Thus Spake Foofwa

Benjamin de Bouillis
Foofwa d’Imobilite
Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York
June 26, 2008

By Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

This regional platter, benjamin of bouillis, with a spolish olive to middlepoint its zaynith, was marrying itself (porkograso!)..
James Joyce, Finnegans Wake


Benjamin de Bouillis, like most or all of the millions of names that pop up in Joyce’s final opus, is not a character at all, just an ephemeral bit of language with the power to hang around in the reader’s consciousness, taking on forms like a magician or a mime. Likewise, Foofwa d’Imobilite is just the made-up name of a Swiss dancer/choreographer/mime/clown. And his “Benjamin de Bouillis” uses dance the same way Joyce uses language – as material for a grand illusion, a tour de force of signs and symbols, pointing ultimately at itself, or nothing at all. It’s brilliant.

The artist says he was inspired by the work of a Swiss neurologist, Dr. Olaf Blanke, who has studied out-of-body experiences, and how people perceive their own bodies from a variety of distant points. The performance begins as a brightly lit elevator opens at the side of the black-box theater, and Foofwa enters – not from the elevator, which has no visible occupant, but from an adjacent doorway. He then proceeds to play with his perceived double in multiple ways – as a mirror image, a shadow, a voice or sound from elsewhere in the room (artfully produced in the soundscape by Antoine Lengo.) He disappears behind the mirror, then comes out in ordinary clothes to organize an out-of body experience, carefully removing his body parts one by one and reassembling them at arm’s length, then watching as the other self galumphs loudly around the stage. Gazing intently, he scribbles notes in a pad. Playing the choreographer now, he paces about, scratching and pounding his head as he conceives of actions, then tries them out.

Re-entering his own body and his costume (minus sunglasses and red pants) he then becomes both puppet and puppeteer, creator and creature, tinkering with his own body and face, exploring the possibilities of dramatic expression. Making himself up with nothing but his fingers, he produces glee, fear, despair – then a gruesome half-and-half face, one side hysteria and the other side horror, then wipes it all off like mud.

In the dramatic conclusion, he strangles himself to some film noir background music, then conducts his own police investigation, chalking the outline of his body on the floor. Playing God now, he resurrects himself, hauling himself back up by the coat collar. At the apotheosis, the spoken sound track concludes “what is not is what is, and accordingly, all is one.” Or something close to that.

Thus spake Foofwa – original name Frederic Gafner, one-time ballet boy and a veteran of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, now based back in Geneva, returning here courtesy of the Baryshnikov Arts Center and Chez Bushwick, the Brooklyn-based experimental arts group. As a performer he is a thrill to watch – elegantly turned-out in ballet moves, sure-footed in their off-center Cunningham variants, exact and expressive in the French style when he turns mime and clown. As a creator he unpacks Cunningham’s cryptic zen psychology – specifically treating the human performer not as an embodiment of character, but an illusion to be tinkered with; an assemblage, not a unity. “Benjamin de Bouillis” does the same kind of deconstruction job on modern dance that “Finnegans Wake” did to the modern novel, and it may have the same effect. After reading Joyce’s work, it’s hard to go back to seeing fictional characters as anything more than bubbles composed of word-associations. After seeing Foofwa, it may be hard to believe in traditional modern dance as anything but a succession of empty postures. But then, it’s already hard.

Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips
Photos by Julie Lemberger