Florin Flueras & Brynjar Bandlien
After a long break since the première scandal in Paris, the acclaimed choreographer Stere Popescu and his masterpiece, The Hammer without a Master, were starting to tour again with successes and scandals in Berlin, Stockholm, Bucharest, Ljubljana, Oslo, Lublin, Vienna, Brussels. As in the summer of 65 in Paris, Stere Popescu, Brynjar Bandlien and Florin Flueras are aware that “the Hammer without a Master was too modern then, and it is too contemporary now”. The Hammer without a Master is The Romanian Dance History.
"The work is concerned with the process of exaggerating the history and the need of creating great values in the past. It's about how the institutions can transform something scandalous at that time, in something tamed and “valuable”, while possibly disregarding equivalent attitudes and works in the present. Sanda Agalides, the former wife of Stere Popescu, said that this remake was done “in the spirit of Stere” by managing to scandalize a good part of Romanian dance community who expected a formal and reverential reenactment of the piece. In a way this is a modern gesture towards a modern work. A reenactment of the performativity of the Hammer, not of its content." Stere Popescu
"The work is concerned with the process of exaggerating the history and the need of creating great values in the past. It's about how the institutions can transform something scandalous at that time, in something tamed and “valuable”, while possibly disregarding equivalent attitudes and works in the present. Sanda Agalides, the former wife of Stere Popescu, said that this remake was done “in the spirit of Stere” by managing to scandalize a good part of Romanian dance community who expected a formal and reverential reenactment of the piece. In a way this is a modern gesture towards a modern work. A reenactment of the performativity of the Hammer, not of its content." Stere Popescu
 |
| Hammer without a Master, durational, at Bozar Brussels, 2018 |