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- Convenors:
-
Hannah Wadle
(Adam Mickiewicz University)
Denis LABORDE (CNRS - EHESS)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Peter Froggatt Centre (PFC), 03/005
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 26 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
In this panel we invite papers that address the experiences of uncertainty and the creative challenge of producing performing arts settings in the light of political interventions, scarce resources, and states of exceptions, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Long Abstract:
While most recently many cultural performance spaces experienced disruptions through the global health emergency and its political consequences, uncertainty and anticipated closure has been a well-known subject to many performing arts' contexts long before the pandemic.
Adapting proactively to vulnerable performance sites through spatial, temporal, and financial improvisations belongs to the core skills of all involved protagonists from producers, to performing artists, to audiences. If for the different parties these improvising capabilities manifest in different skillsets, they yet demand high levels of trust and flexibility from all involved.
In this panel we invite papers that address the fragilities, the temporalities, and creative experiences of producing performing arts settings in the light of political interventions, scarce resources, and states of exceptions - such as the COVID-19 pandemic. We ask about the socio-political conditions that underlie the stronger fragility of some performance spaces over others. This leads us to critically assess the politics and practices through which those spaces materialize, crumble, or reemerge.
We encourage ethnographic papers that zoom into the processes that create the spatial conditions for performative events and that ask about the spatial practices involved in it. We also call for papers that reflect on specific moments, in which transformation, learning and innovation occurs around fragile performance settings. What did it take in these specific instances for change and resilience to happen? Presenters may choose to discuss concrete subversive cultural settings, music festivals, ad-hoc performance sites, traditional music performances, public cultural institutions, or a specific performing arts scene.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 26 July, 2022, -Rūta Muktupāvela (Latvian Academy of Culture) Anda Laķe (Latvian Academy of Culture)
Paper short abstract:
Cultural and creative sector responded to the Covid-19 crisis challenges, and new digital delivery strategies for art products were developed. The question is whether these strategies can be seen as a tactic for short-term survival, or whether they contain a long-term industry development potential.
Paper long abstract:
The cultural and creative ecosystem, with its openness to experimental solutions, responded adaptively to the Covid-19 crisis challenges, and new digital delivery strategies for art products were developed. In Latvia, survey on the impact of the pandemic on CC sector revealed, that the proportion of population consuming arts on the Internet has increased from 19% to 45%. Also, the discussion on the manifestations of digital inclusion and exclusion in the performing arts, where the effect of presence or "liveness" (Auslander) is of special importance, became relevant among academics and professionals.
The aim of the paper is to examine whether the new digital delivery strategies can be seen as a tactic for the short-term survival, or whether they contain a long-term industry development potential. Do innovative products lead to a redefinition of the "real theatre"?
Seņkov's performance "Iran Conference" (Vyrypaev), which received national award in the category "Event of the year in digital environment" was chosen as a case study.The content analysis of media and the data of in-depth interviews with professionals, critics, and audience have revealed parallel existance of two contradictory narratives. Firstly, the notion that digital solutions cannot replace the experience of liveness in performing arts. Secondly – digital environment has effective benefits for both the creation of new art forms and the inclusion of new audiences.
Thus, innovative digital “survival” solutions and their connection with creative communities can complement and diversify in the long term, but not replace the liveness factor that is essential for performing arts.
Alexandria Petit-Thorne (York University)
Paper short abstract:
During the pandemic, queer performing artists adapted various digital platforms into makeshift performance spaces. Tracing the evolution of these spaces, I argue that the socio-political conditions of this moment rendered these spaces increasingly hostile and precarious for queer and trans* artists.
Paper long abstract:
During public health restrictions on in-person gatherings, physical performance venues across Toronto were shuttered for most of 2020-21. This paper examines how queer performing artists based in Toronto adapted social media, image-sharing, and live streaming platforms into makeshift digital performance spaces during this time. The queer arts community in Toronto was largely excluded from governmental income supports during the pandemic and many vulnerable artists responded to this relative abandonment by transitioning their performance work to platforms like Twitch, Zoom, and Instagram to continue earning a living. This paper traces the development and evolution of digital performance spaces over 2020-2021. While the shift to digital was a necessary response to the state of exception of the pandemic and in many ways made live performance more accessible to audience members, the socio-political conditions of this moment also rendered these digital performance spaces increasingly hostile to the always already marginalized. This paper critically assesses the politics and practices that have made digital performance spaces increasingly precarious for visibly queer and trans* artist, paying particular attention to how increasingly aggressive anti-trans, anti-queer, racist, and other far right political movements have worked to effectively push QTBIPOC artists off of public digital platforms and out of the digital performance spaces they built and curated.
Ragnhild Freng Dale (Western Norway Research Institute)
Paper short abstract:
When your audience has to stay at home, how do you make a tactile performance about weather and climate change? In 'Talking in the Rain' (2020), two performing arts companies and one anthropologist explored digital tactility in a Zoom-based, interactive journey through the weathers of Helsinki.
Paper long abstract:
In 2019, two performing arts companies (Ferske Scener, NO, and Reality Research Center, FI) and myself as anthropologist formed a collaboration to produce the performance 'Talking in the Rain'. Our aim was to explore how everyday experiences of the weather could relate to the less tangible concept of climate change. The performance was planned to involve the audience in tactile experiences of heat, cold, water and snow, using artistic strategies to better grapple with the changing climate and what it means to different people.
During 2020, the covid-19 pandemic would shift both the format and the manner of audience involvement radically. The premiere was planned for the dance festival Moving in November (Helsinki, 2020), and there was great uncertainty of whether a performance was possible at all. The group therefore redesigned and adapted the performance to a Zoom-based format, with performers roaming the weathers of Helsinki, sending postcards from distant places, and 'zooming' into the homes of the audience. Ticket-holders received a parcel by bicycle courier, and swapped between observing and collectively participating during the performance. In this way, the performance strategy of experiencing the weather with the audience instead became an exploration of how tactile weather experiences could be created at the interface of digital and physical encounters. This paper zooms in on how 'Talking in the rain' adapted to a state of exception, discussing how collaborations and spatial strategies were creatively adapted to build an environment the audience would trust and engage in.
Alexandra Glazovskaya (University of Limerick)
Paper short abstract:
Festival Irish dance is an exclusive dance style of Northern Ireland. COVID-19 made its habitual ways of preforming and socializing inaccessible, though the artform is becoming more global. Adapting proactively to the new realia it is starting to open to the international community and building it.
Paper long abstract:
Performing arts have always experienced instability, with dance and the fragility of the human body being even on a more susceptible end of the spectrum. This paper is focusing on a case study of a Festival Irish dance school located in Moscow (Russia) and finding new means of transmitting creative ideas, uniting the practitioners, and connecting to the audience.
Festival Irish dance is originated from Northern Ireland and up to the most recent years it has been practiced exclusively in that region. On a deeper level, being quite different from the mainstream competitive style of the south, it plays a significant role in the self-identification of the dancers. The idea of a different social body is expressed through a distinguishable look and specific dance vocabulary. Festival dance, as a social act, normally would take place in dance classes, festivals (competitions), and performances. Since the outbreak of the pandemic the normal creative and social life of dance practitioners has become inaccessible.
Meanwhile Festival Irish dance is becoming a more accessible artform to the international community in the COVID-19 times. Adapting proactively to the new realia Festival style (previously being more exclusive and segregated) is transforming the existing ways of teaching and transmitting the chorographical knowledge through the internet and online learning platforms. The dance form itself is changing and becoming more global, and the dancers may experience the sense of belonging to a supporting community which “helps us to keep going”.