Bitef

In the year 2001 Nadj received the chief European theatre award: the Taormina Grand Prix. The award had previously been given to the likes of Peter Brook, Ariane Mnouchkine, Giorgio Strehler, Heiner Müller... Before this theatre 'Oscar" Joseph Nadj was the laureate of BITEF, Avignon, Hamburg, Cividale, Perigo, and won the golden mask in Moscow for the best foreign production. The performance Woyzeck, which the local audience could have seen in 1996 in Kanizsa and Belgrade, was awarded the golden mask for the best foreign production in Russia for the year 2002. Joseph Nadj had already taken this great European prize before, for the performance Watchers. The National Choreographic Centre in Orleans (Centre Choregraphique National d'Orleans) led by Joseph Nadj, holds the status of one of the finest theatres of the modern world for a reason. In December 2001 Nadj received the Knight of Culture medal from the French government and the critics' award for his performance Philosophers and the duo with Dominic Mercy. In the year 2002 Nadj celebrated the fifteen years of his work. In that relatively short period, among others, the following important performances were conceived: Peking Duck, The Seven Rhinoceros' Skins, Comedia Tempio, Death of the Manager, Woyzeck, The Ladder of Orpheus, The Anatomy of the Beast, Habakukk Commentaries, Wind in the Sack, Repli du Temps, Watchers, After Midnight, Philosophers... In the year 2004, in his Kanizsa home he finished his third [Repli du Temps, After Midnight) feature performance Eden, and went on tour with it. He still actively does graphics: he illustrates books by Roland Barthes and Milan Kundera. In the year 2006, he will be the co-manager of the Avignon Festival. THE COMMANDER OF THE SHADOW TOWER "Theatre is contained in nothing, but it uses all languages", shouted Artaud in his irresistible charge where theatre was to go past language, the firstborn means of rational and functional communion among people, and to search for its own language beside language. In our petrified idea of art, consequent to the destructive rational action that spanned the centuries, the theatre was barely, left to be the place where man was to comprehend his shadows. That small but resolutely defended space in theatre still exists today, and the commander of one of the towers that guard this unknown and precious territory is Joseph Nadj. I "suffered" his art to mimesis. Essentially an aristocrat in art, he is a genuine prince of theatre. He holds his high forehead up, and it

seems to light his way. His eyes recede into their sockets, as if they want to see into matters even deeper. His spine is strung like a bow. His long arms, with long fingers like two bent forked bars, give out a queer impression. His voice is sonorous and hollow at the same time. His thoughts, in spite of their lowered tone, are prompt and blinding. He is a fiery creature, the very progeny of Prometheus, who refuses to resemble his father. His art takes place on the borders of the moment in which a word has not been born just yet, in which articulation is no longer a scream - but not conversation either, when repetition and with it language itself remain almost impossible. That theatre expression opposes comparison and reduction to any type. An intimate mixture of music, painting and archaeology; music still gives the rhythm, painting still furnishes the visual overtones and archaeology still explores, collects and connects the bits. But all put together, it continues nameless in theatre. He himself is without title: he is neither a choreographer nor a director. In lack of options to determine what he is by language (which is probably language's revenge), it may be best to call him an author. And for that matter, the author of the most prolific and comprehensive takeover art, that is polished by taking over and passing through many disinfecting waters - like hard wood - to brilliance. In a moment, such development leads to production of new artefacts in art that become standard from then on. Nadj's performances now are, formally, what many shall be in the course of twenty or thirty years. What additionally fascinates about Joseph Nadj's aesthetic is a certain reduction in expression, the reduction to the important. However, behind it no pretentiousness and vanity raises its head. The artist must very often build constructions which are not his and of which he should be ashamed, to deliver one true nugget of his own to the world. At times this is done because of laziness, at times out of conformity, impotence, and sometimes out of pure static, to have a bearing construction for things both alive and dead. Rare are those who reach the breaking point beyond which they can stand behind all parts of their creation, and answer for each aspect with full integrity. To attain that, all must be cleansed and without a single foolishness or embarrassment. Such a "job" presents a genuine, authentic engagement, a painstaking process of tearing and rejection. Only those who have tripped uncountable times - on different but eternally the same obstacles - on that journey, can know how hard it is to shirk conceit, to stay humble and ordinary. On the quest for the hidden loss in nature and life, however, only those can succeed. Nenad Prokić

Photo: Robert Reves