Andreja Rauch Podrzavnik: Thinking of Then Being Now

What is the relationship between the musical legacy of the American composer Steve Reich (musical minimalism, which is characterised by, among other things, the use of a minimal number of elements and the repetition of patterns), whose name appears significantly in the soundscape of the author’s proposal, and the disposition and function of physicality in the dance performances of Podrzavnik? The fact that the author sampled from a song that is a kind of confused set of samples itself brings us closer to her sceptical and sometimes ironic attitude towards the concept of choreography.

The title of the audio tracks that the author uses in her proposal (‘Reading the 20th Century’) coincides with the title of her project, Thinking of Then Being Now. A brief analysis of the title assigns the word ‘then’, in the context of Reich, to signify a period before the mass use of smart digital devices, which today almost spontaneously recreate the logic of sampling and looping, and in this sense are a kind of copy of Reich’s musical innovation. The latter can be criticised as the principle of eternal repetition, but it can also be connected to a changed way of listening, in which the attention is redirected from representations to the internal processes and harmonic patterns of the piece (as in, for example, Music for 18 Musicians).

Although they never definitively deny the logic of reproduction, which is a tacit assumption of the concept of choreography, the dance procedures of Andreja Rauch Podrzavnik can be characterised as anti-choreographic, even as a prominent example of dance as opposition to the dictates of choreography (Badiou). As Maša Radi Buh wrote in the review of her performance Kar nosim s sabo (Carry On), ‘tenderness, caution, and fragility’ are written into the very aesthetics of the movement, and often also into the structure of the event through ‘moments of stopping in positions of dynamic quality’.

It is interesting that the author struggles with the logic of reproduction or choreography even when collecting material for her performances and other projects. When conducting interviews, one of her favourite research techniques, she primarily tries to create the conditions for an authentic expression of the interlocutor, which for her means: let her speak, don’t intrude too much, know when… Perhaps her choreographic approach works in a somewhat similar way: only a partially drawn empty space, intended for listening and accommodating diverse dance bodies, professional and amateur, and their stories.