Don’t Force Me to Say What I Think

Illusionary truths and real fictions

(Anita Wach)

Don’t Force Me to Say What I Think is a performance about spectacle. About the omnipresent dictate of the image and about freedom hidden in darkness. About objectivity of physical phenomena and the nature of perception. About the materiality of thought and the laws of kinetics. About the speed of light and the endurance of muscle. About art and artifice. About fact and the appearance of a fact. About photophilic culture and dark nature. About the physicality of images and the abstraction of the body.

Spectacle is a drug that feeds spectators with light, offering strands of images that are reflections of reality…. which are reflections of the images in our brains…. which are projections of our desires…. which are projections of the desires of others… which are reflections of perversions of illusion. It’s a spectacle driven by a dance of simulacra – bodies, words, things, photos of stray creatures, crumbling monuments, paraphrased slogans and rephrased artworks, illusionary truths and real fictions.

Don’t force me to say what I think. Don’t tell me that I can freely express my opinion. Don’t feed me with the phrase that this is my right as a human being and citizen of the world. Freedom of expression ends up in the spectacle of fights for rights about everything, everywhere, at once. Besides, I don’t speak any language well, my English is poor, my Slovenian is terrible, my mother tongue is in disarray, I can easily be misunderstood.

The spectacle runs faster than my ability to process information. The spectacle is bursting with facts, data, opinions, statements, definitions, presentations, observations, analyses, charts, statistics, interpretations, comments…. Facts become interpretations. Exceptions become stereotypes. Individuals become generic. And where am I in all this? I’m just trying to maneuver my way along the paths of understanding, running as fast as I can and stumbling only at the allowed moments. And hide from time to time in some dark corner where the light of the spectacle does not reach me. This is what my freedom is all about.

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The project is based on selected performative events from the 30 Movements cycle. In February 2024, the spectacle Don’t Force Me to Say What I Think underwent a PR spin, transforming into a performance called Don’t Fck Me.

Photo: Marcandrea

Photo: Marcandrea

Photo: Marcandrea

Photo: Marcandrea

Photo: Marcandrea

Photo: Marcandrea

Photo: Marcandrea

Photo: Marcandrea

Don’t Force Me to Say What I Think

2023
Spectacle • 80 min

Concept — Anita Wach, Bojan Jablanovec
Direction — Bojan Jablanovec
Choreography — Kristina Aleksova, Anita Wach
Performers — Anita Wach, Branko Potočan, Ena Kurtalić, Gregor Luštek, Kristina Aleksova, Loup Abramovici
Special guest — Žiga Srebot Jelovšek
Costume design — Olja Grubić
Set design — Matej Stupica
Music
— Eduardo Raon (also includes excerpts from Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons)
— Co-authors: Boštjan Gombač, Luís André Ferreira
Video
— Projected text: Bojan Jablanovec, Anita Wach
— Editing and audio-reactive projection: Stella Ivšek
Technical manager — Martin Lovšin
Producer — Špela Trošt
Production — Via Negativa

The performance uses videos of performative events from the 30 Movements cycle:
— Freedom Leads the People
— We, the Perverts
— Veto
— Final Solution
— How to Explain a Monument to a Herd of Hares
— Republic