‘Once Hokusai, an 18th-19th century Japanese painter, was asked to paint a rooster. The customer kept coming back each year, but the painting was never ready. After ten years, the customer returned. ‘Just in time’, said Hokusai, who sat down and painted the perfect rooster in a minute. The customer asked him why he needed to wait ten years if he could paint it so quickly. Hokusai opened the door of his warehouse full of rooster paintings saying ‘I’ve been painting these for ten years, now I can do it any time’.’
The Artus Gábor Goda Company, one of the oldest and most diverse art groups of Budapest’s contemporary art scene, has taken a Hokusai anecdote as the basis for their performance, RoosterRoosterRooster. We spoke with director Gábor Goda and dancer Csilla Nagy about this fascinating piece at Artus Studio.
What drew you to the Hokusai anecdote?
The story is an emblematic myth of Oriental cultures. It has its reflection in the cultural heritage of many different nations. It’s about a process when the artist stops trying to become an artist and just creates for the sake of the process; the aim is not the product anymore.
The performance has a more general interpretation, right?
Sure, it’s not only about artistic processes, but human processes and the exploration of self. The eternal question of self-discovery and self-criticism is explored.
How did you start working on the performance?
At Artus Studio, we never stage stories; we build on them. We try to construct our feelings into a complete whole. When we started working with the Hokusai anecdote, we sat down and talked over the questions that emerged in each of us. We were looking for questions, not answers. Everyone had a personal aspect and questions relating to the story depending on their own personal issues. When do we feel something we’ve created is finished? What is the compulsion to constantly qualify, criticize and judge ourselves? Was there really a customer or was it only an inner motivation? Is the painter a man or a woman? It was a journey to our souls and back.
How did you manage to combine all these different aspects at the end?
There were some main issues that emerged in all of us; it was then the task of direction to merge them to make a complete whole.
RoosterRoosterRooster is a multi-art performance. How did you combine the different channels of expression?
First of all, we started to work with a painter. With an electronic stick, we recreate the gestures of paintings based on a Chinese Shen Dao stick exercise. After 80 minutes, the thousands of lines form a rooster shape. The visual is very strong, a mixture of intermedia tools: pictures, animation, and video-work. Also, the music is very significant, but the basis is naturally dance theater. But we don’t think or create in genres. We try to use any channel that helps expression, that helps bonding and interacting with the audience.
How was it received at the festival?
We only took a part of the performance – the dance choreography, we changed it a bit, but the main feel and essence remained the same. It was really popular; we came third at the 14th Masdanza International Choreography Contest of Gran Canaria.
It seems that the essence of RoosterRoosterRooster is quite universal.
Yes, before this festival, we staged it in Poland, too. It’s a very non-verbal, active multi-art performance with a universal human issue at its core; it’s easily understandable for international audiences.
The Roosters:
The rooster of Tibor Nádas
The rooster of Anna Réti
The rooster of Melinda Virág
The rooster of Gábor Kocsis
The rooster of Gáspár Téri
The rooster of Csilla Nagy