Sibiu Review

FITS 2009

by: Cristina Rusiecki 10. june 2009. 

A few days ago, the 16th edition of the grandiose International Sibiu Theatre Festival came to an end. For ten days ISTF focused, as always, the interest of the community upon the arts of performance, theatre, theatre-dance, lecture-performances, workshops, expositions, book releases, conferences, street and music performances, at a dizzying pace. I shall depict only two, for the sake of the time-old technique of point-counterpoint: Mongered and Triptych: it is time that prints on wax ......................................

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In the world woven in aggression and noise, in the sonar pollution (of the jackhammer placed outside my balcony over the past ten days, for example) that ruffles up the being in successive layers, the Irishmen (sic) Ursula Mawson-Raffalt and Anthony J. Faulder-Mawson seek out peace for one hour and twenty minutes: "Triptych: it is Time that prints on Wax"

Their interdisciplinary experiment is a result of a collaboration almost two decades in the making. Better said, of a simplification of sixteen years.
Nothing exterior except the video projector in the back with clear water trickling steadily and washing rocks. At intervals, in the middle of the screen a coloured square is centred. In fact, the only colour in the ambiance. 

The three performers are dressed (by Elena Scelzi) in colours of a perfect neutrality (black or grey), each with an element that reminds one of The Matrix . The veil from which the costume of Ursula Mawson-Raffalt is made is also grey, without nuances. 

Below, either a black triangle within a circle, or a white square define the beams that "set" the flux of consciousness.

The space is made up like an empty zone, without stress, without syncope. A land where discontinuity has not penetrated. Only occasional whispers, a profound breath, a listing of numbers, then a text that sounds as if emerging from the last barricade of modernism.

The assistance is slowly submerged into the core of the interior life. The flow of consciousness is rarely paying attention to itself. A murmur here, a movement there, a discrete crack, but every time surprising, provoked by the two choir singers of silence, they break the rhythm in order to bring the throbbings of the interior life and of the memory that is re-taken over and over. 

Beside that, a mechanical flow of sounds with silence, indecipherable chutes, breathing and movements that are repeated over and over. 

The choreographer's wrist wriggles with the grace of a ritual Indian dance. The finesse, the distinction, the delicacy, the concentration, all her gestures, from an aesthete of movement, seem to be remains leaked

out from the mythical inheritance of the great dancers of the past century.

Steadily, the sensation of silence invades all the layers of the being. Defalcated from the collision with the exterior, she descends in the marrow of the lack of asperities. The silence makes permeable the interior layers, dilutes the crusts of the analytical into the spectator. With the same repeated words, with circle turnings of thoughts, with fetish-numbers, with whispers, with foretold breathings, "Triptych: it is time that prints on wax" it penetrates the concentric circles of the interior flow in order to reach, at one point, the warm core of which the inspiration and the poetry drips. "My function, as artist, is simply to inspire the individual rather than to entertain the masses!" - this is the statement of the creators.The pale powers of the description cannot reproduce the syntax of silence. 

The multimedia language from "Triptych: it is time that prints on wax", is one of the most moving and melodious performances that I have ever seen, it therapeutically accesses each sense of the spectators. The result is to be cast in a cool and calming background.

Oliver Dowling Essay

Anthony J. Faulder-Mawson and Ursula Mawson-Raffalt

To experience the work of Anthony J. Faulder-Mawson and Ursula Mawson-Raffalt is to be part of a world that includes paint, words, numbers, dance, move­ment, music, sound, light, performance, exhibition, theatre. The word artist is too narrow to describe either of them as he is an artist/inventor/craftsman of paint systems and she is a dancer/inventor of text and movement. Separately they create each in his and her own world while sharing a common bond of creating places and situations where the work is mesmeric and spiritual.

They have many common bonds which were in place before they ever met. These now come together to create beautiful and tough work that deserves attention and time.

The work of Anthony Faulder-Mawson is simple to look at and minimal in ap­proach. Or appears to be simple and minimal but comes out of a complex and well studied series of systems and chance. Apparent contradiction. His early work references were Juan Gris and Jackson Pollock. Then he discovered Mark Rothko and Piet Mondrian among others. His respect for these artists continues to be present. And added to them were writers and composers of music and sound including Samuel Beckett , John Cage and Morton Feldman. He started life as an artist through the now considered conventional path of the art college. Being a non-conformist he soon set off on his own journey and discovered for himself the magic and mysteries of the visual world. He sees and is especially affected by what he sees and what he hears. And he also has to get behind what he sees and hears.

Ursula Mawson-Raffalt is a wordsmith and creator of movement. She started her dance life through the conventional path of a dance school in Vienna. She too felt restricted by convention and set off on her own path of discovery by exploring and creating works that push boundaries. In performance her classical training as a dancer is evident and she introduces words and a system of movement that responds to her words. It is at this moment that the creative impetus of both comes together. Anthony’s sequence of paintings and light works inhabit the space in their own right while Ursula’s movement and dance are separate and yet it is one whole.

Working independently they are rigid disciplinarians. His paintings come out of a well researched system of mathematics and binary systems and he has a detailed recipe for each work. Each time a painting is made according to his system it should come out the same and often will look the same but the layering and application of paint will be dependent on forces outside his control and there will always be subtle differ­ences. And this is ok by him as he is too aware of the creative process not to allow for chance. Her words and dance come out of her exploration of a world that is based on a quintessential essence shared by both.

Like all art the work of Anthony and Ursula comes out of art. They are passionate in their art references. They write very insightfully of their own work. Having attended performances of theirs in the past, I see that they are curious and not easily definable artists who create work of great beauty allied with tension and ease.

Oliver Dowling

April 2009