The recent premiere presented by the Center for Artistic Expression of the Odeon Theater, Not Me and Solo, from Samuel Beckett, is a dance show by Raluca Ianegic, and it proves that choreography has indeed found in Beckett a good companion in ideas, as his work corresponds to the choreographer's own vision. Like in Beckett's plays, in Raluca Ianegic's dances there are very few facts that the story is about, but the dramatic tension is enormous. She has been repeatedly criticized over the disquiet and desolation suggested by her creations. This is why Beckett's quote about himself, placed by Raluca on the show's poster, is a shield. In that text, Beckett tells the story of how he left a party where a guest had asked him about the cause of the desolation in his plays, which was considered incomprehensible and almost perverse. He took a taxi, and on its window there were three posters requesting assistance for blind people, orphans, and war refugees. This was Beckett's conclusion: it is not necessary to look for misfortune, it will catch your eye anyway, even in London taxis. Apart from this spiritual relation, Raluca Ianegic approaches the artistic universe of Samuel Beckett, who took a along time to weigh his expression means, also through her language preoccupations, which have grown stronger in recent years and seem to have clarified now, in this latest creation. Apart from the signaled affinities, it is also interesting to remember something that several of Beckett's commentators have said, namely that in his plays his detailed indications for the director on expression, gestures, and movement create a plastic image of the stage that is almost as important as the text itself. One more reason for the choreographer to wish to place emphasis on this visual side of Beckett's work. It is noteworthy that the main quality of Not Me and Solo is the overall stage image, which is unitary and suggestive. Both the costumes designed by Lia Manţoc and the scenery by Constantin Ciubotaru add felicitously to the show, along with the plastic dance, unfolding against the sounds by Maia Ciobanu. Unlike Raluca Ianegic's show last year Decomposed Dream, where several scenery elements were just a presence in themselves, this time they are all perfectly justified in the choreographic approach: the opaque wall that dancers bump into, the cube or slant with transparent walls, which make it possible to read the crouching movements inside, or the opaque cubes and the chairs that co-participate in the moving plastic of the dance. The style of this choreographic discourse is integrated in the minimalist current, the composition is made up of sequences where a succession of three-four movements is persistently reiterated. However, what belongs to the choreographer is the variety of the movements, which are very rich, and the adequacy of the proposed theme -- the solitude of each individual, even when he is with other people. Of course, this is a Beckett motif, and solitude is a subject that Raluca Ianegic has persistently dealt with, sometimes explicitly, as it happened in one of her best works, the Common House of Our Solitude. In solitude, human beings wait, but this waiting for a possible communication with other people or with God is more marked by utterance than by dancing in Not Me and Solo. The desolation that impregnates each movement is touching in this show, thus opening the way for understanding the under layer beyond the visual. This is due, however, not only to the choreographer and her performers, first and foremost Anca Iorga, Doina Georgescu, and Mugur Gheondea, but also to Rodica Geantă and Ioana Dică, who took up the style perfectly, and who also contributed to the value of the show through their own artistic personalities. Both Beckett's texts recorded on tape and the choreography seem to be looking for what is impossible to find, asking questions without getting any response, sometimes marked by rebellion accents. But searching is a sign of a living spirit, and rebellion hides within itself a longing.
by Liana Tugearu
