Interview | Saara Roppola, Director, Writer and Performer of CORPUS NULL at the Anywhere Festival

With only a few days left until the opening of Anywhere Festival 2021, Brisbane's brightest and biggest fringe festival, I will be continuing to post interviews with the artists behind some of its shows, as well as reviews of the productions. Next up on our local artists Brisbane interview segment is Saara Roppola who is the movement director, writer and a performer in Corpus Null at Anywhere Festival. Here's what Sara had to say...

VIRAG: Your work 'Corpus Nul' is making it's Brisvegas debut at the Sideshow as a part of Anywhere Festival this month. How are rehearsals going?

SAARA: Rehearsals are going well. There is a surprising amount of detail in Butoh, a form that typically looks very organic and spontaneous has to have a very sturdy foundation. To achieve the effects we're after there's a lot of training involved. The cast are all so dedicated to their butoh/movement practice already so this show is a great opportunity to develop and research together.

It's been awesome working with Paul Young, Orthotyp-a, doing the sound work for this show. We delightfully surprise each other through the cross-disciplinary conversation of movement and sound, hinged on the conceptual premise of the show.

VIRAG: Talk me through the creative process

SAARA: This piece started with a skeleton of poetric movement imagery inspired by Deleuze and Guattari's concept Body Without Organs as a way of understanding the positioning of the body within capitalism as both its function and its evasion. I wanted to explore tension of this position against cycles of symbiotic genesis and extinction. There's a process of physical embodiment and improvising in the studio to find 'images' that attempt to exist between becoming and undoing, a territorialised body in the void of unattainable desire. Then I've fleshing out the images to bring the skeleton to life with the other performers and sound design.

VIRAG: Why have you decided to share this work and this story now.

SAARA: I feel like this work is a way to unpack feelings around the ecological crisis and mass extinction that are currently existing in. Even though the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari is a few decades old, it feel very relevant to the condition we find ourselves in. I want to elicit little freedoms of the flesh, to be free of institutionalisation through Butoh. Also, the particular methods and imagery I am using are coming from my training with butoh master, Masaki Iwana, who recently past away. The methods he taught me were further developed through training and performing closely with Stefano Taiuti over several years. So I wanted to create a work that really investigates the 'Spiritual mechanisms' uncovered during this time. Also, because the methods and imagery align with the concepts I'm dealing with seamlessly.

VIRAG: What do you hope that the audience feels after viewing your work?

SAARA: Audience response... if they are into the idea's that we're inspired by they might be amused by the interpretation and references. However, even if one does or doesn't know anything about butoh or the concepts, I imagine a dream-like experience that is somehow both unsettling and satisfying, reaching something deep in our psyche. I hope the artwork has a certain intensity that different people will have different responses to.

VIRAG: Lastly, how we can we support your work and future projects?

SAARA: People can help by coming to the show! We would also love feedback for further development and will be providing the audience a link to a feedback form.

Event link: https://fb.me/e/ddf2xQOe0

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