The gathering of the 8th has been a success, in as far as the preparations for an anniverserial pantomimi goes -The basic premise of a dissolution of boundaries between actor and public, presenter and consumer has been met: the banquet idea still prevails as main format in which to present set-piece elements and improvisation at the same time.
« ... la société des
Buveurs d’eau s’est dissoute
naturellement par la mort de tous ses membres, sans que le nom
d’aucun soit resté attaché à une œuvre qui pût attester de
leur existence ».
Henri Murger,
Scènes de la Vie de Bohème, ch.
XVIII, ii.
L’appellation Groupisme a désigné sous le Second Empire une convivialité que des bohèmes, écrivains et artistes, partageaient dans des salons privés1. Le plus célèbre est celui qu’ouvre Nina de Villard en 1868, rue Chaptal, entre la place Clichy et l’église de la Trinité, dans le IXe arrondissement. Ce salon connaît son plein éclat quelques années plus tard, à son retour de Genève, dans le petit hôtel particulier de la rue des Moines, quartier des Batignolles, nettement plus excentrique. Les traces en sont peu nombreuses, un album amicorum atteste sa durée et ses fréquentations2 mais on compte les témoignages sur les doigts de la main : Verlaine, dans une notice sur Charles Cros, évoque ces « médianoches [...] féeriques, voire un brin diaboli...
from a book by victor gronjnovski
In considering the references made over the ten year period in which BuktaPaktop has been in operation, this 'symposium' format (Plato's Banquet) seems to have served us well, and along with the 'cabaretic' notions of Voltaire, the tragedy of Socratic silence and the Aristotelian peripatetikum combine to create what is an a-political pantomime, based not so much on the comedia del arte, but the deficiencies of modern life.
In brief, the festivities for the tenth anniversary of the operation could be fashioned along the guidelines set by Filliou – being well, badly or not made – thus serving up the most liberal set of possibilities possible – a pantographic display might be a practical way to go about it: there being 8 tot nine players, indeed more if needed, with historic credentials as well as contemporary concoctions grown out of fetishes and dreamlike figments...
As this most recent try-out, with Franconetti as the canary-yellow dompteur, the chance encounter of a paella and an expressive machine on a (horsey textile-clad) operating table is a perfect initial impulse to build upon: working title “Paellero Homologado” (or 'Genorter Paella-Kochring') or variations thereof, giving rise to a Sancho Panza or a Punch and Judy, as the case may be.
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Thinking of the cruelty of life, obviously, and the influence it has on the living theater of today – but old hat perhaps, for many and questionable in terms of originality – since we have already incorporated quite a few of the essential elements proposed by those formerly avant-guard movements... what is it we might add? Pshitt! I would say, as “disait la reine”) Ubu hasn't spit that far yet, Jarry and Co. incoherntly babbling about Emmy Hennings' dress code and Hugo the Ball rolling down the stairs has all been part of the fair for ever so long...
but is also the inception of our little operation in the 'passage des mirroires' (spiegelgasse) if you like – so why not hark back if we do so anyway? Back to the Ursonate, back to the desire caught by the tail, back to messopotamimicri.... why knot?
(thinking here of Picasso's 'desire caught by the tail'....)
