reviews

LAST EGOISTIC PERFORMANCE (Mare Bulc, 2006)
INSERTS FROM REVIEWS

The performance most explicitly draws near to the theme of incomprehensibility of one’s own artistic activity, which addresses a rather limited circle of devotees, who are capable of grasping the broader semantics of this language. In the automated, in moments timed, communication (video by Nejc Saje) the questions are quashed by imposed answers, the guest artist Mare Bulc, becomes instrumentalized, a mere idea, the combination of live dialogue and background video presents him once as an interviewer once as an interviewee, struggling with interpreting his artistic intention.
Primož Jesenko: Working Against the Movement of Time, Maska, March 2007

Mare Bulc tries to elaborate on and unravel the ultimate position of one's egoism as an attempt to expose the self-sufficiency of the ego as a problem of artistic self-reflection and repetition. But what is fascinating and paradoxical at the same time is that he tries to do this through the form of a dialog, in other words by coming back to the very theatrical tradition, which he tried to escape from in the first place.
Ignacija J. Fridl: Reflection in the Era of the Ego, daily Dnevnik 21.11.2006

This performance can in a way be labeled with the term »autobiographical performance« but one cannot point out the central ego, because the latter remains inscribed in the territory of the liminal, which one can explain with the thesis that the subject cannot be defined as something certain, stable, rounded or timeless. Instead, it is present only through the traces of actual intersubjections that emerge every time anew. (It goes hand in hand with the question »Who is Mare Bulc?« but this question can only be answered by using identification, namely »Mare Bulc is…«.) … Bulc's performance grabs the »egocracy« of theatrical protocols in a fun and ironic manner through the game of »copy-originals« and »appearances« …
Rok Vevar: Theatre and its theatre, daily Večer, 28.11.2006

The act of repeating/repetition is necessary in the »usual« drama theatre, one cannot go around it, but in this performance the stiffed discussion is first lived out and only then recycled through the reading of what is (already) written, as a regression of what is already seen, as something secondary and not primarily first hand. The situation is thus post-dramatic and we see a performance, which attempts to declare to the viewer the impression that it is a »classical« drama event while at the same time it takes one as far away from it as possible. … Moreover, it doesn't really seem to matter how the performer who denies the fetishization of literature in the theatre, in a somewhat salonist manner elaborates on his understanding of theatre. For Bulc and the theatrical speech he develops, the choice of exposing one's own creative space is nothing else but true egoism – it completely lacks irony, which in this show together with experimental elements and miscommunication as its leit-motif slowly glides into the waters of mild sarcasm.
 Primož Jesenko: Self-exposition, daily Delo 20.11. 2006

The leading and only performer is over the top in every way because he acts as the moderator, actor, musician and so on, but we never get tired of him. In spite of the explicit title of the performance, it is not the egotistical nature of the author himself but on the contrary his altruistic contribution to the contemporary performing arts scene that is really convincing.
Alja: Visiting an Ego, Radio Študent, 21.11. 2006