Words by Franka Magon

Fräulein Legend: Constanza Macras – “Every war starts on a body”

While her performances have gained international recognition, dancer, director and choreographer Constanza Macras remains rooted in her hometown of choice: Berlin. In her newest show Goodbye Berlin, which will be her last one showing at Volksbühne, she reinterprets a well-known story in contemporary times. The tense relationship between excess and fear in times when fascism is on the rise is placed in the context of today’s Berlin. Constanza uses the body as her medium of choice to convey her messages, allowing it to be never not political.

Franka Magon: When did dancing first enter your life?

Constanza Macras: I started to dance ballet when I was a child, maybe eight years old. And back then my mom sometimes took me to the ballet at Teatro Colón, the Opera House in Buenos Aires. For me that was the best, because I got to go with my mom and it was something we really enjoyed together, and because I loved dance.

Do you think an artist can ever work independently of their cultural heritage? And if not, in which ways does Argentine culture resonate through your choreographies?

At the beginning of my career I didn’t feel like my work was representing my culture. It could have been from anywhere because it was contemporary work. And I felt like a contemporary artist, a global artist. I wasn’t doing tango or anything else associated with Argentina. But later, when I grew up more and matured in my work, I realized that it does influence me. 
“Slowly I noticed that my heritage is actually a big part of my identity, and everything that marked my life has to do with it.”

It makes sense that you use your art to convey a message you feel personally attached to. In which of your shows did your cultural heritage resonate, and how?

In many of my pieces, The West for example. I often discuss themes of imperialism, dictatorship and colonization. These themes connect to my culture as Argentina’s history was deeply affected by harmful US influence, which you still feel today. So yeah, you’ll find my culture in most of my pieces. Maybe not in Goodbye Berlin – that’s my most German show ever.

You use dance as a language to transmit emotion and a distinct message. What draws you to communicate this way? Do you feel that the body can convey something more immediate, more open, more urgent than words?

I think there’s nothing more political than a body, you know what I mean? Every war starts on a body — especially on a woman’s body, because rape is one of the biggest elements of war. So when you are physically present and expressing things through your body for which you sometimes have no words, ideas can be conveyed very strongly. And it’s just the medium I grew up with; I grew up as a dancer. This was the first medium I really went into. At the beginning of my career my pieces were purely dance, with no text. When I came to Europe and started to look at different kinds of works, I got really inspired by artists playing with mixed media. That definitely influenced my way of working. Still, dance stays at the center.

Dance is a clear language, yeah. And it's interesting you talk about mixed media because you yourself have used different media. In your new piece you adapt Goodbye to Berlin, a book that has been interpreted in many formats, including the film Cabaret. You also work more and more in international film productions as a choreographer, yet you remain deeply connected to the theatre. What makes this medium so essential for you? Why always return to it?

I love the live experience. I’m the person annoying everyone who keeps on changing the texts during the shows. I know that drives everyone crazy, but it also keeps the work alive. I love what happens between the audience and the performers in the theater. I love the backstage work. What’s happening backstage is like a crazy choreography itself, like a big band. It’s beautiful. You don’t really have these things in other media. If you work on movies, you cannot be there every time the audience reacts to your choreography. Also, I love this group of people I work with. I’m so privileged and inspired to work with such great and disciplined artists who bring up so many ideas. My work wouldn’t exist without them, and that’s what I love about theater. It is a collaborative art.

With the publication of your book, you are once again turning to a different medium. Why is it important for you to now tell your own story?

I think we always tell our own story in one way or another. An artist cannot leave themselves out of their art; humans are limited, our subjects are limited. And I feel like we will refer to who we are one way or another. In some shows I talk about myself, in others I don’t. But the work is always filtered through my point of view and through the people I work with. Goodbye Berlin, for example, isn’t my story, but it’s still about my life, as it is about Berlin.

Let’s talk about the piece. In Goodbye Berlin you draw clear parallels between Berlin in the Weimar Republic and Berlin today. Back then, the city was defined by fear: politically, economically and socially.

Fear and excess, yes.

Concentrating on fear first: what role does it play for you personally?

I am not really afraid of anything for myself. But as a mother of a son, it’s scary to think that boys someday maybe will have to go and fight a war. That is my fear, basically. War has never brought a solution to anything; it cuts through society so deeply, and it’s definitely not about protecting our freedom. I find it very stupid. So of course, I am afraid of humans and their stupid decisions.

Is Goodbye Berlin your way of handling your own fear?

No. But of course, every show I do has something to do with topics I am busy with. That is the magic of doing theater: being able to talk about things that are urgent and happening right in front of you. Sometimes we feel what’s happening and react to it by addressing it in a show before we can really grasp it in real life. Theater is wonderful for that, as it sometimes connects you with life.

As you already mentioned, in Goodbye Berlin, fear exists in a tense relationship with excess. Do you see excess functioning as resistance, as a form of denial, or perhaps both?

I think it’s both. There is this sentence: “Let’s have sex until the world is ending,” and I think that makes sense. When we feel we are ending, we want to create more offspring to survive. So we don’t just have lots of sex for having pure sex only, but as resistance maybe. And there also is this huge element of denial in excess. People taking drugs is denial, not resistance. Drugs have always been a huge thing in Berlin, but right now it’s crazy. The people are out, you know — not just in the arts, you see it in every circle.

Would you connect the increasing drug consumption to the rise of fascism?

I think it’s just a consequence of many things coming together. But yes, for the people who see it with fear, drugs are a way of denial. And then there is something about drugs that makes people feel overpowerful. And this mix, together with the state of the internet with all its echo chambers and the political climate, is a very bad combination.

Times in which fascism rises are often marked by restrictions on artistic freedom. Where do you feel your own agency as an artist is limited today? And do you sense that these limitations are increasing?

Yeah, definitely. I mean right now as an artist you cannot say “stop genocide” or “ceasefire” without being called anti-Semitic. That’s just denial of the main problem. And artistic freedom is attacked on those principles. That is really scary, yes. And I think this is something everybody felt in Berlin in the last years.

Did you recently find yourself in a situation where you wanted to use a stage to make a political statement and were told not to?

Well, no. But I think in my shows the critical statement is never that obvious but always there in one way or another. And it is important that it stays that way. If we don’t have freedom of expression, we don’t have democracy.

That reminds me of you saying that art is always about collective action and community. Goodbye Berlin also deals with the importance of such. What is your personal understanding of collectivity?

I think collectivity can happen under any umbrella of political beliefs or actions. It shows the worst and the best of humanity.

Berlin’s contemporary cultural scene is rooted in collectives and in movements formed by marginalized communities who created spaces of acceptance. Today, with gentrification, these spaces are increasingly monetized. Do you think subculture becoming mainstream results in endangering safe spaces?

No, I don’t think it has to do with subculture becoming mainstream. Those places are endangered because of people with very strong economic and political interests.
“When conservative politics are heading to the front, every place you fought for is questioned and in danger.”

What strategies are there to protect those safe spaces and the underlying community of a city?

I think art protects that. And as artists you can always look for ways to create those spaces, which is still happening all the time. And I love to see that because that’s really part of what makes Berlin: that there is underground, that there is a culture. People get together here and support each other. We have to protect that.

Credits
Images Courtesy of Thomas Aurin

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