Prometheus and me

Many detractors of the multi-disciplinary Flemish artist, and they are a legion, might disagree. But it is true: Prometheus is about the Titan who stole fire from the gods to save the human race from extinction, and, fundamentally, it is a message of hope. The central image of Prometheus, suspended above the stage, tied up spread-eagled and encompassed by the huge, flaming circle of the sun, evokes De Vinci's man of perfect proportions: beauty, renaissance, a hero reborn in the spirit of resistance.

While the hero of this Greek myth was condemned by Zeus to have his liver pecked by an eagle for all eternity, in Fabre's version, onstage in Brussels this month, our hero's affliction is being obliged to watch helplessly as the human race is duped by false deities, and his sacrifice is reduced to ashes. Ten superb dancers embody the Greek gods - greedy, salacious, mendacious and sadistic - dressed in black costumes evocative of priests and rabbis, lawyers and academics and the wealthy, black- clad merchants from the first golden age of capitalism.

But, as Dionysos mocks in naked frenzy, Athena teeters in stilettos, and Pandora sings "come on baby light my fire", these could be the false gods of the present - Mammon, the Economy - extinguishing our life-force with massive canisters of CO2 and transforming us into amenable materialistic clones.

Fabre's re-visitation of the Prometheus theme, performed in English, was prompted by recent events: "Over the last couple of years, I've kept saying to myself that we're living in some sort of victims' society," says Fabre (pictured on cover). "Politicians are saying ‘I'd like to change things, but I can't.' Where are our contemporary heroes? Then I was looking at a photo of a group of people after the 9/11 catastrophe, and I asked myself ‘What is a hero? What do we need heroes for?'"

Prometheus, it occurred to him, was a hero. "He gave us fire. It's the spark of life, but it's not allowed in most places. So it's strange that our society, by refusing fire, is refusing risk, refusing passion, refusing a belief in art and beauty. Those are the questions I was asking myself during this production."

In spite of the universality of his imagery, Fabre's recent work speaks more directly of his social criticism. His 2009 production Orgy of Tolerance is, he says "one of the few pieces I've made that is direct, and its action is a reaction to the extreme right- wing mentality gaining ground again, and the way people deal with consumption. It was a necessity. I live in Antwerp where we have the Vlaams Belang. Sometimes as an artist I want to be really clear and to make them understand what colour my voice is. It depends on my life at the moment. I always feel the urge to create according to what I'm feeling. It's an ongoing process of thinking and trying and failing and taking risks and also not giving the galleries or museums or producers what they expect of me."

No brain without body
Fabre, 52, is thoughtful, erudite and has an ironic, self-deprecating sense of humour. But he's often regarded as the enfant terrible of European theatre, and critics will no doubt pounce on the conclusion in Prometheus that the hero we need is the "authentic creative being" - the artist, bound by mundane constraints, yet compelled to bestow his creative fire on a humanity crushed by everyday banality. When Prometheus cries out that he will continue to resist, this will be taken as a statement direct from Fabre himself.

However, while the artist acknowledges his need to retreat and be a hermit from time to time, he is far from the solitary genius. His performance work is created collaboratively through a long process of research and improvisation with his magnificent company of performers, Troubleyn.

"I'm very proud of them," he beams. "I have the best actors and dancers in the world." It's an interaction, he insists, in which they all learn from each other. "The process is like a playful science," Fabre continues. "I'm very visceral, so when I'm working, sometimes I just trust the knowledge in my body and start doing things, and when I'm finished, it's almost as if the work is teaching me."

But the body is also the brain, he notes. "When I'm thinking, I become comical, and when I'm feeling, I become tragic; this duality is crucial. When the visual arts are only under the control of the brain, they're not interesting anymore."

There's also something mediaeval about Fabre's work, the spirit of the carnivalesque, the topsy-turvy abandon when kings swap places with fools, man merges with beast, and society's sacred cows are led to the slaughter, braying like asses. Beneath the irony, there's tenderness and a deep humanity, a world-view far more sane than what passes for morality in our present- day realities.

"I was influenced by the richness of Flemish culture - the Primitives, Hieronymus Bosch - and I also read the writings of Hildegard von Bingen, the mystics of the period. I started to think about the relationship between heaven and earth and the spiritual relationship between life and death." But, he's quick to add, "I'm a visceral person. I research the body, bodily fluids, to celebrate the beauty of the human body."

Excavating cultural memories
Prometheus evoked another image, from another mystic - William Blake. From the English poet's "The Garden of Love": "And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, And binding with briars my joys and desires". This is the way Fabre's oeuvre works - through imagery and shared allusions that delve into our cultural memory.

"I re-install images," says Fabre. "I dust down images that we've forgotten the meaning of. There's a strong cross-over between the visceral and the mental. The brain is the most important part of the body - the sexiest - but it is an organ of the body, and I also believe that the body is a sort of memory and important material to work with, to research. My work is an investigation into the mind and the body and bringing the two together. I want a fusion between the aesthetical and the ethical."

As a final word from Fabre, the ironic Flemish visionary and, above all, the servant of beauty: "I get fire from some people, and I like to give it back, too".
www.troubleyn.be

Prometheus-Landscape II
16-19 March, 19.00/20.30
Kaaitheater Sainctelettesquare 20,Brussels
www.kaaitheater.be
Performance is in English, with Dutch and French surtitles

Jan Fabre, in 10 parts

1. 1958 Born in Antwerp to a Flemish Communist father and a French-speaking mother from a rich, Catholic family: "a marriage of images and words". Studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp
2. 1975 Started writing. First solo pieces brought instant notoriety for unconventional staging (and burning the audience's bank notes)
3. 1982 This is Theatre Like It Was To Be Expected and Foreseen, the spark that galvanised the Flemish theatre establishment
4. 1984 The Power of Theatre Madness commissioned for the Venice Biennale
5. 1989 The Crying Body is the subject of debate in the Belgian parliament
6. 1996 The Emperor of Loss, a witty monologue for Flemish actor Dirk Roofthoofd. Fabre also wrote The King of Plagiarism (2005) and The Servant of Beauty (2010) for Roofthoofd
7. 2003 The Angel of Death, created for the magnificent Croatian actress Ivana Jozi . Another Sleepy Dusty Delta Day (2008) was also written for her
8. 2005 Artistic Associate at the Avignon Festival, precipitated a cultural ruckus among French critics by programming the work of foreign directors and choreographers exploring the body, rather than French works that "were created only for the ear". It was a controversy that generated volumes and blew a breath of fresh air into an increasingly stagnant tradition. The same year, Fabre choreographed Quando L'Uomo Principale è una Donna, a solo piece for a dancer slithering with naked abandon around a stage covered in olive oil, and A History of Tears, his first creation as cultural ambassador for the UNESCO Institute for Water Education
9. 2008 The Angel of Metamorphosis, his sculptures in the Louvre "in conversation" with the Flemish and Dutch Schools. It was the first - and so far only - solo exhibition for a living artist at the Louvre
10. 2009 Orgy of Tolerance, deliciously satirical, was researched using Monty Python sketches. The same year, From the Cellar to the Attic - From the Feet to the Brain filled a five-story building at the 53rd Venice Biennale