INDEPENDENT ENSEMBLES AND NEW DIRECTIONS IN THEATRICAL ART OF BELARUS OFTHE 2010S

The paper briefly describes creative activity of Belarusian independent theatre ensembles in experimental genres of stage art in the 2010s. Range of creative quest of Belarusian theatre of the second decade of the 21st century embraces various genres and directions: social, documentary, inclusive theatre, interactive baby theatre, puppet show, etc. The author points out on creative approach of Belarusian independent theatre figures to understanding and adaptation of conceptual and artistic achievement of directors' and actors' experiences f the world theatre, that exclude its blind taking.

Use of virtual reality and 360° video as narrative resources in the documentary genre: Towards a new immersive social documentary?

Virtual reality and 360° video are some of the latest technological developments within the media and communications industry. These technologies, which are designed to facilitate viewer immersion, are currently being used to create fictional and non-fictional content, thus giving rise to a new audio-visual narrative. On the basis of these premises, this research article analyses how immersive narratives are applied to the social documentary genre in its social dimension. To this end, qualitative content analysis was performed on a sample of 49 immersive documentaries published on the WITHIN platform. This analysis, which was completed with quantitative data, allowed us to confirm that these technologies have enabled the development of immersive narratives, which has given birth to a new type of documentary – the ‘immersive social documentary’.

Encountering the invisible

This paper discusses the potential of art-practice-led and research-in-the-arts methodologies, introducing the idea of the theory–praxis–poetics triangle as a process of catalysing new methods, expressions and approaches in filmmaking, especially in the context of documentary cinema. It elaborates upon these approaches in the context of my own filmmaking practice and in relation to the conventions stemming from the tradition of social documentary. What are the methods of making visible the invisible complexities of present-day societal reality, as poverty, exclusion and societal tensions may not be as visually dramatic as they were when the ethos of “social documentary” was defined? How can the invisible and often-abstract core of phenomena such as the neoliberal paradigm shift in post–welfare-state contexts be made visible? Documentary film as a discourse of sobriety mostly relies on the serious and solemn, but can absurdism and parody more accurately capture the core of paradigmatic political phenomena like the current one? The acute global crises create a need for re-evaluating the potential of documentary film practice as a reflexive and critical endeavour beyond the emotion economy of the hegemonic film industries. As the arts function beyond the pre-existing order of commonsensical reality, the pressing question is: how can reality-material–based art construct a transformational ethical address, one which does not rely on individualistically driven social subjectivity but rather creates experiential spaces for agonistic collisions of differences, the paradoxical, dialectical cinematic approaches that can be claimed to be more complex than a mere “emotive” address? In this dangerously polarized era, it is crucial to distinguish between such fluid concepts as the sentimental, emotional or compassionate, in order to rehabilitate the poetics of documentary art in creating a reflexive political address.

The Rediscovery of Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie: An Analysis from New Historicist, Historical Reception and Feminist Perspectives

A social documentary of Dreiser's milieu and own life, Sister Carrie (1900) portrays American women from multiple angles. As a genuine criticism of debased American values, the text describes women's social, personal, sexual, marital, and economic sides of contemporary American women through Carrie. Having a poor critical reception in the 1910s, the novel was rediscovered worldwide with new vigor since the mid-20th-century for its potent feminist message. Like in other countries, its importance has been felt Pakistani academia, where it is psychologically preparing the emerging woman for the forthcoming SocialDarwinist challenges. This study rediscovers Sister Carrie through the lenses of New Historicism, Historical Reception, and Feminism: why Dreiser wrote it; how the public/critics received it; how it contributed a change to the women's position; and how it could strengthen women's role in Pakistan.