Calypso
xx CONNECTIONS BETWEEN FRAGMENTED HI/STORIES
Slovenia / 2016 / 60'
Performance
What is an artwork made of? In
this performance the answer is obvious
but hidden. It is hidden in two golden
eggs that travel a long way from barely
perceived feeling in the womb to the staged
performance. In it, the dancer addresses
nothing less than all creation saying:
“Welcome to the Peace space station!”
Calypso by Tina Valentan isn’t from Homer
yet it is – the same as the immortal nymph
Calypso – from a solitary land of shadows.
It draws strength from the blackness of its
inner universe which carefully forms into a
movement and voice and reluctantly reveals
herself to the mortals too soon. What she
shares with the mythological Calypso is
mainly the name: καλύπτω (kalyptō) is a Greek
word for covering or concealing and in the
figurative meaning hiding, deceiving but also
protection. The care of the self.
Calypso and Calypso: two seducers
surrounded by symbols of opulence. They
give away their wealth with the generosity of
those who have nothing but the awareness
that before we break it anything can hatch
from the golden egg. All possibilities are open.
But Tina Valentan’s Calypso is compelled to
choose only one way before breaking the
egg. What will come out of it: an artistic or biological miracle? A performance or a child?
In her picture of the world, every cell holds
the entire cosmos and everything is connected,
a tree, a dinosaur and a human – therefore
creativity and art and motherhood are not
mutually exclusive. But in the world she lives
in there is not enough money for both. There’s
no place for the diversity that Calypso takes
immense pleasure in: an astronaut, a dancer,
a cosmonaut, a pop star, a bimbo and mystical
visionary all in one.
This is the origin of pain and snarling.
Disguising because you can only pick one
in such a flattened world. It appears that
even the magical power of the golden eggs
fails. No matter how Calypso protects and
hatches them, they remain speechless. Selfsufficient.
She tries in vain to revive the
ancient mythopoetic picture of the world as
a cosmic egg where everything begins and
ends, and where there’s truly plenty of room
for everybody. Here and now, Calypso has to
transform from a goddess into a pop star, and
stuff all her dimensions into an exotic hat. Like
a contemporary Carmen Miranda who traded
calypso and samba for synthetic rhythms,
she dances around and more out of a habit
than desire she impertinently flirts with the
audience which despite seeing it all still feels
embarrassed.
To make matters worse, Calypso removes
golden eggs from her eyes from where they
move directly to the ovaries and converts
from an astronaut-cosmonaut at the Mir
space station into an ordinary mortal
condemned to biology. But before we sigh
in disappointment as her guests, we should
look back and forth and remember where
the golden eggs came from and where they
are going. Do ovaries really direct Calypso
or could it be that she directs them? Is this
captivity or freedom? What about both at the
same time? Mystics nod assent. Baroque poet
Angelus Silesius might have wondered which
came first, the chicken or the egg, and gave
an answer himself: “The egg in the chicken,
and the chicken in the egg.” It is not difficult to
imagine that in the Peace dance hall, Calypso
would cheerfully propose him a toast with egg
liqueur and with an extravagant hat on her
head call out: “Long live tutti frutti!”
Tea Hvala
Author and Performer: Tina Valentan
Music and outside eye: Tian Rotteveel
Dramaturg: Aleksandra Blagojević
Artistic advisory: Snježana Premuš
Theoretical reflection: Tea Hvala
Costume Designer: Urška Recer
Light Designer: Urška Vohar
Producer: Amela Meštrovac
In English and Slovene.
Tickets: € 7 / € 5
Production: Mesto žensk
Coproduction: Dance Theatre Ljubljana, Maribor Dance
Room
With Support by: Public Fund for Cultural Activities of RS,
Maska Institute
Special thanks to: Luka Martin Škof, Borut Bučinel, Andreja
Kopač, Vesna Juvan, Nina Meško, Teja Reba, Institute for
Culture, Tourism and Sport Murska Sobota.
