Sfârșitul epocii excepționalismului uman în spectacolul live

Authors

  • Elena Vlădăreanu Excellence Center in Image Study (CESI), Bucharest, Romania Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37130/bmr9g822

Keywords:

Performances for pets, performances for animals, interspecies performances, liveness, audience and public, language, body language, human animal vs non-human animal, zooesis, anthropocene, postumanism, animal studies, performance studies

Abstract

This article investigates the performances by Krõõt Juurak și Alex Bailey, named performances for pets, performances for cats and dogs. The difference from other performances labeled as performances for animals or interspecies performances consists not only in the way the two artists conceive their performances, but also in the way they approach the notion of audience. Designed and performed exclusively for dogs or cats, these shows question the supremacy of the Anthropocene and human exceptionalism in live performance and tend to minimize the differences between species in favour of their similarities. Animal studies and theories of posthumanism have given me the right tools to look at, understand and interpret the actions of Krõõt Juurak and Alex Bailey, for whom performance studies, often focused on the performer-spectator relationship or rather on the existence of an audience, do not seem to have yet a rich enough grid of reading.

Author Biography

  • Elena Vlădăreanu, Excellence Center in Image Study (CESI), Bucharest, Romania

    Elena Vlădăreanu is a writer and doctoral student in cultural studies atthe Center of Excellence in Image Studies (CESI) with a research on (auto)biographies in contemporary theatre. She is a graduate of the Faculty of Letters (Romanian-French) within the University of Bucharest, following a thesis on the Romanian surrealists. She holds an MA in visual studies at CESI, following a research on the performativity of contemporary poetry.She published several volumes of poems, theatre, prose and literature for children, and in the field of performing arts she worked with directors Robert Bălan, Bobi Pricop, Bogdan Mustață. Her most recent collaboration is on the choreographic performance Ember by Judith State, with Judith State, Istvan Teglas and Radu Dumitriu (to premier in October 2022, at WASP).In 2018, she initiated, together with other writers and artists, the Zilele Sofia Nădejde project, whose aim is to promote literature and art signed by women. Since 2017, she is the co-producer of Scena și ecranul, a show on Radio Romania Cultural, where she analyses, through interviews and investigations, the theatre scene and the film industry in Romania and abroad.

References

Allain, P., Harvie, J. (2006). Ghidul Routledge de teatru și performance. Traducere de Cristina Modreanu și Ilinca Tamara Todoruț. București: Nemira.

Berger, John (1991). Why look at animals?, in Berger, J. About looking. New York: Vintage Books.

Braidotti, Rosi (2016). Postumanul. Traducere de Ovidiu Anemțoaicei. București: Hecate.

Caesar, T.P. (2009). Speaking of Animals. Essays on Dogs and Others. Brill Academic Publisher.

Chaudhuri, U., Hughes, H. (eds.)(2017). Animal Acts. Performing species today. The University of Michigan Press.

Godfrey-Smith, Peter (2017). Celelalte minți. Caracatița și evoluția vieții inteligente. Traducere de Liviu Dascălu. București: Publica.

MacDonald, Hellen (2021). U de la Uliu. Traducere de Andreea Călin. București: Nemira.

Pepperell, Robert (2018). `Manifestul postuman`, trad. de Daniel Clinci, Post/h/um. Jurnal de studii (post)umaniste, vol. 4, 2018.

Racoviță, Emil (2019). Spre Polul Sud. București: Frontiera.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2013). Cercetări filozofice. Traducere de Mircea Dumitru și Mircea Flonta, în colaborare cu Adrian-Paul Iliescu. București: Humanitas.

Wohlleben, Peter (2015). Viața secretă a copacilor. Cum comunică, ce simt. Descoperirea unei lumi ascunse. Traducere de Dana Gheorghe. București: Publica.

Franck, Kathleen (2016). L’animal au théatre: réflexe antropocantrique au nécessité simbolique [Online]. Available at: https://kathleenfranck.wordpress.com/2016/06/01/animal-theatre-reflexe- anthropocentrique-necessite-symbolique/ (Accessed: 8 December 2022)

performancesforpets.net (2016). Performance for Anwalt [Online]. Available at: http://www.performancesforpets.net/library/2016/5/7/performance-for-anwalt (Accessed: 8 December 2022)

arte.tv (2022). Resurrection - Gustav Mahler [Online]. Available at: https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/109365-000-A/resurrection-gustav-mahler/ (Accessed: 25 August 2022)

Downloads

Published

2022-06-05

Issue

Vol. 24 No. 1 (2022): Contemporary Theatre and Cinema: Regional Identity and Cultural Specificity

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Vlădăreanu, E. (2022). Sfârșitul epocii excepționalismului uman în spectacolul live. CONCEPT, 24(1), 130-141. https://doi.org/10.37130/bmr9g822