Brothers Karamazov Made in China
DUM (Slovenia) | choreographer: Mateja Bučar
Today, most of our consumer objects are in fact Chinese, but China has presented us with far more radical changes in social and family organizations. In the field of Yuri Leiderman’s geopoetics, this project explores a strange new brotherhood “Made in China” emerging today.
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idea & choreography: Mateja Bucar
dance & choreography: I-Fen Lin, Mu-Yi Kuo, Pei-Jen Tsai, Reb Mur-Ji (Rebecca Murgi)
visual concept: Vadim Fishkin
music: Borut Savski
about the performance
The idea falls in the field of “GEOPOETICS” , that is when geographical, religious, ideological matters are approached to in a poetic way, in the sense as artists Yuri Leiderman once explained :
“It is the idea that politics, races, people are essentially transformed into in existent objects, like small ovals, boxes, lumps, closets. Then their status can become very flexible and unpredictable: a real character, a real people representative, but in fact just a representative of the corners near plinths or a representative of coffee stains…”
Today it is not just that most of our consumer objects are in fact Chinese: China has presented us with far more radical changes in social and family organizations. With its “one child” policy, China has shown that sibling relationships can be eradicated. In China we thus do not have brothers and sisters anymore. The lack of sibling rivalry, however, does not necessary bring contentment to people. The Chinese worry is that one-child families are creating “The Child Emperors” – narcissistic boys over-indulged by parental love who have problems forming social relationships.
China is also opening new ways of thinking through people’s beliefs in authorities and religion. Dostoevski in his “Brothers Karamazov” famously concluded that if God does not exist everything becomes permitted. Jaques Lacan, however, reversed this saying into: “If God does not exist nothing is permitted any longer.” China has created its own gods to escape this dilemma. The God of the Communist Party seems to thrive together with the God of Capitalism. A strange new brotherhood “Made in China” is emerging today.
Renata Salecl
about the choreographer
Graduated in studies of classical and modern dance at Ballet school Ljubljana and Centre de dance international Rosella Hightower, Cannes France, continued Biology studies at University of Ljubljana; in 1984 engaged in Slovenian National Ballet in Ljubljana and 1989 joined Dance Theatre Ljubljana and since 1992 working as independent choreographer.
