30 days with Kirill Serebrennikov

On 17 October 2017, the Basmanny Court of Moscow extended the house arrest for Kirill Serebrennikov, accusing him of embezzling about 70 million rubles from the budget for the development and promotion of contemporary art. The director asked the court to release him at least for the final filming of the movie “Summer” and the completion of the ballet “Nureyev” at the Bolshoi Theater, but he was denied.

Artistic director of the Gogol Center Kirill Serebrennikov was among the nominees of the Russian national theatre prize Golden Mask. Serebrennikov was nominated for the award for staging the opera “Chaadsky” in “Helikon-Opera” and the play “Akhmatova. Poem without a hero” in the Gogol Center. Also the director is nominated in the category costume designer for the opera “Chaadsky“.

One of the most colorful of Serebrennikov’s productions was, as the tag-line informed, about “all shades of black”. Not that Serebrennikov has ever produced anything dull, be it cinema, theatre, TV, or lectures, nor is he producing anything dull at the moment, or will he ever. Men clad in black, men wearing masks, men who have no faces often appeared as characters in his works. Unfortunately, quite recently the director had a chance to make personal acquaintance with these characters of his when they were escorting him into the glass-walled dock in the courtroom. Serebrennikov is nothing like an Ivory Tower dweller, his artistic genius is blessed with social awareness, sensitive to all that is socially relevant, partial to the people for whom “the time is out of joint”. He once was (and has staged the play) “Close to Zero”, and earned some hostile criticism even from those who never saw the show. Dazzled, some by the authorities presumably at play, some by hatred to these very authorities, but equally blind to the real thing, too many failed to see the portents of the final throes to come in that very Shakespearian production, which for the “to be or not to be” dilemma showcases daily routine and jettisoning everything that makes a human human. And no question marks, period. The book ends with the statement: “Anything can be mended,” but the theatre version leaves no room for hope. Yet the optimistically minded director (he has so little time, such a lot of work) neglected his own prophesy, or maybe believed that darkness, however dense and absolute it might be, is still to be won even by the tiniest of lights. Which is quite true. But the costs? The director is in a mousetrap. And now the device is not a Shakespearian one. Today, when the rtist is brought to the trial of public scrutiny, a lot is said about money, people make estimates, they recon, count, calculate. Figures incite malicious rejoicing at another’s misfortune, bear hatred, tempt to shout “tally-ho!”, and pass the verdict “serves him right.” Our people love sums that have many noughts: it lends the feeling of belonging. Meanwhile, leaving playing with numeral and discussing that which happened in the courtroom to the social networks, we suggest that theatre goers and movie lovers (especially those who have never seen any of Kirill Serebrennikov’s productions), refrain from passing judgment on him, but make busy forming an opinion about him, about his artistic accomplishments. So be it 30 days of the month of September with his films, his theatre productions, TV programmes, lectures and interviews – 30 days in his company, 30 days in his support. The following selection contains links and the coming events that are must-sees, and are worth reviewing.

#freeserebrennikov #freekirill

1. “The Student”. Film from 2016. Based on Marius von Mayenburg’s play “Märtyrer”, screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the François Chalais Prize. Chronologically the director’s last completed film that garnered a prize at Cannes, and, as it is always the case with Serebrennikov, earned an upheaval of an audiences’ response. An armour piercing projectile sort of a movie about obscurantism that’s hard to die.

2. “The Forest”. Theatre production of the play by Alexander Ostrovsky produced by A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre. Great theatrical success. The iconic 19^th century Russian play is transported to “the epoch of stagnation” of the 1970s, but curiously is ranked with present-day allusions.

3. "Infidelity”. Film. A man and a woman learn that their respective spouses are lovers. Tackles the theme of infidelity as an overwhelming element of a thriller.

4. “Outside the System” an event in commemoration of K.S. Stanislavsky at A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre. An anniversary (150^th birthday) celebration event about Stanislavsky by means of quoting the great master’s statements, letters, wires, notes, as well as those of his students and colleagues, both devotees and apostates

5. “Zoyka’s Apartment”. Theatre production by Mikhail Bulgakov (A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre) // TV show “Cultural exchange” with Kirill Sereberennikov as a guest. Daring and even nowadays topical musical show made after Bulgakov’s 1926 play. Serious talk about time, about projects, and about public mood.

6. “The Murderer’s Diary”. TV show from 2002. The discovery of the 1919 diary of a student, Nickolay Voinov, who confesses in it to have murdered five people, becomes the clue to some horrible crimes of our day. A riveting series with some wonderful actor performances.

7. “The Golovliev Family”. Theatre production based on the 1876 novel by Saltykov-Shchedrin. Features possibly the most hideous character ever embodied by Evgeny Mironov. An absorbing story of spiritual devastation.

8. “Playing the Victim”. Film. A dark comedy based on the Presnyakov brothers’s play of the same title that tells the story of a good-for-nothing 30-year-old man whose job is to act the victim when the police is reconstructing a murder in the course of the inquest, and the job is telling on him…

9. “Some Explicit Polaroids”. Theatre production by Mark Ravenhill (the Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre). A dramatic tale about a rebel, a hippy, a striptease dancer, a gay man dying of AIDS, about his sexual slave, and about love.

10. “Dark Avenues” based on the 1946 book of short stories by Ivan Bunin, a dramatic performance shot for TV broadcasting (a literary soiree). Invited to stage it by Alla Demidova personally. An austere and delicate theatrical piece based on Bunin’s stories.

11. “Yuri’s Day”. Film from 2008. An opera singer, played by Kseniya Rappoport, before leaving the homeland to reside permanently abroad, goes for a short visit to an obscure, out-of–the-way place to say her last goodbyes to the native country. And her son gets lost there. She loses her voice, and all her old worldviews. Yet she is also granted with some findings.

12. “The Philistines”. Theatre production from 1902 by Maxim Gorky (A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre). This iconic Russian play that premiered in 1902, in the hands of Serebrennikov undergone a complete change of meaning, yet staying absolutely true to the text of the original play. Which is a dramatic piece about a family crisis. A brilliant Andrey Myagkov.

13. “Naked Pioneer Girl”. Theatre production by Mikhail Kononov (the Sovremennik theatre). A musical-and-battle miracle-play. A study on the role of the woman in war examined in other than a full-dress fashion. Chulpan Khamatova in the title role.

14. “Short Circuit” (novella “A Kiss of a Shrimp”). Film. A collection of five short films made by the leading young cinema directors. Five contemporary tales dealing with the theme which is as old as the world itself. Love. A dramatic piece, a comedy, a farce – genre-wise it’s comprehensive.

15. Rostov-Papa. TV show from 2001. A vertical serial, each episode of which is loosely based on a classical story: “Carmen”, “Orpheus and Eurydice”, “Don Quixote”, “Cyrano de Bregerac”, “Hamlet”…

16. “Plasticine”. Theatre production. Some thundering and fulminating based on Vasiliy Sigarev’s play about a 14-year old boy who has been abused, and is being abused daily.

17. “Ragin”. Film. A version of Anton Chekhov’s short story “Ward No.6”, with Alexei Guskov playing doctor Ragin.

18. Fragments of the theatre production “Scumbags” (Gogol Center) and recording of the director meeting his audience before the performance. Theatre version of Zakhar Prilepin’s prose, complete with its signet revolutionary ardor, drive, and hopelessness. It was awarded with the “Gold Mask”.

19. “Antony and Cleopatra”. Theatre production (the Sovremennik theatre). A spectacular confrontation of the male and the female, the East and the West, the old and the new forms.

20. Fragments of the show "The Metamorphoses" (Gogol Center). A theatrical biopic, in which even silence resounds Classical myths as contemporized and placed in the multimedia environment.

21. “One Hundred Minutes of Poetry”, a poetry reading event. Poetry and music performed at the Polytechnic Museum.

22. Fragments of the theatre production “The Hunting of the Snark”. A tragic-comical musical fairy gala loosely based on Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poem.

23. “Substituting Audio Mixing for Dogs”. Film. A rarity – the director’s cinematographic debut, based on La Leçon («The Lesson », 1951) by Eugène Ionesco.

24. A cycle of TV programmes “Another Kind of Cinema with Kirill Serebrennikov”. Talks on the characters of the iconic films of the world cinema, no less fascinating than the films themselves.

25. “Requiem”, a symphonic performance (A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre). Presented to celebrate the 65^th anniversary of the end of the World War II, this mystery play like production became a tribute to commemorate all those killed in the wars that had tormented Europe since the 17^th century and up to September 1945. It contains instrumental music, vocal, canon Latin texts, and documents of the 1930s and 40s.

26. Open lecture by Kirill Serebrennikov

27. Fragments of the theatre production “Terrorism”.

28. Big interview with Kirill Serebrennikov

29. Documentary “Der Fall Serebrennikov”.

30. Kirill Serebrennikov in court

Published on 30 November 2017 (Article originally written in Russian)

The Threesome Tango: Spectator-Theatre-State

They say in Russia: “If he beats you, it means he loves you”. This attitude, which may strike a foreigner as a bizarre one, can hardly surprise any Russian as a thing much out of the ordinary. Recently the media and social networks were racked with violent debates on the issue of decriminalizing domestic violence. Even though the draft of the law that will decriminalize domestic violence has been denounced by the general public, it has been passed by the legislators, and now beating up one’s near and dear ones is not a crime but a misdemeanor to be looked into by administrative bodies (in the case of the first offence, that is).

In Russia the theater is an object of great love, and it is something to take pride in and brag about. As one of Chekhov’s characters worded it, “We can’t do without the theatre”, and the public, even if bemoaning the high prices of the tickets, still will now and then fall to a theatre-going spree. The spectator is a co-creator of the performance, just like the actor. The contemporary theatre won’t stand for its audience to stay unconcerned and apathetic, but will demand from it the maximum degree of involvement. Unlike the actors, the spectator is “a player who plays many roles”, and thus has to know how to tune to each new show, how to be sensitive, daring, and prepared for the discoveries that are to be made. I teach a class at the Moscow School of Journalism, of the Central House of the Journalists’, my course is an optional one, it is titled “Profession: Theatergoer”, and its objective is to teach theatre-goers to understand and accept theatrical experiments and forms that are most diverse. The theatre can do without the director, the playwright, the designer, and even without actors, but not without the public; that very public which has so often been reproached for the lack of comprehension, narrow-mindedness (the stalls and the gallery alike), ignorance, and shallowness. Yet without it the theatre can’t exist. In my first lecture I suggested to my students (the first group turned out to be 100 percent female, ages ranging from 17 to 65) to answer the question: “Why do you go to the theatre?” The answers more or less neatly fell into the following groups:

Need to have social interaction, to communicate with live people
Tradition/habit
To “go out”/it is fashionable
Seeking emotional impact
Seeking aesthetic pleasure
Self-improvement
To forget about problems! escapism
For entertainment
In search of a miracle!

My colleagues (critics also are spectators, aren’t they?) insist that theatre helps them to develop their own creative faculties, helps them to study, to learn new things, and instructs them in understanding oneself and the history of our country. As to the role of the theatre in social shifts, its ability to change the surrounding life, to help us understand people belonging to cultures different from ours, to be less ethno-centric, and more tolerant, why, we have had talks about this too.

The theatre does influence the public, that’s indisputable, but the reverse is also true: in the recent years the public in Russia has been wielding considerable influence over the theatre. And when I say “influence”, I don’t mean the effect that the audience’s bursting into applause or angry shouts may have upon the development of any performance, nor the fact that shows that fail to win the public close and get excluded from theatre repertoires. Critical reviews don’t have that strong a sway over theatre life as letters from audience members. Letters addressed to the office of the Public Prosecutor, or other governmental bodies of similar caliber, in which the writers demand that their addressees have this or that show shut down, and the author punished. People who work in theatres now know the articles of the RF Criminal Code that cover offending religious feelings of the believers inside out – the offence that is mostly imputed by the vigilant public to the directors who are alert to social controversies and touch upon socially raw spots. The “Free Word” association made a report titled “Russia, 2016-2017. Violations of and the government imposed restrictions upon the freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of expression”, with one of the chapters devoted to censorship in theatre: the “culture managing” governmental bodies acting dictatorial, depriving “harmful” art of state subsidizing, censorship introduced due to “feelings of the believers being offended”.

The precedent case, the one that became the symbol of oppression and bans in the sphere of theatre, was that of “Tannhäuser” staged by Timofey Kulyabin. The story that makes the plot of Richard Wagner’s opera was transported to the contemporary world: the titular character is a film director who is making a movie about the unknown, the sinful life of Jesus Christ. The charge against Timofey Kulyabin and Boris Mezdrich, the head of the Novosibirsk State Opera and Ballet Theatre, was that of defiling religious symbols intentionally and publicly. The criminal case was initiated upon the complaint filed by Tikhon, Metropolitan of Novosibirsk and Berdsk in January of 2015. Metropolitan Tikhon found that treatment of the opera’s plot offensive to the feelings of the believers. But on 10 March, Justice of the Peace of the Central district of the city of Novosibirsk discontinued the proceedings against Mezdrich and Kuliabin, due to insufficient evidence. The Public Prosecutor’s office appealed against that ruling, but later recalled their appeal. On 29 March, Mezdrich was fired by Vladimir Medinsky, the Minister of Culture. To fill Mezdrich’s office Vladimir Kekhman was appointed, who extirpated the opera from the repertoire. On 13 April, the Investigation Department of the Siberian Federal District of the Investigative Committee of Russia declined to initiate criminal proceedings against Mezdrich and Kulyabin. The resolution was based on the results of the preliminary examination.

It was to be followed by:

10 events in the theatre life of Russia in 2015-2017

2015 – The “Glavplakat” association placed a banner right across the Ministry of Culture premises that read “Do we need this kind of culture” and showed photos of several directors: of Kirill Serebrennikov, Konstantin Bogomolov, Timofey Kulyabin, as well as one of Marat Guelman, gallery owner. The site of the Association imparted upon its readers the following:

“The banner honors these Russian directors:

Timofey Kulyabin, who crucified Christ between the legs of a naked woman in his version of ‘Tannhäuser’;

Konstantin Bogomolov, who presented the crucifix as a naked woman in his version of the play ‘The Ideal Husband’;

Kirill Serebrennikov, who desecrated icons in his stage version of the fairy-tale ‘The Golden Cockerel’, as well as the gallery owner Marat Guelman, who gathered all the objects that offended believers in one place, making the exhibition ‘Russia 2’.”

“In all epochs culture and art have marked the highest point of the societal evolution. All the newest, most progressive and valuable ideas have always reflected in works of art. And now, in present-day Russia they are trying to persuade us that the best our society can achieve is spitting into another person’s soul, mocking things valuable or even sacred to multitudes.

“We refuse to believe that it is indeed so. It seems to us that these people, who have wantonly privatized the title ‘contemporary and progressive artist’ are just ordinary deceivers. That’s neither culture nor art, that’s some freak-show, exploiting shocking tricks. Stop buying fakes.”

“What I’d like to say: they could have made a better likeness of me”, commented Konstantin Bogomolov on his FB page. “Will you kindly contact me the next time? I will be only too happy to sit for the portrait. But do find some decent designers, the kind who know how to use their hands. But all in all, it is, well, OK. Right next door to the school I went to when I was a kid. So that my teachers may have a really good look at it, enjoy it, and feel gratified. They have brought me up well, to turn out to be the right kind of guy!”

2015 – Exhibition “The Lower Depths” at the “Flacon design factory”. The “Art Without Borders” Foundation exhibited photos from theatre productions which, in their opinion, have breached some ethical or aesthetic norms. “Not all people like to see bawdy things acted out in the theatre, or hear bad language there, and these people also have their right to express their viewpoint, especially since much of it was produced with government money”, it said on the site of the Foundation. Under each photo there were some figures (from an unknown source) that informed visitors how much money from some governmental budget had gone into producing this or that show. The exhibition that opened on 14May (officially it was a private event unavailable for the general public) was shut down the very next day, and the creative director of the gallery offered his apologies to all who might have been offended by the event. This event was the cause for harsh criticism with several shows of the Bolshoy theatre, the A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre, the “Gogol-centre” theatre, “Electrotheatre”, the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre, the Yekaterinburg Theatre for Young Spectators, and also brought about some indignation on social media amongst theatregoers. It furthermore triggered debates on censorship in arts and culture, and on the freedom of speech and artistic self-expression. The most striking statement in this context came from Kirill Serebrennikov:

“The continuing persecution of the contemporary Russian theatre effected through Degenerate Art (EntarteteKunst) sort of exhibitions, and abusive shit-throwing assaults in the media-turned-propagandists is a thing that, conventionally, you better say nothing about and write nothing about, so as not to give this ugliness any additional resonance. Conventionally you’d better ignore them. Yet our squeamish recoiling from these scumbags, our, to be more precise, disgusted silence, allowed them to feel like they are running the world. These stupid clowns mean to destroy that which is so important to such great quantities of clever and talented people — our audiences, that is. They continue to grab more and more government money for themselves, while the government is cutting down all cultural spending, sequestering the entire budget. […] This policy, carried out by a group of aggressive culture-managing officials, aims at completely destroying the new winning and powerful trend in contemporary theatre. For fifteen years the shows of this theatre were sold-out events, it has molded a new generation of artists, and has earned Russia quite a reputation in the world. It developed to maturity thanks to powerful government support. Now people who have come to run culture declare war upon this successful and talented theatre. Crushing criticism in the ranting propagandistic programmes on TV, made-to-order articles in the domesticated media, pressing through fiscal agencies, searches, exhibitions meant to expose and shame, agitative posters—all the methods are seen as fit to be used…”

And here is the answer of Vladimir Medinsky, the Minister of Culture:

“It was precisely the civil society that became indignant at that production of ‘Tannhäuser’ by the Novosibirsk Academic (!) theatre. Our Ministry didn’t blunder when we sacked a theatre director who didn’t bother to enter into dialogue with representatives of the society. We blundered because we took too long with this sacking. Honestly, a production like this should have been rejected by the head of the theatre when it was just a concept.

“In May 2015, the ‘Art Without Borders’ foundation held an exhibition in Moscow, entitled ‘The Lower Depths’, which was devoted to theatre productions of the past few years that have caused much controversy. Each of the ‘exhibits’ was thoughtfully provided with a label, which said how much money this very theatre had received from some governmental budget. I personally understand this kind of civil activity as an attempt to force the state to do its duty in the field of cultural policy. We can’t and won’t continue to ignore, in the totalitarian sort of way, opinions of the majority of our citizens. When you fall ill and go to the local clinic for help, you wouldn’t like to be surprised by some ‘non-traditional’ treatment, would you? Do you indeed want some miraculous new drug to be tested on you, an experimental kind of drug? Somehow I don’t think so. The system of the public healthcare of any country in the world is based on the standardization of the methods of treatment, those that have been tested and probed many times, and are guaranteed by the state and by science. In exceptional cases the need to use some non-standard methods might arise, as a last resort—but you would be repeatedly warned about it being experimental, and you would be offered to make your choice consciously, aware of the possible consequences. As for the fans of the alternative, the non-traditional medicines take care of that, which are not subsidized by the State. Same goes for the arts. The only difference is that a non-traditional artist experiments not on the body of a single patient, but on the souls of many thousands.”

2015 – several Moscow theatres (A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre, Vs. Meierhold Centre, Gogol-Centre, Satiricon theatre) received requests for information from the Public Prosecutor’s office in connection with the appeal that had been made by the “Arts Without Borders”, an independent foundation for developing culture. It was decided to examine the plays making repertoire of some theatres for the obscene language usage on stage, for propagandizing amoral ways, and for containing elements of pornography. According to the Novaya gazeta (The New Gazette), the letter addressed to Victor Ryzhakov, the artistic director of the V.S. Meierhold Arts centre, contained a request to inform the Public Prosecutor’s office whether the repertoire of the theatre includes such plays as “The Threepenny Opera” (A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre), “Anthony & Cleopatra. A version.” (Sovremennik theatre), “The Golden Cockerel” (Bolshoy theatre), “About Zero” (A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre), “The Naked Girl Pioneer” (Sovremennik theatre), “Modelling Clay” (The Centre for Dramatic Art and Directing), “Spring Awakening” (Gogol-centre), “All Shades of Blue” (Satiricon theatre), “Salome” (Roman Viktiuk’s theatre), ”Things Are Great” (Practice theatre), “The Ideal Husband. A comedy” (A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre).Besides, the office seemed interested in learning certain particulars about the directors of the above-mentioned shows, as well as in getting a rough idea of the contents of these works of art. They also wanted to know whether there were any underage actors who participated in the shows, and “whether the contents of the production have passed any preliminary reviewing (by critics, or by art theorists) at some executive agency before they were staged to be shown to the general public.”

Most of the above-mentioned productions were directed by Kirill Serebrennikov,; none of them are in the repertoire of the Vs. Meierhold Centre, which the Public Prosecuter’s office was informed about by the theatre.

“Additionally I request that we are provided with the scripts of the shows from the above-mentioned list that are in the repertoire of the Vs. Meierhold Centre, as well as video recordings of the performances on any tangible medium (or inform us if it is possible to send the video-recordings by e-mail)”, said the request that was signed by the Public Prosecutor of the Tverskoy district of the city of Moscow, V.V. Mozhaev”.

2016 – in the city of Omsk the performance of the rock-opera “Jesus Christ Superstar” by a touring St. Petersburg theatre was cancelled due to the protests of the representatives of a social movement “Family, Love, Motherland”. “The very plot of the rock-opera ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ is a continuous blasphemy and treading upon the sacral; it makes mockery of faith and abuses the hallow images, which is profanity pure and simple, the very title of the show is desecrating the sacred. Interpreting holy texts loosely, introducing into the plot debauchery that is incompatible with the Christian ideals cannot but bring forth the feeling of repulsion and protest in any believer, of whatever confession,” it says on the movement’s website.

2016 – In the city of St. Petersburg the performance of the play “All shades of blue” produced by Konstantin Raikin was interrupted twice because of the false alarms triggered by anonymous phone calls. Activists of the Narodny Sobor (People’s Congregation)movement took their stand in front of the theatre entrance, and offered leaflets to the public about the harmfulness of homosexuality. Vitaly Milonov, deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, filed a complaint in the Public Prosecutor’s office, demanding the show to be examined for the infringements of the law that prohibits propaganda of homosexuality among underage persons. According to Milonov, the show “is damaging moral health”.

The show is a production based on a play of the same title that won an award at the “Liubimovka” Young Russian Playwrights’ festival in 2014. The play was written by Vladimir Zaitzev; it is about a schoolboy who confesses to his parents that his sexual preferences are not traditional. The parents opt for having their son “treated” in a psychiatric clinic.

“When I was making this show, I kept thinking about Mandelstam, Brodsky, Malevich. Generally about people who differ from the identity of all the others. They couldn’t feel differently from the way they felt, and couldn’t lie about their true feelings. The world generally, but Russia with particular cruelty, is relentlessly intolerable of everyone who is different”, said Konstantin Raikin in an interview.

“When they suggest we produce a show devoted to, quote / unquote two-three mishap chromosomes’ whose image provokes nothing but repulsion in the people, and it is being represented at the expense of those very people, mind you. Nobody owes anything to artists—it is you who owe to society. If you disagree, don’t take a job at a state owned establishment. Why do you, while holding a job at a state owned establishment, consider it fair to insult society, while living on government money, and you dare teach others how they ought to live”, said Vladimir Aristarchov, Deputy Minister of Culture.

At the Union of Theatre Workers of RF convention Konstantin Raikin, People’s Artist of Russia, the head of Moscow theatre “Satiricon” made a very emotional speech, which stirred society and brought about a general discussion on the issue of the unacceptability of censorship.

“Now these little groups of allegedly insulted people, who shut shows down, who behave insolently, whom the authorities tolerate with some very strange reserve, keeping their distance. It seems to me that these are some ugly attacks on the freedom of expression, on the outlawing of censorship. And banning censorship is the greatest event that has had a century-long impact on the artistic and spiritual life of our country”, said Konstantin Raikin. Many significant figures in the sphere of arts and culture sided with the famous actor: director Andrey Zviagintzev, the head of the Theatre of Nations Andrey Mironov, director of the State Hermitage Museum Mikhail Piotrovsky, etc.

“As to the show about ‘Fifty shades’ (‘All Shades of Blue’ – author’s note). The Ministry of culture never introduced any sanctions against this show whatsoever. The experts from the department concerned viewed the show, said they found nothing infringing the law in it, so all questions were removed from the agenda. I was flabbergasted by Konstantin Arcadievich Raikin’s speech because he is the last person to complain about censorship, it’s absurd. As far as I remember, nobody has ever forbidden Satirikon theatre and Raikin personally anything, nobody has ever given them instructions, or advice. There must be some other reason behind it”, said Vladimir Medinsky, Minister of Culture, in an interview with “TV tzentr”.

On 2 December, at the joint meeting of the Counsel for Culture and Arts under the auspices of the President of the RF, Vladimir Putin said: “On the one hand, all offensive escapades, attempts to wreck a show, an exhibition, are absolutely unacceptable, and ought to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And we will do exactly that. On the other hand, within the creative milieu, I’d like to particularly emphasize this aspect of the problem, within and inside that creative milieu the borderline between cynical and offensive show-offs and creative actions ought to be defined.” The president also suggested that the cultural workers should work out some criteria for works of art that would make it clear whether they break the law or insult anybody’s feelings. “It isn’t an easy task, but it would be great if not we, but you yourselves managed to accomplish that. To tell the truth, it would be easier for me to hold back the officials who tend to go too far”, remarked Vladimir Putin.

On 14 December, 2016, the “Public Opinion” foundation published the results of their survey titled “Is it acceptable to ban works of art?”, which were: 47% (9% less then the previous year) believe that banning works of art is unacceptable, and 46% believe that such a practice is acceptable.

2016 – Igor Gladnev, the Minister of Culture of the Perm region, arbitrarily fired Boris Milgram who headed “Theatre-Theatre” in the capacity of artistic director. The official insisted that “the guidelines that have been declared by the head of the theatre are inconsistent with the function meant for the theatre he heads, are inconsistent with the tasks set before the state establishments in the concept of the state cultural policy approved by the president of Russia.” Boris Milgram, the winner of the “Golden Masque” award, who had never been shy of theatrical experiments and “new forms”, explained his dismissal from office by personal dislike that the Perm region Minister of culture had nursed against him. The actors of Theatre-Theatre stood up in protests against the dismissal of their artistic director, as did the theatre circles of Russia. As a result, Igor Gladnev was suspended from his office, and Boris Milgram was restored in his, that of the artistic director of the Theatre-Theatre. Yet very soon a new outrage blazed up, this time about the show “The Blue Room” (based on the play of the same title by David Hare): some activists filed an offensive-to-the-feelings-of-the-believers complaint, but the Public Prosecutor’s office didn’t find any evidence.

2016 – A group of deputies of the State Duma brought in a draft proposing to make defiling works of art or letters in public administratively liable, as well as impeding the screening of a film or performance of a show. To illustrate their purpose, the authors of the draft reminded of the following incidents: at the exhibition of the works by photographer Jock Sturges, which were presented in the Lumière Brothers Photography centre, one of the visitors splashed an exhibited photo with urine; at the exhibition “Sculptures we don’t see” in the Manege, activists of the Orthodox believers’ movement “God’s Will” started to smash sculptures made in the years 1960-70, insisting the objects offended the feelings of the believers); with the play “The Ideal Husband” that ran at the A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre, the activists who described themselves as Orthodox believers climbed onto the stage during the performance, with the intention to wreck the show; later they left a pig’s head on the door-step of the theatre* and orders to shut down the show). “In the years 2014-2016, several dozens of performances were wrecked, in many different cities of Russia”, the deputies remarked in the note that accompanied the draft.”

*”I would like to say a few words to certain so very pushy persons: don’t you bother about bringing any more pigs’ heads to the theatre doorstep, but store them in the refrigerator instead, which is where food ought to go. It seems that these days we are confronted with characters that pop up from nowhere, wanting to tell artists what they are to do, and at times in an unacceptably aggressive form, too. I am a man who has seen a thing or two in my life, so I didn’t shut down that show. Several years passed, and the show is running beautifully, and the public keeps coming to see it”, said Oleg Tabakov, People’s Artist of the USSR, the artistic director of the A.P. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre.

2017 – The Council of the Orthodox patriotic communities made a list of film and theatre directors whom they labeled “russophobic”.

“It is high time that responsible officials, whose office is to govern, and whose job concerns cultural issues, stopped being hypnotized by a tiny bunch of self-proclaimed geniuses who aggressively insist they are licensed to enjoy boundless freedom. Freedom implies responsibility, and cannot be stretched to include ‘creators’ who intentionally mock things that are dearest to the majority of the people, who spit right into the soul of the people. That’s the core difference between them and the true artists, whose creativity is nourished by faith and bonds tying them to their own national cultural tradition. We must resist the false stereotype, so aggressively inculcated by this lobby, that implies that there cannot be any bans in art, that artistic practices are outside the authority of law and morals. Because culture is based on norms, and norms cannot exist without bans.”

2017 – The Public Prosecutor’s office initiated an investigation concerning productions of the Taganka Theatre upon receiving a complaint about the play “Sweeney Todd: the demon barber of Fleet-street”, which had been filed by a certain Romanov Kniaz Monomakh. The complaint contained several excerpts from articles published by news agencies, a statement to the effect that the show propagandizes violence, and a legislative initiative that was worded in the following way: “I propose the people’s budget is spared and the Ministry of Culture is dismissed, in accordance with the 205 Article of the RF Criminal Code (terrorism)…”

2017 – The RF State Duma passed the decision to form a Council for Culture, Religion, and Interethnic Relations. Supposedly the council will concern itself with having young people be brought up in a patriotic spirit, as well as push for activities that prevent extremism from spreading in the sphere of culture.

Strong itch to act the whistle-blower, lust for profit, natural meanness or weakness of character, susceptibility to manipulative techniques, or, possibly, sincere, even if misplaced, belief in the rightfulness of the cause—whatever the motives behind the citizens’ speaking out against one show or another, and demand it were closed (quite often the activists have never even seen the event they want to have destroyed), they seem to be the die-hard ones. And I would add one more cause of the spectators’ indignation and noxious response to this or that show—namely, longing for the paradise lost. The concept of an earthly “paradise lost” is common to many religions, epics, myths of different peoples and different epochs. The famous Sumero-Akkadian epic poem tells us about Dilmun, a country inhabited by gods, where there is no death, and no illness. All living creatures there live in concord with each other. “In Dilmun the crow doesn’t croak. The Ittidu bird doesn’t screech. The lion doesn’t kill, the wolf won’t snatch the lamb.” Now compare Dilmun with the theatrical community of your own country, and you will make out the difference to be day and night.

The myths of Ancient Greece inform us about a northern country Hyperborea, where the offspring of the Titans lived. Their civilization was highly developed: immaculately moral, advanced technology, and magnificent arts. Yet Hyperborea perished, with no trace of it left.

There is an opinion that the “paradise lost” concept being this widely spread might not only be due to cultural and historic causes, but due to psycho-physiological ones, too. Psychologists insist that all of us have, subconsciously, memories of being in our mother’s womb. After having been born into the unkind world we start to yearn for the time when we were surrounded by the warmth and care of our mother’s body.

Theatre itself, ever striving to penetrate the essential core of the human being, is very much like a human being. Theatre yearns for its paradise lost, for its golden age, for “the ideal model”. In theatre circles (and theatre goers ought to be considered part of it), talks about the outstanding figures of the times bygone frequently occur, and about some specific time and place where once upon a time the perfect theatre used to abide. That perfect theatre is often referred to as “classical theatre”. There is no agreement on what “classical theatre” is or might be. “Classical theatre” is a vague notion of the theatre from “the good old days”, and by deploying that term, it generally means looking down on any new form of contemporary theatre. Theater-goers sigh, distressed by that which has just been presented to them, and say that “art still owes a lot to the public”, and nostalgically speak about theatre’s “paradise lost”.

The weather in paradise is always pleasing (psychological environment including); nobody is hungry and everybody is friendly. There are no emotions in paradise, because life there is so very regular and peaceful. In paradise, established order reigns once and forever. There is no rivalry in paradise. It resembles utopias, many of which tend to turn into a tyranny only too often. No theatre, neither generally speaking, nor any particular one, has ever lived in conditions like that. Conditions like that are contrary to its very essence, its turbulent creative core.

Theatre is alive and always has been alive, thanks to the exchange and collision of thoughts and ideas, creative practices and concepts. Rivalry and partnership coexist within it. Any striking human identity gets enriched and enriches the cultural codes, the roots of any nation. Theatre, like the city, thrives on diversity; it takes them as they come—emotions, ideas, experiences, facts, philosophies, religions, languages—and can never get enough.

I don’t think that discussions about the beautiful bygones may be of any use for the beautiful tomorrow we have under construction. The theatre of tomorrow is a theatre that embraces both Ginkas and Wilson, both recitations and experimenting, and new forms of all kinds. The theatre of the past is a theatre with one single trend domineering. A domineering single style, or a single vision, however great the artists may be, will never bring about anything good if granted a monopoly. Things will just freeze in their tracks. The immortality of the theatre is in motion, in exploration, in things being “artistically disorganized”. Besides, as another of Chekhov’s characters put it, “there is room enough for all, for the new and old alike. Why […] push and shove?”

In spite of all the outrages and feverish sways, and the working conditions that are much too often much too far from being perfect, the theatre in Russia is alive, diverse, continuously in quest for the unknown, and often succeeds with surprising the audience with the most marvelous discoveries. And precisely for this reason it is so important to talk about anything that prevents the theatre and people in the theatre from working freely, from discovering more and more new ways of understanding the reality that surrounds us.

Theatre strives to and is capable of destroying barriers not only between the stage and the audience, but in places beyond the theatre. Theatre always has been and still is the space where civilian life abides. Theatre as an art form energetically opposes and tries to overpower war theaters. Theatre crosses borders and overcomes stereotypes. Theatre is a form of communication and mutual enrichment. As director Andrey Goncharov put it, “Theater is a man to man conversation on Man.”

Note by the author: The day after this article was finished the following statement was published on the site of the Russian Artistic Union, an organization that came to be quite recently, informing the public about the general concept of this organization, and the general directions it plans to take. In particular, in section “Theatre” it said:

“We believe that Russian theatre is in deep crisis. While going over once again through the ABC that the Soviet theatre, as well as the theatres of Western Europe had mastered long ago, most of our creative workers have ceased to concern themselves with the aim of bringing out the best in their audiences. The refusal on principal to adopt any ideology at all turned out to become a new dictatorship that demands that sin and saintliness, the base and the great are equaled. Relinquishing all moral evaluations is insistently proclaimed as the basic principle, as if to fit the spirit of the famous thesis ‘let all flowers bloom’. Having ceased to be the cathedra for preaching lofty ideas, the theatre has reserved for itself only one single function, that of the entertainer, and the seat of the civil truths is now taken by casual journalistic blabber, borrowed from the ‘Echo Moskvy’ (‘Echo of Moscow’) radio station and the TV channel “Dozhd” (Rain).

UPD

The Russian Investigative Committee said the Gogol Center theatre and the apartment of its art director, Kirill Serebrennikov, were searched on 23 May in connection with an embezzlement case. Dozens of cultural figures came to Serbrennikov’s defense, signing a statement calling him “an honest, fair, and open person.”

Published on 28 June 2017 (Article originally written in Russian)

Europe: A library or a supermarket?

A library or a supermarket? If one wished to come up with a successful metaphor for Europe at this turning point of its history, which would be the most accurate one?

From left to right: Vlad Troitzkyi (Ukraine), Ioanna Petrisi (Greece), Meera Jamal (Pakistan), Monika Mokre (Austria) and Corinna Milborn (moderator)

When people from different countries sit around a table in order to exchange opinions regarding “Democracy in a Migration Society” – this being the topic of the meeting organized by the Union des Théâtres de l’Europe on Sunday, January 15th, at the Volkstheater in Vienna – several questions are raised and this is one of them.

This issue is barely discussed, although it is extremely topical and will continue to be. But it also happens to be “quite provocative”, as initially described by Ioanna Petritsi, a representative of the ARSIS non-governmental organization and the National Theatre of Northern Greece.

“For the time being, to talk about democracy is a distant dream in the immigrant society”, she added. The image of tents buried in snow on the Greek islands was so recent that the discussion could only start with the country that has been asked to cope with a big part of the problem.

“Under the so-called ‘emergency situation’, all aspects of democracy, including representation, are sacrificed. The immigrants are treated as powerless individuals who have no control of their own lives and make no plans whatsoever. Indicative of this situation is the fact that those asking for political asylum have limited access to their legal documents, if they have any access at all. The country they are taken to is decided about without their knowledge and they usually are the very last to find out where they are going.”

But Ioanna also informs us that even in everyday life in the camps, where she has worked, “every single attempt of self-organization comes to nothing. Usually it is the most powerful one who dominates.”

Meera Jamal has lived and worked in Germany since 2008. She had to abandon her country, Pakistan, where she had been working as a journalist. Being sensitized on human rights as well as openly being an atheist, she would often be threatened back home. But initially she was similarly treated by her fellow countrymen who had also fled to Europe. They would ask her how she could say she was an atheist, and if she wasn’t aware of the consequences for those who leave Islam.
As she pointed out, however, fear lies on both sides, and she goes on to share a story she has included in one of her articles. Her neighbour in Wiesbaden was horrified when she hung a black piece of cloth in her garden in order to keep the insects away. They warned her to remove “this black Islamic flag”.

She went on to say that both sides have rights that ought to be equal for everyone, and that immigrants are often unaware of the laws concerning women and children’s rights. This is where the theatre could offer some help, being an accessible source of information and education.

Monika Mokre, a political scientist, pointed out that fundamental human rights such as housing, food or access to education and work, immigrant or not, ought to be safeguarded. She explained how there are people who have already been living in Austria for ten years and still can’t vote. Asylum seekers have no rights at all and they can’t even call the police. This is a challenge and the effort needs to last long. She says that this issue is much wider as it has to do with the kind of society we want to have.

A different perspective was presented by the Ukrainian artist Vlad Troitskyi, the artistic director of the independent Dakh theatre, who thinks countries who receive refugees such as Austria and Germany are eventually “at the mercy of the ones that they invite”.

“The immigrants often feel everyone owes them. Help, money, whatever. They adopt a childish behaviour and you cannot carry out a conversation with them. However, Europe itself has had a childish attitude. In the end no one makes any decision and no one takes responsibility. It is always someone else who ought to decide. As a result, populists make a comeback and opinions such as ‘all immigrants are evil’ and ‘we should close the borders’ become more and more popular. In my opinion, Europe is like a library suddenly invaded by a group of people; they are all refugees and the rest of us hesitate to say, ‘hey, this is a library’. Everyone can come in but only in order to read books. They can’t do anything they want. This ought to be emphasized. Certain things can or cannot be done inside a library. In this way, voices which no one takes seriously at first, like Hitler’s, Le Pen’s, Trump’s or Putin’s, become stronger and stronger, as they seem to suggest some solutions to the arising problems; and then the transformation takes place”, he concluded.

The director and activist Tina Leisch described the metaphor of the library as a “post-colonial ghost”, suggesting in return that of the supermarket. In her opinion, the former metaphor suggests that the library is just part of the culture immigrants come to vandalise. For her it makes more sense to compare Europe to a supermarket where there is enough food for everyone. Everyone can eat as much as they want. However, the people who have produced something suddenly want to keep it for themselves and say ‘we caught that fish; this fish is from our country’. It’s not true that anyone wants to burn down libraries. But everyone has the right to consume fair trade products, which is why democracy should not be considered exclusively in terms of borders or the economy, but in terms of human rights as well, according to Tina Leisch.

“I really believe Europe is a library. It hasn’t been merchandised; and the question is whether we want to sacrifice a civilization which has been alive for three thousand years”, replied Vlad Troitskyi. Monika Mokre objected and said that integration often goes both ways. So societies change; they also change due to immigration. She stresses that we need communication, and that there shouldn’t be any ghettos. Instead we should think about integration opportunities, and that we should allow new ideas to be placed among existing ones.

And where does art and theatre fit into this situation? According to Vlad Troitzkyi, the role art and the theatre play is huge, since “neither politicians nor the church have any effect any more. The artists’ role is to pose these annoying questions first to themselves and then to the public”, he said.

Tina Leisch also believes in the power of theatre, however she has started doubting its actual effect, since it is mainly meant for intellectuals and artists who are already aware of the issue. In Vienna, which is a city that has an immigration background, 40-50% of the people don’t go to the theatre. How can we attract these people? The theatre ought to invite them and step out of the stage. But it also ought to incorporate opposite opinions, after having held a discussion.

Meera Jamal suggested that the best asset is to have the newly arrived immigrants trained in the existing rights of the country that provides shelter. Ioanna Petritsi showed us a new aspect too: theatre games thanks to which the children of the camp were able to express themselves, and which also enabled the detection of child abuse, so that steps were taken against it.

Eventually everyone agreed that there are no easy answers, just many questions that should be posed and discussed openly, as will be done in another panel in autumn at the University of Vienna, in a collaboration between the Schweigende Mehrheit and the Union des Théâtres de l’Europe.

Published on 1 February 2017 (Article originally written in Greek)

Role(s) Of Arts in Migration Europe?

“/…/The legendary ping pong club is being restaged at mumok in order to reactivate Július Koller’s goal of transforming art and its institutions. Visitors are invited to play, exchange shots, opinions, and positions. In the light of our current crisis of democracy, Koller’s fair-play game seems all the more topical today.”

These are the last couple of sentences I read on one of the white walls of the 5th floor at Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (MUMOK), overhearing the reverberating sound of the ping pong ball, echoing distinctively in the hall as a group of visitors is playing on one of the tables behind me. It feels like the fading away resonance of each ball is gently asking a question, taken up by the next one. The soft, but insistent rhythm of this respectful discussion sticks to my mind for the rest of the day. Then I leave the Museumquartier, cross the slightly slippery, frosted street and enter into Volkstheater, where the Democracy in a Migration Society roundtable is to take place.

While the participants are getting seated and some of the chairs on the stage of the Rote Bar are producing cracking noises, I am still thinking about Július Koller. About his artistic presence; his boldness in transforming himself into an object of art; his fine irony; his healthy connection to the current socio-political context and its various layers; his ability to preserve his personal navigation system, despite the abrupt changes he witnesses. Born in former Czechoslovakia in 1939 and died in Slovakia in 2007, he is among the most influential conceptual artists of the epoch. He lived and created in both a Europe that was disunited by the Iron Curtain and in a Europe that was united by the European Union. But, in an impressive manner, he managed to preserve his artistic neutrality and the needed critical distance so that he could illustrate and comment on what happens in everyday life, the world of art and politics, and how they are intertwined. What is more, he also succeeded in accomplishing his attempts in reconfiguring the principles of the familiar, by inventing new, temporary “cultural situations”, as Koller calls them; and he does it through minimalistic, simple yet right at their place gestures.

The Ping-Pong Club exhibition, originally shown in Bratislava in 1970, and now restaged at the MUMOK as part of his retrospective, is just one example. In it, Koller invites the visitors to play table tennis in the exhibition room, to pass on to one another the ping pong ball based on the preexisting set of rules of the game, which guarantee its equality and fairness. And propels participants forward into consideration of rules as foundation of human relations on both interpersonal and collective level. This way Koller transforms the well-known sports game into a multifaceted metaphor; but also poses many questions. And, as his fans know, the question mark is not just an artistic tool in his work, but an important, aesthetic gesture that he employs repeatedly.

Interrogative sentences turn out to be the prevailing linguistic structure used by the participants at the roundtable – Meera Jamal, Ioanna Petrisi, Tina Leisch, Monika Mokre, Vlad Troitzkyi and the moderator Corinna Milborn – as well. Similarly to the ping pong game, the organizers have managed to ground the debate on a solid, preliminary agreed on basis. An essential component of which is the insistence not to look at the current situation of flux of people, coming to the continent from the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa, as a crisis, as a singular, extraordinary event, that needs to be resolved in order to return to normality. Instead, the perspective chosen is the one, admitting that this situation is already a fact, this is the new normality and that means that the attitude towards it, the approaches and the solutions should be long-term ones, and not at all momentary.

For the purposes of even more thorough and constructive rationalization of this notion, it might have been wise to consider some example of the extremely rich, migrant past of Europe. Stretching through the poles of history of domination on continents outside, through the specific relation inside between East and West, North and South, it all offers a significant amount of food for thought. Yet the span and the attention of the roundtable focus on the topic of the refugees as the most acute situation that needs urgent actions and strategies. Logically, at first the conversation sets off from the most painful and pressing issues that are often commented: protection of human rights, access to information, and mechanisms for their enforcement, conditions and services available at the detention centers, procedures for refugee status determination.

Slowly, but yet visibly, as opinions and examples are being exchanged over the table as ping pong balls, a second layer of questions begins to sneak in and gradually shifts the perspective. Inevitably issues of identity are touched upon and the topic of who/what is Europe and who “we” are is already here. It arises most clearly after Vlad Troitzkyi’s statement, in which he metaphorically describes Europe as a library, precious with its collection, in which everyone is welcome to choose a book and read it, yet all readers have to respect the rules and should not bring in any food or beverages, for instance. Tina Leisch in turn suggests that she prefers to think of Europe through the imagery of the supermarket, which is largely accessible for citizens from all walks of life and everyone can contribute to its shelves.

And there is a moment of silence; at least in my head; because a large, important space is opened up for the reconsideration of several major topics. Particularly crucial is the logic of the recognizing that we are already living in migration societies, and this is how it is going to be. To begin with, this is the starting point of the very old but still needed discussion on the access to culture, elitism, and the intellectual exclusivity of certain areas of the environment and given institutions. Then, this is the moment to initiate the talk on the role(s) of arts in society, especially in the frame of new pressing social issues. At this point of the debate the following questions also belong: what is the role of theatre, with its various forms and subgenres, in the different European societies today in relationship to their own members; what kind of hierarchies are present; and what could be the theatre’s involvement and contribution in the process of integration of newcomers; how should various theatrical structures react that are different in size, funding and presence, ranging from the state-run theatres and independent collectives to individual artists; where should the stage itself direct its gaze, and what artistic means are best to be employed? And, of course, many, many other questions, that are already anticipated, briefly mentioned or elaborated by the speakers at the round table.

Again, none of them is a new one, but the changed social reality has produced a new “cultural situation” which casts a different light; and offers fresh opportunities, but also requires us to negotiate the given rules of the game in order to be able to play it together. And not at all to claim that anything is a tabula rasa, but rather to be honest first of all with ourselves about the state of affairs, and then to attempt to openly state rules that, to the greatest extent possible, are fair and acceptable for everyone.

Furthermore, directly or implicitly, the roundtable offers some initial potential directions where to look for the answers. To begin with, I just simply slide my glance up and down the still preserved, though beginning to decay at certain spots, lavish interior of the 19th century building of Volkstheater, where we are. Its name literary means “people’s theatre”, and it is among the major institutions of its size and kind in Vienna. And this particular institution, together with Union of Theatres of Europe, a prominent trans–European network, is organizing such a roundtable for the second time. This in itself already is a clear telltale sign.

Other two possible directions to look for some hints are alluded by the two participants in the discussion, who are, among other things, theatre professionals. Vlad Troitzkyi emphasizes the fact that theatre is one of the spaces where challenging social questions can be posed due to its ability to profoundly unfold and express troubling social situations. And it does so exhaustively, including the aspects that often remain unsaid in personal and political talks. Tina Leisch builds up on that by confirming her belief in the effectiveness of theatre, but only when it succeeds to break out of the elitist, intellectual bubble, which many of the prominent theatrical institutions inhabit.

And a step further would be to look into the own practice of the two speakers quoted above. Troitzkyi is the artistic director of the prominent Ukrainian independent theatre DakhaBrakha. During the protests at Maidan Nezalezhnosti in 2013-2014 in Kiev, the troupe and its leader were actively involved in what was happening outside the theatre building. Tina Leisch is among the founders of “The Silent Majority” artistic collective, gathered to support refugees in their fight for rights and improvement of their conditions. Troitzkyi’s latest production is the opera-circus Babylon at Nova Opera Theatre in Kiev. It explores the tower as a metaphor and determining myth, while parodying the classical opera as a genre. Meanwhile Leisch is involved in rehearsals for the musical Traiskirchen (homonymous to the Austrian town, near which the biggest refugee camp in the country is set), for which actual refugees are casted.

This is how the ping pong ball stays in the air: on one and the same table, but also in between different tables, when needed. And among its tranquilizing, repetitive bounces, we can clearly hear the message that arts, and theatre in particular, can and may play many roles in today’s migration societies. There’s no cure-all, but questions need to be posed — again and again. And rules need to be negotiated.

Published on 31 January 2017 (Article originally written in Bulgarian)

Art, Economy, Europe. Strategies against dystopia

Art, Economy, Europe.
Strategies against dystopia

In the magnificent hall of the Mosteiro de São Bento da Vitória in Porto, the Teatro Nacional São João (TNSJ) and the Union des Théâtres de l’Europe (UTE) called a roundtable conference on the theme “Economics, Art and Europe”.
In the context of the three-year project Conflict Zones, the conference — among the side events of the UTE General Assembly, together with a showcase — was opened in front of the delegates from all the 18 member theatres, an opportunity to put up a more and more urgent reflection in the context of an international setting.

The speakers’ table dug the pathway to a complex and compelling discussion, able to cross different and yet complementary areas of work. The researcher Tomáš Sedláček (Czech Republic) is a man of science in the first place; the artistic wing was represented by the director of the Piccolo Teatro di Milano – Teatro d’Europa, Sergio Escobar (Italy) and the artistic director of the TNSJ, Nuno Carinhas (Portugal); the political realm was represented by the mayor of Porto, Rui Moreira. The president of the administrative board of directors of the TNSJ, Francisca Carneiro Fernandes, moderated the discussion.

When one tries to establish a link between the three topics, an immediate response comes from the fact that economics and arts have always been closely tied to one another, with artists’ lives fed to rich patrons, the whole artistic expression at the mercy of public or private funds, or the cartel of the collectors reigning over this or that trend in visual arts. One of the questions raised by such a conference could easily be: which kind of influence can derive from Europe as a political and socio-economical environment?

In the words of Francisca Carneiro Fernandes, and of the all three speakers, “Europe” is almost always paired with terms such as “in crisis”, “shifting” or “under threat”, and the major question is most likely how culture and arts can or cannot lend a helping hand in such a scenario.
The Czech essayist and lecturer Tomáš Sedláček, author of the bestseller book Economics of Good and Evil, is saluted as one of the most groundbreaking voices in contemporary economics, especially because of his inspiring ideas about “economics as a cultural phenomenon.” Far from considering stock markets and indexes a mere system of an addiction to numbers, Sedláček’s conception promotes a reconceptualization of the whole ratio about macro-economics, leading to a realm where economics is the endemic factor of societies, closely attached to the collective production of myths, religions and philosophies.

THE INVISIBLE HAND OF THE SOCIETY

Showing a fundamentally positive attitude, Tomáš Sedláček admits that certain “regulatory mechanisms” might not be perfect — still incapable to avoid bloodsheds and wars — but they are in fact guaranteeing a stable situation. And yet, in such a view, the relatively stable situation of societies is not regulated by the “invisible hand” of economics: that presumed eminence grise, silent and mysterious, is in fact the result of a complex net of material relations, it’s a product of our own culture. The society itself reacts almost spontaneously to certain drifts of economics, giving birth to “a generation of hippies” that counteracts a too profit-oriented economy or to a Kafka that stood up against an excessive fascination of the Austro-Hungarian Empire towards bureaucracy. Another bright example comes from Sedláček’s homeland, with the “Velvet Revolution” in which arts saved politics from a total collapse.
The key to this mysterious balance seems to then lie in the awareness of such interconnections between areas that react to one another following a subterranean turmoil of an action-reaction process. The Czech economist poses the core of such turmoil in cultural movements, stating that the actual role of intellectuals and thinkers is “to keep these channels clean for communication.”
“European / American civilization is based on democracy and capitalism”, Sedláček continues, “two things that, so we were taught, are supposed to go hand in hand. And yet, the Western world has managed to export capitalism but not democracy”. This turns out to be a huge failure. Even Karl Marx argued that “capitalism is the strongest machine to make nations rich”, but the mere act of exporting capitalism is not enough to bring wealth, and can be extremely dangerous when it doesn’t come with the “handbook” of democracy.

THE RELIGION OF ECONOMICS

One should not trust a totally deterministic definition of economics as “a technical analytic science/physics-oriented area”, while it is in fact “ideology covered in disguise of mathematics.” Those very ideologies end up autonomously defining the good and the evil of certain attitudes in administrative and governmental policies.
One of Sedláček’s powerful examples is corruption, which historically used to be considered bad practice because of being directly associated with the act of stealing. Today, instead, it needs an economic reasoning to be seen as wrong. This is because — and here is the other major statement of Sedláček’s above-quoted book — the greatest part of our evaluations on economic phenomena is nowadays confronted with GDP growth.
Quite evidently, the most dangerous risk is to use GDP growth as a touchstone for all socio-cultural manifestations. As the speaker underlines, arts were never supposed to speed up the economy of a nation, but they can slow down the pace of a profit-driven society and give people the extraordinary opportunity of a pause, a hiatus that favours the blooming of thought and knowledge, of emotions and understanding.
In other words, while Gross Domestic Product measures the material growth or decline, arts and culture mark the time of a spiritual florescence. As a matter of fact, the explosion of totalitarian and anti-democratic regimes as foreseen by dystopian literature found its root in the ban of arts and culture, which are to be considered as a barometer for the integrity of societies; a function which is very hard to visualize, because art in some ways escapes the responsibility of being directly useful. Nevertheless, it holds the innate ability to produce meaning, when confronted with the effective expectations of growth claimed by the individuals and, consequently, by the social structures that they compose.
Sedláček’s point is that we are living in a world that is totally based on the act of producing. Nothing around us can be called “natural”, everything is “artificial”, everything was built by humans: even the possibility to travel the world is submitted to artificial material processes (technology and identity regulations).“Our work”, Sedláček says, “is never done, it keeps on growing and growing with no reaching a point.” Finding its way through this chain-reaction of implementing reality, art may be a sort of bell that announces a ceasefire.

SUBJECT-OBJECT REVERSAL

An example from contemporary mythology is brought up to explain this process. In J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Mordor, the villain, created the ring putting “so much power in it that its destruction brings destruction to Mordor himself: the Lord of the Rings is the ring itself” This is very similar to what has happened with economics: we have defined our lives by economic standards, so much so that they have taken complete control over our lives; essentially, economics has become the master of humans. In this sense, putting one’s faith and, more importantly, one’s mind on the things that can face and balance this absolute power is crucial: in a crisis such as the one we had in 2008 and 2009, “if a certain help hadn’t arrived from the area of politics, finance would have destroyed our civilization, exactly because it is based on it.”

POLITICS AND CULTURAL MANAGEMENT

After such a prolific theoretical introduction, it’s perhaps interesting to compare the contributions of the Mayor of Porto, Rui Moreira, on one side and the Director of a national theatre such as the Piccolo Teatro, Sergio Escobar, on the other, to understand some of the strategies carried out by two crucial actors in this scenario.
Escobar introduces the concept of the “improbable” to focus on the role of the arts. Quoting the French composer, writer and programmer Pierre Boulez: “Culture is that human activity that makes inevitable what is highly improbable.” In Escobar’s view, a reply to the refrain that “art is useless” is that “criteria for usefulness are self-referential towards economics”, while the role of culture is namely to put in crisis certainties and stable knowledge, “which are able to freeze the probable”. It was Edgar Morin who said: “The unexpected is possible, the metamorphosis is possible. Hope is the possible not the certain.”
Culture seemed to be at the center of mayor Moreira’s project when he was running for the elections in 2012, and it’s his concern to underline how finances have been growing through the current mandate, not without completing some important tasks as the creation of the Rivoli Municipal Theatre, a playhouse of and for the city.
In Moreira’s political perspective, culture has to be put next to two other accesses: economics and social cohesion, capable to “free the genie from the lamp and lead to a rebirth of the city.” The key seems to be in a basic change of attitude, from being mere “spectators” to becoming “actors in the change”, not following individual agendas, but rather acting as a collective, as a community of individuals. If Moreira says that “the city itself can be an actor”, Escobar talks about the “sensibility of citizens”, a very subtle category to take care of.
For both speakers, and referring to Sedláček’s talk, the question of bureaucracy is certainly crucial, because all contemporary democracies are going through hard times in terms of the functionality of an institution and a deep crisis of political representation, two themes that are responsible for a civic application of cultural conscience.
Escobar doesn’t believe that bureaucracy is the cause of the faults of the EU, most likely a sort of closure towards international relationships that produced “fear, then egoism, then nationalism”, a situation that is also reflected in domestic affairs and particularly in cultural management. Moreira still looks at bureaucracy as a barrier towards a healthy and correct perception of democracy, and he argues that a better understanding of the current media and communication environment might be a key to at least locate the centre of the problem. “With the end of traditional forms of communication (newspaper, TV, radio) and the advent of social networks, we are hitting disinformation. Using devices that can execute everything we want exactly in the way we expect it, we no longer need representative democracy.” And here’s the most dangerous obstacle to social cohesion.
“Culture is then going to replace what was served to us through the media and information.” Moreira underlines how Europe, no matter what the GDP states, still can boast leadership in the cultural production and heritage: a collective act of preservation should be the starting point to prove to the rest of the world that this record doesn’t come from a false perception.

THEATRE IS AN ART OF TIME, LET’S GET TO WORK!

If before “the business of business was business”, according to Tomáš Sedláček, the role of economics is changing. If one wants to sell beer, a brewery won’t be enough: the business of a brewery is now most likely “to harvest beer culture.” Culture is free to produce beauty and richness for the soul when one realizes that it’s first of all an act of harvesting.
Nuno Carinhas’s quiet and discrete voice brings up a strong allure of passion, that in some ways introduces his latest production of Karl Kraus’s The Last Days of Mankind, when it presents theatre as “a space for the free movement of people’s ideas and meanings”, “a democratic taste for sharing in opposition of the fashionable representation of unanimity of taste.”
Thus, theatre can become a useful instrument against a neglected memory, to organize a more aware idea of the future. But, as an “art of time”, it must represent the opportunity for a change of pace, a moment of reflection that injects a different time in such a voraciously rapidity-oriented everyday life. “When the world is nothing but silence, there will be narratives for clandestine listening”, but we need to awake our needed time, a special momentum entirely dedicated to listening, instead of a frenzy search for permanent virtual connection. In a media-filtered reality, Carinhas invites everyone to remember the Europe of the Rome Treaties, signed 60 years ago, “before fear” and suspicion of the other.
One might argue that looking at the past as an era with no fears is dangerous: the tensions were profound also at the dawn of Europe. However, Carinhas’s talk goes beyond that; it is a quest for a contemporary model based on the power of free speech in the first place, in these very months where we feel a certain threat by certain politics of repression.
“My Europe”, he argues, “is the Europe of authors, because it is through them that I can perceive the present time. And then, how can we accept that authors are still censored and persecuted in Europe? How can we admit that the other, the different, the foreigner is put into question and negated? We know that negation will haunt us in coming times as a labyrinthian network of walls supported by the complacency of the cynics. So, let’s get to work: Europe is a favourable ground to built communion and usury, fanaticism and freedom of thought, destruction and remorse, populist rhetoric and poetic indignation. We will all have to understand how to live together before a series of collapses defeat us.”

Published on 13 December 2016 (Article originally written in Italian)

Harbour 40. On the docks of Europe

In the context of the 11th Short Theatre festival in Rome, four out of five playwrights involved in the UTE project Harbour40 were invited to read extracts from their new texts dealing with harbours and the people associated with them. Here’s a short report about such a multilingual and multicultural event.

Playwriting has never stopped evolving. From country to country, the art of writing for the stage holds a diversified relevance, depending on tradition and, at the same time, on cultural borders continuously pushing and shoving, on the ferment of certain themes, on emerging urgencies in a changing world. Because changing is the word—with its grammar, syntax and semantics—but, first of all, is the imagery; as if from century to century the need for representation had refused too fixed a structure in search of a model always able to reassess the live presence of the spectator, which is to be considered as an ungovernable cell of an organic process.

And that’s how writing acquires temporal and territorial peculiarities, that’s how the “classics” are born, that’s why a text might turn out “old-fashioned” or “out of context” rather than “revolutionary” or “suitable” for a certain time or place or audience. Most of such dynamics change as soon as the paradigm of the “lonely writer” is subverted.

Harbour40 is the title of a project developed through a schedule of meetings and think tanks held in the context of the “Conflict Zones / Zones de Conflits” project by the UTE in Rome and Vienna. Playwrights from Bulgaria (Stefan Ivanov), Greece (Angeliki Darlasi), Italy (Roberto Scarpetti), Palestine (Amir Nizar Zuabi) and Syria (Ibrahim Amir) have been discussing burning global issues, and how those relate to their societies. The brain-storming generated the idea of writing collectively, while on the other hand trying not to drop the fundamental specificities attached to each political and cultural background.
With the technical support of the Teatro di Roma and thanks to a very enthusiastic participation of the staff of the Short Theatre festival—directed by Italian director Fabrizio Arcuri since 2006—the first outcome of Harbour40 was a public reading at La Pelanda, a former slaughterhouse converted into a cultural venue in Rome. The excerpts presented by Angeliki Darlasi, Stefan Ivanov, Roberto Scarpetti and Amir Nizar Zuabi, though read in five different languages, had many things in common, and a shared leading image: the harbour, imagined as a “non-place” where people leave and return; where they meet and exchange goods and words, even lives and destinies. The further steps of the project would aim to collect the four texts and mix them into a comprehensive structure, letting the story fly from Jaffa to Piraeus, from Genoa to the Black Sea, but also through markets in the Syrian desert, Turkey and Tunisia.

On a bare stage, the four authors sit on a black couch under a dimmed light; crossing a delicate fog, each of them takes turn at the microphones placed on the front stage. When one rests the pages on the bookstand and starts reading, it’s like being left alone in another world.
Ivanov murmurs his Bulgarian lines keeping his body perfectly still, the surtitles stream on the screen and tell about a grandson and a grandfather, they talk about the channel that links Sofia and the Black Sea, that cost 22 thousand deaths among the prisoners from the Gulag.
In Darlasi’s fragment, Iliana walks back and forth on a dock of Piraeus, waiting for somebody; Natasha is fishing: the tragedy of the refugee flows is narrated from the point of view of the passengers, while the fate remains uncertain even when the boats touch land, and a life might change in unpredictable and painful ways.
Scarpetti’s monologue is the account of a trip to Genoa, where a Tunisian man is sent by the family to sell the house of a dead uncle who had left Tunisia many years ago: the infernal Italian bureaucracy will swallow him, scaling down any expectation about a fortune to be made in a foreign country to which many compatriots would love to escape.
Nizar Zuabi imagines the interview between different port-authority officers with Miss Queen, who is in search of her disappeared father. Beyond obstructionism and the suspect of an intentional code of silence, the father himself appears as a sort of Shakespearian vision, speaking Arab and whispering some chilling details about his—most likely deadly—trip.

More than any other form of writing, a play lets the characters speak up with their own voices, and the main task of playwriting should indeed be to deal with actual facts, bringing the inner feelings to the surface.
Just before the reading, the festival organized a public meeting held by the journalist Graziano Graziani, in which the four authors sit with Italian and French colleagues (Erika Z. Galli, Martina Ruggeri, Lorenzo Garozzo, Alessandra Di Lernia and Sonia Chiambretto), members of Fabulamundi Playwriting Europe, a networking programme for translating and diffusion of European plays. The discussion focused on the question of language and what kind of audience a playwright might (or should) fancy. Although attempting very different approaches, the quasi totality of the writers does not want to imagine an ideal spectator, in order not to feel too comfortable and rather drag the audience into a realm as uneasy as the contemporary issues they deal with.

When asking questions to the spectators of Harbour40, the strongest feedback was of course on the themes, on how Europe and the Mediterranean mirror the contemporary social-political contradictions. But for such a project it’s also important to take note of some other comments that expressed how fascinating it was to listen to multilingual texts without the mediation of the actors, but rather facing the very presence of the author. Also because of the fact that the audience was largely composed of professionals, a great part of the attention was focused on the body, on how the absence of the mise-en-scène brought the very essence of the words (with their peculiarities in linguistics and spelling) on the top of any form of theatrical interpretation. Thus, Ivanov’s firm and polite immobility could be confronted with a more animated and “acted” performance delivered by Nizar Zuabi, deriving from different professional backgrounds but also from cultural specificities in terms of language and expressiveness.
If, on the one hand, the term “collective” indicates something that is done together, its roots go down to the act of “collecting”, as to say to grasp bits and pieces of identity, displaying them in front of an active and diversified audience, that shapes a myriad of, both personal and universal, meanings.

Published on 22 September 2016 (Article originally written in Italian)

From Serbia to Syria

With the open wound of the refugee crisis itching in the background, Vienna’s Volkstheater has clearly come forward as a place halfway between East and West in its first gesture as a member of the Union des Théâtres de l’Europe. There will be no borders here, says artistic director Anna Badora.

Scene from POKOJNIK / THE DECEASED. A guest performance of the JDP at the Volkstheater Wien. Photo © Jelena Veljković — Scene from POKOJNIK / THE DECEASED. Guest-performance in context of the Serbian November at the Volkstheater Wien. Photo © Jelena Veljković

A spectre — the spectre of a refugee wave that is apparently out of control — was haunting Europe the evening the Volkstheater opened its flash-season exclusively devoted to the home country of one the biggest expat communities in Vienna (about 156,000 people, of which 70,000 still keep a Serbian passport, disembarked in Austria’s capital city looking for shelter from historic poverty and unemployment, the claustrophobic socialist regime led by Tito or, up until quite recently, the on-going wars that stormed the Balkans).

Yet another spectre — the spectre of terrorism as an epidemic of unprecedented proportions — haunted Europe one day later, in the painful aftermath of a terrorist attack that mortally wounded both the Western way of life, shooting at close range at some of its core representations (football, the entertainment industry, the good life).

Caught between the two crises, a theatre institution operating right in the centre of Europe, right at the crossroads where East and West have for centuries been coming together and drifting apart, kept doing what it has always done — and let the show go on. Still, “show” may not be the best term when it comes to the Serbischer November (Serbian November) festival — an event that took over several stages of the Volkstheater for four days. Yes, there was a party, and a time to eat, drink and dance the pain away, but then again there was also a time to confront — albeit in a comedy-cushioned mood — Yugoslavian socialism’s nepotistic record (Branišlav Nusić’s Pokojnic, directed by Igor Vuk Torbica), the tragic body count of the last Balkan Wars (Olivier Frljić’s Aleksandra Zec, directed by Olivier Frljić) and the more and more acute European cultural shock (which by now you’d expect to have become more and more obsolete) between the rich and labour-importing North and the impoverished and fatally emigrant South (Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Katzelmacher, directed by Bojana Lazić).

These are traumatic issues, weighing on a country where democracy is still quite a new experience. Traumatic issues for Serbia, and, though on a different level, also for Vienna, considering that it was a Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip (1894-1918), who unleashed the First World War — putting an unappealing end to the Austro-Hungarian Empire — through the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 1914. But that was just the beginning of the 20^th century; once it was over, Vienna had again become one of the biggest cities of the Serbian diaspora (or rather: one of the biggest Serbian cities). In the meantime, psychoanalysis came forward to help digest that and some other traumas.

So why pick the subject now that one hundred years have gone by since Austria and Serbia’s most violent and bloody confrontations took place in the battlefields of the First World War? Well, precisely because it’s about time to go past the trauma. And also because, as the Volstheater’s new artistic director Anna Badora pragmatically puts it, the Foreign Affairs Ministry wanted to promote 2015 as the Cultural Year Austria-Serbia: “Each and every season the Volkstheater must have an international focus. Since the Serbian community is extremely big in Vienna, even compared to the German one, I thought that this programme could perfectly combine all the interests at stake: the Ministry’s, the city’s and of course the theatre’s.”

Sold out performances and a “The Serbian community, just like other communities in Vienna, must be brought into the theatre — as a topic and as an audience. In Vienna, the majority of the people you will meet behind the shops’ counters don’t have German as their mother tongue. The Volkstheater, which is by definition ‘the people’s theatre’, must go out and look for them.”

In fact — and although the programme has clearly stated its intention was to outline and give visibility to the new generation of Serbian theatremakers, and the topics it has been able to freely deal with, after Tito, the war and Milošević —, other conflict zones, and not strictly Serbian ones, did stand out in this Serbischer November. First of all, the big North-South divide which the European sovereign debt crisis, and especially the bailout programmes imposed on Greece and Portugal, lately aggravated — an irresistible way of reading this almost 50-year-old play where Fassbinder staged the social and sexual tension induced by the arrival of the Gastarbeiter in post-war Germany (after all, emigrants from those two and other “peripheral” countries did write part of the German Economic Miracle story…). Secondly, the terminal disagreement among the members of the European Union over the refugee wave that the war in Syria and the struggle for survival in territories such as Sudan or Eritrea have exacerbated these past few months — a dangerously dividing topic even before made this new appearance in Paris that now risks dooming any foreseeable deal concerning the European borders.

With no dénouement in sight — and up until then eventually threatening to break Europe in two conflicting halves —, the refugee crisis was the topic the Volkstheater decided to address in a roundtable at the Rote Bar (a joint effort with the Union des Théâtres de l’Europe in the context of its Conflict Zones network program). It would be hard to ignore it anyway, in a city that just saw thousands of migrants being pushed into special trains by Austria’s neighbouring countries and flooding its main stations. The summer crowds have now vanished, but for hundreds of stranded refugees the Westbahnhof and the Hauptbahnhof still remain some kind of limbo halfway between asylum and repatriation — a limbo where at least they can find shelter, food, medical assistance and other support (translators, for instance, a basic necessity for many) provided by individual volunteers and organizations like Caritas and Train of Hope. It’s easy to spot them: they’re the boys reloading their SIM cards and aimlessly wandering around the Hauptbahnhof’s wide and desolate corridors, the little kids feeding the pigeons in the plaza just outside the station, and the fathers smoking at the entrance of the Westbahnhof’s executive lounge, now a temporary kindergarten for Syrian, Iraqi and Afghan babies and children. Not too far from here, in Spielfeld, on the border with Slovenia, Austria seems ready to build a 3.7 kilometre fence to “help manage” — i.e. “to slow and discourage” — the flow of thousands of migrants that demand its territory on a daily basis.

In a political landscape where the far right had already gained a very significant terrain (reaching 20.5% of the vote in the 2013 general election), the on-going refugee crisis further strengthened the Freiheitliche Partei (Freedom Party). In September, it doubled its score in the country’s third-largest state of Upper Austria; a month later, it reached a record result and nearly won the city election in Vienna, a long-standing social-democrat bastion — so is the audience of the Volkstheater, Anna Badora says “An old and old-fashioned audience”, she adds, and one she would love to “enlarge and diversify”, making way for “younger and more open” spectators to attend the theatre too. Still, the audience that filled the Rote Bar to take part in the roundtable dedicated to the dangerous liaisons between The refugee movement and right-wing populism — featuring political scientists Chantal Mouffe (University of Westminster) and Anton Pelinka (Central-European University, Budapest), anthropologist and Vienna Museum director Matti Bunzl, International Amnesty Austria’s spokesperson Daniela Pichler, chairman of the NGO Asyl in Not Michael Genner, and Kurdish-Syrian playwright Ibrahim Amir, a resident of Vienna since 2002 — seemed neither old nor old-fashioned. And the event that Anna Badora marketed as an effort to “raise the issues and find solutions” eventually became a strong statement for the emergence of an alternative (and therefore left-wing) narrative about the migration wave and what to do with it.

Anna Badora, artistic director of the Volkstheater Wien. Photo © www.lupispuma.com/Volkstheater

Is it rightfully part of a theatre’s mission — namely one of the main theatres of a city that has historically been a destination for migrants and refugees — to make such a political stand? “Indeed”, says Anna Badora. “Particularly in times like these, it’s important to work explicitly against the right-wing prejudices and propaganda, so that the audience will refuse to be manipulated by them.” The Volkstheater’s artistic director then quotes one of the speakers at the roundtable, Chantal Mouffe, to emphasize theatre’s own ability to generate the positive emotions that so far the left-wing parties haven’t been able to oppose to the “narrative of fear” (placing the immigrant as “the enemy”) the far-right is insisting upon.

Anyway, the Serbischer November’s roundtable is far from being the only approach the Volkstheater is taking on the refugee issue. The institution has also been working on other fronts, one of them being the Ausblick nach oben programme developed by the educational service, which is bringing together Austrian, Syrian and Afghan teenagers (some of which are not even German-speaking) and challenging them into forging a common language out of shared experiences of socioeconomic frailty. Homohalal, one of the current season’s productions, was yet another take on the topic: it is based on a play written by Ibrahim Amir together with some of the refugees who promoted the Sigmund Freud Park’s mediatized Refugee Protest Camp back in November 2012, claiming the right to remain and to work in Austria, along with improved living conditions.

We therefore ask Anna Badora if we should expect a Syrian November to follow this Serbian November in 2016. “I’d love it personally, but these programmes must be articulated with the Foreign Affairs Ministry, which has already stated its intention of focusing on Bosnia-Herzegovina in the coming year. It was once Austro-Hungarian territory, so there’s a relevant common history.” The Volkstheater director, herself an outsider in Austria (she was born and grew up in Poland), vividly underlines that the first season she created for the Viennese theatre is overwhelmingly “international”. Foreign-directed productions by directors coming from different countries of the European and Mediterranean space (Israel, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Greece, Switzerland) clearly outnumber the shows being staged by Austrian directors. But the Volkstheater will eventually reach Syria sooner or later. Maybe later: “At this stage, it would be very difficult to organize such an event with war-stricken Syria; it would definitely be impossible to bring local productions to Vienna, which is actually what the programme stands for. But we can find alternative lines of work.”

Published on 26 November 2015 (Article originally written in Portuguese)

Right-wing populism: A quest for an alternative

Right-wing populism:
A quest for an alternative

Interview with Chantal Mouffe

If one could define “populism” as a tendency to criticize existing democracies for not being sufficiently democratic and to ask for more power for the people, according to Ruth Wodak and Majid KhosraviNik (authors of the book Right-Wing Populism in Europe), “it has been argued that right-wing populism differs from other trends [i.e. the French National Front, the British National Party, the Austrian Freedom Party) as it does not convey a coherent ideology but rather proposes a mixed bag of beliefs, stereotypes, attitudes and related programmes which aim to address and mobilize a range of equally contradictory segments of the electorate.” Populism has always been in search of a new “defining other”, an entity (be it a social class or a specific area of the common thought) to be seen as the decisive opponent of the people.

Putting the concept in a slightly simplified way, Wodak and KhosraviNik argue that “depending on the definition of the people’s defining other, the different contemporary populist phenomena can be categorized in different ways. But any kind of populism directed against an ethnically and/or nationally and/or religiously defined ‘other’ can be seen as right-wing.”

Right-wing populism in its relationship with the refugee movement was the topic of the roundtable organized by the UTE in the context of the Conflict Zones network programme. The attempt was to focus on the reactions registered all around Europe in response to the recent massive migration of the refugees. This direction was forced to encounter a moral and civil urgency: the whole debate had to be contextualized in the light of the horrible attacks that had taken place in Paris just the night before.

The tone of the conversation was set on a highly (though solid) theoretical level, rather than on a practical line of work. I tried to further investigate some aspects interviewing Chantal Mouffe, Professor of Political Theory at the University of Westminster, London.

In her opening remarks, she mentioned the great responsibility held by the Western countries towards the current crisis that indeed is presented to people’s attention “like a natural catastrophe”. This is an example of misguiding information about the actual role of influence of the individual thinking in the common knowledge of and about a democratic country. And yet, right-wing populism is very strong nowadays. In Mouffe’s opinion, the reason of such success lies in the fact that a real alternative for the voters is missing. “Left-wing abandoned the popular layer dealing only with the middle class”, Mouffe says, the people fails to find a counter discourse in the left wing. On the other hand, by criticizing elites — whose positions are based on higher education and individual achievement — right-wing populism is often using rhetoric traditionally associated with left-wingers.

Thus, a great part with the social issues regarding the refugee movements comes from the fundamental lack of a correct and actual cultural discourse, able to inscribe the figure of people arriving from other (devastated) countries in a common imagery; to create a brand new narrative.

SLG – Ms. Mouffe, how can culture, with its means,
contribute to the creation of such narratives to let the alternative surface?

CM – I am very much influenced by the work of Antonio Gramsci on such
concepts as the “organic intellectual” and, above all, “common sense”.
He says that, at a given moment, there’s a dominant common sense,
a common sense that basically defines how things are. But this common
sense is not something which is natural, is always a product of a given hegemony.
So what the common sense is currently saying is that there is no alternative to globalization, to an indiscriminate free trade logic, and so on. I think it’s precisely because of that that right-wing populists are the only offered alternative. A lot of people, particularly those of the popular sector, were undeniably affected and at the same time attracted by globalization. What is important, in my opinion, is then to fight to transform this common sense. And, of course, common sense is something built in different ways: that’s why artistic and cultural practices are so important. This is in great part where common sense is constructed and established, so this is where I think the major effort should be drawn. The aim is to create a different view; this could be different in letting people produce a “passion of hope”. We are not talking about faith; it is something that comes as the result of a certain political project, which can become hegemonic, something that I call a counter-hegemonic structure. And this is where I think artistic and cultural practices are important.

SLG – You pointed out some relevant examples — out of cinema, theatre, literature — in which a precise narrative can be drawn to the audience in order to clarify the living conditions of a certain social group (migrants are only some among others). In my work as a cultural journalist I wonder if there’s a way for such practices to go beyond the a different point of view on these “others”, but also to portray the actual situation of the societies that those “others” are invited to become a part of; because sometimes you run the risk of creating a different form of populism through the creation of a new narrative, be its matrix marked by right-wing or left-wing features.

CM – Actually, the only way to fight against right-wing populism is to be aware of the opportunity of a left-wing populism. When you speak about that, you need to abandon the idea that populism is something purely related to manipulation. It’s not a question of manipulating people in a conservative or progressive way. In fact, I follow the theory that populism is not something that embodies a content in itself, it’s a way to draw a political frontier between the people from lower and upper classes. In fact, politics is necessarily partisan, it’s always about creating a frontier, but a frontier can be created in different ways. And the tradition of such a creation of frontiers has been very much defined in terms of left and right; and also in terms of given interests and relative social classes. But the reason as to why we need to abandon these narrow divisions is that they lead to what I call an “essentialist way of thinking”, where the political consciousness is linked to the place you occupy in the economy. And things are not like that; political identity is something that is constructed by political discourse. And today, precisely right-wing populists are very good at constructing this political discourse; left-wingers are not. This impedes the creation of a kind of transverse popular wing. I am very close to Podemos in Spain, they believe that many people would not feel part of the left because they are not part of the working class; they cannot cope with these contradictions.

SLG – So, it’s about climbing on a higher step of discourse.

CM – Exactly. Because they are affected by policies of austerity, they don’t have an identity that in fact should necessarily be represented in a government, and it’s not.

SLG – You are saying that, for instance, one should not necessarily be a homosexual to fight against homophobic expressions that are to be faced in terms of a subtraction of equal and shared freedom.

CM – Exactly. Then again, what’s missing is a process of construction of a political identity.

SLG – Do you think there’s a chance to change the sense of populism from inside?

CM – There is a necessary populist dimension in democracy because democracy has to deal with giving power to the people. This is why I am very much against the dismissal of populism. It’s becoming a form of manipulation, though, and the parties want to prevent this drifting of populism. So we really need to fight to recover, to transform, to redefine the term populism into something positive, but then of course this must have to do with giving back the people the right to decide. But, of course, that can be constructed either in a right or left way. And this, for me, is the main question today: since what we are seeing is the progress of right-wing populism, we need to construct a left-wing alternative to populism. There are two parties that are currently trying to pursue this: Tsipras’s Siriza and Podemos in Spain. And another element is also important: it needs to be something not purely created on the party line, but in a synergy between parties and a social movement. Populism is not just a certain rhetoric, but also a form of politics which brings together the social movements and the traditional parties: because you also need to transform the state.

Published on 25 November 2015 (Article originally written in Italian)

YOUNG EUROPEAN JOURNALISTS ON PERFORMING ARTS

Category: Socio-political issues

30 days with Kirill Serebrennikov

30 days with Kirill Serebrennikov

The Threesome Tango: Spectator-Theatre-State

The Threesome Tango: Spectator-Theatre-State

Europe: A library or a supermarket?

Europe: A library or a supermarket?

A library or a supermarket? If one wished to come up with a successful metaphor for Europe at this turning point of its history, which would be the most accurate one?

Role(s) Of Arts in Migration Europe?

Role(s) Of Arts in Migration Europe?

Art, Economy, Europe. Strategies against dystopia

Art, Economy, Europe.
Strategies against dystopia

THE INVISIBLE HAND OF THE SOCIETY

THE RELIGION OF ECONOMICS

SUBJECT-OBJECT REVERSAL

POLITICS AND CULTURAL MANAGEMENT

THEATRE IS AN ART OF TIME, LET’S GET TO WORK!

Harbour 40. On the docks of Europe

Harbour 40. On the docks of Europe

From Serbia to Syria

From Serbia to Syria

Right-wing populism: A quest for an alternative

Right-wing populism:
A quest for an alternative

Interview with Chantal Mouffe

Postcards from Vienna… in a Serbian November

From Serbia to Syria

Terrorism beyond any representation