1968 | 2018 Protest, Performance and the Public Sphere

Home , David Edgar (playwright), Hunningham

an interdisciplinary symposium hosted by the Department of Theatre & Performance Studies University of Warwick 7-9 June 2018

in association with The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, the Graduate Center, CUNY Cultures of the Left: Manifestations and Performances Warwick Performance and Politics Network Warwick Arts Centre

Contents

CONFERENCE PREMISE - 3 -

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS - 4 -

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS - 5 -

SPECIAL EVENTS - 8 -

HOUSEKEEPING - 10 -

EXPLORING THE AREA - 12 -

PROGRAMME - 14 -

- 2 - Conference Premise

In 1968 a wave of popular protest swept across Europe, India and North and South America. It was accompanied by demonstrations, interventions and performances, and marked the irruption of political protest in the public sphere in a way that changed culture, thinking and policy.

Recent events have seen a resurgence of the popular voice (as evidenced variously, for instance, in the outcomes of the Brexit referendum, the US and French presidential elections, events in Catalonia, and the Hindutva political narrative in India). They have been accompanied by a sense of crisis concerning civic and political process, and the galvanising of radical public protest of different kinds.

In view of the fiftieth anniversary of les événements and the various socio-political actions of 1968, this symposium asks what we can learn from these events. It considers what resonance 1968 has for contemporary political movements, how ‘the public’ engages with political process in current scenarios, and the extent to which popular protest, performative intervention and the public sphere are intertwined today. It also examines how civic and political change come about. What difference does protest make, and how does it get performed in specific political contexts?

The symposium programme includes a visit to Trying It On at Warwick Arts Centre, the world premiere of a solo show written and performed by David Edgar. In the piece Edgar reflects on the 50th anniversary of 1968 from the perspective of his own 70th birthday in 2018.

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Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to our partners, sponsors and supporters:

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, The Graduate Center, City University of New York

The ‘Cultures of the Left: Manifestations and Performances’ Project, which is funded by the British Academy

The Department of Theatre & Performance Studies Performance as Research Fund at the University of Warwick

The Humanities Research Centre at the University of Warwick

Global Research Priority theme: Connecting Cultures at the University of Warwick

Warwick Arts Centre

Warwick Performance and Politics Network

Credits:

Andy Lavender – Symposium Director Frank Hentschker – Executive Director and Director of Programs, Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Theatre, CUNY David Coates – Symposium Organiser and Administrator Carmen Wong – Symposium Assistant Ian O’Donoghue – Technical Support Harriet Simons, Holly Ayrton, Theo Ioannou, Elliot Mills, Alice Burton, Fazlinda Md Fadzil – Conference Volunteers Anita Coldman, Sarah Shute, Kate Brennan – Administrative Support Julia Carruthers, Andrew Fletcher, Tom Langford, Claire Farnell and the Team – Warwick Arts Centre David Edgar and Ed Collier – Trying it On at Warwick Arts Centre Ding Ding – Warwick Conferences Rebecca Pilliere – Translation Services

- 4 - Keynote Speakers

Peter Eckersall

Institution: Theatre and Performance, Graduate Centre, City University of New York

Title: Politics and approaches to time: reflections on Japan’s 1960s from the age of freeter time

Abstract: 1960s Japan was a locus of radical performativity spanning and connecting the arts and radical politics through a commitment to action and the enactment of new subjectivities (Eckersall 2013). The consideration of time and the temporality of action was an important aspect of this: a search for an urgent and authentic spontaneity with the avant-garde blending of transhistorical time (Goodman) and the practice of inter-subjective and anarchic life-force in multiple time-spaces (Kuroda 2010). This paradoxical relation to time is a part of the sixties experience globally. As Hardt and Negri write on their reflections of 1968: ‘The revolution needs time’ (2017: 5). But when viewed from the dystopian present, this statement begs the question: how much time is enough and how has the connection between temporarily and politics changed in the performing arts in Japan, or for that matter globally? How does performance represent, imagine and interrupt time, then and now? As a matter of fact, beginning in the 1980s, the term freeter has been used to describe a generation of docile temporary workers and is now associated with Precarity and the endless everyday boredom of neo-liberal existence in Japan. In contrast to the many examples of rupture and discontinuity in the 1960s, this is a timeframe that is both regulated and also without the momentum of moving forward.

Responding to the conference themes of trajectories of performance in relation to cultural and political transaction and considerations of political frameworks this paper will aim to consider three examples of politics and time as they are discussed in the Japanese performance over the last fifty years. Beginning with a discussion of Shinjuku in 1968-69 where performance spilled into the everyday, I briefly focus on the ‘Shinjuku Park West Exit Incident’ wherein Kara Jûrô and his Situation Theatre Troupe (Jokyo Gekijô) held an ‘illegal’ tent performance before being arrested. As the paper will briefly summarize, Kara’s work is exemplary of a 1960s approach to politics and time.

Contrasting this with performance in an age of freeter time I will consider the often elliptical and postmodern work of Okada Toshiki, a playwright-director and founder of the group chelfitsch. As I will examine, Okada’s dissection of the lives of the freeter generation in his plays poses strongly contrasting sensibilities of time and politics to those of the 1960s. Finally, I consider the recent trend to reenact supposed canonical (and by now mythic) 1960s performances, in this case, Kawaguchi Takao’s ‘About Kazuo Ohno’ (2014-). The performance of Ohno’s butoh’s with its assumed legacy of 1960s temporal spontaneity and anarchy is for some audiences an impossible task, yet it provokes a new awareness of the 1960s and its relationship to now. Kawaguchi

- 5 - never trained as a butoh ka. Yet he immerses himself in the filmic record of Ohno’s oeuvre inhabiting the past gesturally and uncannily while also showing the embodied linage of radical history. The performer is inside and outside the performance event in a very 1960s way, yet we are also watching a long and estranged view of history. In closing, this paper will consider how these three examples reflect and represent of the idea of a radical temporality, then and now.

References: Peter Eckersall, Performativity and Event: Body, City Memory. Palgrave, 2013. David Goodman The return of the gods: Japanese drama and culture in the 1960s. M.E. Sharpe, 1988. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Assembly. Oxford UP, 2017. Raiji Kuroda, Ningen no Ana-kizumu: 1960 zendai: Nihon geijutsu ni akeru pafoomansu no chikate sui myaku. (Anarchy of the Body: Undercurrents of Performance Art in 1960s Japan), Gram Books, 2010.

Bio: Peter Eckersall is Professor of Theatre and Performance and Executive Officer of the PhD Program in Theatre and Performance at the Graduate Centre, City University of New York. He is an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the department of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne. His research interests include Japanese performance, dramaturgy and theatre and politics. he is author of two monographs on the 1960s in Japan including, Performativity and Event: Body, City Memory (Palgrave, 2013). His recent publications include: New Media Dramaturgy: Performance and New-materialism, co-authored with Helena Grehan and Ed Scheer, (Palgrave 2017) and The Dumb Type Reader, coedited with Edward Scheer and Shintarô Fujii (Museum Tusculanum Press, 2017).

- 6 - Lucia Bensasson

Institution: ARTA, Research Association of Traditions of the Actor

Title: 1968 and Collective Creation at the Théâtre du Soleil

Abstract: This presentation considers the work and history of the celebrated French theatre company Théâtre du Soleil, founded by Ariane Mnouchkine and colleagues directly in response to the cultural upheaval of the 1960s. Lucia Bensasson joined the company as an actor in 1968, and will reflect (partly from a unique personal perspective) on Théâtre du Soleil’s work in Paris and more widely, its continuous engagement with social and political issues, and the development of both its theatrical approach and cultural position over the last half-century. The presentation will explore principles of the company’s approach to ‘collective creation’. It will consider specific productions; the training and development processes that accompanied them; and the status of Théâtre du Soleil today. The presentation allows for wider reflection upon the changing nature of radical theatre over this period, and the role of theatre as a conduit for socio-political concerns.

Bio: Lucia Bensasson is an actress from 1967, under the direction of Ariane Mnouchkine from 1968 to 1983 at the Théâtre du Soleil. She has played in Paris, in the Province and abroad under the direction of among others Bernard Sobel, Michelle Marquais, Bruno Boëglin, Jean-Louis Thamin, Declan Donnellan .... She participates in many film and television shootings and directs many workshops and workshops in France and abroad, especially on masked play. In 1989, she founded with Claire Duhamel, ARTA, Research Association of Traditions of the Actor, studio research and experimentation on the art of the actor confronting the practice of theater with the great world traditions (China, Japan, India, ...) through workshops led by foreign masters.

- 7 - Special Events

Trying It On written and performed by David Edgar

Friday 8 June 2018 Goose Nest Theatre 7.45pm

A ticket for this event is included in your registration fee

It’s 1968. David is 20. The Vietnam war rages. The world-wide student revolt is at its height. Martin Luther King is assassinated. Enoch Powell delivers his ‘rivers of blood’ speech. These events will define David’s politics and give focus to his playwriting.

50 years on, the 70-year-old is confronted by the 20-year-old. Do they still share the same beliefs? Is it the world that's changed, or him? Why did his generation vote Brexit? Has he sold in or sold out?

David Edgar’s plays have been presented by the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company (most recently A Christmas Carol) and the Rep (from Mary Barnes to Arthur & George). After 50 years of writing, Trying It On (directed by Christopher Haydon) marks David’s debut as a performer.

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How It All Began Premiere Reading With Frank Hentschker and Peter Eckersall, GC CUNY 40 minutes Thursday 7 June, 6.30pm Oculus Foyer

A staged reading of excerpts of the personal testimony of Michael ‘Bommi’ Baumann, a man who, in the late 1960s and early ’70s, was a member of the June 2nd Movement, one of the most spectacular urban guerrilla organizations in West Berlin.

Of this book, Baumann said ‘Others should understand why people take the road of armed struggle, how they come to it, how the seeds are planted, and what the emotions behind it are, what kind of considerations and psychic preconditions are needed to overcome the fear involved.’

But Baumann, ultimately, had to make a choice. He renounced violence when he left the June 2nd Movement in 1972. Security police seized the original German edition, Wie Alles Anfing, when it appeared in 1975. The resulting trial and publicity raised an international outcry and the book ended up being republished in German and translated into six languages.

In an age when public protests—against corporate greed, against free trade agreements, and for social justice—are becoming more frequent and more violent, How It All Began provides a fascinating glimpse into the thinking behind urban struggle, and the consequences of action.

As Baumann himself said, ‘Violence is a perfectly adequate means, I never had any hangups about it.’ The first English version of How It All Began was published by Arsenal in 1977 and updated in 1981. Long out of print, it has been re-issued, making it available to readers once again.

Bommi Baumann was a leading member of the June 2nd Movement, one of the most active urban guerrilla groups in West Berlin. From a low-income, unstable family background, Baumann left the movement and the urban guerrilla struggle in 1972 and went underground to write this book. He was arrested in London in 1981 and there has been no word from him since.

- 9 - Housekeeping

Registration

The Registration desk is located in the Oculus Building on Thursday and Friday and Warwick Arts Centre on Saturday. It will be open from 12.00–18.00 on Thursday, 09.00–17.00 on Friday, and 09.00–13.30 on Saturday.

WiFi

‘Warwick Guest’ is a self-service wireless network available to short-term visitors to the University of Warwick and is free of charge. Registration for ‘Warwick Guest’ is completely self-service. Once you connect your device to the ‘Warwick Guest’ network, use a web browser to complete the registration process and your password will be sent to your mobile phone as an SMS text message. If you have any problems connecting to the internet, please speak to a member of the conference team at the Registration Desk.

Printing

Printing facilities are available at the University Library subject to payment for copies.

Book of Abstracts

All abstracts for conference papers and panels are available on the conference website.

Baggage Storage

We are able to offer baggage storage at our Registration Desk, which will be manned between the times listed above.

Examinations

Please be aware that examinations are taking place in the Oculus building and Warwick Arts Centre during our conference. If you could keep noise to a minimum in transit between the Helen Martin Studio and the foyer areas of Warwick Arts Centre in particular, that would be appreciated.

- 10 - Car Parking

For all of those that have informed us that you are driving to campus, you have car parking spaces reserved on the top floor of Car Park 15. To find your reserved space, please follow the instructions below:

• On arrival at the University of Warwick, follow the highway signs to Central Campus. • Once there, follow the “Reserved Visitor Parking” signs, to where your space is reserved. Ignore any “Central Campus Parking FULL” signs you see – they don’t apply to reserved visitors. The Car Park is also known as 'Car Park 15'. • Drive to the entrance of the Car Park and speak to the Parking Attendant who will give you access to the reserved parking area. Your space will be on the top floor/level 3 of the Car Park. • Buy a ticket from the pay and display machine (coins only) and display it in your vehicle - £1.10 for up to 2 hours, £2.20 for up to 4 hours or £4.50 for all day. • Warwick Arts Centre and the Oculus are just a few minutes’ walk from the reserved visitor parking.

If you have not contacted us ahead of the conference to let us know that you will be driving to campus, you should follow Car Parking signage and seek advice from the car parking attendants. They will be able to direct you to any available spaces on campus. You should allow ample extra time for parking, as this can be notoriously difficult. Once you have found a suitable bay, you will need to Pay and Display. Prices for this are listed above.

Twitter

@TheatreWarwick #Warwick68to18

- 11 - Exploring the Area

Campus Map

Below you will find a campus map. The conference takes place in rooms at Warwick Arts Centre and in the Oculus Building, highlighted in red on the map.

Public Transport

Adjacent to Warwick Arts Centre is the Bus Interchange and taxi rank. From here, buses run regularly to Leamington Spa (U1 and 11), Kenilworth (11), Coventry (12X and 11) and Coventry Train Station (12X and 11).

Taxis to Coventry Train station will cost in the region of £10-£15. Taxis to Leamington Spa may be in the region of £30. Taxis to Kenilworth will be £10-£20. Taxis to Birmingham International Airport will be £30-£40. Campus is also serviced by Uber.

If you have any questions about transport, do not hesitate to ask the team.

Restaurants

For food on campus, we would recommend either Xanana’s or Bar Fusion. Food is also served at both Radcliffe and Scarman Conference Centres.

Leamington Spa is serviced by a range of fantastic independent restaurants. Of these, we particularly recommend the Thai Elephant, Sabai Sabai, Eleven Restaurant, and La Coppola. There are also many chain restaurants, which serve good food, including Bill’s, Côte Brasserie, Carluccio’s, Gusto, Prezzo, Zizzi, Pizza Express, Turtle Bay, Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Cau, and Wagamama, to name but a few.

Kenilworth also has a variety of excellent restaurants. We would particularly recommend the Queen and Castle, Virgins and Castle, Harringtons on the Hill, Ego, Bua Luang, the Almanack and the Indian Edge. There are fewer chain restaurants here, but the town does have a Zizzi and Loch Fyne.

Coventry City Centre has many of the well-established chain restaurants. You can enjoy a good meal in the Cosy Club, Wagamama, Las Iguanas, and Pizza Express. If you are looking for an independent restaurant, Turmeric Gold or Habibis would be a fantastic choice.

If you have a car and would like to get out to some country pubs, we can highly recommend the Saxon Mill, which is positioned on the edge of Warwick, on a millpond, over-looking the ruins of Guy’s Cliff, a large country mansion. Its sister pub, offering an identical menu, is the Queen and Castle in Kenilworth. The Red Lion at Hunningham is also recommended.

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- 13 - Programme

Thursday 7 June 2018

12.00–13.00 | Registration and Coffee | Room: Oculus Building Foyer

13.00–13.10 | Welcome | Room: OCO.03, Oculus Building

13.10–14.00 | Keynote | Room: OCO.03, Oculus Building Peter Eckersall | Politics and approaches to time: reflections on Japan’s 1960s from the age of freeter time Chair: Andy Lavender

14.15–15.30 | Papers 1

(A) 1968, Film and Theatre | Room: Cinema, Warwick Arts Centre Chair: Melissa Kagen

Patricia Holland | 1968 and the Media: The Hornsey Film

Silvia Angeli | “Sessantotto VM18”: Censorship at the 1968 Venice Film Festival

Frank Hentschker | Rainer Werner Fassbinder and his The Action-Theater Company (1967-76)

(B) Cultural Protest, Activism and Representation | Room: OCO.03, Oculus Building Chair: Alexa Robertson

Eveline Chung-yu Wong | One Hundred Years of Solitude, One Hundred Years of Hong Kong: A research study of Helen Lai’s ‘Soledad’

Joanne Leal | Gender, memory and protest across cultures: reading Shida Bazyar’s Nachts ist es leise in Teheran (The Nights are Quiet in Tehran, 2016)

15.30–16.00 | Coffee Break | Room: Warwick Arts Centre Foyer

16.00–16.45 | Panels 1 | Papers 2

(Panel) Creative Interruptions: arts, media and solidarity in three contexts of resistance | Room: OCO.03, Oculus Building

Aditi Jaganathan Michael Pierse

- 14 - (Papers) Women on the move | Room: Helen Martin Studio, Warwick Arts Centre Chair: Catriona Fallow

Keren Darmon | Looking Like a Slut: Content and visual analyses of SlutWalk London Images in Newspapers and on Blogs

Jennifer Philippa Eggert | ‘The Atmosphere was an Explosion of Freedom’: How the 1968 Movement Influenced the Participation of Women in the Lebanese Civil War

17.00–18.15 | Papers 3

(A) Before 1968 | Room: OCO.03, Oculus Building Chair: Richard Gough

Rose Simpson | Euphoric Protest 1918-1968

Grant Taylor Peterson | Streets into Stages: 1968 and before all that?

(B) Situations: Eastern Europe | Room: OCO.05, Oculus Building Chair: Andy Lavender

Marina Nazarova | The role of Information and Communication technologies in Soviet Dissident Movement of 1960s-1970s

Ewelina Warner | Czech national hoax culture: 1968 and beyond

Nela Milic | Radical Artefacts

Verónica Rodríguez | Citizenship, Public Sphere and Protest in Aeschylus The Suppliant Women in a Version by David Greig

Catriona Fallow | Revolutionary Meetings, Bourgeois Medium: Political Performance Practices at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1960s and 1970s

18.15 | Reception with Performances and Provocations | Room: Oculus Foyer

Paul Moody | “History doesn’t just happen”

Frank Hentschker and Peter Eckersall | Bommi Baumann, HOW IT ALL BEGAN (reading with music)

- 15 - Friday 8 June 2018

9.30–10.15 | Panels 2

(A) Radicality and Performance in the Cities of ‘68: Calcutta, Belgrade, San Francsisco | Room: Cinema, Warwick Arts Centre Chair: Shirin Rai

Janelle Reinelt Bishnupriya Dutt Silvija Jestrovic

(B) Education and Citizenship | Room: OCO.03, Oculus Building

Deb Outhwaite Ian Potter Rob Campbell Giuliana Ferri

10.30–11.30 | Keynote | Room: OCO.03, Oculus Building Lucia Bensasson | 1968 and collective creation at the Théâtre du Soleil Chair: Susan Haedicke

11.30–12.00| Coffee Break and Posters | Room: Helen Martin Studio

12.00–13.15 | Papers 4

(A) Legacies of ’68 | Room: OCO.05, Oculus Building Chair: Joanne Leal

Fabrizio Tonello | 1968 and the Birth of Neoliberalism

Marielle Pelissero | Crossing roads and roundabouts: 1968 and the model of Theatre Festival

Evelyn Preuss | Beyond Third Cinema, or How to Marry a King: Post-1968 East German Cinema

(B) Radical movements: running, walking, stillness | Room: OCO.03, Oculus Building Chair: Macs Smith

Meg Jackson | From Walker to Runner: Body Movements in Public Protest and Performance

Serap Erincin | Radical Gestures, Then and Now: Vulnerable Bodies as Site of Protest

- 16 - Lisa Taylor and Boff Whalley | ‘Real Change Comes From below!’: Singing and walking about places that matter: the formation of Commoners Choir

(C) You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966-70 - An Exhibition and Documentary Film | Room: Cinema, Warwick Arts Centre

A film screening and discussion about the major V&A exhibition with:

Victoria Broackes Geoffrey Marsh Emily Harris

13.15–14.30 | Lunch and Posters | Room: Helen Martin Studio, Warwick Arts Centre

Ellen Pilsworth | Remembering'‘1968’:'A'Collaborative'Student'Blog'

Denise Ackerl | Choose the worst option - Applying Over-identification as a performance strategy against growing nationalism in Europe from a feminist perspective

Cinla Seker | Sound of a Single Frame: 50 years of protesting companies

Daniel Rodríguez | The Mexican Students' Movement Legacy: the struggle for democracy

14.30–15.15 | Panels 3

(A) Radicality and Geography: The Dispersed 1968 | Room: OCO.03, Oculus Building Chair: Milija Gluhovic

Trish Reid Ameet Parameswaran Mallarika Sinha Roy

(B) Performance and Intervention in the 1960s and '70s Room: Cinema, Warwick Arts Centre Chair: Frank Hentschker

Elyse Dodgson David Gothard Richard Gough

15.15–15.45 | Posters and Tea | Room: Helen Martin Studio, Warwick Arts Centre

- 17 - 15.45–17.00| Papers 5

(A) Performative Action | Room: OCO.03, Oculus Building Chair: Michael Hrebeniak

Jacki Willson | Threshold Activism: Domestic violence, Gendered cartographies and Spectacular Costume

Savannah Whaley | Irritation as Radical Transformation: The Sex Worker’s Opera and Community Resistance

Susan Haedicke | ‘From Grapes to Tomatoes: Performative Interventions into US Agriculture’

(B) Situationism and Beyond | Room: Cinema, Warwick Arts Centre Chair: Allyson Fiddler

Fidele Vlavo | From Situationist International to Anonymous: De tourner le de tournement.

Melissa Kagen | Glory to Trumpland! Mis-play as protest in immigration games

Rebecca Starr | Slogans, Striking and Teddy Bear Picnics: Protests and the Art of Philippe Parreno

Priya Rajasekar | New possibilities offered by 21st century media

Promona Sengupta | Good Youth Gone Bad: Exploring “Youth”, Criminality, and Protest in a Post-68 World

Malavika Rao | Dalit student movements in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in India

19.45 | Performance | Room: The Goose Nest, Warwick Arts Centre

Trying it On | Written and performed by David Edgar

21.05 | Conference Bar | The Dirty Duck (on-campus pub). Please join us for a drink at the cash bar at the Dirty Duck.

- 18 - Saturday 9 June 2018

9.15–10.30 | Papers 6

(A) Taking to the Street | Room: Cinema, Warwick Arts Centre Chair: Fabrizio Tonello

Macs Smith | All Together Now: Nuit Debout’s Voice, Silence, and Noise

Martin Lang | From Enragés to Indignados: Occupations & Riots of 1968 and 2011

Alexa Robertson | From the Screen to the Street: Protest and Popular Cultural Narratives of Dissent

(B) Framing and Interpreting Protest | Room: Helen Martin Studio, Warwick Arts Centre Chair: Meg Jackson

Kevin Lucas | Bad Rhythm: A Genealogy of the Concept of Disruption in Performance

Mark Halley | Interpreting Protest: Stories of Linguistic and Cultural Intervention

Michael Hrebeniak | "The immediate exteriorisation of life, from structure to action": Free Jazz and Possible Community

10.30–11.00 | Coffee Break | Room: Warwick Arts Centre Foyer

11.00–12.15 | Papers 6

(A) Public Space, Performance and Protest | Room: Helen Martin Studio, Warwick Arts Centre Chair: Peter Eckersall

Beth Weinstein | Manifest-(er/ation)

Ester Vendrell and Sara Bartumeus | Performing Freedom: choreographies and cartographies of massive protests in the Catalan emancipation process

Allyson Fiddler | Protesting the Far Right in Twenty-First Century Austria

(B) Critical Art Practices | Room: Cinema, Warwick Arts Centre Chair: Jacki Willson

Paul Jones | Flags as Performative Devices in Protest and Critical Art Practice

Susanne Foellmer | White Canvasses, Symbolic Poses: Anna Halprin’s Protest/Performance as Picture and Critique

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Giovanna Di Mauro | “I am not afraid of them”: Anatol Matasaru’s use of art as protest

12.30–13.30 | Discussion & Closing Remarks | Room: Cinema, Warwick Arts Centre

David Edgar Janelle Reinelt Andy Lavender Peter Eckersall

13.30 Lunch | Room: Warwick Arts Centre Foyer

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