Theatre Without Actors Rehearsing New Modes of Co-Presence
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Theatre Without Actors Rehearsing New Modes of Co-Presence Pedro Manuel 3 © Pedro Manuel, 2017 All rights reserved. Save exceptions stated by the law, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system of any nature, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, included a complete or partial transcription, without the prior written permission of the author, application for which should be addressed to the author. Cover Photographs: Pedro Manuel / “Erasure”, presented within Festival Temps d’Images at Teatro Nacional D. Maria II, Lisbon, 2015 Printed by: Gildeprint / www.gildeprint.nl 4 Theatre Without Actors Rehearsing New Modes of Co-Presence Theater Zonder Acteurs Oefeningen in Samenzijn (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof.dr. G.J. van der Zwaan, ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op woensdag 6 december 2017 des middags te 2.30 uur door Pedro António Cardoso Rodrigues Manuel geboren op 19 april 1980 te Lissabon, Portugal 5 Promotor: Prof. dr. M.A. Bleeker This thesis was accomplished with financial support from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (Portugal) 6 Acknowledgments This dissertation was made possible by the continuous and inspiring dialogue with Maaike Bleeker. Her sharp intelligence and scholarship and her personal candour and humour made me feel I had a peer and an accomplice throughout all the process of the dissertation. This research was generously supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (Portugal), which granted a financial stability and continuity without which this project would not have been possible and which allowed for the opportunity for growth. I would also like to thank Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (Portugal) for their financial support in the first months of the research and Utrecht University for their financial support for a period of the writing process. The research gained from the support of staff and colleagues at Utrecht University, namely, the availability and support of coordinators José van Aelst and Rianne Giethoorn, as well as of staff of the Department of Media and Culture Studies, such as Eugene van Erven, Chiel Kattenbelt, Nanna Verhoeff and Sigrid Merx. I want to thank in particular those colleagues I engaged with more directly and who have generously supported me with feedback, advice and friendship, such as Konstantina Georgelou, João da Silva, Laura Karreman, Liesbeth Groot Nibbelink, Marijn de Lange and Evelyn Wan. I would also like to mention colleagues from other places with who I had inspiring talks, João Florêncio and Mischa Twitchin, at Goldsmiths, University of London, as well as Ana Pais, Ana Bigotte Vieira and Ricardo Seiça Salgado, who I joined to initiate the project of a PSi-Cluster in Portugal. The trajectory of the research was also enriched by meetings, conferences and papers, where I shared my work and discussed it with peers. For those opportunities of exposure, confrontation and feedback I want to thank Ruth Collier, Ruth Legg, Sofia Mourato, José Alberto Ferreira, as well as Maria João Brilhante and Paul Carter. This research improved with the input of artists and educators I met in the Netherlands, in particular, at DAS Theatre – Academy of Theatre and Dance, Amsterdam University of the Arts, where I was given the opportunity to grow as an artist and theorist. I value exchanges with Barbara van Lindt, Marijke Hoogenboom and Jeroen Fabius, as well as with artists such as Petra Ardai, 5 Edit Kaldor, Ant Hampton, Zhana Ivanova, Andrea Bozic, David Weber-Krebs and Sarah van Lamswerde. Departing from the work developed in this environment, I had the opportunity to continue practicing artistic research in contexts such as the Festival of Live Art Amsterdam, programmed by Rose Akras, the Fraslab program of Frascati Theater, curated by Berthe Spoelstra, the program of We Live Here — an Academy, curated by Nicole Beutler and Andrea Bozic, where I collaborated with Inge Koks and Barbara Alves; and the Festival Temps d’Images Lisboa, programmed by António Câmara Manuel. Following this trajectory, I would like to thank my colleagues at the ArtEZ Master of Theatre Practices for their openness and support, particularly, Gaby Allard, Nishant Shah, Ulrike von Meier, Maeve O’Brien Braun, Nienke Terpsma and Zhana Ivanova. While writing this dissertation, I was lucky to have a number of people in my personal life that helped me go through the ups and downs of working on a PhD. I am grateful for the warm welcome and familiar friendship of Marta Pisco and Reuben Wijnberg, of Susanna Brenner and Felix Ritter, of Fiona de Bell and Roel Schoenmakers, as well as of João Evangelista, Elga Ferreira and Joana Lamas: you made me feel at home in your house and in your hearts. I also want to acknowledge how the friendship of Louise and Rob Smart, of Merle Bossenbroek and Niek van Veen, Paula Albuquerque and Bas Coenegracht, of Maartje Fliervoet and Knut Birkholz, makes my days feel complete and memorable. Finally, I want to express my gratitude to Artur Alves, Filomena Neves and an extended family in Porto who have welcomed me in their intimacy and supported this work in every way. To my beloved Ana Cardoso, Olivia Costa, Frederico Costa and Luis Manuel, I want to thank them for their laughter and confidence, and for how they gave me a sense of family over the distance, and in each time I returned to them. I am grateful for the home I have with Barbara Alves, my partner, friend and lover, for her understanding and support in the making of this dissertation, and for sharing her intelligence, humour and love with me. I hope to share this work in the future with my son Sebastião, who generously granted me much of our playtime. 6 I would like to dedicate a final word to my father, who, to me, was an inspiring theatre actor and who often protested against the theme of this research. Our talks about actors, theatre, and life around it, brought us together and are now living in this text. 7 8 Table of Contents Introduction — The Emptied Space 11 Theatre without Actors 11 Trajectories 16 Why Theatre? 18 Related Practices 21 Co-Presence 24 Structure 27 Chapter 1 — Strategies of Contemporary Theatre Without Actors 31 Introduction 31 Section 1 — Artificial Beings: Technology 33 Strategy 1 – Doubles 33 Denis Marleau: Les Aveugles 34 Kris Verdonck: Huminid, They, and M, a Reflection 36 Strategy 2 — Autonomous Machines 39 Annie Dorsen: Hello Hi There 40 Rabih Mroué and Lina Saneh: 33 rpm and a few seconds 41 Heiner Goebbels: Stifters Dinge 42 Romeo Castellucci: Sacre du Printemps 43 Conclusion: Disciplinary Challenges 45 Section 2 — Environments of Play: Spectators 49 Strategy 3: Aural Scores 50 Rotozaza: Etiquette 51 Theater Ligna: In Search of the Lost Revolution 51 Strategy 4: Readership 53 Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells: The Quiet Volume 53 Ivana Müller: We Are Still Watching 54 Conclusion: Automatism and Autonomy 56 9 Section 3 — Making Appear the Apparent: Matter / Gaze 59 Strategy 5: Staging Non-Actors 59 Gob Squad: Gob Squad’s Kitchen 60 Gerardo Naumann: Factory & Dominic Huber: House 62 Rimini Protokoll: Chácara Paraíso 64 Strategy 6: Staging Natural Phenomena 67 Wim T. Schippers: Going to the Dogs 67 Kris Verdonck; Mass, Shell, and Box 69 Strategy 7: Staging Sightseeing 72 Dries Verhoeven: The Big Movement 72 Rimini Protokoll: Sonde Hannover 74 Gustavo Ciríaco and Andrea Sonnberger: Here Whilst 75 We Walk Conclusion: Performing and Perceiving 75 Conclusion: Expanded Acting 78 Chapter 2 — Views About Absenting the Actor in Theatre History 81 Introduction 81 Brief Account of Strategies of Performing Beyond Actors Between the 17th and 19th Centuries 83 Introduction 83 Staging Mechanical Bodies 84 Staging Mechanical Phenomena 86 Staging Natural Phenomena 89 Conclusion: Relating Strategies 94 Absenting the Actor: Looking for the Nature of the Medium 95 Introduction: From Kleist to Kantor 95 Inadequacy of the Actor: Dissociating Actors from Acting 97 Lack of Life: Anthropomorphic and Non-Anthropomorphic Actors 105 Natures of Theatre: Autonomy and the Actor 112 Conclusion: Relating Motives 117 Conclusion: A “Low Profile” Tradition 118 10 Chapter 3 — Framing the Emergence of Theatre Without Actors within Theatre and Performance Studies 121 Introduction: Expanding Theatre in Discourses of Theatre and Performance Studies of the 1990’s 121 Discourses Establishing Notions of Unmediated Presence 124 Peggy Phelan 124 Erika Fischer-Lichte 126 Peter Brook, Jerzy Grotowski 128 Expanding Co-Presence 131 Discourses Advancing Notions of Mediated Presence and Non-Human Acting 131 Challenging Assumptions About Unmediated Co-Presence Through Discourses About Performance and Technology 132 Béatrice Picon-Vallin 134 Amelia Jones 136 Philip Auslander 139 Expanding Disciplinary Limits Through Views About Theatricality 143 Josette Féral 144 Erika Fischer-Lichte, on Theatricality 146 Eli Rozik 148 “Ecological Theatre” and the Staging of the Real 150 Chaudhuri, Fuchs: Ecological Theatre and Landscape 151 Lehmann: Theatre of Perceptibility 156 Conclusion: Moving Theatre Beyond a Binary Account of Co-Presence 160 Conclusion — Acting Beyond Theatre 165 Staging the Real Beyond Actors: Reviewing Arguments 165 Acting Beyond Theatre: Intersections of Theatre Without Actors and Posthumanist Philosophy 171 Metaphysics of Presence and Hauntology 172 Actor-Network Theory and Posthuman Performativity 176 11 Bibliography 183 List of Performances 197 Summary 203 Samenvatting 205 12 Introduction — The Emptied Space Theatre without Actors1 Since the turn of the century, an increasing number of theatre makers have created works without actors. In this dissertation, I analyse these works, situate them in a historical trajectory about theatre without actors, and consider the theoretical impli- cations therein for the field of theatre and performance studies.