Who
was pulling the strings of Chechen terrorist leader?
- The Observer
Ballettikka
RealVideo Internettikka is the third self-contained action
in the tactical project Ballettikka Internettikka, which
began in 2001 with the exploration of Internet ballet. The
second installment, in March 2002, consisted in Štromajer
and Zorman carrying out an illegal ballet invasion in Moscow’s
Bolshoi Theater and transmitting it live on the Internet.
Now, in the third part, Janša, Štromajer and Zorman
have brought together two Moscow performative acts: the
ballet break-in in the Bolshoi and the Chechen terrorist
act in the Dubrovka Theater in October 2002. The condensed
version of Ballettikka RealVideo Internettikka consists
of a video with Morse-code dramaturgy and an Internet Training
Center for art-terrorism.
Moscow,
as a juncture of avant-garde movements and political symbolism,
unites the two actions: the homicidal–suicidal terrorist
act represents the ritual manifestation of the intimate
sacrifice of one’s own body, as well as of those of
others, while ballet represents a strategic sacrifice of
the dancer’s body as it is honed into a flawlessly
functioning machine. “Terrorism is theater,”
Brian Jenkins tells us, but in the end, all aesthetic norms
are abandoned and all that is left is tactics, both in art
and terrorism.
Ballettikka
RealVideo Internettikka makes a contribution to the misunderstanding
of contemporary postmodern terrorism and democracy’s
fear of fanatic devotion; it represents a fascination with
criticism of the system and with appeals to the beauty of
dying. Through performative disturbances of the electronic
medium, which opens itself up to emotion and the flesh of
the body, identity is transformed. “We’ve come
here to die!” proclaimed Barayev, the Chechen terrorist
leader, as the group disrupted the Moscow performance of
the musical Nord-Ost. “We’ve come here to dance,”
wrote Štromajer, as an Internet link was established
with the Bolshoi Theater and the wireless ballet began,
seven months before Barayev’s dying.
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