Robert Pfaller. Hurry Scurry Stay in Line

I was born one mornin’, it was drizzlin’ rain
Fightin’ and trouble are my middle name
I was raised in the canebrake by an ol’ mama lion
Can’t no high toned woman make me walk the line

(Tennessee Ernie Ford, 16 Tons)

01
Even when a line is not being used as a line of demarcation, the line is still what separates, for example, a number of movements that are held together by a line from all other movements that are not held together by such an artificial restriction. Doing something in a line is separated, by this very line, from all other kinds of doing something.
02
The line functions in Mateja Bučar’s new choreography as the mark of a productive limitation. Not a limit in productivity, on the contrary: a limitation that proves itself to be productive. Movements are thus limited to pertaining to a line. Yet this limitation immediately opens up a space of invention. It brings about all kinds of obvious, fancy, strange or bizarre ways of dealing with one’s attachment to the line. The rule of the line does not just exclude or forbid a number of movements. At the same time it suggests a goal for an abundant other number of movements. It brings about a desire, not to break the rule, but to fulfill it and to reach its goal, maybe by an unexpected move. As soon as the rule of the line is formulated, the spirit of play is provoked – or as it were invoked, engendered. Even the rebellious, outlaw spirit is here not to be understood as the one that violates the rule, but rather as the one that attempts to reach the suggested goal in a strange, funny way, against all possible hindrances. Starting from the line, the movement can gain lightness and precision – just like the word in the poem that, starting from the law of the rhyme, can gain, with its playfully matching signifier, an unexpected accuracy on the level of the signified.
03
The line brings together a number of movements just like a string unites a number of pearls.
Connecting pearls by a string is a way of bringing them together in a way different from, for example uniting them in a box or grasping them by one’s hand. Connecting movements by the criterion of their pertaining to the line is a way of bringing movements together that is different from uniting them, for example, by the criterion of their similarity, their juxtaposition, their contrast or their narrative sequence. The rule is never only the opposite of no rule, but as well of several other rules that often remain unacknowledged due to their self-evident, customary character. The rule of the line is the breaking with other rules. Only due to this fact – that it breaks with customary, unacknowledged rules – the rule of the line can bring about the unexpected. This idea resonates in the beautiful remark by Niklas Luhmann who once stated that “method is what allows the scientific research to surprise itself”.
04
The line allows the artists’ efforts to leave the boring area of what philosopher G. W. F. Hegel has called “indifferent diversity” (“gleichgültige Verschiedenheit”). Instead, it creates a relation – the required minimum for playful speculation on the side of its observers and, as a consequence, of their aesthetic pleasure. One may feel reminded here of Blaise Pascal’s remark “Two faces are alike; neither is funny by itself, but side by side their likeness makes us laugh”.