Video still from Casper Dillen: Long Tennis. Courtesy the artist.
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Created during lockdown. In a kitchen. Two dancers. Mother and son. New Jersey based composer Gia Dreyer created the music.
Long Tennis is a piece structured by an oscillating force that directs the audience's gaze. “Tennis” a game played within a confined area. Balls are “in” or “out”. In ballet “in” or “out” refers to the turning of body parts. “Long” is time and space. Distance. For a long time.
In the 50s and 60s performance emancipated art from the necessity to present an object. Then, performance emancipated itself from the necessity not to present an object. And it questioned strategies of presenting the subject. In fact, the entire "subject object" distinction is falling apart. In the mid-1970s, Rose Finn-Kelcey developed a strategy she called "vacated performance," which involved a combination of live-action and recorded elements with installation. She said, "At the time, I wanted to be both inside the work and yet, as it unfolded, to also be an objective viewer" (quoted in Brett, p.8). Long Tennis suggests a similar ambivalence about the artist’s position as creator, subject and viewer. The dancers' faces are obscured, their bodies recorded. A performance without subjects. Subjects have a form of spontaneity and ability to adapt that a screened body does not. If there is a fire alarm the body can exit the building, the screened version of it cannot.
Further reading:
Guy Brett and Rose Finn-Kelcey, Rose Finn-Kelcey, exhibition catalogue, Chisenhale Gallery, London and Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, 1994
Performed by: Casper Dillen, Inge Cauwenbergh
Music composed by: Gia Dreyer
Featuring music by: Neo Gao
Featuring: Lewis Oliver Douglas
Casper Dillen (b. 1999) is a Belgian experimental theatre stage director, writer and artist, making performances and films. Currently based between London and Brussels. He studied at Central Saint Martins where he received the Deans Award for his performance: Adem. His work has been collected by the CSM Museum and Study Collection. He has produced work for theatres and galleries. Most notably a solo exhibition at the Bomb Factory Art Foundation, a performance at The Place, London, and at Tictac Art Centre, Brussels. His films have been screened at the Southbank Centre, London. His work has been called “brave, uncompromising and ceaselessly experimental.” In conjunction with his artistic practice Casper has written a dissertation under the supervision of notable Aristotle scholar Dr. Sophia Connell. Completing a post-graduate degree in Philosophy at Birkbeck, with distinction. His philosophical research and writing focuses on ancient Greek tragedies. Treating them as forms of avant-gard garde performance and thinking through the political and aesthetic consequences of tragedy.
Gia Dreyer (they/them) is a queer non-binary composer interested in understanding identity through autoethnographic practice. By embracing perspectivism in relation to their own intimate experiences, they hope to express inter/intrapersonal relationships in their art. Gia attended Duke University and the Royal Academy of Music, London, where they studied music composition. Their approach to composition intersects with post-structuralism, queer theory, and critical theory. Recent debuts of their work and research include the Atlantic Center for the Arts Residency, the Vienna Summer Music Festival, and the Atlantic Music Festival.