Study evaluates the legacy of director Renato Cohen

Performer increased the field of artistic diffusion by reworking and developing the procedures of artistic composition.

By Flávio Aquistapace

Agência FAPESP – When pondering the different possibilities and procedures for performance, artistic practice that is anchored in the body and that moves freely between different expressive forms, Ana Goldenstein Carvalhaes turned her eye to performing artist and director Renato Cohen (1956-2003). Cohen was born in Rio Grande do Sul and relocated to São Paulo, and he taught at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp) and at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP).

Carvalhaes’ master’s dissertation, which was supervised by professor, author and curator Kátia Canton, resulted in the book Persona Performática – Alteridade e Experiência na Obra de Renato Cohen [Performatic Persona—Alterity and Experience in the work of Renato Cohen], published with FAPESP funding.

Of the many relevant contributions left by Cohen, Carvalhaes says, is the “work in progress” or poetic incorporation, the ability to propose different interpretations, of events that arise “during a performance, in the emergence of time”. The transience between different emotional and expressive states is one of his representative trademarks and motivation for his work.

“Something important that he left us is the idea of art in process, of research underway, open to constant experimentation,” said Carvalhaes, who was Cohen’s student.

According to Carvalhaes, this practice, which is permeable and receptive to occurrences, allows the performer to make use of the non-linear combination that is characteristic of the different lines represented by his/her voice while a piece is underway.

“Polyphony is present in the construction of text in Cohen’s performances, which has many origins throughout the process, occurring in the language and in the ideology of the process,” said Carvalhaes.

Giving form to the reality of time in the body of the artist, which is activated by some internal or external motivation, is among the prerogatives of the performance.

In Brazil, for example, a seminal work is the walking performance piece by architect, painter and draftsman Flávio de Carvalho (1899-1973) on the streets of downtown São Paulo in 1956, dressed in a short skirt and a blouse with short, puffy sleeves. The performance, called “Experiência nº 3” [Experiment number 3], consisted of sewing the clothes as well as the walk itself, which was documented.

For Carvalhaes, performance is configured over time as an artistic practice that takes on different formulations. In addition to experimentation, his trademarks are ephemerality and the incorporation of the transitory.

“Performance is research. Each artist needs a new form, a different art. Performance moves freely and defines itself for each situation,” she said. The result is hybrid and trans-disciplinary work that is articulated by different propositions and references.

New media

To promote the densification of the experience the performer brings to the scene, in his work, Cohen resorted to different devices to inspire the conveyance required by the shape of the piece during rehearsals.

“He would go to body-art, passing through Guto Lacaz, Bauhaus, punk, John Cage, Oiticica...Cohen made these concepts dynamic and used them according to the experience he was calling for,” said Carvalhaes.

Two of Cohen’s works are analyzed in the book: the exposition titled Imanências: Caixas do Ser [Immanences: Boxes of the Being] in October 1999 at the Casa das Rosas in São Paulo and Gotham SP, a theater piece performed by Cia Teatral Ueinzz, a company of non-actors, in 2001.

In Imanências, eight actors spent eight days installed in rooms where they were visible to the public. Filmed by cameras, the images were viewable 24 hours a day on the internet.

That situation, according to Carvalhaes, “proposed an extreme situation involving the actor’s internalization and introspection. At the same time, new media allowed for a contrary movement, one of exposition and expansion. Cohen saw this as a way of extending body and mind via digital means.”

According to performer Lúcio Agra, who wrote the preface for Carvalhaes’ book, Cohen was one of the forerunners in the discussion of the use of the worldwide virtual web for performance.

“His last texts helped to consolidate the idea of telematic performance, of tele-performance, contrary to the cliché judgment that always insists on ‘live’ performance, as if there wasn’t also mediation going on there,” she noted.

Hybridity, the articulation between different references and levels of attention scattered by the syntax of the internet, are also remembered as part of Cohen’s expressive array.

“He had a hypertextual disposition, was an incredible articulator of innumerable ‘windows.’ There were no computers during his lifetime, which accounts for the speed of his thinking,” said Agra.