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CreationofMythology BlaueFrauLecture PDF
CreationofMythology BlaueFrauLecture PDF
To offer a subject position and let go of interpretative prerogative
Participatory practices and a norm critical agenda.
● Which are the possible potentials?
● Which problems have we encountered?
● How have we tried to deal with them?
A) Why performance?
We come from a theatre background and we were trained in a theater tradition. Even though
this lecture is focusing on participatory performance, we want to start of in the realm of
traditional theatre as some of the theory and method we use is articulated in relation to or in
opposition against traditional theatre.
B) A good drama explores a dilemma.
A drama, in the literary sense, i structured around a conflict. It is a narrative form where a main
character is placed in a conflict between two or more values. In a rama there is no
good d
dilemma
correct answer to the conflict it is in fact a dilemma
further the is also relevant to the
audience. Drama is a form that gives the audience a place, a setting and time where to
emotionally work with a complex question.
Most entertainment, didactic theatre och “message”carrying theater lacks this aspect. There is
no actual question in the audience whether it would be a good choice for Frodo to simply hand
over the ring to Sauron and go home and live a comfortable life.
C) The traditional theatrical method is representation.
The usual method for drama whether on the theatre, in film or literature is to present the
dilemma through a representative: The main character o r he audience access
the protagonist. T
a position of subject through identification with the protagonist. We are supposed to identify.
This however is at best a rather blunt instrument
EXAMPLE: Faust.
At its worst it’s a violent instrument as it establishes a discourse of who i
s a possible subject in a
drama, which bodies/identities are used to portray “anyone” (and who, which bodies and
identities that holds the position of “certain” or even “other”). We have no choice but perceiving
the drama through the eyes of the author. If we feel detached to his gaze we have no other
options but to either stay left excluded or to try to internalise the gaze as it being our own. We
then often mistake this second option as a process for understanding artistic quality.
What constitutes that what we perceive as Artistic Quality?
What I recognize as “good” and “strong” art is, as much as anything constituted by the norms of
the order surrounding me. The misogynic order is within me, it is my gaze and it works through
me. Sneaky to point out, since it hides itself in the places of me that I experience as authentic
and trustworthy, in my gut feeling. Even as a female, a dedicated feminist, a norm critical,
anticolonial artist i over and over find myself creating highly sexist, heteronormative and
colonial art. Because I have learned to instinctively read these images, phrases and situations
as good art.
One way out of this is to move away from talking about Artistic Quality, but instead talking about
Artistic Qualities. There are a multitude of individual perspectives, with different experiences and
different sore and tender spots then there is a multitude of different Artistic Qualities speaking to
and from these positions.
So, what can I as an artist do in order to empower the multitude of position and raise the value
of their experiences?
D) Making the audience Faust.
We had issues with this blunt tool called dramatic theatre. We were interested in the potentials
for audience to do intense and complex emotional work. We started to look closely at the
working conditions of the audience and looked for other possible means how to support this
work better. By skipping the blunt tool of representation and instead using direct experience we
could place the audience or the visitor
in the position of
the protagonist.
In our pieces we want to create a setting, a time, a place and give the audience the
prerequisites to conduct emotional labor on their own: to cut out the middleman. The individual
audience is the main character,it is around her that the narrative circulates and unfolds.
How? We try to define a relevant dilemma and we structure space and time around it and invite
the visitor to move within that spacetime; exploring his/her relation to the dilemma at hand.
E) The trap of “ultimate outcome”.
We would like to share a mistake we’ve made.
EXAMPLE: THE DINNER CLUB
We started by identifying a dilemma. “Knowing gender as a social construction vs Experiencing
gender as an essential part of my identity.”
We imagined a place, a situation, where we could deal with this dilemma protected from our
everyday lives. Then we constructed that place. And that is the piece. In this case: The Dinner
Club. A performance in the form of an evening class in normative behavior. In a seductive, often
very affirmative setting, visitors were invited to take a close look at their relationship to gender.
We taught them table manners, mingling etiquette, rumba. Gave them makeup tips, did their
hair and taught them how to flirt. A playful masquerade, a drag show where men dressed up as
men and women as women, turning to a choking clinch as the evening proceeded and the
audience faced examination, a three course dinner followed by social dancing. The evening
class served as a sparring partner. Sexual affirmation. Pleasant mingling. Choking expectations.
It provided a legitimizing frame and handson physical participation.
The Dinner Club served resistance, provocation, temptation, in order to give the audience
material to react to, and through that formulating a relationship to the issue at hand.
The problem was we already had determined the relationship. The Dinner Club is based on the
assumption that the misogynic classes will eventually be confrontative to the audience. We
expected a conflict, where we held the position of sexist opponent while the visitor held the
position of the norm critical hero.
A choice one must make when working with a participatory practice, is the whether there should
be an “ultimate outcome”. That you construct the narrative in the form of a story, where you are
dependant on the visitors making the “right” choices or having the “correct” reactions.
Such performances takes the form of a riddle, where the audience task becomes to solve the
riddle and understand the answer we provide. The visitor either “gets it” or “doesn't get it”.
Even if there was room for physical and emotional interaction we held the position of defining
what this story, The Dinner Club, should be about. When we first did the piece we did it in
Stockholm, curated by a young and “cool” art curator. We knew our audience. They had done
gender studies, most of them. They were norm critical. They were individualistic. Most of them
would identify as feminists. We could predetermine what sort of relationship our audience would
have to the very conservative but oh so sexy The Dinner Club. In this context piece was a sharp
sharp tool. It was a story about us.
We got the commission to play The Dinner Club in Salzburg Austria, as a part of Salzburger
Festspeile Young Directors program. IMAGE
There, were the visitors, had a very very different relationship to gender, tradition and class, the
piece showed to be a blunt tool. There was no conflict. It never happened. Everybody had a
lovely evening. The cast was great. The set design awesome. The story never happened. It was
a total failure.
This experience gave us a lot of useful information. One of them is that we need to take great
care in order not to
construct the piece relying on a certain outcome or constructing questions to
which we serve a correct answer. (Since if there is a correct answer, the dilemma wouldn’t be a
real dilemma.)
F) Avoiding the trap of “characterisation”.
The trap of an “ultimate outcome” is related to the trap of characterisation of the audience. As
we stated we want to provide the visitor with a setting, with time and place and relations where
he/she has the possibility to explore his or her relation to a dilemma. We want to provide them
with the position of the
protagonist.
However it is very easy to get carried away here and all of a sudden starting to provide them
with the identity
of the protagonist. I.e. not only to give them a position but also making
assumptions and preconceptions of who they are, what perspective they already have on the
dilemma and what their reactions might be.
In The Dinner Club we based the narrative on the assumption that the audience would carry a
conflict in relation to gender based norms. A conflict similar to our own. Working in Stockholm
this assumption was more or less, a blind spot to ourselves. We found the question “universal”
and our take on it “relevant”. Not until we tried to serve the same performance cake to audience,
not without gender discourse, but with a very different gender discourse, did we understand how
specific The Dinner Club was, and how much it was a piece about Sweden. Or Stockholm. Or
rather The young and intellectual Stockholm.
The traps of “ultimate outcome” and “characterisation”, aren’t only methodological problems for
us. They are also ethical problems. By trying to lead the visitor to an “ultimate outcome” or by
making presumptions of who they are or perhaps even telling them who they are we fail to
provide them with agency the real subject of the piece whose reactions and choices (almost)
always are the legitimate and proper one. (The exception being when the visitor tries to “flee”
the dilemma. More on that later.)
G) Trap of “no situation”
Trying to to solve the problems by having “no situation”, easily results in a reproduction of
existing power structure.
Example: Little King Matthew. Allen Kaprow.
To be blunt one could set up the problem like this:
IMAGE
Set material defined perspective. (Dictates the gaze of the audience. Often upholds a
normative gaze the one of the author (which often is a white male and hereosexual gaze, also
when it comes through a female, queer, colored agent), or takes claim on and exploits a non
normative gaze the one of the “certain” or “other”.) IMAGE
or
Open situation “no” perspektive. (Abdication of authorship responsibility, perspective
blindness, open situations seek structure which often leads to recreation of normative
perspective positions, relations and perspectives). IMAGE
So: To offer a defined dilemma providing legitimizing and focus. Give the work of an audience a
sense of meaningfulness. It is not a nothing. BUT STILL make this dilemma plastic enough to
hold a multitude of very different main characters and their stories.
H) Working with the concepts of mystery and myth.
Two concepts that have been valuable to us in order to avoid the traps of “ultimate outcome”
and “characterisation” are the concepts of mystery and myth.
The trick for us is to formulate the dilemma not as a riddle, where there is a correct answer,
but as a mystery: something where we don’t have an answer to where we can use the
performance to explore our relation to it.
To accept the fact the we don’t know.
The creation of a mystery also contains an act of subjugation or abdication.
(One method we have used for balancing these needs is methods of subjecting oneself as the
author to serve the “voice” of the mystery: meaning that one might include irrationalities in the
piece. Themes, signs or markers that don’t obviously fit and you can’t really explain their
presence. But they “belong” there:
EXAMPLE: The hook in the roof in the Secular Society or the bookable room in The Dinner
Club. IMAGES
Another one is to construct the narrative in such a way that it is complex enough to be usable
for telling many, parallel, and diverse stories. Which all are true.)
The concept of mystery is related to the concept of myth.
French anthropologist Claude
LéviStrauss argues that myth
are the conflicts of a society given symbolic form. For instance
that the Dionysoscharacter in greek mythology was a symbolic reconcilement of the opposition
characteristics of the gendersystem. In the Dionysoscharacter, the greeks had a “thirdthing”
that harboured both feminine and masculine traits.
So when we formulate our dilemmas, we do that with megalomane notion that the personal
dilemmas we struggle with privately, actually are the conflicts of the contemporary culture that
we sense.
Or in the words of mythologist Joseph Campbell:
“Heaven and hell are within us, and all the gods are within us. This is the great realization of the
Upanishads of India in the ninth Century B.C. All the gods, all the heavens, all the world, are
within us. They are magnified dreams, and dreams are manifestations in image form of the
energies of the body in conflict with each other. That is what myth is. Myth is a manifestation in
symbolic images, in metaphorical images, of the energies of the organs of the body in conflict
with each other. This organ wants this, that organ wants that. The brain is one of the organs.”
H) The creation of myth
So the myth are conflicting values (or energies or dreams) given a symbolic form. That is the
structure of myth.
When creating our pieces, we use this structure, but give the myth other symbolic form using
aesthetics to create a “state of exception”.
But also to avoid the trap of characterisation and ultimate outcome.
EXAMPLE: THE LEVIATHAN CAMARADERIE The perverted positions.
The important thing here is not the character of Hades or Atlas, but the set of values they
represent. The visitor isn’t expected to perform an interpretation of Hades, but be in contact with
their own aggressive and possessive sexuality.
Another part in the creation of myth, is that myth is “open source”. There is no ultimate author
and there is no prerogative of interpretation. One can’t say that the myth of Hades and
Persephone is about male sexual domination (it might be), it might also be about female
adolescence, or the protectiveness of motherhood. The theme of a myth, varies depending on
who’s telling it or hearing it.
Creating myth is about abstaining interpretation and handing it over to the recipient. It is to
provide a symbolic order, where the visitor is to fill it with their own experiences.
EXAMPLE: THE LEVIATHAN CAMARADERIE totalitarian sect, therapeutic institute or
intersectional utopia?
I) Acting a myth
Allt this affects not only how we construct narrative and setting, it also affects the method of
acting. If the visitor is the main character, we play the part of supporting roles or extras. Our task
i mainly to:
● Help the visitor focus on the dilemma at hand.
● Provide interhuman relations where the visitor can practice and explore their relation and
reaction to a dilemma.
● Speak intent, act behavior, suppress emotion
●
● Embody certain values, that the visitor projects upon us.
EXAMPLE: Embodying white maleness in THE LEVIATHAN CAMARADERIE.
How we started. A brief presentation of our artistic practice. We both come from a stage art
background. Theatre. The question of ”Why should we do this?” I have issues with the state of
things. I am discontented with the world. Art holds the potentials for constructing something
else, A State of Exception. A State of Exception that is not a dead end, but that can act as a
relatable option that follows me when I leave the tribune and reenter my everyday life.
I am of the opinion that in art, the one who has potentials for change, realizations, existential
growth is the audience. They are the one who are doing the heavy emotional work. The core of
Poste Restante is an interest in this work. We seek methods to give this work as beneficial
working conditions as possible, and make it the authority to which everything else is secondary.
The participatory format can hold the risk of being educating, to teach it’s audience a lesson
”Stop eating meat”, ”Stop focusing on material value”. It also holds the risk to commodify the
experience of its audience. Where the experiences of the audience becomes material used to
create a piece, or the image of a piece, where the final destination is not those who participated
but rather the artistic field in which the image is meant to be presented. (Community work.
”Artificial Hells” Claire Bishop). Both these potential risks relates to situations where there is a
”right” way of reacting for the audience. The work has predefined the emotional pathway of the
audience, and they can either fail or succeed.
We call this narrative format The Riddle. The riddle is a question with a given answer. The
process of the audience is to get the answer.
In A Mystery, there is no given answer. There is a problem. Or more. One can move within in it.
By letting the narrative being constituted by a Mystery, new challenges appear. We will go
through the thoroughly.
When we construct our pieces we start by identifying a dilemma, a mystery. Such as ”What part
of my perceived identity is gender, and what part of my gender is a mask?”
Then we start to imagine a place, a relationship, where we could deal with this mystery.
Protected from our everyday lives. Then we construct that place. And that is the piece. In this
case, a performance in the form of an unsettling evening class in normative behavior.
On drama.
I’ve chosen drama, in its literary sense, as my artistic practice as I am interested in exploring
alternative ways of how to organize and/or relate to the world. Simply because drama is the
exploring
suitable literary genre for ethical and existential dilemmas, instead of for instance
expressing
poetry, that is the suitable genre for ones relation to the world.
What it is then, that makes drama the suitable genre? Every drama is structured as a conflict. In
the heart of a drama there is always two – or more – conflicting values:
To be, or not to be that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die to sleep
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache.
The drama of Hamlet, is of that the main character’s – the protagonist’s
– inner conflict of
whether he should revenge his murdered father (i.e. to take arms against a sea of troubles) or
just put the injustice committed against his father behind him (i.e. to suffer the slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune) or if he should kill himself in order to silence to existential angst that
comes out of his indecisiveness (i.e. to die – to sleep – No more: and by a sleep to say we end
the heartache).
So the key components of a drama are: a protagonist who is positioned in an ongoing conflict
between two or more values (that often are embodied in other characters – but not always).
As I see it, there are two basic types of drama: those who are a nd those who are a
riddle a
mystery .
riddledrama
In a , there is ultimately a “correct” value to choose and the narrative of the drama
is how we in the audience watch the protagonist trying to find the answer, we watch the
protagonist do the “right” choice.
In a mystery
, there is no correct value, there is no correct choice. The conflict is in fact a
dilemma.
We are interested in the mysteries, dilemmas
in the of our own lives and live with the
presumptuous notion that our personal dilemmas might very well interest other people as well,
that other people also ponder the same questions and dilemmas as we do.
EXAMPLE!
I believe that these dilemmas arise because they are inherent in the world. They are a product
of how the world is organized – a product of the social structuring of the world.
French anthropologist Claude LéviStrauss argues that myth
are the conflicts of a society given
symbolic form. For instance that the Dionysoscharacter in greek mythology was a symbolic
reconcilement of the opposition characteristics of the gendersystem. In the Dionysoscharacter,
the greeks had a “thirdthing” that harboured both feminine and masculine traits.
For us, making participatory performances, is a way to give the conflicts concrete form. Instead
of reconciling opposing values in a symbolic form. We spell out the conflict and place the visitor
in position of the
protagonist.