Битеф
organisation. 1 975—1 981 : The first wave of wild enthusiasm The early years are a time of artistic chaos. Two of us make the plans, and others are invited on an ad hoc basis. Anyone who wants to can join in, and nobody earns anything. Inadvertently, there is soon a regular team of six or seven players: a company. We earn a living doing odd jobs, devoting ourselves day and night to theatre and the visual arts. We read the surrealist and futurist manifestos of the twenties. We go to see performances by English companies like Welfare State, John Bull Puncture Repair Kit and People Show, and we accept commissions by the score. Our ambition is not theatre or mime. We try to disrupt reality by astonishing people with jarring images and events - preferably unannounced. We are game for anything, almost everything we do is for the first time. We learn something new each time, and people who see us at work are continually surprised that we have so much energy. We don't just learn the tricks of the trade in the street, but above all in youth clubs. No one there is dying for theatre, but sometimes we manage to electrify the whole building from attic to cellar. Even now, fifteen years after, we still come across people who tell us what they saw in their village in the provinces when they were seventeen, with complete details of the performance. Out first full-length performances are indoors, not in the open - despite what our later work might lead you to expect. A large-scale open air Derformance needs a permit, lighting, a safe spot or the attributes and all that kind oa thing, and we naven't the organisation for that yet. Inside four walls it is much easier for us to find out how we can entertain an audience for an hour and a half. During this period full-length performances are only a small part of our work. We usually play among the audience with odd acts, in the street and during festivals in buildings. Our large-scale productions are the direct product of that smallscale work. We develop a basic form in our first year, which we continue to use as a standard in most of our performances during the next six years. Wherever we are, we divide the space and the performance into five or six different situations for the audience and the players. Each of the situations is a
framework in which we combine a number of elements which have been created by various individuals. The performance as a whole is a journey for the audience through those situations. Take »Chaoses and Stupidities« (Amsterdam, Melkweg, 1 978); 1. Three musicians walkthrough the building to anounce the performance. They are incomprehensible because of the sticks stretching from cheek to cheek inside their mouths. Fortunately they have sandwichboards with them to explain their meaningless babble. 2. The audience enter the auditorium through a narrow corridor. One by one, the spectators pass a woman with eight hands, someone whispering a poem in their ear, and other personal confrontations. 3. The corridor leads into a small theatre where the members of the audience are packed tightly together in a small arena as they intently watch two short visual stories: the latent struggle between two jealous sisters, and a waiter serving up a pianist. 4. The rear wall of the small theatre slides to one side at the end of the second story. The audience clamber out of the small arena and find themselves in a narrow alley which opens onto a raised stage, where we are playing a wild piece of street theatre under the bright lights: a dog which comes out of an egg is dressed as a princess and learns to dance, until it literally dances everyone off the stage. 5. The walls of the alley disappear, and the audience are now in a large hall like a market where they can walk around between separate acts, such as a poetic organ-grinder with his monkey, and a woman who is ashamed at frying fish. 6. While the market is still going on, two slow processions accompanied By sober music and large monumental objects gradually move toward one another from opposite corners of the hall. All the other acts in the space slowly come to an end. The space has changed from a market to a ritual site. As in a duel, the two processions meet and then move back from one another again. On one side a large bird is hoisted, while on the other an archer takes up position. The audience automatically form two rows, between which the archer aims his arrows at the bird, there is a sense of danger. This ritual part marks the end of the performance: the doors open and the audience can go back outside.