories about sick children or refugee children, things that neither you or anybody else can fix, I often reflect that being grateful about the things you have and are able to do, is the very least you can do. Trying to give as little thought as possible to the small things that bother you. So every morning when I wake up I keep my eyes closed and think about the things I’m grateful for. That’s the absolute minimum you can do when you see all the damage that’s been done in the world. If everybody would make the effort to change his own little corner in a positive way, it would already mean a lot.

 

www.kschoice.be

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Et Alors? magazine. A global celebration of diversity.

Mount Olympus

Mount Olympus

Mount Olympus

Text JF. Pierets    Photos Wonge Bergmann & Sam De Mol © Troubleyn / Jan Fabre

 

It took more than one year for Jeroen Olyslaegers to write the text for Jan Fabre’s 24-hour theatrical performance Mount Olympus, to glorify the cult of tragedy. A labyrinth of time where the actors sleep and awaken on stage, dance and move in the violent, ecstatic proximity of characters from Greek tragedy. One night in Seville Julian and I watched history in the making and we were in awe during every minute of it. A mind-blowing and life changing experience that made us realize that you hardly ever get to experience and recognize a masterpiece in contemporary time. In conversation with Jeroen Olyslaegers. About stripping down emotion, writing at the very top of your abilities and the meaning of life.

 

How does one start such a huge project? 
The first thing I did was reread all 32 Greek tragedies. I got inspired and then buried them. One year later, in June 2014, we started rehearsals. Since it was impossible to write the text beforehand and give the actors a syllabus of 200 pages – everybody would get a panic attack – I wrote during rehearsals. I reinvented and introduced my own themes by using the original material in a new way. There is not one sample of the original texts in any of the monologues, yet some of it is pretty close to the principal characters.

You not only worked, but also slept within the proximity of the rehearsal room. 
That was my one condition when I accepted Jan’s offer. I wanted to be close to the rehearsal room because the performance is about dreams, about problems with sleeping, so it was clear that my own situation was going to be very influential. Rehearsing and writing Mount Olympus was like a marine boot camp where your head get’s to an amazingly trained level. When I had been writing for half a year, I felt like a Lamborghini. To give you an example: in October I needed two or three hours to write a monologue, in March I needed fifteen minutes to write the same piece in both in English and in Dutch. You are inside this Greek monster and you know which way to go. Like a racing car driver who knows every turn of the circuit. As a writer it was a unique position to be in and a once in a lifetime experience. Who would do a 24 hour performance after this? It’s almost impossible.

It’s quite the tour de force to comprehend 24 hours of text and images. How do you tackle such an overpowering quantity of material? 
One of the things we discussed a lot was if we needed to contextualize the characters. Do we need to explain to the audience who Medea, or Dionysos is? We decided to try but it soon turned out to be completely stupid. We had to get rid of the hang-up that the audience needed a context, needed to know about Greek culture and ancient tragedies in order to be able to enjoy the performance. For us, it was tabula rasa. But the moment we knew the people did’t need this cultural baggage, it was a breakthrough. Another turning point was the moment Jan challenged/ composed the first and the final part, which was the first thing that came together. You have to realize that for every scene that you see, we had four other scenes so we’re literally talking about thousands of scenes, all with their own small or larger variations. Assembling such a volume of material is madness, yet when we all saw a sketch of the first and the final part, we suddenly had a clear sense of direction. We suddenly knew we could do this.

It’s not the first time you have worked with Jan Fabre. 
Five years ago we made Prometheus together. Working with Jan it so intense that it’s incomparable to any other director. Jan puts you on the edge of a cliff and gives you a push. You fall, that’s it. For one year we worked on a level where none of us was convinced that we were going to make it. I remember the first time we tried out the complete 24 hours; we started out at 5 PM, the sun was still shining, and at 8 in the morning we said to each other, “what are we doing? This is crazy!”.

You write novels, which is a very solitary profession. How does it feel to co-create? 
I love both. A combination of solitude and collaboration. The interaction with a group also feels fantastic. You get totally different ideas and I feel I’m becoming a better artist when I work with other people. Of course there are some conditions like having the same focus and the same intensity. Let’s say Mount Olympus made it impossible to work on a theatre project with no intensity.

Did you have faith in the outcome? 
We were worried about the performers who had to give every inch for the entire 24 hours. They have to be in control of their bodies. We were worried that they would hurt themselves due to sheer tiredness because people react totally differently when they lack sleep. And to handle that tiredness is different for everybody. Some need 45 minutes, others need 3 hours, and some of them don’t want to sleep at all. At every point of the process we didn’t know what was going to happen next. I had no idea that Jan was going to rehearse the entire piece in every detail, which was totally crazy. For me it’s still a miracle that everything you see has been rehearsed over and over again. If somebody jumps from a table, it’s rehearsed to happen exactly at that moment. There is absolutely no improvisation. Can you imagine the amount of time you need to write and direct 24 hours of performance to the smallest detail? It’s almost impossible. How do you cope on a mental level? The performers rehearsed so much and for such a long time, that they found themselves in a dream state where they could do almost anything.

I guess Mount Olympus was quite up your alley because of your fascination for the concept ‘time’.
Afterwards it’s weird to reflect on what we did with time. For me time is linked with catharsis; we have this old 19th century idea of theatre. We expect to look at a play, in a dark room filled with other people and expect a catharsis. For me it’s a strange idea to expect an insight from a 2 or 3-hour play. What actually happened in ancient Greece were these big Dionysian festivals, competitions between different playwrights. People came to the theatre at dawn and watched for about 12 hours. They had dinner, had a drink, it was a coming and going and the catharsis was the entire experience. That’s what we do with Mount Olympus. We actually stretch time, where the catharsis is totally different and much more violent for the audience to capture. After a couple of hours we strip away the intellectual human layer and what remains is pure emotion. It’s not uncommon that people start to cry because there’s no protection left. We’ve demolished it. That’s the Dionysian power of it. I actually have Dionysus say this in the beginning of the piece; “we’re all going to get you really, really crazy. We’re going to get you mad”.  Which is what happens at the end.

 

 

 

For me art has to be activism, otherwise it doesn’t work. For other artists it can be a quest of beauty, but for me it’s a tool to activate people.’

And every time the performance gets a standing ovation for more than half an hour.
We never had a Mount Olympus performance where the audience was not connected. Putting more than a year’s work into a project, makes the love you get in return very intense, very moving. The level is magic. We wanted that, but we had no idea it was going to be this euphoric.

Mount Olympus is a statement against the pressure to produce quick and cheap entertainment. Has this experience changed your own way of creating? 
It taught me to go to the essence, to not be afraid of using emotions – even when they’re strong and hard – and to get rid of the last reminisce of irony that I had. I still like a good joke and I like sarcasm but for me, writing is for real. As a writer I want to kick you in the heart and in the head. Mount Olympus has taught me to become much more intense. Intensity is everything. You have to go for it and not wait anymore. What I feel now in a very urgent way, is something that’s happening to the world at this point.

The performance is a political metaphor for society now and back then.
Mount Olympus starts with two guards, blowing a message in the ass of another and talking about an ecological nightmare and the apocalypse, which sets the political tone of the entire piece. It’s about war and the way we tend to fuck up our karma by breathing hate the entire time. Every Greek play is only about one thing; there’s a bill to be paid and somebody has to pay it. I connected this to the tragic times we now live in. Think about King Oedipus; because he killed his father and married his mother, a plague broke out in Thebes. But he doesn’t know that. He asks people to check why there is a plague. They all return saying that he is the reason but he doesn’t believe them, he just keeps sending people to go and check. This is what’s happening today also. Ecologically we’re on the brink of a big disaster and we’re going to have to change our lives to pay the bill. That’s what Mount Olympus is about: there is something that has to be reckoned with.

Are you saying that nothing has changed?
I think blindness has increased. We no longer have the confrontational insight of Greek tragedy. People think that theatre is entertainment, I think theatre is drugs. It’s an attack to your system, an attempt to transform you.

If it’s not entertainment than it’s activism.
Definitely. For me art has to be activism, otherwise it doesn’t work. For other artists it can be a quest of beauty, but for me it’s a tool to activate people. And that’s what we did with Mount Olympus. If you look at Jan’s theatre plays you see that they are always based on provocation. To wake you up. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, yet you feel that there is this activating principle. I think that’s why we’re friends, we understand each other on that level.

I once heard you say that Greek mythology is your spiritual landscape. Can you elaborate? 
My spiritual landscape corresponds to the Greek, but also the Celtic times before Christianity. It’s a very creative time. You have monotheism – which I find very boring because it’s like a block of concrete, and you have polytheism, which is very liberating and why I call myself a Satyr. There’s this great sense of play. Context is everything in Greek mythology. It’s like quantum mechanics but based on mythological thinking. What I think and what I do is invest time into taking these gods seriously. Trying to give them a place in my work – like Mount Olympus, but also in my daily and practical life. I think the Greek gods are not dead, they are among us. It’s a totally different way of looking at spirituality and religion. Especially now, when every religion is becoming dogmatic again, we need some liberation by introducing play.

What do you do to tap into your creativity? 
I do something physical. I walk, or go for a swim. It used to be just reading but now it’s much more listening to nature and going out. Everything that I see is a gift that I can use, so there is no coincidence in my life. The great thing about writing is that it enhances your feeling of observation. When you write a novel, you have this mental space where the novel lies. I’ve just finished a novel about Antwerp during WW II, and I have this specific image of the city in my head. I know how the streets used to look 70 years ago so I can walk through Antwerp by just closing my eyes. I also go to that place to meditate. I can sit in a bar, have a coffee and be in 1942. I go to that mental space to solve plot problems but also to chill. And it becomes more relaxed when you’re on a bike or on a walk.

What do you hope to be your lasting significance as an artist and a human being? 
Those two things are very combined now. I used to be just a writer, but now activism has mixed everything together. It’s a difficult question. I think I want to leave this lasting impression of love for humankind. Everything that I currently do is situated on what the Indians call the heart chakra, both in and outside my writing. I want to link people to each other because basically I think we need to invent a spirituality that connects people to each other. Whether you’re Muslim, or Jewish, or an atheist. Like Moses, we can use two stone tablets with one sentence carved onto each one of them. The first is “we’re all one”, which was proven by genetic science 50 years ago, and the other one is “we all share the same planet”. The way we live needs to reinvest respect for the planet, consider her as a mother instead of something that we exploit. I’m always trying to combine these things in my work because there’s a sense of urgency to act. That kind of energy is the lasting impression I would like to leave behind.

I read this beautiful quote by Viktor Frankl, stating that “Ultimately man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked”. Any thoughts? 
It also means “know thy self” and it is one of the most difficult questions there is. But also the most beautiful. “To become what you want to become in life is the most difficult thing ever” is one of the sentences that I use in my new novel. It’s the most difficult and at the same time the most provocative thing to do. Because the majority seem to want you to remain not who you are, but who they all are. Being like everybody else. Yet everybody has the capacity to fly and the capacity to become who you think you want to become. It can take your entire life to get there, but that’s the spiritual beauty of the whole thing. If everybody does this, focuses on that, or if we have this critical minority who’s focused on that, the world would be a better and more interesting place. And I must say that it becomes easier with time. The older you get the more you realize that what happens in your life are actually forces, pushing you to your destiny. I have this big storytelling tradition in my family but I started out as a post-modernist writer and an intellectual deconstructivist. Now I’m liberating myself with every book and every theatre play to get closer and closer to what I’m trying to become and what I am destined to be; a pure storyteller.

 

www.mountolympus.be

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Et Alors? magazine. A global celebration of diversity.