Marta Górnicka’s «Grundgesetz»: The Chorus as Portrait and Proxy of Political Community
Abstract
This text analyzes the function of the chorus in Marta Górnicka’s open-air production Grundgesetz (Berlin, 2018) in redefining the political community of “the German people.” While examining its relation to the audience, the author refers to examples of German mass spectacles from the Weimar Republic that invested choruses to both represent a political community in the making and to shape political subjects through collective action. Based on aesthetic and political concepts of representation, which intertwine in the performance, the author shows how the chorus of Grundgesetz both portrays and enacts “the German people” as a plurality of bodies and voices united by fundamental rights. Making it thus an available community to stand for, the performance questions the agency of the audience as a collective body capable of acting together in public space.
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Keywords:
Marta Górnicka, chorus, performance, assembly, mass spectacle, representation, public spaceReferences
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Authors
Louise Décailletlouise.decaillet@uzh.ch
University of Zurich Switzerland
PhD candidate in cultural analysis at the University of Zurich. She studied French and German Literature in Geneva and graduated in cultural analysis at the University of Zurich with a focus on contemporary theater and performance. In 2018-2019, she worked as a tutor and assistant at the department of French Literature and co-translated the Swiss theater director Milo Rau’s book Global Realism (Verbrecher Verlag, 2018). Since September 2019, she has been part of the SNF project Crisis and Communitas. Performative Concepts of Commonality in the Polish Culture since the Beginning of the 20th Century led by Prof. Dorota Sajewska, writing her PhD thesis under the working title Bodies of the Public. Formats of Commonality in Contemporary Performative Practices. Her centers of interest are performative practices and contemporary arts, politics of spectatorship and participation, history and theory of theater as well as cultural studies.
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