scholarly journals César Falcón and the Theatre Company Nosotros

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Carmen Domínguez Gutiérrez
Keyword(s):  
Class Struggle ◽  
Bertolt Brecht ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
Commercial Theatre ◽  
Alternative Proposal ◽  
Misiones Pedagogicas

In the theatre scene of the 1930s in Spain, in addition to the traditional commercial theatre and the republican avant-garde of Las Misiones Pedagógicas or La Barraca, an alternative proposal emerged whose objectives went beyond the pedagogical and the artistic. Proletarian, or political theatre, linked to European theatrical avant-garde with Soviet roots, was inspired by the principles of Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator. They proposed, from a Marxist perspective, class struggle as means to achieve an alternative socialist model. The theatre company Nosotros, directed by Peruvian exile César Falcón, is the best example of this theatrical avant-garde.

The Losey–Moscow Connection: Experimental Soviet Theatre and the Living Newspaper

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Bertolt Brecht ◽  
Federal Theatre Project ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
Santa Barbara ◽  
Hollywood Film ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
Epic Theatre ◽  
Federal Theatre ◽  
The University

Although Joseph Losey is best known as the blacklisted director of films such as the Pinter-scripted The Servant, The Go-Between, and Accident, as well as Mr Klein starring Alain Delon, he also had an important career in leftist theatre prior to making his Hollywood film debut in in the late 1940s. Because of his collaboration with Bertolt Brecht on the 1947 Hollywood production of Galileo, it is assumed that Losey learned from him most of his stagecraft – particularly the use of Verfremdungseffekt and self-reflexivity. However, as this article shows, Losey's apprenticeship was rooted not in the Epic Theatre (which was largely a second-hand phenomenon) but in the Soviet theatrical avant garde, observed at first hand during a 1935 Moscow visit studying the techniques of Meyerhold, Vakhtangov, and Pavlovich Okhlopkov, whose ‘theatre in the round’ stagings and use of complex ramps and projections provided the basis for Losey's subsequent Federal Theatre Project ‘Living Newspaper’ productions – notably Triple-A Plowed Under and Injunction Granted! Under the aegis of co-founder Hallie Flanagan, the Living Newspaper proved to be the model of 1930s political theatre: topical, didactic, fast-paced – and almost immediately obsolete as events superseded the plays' relevance. Colin Gardner is Professor of Critical Theory and Integrative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of critical studies on Joseph Losey and Karel Reisz for Manchester University Press's ‘British Film Makers’ series and of Beckett, Deleuze, and the Televisual Event: Peephole Art for Palgrave Macmillan. He is currently working with Felicity Colman on a three-volume Encyclopedia of Film-Philosophy.

scholarly journals ‘A Good Night Out’: When Political Theatre Aims at Being Popular, Or How Norwegian Political Theatre in the 1970s Utilized Populist Ideals and Popular Culture in Their Performances

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 87
Author(s):  
Anna Watson
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
Bertolt Brecht ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Northern Norway ◽  
Good Night ◽  
Political Aesthetics ◽  
Theatre Company

Bertolt Brecht stated in Schriften zum Theater: Über eine Nichtaristotelische Dramatik (Writings on Theatre: On Anti-Aristotelian Drama) that a high quality didactic (and politi­cal) theatre should be an entertaining theatre. The Norwegian theatre company Håloga­land Teater used Brecht’s statement as their leading motive when creating their political performances together with the communities in Northern Norway. The Oslo-based theatre group, Tramteatret, on the other hand, synthesised their political mes­sages with the revue format, and by such attempted to make a contemporaneous red revue inspired by Norwegian Workers’ Theatre (Tramgjengere) in the 1930s. Håloga­land Teater and Tramteatret termed themselves as both ‘popular’ and ‘political’, but what was the reasoning behind their aesthetic choices? In this article I will look closer at Hålogaland Teater’s folk comedy, Det er her æ høre tel (This is where I belong) from 1973, together with Tramteatret’s performance, Deep Sea Thriller, to compare how they utilized ideas of socialist populism, popular culture, and folk in their productions. When looking into the polemics around political aesthetics in the late 1960s and the 1970s, especially lead by the Frankfurter School, there is a distinct criticism of popular culture. How did the theatre group’s definitions of popular culture correspond with the Frankfurter School’s criticism?

scholarly journals Hook to the Chin

2009 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-78
Author(s):  
Lev Kreft
Keyword(s):  
Early Stage ◽  
Bertolt Brecht ◽  
Physical Culture ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
European Continent ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Weimar Germany ◽  
Philosophy Of Sport ◽  
Power And Energy

Hook to the ChinWithin historical avant-garde movements from the beginning of the 20th century, a curious taste and fascination for boxing burst out, and developed later into the claim that art must become more similar to boxing, or to sport in general. This fascination with pugilism in the early stage of its popularity on the continent included such charismatic figures of the Parisian avant-garde as Arthur Cravan, who was Oscar Wilde's nephew, a pretty good boxer and an unpredictable organizer of proto-dada outrages and scandals.After WWI, the zenith of artists' and intellectuals' love for boxing was reached in Weimar Germany. One of the well known examples connecting boxing with art was Bertolt Brecht with his statement that we need more good sport in theatre. His and other German avant-garde artists' admiration for boxing included the German boxing star May Schmeling, who was, at least until he lost his defending championship match against Joe Louis, an icon of the Nazis as well. Quite contrary to some later approaches in philosophy of sport, which compared sport with an elite art institution, Brecht's fascination with boxing took its anti-elitist and anti-institutional capacities as an example for art's renewal.To examine why and how Brecht included boxing in his theatre and his theory of theatre, we have to take into account two pairs of phenomena: sport vs. physical culture, and avant-garde theatre vs. bourgeois drama. At the same time, it is important to notice that sport, as something of Anglo-Saxon origin, and especially boxing, which became popular on the European continent in its American version, were admired by Brecht and by other avant-garde artists for their masculine power and energy. The energy in theatre, however, was needed to disrupt its cheap fictionality and introduce dialectical imagination of Verfremdungseffect (V-effect, or distancing effect). This was "a hook to the chin" of institutionalized art and of collective disciplinary morality of German tradition.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Emma Cole
Keyword(s):  
Bertolt Brecht ◽  
Reception Studies ◽  
Antonin Artaud ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
History Of ◽  
Heiner Müller

This introduction makes the case for postdramatic classical receptions to be included within reception studies scholarship. It contextualizes the overall study by providing an overview of the role of the classics within the development of postdramatic theatre and by charting the history of postdramatic classical receptions. The chapter offers an alternative to the standard teleological approach of documenting the history of postdramatic theatre, and instead suggests that the form arose from a diverse range of international theatrical experiments led by highly influential avant-garde practitioners, which gained enough notoriety and exposure to influence a range of other theatre makers. It examines Antonin Artaud, Bertolt Brecht, Richard Schechner, Tadashi Suzuki, and Heiner Müller, alongside a range of broader contextual environments, to argue that an interest in the classical underpinned the development of postdramatic theatre.

Paul Dessau and the Hard Work of Socialist Music in the German Democratic Republic

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-66
Author(s):  
MARTIN BRADY
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Choral Music ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Bertolt Brecht ◽  
Hard Work ◽  
New Music ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Heiner Müller

AbstractThis article examines the labour of socialist music in the German Democratic Republic, focusing on composer Paul Dessau's use of political cryptography and quotation in a number of compositions from the opera The Condemnation of Lukullus (1950) through to Choral Music No. 5 (1976). Most famous for his collaborations with Bertolt Brecht, Dessau was the leading avant-garde composer of the GDR and its chief practitioner of serialism. He believed that only difficult, progressive New Music could convey the struggle(s) of socialism. This brought him into conflict with the authorities, who accused him of formalism. Choral Music No. 5 is a setting of a poem by Heiner Müller based on a speech by Erich Honecker (Žižek refers to the text as an ‘obscenity’). Dessau's composition is complex and dialectical, abrasive in its rhythms and counterpoint, and pluralistic in style. It is the embodiment of Dessau's belief in socialist music as rewarding hard work.

scholarly journals States of mind – political theatre at the age of nomadism

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 531-538
Author(s):  
Michal Lachman
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
German Society ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Art ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Potential Failure ◽  
Creative Artists ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers

Abstract The review article comments on major themes and ideas analysed by S.E. Wilmer’s Performing Statelessness in Europe (Palgrave 2018). Wilmer’s analysis offers an overview of most recent as well as historical approaches to the concept of citizenship and the state which have been developed by avant-garde artists and theatre makers. The overall aim of Wilmer’s survey of political art is to “assess strategies by creative artists to address matters relating to social justice”. He also gives a significant amount of attention to various projects carried by German theatres which attempt to integrate resident immigrants into German society. The central thrust of his argument falls on a variety of contemporary theatrical initiatives directly concerned with the life of refugees and asylum seekers. The review highlights those aspects of Wilmer’s argument which directly concern the concept of modern society, nation state and identity. Wilmer shows precisely these aspects of modern state as most destructive. The review questions that assumption, arguing that the criticism of modern society should be more subtle and nuanced and that the potential failure of responding properly to the crisis does not necessarily lie entirely on the side of the state

A Saturated Time: Three Festivals in Poland, 2007

2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 307-321
Author(s):  
Murray Edmond
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Associate Professor ◽  
Contemporary Theatre ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
Street Performance ◽  
The University ◽  
Special Time

What different kinds of festival are to be found on the ever-expanding international circuit? What companies are invited or gatecrash the events? What is the role of festivals and festival-going in a global theatrical economy? In this article Murray Edmond describes three festivals which he attended in Poland in the summer of 2007 – the exemplary Malta Festival, held in Poznan; the Warsaw Festival of Street Performance; and the Brave Festival (‘Against Cultural Exile’) in Wroclaw – and through an analysis of specific events and productions suggests ways of distinguishing and assessing their aims, success, and role in what Barthes called the ‘special time’ which festivals have occupied since the Ancient Greeks dedicated such an occasion to Dionysus. Murray Edmond is Associate Professor of Drama at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His recent publications include Noh Business (Berkeley: Atelos Press, 2005), a study, via essay, diary, and five short plays, of the influence of Noh theatre on the Western avant-garde, and articles in Contemporary Theatre Review (2006), Australasian Drama Studies (April 2007), and Performing Aotearoa: New Zealand Theatre and Drama in an Age of Transition (2007). He works professionally as a dramaturge, notably for Indian Ink Theatre Company, and has also published ten volumes of poetry, of which the most recent is Fool Moon (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2004).

Ibsen Our Contemporary

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-248
Author(s):  
Richard Hornby
Keyword(s):  
Social Problem ◽  
University Of California ◽  
Keynote Address ◽  
Emeritus Professor ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
The University ◽  
The Grotesque

In this article Richard Hornby argues that Ibsen's plays are badly performed today, or not performed at all, because of directors' refusal to take them with appropriate seriousness. The tendency is to stage the plays' reputation as simplistic social problem plays rather than as the complex, challenging, bizarre dramas that Ibsen actually wrote. In particular, directors avoid the grotesque elements that are the true ‘quintessence of Ibsenism’, and that are often remarkably similar in style to that of avant-garde playwrights today. Richard Hornby is Emeritus Professor of Theatre at the University of California, Riverside. For the past twenty-eight years he has been theatre critic for The Hudson Review, and is author of six books and over two hundred published articles on various aspects of theatre. This essay was delivered as the keynote address at the fourteenth annual Ibsen Festival of the Commonweal Theatre Company, Lanesboro, Minnesota, in April 2011.

scholarly journals How Theatre Develops Democracy

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-96
Author(s):  
Eva-Liisa Linder
Keyword(s):  
Energy Crisis ◽  
Theatre History ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
German Enlightenment ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
European Theatre ◽  
Sensitive Issues

Twenty years after regaining its independence, Estonia is proud of its economic record, but faces challenges concerning the development of democracy. Into this situation, a small theatre company, Theatre NO99, led by stage director Tiit Ojasoo, has recently introduced a new style of postdramatic political theatre that raises questions about capitalism, civil society, racism, nationalism, the energy crisis and other sensitive issues. Furthermore, the company’s European tours and collaborations with German and British companies have brought European debates to the Estonian stage. Recently, however, NO99 came up with two unparalleled and overtly political ‘one time actions’. In 2010, Unified Estonia, a fictitious political movement, exposed the populism of the leading parties and drew 7200 people to its ‘convention’, thus making it one of the largest theatre events in modern European theatre history. Two years later, NO99 staged a ‘first reading’ of a semi-documentary play about a funding scandal that engulfed the prime minister’s party, thereby contributing to provoke a series of civic and political events. This case study looks at how the theatre company has introduced itself as a morally sensitive institution (in the spirit of the German Enlightenment) and helped spark debates about national and democratic values in Estonia.

scholarly journals Norwegian Political Theatre in the 1970s: Breaking Away from the “Ibsen Tradition”

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 50
Author(s):  
Anna Watson
Keyword(s):  
Deep Sea ◽  
Living Room ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Social ◽  
Experimental Theatre ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Made In

The dominant theatre aesthetic in Norwegian theatre has been, and remains at large to be, psychological-realism and the bourgeois “living room drama”. In a Norwegian context this tradition is best represented by Henrik Ibsen’s dramas, staged at Nationaltheatret and Den Nasjonale Scene. However, throughout the 20th century there have been several attempts to break with the “Ibsen tradition”, especially among left-wing political and socially engaged theatre-makers and playwrights such as Gunvor Sartz, Olav Daalgard, and Nordahl Grieg in the 1930s, and Jens Bjørneboe and Odin Teatret in the 1960s. I argue that the clearest and most decisive break with Realism and the Aristotelian dramaturgy, in a Norwegian political theatre context, was made in the late 1970s, instigated by the independent theatre groups Perleporten Teatergruppe and Tramteatret. Their break did not only constitute an aesthetic and dramaturgical break, but also a break in organizational terms by breaking the hierarchy of the institutional theatre ‘machine’. Perleporten Teatergruppe and Tramteatret aimed at making a political, progressive theatre both in form and content. Perleporten and Tramteatret were both inspired by contemporaneous political and experimental theatre in Europe and Scandinavia as well as by the historical avant-garde experiments, and, for Tramteatret’s part, the workers' theatre movement from the 1920s and 30s in their search for a theatre that could express the social and political climate of the day. In this article, I will place Tramteatret and Perleporten Teatergruppe’s debut performances Deep Sea Thriller (1977) and Knoll og Tott (1975) within a historiographical and cultural-political context.

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