How far can a choreographer go in expressing ideas and should there be limits? I ask this after viewing a ballet last night which I felt should never have made it to the stage.

The work that leaves me asking the question is Eternal Damnation to Sancho and Sanchez by Javier de Frutos and I am in something of a quandary here as I don’t think the moderators would allow me to describe in exact detail what I actually saw. Without going into graphic detail; a Pope with grotesque prosthetic belly and buttocks sexually violates two male acolytes and three pregnant women and encourages them to perform further acts of physical and sexual violence on one another whilst everyone chants prayers in Spanish interspersed with the screaming of obscenities. The whole thing culminates with the beating to death and garrotting of one of the women. It was danced to Ravel's La Valse, a piece I shall have difficulty ever listening to again

The dance element is minimal and includes a parody of the ‘sunburst pose’ from Balanchine’s Apollo, justified no doubt by the women being described as Muses. The ballet is supposed to be a satire inspired by Jean Cocteau, though whether that fastidious aesthete would have approved of this realization of his ideas, I don’t know.

Some people walked out before the end. Many, myself included, booed (the first time in my life I have ever booed dancers). The people to my left and right and those in front simply sat speechless without clapping, but those behind cheered enthusiastically and those same people had laughed hysterically at the sight of a pregnant woman having her face repeatedly smashed against the Pope’s throne. I appreciate that on a first night the audience is made up of a significant number of artists’ friends and relatives, but to respond to such a scene with laughter made what was acutely uncomfortable viewing even worse.

Up until now I’ve always been a great admirer of Javier de Frutos’s work and would concur with Simon G’s description of him on another thread as ‘A class act’. This new work however makes me really worry about his future direction in choreography. The programme on the whole was good, in fact it seemed to get better as the evening progressed but then this vile piece came on and a good night out was ruined. As the programme was of works inspired by Diaghilev I suppose de Frutos may have been aiming for a ‘Rite of Spring’ moment, but whether ED to S&S goes down in history or not remains to be seen. The reviews should be interesting and I will post them as they appear.

Usually when I see acts of simulated sex on stage, I assume the choreographer has run out of ideas and had the acts I witnessed yesterday been of consensual sex I wouldn’t have cared over much; but it was the sexual and physical violence that unsettled me particularly that towards the pregnant women. I am against censorship of any kind but believe serious artists should be able to self-censor and am disappointed that Javier de Frutos in this instance did not.

I appreciate that most of the readers of this post aren’t based in London and may be reluctant to comment on a work they are unable to see for themselves, but based on my description I would be very grateful for as many responses as possible to my original question: How far can a choreographer go in expressing ideas and should there be limits?

What?! Unbelievable .

I don't think there should be limits, if only it's been proved that there obviously aren't, given what you've described. Such grotesqueries are probably something some artists need to do as some kind of therapy or self-purging, although a little deleuzian auto-critique wouldn't have hurt. Of course, it's not at all ill-advised that they might have done this for some lower venues, I'll agree with you there. I'd have to have seen it, but what it reminded me of was various pieces by Paul McCarthy, the totally crazed sculptor since way back in the 70s, I believe. There were all these sculpted figures and battery-powered to make the figures engage in various illicit acts. They're so elaborate (take up whole gallery rooms) it's hard to tell they're really pretty peanut-brained at first, but some of your descriptions I have only seen in McCarthy's big piese. I haven't even seen what you're talking about in modern dance, never would have imagined that it could be done in a ballet (is there pointe?). Sounds awful, but I don't think it's a bad thing to happen, because there's no way it could become at all influential, or even just trendy, for that matter. The title is amusing, is that really it 'Eternal Damnation to Sancho and Sanchez'. So graceless, no wonder what follows is some kind of crude burlesque. Now that I think of it, I would have liked to see it for the wrong reasons: It sounds hilarious in its idiocy. But I don't think you have to worry about it setting any woods on fire, becoming a sensation, etc. Just a curio, don't you think? and will evaporate after this seasion, won't it?

On the whole, I agree with Patrick. But then I add my own limits to that. People's imagination should be free, but there are limits as to what I am personally willing to look at, pay for, think about, and respect.

As someone unfamiliar with the London dance scene, my feeling is that I need some context. I don't know the work of Javier de Frutos. Is this piece at all typical? Were people misled by the advertising? Does the piece have a coherent, consistent point of view, or one of those half-parodies which actually panders to the lower instincts while claiming to be subversive?

Is it even "dance"? (You mention that the dance elements are "minimal".) A parody of the Apollo sunburst might work for me. But without putting it in context -- for example, a parody the ballet itself, or of Balanchine -- it just seems as obvious and clumsy as, for example, inserting the image of Washington Cross the Delaware. I don't like works that strain to dumb-down their own allusions. Similarly, using "La Valse" seems like a bit of heavy-handed irony that would turn me off, no matter what the Pope was doing onstage.

It sounds like the audience reactiion was quite varied. Was de Frutos possibly aiming at provking a scandal (in the sense of "epater le bourgeois")? Was he hoping for a public condemnation from the Archbishop of Westminster or picketing by the Legion of Decency? If so, it doesn't seem to have worked.

It doesn't sound like this piece will NOT gain a place in the permanent repertoire -- or even in the history of outrageous events.

Oh, good heavens, yes, i sure wouldn't pay for this thing, and it sounds as if you couldn't actually 'think about' it if you tried I'd look at it, but probably not respect it, but I'm just guessing.

Thanks for starting the topic, Mashinka. You vividly evoke the performance. Without having seen the work in question, I would say that it's the audience who has to determine the limits, by walking out or booing or asking for their money back. If a company hires a choreographer and gives him carte blanche, they have to live with the results.



You are probably right about that. Unfortunately, the bar for shocking people is very high these days.

(By all means post a few reviews if the comments are interesting, but please bear in mind we try to avoid posting too many such links in discussion threads. Thanks. )

Simon, did you see this?

De Frutos said in an interview a few days ago:

“Diaghilev always really liked a succès de scandale. He wanted them to happen. Nothing you can do today would be scandalous any more except for annoying the Catholic Church. So that is my target.”

(I haven't seen the piece.)

Choreographers CAN put onstage whatever they want, as long as they realize that the audience is also free to throw cabbages, tomatoes, the odd piece of offal....

Thanks for the quote Jane, in that context the whole thing starts to make more sense. Although the religiously minded always take offence at the first whiff of 'blasphemy', he may not get that succès de scandale after all due to the short run of this piece as I seem to remember that the protests against The Satanic Verses and Jerry Springer: the Opera, were incredibly slow off the mark, probably due the religious rarely reading contemporary literature or visiting theatres.


In his earlier years de Frutos was in the habit of dancing naked. He is now engaged in what I would call mainstream choreography and I would rate him as one of the finest working in the UK. He doesn't have a discernible style as his works are quite varied from a Hollywood musical homage for Rambert Dance to a superb Rite of Spring for the New Zealand Ballet. He has worked with a number of companies including the Royal Ballet (though not in the main house). I count myself very much a fan and silly though it sounds, I feel personally let down by him on this occasion.

How is it that Ballet and choreography seems to escape the censor. In other fields such as films, TV or even books, the genre is accompanied by a clearly defined code stating content, violence level
and recommended age of viewer. Although I have not seen this piece, after what I have read, I would not want to. It seems to neglect the deflines of moral and ethical decency.
There should be a limit to the lengths to which a choreographer stoops in prodicing what is techanaly classed as an Art. Personally I think it sounds as if it is sick and degrading. What is more it also could be seem to promote violence. Something all told not appreciated by me myself in my interest in Ballet. I realise there are other Ballets that contain elements of sex. drugs, murder and violence, but which are portrayed in an acceptable manner. I am not old fashioned or blinkered, but I would like to see "Limits" established for this kind of production.even if it restricts the creaters artistic freedom. After all do we not all enjoy our interest for the pleasure it gives us?

But then, where does it stop? I disagree that print media like books have a censor or rating program, at least in the US. Once you decide to disallow one form of speech, what's to stop whatever authority from disallowing all sorts of licit expression?

Yes, censorship is over. And it should be. I can't think of anything more implausible than pretending we could even do it, as if we could return to pre-porno days--at least not in Western democracies; there's plenty of it in the Arab world and others. The public either accepts or not, and underage people are kept out of things. Legal censorship is for the birds. Of course, there are 'snuff films'. That's definitely out in my book, but just vile behaviours onstage, with people acting like idiots, has to be allowed.

I wonder if underage folks really weren't allowed in the theater in this case. I'm opposed to legal censorship unless the vile behaviour involves children, but not to setting age limits for viewing the stuff.

What kfw said.

From the Sadler's Wells website:Nothing in the first paragraph prepares one for the second paragraph, which was in any case printed in much smaller type.

Thanks kfw, oh I wasn't referring to this particular dance piece, and really probably would never be talking about a dance piece (although can we be sure?). I was thinking of PG, R, X ratings for movies, I guess, and was writing very fast, so I'm now wondering, though, do you also think the movie ratings shouldn't be age-limited. If the 'vile behaviours' are in a movie about paedophilia (which I guess is what you mean by 'vile behaviours'), they should not be censored if the movie is to to honest, but you bring up an interesting point: Should a ballet with all these extreme acts be different in its policy, in that what Mashinka has described to us may be outrageous, but there just shouldn't be any explicit-looking sex things that involve children. If the theme was still child molestation, or whatever kind of vileness, there could be a way of evoking it without being too explicit, which in thinking about it now, it probably ought to be forbidden in ballet choreography whereas some kind of simulation would probably be the norm in a 'realistic film', wouldn't it?

Patrick, I can't imagine how a kid could be enriched by any work of art dealing with paedophilia or a lot of other vile adult behaviour, or not be hurt by it. I'm all for movie ratings for the same reason I'm all for parenting. I remember as an 11-year old hearing a recording of the pop singer Melanie -- remember her, I know you're old enough? -- in which she practically yelled out an accusation in raw pain. It disturbed me.

I wrote a preview piece for a film festival today and in it referred to John Waters' "Pink Flamingos" as
That pretty much illustrates my philosophy. Let people know what they're in for, and don't let the PC crowd scare you away from "moral judgment." What would they say about a snuff film?

Yes, that's a good thing to say about 'Pink Flamingos', I guess. Sounds fine to me. Don't know what you mean about the 'pc' crowd. They're all different stripes, I think. If you mean 'hipsters', then that might mean more tha type that go along with the pro-Polanski petition, I don't think anybody except the most extreme is interested in supporting a snuff film, so I think that's across-the-board objecionable. Non-violent pornography isn't the same, even if you think it can be art or never be art. I guess I draw the line at extreme REAL violence, or at least the most important line, and I don't know even the 'hippest, coolest' types who would find anything in a snuff film to do anything bot condemn. They need a basically criminal mindset, don't they? I do recall a clip of a man trapped in a midtown elevator that was going around some of the theory/media studies/philosophy blogs a couple of years ago. I thought all these socialist types, who are so deeply concerned with people they don't know more then their own even in many cases, who didn't realize what a monstrously cruel thing this was to observe as a curious spectacle (it was I think on 6th Avenue, oh yes, now I remember, in the McGraw Hill Building, in a car I had been in when I worked there back in the 70s, the elevator banks are still the same even though there's a lot of Morgan Stanley in it) were completely out of touch. It ruined the man's life to be stuck in this elevator and be unable to get any signal for help through all this time. That's a little like a snuff film. Some of these bloggers were making jokes about it, and I protested vehemently. Now, although the ballet of Frutos sounds trashy, I probably would just dislike it or think it was silly and maybe even funny in a low way, but looking at someone suffering is the worse. So I guess I don't quite answer your question, because these same people who thought it okay to laugh at the man trapped in the elevator were among those most involved in the (quite legitimate) protests against Abu Ghraib, the whole issue of torture that has been such an important issue in the last few years. Even so, i don't think even these childish people would support a snuff film, but you may have meant that as an extreme case, so I just answered as best I could.

They would disapprove, I expect.

I note for the record that 'snuff films' as the term is commonly used and understood are generally believed to be a variety of urban myth and legend.



I quite agree.

Well, he's forthright about his motivation, anyway. If I believed in censorship this piece as described would be a tempting target, but. I do understand how you feel, Nanarina (referring to Nanarina's earlier post, which I'm not quoting). It's certainly not what I come to a dance performance for.

Snuff films are sometimes said to be 'urban legend', and probably mostly are, but I find it difficult to believe that they have not been actually made in various vicious circles, and simply never circulated. There are hardcore sadists who have killed people in their cruelty, so i can't imagine they've never filmed any of it. All that stuff with Crispo back in the 80s has a 'snuff aura' to it, although it wasn't filmed. I can't imagine that they haven't been, although I admit i don't know anyone who has ever seen one.

I just think that if Gilles de Rais and Erzbeth Bathory did what they did that it's not a very far leap in the modern day to capture these secret sadistic rituals on film. Come to think of it, there are very famous photographs that Georges Bataille has reproduced in one of his books of a torture to death of a Chinese man, I think it's called 'the thousand cuts', I have seen these horrific photographs, that's not substantially different from a snuff film, just not a moving picture.

I do see what you mean, and I don't want to send the thread too far afield, but part of the definition of snuff film as commonly used is that it is a movie made for circulation. Murderers have filmed murders, I believe, but it's not the same thing. I mentioned it only to clarify matters for those relatively unfamiliar with the term and to make sure we didn't spend too much time discussing hypothetical views of the nonexistent, to borrow a phrase.

I went to see the In the Spirit of Diaghilev programme last night because of the De Frutos, I wasn't going to as those kind of evenings are always much of a muchness, contemporary choreographers reimaging classics very badly, but once I read about the booing etc I thought I'd give it a go. I have to say it was a very very strange evening all round.

Wayne McGregor was his usual self, a rather pretentious concept backed up by his dancers doing their usual funky chicken movements, completely inoffensive.

Cherkaoui again, his usual self, very overwrought, reimagining the "faun" for the umpteenth time. I think there should be a morartorium called on all reworkings involving swans, fauns, sylphs, princesses etc etc The thing is it was completely inoffensive and passed the time a bit, but you came away thinking "blah, so what?"

Russell Maliphant again a choreographer I do like, but this didn't really extend or build on his style and rep and I think this was the crux of the problem with evenings like this when commissions are obviously linked to a theme all that happens is real creativity gets lost behind the concept and slavish adherence to the concept or "spirit" of the event.

And then there was De Frutos and all I can say is wow. Yes, Mashinka is right it was most definitely in your face, offensive, not great De Frutos, gratutious and provocative in a vile and scatalogical way and all I can say is Thank God. I mean, yes, De Frutos is obviously very angry, not just at his own background but I get a feeling he's angry with the dance establishment at the moment (for good reason), the thing he chose to focus on in terms of Diaghilev's spirit was precisely I feel Diaghilev's absolute indifference to social mores, conventions, his relentless purusit of self expression at the expense of acceptability and his love of scandal, sensation and provocation.

Finally in a rather inispid and tedious evening this was a piece in Diaghilev's "spirit". And I'm not saying I enjoyed the piece or thought it was particularly good, but by the same token it was wonderful to see someone so established just not care about delighting or entertaining the punters, for all the reasons that Mashinka rightly criticised the piece, and I'm not arguing with her assessment, but I was happy to see it on stage. (Does that sound schizoid of me?)


For our American friends a bit of back story: Javier De Frutos has been choreographing for years and his work has always been provocative, but he is a very great choreographer who does know what he's doing and has created some phenomenally beautiful work.

Phoenix Dance Company is based in the North of England in Leeds and has been around for over twenty years and for most of that time has been rather mediocre, a second/third tier company at best, with variable dancer quality, not great choreography but funded by Leeds Council. It's always received polite and friendly and rather patronising reviews, crits etc from the London based media who viewed it as a bit of a parochial cousin from the backwaters. It's also had a very chequered history regarding it's artistic directors, no one has ever really given it the "face lift" they promised they would and have left after a few years. Though it has had some very good people at its helm.

In 2006 Javier De Frutos was appointed AD and in the space of a couple of years he turned it into a world class company. Because it was him, he attracted a totally new batch of dancers from top companies, he revitalised the entire rep, bringing in amongst others, Jane Dudley's Harmonica Breakdown, Limon's The Moor's Pavane, Robert Cohan's Forest and he choreographed several beautiful beautiful works. He also had one stinker and that stinker was later used against him. In his very short tenure Phoneix became a company which toured internationally and to London and was ranked under him as being world class, with good reason, it was, bloody wonderful.

Earlier this year he was fired. Reasons cited included his "destruction of the spirit of Phoenix" (ie destroying a 20 year reputation for abject mediocrity); also as reported in several newspapers people in Leeds council felt his direction was "too poofy" and his one choreographic failutre a piece called "Cattle Call" was used against him to block out his remarkable achievements.

He was fired, all the great dancers immediately left, the rights to perform all the great work he brought in to the company, (including his own) were rescinded. Now Phoenix is doing very silly student pieces reminiscent of bad 80s student dance workshops, the company is new and made up of very inexperienced dancers, they no longer tour to anywhere of any real note and when they do it's mainly University theatres etc It's a real crying shame.

I am horrified that de Frutos has lost his job at Phoenix, Simon's assessment of that company's chequered past is quite accurate and I seem to remember one AD in particular being a spectacular failure: firing de Frutos sounds like a classic case of shooting ones self in the foot. I am sorry also that reference was made to his sexuality, although certain critics have been guilty of that too. Under those circumstances he is justified in feeling angry, I just hope he falls on his feet and returns to the quality work that I know he is capable of.

Simon, did you figure out the significance of the Eskimo who stood at the side of the stage and then fell over at the start of the McGregor work? I presume he was a metaphor of some sort, but have no idea what.

It's a rather adolescent motive, isn't it? Constructively criticize the Catholic Church would be one thing. To just take pot shots for the sake of irritating it is another.

Apparently the BBC is filming this programme for airing in December (as one of a series of 3 Diaghilev-inspired programmes) so we shall all (all of us in the UK, that is) get a chance to see it.

Simon, thanks for giving this a context. Thanks also for your neatly expressed thoughts about the other works on the program.

Mashinka,

That was no eskimo, that was Ernest Shackleton, that great pioneer of the Ballets Russes. Indeed, what can one say?

For our American chums and those who didn't see Dyad, the piece was about Shackleton's expedition to the South Pole. What does that have to do with the Ballets Russes, you might ask? Well it was in 1909 the same year the BR was founded. Why he chose to commemorate Shackleton, considering all the other things that happened in 1909, - (including the canonisation of Joan of Arc and the US prohibiting interstate transportation of game birds) and what exactly that has to do with the Ballets Russes is beyond me.

But I'm sure he had his reasons. If anyone would like to know what a minor brain haemorrhage feels like there's this article from last sunday's observer in which McGregor talks... and talks... and talks... about the piece and his reasonings behind it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/oct/1...d-sadlers-wells


kfw,

The thing is yes, on the surface, De Frutos' piece sounds adolescent, but throughout his work, his great work he's really explored the theme of Catholicism in relation to his heritage, he's ARgentinian, sexuality, he's a gay activist and the oppression of women by the Church and he's done so with far greater subtlety and wit - so I'm prepared to give him a free pass.

And really, I was so happy to see such a nasty piece of work that actually wanted to provoke on such an insipid evening.

Thanks, Simon. It's not just the dance itself but his stated intention to "annoy" the Catholic Church and to do so in order to be scandalous (not to be scandalous for some good societal end) that strikes me as adolescent. But you have explained why he hates the Church, and thanks for doing so.

The problem of putting something like this on the box is that the impact diminishes when viewed next to the horrors shown on the news on a daily basis, but whatever the intentions behind its creation, for most people this work will leave a bad taste.

Is that different from what Fellini did in his films--except that it was more well-crafted and thought out? It's okay to do a pitiful protest against the Catholic Church, although that wouldn't keep the piece from being pitiful. I don't myself care to 'annoy' the Catholic Church, but that could certainly be seen as 'being scandalous for some societal good'. You do not need to have the goal of a 'societal good' always in your scandals, and most people don't. But if he hates the Church, it follows naturally that you do your own expression of the hatred, not what would be more 'seemly'. I don't hate the Catholic Church, as not one, but adoring much of the art that it has produced. But since we always talk of ballet in particular as not having to have any particular ideological, societal, or political goal, so that if there is just some desire to 'be bratty', which this sounds like, that just sounds like part and parcel of the rest of the piece. But I'd think that anybody who just wanted to 'annoy the Catholic Church' would at least think they were doing it for some kind of 'societal good', even if it was just their own idea that they had 'hurt feelings' of psychological hangups from being Catholic. That's cool.. My best friend is always going on about how horrible it was to be brought up Catholic. It's just the piece sounds horrible for all reasons described.

Also, what Simon says sounds like it's a continuation of activist work he's long been involved with, so that this could well prove to be an important part of that whole oeuvre when looking back say in 7-10 years. Lots of artists have what they call 'evil works', which are loathed at the time, and they even often decry them themselves--albeit usually some years later, after the sense of epiphanic euphoria has passed. Lyotard's book 'Libidinal Economy' is almost always considered his greatest work, although it caused enormous protest, and he even repudiated it himself, calling it his 'evil book', but it's one of the best things he ever wrote, all about 'Little Girl Marx', and all phillosophers know it practically by heart.

That will teach me to rush in without getting a programme! Ernest Shackleton, who would have thought it?

Here we go, this is pretty much the only excerpt of De Frutos choreography I could find and it's a link from the Sadlers Wells site, for his piece Paseillo

http://www.sadlerswells.com/show/Phoenix-Dance-Theatre-08


This is from Phoenix's landmark engagement at Sadlers Wells in 2008. Why landmark you may ask? Well to this point Phoenix had been around for over 23 years and had never once played at a major London venue, nor been invited.

Another thing, when De Frutos joined Phoenix, several of the dancers from Rambert Dance Company quit to join him, this is remarkable as Rambert offers incredible benefits, contracts and remuneration to a dancer, it's pretty much the only way a dancer in the UK (non ballet) can be sure of making a good living from dance. It was also an incredible leap of faith as despite De Frutos, to that point Phoenix had a really really poor reputation and went through ADs like kleenex. The most famous one they'd had was Darshan Singh Bhuller - one of the leading lights of London Contemporary Dance Theatre and even he couldn't make much headway into turning it into a good company.

But in two years De Frutos did more than that, he turned it into the most exciting company I'd seen in years and years, just brilliant. And for that he was sacked.

Paseillo is just a beautiful work and if he ever restages it for a company in the US, I really recommend anyone seeing it.

He also did one of the best versions of the Rite of Spring for New Zealand Ballet, which I'd ever seen. As Mashinka mentioned. He very cleverly used the two piano version, and the choreography was just beautiful, witty, intense, powerful and visceral. Google it for photographs the production design is well worth a look.

And best of all with De Frutos, he never chokes you with endless notes in programmes, he just lets the piece to the talking. He is a major major talent - it's a pity Her Royal Highness Dame Monica Mason didn't see fit to hire him if she wanted to bring a shock factor to the RB.

Actually she did. Misty Frontier at the Linbury featuring Nunez if I remember correctly.

Well, no - they played at Sadler's Wells at least three times before I gave up watching them sometime in the 1990s because I thought their choreography wasn't worthy of either their dancers or their audiences.

I dunno, Patrick, I can hardly say I've never delivered an angry insult myself, but I still don't think they ever do any good. I also think the Catholic Church is a pretty lame choice of targets nowadays -- was anyone in the audience really unfamiliar with the fact that the Church is made up of fallible human beings? What did anyone learn? What good could the piece have done? In what way could it have been activist?

De Frutos might likely make your same argument, but that verb "annoy" sounds telling. Then again, maybe I'm wrong.

I don't think the criticism by artists is nearly exhausted. Just last week at the Vancouver International Film Festival, I saw Javier Fesser's "Camino", which takes a steamroller to Opus Dei.

Given the number and enthusiasm of new converts particularly in Africa and inroads made in India, increasing the Rome's power at a time it has been diminishing in Europe and North America, and continued lawsuits and allegations of sexual abuse, it's not a subject I'd expect to go away any time soon.

Ooops,

Sorry, not Sadlers Wells in the time I started going there, shall I say? I remember seeing them at The Place a couple of times though.

I'm not making myself clear to you, even as of last night. I just said that artistic polemics toward the Catholic Church are not unknown, and they have to be allowed, that Catholic Church is 'made up of fallible human beings' is pretty lame to me. So are the CIA and the FBI made of 'fallible human beings'. And 'what good could the piece have done'? I already answered that. That was for the continuation of Frutos's work as Simon has outlined, even if this one is a 'mistake'. All great artists have a big BOMB. They have that right. And the value of what seems awful in the present may change radically. That's what I said, I wasn't arguing with you, which it seems you think I am. Actually, as we know, the Catholic Church is a quite ripe target for condemnation now, what with problem priests, etc., but it's not a concern of mine. It is just not that important when an important artist has a bomb, and fans should expect to 'be let down' from time to time. After all, they're not the ones doing the work, and they can't expect their heroes to be gods all the time. Some of the time yes, not all the time. But I'm just not emotionally involved with this.

Patrick, I agree that work like this should be allowed. Absolutely. But the question to me isn't whether the dance succeeds (on its own terms) artistically, but whether it's morally justified (an issue I consider implied in the question "How far can a choreogrpaher go in expressing ideas?").
The victim certainly has not just right but reason to give expression to his pain. After awhile though, unless he has a fresh perspective, he's just venting his spleen. Again, I'm reading this through the lens of that word "annoy."

What's more, the Church is not just the Vatican and the local hierarchies that failed the faithful, it's those faithful parishioners in the pew, the ones who run and fund the soup kitchens and clinics and hospitals. I don't think they deserve to see the liturgy they hold dear interspersed with obscenities. Even protest and condemnation can be civil. Fresh perspective might be to depict the some of those good people for a change. They, not the minority of horribly unfaithful priests and their enablers, are substantially the Catholic Church.

In any case, I respect your point of view, and I take Helene's point that Rome is still ripe for scrutiny and criticism. I think I've said my piece here and I'm going to bow out of the conversation unless it takes a new turn.

If de Frutos wants to try getting on the hierarchy's nerves I don't see why he shouldn't. Those faithful parishioners adhere to a rich, powerful, and authoritarian institution that is not diffident about wielding its influence. De Frutos is angry at the Church, not at them, and as you note there is a distinction between the two. As Patrick notes, this sort of thing has been going on for about two thousand years, and the Church seems to be managing. I think we're all agreed that Frutos has the right to put it out there, if he can talk somebody into it, and we have the right to praise, criticize, protest, or just not go.

I might agree with you if the piece reflected the anti-'Romanism' that was once prevalent here in the United States, but de Frutos seems to have another beef entirely.

Thank you Dirac I cannot help wondering what the world is coming to, have we totally lost every sense of decency, morality when we allow such diverse actions without a second thought .
No wonder the moral decoline of humanity is as it is. If I am being old fashioned, so be it, I am not being small minded, if people want to witness a freedom of choice, it should be done in their own homes, not pushed down the throats of everyone. The kind of things that seem to be considered appropriate in this thread, are very risky, what happens if the children you are so keen to protect stumble against something unsavory by accident. The damage is therefore done.


Just as a matter of interest, these "snuff movies " or recordings do exist even in the UK, Take the case of "The Fred and Rose West Murderers", The Moors Killers, and there has been another arrest, but I cannot remember the perpetraitors name. I will say no more.

I'm sorry Nanarina but your post is a pretty convincing argument for a total absence of censorship and all the reason I need to allow choreographer's to go as far as they possibly want.

For starters let's not get hysterical, Snuff, the sexual torture of individuals to death for the sole purpose of underground commercial distribution IS an urban myth. Yes, Papeet may have a point, the idea is there and they may very well exist, but there is no evidence that they do. Furthermore it's one hell of a jump to go from De Frutos's work to snuff.

Hindley and Brady made recordings of their murders true, sound recordings, I dare say had they video equipment they would have made movies, Fred and Rose West again made films, true. But this is the pattern of serial killers to make and keep souvenirs. Again it's not snuff. Snuff is made specifically as pornography for commercial distribution and indeed I think it's incredibly insulting to Javier De Frutos a renowned and supremely talented choreographer to align him to the purveyors of snuff pornography.

What happens if children stumble across something "nasty in the woodshed"? They have done for years and pretty much survived intact. I'd be far more inclined to worry about the DVD's hidden in daddy's special draw at home than a piece of dance theatre which one has to pay for, comes with an age limit and warning and is advertised as being unsuitable for children.

De Frutos pushed the work down no one's throat, I made a decision to be there to watch it. Just as any act or art, performance, needs a conscious decision by the viewer to be there, in a private or public building for the purpose of performance - if you don't want to be there don't go.

You say the world has no morality when we allow diverse actions without a second thought? What on earth do you mean by diverse actions? Allow? Who then is the moral censor and arbiter what's with the collective "we"? To my mind there's nothing more immoral than the suppression of free thought and expression counter culture, religion or politcal. De Frutos has an extremely complex relationship to his Catholicism, and it's a source of huge pain which runs throughout his work - and indeed Catholicism has a great deal a very great deal to answer for. A half hour piece at the end of an evening by De Frutos can't come close to rivaling the damage done by the Catholic church to itself.

And finally what sense of decency and morality have we actually lost? Decent as say, the Holy Roman Empire, the third Reich, the Crusades, World War 1 & 2, the Boer war, Jack the Ripper, the Borgias, Auschwitz? Caligula, Attila the Hun, Hitler, Stalin?

Though actually you may have a point, some very pretty and morally decent ballets were made under the Red Peril.

Morality, perhaps not. Propriety, yes. I would say that the sense of what is decent and seemly to be presented and discussed in public has changed. It gets harder and harder to shock anyone and artists trying for such an effect have to go further and further. I think that in the long run this greater openness is a Good Thing, but I also understand why Nanarina feels that way.

QUOTE

De Frutos has an extremely complex relationship to his Catholicism, and it's a source of huge pain which runs throughout his work...

It sounds similar to that of Andres Serrano, whose work caused a serious fuss here in the States awhile back.

Mashinka If you had known what this production contained would you have still gone to see it? And was there any warning of it's content beforehand. If it had been looked at by Ther Board of Censors, you may have been spared the experience and a spoilt evenings entertainment. I think that cenorship is valid, it provides information in the sense of Codes and suitability, which allow people to make their own choices. Watch if you want or decline.

Censorship does not 'provide information', it censors things--which means prohibits certain ones, at least on the planet I live on. 'Watch if you want or decline' is what most of the rest of us are saying--a review can tell you that, or you can talk to people and find out. Censorship is something else. Some of dearest friends, including both of my sisters, would have totally freaked out if they'd seen this, but that's their problem, I tell them about these things so they can keep on with their sense of 'Southern-belle spotless women' that they are so into. I don't know why anybody would choose such a narrow view, but that is their business. Forget it for me, though, for example, and they think that is just fine that way.

Why are you so against people being protected from seeing something that is possibly obscene, when it can be omitted? there are degrees of all things. So why cannot they be moderated in advance? I do not have a narrow view on life, I have seen many charges over the years, some for the better and some for the worse. In fact I am quite open minded. I was not suggesting Censorship was providing information, what I meant was it is good to know that I at least am pleased to feel protected in what I am expected to witness either on the stage or off.

Papeet,

The production came with a warning on all printed and online material AND I was told at the box office when I bought my ticket that the De Frutos could cause offence. It was also printed that discretion was advised and the production was NOT suitable for kids.

How much more is necessary? The venue acted responsibly, an adult was given ample warning to make an informed choice - to go any further into debate over this is moot. What nanarina is arguing is a suppression of ideas.

Any day a kid can log on unsupervised and have access to a world of filth on the internet, DVDs of the nastiest sort are freely exchanged and handled, indeed log on and with a free to download torrent finder program a kid can log on to a torrent download site and download any and all video nasties and sex films. Why on earth would a piece at the end of an evening be more damaging to kids and social fabric than the web? Especially as kids are restrained by financial circumstances and pocket money, a ticket to De Frutos cost £40 and a planet worth of smut is free.

What poses a greater threat to propriety and the moral imperitive to safeguard children? This isn't a debate it's simply a no brainer.

Well, that says it all to me. That was more than sufficient as I see it.



Totally agree, and now that you mentioned the warnings (I'm not sure you or Mashinka told us about those earlier), I don't even see what there is to talk about except the piece itself as an artwork. Incidentally, remember as far back as the mid-90s, I believe, things about TV and internet devices to keep children off porn sites, but I'm sure the kids are smarter than the adults about tech things by now, and so that the net itself has, for all intents and purposes, rendered the very concept of censorship obsolete.

Well, yeah, this thread has amply protected you from the new Frutos piece.

As for 'omitting horrific ballets', I'm afraid I have to take a break without further ado. I have heard that 'PAMTGG' is horrific, but I didn't see that either. I KNOW that I thought Robbins's 'Glass Pieces' was 'horrific', but not because it didn't have any sex in it.