WALL TO WALL

To the moon, because it is as uninhabitable as the earth, especially the cities. - (R.W. Fassbinder, The Dirt, the City and Death)

More than half the people on our planet live in cities. What does living in a city do to a person? Cities are often known as places where jobs are available, where luxuries can be bought, and comfort is within reach. But cities also often produce a precarious class of homeless, refugees, unemployed, sick people ... Concerned with their image, city councils try to keep these groups out of sight. Neighborhoods are changing, cities are increasingly conceived in terms of gentrification, tourism and profit. The smart city creates dropouts rather than inclusion. WALL TO WALL zooms in on the shadowlives, the flipside of the changing city in the 21st century. To this end, WALL TO WALL brings together two projects: the short film DEMO by Belgian visual artist and theater maker Kris Verdonck and NOT TOMORROW, a dance performance by Brussels-based Catalan dancer and choreographer Marc Iglesias.

DEMO shows a figure in a mascot suit filming himself while performing tricks and dances. It reminds of the many attempts at fame through TikTok or other social media. However, this figure is alone, and it does not seem to be reaching an audience. Staying with the demo from the title, the “posts” fail to materialize. The performer in DEMO is Marc Iglesias, who also created and dances NOT TOMORROW. In this dance piece, we see a man in the street, as if standing next to the entrance of the club, who cannot help but dance, losing himself in his own imagination. He remains anonymous, and always a tick off the beat. 

The performers, dancers or characters in both works are figures in an urban landscape. They combine elements from pop and entertainment culture, like TikTok or Mascots, or cinematic clichés like dancing under a lantern. Only, these pop phenomena already seem to be "out of fashion". They are passé, but that doesn't mean they have disappeared. They are visible, but also invisible, hidden behind a mask or a suit, or absorbed into the urban fabric. 

In this dialogue between a film and a dance piece, a contemporary image emerges of the human being as performer, but also of the artist and his search for a place in the city and society in times of fast evolving entertainment and digital pop culture. Both are looking for a representation, a whole in which they can play, live and connect and gain meaning. In both DEMO and NOT TOMORROW, this search seems to have failed and the performers are left alone. And yet they continue to dance and perform. 

American philosopher Lauren Berlant called this kind of optimism “cruel optimism”: when what you desire is actually an obstacle to your own happiness. For Berlant, cruel optimism is a widely shared state of being in neoliberal times. In their own parallel fantasy/reality, for the characters in the film and performance the party continues and they have a large following, audience and company. In their fantasy, the city promises a home, work and community. In reality, they do little more than dogpaddling (in Berlant's words). This way, WALL TO WALL presents two portraits of the dogpaddling human being and artist in the urban context. Both characters' fantasies are funny and alluring; their reality is wry and dark. And yet they are not victims. They are characters who keep trying: an ode to the artist's irresistible urge to keep making and playing, and even more: to the deep human drive to survive and live. Or as Beckett himself captured it so well: You must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.

04/09 - 20:00 > 21:00  - 05/09 - 20:00 > 21:00 - 06/09 - 15:00 > 16:00 @ A Two Dogs Company - reservations: contact@atdc.be