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kupuje »Sliku 1 946«, čime je označen početak Baconovog međunarodnog ugleda. 1 949 Prva u nizu papinih slika. 1 954 Bacon sa još ava slikara predstavlja Veliku Britaniju na 27. bijenalu u Veneciji. 1 962 Velika retrospektiva u Tejt galeriji u Londonu. 1963 Retrospektivne izložbe u Njujorku i Cikagu. 1967 Triptih prema »Sweeney Agonists« TS. Eliota. 1 971 Casopis »Connaissance des Arts«, prema izboru kritičara, proglašava Bacona za »najvećeg živog umetnika«. 1 975 Izložba u Metropoliten muzeju u Njujorku. 1981 Triptih nadahnut Eshilovom Oresfijom. 1 985 Velika retrospektiva u Tejt galeriji u Londonu. 1 992 Francis Bacon urnire 28. aprila. ■

FRANCIS BACON Two men are wrestling each other: is it a merciless combat or an act of love? Or perhaps both? And the woman: hermaphrodite caught between Madonna and slaughterhouseanimal images is a paradigm of both Christianity's and modem psychology's ideals. This scenic creation plunges into the imagination's deep canyons, into the imagination of the paintings sired by the English painter Francis Bacon and which sweeps the full extend of the human creature's nature. Bacon was bom in Dublin in 1 909. His paintings cannot be found in the walls of compliant homes since they destroy the docile sense of harmony; appear destructive, rebellious, accusatory and introduce protest to the viewer. Bacon was an excessive drinker, a gambler and a connoisseur of life's great pleasures, and he was also an acknowledged outsider, lone wolf, agitator, and visionary. As a painter, he was one of this century's key-figures, he created myth and legend through his crucifixion paintings, through his obsessive revision of Velazquez's Portait of the Pope, through his never-ending arguments wih movement, space, time, and coincidence. Bacon died in April 1 992. »The theme is fear, stark-naked fear. Fear of life and of death. The theme is the human being as a human being. His birth: a painful process. His death: a shabby and wretched demise. Life : not a sneak preview of hell but hell itself. His ego: naked

and bare, without protecting shroud, torn by itself, despairing to the point of puking about its bare existence. His fellow-man: a loved-hated partner in a merciless fight to ransack all emotions an object of desire as well as loathing. The world: a freezing domicile without hope, without on Utopian dream.« Apart from Pina Bausch in Wuppertal, Johann Kresnik is the most eminent representative of the modern German dance theatre. Born 1939 in Austria, he first went through several stages in his career as classical ballet dancer before he started to choreograph in 1 967. Since 1 968 he managed Bremen's Dance Theatre for ten years and later was choreographer and producer in Heidelberg, on Bremen's Theatre, as well as a guest perfomer in Berlin, Salzburg, Vienna, and other cities. At the beginning of the 1 994/95 season he was called to Berlin's Volksbühne to work under the directorship of Frank Castorf. Regardless of their subject malter, Kresnik's productions are always commentaries of contemporary times. Regardless if the theme or the plat are taken from the present, from yesterday, or from yesteryear, regardless if they touch on either the anger arising out of »Wendewut« in 1 990, or on the fates of Ulrike Meinhof, Rosa Luxemburg, the painter Frida Kahlo, or they if devote themselves to Shakespeare's King Lear or Macbeth; they are always political productions. Kresnik sees life itself as a political expression. His »Choreographic Theatre« both shocks and fascinates the audience. Francis Bacon stands and falls with the Brazilian dancer Ismael Ivo. Twice his native town Sao Paulo bestowed upon him the award of best solo dancer. Alvin Alley called him In 1 983 to his famous American Dance Theatre in New York City. Ivo lives since 1 985 in Berlin. He made numerous worldwide solo guest appearance and in 1 993 created his first group choreography »Labyrinthes« at Stuttgart's Theatre House. Ivo is now for more than ten years the artistic manager of the International Dance Weeks Vienna festival. Mara Borba also hails from Sao Paulo and received modern ballet training. Tero Saarinen is of Finish origin and studied classical, Nepalese, and Japanese dance. Both also created choreographies of their own. »The production is a hit-shaped from one mould so that it becomes difficult to tell the various dominions apart. It is elementary body language, more than just dance theatre, in which the three dancers put in