The book uses the idea of a lexicon in an unexpected way: Instead of a dictionary of terms, phenomena, names, events, works, etc., creating a historical entity introduced by a title and organized in alphabetical order, the international team of researchers and editors have used the idea of lexicon as a tool to establish something that has not previously been clearly recognized as being separate, specific or autonomous, to constitute a specific historical phenomenon. Thus the lexicon is not a dictionary – it is a performance.

The Lexicon aims to present and establish the phenomenon of the Central-Eastern European interwar theatre avant-garde. This does not mean it creates something that did not previously exist. Rather it (re-) establishes a certain set of elements in such a way that they emerge from an array of different, multi-layered and complicated webs of relations, events, works, projects and circumstances. But they are emerging not as one unit, a single phenomenon, but as a multiplicity invited to act, to perform on the stage that has been designed for them. And this is something quite different from the traditional academic definition, in which one seeks borders and criteria of differentiation and division. In contrast, while performing a phenomenon the book invites different elements to appear on a stage and play with each other like actors to create a series of changing relations.

Being a performance on performance art, the Lexicon follows a special dramaturgical composition, created intentionally to play with drama and theatre conventions. The main body of the book consists of three sections (or acts). The first presents the stages of the Central-Eastern European interwar theatre avant-garde, i.e. the historical and cultural conditions that created an environment in which the avant-garde theatre of the region was developed. Here one can also find short presentations of the main characters — the national theatre avant-gardes that we invited to perform the phenomenon of the Central-Eastern European interwar theatre avant-garde.

The second section of the Lexicon may be seen as an antithesis of the first. What is described in it are not the separate national stages created by specific political and historical conditions, but modern networks of communication working across political borders and cultural differences: magazines, exhibitions, the international working-class movement and Jewish theatre as a special transnational phenomenon.

The third section proposes a synthesis of the whole performance of the Lexicon. It is here that the Central-Eastern European interwar theatre avant-garde appears and acts as an entity enlivened by common aesthetics, values, ideas, modes of work, passions and goals. This part is organized around four general terms: form, drama, dance and event, which hopefully allow description of the specific aspects of the Central-Eastern European interwar theatre avant-garde seen as an autonomous subject with its own agency.

The book is composed of texts written by different authors  from different cultures and styles of writing. Its editors tried not to hide this multiplicity by forcing an ‘objective’ unification – quite the opposite. To help the reader to navigate between these different voices and perspectives the editors have created a special Index, listing the main figures, events, performances and ideas of the Central-Eastern European interwar theatre avant-garde.

A Lexicon of the Central-Eastern European Interwar Theatre Avant-garde is the  result of long-term project realized from 2014 under the auspices of the Raszewski Theatre Institute and, in its final phase (2018–24), financed by the Polish Minister of Education and Science in the frame of Narodowy Program Rozwoju Humanistyki (National Programme for the Development of Humanities), project no.: 11H 17 0144 85.

This lexicon does very welcome and much needed work filling gaps for English-speaking readers by building a complex picture of previously invisible activities: charting avant-garde theatre practices between the wars across Central-Eastern Europe. Beautifully illustrated and comprehensive, it depicts a wealth of activities, helping us understand later experimentation by revealing its foundations. It also presents an extraordinary network and flow of influences and practices as people and ideas circulated across the breadth of Europe. With the current political shifts and resurgence of nationalism across the region (in addition to the war in Ukraine), this book is important for reminding us of shared values and interests and common artistic legacies. The multiple authors and the editor are to be congratulated for their hard work and many insights. The Lexicon is indispensable reading to fully understand the development of theatre throughout Europe.

Paul Allain
Professor of Theatre and Performance,
University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

A Lexicon of the Central-Eastern European Interwar Theatre Avant-garde, edited by Dariusz Kosiński, is the result of a long-term collaboration between theatre and performing arts scholars from a number of Central and Eastern European countries, the outcome of meetings and discussions undertaken on various occasions since 2012. In the introduction, the editors propose that this work is not a typical lexicon but rather a performance. In doing so, they emphasize, among other things, their deep conviction that the avant-garde was performative in nature. Hence it is difficult to capture its specificity other than through performative acts of establishing network connections between artistic phenomena and the people who created them, and the places that these people transformed with their actions. The declaration that the Lexicon is meant to be a performance also conveys the task set by the authors of the texts. This allows the artists and their practices recalled in the Lexicon to enter into new and unexpected relationships; and the task they set for the readers is to find their own place and their own perspective on the simultaneous scene of Central-Eastern European theatre avant-gardes. All this is done while taking care not to get too accustomed to this perspective, but to change it in order to see the dynamic performance from multiple positions.

Ewa Partyga
Associate Professor in the Theatre History and Theory Department,
Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences

LIST OF CONTENTS

General Introduction: This is not a lexicon. Dariusz Kosiński – 11

Section One

STAGES: AVANT-GARDE THEATRE AND THE STATE BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS

1.0    Avant-garde Theatre and the State between the World Wars: Introduction. Zoltán Imre and Dariusz Kosiński – 25
1.1    The Theatre Avant-garde and the Czechoslovak Republic. Martin Bernátek – 29
1.2    In the Shadow of a Monument: The Second Polish Republic and the first Polish theatre avant-garde. Dariusz Kosiński – 43
1.3    The Avant-garde and Independence: The case of Romania. Anca Hațiegan – 53
1.4    Avant-garde Theatre in Bulgaria: Transforming collective identifications in the 1920s and 1930s. Kamelia Nikolova – 63
1.5    The Latvian Theatre Avant-garde: From the celebration of the 1st of May to The Song of Rebirth. Edīte Tišheizere. Translated by Kristina Guste – 69
1.6    Two Attempts to Establish the Avant-garde in Lithuanian Theatre. Martynas Petrikas and Asta Petrikienė – 81
1.7    The Peacock’s Tail. Georgian avant-garde performance 1912–36. Ketevan S. Kintsurashvili – 91
1.8    Avant-garde Theatre and the Independent State: The case of Ukraine. Hanna Veselovska – 97
1.9    In Marginality. Hungarian avant-garde experiments and the nation-state (1920–40). Zoltán Imre – 107
1.10    A New Story with Old Elements: The social and cultural context of the emerging avant-garde in Serbia/Kingdom of Yugoslavia between the World Wars. Marina Milivojević Mađarev and Milan Mađarev – 117
1.11    Croatia: The new theatre for a new human being. Boris Senker – 123
1.12    Avant-garde on the Border. The case of Trieste/Trst/Triest. Tomaž Toporišič – 131
1.13    Lviv: Erasure of tradition in a city of tradition. Małgorzata Dziewulska. Translated by Mikołaj Kosiński – 143
1.14    Vitebsk as a ‘Third Space’ of the Avant-garde in Belarus. Tania Arcimovich – 153

Section Two

NETWORKS: THE CENTRAL-EASTERN EUROPEAN INTERWAR AVANT-GARDE IN INTERNATIONAL AND TRANSNATIONAL CONTEXTS

2.0       Beyond Borders: Mobility and sites of exchange among interwar avant-garde theatres in Central-Eastern Europe. Introduction. Martin Bernátek, Zoltán Imre and Przemysław Strożek – 165

MOBILITY AND MIGRATIONS IN INTERWAR AVANT-GARDE THEATRES IN CENTRAL-EASTERN EUROPE

2.1.0     Introductory Remarks. Martin Bernátek, Zoltán Imre and Przemysław Strożek – 177
2.1.1     Mobility of Belarusian Artists in the Soviet Union: Lev Litvinov ‘on the edges’ of the revolutionary theatre. Tania Arcimovich – 179
2.1.2.    Migrations to and from Latvia. Edīte Tišheizere. Translated by Kristina Guste – 185
2.1.3     Migrations to and from Georgia. Ketevan S. Kintsurashvili – 189
2.1.4     Migrations to and from Ukraine. Hanna Veselovska – 193
2.1.5     Russian Emigrants in Serbia, 1918–41. Milan Mađarev and Marina Milivojević Mađarev – 197
2.1.6     Migrant Artists and Political Activists of the Slovene Avant-garde. Tomaž Toporišič – 205
2.1.7     Migrations to and from Romania. Alexandra Chiriac – 209
2.1.8     Migrations to and from Poland. Przemysław Strożek with Dariusz Kosiński and Justyna Michalik-Tomala – 215
2.1.9     Avant-garde Theatre in Motion around, in and out of Czechoslovakia. Martin Bernátek – 221
2.1.10   Mobility of Artists to and from Bulgaria. Kamelia Nikolova – 229
2.1.11   Migrations to and from Hungary. Zoltán Imre – 237

TRANSNATIONAL CIRCULATION OF IDEAS ON AVANT-GARDE THEATRE IN THE NETWORKED MAGAZINES OF CENTRAL-EASTERN EUROPE

2.2.0     Introductory Remarks. Martin Bernátek, Zoltán Imre and Przemysław Strożek – 243
2.2.1     Czechoslovak Magazines: Host, Pásmo, Fronta, ReD, Index, Rozpravy Aventina, Program D. Martin Bernátek – 245
2.2.2     Polish Magazines: Zdrój, Zwrotnica, Blok, Dźwignia, Praesens, Linia. Przemysław Strożek – 253
2.2.3     Ukrainian Magazines: Semafor u maibutnie, Nova Generatsia, Mystetski materialy avangardu. Hanna Veselovska – 259
2.2.4     Georgian Magazines: H₂SO₄. Ketevan S. Kintsurashvili – 267
2.2.5     Romanian Magazines: Contimporanul, Integral, 75 HP, Punct, unu, Periszkóp. Alexandra Chiriac – 271
2.2.6     Hungarian Magazines: A TETT, MA, Új Föld, Színház és Film, Független Színpad. Zoltan Imre – 279
2.2.7     Bulgarian Magazines: Vezni, Crescendo, Plamuk. Kamelia Nikolova – 287
2.2.8     Croatian Magazines: Scena, Teater, Comoedia, Kritika, Književnik, Plamen, Zenit. Višnja Kačić Rogošić – 291
2.2.9     Serbian Magazines: Svetokret, Zenit, Večnost, Út, Comoedia, Pozorište. Milan Mađarev and Marina Milivojević Mađarev – 301
2.2.10    Slovenian Magazines: Novi oder, Tank. Tomaž Toporišič – 307
2.2.11    Lithuanian Magazines: Keturi vėjai, MUBA. Martynas Petrikas and Asta Petrikienė – 313
2.2.12    Latvian Magazines: Laikmets. Edīte Tišheizere. Translated by Kristina Guste – 317

THE PRESENCE OF THE CENTRAL-EASTERN EUROPEAN INTERWAR AVANT-GARDE AT INTERNATIONAL THEATRE EVENTS

2.3.0     Introductory Remarks. Martin Bernátek, Zoltán Imre and Przemysław Strożek – 323
2.3.1     1922. Amsterdam. The International Theatre Exhibition. Written collectively – 325
2.3.2     1924. Vienna. International Exhibition of New Theatre Technology. Written collectively – 331
2.3.3     1925. Paris. International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts. Written collectively – 333
2.3.4     1926. New York. International Theatre Exhibition. Written collectively – 337
2.3.5     1927. Magdeburg. The German Theatre Exhibition. Written collectively – 341
2.3.6     1929. Barcelona International Exhibition. Written collectively – 343
2.3.7     1930. Moscow. Theatre Olympiad. Written collectively – 345
2.3.8     1933. Moscow. International Olympiad of Revolutionary Theatres. Written collectively – 347
2.3.9     1934. New York. International Exhibition of Theatre Art. Written collectively – 349
2.3.10   1936. Milan. Sixth Triennale ‘Continuity–Modernity’. Written collectively – 351
2.3.11   1936. Vienna. The International Exposition of Theatre Art. Written collectively – 353
2.3.12   1937. Prague. The International Conference of Avant-garde Theatremakers. Written collectively – 355
2.3.13   1937. Paris. The International Exposition of Arts and Technology in Modern Life. Written collectively – 365
2.3.14    1930s. International Dance Competitions. Written collectively – 367
2.3.15    References – 370

CENTRAL-EASTERN EUROPEAN INTERWAR WORKERS’ THEATRE: WORKERS’ CULTURE, THE TRANSNATIONAL PROLETARIAN MOVEMENT AND THE AVANT-GARDE

2.4.0    Introductory Remarks. Martin Bernátek, Zoltán Imre and Przemysław Strożek – 379
2.4.1     United Workers of Leftist Theatre in Czechoslovakia. Martin Bernátek – 381
2.4.2     Hungarian Workers’ Theatre, the Avant-garde and the Transnational Proletarian Movement. Zoltán Imre – 389
2.4.3    Workers’ Theatres in Ukraine. Hanna Veselovska – 401
2.4.4    The Workers’ Stage in Poland in the Context of Avant-garde Theatre. Przemysław Strożek – 407
2.4.5     Workers’ Theatre in Romania. Anca Hațiegan – 413
2.4.6     The Ljubljana Workers’ Stage and the Transnational Proletarian Movement. Tomaž Toporišič – 417
2.4.7     Anna Lācis: A Latvian transit from Russia to Western Europe. Edīte Tišheizere. Translated by Kristina Guste – 421
2.4.8     The Workers’ Theatres in Georgia. Ketevan S. Kintsurashvili – 431

JEWISH THEATRES AND THE AVANT-GARDE IN CENTRAL-EASTERN EUROPE

2.5.0     Introductory Remarks. Martin Bernátek, Zoltán Imre and Przemysław Strożek – 437
2.5.1    Avant-garde Jewish Theatres in Ukraine: Kyiv, Kharkiv. Hanna Veselovska – 439
2.5.2     Avant-garde Jewish Theatres in Belarus: Minsk. Tania Arcimovich – 443
2.5.3     Avant-garde Jewish Theatres in Poland: Vilnius, Łódź, Warsaw. Małgorzata Leyko. Translated by Magdalena Solak-Michałkiewicz – 447
2.5.4     Avant-garde Jewish Theatres in Lithuania: Kaunas. Martynas Petrikas and Asta Petrikienė – 451
2.5.5     Avant-garde Jewish Theatres in Romania: Bucharest. Alexandra Chiriac – 459
2.5.6     The Tours of the Vilna Troupe. Alexandra Chiriac – 463

Section Three

PERFORMANCES: CRUCIAL AESTHETIC ASPECTS OF THE CENTRAL-EASTERN EUROPEAN INTERWAR THEATRE AVANT-GARDE

3.0 In Between: The aesthetics of the Central-Eastern European interwar theatre avant-garde. Justyna Michalik-Tomala and Marina Milivojević Mađarev – 469

FORM

3.1.1   ‘A carnival of eclecticism’: Form as synthesis in avant-garde performance. Alexandra Chiriac – 475
3.1.2   Croatian Thinkers in the 1920s and the 1930s on Formal Aspects of Theatre. Višnja Kačić Rogošić – 481
3.1.3   Form in Latvian Avant-garde Theatre. Edīte Tišheizere. Translated by Kristina Guste – 493
3.1.4   The Founders of New Forms in Georgian Theatre. Ketevan S. Kintsurashvili – 501
3.1.5   New Forms of Theatre Space. Justyna Michalik-Tomala. Translated by Magdalena Solak-Michałkiewicz – 507
3.1.6   Beyond the Power of the Known. Form as a vehicle in the theories of the Polish theatre avant-garde. Dariusz Kosiński – 513
3.1.7  Thinking Practice, Shaping Art. Aesthetics of the interwar theatre avant-garde in Czechoslovakia. Martin Bernátek – 523

DRAMA

3.2.1     Doing Things with Words, or What the Avant-garde Needs Drama For. Ewa Guderian-Czaplińska. Translated by Magdalena Solak-Michałkiewicz – 531
3.2.2     Reflections on sintesi: From drama and theatre to visual poetry, film and radio. Przemysław Strożek – 539
3.2.3     Serbian Avant-garde Drama. Marina Milivojević Mađarev – 545
3.2.4     Expressionist Features of Croatian Drama of the 1920s. Boris Senker – 555
3.2.5     The Model of Slavko Grum’s New Drama and the Influence of Tairov. Tomaž Toporišič – 561
3.2.6     The Theatrical Avant-garde and Drama: The case of Romania. Anca Hațiegan – 567
3.2.7     Drama and its Staging in the Czechoslovakian Avant-garde. Martin Bernátek – 573

DANCE

3.3.1     The Choreography of Innovation: Avant-garde ballet on Ukraine’s stage in the 1920s. Hanna Veselovska – 579
3.3.2     Stage Movement in Avant-garde Theatre in Serbia 1918–41. Milan Mađarev – 591
3.3.3     Avant-garde Dance in Poland. Małgorzata Leyko. Translated by Magdalena Solak-Michałkiewicz – 595
3.3.4     The Hungarian Avant-garde, Women, and Dance/movement. Zoltán Imre – 603

EVENT

3.4.1     Performance on the Page. Martynas Petrikas and Asta Petrikienė – 613
3.4.2     The Theatrical Avant-garde and Events. The case of Romania. Anca Hațiegan – 623
3.4.3     Never Again. The Polish interwar theatre avant-garde and the art of performative events. Dariusz Kosiński – 629
3.4.4     The Spectator in Polish Interwar Avant-garde Theatre. Justyna Michalik-Tomala. Translated by Magdalena Solak-Michałkiewicz – 635
3.4.5     Cricot: The magic box of subversion. Małgorzata Dziewulska. Translated by Magdalena Solak-Michałkiewicz 641

Section Four

4.0 LEXICON INDEX – 651

Throughout twenty-five years of innovative work, RKTG – based in Tel Aviv but also performing all over Israel and internationally – has perfected a unique form of storytelling theatre. Their theatre practice, rehearsed in dark times, carries traces of the catastrophic political situation that surrounds it. And yet, it also holds on, against the odds, to hope – a hope that endures in elements of the present that cannot be reduced to sense and meaning and therefore, as gestures in the sense of Kafka and Benjamin, point to a different future.
Nikolaus Müller-Schöll, Professor and Chair, Department of Theatre, Film and Media Studies, Goethe-University in Frankfurt/Main, Germany

The performance language Kanner has been developing aims at investigating markers of Israeliness and the conflicts, beliefs and hopes that are encoded in them: the Hebrew language and its conscious and unconscious layers; fatal struggles and their mundane expressions; landscapes and what lies beneath their surfaces and textures. Kanner dismantles the historical, social and cultural aspects of place and time and transforms them into active entities on stage: speech patterns, physical gestures, road trip sing-along songs, shared mythologies, spells, incantations, folk dances, iconic figures, even
foods. These elements – markers of a specific ‘localness’ – are incorporated into Kanner’s work and establish a deep connection between stage and audience, people and place.
From the Introduction to this book: ‘Stepping Sideways’

Ruth Kanner explores a wide variety of texts in incredible detail. It is a process of trial and error, where languages, histories and identities are stretched and challenged, resulting in work that speaks to a time of violent conflict. This book illuminates those processes and chronicles their triumphs and tribulations.
Misako Ueda, Artistic Director, Theater X (Cai), Tokyo, Japan

This publication is part two in a three-part series documenting the project hello stranger: national exhibition of performance design 2019–23. Part two documents the activity of each region and country through images, curatorial concepts and reflections from some of the designer-curators. The festival has included workshops, round-table discussions, exhibitions of artefacts, displays of design process, parades, design jamming, interventions, networking events, panel discussions, Q&A sessions and tea drinking. It is very much a live and generative festival – an evolving network, still in progress.

Editors: Kathrine Sandys & Lucy Thornett

In Okada Toshiki and Japanese Theatre, Okada’s work and its importance to the development of contemporary performance in Japan and around the world is explored. Gathered here for the first time in English is a comprehensive selection of essays, interviews and translations of three of Okada’s plays by leading scholars and translators. Okada’s writing on theatre is also included, accompanied by an extensive array of images from his performances.

The phenomenal success of Okada Toshiki’s global productions has galvanized international critics into forming intriguing theoretical perspectives on his theatre. Acknowledging Okada’s affinity to Japan’s lost generation, Brechtian distantiation and Noh aesthetics, these critics have applied new conceptual frames such as the poetics of disarticulation, the poesis of liminality and slow dramaturgy to elucidate the deep structure of his performances.   Mari Boyd, Professor Emeritus, Sophia University, Japan.

Cover image credit: chelfitsch and Kaneuji Teppei Eraser Forest, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art (Kanazawa), 2020. Photo Kioku Keizō.

CONTENTS

SECTION ONE: OKADA’S DRAMATURGY

Okada Toshiki’s Narrative Method
Cody Poulton

The ‘Hyper-Real’ and the Shadow of Noh
Stanca Scholz-Cionca

Making Time Material: On Okada Toshiki’s Time’s Journey Through a Room (2016)
Sara Jansen

Translating Okada Toshiki
Andreas Regelsberger

Fuzzy Boundaries, Foggy Pictures: Okada Toshiki’s poesies of liminality
Iwaki Kyōko

Ruptures, Gravity, Dwelling. Reflections on Okada Toshiki’s movement aesthetic
Holger Hartung

SECTION TWO: ART, SOCIETY AND GLOBALITY

Seen From Close-up in the Distance: Shibuya as a bubble downtown
Noda Manabu

Simultaneous Turns in Globality: Performative and social turns in the new millennium, or theorizing/historicizing Okada Toshiki’s welcome to European festival cultures
Uchino Tadashi

Reflections on Precarity and Emotional Fulfillment in Everyday Life in the Theatre of Okada Toshiki
Barbara Geilhorn

‘Who Knows We Want To Be An International Artist?’ Producing Okada Toshiki’s theatre and the international scene
Yokobori Masahiko

Okada Toshiki’s Dramaturgy in the Post-global Condition
Peter Eckersall

Foreign Assembly: Okada’s Time’s Journey through a Room in the United States
Carol Martin

SECTION THREE: DOCUMENTS, INTERVIEW AND PLAYS

An Interview with Okada Toshiki
Iwaki Kyōko

Reflux: A protean theatre theory
By Okada Toshiki. English translation by Iwaki Kyōko

Sounding like a Typical Post-Corona Theory of Theatre
By Okada Toshiki. English translation by Cody Poulton

THREE PLAY TRANSLATIONS

Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, and The Farewell Speech
By Okada Toshiki. English translation by Aya Ogawa

The Sonic Life of a Giant Tortoise
By Okada Toshiki. English translation by Aya Ogawa

Ground and Floor
By Okada Toshiki. English translation by Aya Ogawa

The productions brought into dialogue for the first time in this book range in style from large-scale outdoor explorations of Kunwinjku spirit worlds to trans-disciplinary expressions of global ecological collapse to intimate dance solos on the theme of decolonization. Extending this significant body of work is an ongoing series of research laboratories, which functions as a key platform for strengthening dance in the Pacific region through trans-Indigenous exchange. Critical to the company’s success is its development of new choreographic and dramaturgical processes that are both intercultural and Indigenous in principle, practice and ethos. Such work draws on the experiences, stories and embodied practices of diverse artists, but is indelibly grounded in the specific places and communities where the day-to-day collaborations unfold.

Marrugeku’s unique artistic and cultural journey is traced here through a words-and-pictures story co-curated by leading postcolonial settler scholar Helen Gilbert and the company’s co-artistic directors: Yawuru/Bardi choreographer and dancer Dalisa Pigram and settler director Rachael Swain. A rich array of essays, scripts, interviews, photographs, reviews and reflections make up the story’s strands, each opening windows on the performances at issue. These contributions by company members, critics, scholars, collaborators and Indigenous leaders shed light on the processes of cultural attunement at the heart of Marrugeku’s work. Collectively, they offer a compelling multivocal assessment of the power and appeal of political dance theatre in our times.

Contents:

Foreword

Patrick Dodson

The Company

Helen Gilbert, Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain

Chapter 1

Marrugeku in Kunbarlanja

This Was Not a Fly-by-night Project, Michael Leslie

Making Mimi, Rachael Swain

Magic Followed Us, Raymond Blanco

Telling That Story, Thompson Yulidjirri

Children Are Sacred, Djon Mundine

Darwin’s Art of Darkness, Nicholas Rothwell

Chapter 2

Crossing Borders

From Stone Country to Saltwater Country: Dramaturg Peter Eckersall in Conversation with Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain

Marrugeku’s International Touring, Justin Macdonnell

Chapter 3

Burning Daylight

Revelation Found in Broad Daylight, Rosemary Sorensen

Tangled Histories, Haunted Streets: Asian–Indigenous Relations in Broome, Jacqueline Lo, with script excerpt ‘Black Flowers’

Strategic Obfuscation in Marrugeku’s Burning Daylight, Vicki van Hout

Chapter 4

Intercultural Music

Yarning about the Musical Journey: Musicians Matthew Fargher and Lorrae Coffin in Conversation with Dalisa Pigram

Sound and Song: Cultural Collaborations, Mathew Fargher

Chapter 5

Research 1: Decolonizing Dance

Trans-Indigenous and Intercultural Dance Praxis, Rachael Swain and Dalisa Pigram

Animal Pop: An Interview with Dancer/Choreographer Jecko Siompo

Taking Things into Your Own Hands: An Interview with Dancer/Choreographer Serge Aimé Coulibaly

The Unbearable Stasis of Colonialism, Alison Croggon

Chapter 6

Buru

Time/Land/Seasons/Place/Country, Dalisa Pigram

Buru script

Chapter 7

Gudirr Gudirr

A One-woman Dance Show of Evolving Aboriginal Repression, Martha Schabas

The Tide Is Turning: New Choreoaesthetics in Indigenous Intercultural Dance, Rachael Swain

with Dalisa Pigram

Script Excerpts: ‘Lingo Story’, ‘This Is the Time’, ‘Warning’ and ‘Uncle Fuck Fuck’

Cosmopolitan Encounters and Diplomatic Interventions, Helen Gilbert

Chapter 8

Research 2: Listening to Country

Traces in the Landscape, Rachael Swain

Hear the Country Speak to You: An Interview with Bunuba Cultural Leader June Oscar

Listening to Other Peoples’ Country, Hildegard de Vuyst

Listening to Country Forum: Selected Statements

Chapter 9

Cut the Sky

Cut the Sky Programme Notes

Unpredictable Shifts: Rehearsal Process and Climate Change, Rachael Swain, with script excerpts: ‘Crocodile Poem’, ‘Hanky Panky’ and ‘Nature Is on Speed’

Looking Back on Cut the Sky: An Interview with Dramaturg Hildegard de Vuyst

Chapter 10

Burrbgaja Yalirra

Critical Mimicry and the Deadman Dance: Marrugeku’s Burrbgaja Yalirra, Jonathan W. Marshall

Ngalimpa script

Script Excerpts: ‘Miranda Speaks’, ‘Language Poem’ and ‘Great Grandfather Poem’

Chapter 11

Jurrungu Ngan-ga

Horrific Surrealism: New Storytelling for Australia’s Carceral-Border Archipelago, Omid Tofighian

Chapter 12

Finding a Meeting Place

Future Thinking, Future Dancing: An Interview with Yawuru Cultural Leader Patrick Dodson

Seeing the Process, Rachael Swain and Dalisa Pigram in Conversation with Richard Gough

Timeline

Company Highlights 1996–2020

Credits

Marrugeku Productions and Research Laboratories

Author Biographies

The publication forms part of the Performance Research Books series, ‘Thinking Through Performance’.

Blind Spot: Staring down the void is in two parts contained in a slipcase. Part 1 is a reference pamphlet with an editorial introduction, a catalogue of artworks, an overview of the parent research project and notes on contributors. It also includes a list of the references to Ric Allsopp’s introductions to the five sections of Part 2. Part 2 is a concertina-bound book of commissioned essays on the theme of the blind spot, with artworks by Karen Kipphoff. The design and layout of Part 2 enable two panoramic spreads to open out across the three recto and two verso sections of the concertina binding. As a standalone, Part 1 can be read as a map to Part 2.

‘This is a wonderful, exhilarating read, thoroughly original. It is personal, poetic – full of literary allusions connected to significant radio productions re-visited, re-imagined and literally remade. The text is rather like a sonic Proust meeting a John Berger for the ears, in which the themes are interwoven in order to explore the opaque layers of meaning, memory, culture and creativity within each radio artwork discussed. A tour de force!‘ –  Michael Bull, Professor of Sound Studies, University of Sussex, UK

‘Being simultaneously an auditory autobiography and a cultural history of sound, Amplifications is an excellent example of how to productively write about sonic experiences differently. As a piece of both literary and scholarly work, this book is a fascinating read.’ –  Vincent Meelberg, Senior Lecturer, Department of Cultural Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and founding editor of the Journal of Sonic Studies

‘Paul Carter’s periautography is a uniquely rewarding meditation on voice and word as motion. Amplifications unquestionably amplifies the stakes in listening to the poetics and politics of sound histories.’ –  Steven Feld, Anthropologist and Sound Artist, School for Advanced Research, USA

Situated at the crossroads of an immensely fertile exchange between the European Ars Acustica tradition and the emergent environmental sound art movement in Australia, the scripts filter themes of exilic memory, cross-cultural encounter, sexual politics and political betrayal through the experience of migration whose discursive and poetic signature is, according to Carter, echoic mimicry, a sense of psychological and environmental self-doubling that shadows every aspect of colonial history and postcolonial conscience.

The saving grace of the mimetic condition is the irony it brings to the navigation of human relations and the scope it offers to explore the comedy of human desire when it is shadowed by proliferating phonic mishearings. The sonic mise-en-scène of many of the scripts is the edge of the sea, where sibilance is held ambiguously between sense and a deeper non-sense. Like any avant-garde, the radiophonic culture incubated at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in the period 1980–2000 was fragile.

Absolute Rhythm comes with access to the original productions: a double archive, in this sense, of a disappeared scene of production, its object is entirely forward-looking, to supply the groundwork for new forms of concomitant production. An acoustic archaeology, it serves, like Ezra Pound’s notion of ‘absolute rhythm’, to preserve ‘the main form of the work’ from ‘the vicissitudes and calamities’ of historical circumstance and repressive cultural politics.
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“In one script after another, Absolute Rhythm teaches us to listen. Audio-imaginings of a postcolonial consciousness, acutely attuned to the politics of sounds (and silences), meditative, absurdist, by turn baroquely comic and barely bleak, Paul Carter’s radio oeuvre does for hearing what his celebrated book The Road to Botany Bay did for seeing. Putting down roots in the Australian environment, its subtle poetics remains strong in the face of hard rain.”
BARRY HILL – poet and historian

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Paul Carter was born in 1951, educated at Oxford and migrated to Australia in the early 1980s: the refraction of two cultural hemispheres through each other informs contributions to cultural studies (The Road to Botany Bay, 1987, The Lie of the Land, 1996), creative methodology (Material Thinking, 2004, Dark Writing, 2008) and essays in postcolonial rapprochement with Australian Aboriginal practices of coexistence (Meeting Place, 2013, Places Made After Their Stories, 2015, Decolonising Governance, 2018). The way places are inscribed in cultural texts also inspires a public art practice: his 2020 publication Signature (Melbourne: Lyon Housemuseum) collects eight texts inscribed into public spaces around Australia, including Melbourne’s Federation Square and the Homebush Bay site of the Sydney 2000 Olympics and redesigns them for the book. Outside radio, his sound-installation scripts for the Museum of Sydney have been published in The Calling to Come (1995) and Lost Subjects (1998). His engagement with the history of memory is also evident in his recent co-curatorship of Poseidonia: città d’acqua, archeologia e cambiamenti climatici (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Paestum, Italy, 2019–20. He is Creative Director of the design studio Material Thinking and co-director of the Aboriginal-owned cultural heritage consultancy Nyungar Birdiyia. He is Professor of Design (Urbanism), School of Architecture and Urban Design, RMIT University, Melbourne.

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This new title inaugurates the third series of Performance Research Books, ‘Engaging Performance Materials’, which will present performance texts, scripts and scenarios as working documents, intended for practical use in the studio, as material for workshops and for staging and presentation, in addition to being of historical and scholarly use.