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No. 1 ABSTRACT Mobile Performance and Nomadic Teory ABSTRACT Mobile Performance and Nomadic !eory: Staging Movement, !inking Mobility !is essay discusses the nomadic not so much in terms of mobile existence or physical displacement, but primarily in connection with the concept as a type of movement that disturbs the notion of territory, and that is intrinsically related to processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization. !is particular reading of the nomadic is based on how the concept has been theorized and conceptu- alized by Gilles Deleuze, partly in close collaboration with Félix Guattari. !eir nomadology serves as a lens through which to study territories-in-motion, in connection to (urban) mobile performances and relationships between theory and practice. !e essay intends to demonstrate that the enquiry into dispersed and mobilized territories is a productive tool for analyzing movement and mobili- ty in contemporary performance. Firstly, nomadism is presented as a particular attitude, connected to acts of de- and reterritorialization. Secondly, this perspec- tive is employed to explore some of the dispersed territories that form the basis of the ambulatory performance No Man’s Land by Dutch director and scenographer Dries Verhoeven. Lastly, the discussion is extended towards a mobile research symposium, !inking Scenography, which takes scenography itself as an (embod- ied) mode of thought. Here, a nomadic attitude materializes through non-hierar- chical, practice-based forms of knowledge production. Keywords: nomadic, territory, deterritorialization, reterritorialization, (nomadic) attitude, mobility. BIOGRAPHY Liesbeth Groot Nibbelink is a teacher and researcher in !eatre Studies at the Department of Media and Culture Studies of Utrecht University. She has published in Performance Research, Contemporary !eatre Review and in Mapping Intermediality in Performance (ed. Bay-Cheng et al, 2010). She recently complet- ed her PhD thesis, entitled Nomadic !eatre: Staging Movement and Mobility in Contemporary Performance (Utrecht University). !is PhD research led to close collaborations with the Dutch Platform-Scenography and the Research Centre Performative Processes at the HKU University of the Arts, two research platforms that both employ and study creative and embodied forms of re"ection on artistic practice. [email protected] 22 Nordic Theatre Studies vol. 27: no. 1 Nordic Theatre Studies vol. 27: no. 1 Mobile Performance and Nomadic Theory Staging Movement, Thinking Mobility LIESBETH GROOT NIBBELINK MOBILE PERFORMANCE marily refers to the displacement of people, objects In 2000, the German performance collective Hy- and technologies in a world that is on the move. giene Heute presented the performance Kanal Indeed, the nomadic is often aligned with physical Kirchner, in which spectators, equipped with head- movement, mobility and displacement. In Drama- phones and a Walkman, traversed the city by fol- turgy and Performance, for instance, Cathy Turner lowing instructions on an audiotape. While navi- and Synne Behrndt shortly mention the “nomad- gating the streets of Berlin, they became engaged in ic dramaturgy” of performances that take the form a story full of suspense that gradually put them into of (urban) journeys, performance walks or guided a sense of being the object of pursuit themselves. city-tours.3 !ey observe how in particular the en- Performance scholar Christopher Balme describes gagement with urban space, which allows everyday this performance as an instance of “audio theatre”.1 life to intervene anytime, even more than in other Audio theatre perhaps calls forth associations with types of site-speci$c theatre, “seems to force open a radio play. Kanal Kirchner is a radio play 2.0, so the dramaturgy of the work”.4 to say, an audio-performance that involves walking, In this essay, I will approach the nomadic not mobile listeners and, occasionally, when looking at so much in terms of mobile existence or physical related examples, includes interactive dialogue as displacement, but present it as a type of movement well. Hygiene Heute later evolved into Rimini Pro- that disturbs the notion of territory, and is intrinsi- tokoll. In 2005, this German performance collective cally connected to processes of deterritorialization presented Call Cutta, a mobile phone theatre play. and reterritorialization. !is particular reading of In this performance, single spectators embarked the nomadic is based on how the concept has been upon a journey by foot through Berlin’s Kreuzberg theorized and conceptualized by Gilles Deleuze, district, guided by a call-center employee who was partly in close collaboration with Félix Guattari. based in Calcutta, India. !e mobile phone a#ord- I use their nomadology as a lens through which ed navigation, and interactively engaged a single to study territories-in-motion, in connection to performer and a single spectator into a conversation (urban) mobile performances. My aim is to demon- about the local particularities at both ends of the strate that the enquiry into dispersed and mobilized line. territories is a productive tool for analyzing move- Balme sees walkmans and mobile phones – ment and mobility in contemporary performance. and also credit-cards – as symptoms and equip- Nomadism in my view points to a particular atti- ment of contemporary nomadism. !ey are tools tude, which manifests itself in patterns of de- and for way-$nding; prosthetic extensions of migrant reterritorialization. A territory instigates borders, bodies navigating through a di#used and decen- ownership, or property regulations. On the other tered world.2 In Balme’s account, nomadism pri- hand, a nomadic attitude is connected to a mode Nordic Theatre Studies vol. 27: no. 1 Nordic Theatre Studies vol. 27: no. 1 23 of distribution that involves the occupation of a Such strategies render territory into a state of con- borderless domain, without possessing it entirely.5 tinuous variation. Similar processes are also at work in performances In one of his earliest essays on nomadism, “No- like Kanal Kirchner or Call Cutta, in which, for in- madic !ought”, Deleuze discusses (the force of) stance, the urban environment partly occupies the the work of Nietzsche. For Deleuze, Nietzsche is an theatre event, and the performance in turn nests exemplary nomad because he radically thwarts the within and captures the codes of everyday life in the hierarchical conventions of philosophy. Deleuze de- city. Such patterns of distribution are not restricted scribes how Nietzsche’s unique style of thinking and to mobile theatre performances. We might also rec- writing produces a sensation of not-knowing; his ognize a nomadic attitude in deterritorialized rela- style escapes the code of recognition, and puts the tions between theory and practice, where thinking very idea (and territory) of philosophy in motion.8 and doing do not constitute an oppositional pair In their joint A !ousand Plateaus, Deleuze and but maintain a relationship of being distributed Guattari do include more stereotypical examples through one another. In order to "esh out these of nomads, amongst many others, but even when arguments, I will $rst enquire into ways in which referring to nomadic tribes roving the steppes, they the nomadic “forces us to think” and deals with the point to a particular attitude that lies underneath mobilization of territories.6 Secondly, I will explore this wandering, a speci$c mode of relating to the some of the dispersed territories that form the basis ground on which one moves. To the nomad, the of the ambulatory performance No Man’s Land by ground is a surface for movement, not a territory Dutch director and scenographer Dries Verhoeven, as it is for the sedentary. By opposing nomadism to after which I will extend the discussion to include the sedentary, Deleuze and Guattari draw out two a mobile research project which takes scenography diverging types of behaviour and related to this, itself as an (embodied) mode of thought. two types of spatial relationships. For the nomad, ground is not a territory; when conceived of as a surface, ground has no borders. At the most, a “IT IS FALSE TO DEFINE THE NOMAD BY nomad temporarily occupies a place, takes a place, MOVEMENT” yet this is a temporary hold, a staying in order to In daily life, the word ‘nomadic’ is quite often de- leave. To the sedentary, in comparison, ground pro- ployed to describe or evoke the idea of aimless wan- vides the foundation for building a house; ground is dering, or to qualify life in terms of a mobile and something to settle on.9 Borders emerge along with rootless existence. A similar line of thought seems to the sedentary, as well as property, ownership and, in inform the use of the term ‘city-nomads’ by (Dutch) their slipstream, inclusions and exclusions, inside/ city councils when referring to the urban homeless. outside divisions, in sum: territories. As suggested above, it is tempting to equate nomad- When observing the world in terms of territory, ism with physical movement and displacement. we cannot but notice that by far the largest portion Deleuze’s nomadology however o#ers a slightly dif- of the land in the world is organized into territo- ferent orientation. “It is false to de$ne the nomad ries. A nomadic relation to ground is the exception by movement,” write Deleuze and Guattari in A rather than the rule. More accurately: the nomad- !ousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. ic is the exception of the rule, the counter-force to According to them, it is not movement that dis- order,
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