LOVERS: Corporeal Projections and Ocular Demands

, February 20, 2014
Glass slide image by Eadweard Muybridge, 1880s This essay is based on a paper the author presented during the Symposium Dumb Type – The Birth of New Media Dramaturgy at Freie Universität Berlin in April 2013. It focuses on Lovers (1994) – the first moving-image installation work of Teiji Furuhashi, viewed within the framework of the histories of immersive moving-image projection environments involving human figures in performative movement. Alongside Lovers, it examines a film-projection experiment, The Birth, shown at the Expo ’70 in Osaka involving the work of Tatsumi Hijikata. The final part of this essay extends back to 1893 to look at the originating event for all projections of moving-images within specially-designed, enclosed spatial environments: Eadweard Muybridge’s project to create the first-ever space for the projection of moving-images to public audiences, through the construction of his ‘Zoopraxographical Hall.’ read more

CRASHING THE GATES. 5 Provocations on Contemporary British Theatre

, February 6, 2014
The International Research Center “Interweaving Performance Cultures” opened the academic year 2013/14 with an international symposium entitled European Perspectives on Postmigrant Theatre. On this occasion, Omar Elerian, Associate Director at the Bush Theatre in London, offered 5 provocations on how British theatre can be affected in order to embrace change and contribute to building a cultural capital that will impact the next generation, regardless of its cultural or geographical heritage. read more

On the Representation of Artists of Color in German Theatre

, December 18, 2013
Black artists, indeed all artists of color, are traditionally underrepresented in contemporary German theatre. This paper reflects on the debate on blackface in a broader context. It argues that the criteria used to justify blackface are similar to those explaining the underrepresentation of artists of color in German theatre in general. The three major questions posed are: Who is represented on stage? Whose perspective is shown? And for whom is this art made? read more

Not Just a Blackened Face

, December 4, 2013
A lot has been said and written in the recent months about the use of blackface in German theatre (and other cultural) productions. Mainstream positions that keep surfacing in these debates are based almost without exception on a deep lack of critical knowledge about Germany’s colonial past as well as the history of blackface, but also the complete underestimation of the power inherent to images and words. At the same time, the intensity of the reactions to anti-racist criticism in the cultural domain suggests, that there is indeed a, if subconscious, awareness of a historical “right” to psychological and corporeal violence against (former) colonial subjects that is now being endangered. This essay challenges four of the most popular misconceptions about this subject by taking a deeper look at the intrinsically linked mechanisms of identity, race and representation in Germany. read more

Reconfiguring Dance/Body at the Crossroads of Culture

, September 18, 2013
On the occasion of the conference DANCE/BODY AT THE CROSSROADS OF CULTURES, which took place in Nicosia, Cyprus in June 2011, Rustom Bharucha presented the opening keynote lecture on the notion of the dance body, movement, transformation, and the politics of touch.
Listen to the lecture here. read more

Double Critique: Disrupting Monolithic Thrusts

, March 27, 2013
International theatre research has long studied the world before undergoing its revolution from the inside. Should the world study back or, rather, perform back while striving for recognition? The intercultural debate of the 1980s and 1990s implied the possibility of a democratic interweaving of performance cultures across the globe. Still, the task of postcolonial scholarship is further complicated by the existing body of world theatre histories. Our performance cultures are hardly visible in the “universal narrative of capital – History 1”, typically edited out, and otherwise often only mentioned on the borderlines between absence and presence. Europe has always been the silent referent in world theatre history. With rising demands for further democratizing the discipline, new modes of writing theatre history from below have emerged with an earnest desire for inclusion …. read more

All under one sky

, December 20, 2012
Did contemporary art revive historical thinking, which was once deeply rooted in China but almost extinguished by the Cultural Revolution? As art weaves a dynamic texture of traditional patterns, it does not, however, exhaust them in simply recollecting historical subjects. read more

Dialogue: Erika Fischer-Lichte and Rustom Bharucha

and , August 6, 2011
To welcome the new Fellows to the International Research Centre “Interweaving Performance Cultures”, Erika Fischer-Lichte and Christel Weiler convened a meeting at the beginning of the academic year 2010/11 to discuss the Centre’s programme and concepts. The following conversation between Erika Fischer-Lichte and Rustom Bharucha about “interweaving” versus “intercultural” took place on this occasion. read more

Interweaving Dance Cultures

, June 1, 2011
"Pichet Klunchun and Myself" (2005) © association R.B. In my paper, I would like to look at dance as an art form within the context of intercultural encounters. Discourses on dance often betray an underlying assumption that dance is universal and can be understood by anyone, everywhere - dance as a global player! But even just a cursory glance at the history and the diversity of forms in different cultures reveals that dance performs culturally specific, regional, and local conceptions of the body, of interaction, and of rhythmic staging. On the one hand, dance performances invite (kinesthetic) identification and an inclusive participation; on the other, they can also induce experiences of difference, exclusion, or transgression. What experience, what specific knowledge is embodied in dance, dance techniques, and choreographic performances? To what extent does this describe a "knowledge of the human being" that can be portrayed only performatively - through body movements, interactions, and space-time-models? read more

The Presence of Elsewhere

, September 18, 2010
Under the title "The presence of the elsewhere in the now" ("Die Gegenwart des Anderswo im Jetzt"), the festival "Theaterformen", which took place in Braunschweig/Germany in June 2010, devoted a full weekend to debating issues of colonialism and racism. Within the context of this colloquium, which opened up diverse, partly conflicting perspectives on the topic’s complexity in talks, debates, performances and video installations, a dramaturgy of heterogeneity allowed visitors to carve their own itinerary amongst people and things. The following considerations should be understood as an initial ex post mapping of an individual path through events. In the process, lines are of necessity drawn to reading and theatre experiences that were and are relevant at other times and in other contexts. read more