Maska - Volume 31, Issue 177-178, 2016

The text “Dance Criticism: The Criticism of Crisis” thinks about the situation and role of dance criticism. The initial thesis of the text concerns itself with the misguidedness of dance criticism, which does not recognize the fact that contemporary dance is in crisis, but rather treats its subject as given. The text suspects that dance criticism – despite clear evidence of its confusion – still knows what dance is. Simultaneously, the text battles against the view that dance criticism should report on the quality of performances. It attempts to lay this view to rest and develops a different perspective, elevating dance criticism as the companion of the historical moment, the philosophical co-traveller of dance. The author hopes for different, dialectical and slippery critical forms and content.

Eyal Weizman and Anselm Franke speak in detail about their collaborative effort and exhibition Forensis at HKW, Berlin. The interview by Nilourfar Tajeri and Gal Kirn tackled three major topics that emerged in the conferences during the exhibition: first, they spoke about the aesthetical implications of forensic realism and about the genesis of their collaborative work; secondly, they traced the relationship of forensics to emancipatory politics; and thirdly, they observed some theoretical and political underpinnings of the major shift from the age of the witness to the age of forensics, this connected to potential consequences for a different politics and culture of forensic memory.

We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of autonomy. Each to her own rhythm; nobody must be constrained to march at a uniform pace. Cars have lost their allure of rarity and above all they can no longer perform the task they were conceived for: speed has slowed down. Cars are immobile as stupid slumbering tortoises in city traffic. Only slowness is fast.

If the future is already here, what comes after? Tortoises, singular rhythms, disarming femininity, knowing the world, sages, the body, bearded man, sleep, ecstasy, sharing of imaginations, sweet energy... and more.

Be a revolutionary. Demand the impossible. Be transgressive and provocative. Always do one more thing than you can do. Always do more than you can. Always do more… a handbook that will tell you, in 86 steps, how to become a model self-employed cultural worker in late capitalism.

Dragan Živadinov creates conceptual total works of art that are procedural and processual in nature. At the centre of interest of his art is the spectator, or the gaze, since the essence of this theatre is produced by a constant turning of the perspective. The project(ile) Noordung 1995-2045 has been conceived as a 50-year project to show the instability of the relation between body and technology. It stages itself and thus repeats the drama of the cosmos. A theatre of repetition that again finds the primary (ritual) sense of theatre.

Drawing on fragments from the performance Plastika (2013), this article explores the relationship between text and voice, between a text and its voices. The voice that it deals with is both textual and oral, even though it reaches us in written form or as grafts, and it allows us to listen to more than just the materiality of language, the sonority of the words, and the grain of the voice, In this textual voice, which can be both poetic and performative, we can hear the uniqueness of a voice that exceeds meaning, escapes the body, and begins interating with other singular bodies, drives and disruptions of the transformative power of the voice and of language.

This article uses theories on the Politics of Recognition to attach a political dimension to terminology. More than a practice that facilitates communication in rehearsal or studio situations, terminology is a tool that aids in the recognition of one’s work and identity. Two case studies frame the discussion, namely, certain scholarly material written about theatre in Africa and the laboratorial practice developed by Frank Camilleri, a practitioner-academic whose work has featured in recent publications. (These choices are framed around the theories on recurrent practices as developed by Michel De Certeau.) Two terminological approaches are delineated, namely, the appropriation of terms and the formulation of alternative nomenclatures. The relevance of terminology to contemporary discourses on hybridity, creation of lineages and academic accreditation is also evaluated.

The Prague Quadrennial (PQ), the world’s largest exhibition of stage (performance) design, was held for the 13th time from 17-28 June 2015. This article outlines the historical development of PQ, from its “conceptual” beginnings in the 1930s and real beginnings in socialist Czechoslovakia, to the present day. Our focus is the variety of curatorial practices at PQ 2015 that perform the delicate process of “translation” of live performances into static exhibits and “mediation” between the stage (performing space) and the gallery (exhibition space), taking into account the transformations of the “art world” that is increasingly bringing those spaces together.

Like numerous other festivals, the PUF festival in Croatia got its start as an experiment, in this case following the war and disintegration of Yugoslavia. In an era of great crisis in the Croatian theatre scene, this international festival introduced a new dramatic vocabulary. It was founded in 1994 by the directors of three non-institutional theatres: Branko Sušec (PUF), Nebojša Borojević (the Daska Theatre in Siska), and Roman Bogdan (the Čakovec Pinklec). In the war-torn 90s, the founders decided that the festival was to take place in Pula and not Dubrovnik because the war had largely spared the former. The festival finalised its name, the PUF International Theatre Festival, in 1996.

Matthias Lilienthal’s directorship at the Kammerspiele began with the construction of a series of sleeping units scattered throughout Munich whose costs were not to exceed 250 euros. The apartments drew attention to the everday topic of conversation about the too expensive and at the same time vacant apartments in the city, whereby the project entered the spaces of social life. Such installations become a theatre project when temporary dwellers move in and are then seen as part of the performance by spectators passing by.

The performance Capital by Ivica Buljan, which was conceived while reading Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, is a presentation of the work process by a group of young actresses and actors who try to reflect the contemporary paradigm of capital. From a directorial perspective, this is not a wilful aestheticisation of the chosen texts, which we read as a sign of the sincerity of the artists’ collective effort. Although the explanatory approach and the burden of the dramatic form hinder effective expression of personal stances on the chosen topic, the created material can serve as a solid ground for an eventual upgrade of this study production, which could bring about a more pronounced engagement or performance of the discourse – out of itself.

In her book Conversations with Meredith Monk, Bonnie Marranca publishes four conversations that occurred between 2008 and 2013, that is, in Monk’s mature period of creation, hence affording the artist occasion to reflect on her past work. Among other things, she affirms that her relationship to her work is informed by her practice of Buddhism. She refers to directorial method of “weaving” together the different media she uses when constructing her stage works, allowing her to connect the different worlds contained within different media and in so doing experience herself as an integrated being. She describes the creation of a work as the search for something fundamental, understanding each work as its own world, which she listens to and whose laws she searches for in an uninterrupted dialogue with the work as the subject. For her, the stage is a holy space, a space for ritual between performers and audience, in which an important role is played by shared time, unrepeatable and transient. The conversations with Monk reveal how her creative process heeds the internal desires of the creation and simultaneously ignores the instructions of established aesthetic guidelines.