Resisting Fear Gaëlle Bourges

Based on an historical analysis of Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s fresco Effects of Good and

Bad Government in Siena, Gaëlle Bourges has conceived a piece for nine performers. She compares the fears of those times with today’s and tries to curb the internal state of emergency now permeating the bodies of citizens.

“One winter evening in 2015, I was having dinner at a friend’s house. A book on a bookshelf facing me caught my attention… I read the title: Conjurer la peur. That was just after the attacks in Paris.” These words are the first Gaëlle Bourges speaks on stage. They connect two realities some seven hundred years apart, that is, the contemporary fear of Islamist terrorism and the subject of the book by the historian Patrick Boucheron, the giant fresco Effects of Good and Bad Government. Painted in Siena in 1338 by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, it vaunts the merits of the city’s political system as a guarantee of its wealth and prosperity, in the face of the threat of the feudal lords who would bring war and poverty. This virtuous political regime was called the government of the nine, a council of nine citizens who led the city for only two months at a time in order to avoid the confiscation of political power by private interests. Among the thousand symbols, two stand out in contrast to one another, in the form of female allegories, Securitas against Timor. Security against Fear. Is this political concept valid today? Yes, answers Bourges with her eight performers, like a new council of nine. She suggests we put the current moment in perspective instead of reacting precipitously to the now all too familiar state of emergency. “Making a show is a way of gaining time, sculpting the feeling of emergency that sometimes makes us act rashly, of absorbing it into a mental and physical slowing down,” she explains.

FEAR AS DRIVING FORCE?

Resisting fear: this is the aim that the fresco and dance show have in common. The first question that arises is this: What is the role played by fear? Along with Lorenzetti, the historian Ptrick Boucheron considers that it is a driving force in the political process— that it is out of fear of bad government that we strive to be virtuous. Bourges has adopted this approach, shifting its meaning from the political domain to that of art. “First, fear triggers an uncontrollable response by the nervous system, I think, and then sets into motion a political or artistic process. Here I‘m thinking of what’s called the three Fs, fight, flight or freeze. So in the best case scenario, yes, fear can set a political process into motion, but only later on, not at the moment when we’re gripped by fear. Unfortunately, this feeling often leads to reactionary rather than emancipating political processes… In my case, at any rate, I react to fear in different ways. Often it’s a matter of ‘fight,’ and, for example, I’ve been able to make art, but I’m not sure that the energy needed for that kind of confrontation can last indefinitely.” Actually, the stage of fear seems to have been already overcome when the show begins. Bourges speaks calmly and clearly. Like a museum docent, she takes us on a journey back to fourteenth-century Siena, depicting this enormous fresco in great detail through dancers who assume the poses of its allegorical and other figures. This guided tour that goes across the stage is punctuated by moments of humor as the pace slowly accelerates until it produces a whirlwind. This is the case with the choreography, which little by little picks up speed, and after performing the scenes of good and bad government the performers leap out of the fresco, building up to a heady final dance. But it’s also true of the narrative: after the guided tour, a voiceover recounts parallel stories that are like biographical snapshots. We hear Bourges describe a visit to Avignon to present, unsuccessfully, her project to a programming jury. She recalls a childhood memory, her first choreography made in hopes of being rewarded with a Crunch candy bar. We also hear the words to a song by Radiohead, a dialog from a Godard movie, a text by La Boétie, etc. Food for thought, on the individual as well as collective level, about the responsibilities, mechanisms and consequences involved in these power games alternating between fear and security. Conveyed with varying degrees of explicitness, these interrogations represent a continuation of those raised by the fourteenth-century Siena fresco. Bourges says, “I don’t seek to illustrate the different wall paintings, just to suggest many interpretations through a dialogue between what we perceive in this historical image and more contemporary perceptions.” Thus it is up to viewers to pursue this principle of associating ideas by comparing the fresco with their own lived experience.

QUESTIONS AND IMAGES

Thus this show leaves us with many questions undergirded by powerful images. For example, there is a memorable round of dancers celebrating peace in the city. Going into detail, Bourges explains that they were cross-dressing men paid by the municipality to put on a show of joy. Their faces are actually more sad than one would have thought. This bittersweet scene chosen by the choreographer as the starting point for these dances has a special importance. “This dance casts a slight shadow over the joyous scene and the ‘good’ side of things. Maybe it’s not so joyous because there is always a war to come, and yet peace must be celebrated… Perhaps the political meaning lies in that state of ‘not giving in,’ not giving in to the fear of tomorrow, a possible upcoming war; maybe the artistic meaning is of the same kind, for Lorenzetti, the nine and me? A refusal to abandon the principles we believe are right, even when afflicted by deep sadness,” the choreographer argues. The other main figure is that of the allegory of Securitas, a winged bare-breasted woman high above the city’s ramparts. “This might be the first positive female nude in the history of European painting, and that’s not nothing,” Bourges explains. It inspired her to incorporate nudity in a very significant way in this piece. “Based on what Lorenzetti chose to show, I was interested in asking the women to perform bare-breasted, like Securitas, and then to play with the audience’s perception by asking the male performers to bare their lower bodies after that. We know that historically the distribution of nudity has been gendered, and I thought it would be interesting to emphasize that physically through a simple act, taking off one’s t-shirt or pants, in a piece that’s about art history.” Perhaps this is a way to put the genders on an equal footing in regard to the political problematics that affect everyone equally. From the past to the present, Bourges is the lucid observer of a possible swing from good to bad government. If fear really is the driving force, these collective changes should be considered in connection with our individual responsibilities. There’s much to think about here, and to act on. There are many forms of political engagement, and here we see that performance is one that is particularly useful.

Translation, L-S Torgoff Thibaut Sardier, a graduate of the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, is a columnist and critic. Gaëlle Bourges Née en 1967. Vit et travaille à Tours et à Paris. Dernières créations : 2012 En découdre (un rêve grec) 2013 Un beau raté Le Verrou 2014 59 À mon seul désir 2015 Lascaux;