PERFORMANCE
STUDIES
international
#15 follow up
2. 09. – 4. 09. 2010.
PSI#15 follow up održat će se na engleskom jeziku./The official language of the PSI#15 follow up will be English.
MISperformance / Kriva izvedba - obrnuti pristup izvedbenim studijima
PSi#15 follow up pristupa izvedbi kao fenomenu i aktivnosti, kao doživljaju i funkciji, procesu i cjelini, te kao temeljnom konceptu paradigme izvedbenih studija iz – izokrenute perspektive. U prvi plan želimo postaviti kontingenciju, kao i često paradoksalnu učinkovitost neuspjeha, nefunkcionalnosti i uzaludnosti izvedbe.
Od izvedbe se, bila ona normativna ili liminalna ili normativno liminalna (prema liminalnoj normi Jona McKenziea), očekuje da (re)producira i (re)prezentira barem ideju o ”obećanju vlastite ontologije” (Phelan). Proces izvedbe sastoji se od (re)akcija i kontinuiteta kojeg osigurava mogućnost izvođača da (re)generira svoje “tijelo-um” (Barba). Svaka izvedba ima određenu pragmatiku kojom se vodi, čak i kada (se) deformira kako bi se prilagodila određenoj politici otpora ili transgresivnim pomacima/promjenama. MISperformance napose želi istražiti koncept i tijek izvedbe ili samo onaj trenutak kada se izvedba nađe izvan liminalnog stanja ili norma-tivne inscenacije, kada joj je daljnji razvoj suspendiran i pragmatika promašena.
Međunarodni skup znanstvenika i umjetnika istražuju širok spektar kulturnih, organizacijskih, tehnoloških i političkih izvedbi, ali tako da u fokus postavlja probleme njihove (ne)uspješnosti, uzroke i posljedice izvedbene pogreške, krivog čitanja, nerazumijevanja, nesporazuma, krivog imenovanja itd. Dakle, istražuje se one ishode krivih izvedbi (MISperformance) koji uzrokuju poremećaje, podbačaje – čak i duboke promjene – u različitim sferama života, od privatne do društvene i političke, uključujući i umjetničku praksu. Krive izvedbe promatra se iz perspektive njihovog mogućeg regresivnog, pa čak i tragičnog ishoda, zatim njihove moguće transgresivne djelotvornosti, ali i u svjetlu odsutnosti ili napuštanja bilo kakvog razloga u izvedbi ili za izvedbu.
PSi#15 follow up je nastavak i (barem privremena) kulminacija rasprave i istraživanja konferencije MISperfor-mance koja je održana u Zagrebu u lipnju 2009. godine. PSI#15 je zamišljen kao provokacija i poziv izvedbenim studijima da se pomaknu u područje često nepopravljivih pogrešaka i posjete regiju koja povijesno opstoji kao permanentna iznimka, mjesto nemira i neizvjesnosti. Stoga je jedan od važnih izazova ove konferencije uzimati u obzir glasove iz regija koje su bile izvan vidokruga dominantne američke i britanske paradigme izvedbenih studija i udruženja Performance Studies international. Ti glasovi, ponekad uznemirujući ili čak subverzivni, izazivaju dobro uhodane načine provedbe i prezentiranja izvedbe (kao studija i kao umjetnosti) unutar i izvan svojih granica.
PSi#15 je uveo format tzv. shifts (smjena/mijena/pomaka), eksperimente umjetnika i znanstvenika na sjecištima funkcija i strategija, protokola i dramaturgija različitih modela izvedbenih prezentacija. PSI#15 follow up nastavlja raspravu o mogućim formatima interagiranja umjetničkih i znanstvenih istraživanja, o njihovoj organizaciji, dramaturgiji kao i strategiji prezentacije – posebno kada su podložni promjenama zbog krive izvedbe.
MISperformance – an inverted approach to doing Performance Studies
PSi#15 follow up approaches performance as a phenomenon and activity, as experience and function, as a process and a complex, and as the basic concept of the Performance Studies paradigm, from the somewhat inverted perspective. We want to foreground contingency as well as often paradoxical efficiency of failure, non-functionality, futility, and inoperativeness of performance.
Whether normative or liminal, or normatively liminal (after Jon McKenzie’s liminal-norm), a performance is expected to (re)produce and (re)present at least the idea of the “promise of its own ontology” (Phelan).
Performance’s proceeding is constituted by (re)actions and its continuation ensured by the potential of those who perform to (re)charge their “body-mind” (Barba). In all of those cases, there is a certain pragmatics which informs performance, even when it deforms in order to conform to a certain resistant politics or transgressive shift. The MISperformance intends to explore the concept and the flow, or just the moment of performance when it finds itself beyond the liminal state or normative staging, when its course is suspended and pragmatics missed.
International scholars and artists address a spectrum of cultural, organizational, technological and political performances by focusing on the causes and the problems of performance misfirings, mistakes, misreadings, misunderstandings, misfittings, misrecognition, misnaming, misguiding etc. Aspects and impacts of MISper-formance that are susceptible to provoking disturbances, distortions, alternations, abortions, if not disasters within diverse spheres of private and social life, including aesthetic and political practices, are investigated in the light of their potentially both regressive, even tragic outcome, and resistant, even transgressive efficacy, as also in the light of the absence or abandonment of any reason in or for performance. Without presumptu-ously claiming a re-mapping of Performance Studies interests and re-figuring of their auto-critical impulse, the PSi#15 follow up nevertheless explores the possibilities for further queering of their initial ambitions brought about by unpredicted trajectories of their reach in thought, science, art, action, reception, organization, cul-ture, society and policy.
The range of the themes explored at the PSi#15 follow up include organizational and technological “counter-performativity”; mis-historicization in the current obsession with the archives of the future; shift epistemolo-gies - “shift” as a form of thinking, of making, of thinking in making and making in thinking across media and disciplines; misattention and distraction as aesthetic response to “theatrical coercion”; utopian thinking as the abandoned practice of the contemporary world; “audience democracy” and misperformed political advertis-ing; asymmetries of tourist mis-performance; urgency as a creative modality responding subjectively to the state of emergency in the public sphere; mathematical thinking and Jarry’s theatrical atopia; mis-recognitions of the corporeal experience of history in the context of performance; missing identity in acting as well as in its discursive renderings; ekphrasis representing mis-spectatorship as the tactical mis-representation of theatre.
The discussion is organized around a twofold conceptual and political aim: to approach the distinctive forces of the all-englobing “performance” through its inherent negative side, as also to point to the site in which this debate is emerging, the location of its culture.
The PSi#15 follow up is continuation and (at least temporary) culmination of the debate and research on the MISperformance which took place in Zagreb in June 2009. PSi#15 mother conference and follow up are
devised as provocations and invitations for Performance Studies to move to the realm of the often irreparable mistakes and visit a region which historically exists in a permanent state of exception, unrest and uncertainty. One of the distinctive challenges of the PSi#15 is to make allowances for voices heard from the regions which were largely outside of the horizon of the predominantly U.K. and U.S. paradigm of Performance Studies and international association of the scholars and artists in the field – the PSi. Those voices – sometimes disturbing or even subversive – enhance initiatives coming from the specific region and challenge the well-tuned ways of doing and dealing with performance (studies and arts) within, as also across its borders.
PSi#15 introduced the shifts, a format that was devised to make various forms of actual performance (as opposed to academic paper presentations) an equal and integral part of the conference program. PSi#15 shifts are experiments on the intersections of functions and strategies, protocols and dramaturgies of various modalities of performative presentations; hybrid collaborative platforms inviting both artists and scholars to jointly (mis)perform “in between” conventional or at least recognizable modes of doing a conference, doing art, being an artist or an activist, being a scholar or a curator. The PSi#15 follow up continues the discussion on the experimental formats of interrelated scholarly and artistic research, their organization, dramaturgy and presen-tation strategies, particularly those formats that risk deformation due to MISperforming.
Četvrtak/ Thursday 2. 09.
19:30 – opening / otvorenje, HKD na Sušaku, Strossmayerova 1
20:00 - PUPILIJA, papa Pupilo pa Pupilčki, Janez Janša (Slovenija/Slovenia) – HKD na Sušaku, Strossamy-erova 1
22:00 - shift 1: MATTERS OF FACT / MATTERS OF CONCERN//ČINJENICE/VAŽNOST, curator: Goran Sergej Pristaš – HKD na Sušaku, Strossmayerova 1
part 1: Late Night Theory Show With CDU (Centar za dramsku umjetnost) participants: Una Bauer, Ramsay Burt, Ivana Ivković, Marko Kostanić, Bojana Kunst,Tomislav Medak, Nikolina Pristaš, Ana Vujanović, Goran Sergej Pristaš
Petak/Friday 3. 09. - Art kino Croatia, Krešimirova 2
9:00– 11:15 - panel 1: MISFITS: INVERTED CONCEPTS, INVERTED THEORIES// NEPRILAGOĐENI: IZOKRENUTI KONCEPTI, IZOKRENUTE TEORIJE,
chairs: P.A. Skantze and Edward ScheerAna Vujanović
A lexicon of inverted notions: Parallel Slalom, by East Dance Academy
Bojana Kunst
Affection, disempowerment and proximity of theory: giving chance to performance
Jon Mckenzie
Misperformance and the Posthuman
Alan Read
The Emaciated Spectator & The Witness of the Powerless
(the presentation is also part of the shift ABANDONED PRACTICES)
11:45 – 13:15 // 13:30– 15:00 - panel 2: MIS(SING)-AESTHETICS, ETHICS, POLITICS// NEDOSTATAK ESTETIKE, ETIKE, POLITIKE, chairs: Heike Roms and Marin Blažević
Carol Becker
The Space Between What Is and What Wants to Be: The Abandoned Practice of Utopian Thinking
(the presentation is also part of the shift ABANDONED PRACTICES)
Branislav Jakovljević
Forensics of Performance: …Let us speak of them never. Let us face them now. (the presentation is also part of the shift ABANDONED PRACTICES)
Joe Kelleher
Infinite Misattention
Peter Eckersall
Misperforming bodies and activist misbehaviour: reading student protests in 1960s Japan and radicalised everyday
Ed Scheer
Myra’s Olympic Snafu and other subversions of sentimental nationalism
Maaike Bleeker
Some reflections on “On Three Posters. Reflection on a video-performance” by Rabih Mroué
17:30 – 20:00 - panel 3: SHIFTING FORMATS// PROMJENJIVI FORMATI, chairs: Maaike Bleeker and Peter Eckersall
P. A. Skantze
Shift Epistemologies: Inter-medial, Inter-discipline, Inter-taining
Sophie Nield
Past Imperfect, Future Tense; On History as Discarded Practice
Ric Allsopp
‘Walking Backwards’
Marin Blažević
Shifting Dramaturgy
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20:30 – 23:00- shift 2: ABANDONED PRACTICES// NAPUŠTENE PRAKSE,
curators: Matthew Goulish & Lin Hixson, Let us think of these things always. Let us speak of them never., Everyhouse has a door (SAD/USA) – HNK Ivana pl. Zajca
participants: Selma Banich, Stephen Fiehn, Mislav Čavajda, Carol Becker, Alan Read, Branislav Jakovljević, Joe Kelleher, Lin Hixson, Matthew Goulish
Subota/Saturday 4. 09. - Art kino Croatia, Krešimirova 2
9:00 – 12:00 - panel 4: OFF-REGIONS, “FAILED” CHRONOTOPES// RUBNE REGIJE, “PROPALI” KRONOTOPI,
chairs: Lada Čale Feldman and Jon MckenzieNicolas Salazar Sutil
‘Set in Poland, that is to say Nowhere’. Placelessness and the abstracting imagination: the case of Ubu Roi
Heike Roms
Teaching the Avant-garde – (Mis)Performing Pedagogies
Freddie Rokem
Emergency/Urgency: The Form and the Pressure of the Time
Laurie Beth Clark and Michael Peterson
Asymmetries of Tourism: mis-timed, mis-placed, mis-aligned, mis-informed
Reana Senjković
Youth summer work actions: from sheer necessity to mere performativity
12:30 – 15:00 - panel 5: MYSTIFICATIONS, MISIDENTIFICATIONS, MIS-INCORPORATIONS// MISTIFIKACIJE, KRIVE IDENTIFIKACIJE, KRIVA UTJELOVLJENJA,
chairs: Sophie Nield and Ric Allsopp
Annalisa Sacchi
Historian’s and Artist’s Mis-recognitions
Ramsay Burt
Imitation, corporeal generosity, and the globalised dance market.
Nicholas Ridout
Ekphrasis: The Return of the Mis-Spectator
(the presentation is also part of the PERFORMING IN AGONY shift)
Richard Gough
Leaving the Table: Devouring the Stage
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15:30 – 18:30 - shift 3: MIS EN PLACE/MIS EN SCENE (WISH YOU WERE HERE) (a shift with food and friends),
curators: Laurie Beth Clark & Michael Peterson, konoba Nebuloza
19:00 – 21:30 - shift 4: PERFORMING IN AGONY// IZVOĐENJE U AGONIJI (performance), curators: Lois Weaver and Lada Čale Feldman, HNK Ivana pl. Zajca
participants: Julia Bardsley, Nataša Govedić, NicholasRidout, Lada Čale Feldman and Lois Weaver
22:00 – 23:00 - shift 1: MATTERS OF FACT / MATTERS OF CONCERN//ČINJENICE/VAŽNOST (Part 2), curator: Goran Sergej Pristaš, HKD na Sušaku, Strossamyerova 1
part 2: SEMI-INTERPRETATIONS or How To Explain
Contemporary Dance To an Undead Hare, a performance by BADco//Poluinterpretacije ili kako objasniti suvremeni ples nemrtvom zecu, BADco
Činjenice/Važnost
Dio 1. Četvrtak, 2. 09., 22:00, HKD na Sušaku, Strossmayerova 1 Dio 2. Subota, 4. 09., 22:00, HKD na Sušaku, Strossmayerova 1
Osam godina nakon što je CDU organizirao konferenciju “Vague, Volatile, Incomprehensible“, okruženi smo sve većim očekivanjima koja se postavljaju pred umjetnost - da bude transparentna, stabilna, poučna i razumljiva. Današnje izvedbeno tržište odabire rasprave o posve običnom, pseudo konkretnom i izuzetno normalnom – za koje se pretpostavlja da su jednostavniji i djelotvorniji oblici izvedbe za komunikaciju s publikom. Tematika kojom će se CDU baviti sljedećih nekoliko godina problematizira različita pitanja: živimo li i djelujemo li u doba u kojem se izvedbu doživljava kao čuvstveni servis; kako je strukturirana i zamišljena prosječna publika (u dvorani) i stvarni ljudi (koje vidimo i na pozornici); kako se stvaraju lanci ekvivalencije u predstavama koje se bave samo jednim problemom, izvedbena predavanja, dokumentarno kazalište, izvedbeni eseji ili preskrip-tivne konceptualizacije i jesu li ti fenomeni odjek sve većeg populizma u politici i medijima općenito.
Umjesto kritičke rasprave o činjenicama, pozivamo izlagatelje da ponude nove koncepte o stvarima koje mora-mo uzeti u obzir, o onome što je važno. Pozivamo ih da kroz desetominutne prezentacije pokušaju predstaviti suvremeno polje konceptualnog djelovanja u izvedbi i na izvedbi kao radikalne estetske prijedloge, propise ili reakcije na kompleksnost stvarnosti, doživljaja i komunikacije.
Povezana s ovom raspravom je i nova izvedba BadCo. “Polu-interpretacije ili kako objasniti suvremeni ples nemrtvom zecu”.
Izlagatelji: Una Bauer, Ramsay Burt, Ivana Ivković, Marko Kostanić, Bojana Kunst
Tomislav Medak,, Goran Sergej Pristaš, Nikolina Pristaš, Ana Vujanović
Matters of Fact / Matters of Concern
Part 1. Thursday, 2. 09., 22:00, HKD na Sušaku, Strossmayerova 1
Part 2. Saturday, 4. 09., 22:00, HKD na Sušaku, Strossmayerova 1
Eight years after CDU organized the international conference entitled “Vague, Volatile, Incomprehensible”, we find ourselves surrounded by growing expectations for the arts to be transparent, stable, instructive and comprehensible. Performance market today seams to be favoring the discourse of super-ordinary, pseudo-concrete and exceptionally normal, presumably easier and more efficient performance formats to mediate to audience. The questions of interest to CDU in the next few years are: are we living and producing in an age
where performance is seen as an affective service; what is the structure of an average audience (in auditorium) and real people (that we also see on stage) and how are they perceived; how are the chains of equivalence produced in formats of single-issue performances, performance lectures, documentary theatre, essay perfor-mances, prescriptive conceptualizations; and are these phenomena in resonance with the growing populist urge in politics and media in general.
Instead of a critical debate on the urge for the real, on the matters of fact (to borrow the distinction from Bruno Latour), we invite our speakers to offer new concepts on the matters of concern. Through 10-minute presenta-tions they will try to frame a contemporary field of conceptual operation in and on performance as a radical aesthetic proposition, prescription or reaction to complexities of reality, experience and communication.
The discussion will be followed by BADco.’s new performance “SEMI-INTERPRETATIONS or How To Explain Con-temporary Dance To an Undead Hare”
Speakers: Una Bauer, Ramsay Burt, Ivana Ivković, Marko Kostanić, Bojana KunstTomislav Medak, Goran Sergej Pristaš, Nikolina Pristaš, Ana Vujanović
Napuštene prakse
“Let us think of these things always. Let us speak of them never.” izvedba: Every house has a door
trajanje: 80 minuta
Carol Becker, Alan Read i Branislav Jakovljević održat će izlaganja na teme kojima se bavi ova smjena/shifta. Nakon predstave pridružit će se umjetnicima u razgovoru koji će moderirati Joe Kelleher.
“Let us think of these things always. Let us speak of them never.”
Redateljica Lin Hixon, izvođači Selma Banich i Mislav Čavajda iz Zagreba te Stephen Fiehn i Matthew Goulish iz Chicaga bave se susretom između Hrvatske i SAD-a koji se realizira kroz reakcije na rad treće strane, jednako udaljene od SAD-a i od Hrvatske: švedskog redatelja Ingmara Bergmana. Jugoslavenske reakcije na Bergmana proizlaze iz rada Sweet movie Dušana Makavejeva, američke reakcije na Bergmana (i Makavejeva) preuzete su iz radova filozofa Stanleya Cavella, te one zajedno čine temeljni okvir za kazališni komad koji se bavi poviješću utopizma i promjena/otpora u nepravednom svijetu. Film postaje osnova za koreografiju, katalog napuštenih praksi nudi dozu humora, a kazalište osigurava okvir za susret različitosti u osjetljivoj sadašnjosti.
Glavna uloga filmske umjetnosti je pretvoriti teška, komplicirana, zbunjujuća i ružna pitanja o ljudskome postojanju u nešto nalik pjesmi ili letećem tepihu.
Dušan Makavejev
Bio bi to neki drugi svijet koji - ma koliko kratak, virtualan ili izmišljen (kratko, virtualno i izmišljeno, naposlijetku, mogu proizvesti snažan doživljaj) – događa se unutar ovoga svijeta: pa makar samo taj sat i nešto kada nas kazalište podsjeti koliko se malo međusobno poznajemo.
Joe Kelleher, Theatre & Politics
Every house has a door
Nakon dvadesetogodišnje suradnje u grupi Goat Island, Lin Hixson i Matthew Goulish osnovali su grupu Every House Has a Door kako bi se posvetili suradničkim projektima s pozvanim gostima. Grupa zadržava uski tematski fokus i savjesnu prezentaciju Goat Islanda, istovremeno šireći polje interesa kako bi uključila posvećenu međukulturnu suradnju sa svim njenim nepoznanicama i nelagodnostima.
Abandoned Practices shift
Let us think of these things always. Let us speak of them never. Performance by Every house has a door
Duration: 80 minutes
Carol Becker, Alan Read, and Branislav Jakovljevic will present papers on themes related to this shift earlier in the day. They will join the artists after the performance for a conversation moderated by Joe Kelleher. Friday, 3. 09., 21:00, HNK Ivana pl. Zajca
Let us think of these things always. Let us speak of them never.
Under the direction of Lin Hixson, artists Selma Banich and Mislav Čavajda from Zagreb, and Chicagoans Stephen Fiehn of Cupola Bobber and Matthew Goulish, propose an encounter between Croatia and the US through responses to an unlikely, “equidistant” third entity, Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. Yugoslavian responses to Bergman, derived from the work of Dušan Makavejev (Sweet Movie), and American responses to Bergman (and Makavejev) extracted from philosopher Stanley Cavell, provide the foundation for a theatri-cal work that engages in the histories of utopianism and revulsion/revolt in an unjust world. Film becomes a basis for choreography, a catalogue of abandoned practices offers a degree of humor, and theater frames an encounter of difference in the delicacy of the present.
The main work of film art is to transform heavy and difficult and confusing and ugly questions of human existence into something close to a song or a flying carpet.
Dušan Makavejev
That would be another world that, however brief, however virtual, and however fictional (the brief, the virtual, and the fictional are, after all, equally capable of exerting a memorable force), takes its place in this world: if only during that hour or so in the theatre when we are reminded of how little we know of each other.
– Joe Kelleher Theatre & Politics
Every house has a door
Lin Hixson and Matthew Goulish, after a twenty-year collaboration as co-founders of Goat Island, have formed Every house has a door to create project-specific collaborative performances with invited guests. This company seeks to retain Goat Island’s narrow thematic focus and rigorous presentation, but to broaden the canvas to include careful intercultural collaboration, and its unfamiliar, even awkward, spectrum.
Mis(e) en place / Mis(e) en scene: wish you were here
Subota, 4. 09., 15:30 – 18:30, Konoba Nebuloza
Mise en place (postavljanje na mjesto) je kulinarski termin kojim se označava priprema svih sastojaka (sjeck-anje mesa i povrća, čišćenje ribe, odabir začina) potrebnih za kuhanje odabranog jela. Ovaj događaj kombinira umjetničke, kulinarske, akademske i društvene sastojke te ih istovremeno locira i dislocira.
Wish you were here je stereotip s razglednica. Razmišljali smo o užicima i privilegijama putovanja, doma i gostoprimstva: Tko je ovdje? Tko nije? Koliko su kompatibilni običaji kazališta i restorana? Što znači putovati? Imati dom? Kako hrana i performans predstavljaju globalizaciju i lokalizaciju? I hoćeš li to pojesti?
Znamo da kod kuhanja i kod performansa pogreške samo ponekad izazovu katastrofu. U dvadeset godina koje smo proveli zajedno oboje smo priređivali raskošne večere i skromne roštilje, ugostili stotine i improvizirali doručak nekolicini prijatelja, organizirali raskošne tematske zabave ili slavili plodove iz vlastitog vrta i jednos-tavne sastojke poput domaćih kiselih krastavaca ili misa. Nikada nismo te estetske pothvate doživljavali kao dio našeg profesionalnog rada.
Na dvadesetu smo godišnjicu odlučili povezati naš profesionalni život i osobnu gostoljubivost. Pod imenom Spatuala and Barcode obavezali smo se u slijedećih dvadeset godina proizvesti barem jedan performans godišnje koji je vezan uz estetiku koju smo prethodno ostavljali za naše kućne ”zabave”.
Prvi takav performans izveden je prošle godine u Zagrebu. To je bilo na kraju jednogodišnjeg putovanja oko svijeta pa se i događaj, MISadventure, bavio putovanjem i prisutnošću. S obzirom da smo cijelu godinu kod kuće, sada nas zanimaju dom i odsutnost.
Zahvalni smo svima koji su ovoj smjeni doprinjeli svojim sastojcima, idejama i prisutnošću, kao i koncentričnom krugu suradnika - Konoba Nebuloza, domaćini konferencije i smjena, ostali prijatelji iz Hrvatske i naši videokonferencijski gosti iz cijeloga svijeta.
Zahvaljujemo se i ljudima i performansima koji su utjecali na nas: Richardu Goughu, Josephu Beuysu, Marinu Blaževiću, Anthonyju Bourdainu, Nicolasu Bourriaudu, Bertoltu Brechtu, Juliji Child, Ping Chongu, Clarkovima (posebno Danny, Julian, Rita i Melissa), škampima i kozicama, Diegu Felix, Geoffreyu Hendricksu, klapskom pjevanju, Francisu Mallmannu, Novim godinama u Havani, phôu za doručak, Utei Ritschel, uličnoj hrani i štandovima, Yue Wah namirniama, Phillipu Zarrilliju i nebrojenim ljudima koji su nas posjetili ili ugostili.
MIS(E) EN PLACE / MIS(E) EN SCENE: WISH YOU WERE HERE
Saturday, 4. 09., 15:30 – 18: 30, Restaurant Nebuloza
Mise en place is a cooking term meaning to prepare and arrange all the ingredients of a dish before beginningto cook. This event assembles artistic, culinary, academic, and social ingredients and puts them both in and out of place.
Wish you were here is a clichéd sentiment from souvenir postcards. We’ve been thinking about the pleasures and privileges of travel, home, and hospitality: Who’s here? Who’s not? How compatible are the conventions of the theatre and the restaurant? What does it mean to travel? To have a home? How do food and performance enact globalization and localization? And are you going to finish that?
We know that in cooking, as in performance, mistakes only sometimes lead to disaster. During the first 20 years we have spent together, we both gave elaborate dinner parties and made humble barbecues, hosted crowds of 100 and improvised breakfast for visiting friends, developed elaborately themed parties and celebrated food from our garden and simple ingredients like homemade pickles and miso. We never treated these aesthetic endeavours as part of our professional work as practicing artists.
On our twentieth anniversary, we decided to formalize a connection between our professional lives and our personal hospitality. Under the company name Spatula and Barcode, we have committed ourselves for the next twenty years to make at least one performance annually drawing on the aesthetics we had previously reserved for domestic “entertaining.”
The first of these took place in Zagreb last year. It happened at the end of a yearlong round-the-world trip and so the event, called MISadventure, focused on travel and presence. Having been home for one year, now we are focusing on home and absence.
We’re grateful to everyone here for contributing your ingredients, ideas and presence to the shift, and also to concentric circles of contributors, starting with Konoba Nebuloza, the conference and shift hosts, other Croa-tian friends, and our guest telepresences from around the world.
We are indebted to performances and other influences from Richard Gough, Joseph Beuys, Marin Blažević, Anthony Bourdain, Nicolas Bourriaud, Bertolt Brecht, Julia Child, Ping Chong, various Clarks (especially Danny, Julian, Rita and Melissa), crayfish and crawfish, Diego Felix, Geoffrey Hendricks, klapsko pjevanje, Francis Mallmann, New Year’s in Havana, phô for breakfast, Ute Ritschel, street food and market stalls, Yue Wah grocery, Phillip Zarrilli, and countless folks who have visited or hosted us.
Izvoditi u agoniji
KUSTOSICE: Lada Čale Feldman i Lois Weaver PROSTOR: Hrvatsko narodno kazalište Ivan pl. Zajc, Rijeka
SUDIONICI: Julia Bardsley. Lada Čale Feldman; Nataša Govedić, Nicholas Ridout i Lois Weaver
OPIS SMJENE: Okosnica smjene je site specific solo izvedba Lois Weaver, nastala na temelju novele Miroslava Krleže Ispod maske, u engleskom prijevodu Lade Čale Feldman. Smjena će se odvijati u formi povremenih prekida glumičina obraćanja publici, tijekom kojih će sudionici izlagati i raspravljati o različitim problemima što niču na presjecištu neuspjeha recepcije i produkcije, pokusa i konačnog uprizorenja, osobne (pri)povijesti i izvedbene sadašnjosti/nazočnosti, proscenija i zakulisja, svakodnevnih, profesionalnih i umjetničkih izved-benih pritisaka, egzistencijalnih i rodnih ili pak dobnih izvedbenih tjeskoba, izvedbe kao događaja i njezine tekstovne (neuspjele) reprezentacije, umjetničke prakse i teorije, kazališnih i izvedbenih studija.
“Agonija” na koju upućuje naslov smjene tiče se iskustva treme, prema sudu Nicholasa Ridouta jedne od zataškanih neuralgija modernoga kazališta koja se dosad još nije testirala kao poticaj izvedbi, tijekom koje bi izvođač bio izložen opasnosti gubitka vlastite osobnosti. Može li se trema podvrći pokusu i nastupu i u koju svrhu, kako bi je se izvođačica riješila ili kako bi pojačala njezine učinke? Je li to povijesno, kulturno i diskur-zivno inducirana, kontingentna pojava svojstvena isključivo materijalnim uvjetima modernog građanskog kazališta i njegovih društvenih korelata u različitim drugim profesionalnim okolnostima, ili je pak riječ o fenomenu pertinentnom i za suvremene forme izvedbe? Je li posrijedi stanje koje valja njegovati, zanemarivati ili krotiti? Kako ga izvođačevo iskustvo, dob i rod pojačavaju ili slabe? Kada ono započinje ili okončava u konkretnom događaju izvedbe – koje facete prostornosti i vremenitosti, bilo izvanjske ili unutrašnje, to stanje upošljuje? Može li se ono prenijeti i dijeliti s drugima? Koju politiku implicira odluka da se trema tretira kao estetski materijal i teorijski problem?
Izvedba Lois Weaver rađa se oko novele koja prepričava iskustvo treme tipične modernističke glumice i stoga je djelomice zamišljena i kao sučeljenje izvođačice s estetskim i političkim slijepim ulicama dramskoga kazališta
s kojima se osobno morala nositi na početku svoje karijere (“Kada sam završila glumačku naobrazbu, shvatila sam da je najveći feministički angažman koji će mi se u životu pružiti biti glumiti Ibsenovu Noru”). Stoga se izvođačica sada voljno vraća poziciji “bivanja režiranom” i nastupa u prostoru i kostimu preopterećenima upra-vo onom vrstom kazališne povijesti koja je naizmjence potiskivala i divinizirala ženske glasove i tijela, a iz koje je nekoć odbjegla. Povratak koji uprizoruje jednako je nostalgičan spram “prikladnog”, “specijaliziranog” i samo-dostatnog kazališnog mjesta koliko i disruptivan u odnosu na njegove regulacijske mehanizme i ideološke konotacije. Izvođačica to mjesto stoga ponovno prisvaja kao “žena sama na pozornici”, ujedno ironijski hipertrofirajući potisnuti sadržaj ženskog divizma. Uporaba pak novele koja opisuje glumičino iskustvo treme u modusu koji tetura između pripovijedanja u trećem licu i slobodnog neupravnog stila dodatno uznemiruje bilo kakvo jednostavno podudaranje između osobne investicije u izvedbenu situaciju i uloge (koje uloge?) koju izvođačica igra ili treme o kojoj izvješćuje. Tako njezina izvedba potkresuje i ideal uživljena utjelovljenja koliko i ideal distancirana samo-promatranja: pitanje je međutim kako posredovati između dezintegrativnih i produk-tivnih aspekata traumatskog trenutka u kojemu se gubi identitet?
Kako izvedba treme po sebi implicira čudnu smjesu voljnosti i prisile, a opet i iskustvenog i kazališnog refer-iranja izvođačice na samu sebe, koje bi moglo voditi do samoinducirane psihičke dezintegracije jednako kao i do uzbudljive izvedbene vitalnosti, razmjena između izvođača i diskutanata teći će u različitim formama osmišljenima tako da poštuju tijek i ritam njezina nastupa, a isto tako i njezine tjelesne, emocionalne i intelek-tualne zahtjeve: sudionici će se stoga uzajamno ispitivati i komentirati nastup, kombinirat će se glumičini os-obni stavovi i prisjećanja s dodatnim etnografskim materijalom, a sudionici će ponuditi i teorijska razmatranja o specifičnoj “materijalnoj situaciji” u koju je izvođačica smještena.
Performing in Agony
SHIFT CURATORS: Lada Čale Feldman and Lois Weaver SHIFT VENUE: Croatian National Theatre “Ivan Zajc”, Rijeka
SHIFT PARTICIPANTS: Julia Bardsley; Lada Čale Feldman; Nataša Govedić, Nicholas Ridout and Lois Weaver
SHIFT DESCRIPTION: Centred on the work-in-progress site-specific solo performance by Lois Weaver, which takes as its point of departure Miroslav Krleža’s short story Behind the Mask translated in English by Lada Čale Feldman, this shift is a direct collaborative outcome not only of PSI 15 encounters and debates, but above all of its experimentation in joining performance artists and scholars with different backgrounds. It will proceed in intermittent interruptions of the performer’s addresses to the audience, during which the participants will engage in a discussion on various issues arising at the interface of mis-spectating and mis-performing, of re-hearsal and “final” enactment, of life-history and performance present/presence, of front-stage and back-stage, of every-day, professional and artistic performance pressure, of existential and gender- or age-inflected perfor-mance anxiety, of performance as event and its textual (mis-)representation, of artistic practice and theory, of theatre and performance studies.
The “agony” referred to in the title of our shift concerns the experience of stage-fright, recently theorized by Nicholas Ridout as one of the neuralgias of modern theatre, the brink of its human failure, which, however, has never been actually tested as a risk of performer’s “depersonalization” around which to build up a performance. Can one rehearse and perform stage-fright and for what purpose should one do it – to dispense of it or to heighten its effects? Is it a historically, culturally and discursively induced, contingent phenomenon pertain-ing to material conditions of modern bourgeois theatre, with social corollaries in various other professional settings, or is it still pertinent to contemporary performance – as a state to be cherished, ignored, or tamed? How do performer’s acting experience, age and gender add to or subtract from its hold? Where and when does it begin and end in the actual event of performance - what facets of spatiality and temporality, either internal or external, does it engage? Can one communicate and share it? What is the politics of making it an aesthetic experience or theoretical problem?
Lois Weaver’s work-in-progress that evolves around a short story narrating the stage-fright experienced by a typical modernist actress is, however, also partly envisaged as a confrontation of the performer with the
aesthetic and political dead-end of dramatic theatre, the personal implication of which hit her at the beginning of her career (“This is what I realized after having finished my acting training: that the most I would have been able to do in terms of feminist engagement was to play Nora my whole life”). It is therefore that she willingly returns to the position of “being directed” and of performing in both a space and a costume over-burdened by the kind of theatrical history that alternated between suppression and divinization of female voices and bod-ies, from which she once escaped. This return is both nostalgic of a “proper”, “specialized” and self-contained theatrical site and disruptive of its regulatory mechanisms and ideological connotations, both a re-appropri-ation of its space by “a woman alone on stage” and an ironic display of the repressed content of any kind of female stardom. The use of a short story presenting a theatrical “ekphrasis”, narrated in a mode that vacillates in-between a third person account and reported speech, additionally troubles any simple co-incidence be-tween the performer’s personal investment in the performing situation and the role (whose role?) she plays or the stage-fright on which she reports. Thus her performance undermines both the ideal of absorbed imperson-ation and the one of distantiated (self-)observation. The question remains, however, how to negotiate between the disintegrative and the productive aspects of this traumatic moment of “missing identity”?
Since performing the stage-fright implies in itself a curious mixture of volition and coercion, as well as of experiential and theatrical auto-reference that could lead both to a self-induced psychic disintegration and to a shattering vitality of enactment, the exchange between the performer and the discussants will take various forms designed to respect not only the pace and rhythm of her delivery, but also her physical, emotional and intellectual demands: from mutual questioning to commenting on the piece, from combining the actress’s personal statements and recollections with additional “ethnographic” material to offering theoretical underpin-nings regarding the specific “material situation” in which she is placed.
“Poluinterpretacije ili kako objasniti suvremeni ples nemrtvom
zecu”, BADco (Hrvatska/Croatia)
Subota/ Saturday, 4. 09., 22:00 - Hrvatski kulturni dom na Sušaku, Strossmayerova 1
BADco. je izvedbena skupina osnovana 2000.g. koja djeluje u Zagrebu. Jezgru skupine danas čine Pravdan Devlahović, Ivana Ivković, Ana Kreitmeyer, Tomislav Medak, Goran Sergej Pristaš, Nikolina Pristaš i Zrinka Užbinec, a jedna od suosnivačica bila je i Ivana Sajko.
Skupina u kojoj djeluju umjetnici različitih edukacijskih i profesionalnih povijesti – četiri plesna umjetnika, dva dramaturga i jedan filozof - od svog osnutka sistematski usmjerava pažnju na istraživanje protokola izvedbe, predstavljanja i gledanja strukturirajući svoje projekte oko različitih formalnih i percepcijskih odnosa i konteksta. Rekonfiguriranje postojećih konvencionalnih odnosa između izvedbe i gledatelja, preispitivanje perspektivalnih datosti teatra i arhitektonike izvedbe te problematizacija komunikacijskih struktura ključna su obilježja koja su rad skupine svrstala među značajne kazališne pojave u međunarodnom kontekstu. Četrnaest predstava (Čovjek.Stolac, 2tri4, Diderotov nećak ili krv nije voda, Solo Me, Persen, Misa za predizbornu šutnju i kopita u grlu, Walk This Way, Rebro kao zeleni zidovi, Brisane poruke, Fleshdance, Žena-bomba, Stanje br.2, Memories are made of this... izvedbene bilješke, Promjene i 1 poor and one 0), brojni istraživački projekti, radionice i predavanja kojima su se BADco. predstavili jasno upućuje na raznolikost pristupa stvaranju teatra, umjetničku znatiželju i intelektualna nastojanja skupine.
BADco. is a collaborative performance collective based in Zagreb, Croatia. The artistic core of the collective are: Pravdan Devlahović, Ivana Ivković, Ana Kreitmeyer, Tomislav Medak, Goran Sergej Pristaš, Nikolina Pristaš and Zrinka Užbinec, and Ivana Sajko was one of the co-founders.
The collective combines artists with different educational and professional background - four choreographers / dancers, two dramaturges and one philosopher. Since it’s beginning in 2000 BADco. systematically focused on researching protocols in performance, presentation and observation by structuring its projects around diverse formal and perceptual relations and contexts. Distinct features of their work include reconfiguring established relations between performance and audience, challenging perspective givens and architectonics of performance as well as questioning communicational structures. All this enabled BADco. to become part of the significant international theatre scene.
Fourteen performances (Man.Chair, 2tri4, Diderot’s Nephew or Blood is Thicker than Water, Solo Me, RibCage, Walk This Way, Mass (for Election Day Silence), Deleted Messages, Fleshdance, memories are made of this… performance notes, Gravidation, Changes, 1 poor and one 0, The League of Time), numerous research projects, workshops and lectures clearly present the collective’s diverse approaches to theatre, artistic inquisitiveness and intellectual endeavours.
“POLUINTERPRETACIJE ili kako objasniti suvremeni ples nemrtvom zecu”
“Ne znam kako stvari stoje. Ne znam ni tko sam ni što želim, ali drugi tvrde da to znaju za mene, drugi koji me određuju, tjeraju me na govor, interpretiraju moje riječi i uključuju me. Bilo da sam oluja, štakor, stijena, jezero, lav, dijete, radnik, gen, rob, nesvjesno ili virus, oni mi šapuću, navode me, nameću interpretaciju toga što sam i što mogu biti.”
Bruno Latour, “Pasterizacija Francuske”
“SEMI-INTERPRETATIONS or how to explain contemporary dance to an undead hare»
“I don’t know how things stand. I know not who I am nor what I want, but others say they know on my behalf, others, who define me, link me up, make me speak, interpret what I say, and enroll me. Whether I am a storm, a rat, a rock, a lake, a lion, a child, a worker, a gene, a slave, the unconscious, or a virus, they whisper to me, they
suggest, they impose an interpretation of what I am and what I could be.”
Bruno Latour, “The Pasteurization of France”
Kompozicija i modulacije/ Composition and modulations: Nikolina Pristaš
Bilješke i blackboxing/ Notes and blackboxing: Goran Sergej Pristaš Suradnici/ Collaborators: Jasmin Dasović (sound), Alan Vukelić (light),
Silvio Vujičić (costume), Ana Ogrizović (hare).
Poluinspirirano radovima/ Semi-inspired by work of: Joseph Beuys,
Francoise Delsarte, Steven Shaviro, Bruno Latour and Graham Harman
Projekt podržan/ Project is supported by: Zagreb City Office for
Education, Culture and Sport, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia
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