Webinar THEATRE & COMMUNITAS. Forms of digital commonality in the performative arts

The production and testing out of practices of assembly in the theatre gained controversial significance during the pandemic. The closings of cultural institutions, paired with the impossibility of gathering physically, have not only challenged the work of theatre professionals, but also the theatre itself as a public space of assembly, as the art of so-called bodily co-presence and as “communitas” – a liminal and spontaneous form of commonality. While new forms of gathering and the public continue to appear in digital space, “post-pandemic theatre” has already arrived. At the same time, the digital supply of past performances also invites us to reflect on theatre as a collective experience and source of debate in new temporal-spatial conditions.

The webinar “Theatre and Communitas” seizes the opportunity: On the basis of the newest material of the (post-)dramatic, performative, activist and digital-hybrid stage and the opera, we will investigate concepts and practices of commonality projected around the globe, which engage creatively, constructively or critically with the digital formats of theatre and performance. Beyond collective research and reflection, the event series also allows its participants to meet as an audience and to engage in exchange and open discussion on theatre and “communitas.” Thus, the regular meetings of the webinar call for a commonality that is currently denied to theatres and their audiences.

 

The webinar will take place on the following dates from 4 to 6 pm CET. Please register by a week before the meeting by sending an e-mail to info@crisisandcommunitas.com. After registration, you will receive access to the zoom meetings and to the materials for discussion.

UZH students who are interested in receiving ETC-Points for the webinar as a module should contact nina.seiler@uzh.ch

25 February, 4-6 pm – German

Gob Squad – Show Me a Good Time – premiere 2020 in HAU in Berlin; guest: Aenne Quiñones, deputy artistic director HAU Hebbel am Ufer

11 March, 4-6 pm – German

andpartnersincrime – Nach dem Ende der Versammlung III – Das Theater – premiere (online) 2021 in Digital Mousonturm; guest: Julia Novacek (video and performance artist, Berlin)

18 March, 4-6 pm – English

Wojtek Ziemilski – Come Together – premiere 2017 in Studio Teatrgaleria in Warsaw; guest: Wojtek Ziemilski (independent director, Warsaw)

15 April, 4-6 pm  – German

Ben Frost – Der Mordfall Halit Yozgat – premiere (online) 2020 in Staatsschauspiel Hannover in cooperation with Holland Festival; guest: Fabienne Liptay (professor for film studies, UZH)

29. April, 4-6 pm – German

Yael Ronen und Ensemble – Death Positive – States of Emergency – Premiere 2020 im Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin

6 May, 4-6 pm – English

Coletiva Ocupação – When it Breaks it Burns (Quando Quebra Queima), premiere 2018 in Casa do Povo in São Paulo; guest: Coletiva Ocupação (São Paulo) – English

27 May, 4-6 pm – English

Krzysztof Warlikowski – We Are Leaving (Wyjeżdżamy) – premiere 2018 in Nowy Teatr in Warsaw, guest: Piotr Gruszczyński (dramaturge, Nowy Teatr Warsaw) – English