“We have tiny purses in our vaginas!!! #thanksforthat”: absurdity as a feminist method of intervention

PurposeAccording to thesaurus definitions, the absurd translates as “ridiculously unreasonable, unsound, or incongruous”; “extremely silly; not logical and sensible”. As further indicated in the Latin root absurdus, “out of tune, uncouth, inappropriate, ridiculous,” humor in absurd registers plays with that which is out of harmony with both reason and decency. In this article, the authors make an argument for the absurd as a feminist method for tackling heterosexism.Design/methodology/approachBy focusing on the Twitter account “Men Write Women” (est. 2019), the rationale of which is to share literary excerpts from male authors describing women's experiences, thoughts and appearances, and which regularly broadens into social theater in the user reactions, the study explores the critical value of absurdity in feminist social media tactics.FindingsThe study proposes the absurd as a means of not merely turning things around, or inside out, but disrupting and eschewing the hegemonic logic on offer. While both absurd humor and feminist activism may begin from a site of reactivity and negative evaluation, it need not remain confined to it. Rather, by turning things preposterous, ludicrous and inappropriate, absurd laughter ends up somewhere different. The feminist value of absurd humor has to do with both its critical edge and with the affective lifts and spaces of ambiguity that it allows for.Originality/valueResearch on digital feminist activism has largely focused on the affective dynamics of anger. As there are multiple affective responses to sexism, our article foregrounds laughter and ambivalence as a means of claiming space differently in online cultures rife with hate, sexism and misogyny.

Театр как «образ жизни» человека с инвалидностью: антропологические наблюден

В статье на основании пилотного исследования методом кейс стади прослеживаются связи инвалидности с искусством: какой путь проходит человек с инвалидностью, стремясь к театральному творчеству? Ответ на этот вопрос строится через попытку рассмотреть жизнь человека с инвалидностью как своеобразную социальную драму, и увидеть то, какие трансформации происходят при взаимодействии реальных жизней с реальным театром. Контекст привычного нам театра смещается от формата выдуманных персонажей и их историй, упакованных в рамки воображаемого мира одного автора, в сторону персонажей, со-творящих художественный проект реалистичными деталями своих индивидуальных жизненных нарративов. Это становится возможным благодаря феномену социального театра. Он, как и его форма – инклюзивный театр, вмещает в себя, помимо эстетической составляющей, иную иерархию – горизонтальную, где каждый участник – творец на равных, имеющий свои зоны ответственности. Образ инклюзивного театра раскрывается на конкретном примере крупного российского проекта «Инклюзион», работающего в семи городах России. На Новосибирском кейсе этой сети театральных школ иллюстрируется, какие ценности позиционируются артистами с инвалидностью как те, что делают жизнь человека «наполненной», несмотря на «ограниченные возможности». Based on a pilot study, the article traces the links between disability and art: what path does a person with a disability take on the way to theatrical creativity? The answer to this question is built through an attempt to consider the life of a person with a disability as a kind of social drama, and to see what transformations occur when real lives interact with real theatre. The usual context of a theatre is shifting from the format of fictional characters and their stories, packed in the framework of the imaginary world of one author, towards characters who co-create an artistic project with realistic details of their individual life narratives. This is made possible by the phenomenon of social theater. Social and inclusive theater contains, in addition to the aesthetic component, a horizontal hierarchy, where each participant is a creator on an equal footing, with his/her own areas of responsibility. The image of an inclusive theater is revealed in the article on the concrete example of the big Russian project “Incluzion”, which works in seven cities of Russia. The Novosibirsk case of a theater network demonstrates which values are positioned by artists with disabilities as those that make a person’s life “fulfilled”, despite “limited opportunities”.

Individual and Community Crises in a Pandemic: The Social Theater of Ambulatory Care

This article offers a preliminary diagnosis of Polish social theaters with regard to the crises of the individual and the community during the Covid-19 pandemic. The interpretive framework is Lidia Zamkow’s concept of the theater of ambulatory care, which allows us to locate the activity of social theaters in the context of Michel de Certeau’s tactics and Jack Halberstam’s low theories. The theater of ambulatory care recognizes the needs of individuals and communities in a pandemic crisis and reacts to them in different ways. We distinguish and describe three ideal types of diagnoses and the resulting treatments that theaters of ambulatory care use in a pandemic: therapy, conjuring, and revolution. The article is based on materials collected during two studies: a funded research project on the anthropological and social activity of the Węgajty Theater, carried out at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and a survey among theater staff during the pandemic, initiated by the Zbigniew Raszewski Theater Institute in Warsaw. (Trans. K. Kułakowska)

Precariedad laboral universitaria con perspectiva de género a través de la IAP. El teatro INTERSOC como herramienta “participativa” de análisis en el aula

Con este artículo nos proponemos enlazar y contextualizar metodológicamente las técnicas desplegadas, en los últimos años, en el Aula Laboratorio de Teatro Social de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid y el proyecto docente Innovación metodológica del teatro social para el aprendizaje de las ciencias sociales (INSOCTEA), dentro del marco de las metodologías de Investigación- acción participativa (IAP). El teatro INTERSOC, como herramienta sociológica participativa diseñada para el aprendizaje y empoderamiento de la comunidad universitaria, parte de la elección colectiva del tema de análisis por parte del estudiantado, se continúa con el diseño colaborativo del espectáculo como forma de autoconocimiento y, posteriormente, se difunde como forma de reivindicación y transformación social. Finalmente, se exponen someramente los principales resultados que se han observado desde el equipo de investigación en una de las obras de inteligencia común realizadas por el alumnado del Aula Laboratorio, desde la precariedad laboral y el género como propuesta escénica consensuada y recurrente anualmente como comunidad, pero de creación colectiva especificada en sus propias experiencias como grupo específico y que en su devolución, final, en el foro, a la comunidad universitaria muestra la colectivización de resistencias y empoderamientos en relación a la temática situada.With this article we intend to link and contextualize methodologically the techniques deployed in recent years in the Aula Laboratorio de Teatro Social de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Laboratory Classroom of Social Theater at the Complutense University of Madrid) and the teaching Project Innovación metodológica del teatro social para el aprendizaje de las ciencias sociales (INSOCTEA) (Methodological innovation of social theater for the learning social sciences), within the framework of Participatory Action Research (Investigaciónacción participativa, IAP) methodologies. The INTERSOC theater, as a participatory sociological tool designed for the learning and empowerment of the university community, arises from the collective choice of the subject of análisis by the students, continues with the collaborative design of the show as a form of self-knowledge and, later, it is spread as a form of claiming and social transformation. Finally, we expose the main results that have been observed by the research team in one of the common intelligence works carried out by the students of the Aula Laboratorio (Laboratory Classroom), from job insecurity and gender as scenic proposal that have been agreed and is recurrent every year as a community, but of collective creation specified in their own experiences as a specific group and that in their final return to the Forum, to the university community shows the collectivization of resistance and empowerment in relation to the situated theme.

“New Drama” in the Context of the Historical Film

The article is devoted to the cultural phenomenon of the "new drama", which since its the beginning of the 2000s up to present day has a significant impact on the Russian cinema. The authors of the trend, first of all, are close to the theme of contemporaneity. However, while seeking for a holistic, philosophical understanding of time, they turn to the past. One of the most important historical films that appeared in the circle of the "new drama" were the TV-series The Diary of the Murderer (2002) by Kirill Serebrennikov, staged according to the scenario of the famous playwrights of the post -Vampilov wave Nina Sadur, Elena Gremina, Mikhail Ugarov. The creators of the picture offered their understanding of the revolution: they believe that this historical event was a diabolical game in which the notions of humanity and morality were destroyed. Kirill Serebrennikov masterfully presented their idea, using the techniques of postmodernist deconstruction: playing with the usual cultural cliches, particularly cinema (the heroic image of the commissar and the like), the director opens up a different sense of images and events behind them. Another important problem that the authors of the series are exploring is the fate of the intelligentsia and its ability to withstand the catastrophe of the revolution. They come to the sad conclusion that the educated people were too weak and too far from understanding what was happening to resist the morale of the lumpen manifested in the revolution. This understanding of history to some extent determined the approach of the "new drama" to the theme of contemporaneity. Particularly, the ideologists of the trend and the creators of the Theater.doc Elena Gremina and Mikhail Ugarov believe that a modern social theater and cinema will help the cultural layer to soberly look at reality, understand the psychology of the crowd and all the dangers associated with it.

NEW EXPERIMENTS IN CLASSICAL DANCES

Change is the law of life. No element existing in nature has remained untouched by this process. Living, eating, eating, ethics, beliefs, mentality, moral values ​​etc. and change is visible in every area of ​​social and cultural landscape. Natural changes are occurring naturally but in many other areas, these changes arise as a result of the creative tendency of humans, the main one being the "arts" field. Creating is the natural quality of human being and the pursuit of newness is its basic tendency. When this trend is used with dexterity, work skills, talent and beauty, we create a new and beautiful panoramic cover for creation, then we call it art. One of the Panchakalas under the Fine Arts is Sangeet Kala and one of the arts under the Sangeet is dance art. In Indian culture, dance has been considered as the medium of worship of God, it originated from God and its basis is believed to be religion and spirituality. The dance in the "Natya Veda", formed as the fifth Veda after taking into account the major elements of the four Vedas, attained a systematic, scriptural and normative form and it was from here that the rich tradition of classical dances began. Classical dances have been single-use since the beginning, they were used for worshiping God in temples and today in modern society, these dances have appeared in front of new observers on social theater with a new vision and new form. In these migrations from ancient times to modern times, these dances saw many ups and downs and changes and they had to wear many new clothes to appear in front of new viewers in new circumstances. This is an attempt to shed some light on this migration of new creation, new experiments and new trends of classical dances. परिवर्तन प्रकृति का नियम है। प्रकृति में विद्यमान कोई भी तत्व इस प्रक्रिया से अछूता नहीं रह पाया है। रहन-सहन, खान-पान, आचार-विचार, मान्यताए, मानसिकता, नैतिक मूल्य आदि तथा सामाजिक व सांस्कृतिक परिदृश्य के प्रत्येक क्षेत्र में परिवर्तन दृश्यमान है। प्राकृतिक परिवर्तन तो नैसर्गिक रूप से होते रहते है परंतु अन्य कई क्षेत्रों में यह परिवर्तन मानव की सृजनात्मक प्रवृत्ति के फलस्वरूप उत्पन्न होते है जिसमें प्रमुख है “कला” क्षेत्र। सृजन करना मानव का नैसर्गिक गुण है तथा नवीनता की खोज उसकी मूल प्रवृत्ति। यही प्रवृत्ति जब निपुणता, कार्य कौशल, प्रतिभा व सौन्दर्यबोध से प्रयुक्त होकर सृजन को नित-नवीन नयनाभिराम आवरण पहनाती है तब उसे हम कला कहते है। ललित कलाओं के अंतर्गत आने वाली पंचकलाओं में से एक है संगीत कला तथा संगीत कला के अंतर्गत आने वाली कलाओं में से एक है नृत्य कला। भारतीय संस्कृति में नृत्य को ईश्वर की उपासना का माध्यम समझा गया है, यह ईश्वर से ही उत्पन्न हुआ है व इसका आधार धर्म व आध्यात्म ही माना गया है। चार वेदों के प्रमुख तत्वों को ग्रहण कर पंचम वेद के रूप में निर्मित “नाट्य वेद” में नृत्य को व्यवस्थित, शास्त्रोक्त व नियमबद्ध स्वरूप प्राप्त हुआ तथा यहीं से शास्त्रीय नृत्यों की समृद्ध परंपरा का आरंभ हुआ। शास्त्रीय नृत्य आरंभ से ही एकल प्रयोज्य रहे है, इनका प्रयोग मंदिरों में ईश्वर उपासना हेतु हुआ तथा आज आधुनिक समाज में ये नृत्य एक नयी दृष्टि व नवीन स्वरूप के साथ सामाजिक रंगमंच पर नए प्रेक्षकों के समक्ष उपस्थित हुये है। प्राचीन काल से आधुनिक काल के इस प्रवास में इन नृत्यों ने अनेक उतार चढाव व बदलाव देखे तथा समयानुरूप नवीन परिस्थितियों में नए दर्शको के समक्ष अवतरित होने हेतु इन्हें अनेक नवीन कलेवर धारण करने पडे। शास्त्रीय नृत्यों के नवीन सृजन, नवीन प्रयोग व नवीन प्रवृत्तियों के इस प्रवास पर कुछ प्रकाश डालने का यह एक प्रयास है।