Toward Theatrical Communitas
Dorota Sajewska
dorota.sajewska@uzh.chUniversity of Zurich (Switzerland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0904-6761
Abstract
The term communitas, introduced into anthropological discourse by Victor Turner in the late 1960s, returned to humanist debates at the threshold of the twenty-first century by way of Roberto Esposito. Referring to Esposito’s concept of communitas, this essay brings out the anthropological tradition in thinking about the common, which Esposito had marginalized. The present author emphasized the importance of processuality and antistructural dimensions of egalitarian forms of togetherness, along with their potential to liberate human capacities of creativity. Examining the relation between munus and ludus, she shows theatricality residing immanently in the root of communitas. Focusing on the aesthetic and creative dimensions of togetherness helps in detecting multiple forms of commonality, and indicates various models of theatrical communitas. Exploring a nonnormative, transformative potential in experimental theater (Jerzy Grotowski, Sarah Kane, Ron Athey, Krzysztof Garbaczewski), she emphasizes collective, temporal, and excessive natures of theater that eschews the market-driven economy, along with the importance of a transversal communitas where the human being is only one of many actors. Some threads of the argumentation are expanded upon in a conversation with Leszek Kolankiewicz, included as an appendix.
Supporting Agencies
Keywords:
communitas, avant-garde theater, non-performance, excess, uselessness, queer community, transversalityReferences
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Authors
Dorota Sajewskadorota.sajewska@uzh.ch
University of Zurich Switzerland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0904-6761
Assistant Professor of Interart (Eastern Europe) at the University of Zurich and of Theatre and Performance at the University of Warsaw. Her interests oscillate between cultural and performance studies, body anthropology and historiography, archival theories and decolonizing knowledge. She is author of various publications on theatre, performance, contemporary art, cultural theory and history, i.a. a monograph Necroperformance: Cultural Reconstructions of the War Body (2016 in Polish/2019 in English), co-translator of Postdramatic Theatre by Hans-Thies Lehmann (2005; 2009) and a dramaturge for theatre, dance, and performance. Currently she runs a research project Crisis and Communitas (www.crisisandcommunitas.com).
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