Biomechanics in Weightlessness

Biomechanics Noordung, conceived and directed by Dragan Zivadinov, December 15, 1999. Event took place in Ilyushin 76 aircraft, departure from Star City, near Moscow.

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Creation of theatre or any other performance event in weightless conditions opens up the basic issues of physical realities to both the performers and the audience. The spectators, for example, have to be buckled down in order not to fly over to the stage while the dancers, normally studying the arrangement of the balancing points in their bodies, suddenly find themselves in a physical reality where the concept of balance does not exist at all. The cameramen first try to get hold of their cameras, then allow them to float freely in their improvised dance. This article is about the first structured theatre event in weightless conditions, the Biomechanics Noordung by the Slovene director Dragan Zivadinov, who lives and works in Ljubljana. He is a director who has been active in projects under different names since 1983. The first period of his work as a director was connected to the Theatre of Scipio Nasica's Sisters (named after a Roman emperor who ordered all theatres to be burned), ending with a monumental abstract theatre performance called Baptism Under Triglav (1986). He continued with the Red Pilot group (he named it after a 1920s Slovene futurist magazine), especially known for their remarkable Zenith performance staged inside a railway wagon turned into a rocket. The third, and present, phase is dedicated to Herman Potocnik Noordung, the Slovene space scientist who designed the first geostatic satellite in the late 1920s. Zivadinov also underwent cosmonaut testing and training and is a candidate for a space flight.

On December 15, 1999, an Ilyushin 76 MDK airplane took off from Star City, near Moscow, where the Yuri Gagarin cosmonaut training center is located. The flight lasted for about an hour and a half. After 40 minutes, the plane reached the area where it was to execute 11 parabolas. The fuselage was divided into three sections: the first was the stage with the performers' space, the second was the area for the audience and cameramen, and the third was reserved for technical equipment. The group of people involved in Biomechanics Noordung consisted of eight performers (the oldest of them, Iva Zupanicic, was 68), eight spectators and about as many cameramen and members of the immediate technical team, and about 15 members of the crew, mostly officer-instructors in the immediate vicinity of the performers and the audience.

The spectators were sitting in seats fenced in by tables that kept them—including me—in place when we reached the state of weightlessness. During the flight we were subjected to three different physical realities, three gravities: gravity 0 (weightlessness), gravity 1 (gravity on Earth), and gravity 2 (double gravity). To create the state of zero gravity, the plane must fly in a parabolic arc. At the lowest point, the curve of the arc is ended by additional engine power. During the first part of the ascent, gravity doubles (G2) due to acceleration. During the 25-second journey across the upper part of the arc, zero gravity (G0) prevails; as the plane turns towards the bottom of the arc and soars into the next, we feel double gravity. Between the two parabolas, there are about three minutes of normal gravity.

Transitions from one gravitational state to the other are transitions from one physical reality to the next, an experience absolutely incomparable to any other bodily experience. Despite the seeming brevity of the intervals, the half-minute "dramas" (in his initial, retro-garde phase, Zivadinov structured the dramaturgy of his performances as minute-long dramas), the intensity of the transitions and the novelty of the situation forced the body to concentrate upon its every move. Fixed to our seats, the spectators observed the mise-en-scène unfolding in real time—the rehearsals for the event took place in normal gravity (the creators of...