Jerome Bel: Pichet Klunchun and Myself

It’s good to remember how fascinating and beautiful conversation can be. Starting from scratch, two performers begin to share their knowledge and experience across a cultural distance. Conversation can be messy, this one is careful and deliberate, slowly building – it takes nothing for granted. This conversation accomplishes the goal of anthropology – to hold a mirror up to one’s own culture. In having to explain everything, we might get at the root of what we no longer examine – those decisions which are cultural givens, and those which are personal reactions. …getting to the “why” under the “why”. So many of our decisions about how to make or view art are based on some kind of assumption (“Art should be beautiful.” “Art should take a lot of work.” “Art should be unfettered personal expression.” etc.) To witness a conversation which peels back these layers – a conversation which practices listening, observation and patience. What a simple, complicated, brilliant idea for a performance. Pinchet describes a form in which every gesture has significance, a system which is tied directly to religion, architecture and folklore – codes which are embedded in every movement. Jerome describes a form which is open, unpredictable, anti-spectacle. A form where codes exist in the slippage of personal and cultural meanings. Both describe their position on a cultural fringe – performing for limited and specialized audiences, often performing for audiences that don’t understand.
The form of this conversation is standardized but flexible, and I’ve heard that each time they ask a new question or find a new answer during a show, they must decide whether or not to keep it in, to avoid a piece which would quickly expand to 4 or 5 hours. Pinchet describes characters who take twenty minutes to walk slowly across the stage, letting the significance of a death exert its full weight in a story which, in its entirety, would take a week to perform. Jerome describes a similar process for a very different attention span – lying motionless during the second half of a 5 minute song. Both reveal an art which is interested in opening space for the experiencer to think, feel, and reflect. Understanding takes time.
– Seth Nehil