Day 5: Shell Shock and Awe

Blog by Gareth K Vile | 23 Mar 2010

It's true. I was too shell-shocked to write the final blog the next day. After five days in The Arches, I buckled under the weight of imagery and intensity. Yet I had enjoyed this National Review more than any previous edition. Not only was the line up strong, the atmosphere was friendly and inclusive. For an event that so frequently dramatises crushing alienation and gaping voids, the audience was generous and chatty.

Sunday was almost gentle, if the the sight of Yann Marussich sitting arse-deep in a box of broken glass isn't too disturbing. Marussich took an hour to carefully stand up, scattering shards across the floor. The cunning lighting, the electronic soundtrack, Marussich's expression of intense concentration: so little happened, but it was fascinating. Even the smallest gesture was loaded, from a flickering finger to the shifts in his posture. Marussich is a great one for endurance work – he is always finding a new way to abuse his body – and he seems to have taken Beckett's absurdist sadism to a final, wordless intensity. Whenever I need a way to describe the anguish of living, and the human triumph over suffering, he's my man.

Silke Mansholt's hour was uneven. "This was another piece that was not about Hitler", she explained, before dancing and playing golf under a sign reading "Art Mach Frei". Mansholt is another veteran of NRLA: it is surprising how her individual sequences – a dance to Purcell, interrupted by a tenative explanation, a fireside chat on the creative process – are so powerful, while her structure is so baggy. She almost lost me in the first five minutes, by going into a dissertation on how to play golf. However, she pulled it back, through dance and dark humour. It's a rare example of an act that I wish had slightly more conventional structure.

Aside from cheering Kate Stannard when she finished her endurance cycling, Sunday was a day for reflection. I wandered around, chatted with students from the RSAMD and tried to articulate why I love Live Art. Of course, Iona Kewney was my highlight. I find it impossible to do other than gush about her. I even missed the legendary Ron Athey to watch her.

There is so much talk about diversity and community in the arts' world, and The NRLA actually develops them. There are performers who don't communicate, who rely on their status as "artist" to mystify or make great claims for empty gestures. The conceptual has taken hold to such an extent that the experience or performance can take second place to the idea. And yet, as I wander around, there's something comprehensive about the catalogue of ideas and experiences: the awkward emotions that are usually resolved in theatre are left hanging, inviting questions and not preaching solutions. However crazy I may get, there is someone at NRLA telling me that I am not alone, and the classic "artistic creation out of confusion" cliche is given new life. I might sometimes wish that the work was clearer, or feel anger at lazy performance. Yet I rapidly lose the resentment, and settle down to meditate on the stunning plurality of styles, genres and boundary-breakers. If Live Art is difficult, intellectual, abstract, harsh, loving, awkward, it pretty much reflects my life.