Dal teatro alla performance e ritorno. La svolta performativa nel teatro contemporaneo e la svolta teatrale nella performance art

Il fulcro tematico e concettuale della tesi consiste nel rapporto complesso, paradossale e spesso anche controverso esistente fra il teatro e la performance (art) – e cioè il rapporto fra i concetti di “teatralità” e di “performatività”. L’attenzione è posta su quelle correnti nelle arti performative contemporanee che tendono allo scioglimento delle nozioni di genere, disciplina, tecnica e autorialità e che mettono in questione lo status stesso dell’opera performativa (lo spettacolo) in quanto prodotto esclusivamente estetico, cioè spettacolare. Vengono esaminate – prelevando rispettivamente dal campo del teatro, della danza e della performance art – le pratiche di Jerzy Grotowski e Thomas Richards, Jérôme Bel e Marina Abramović. Quello che accomuna queste pratiche ben diverse tra loro non è soltanto la problematica del rapporto fra teatralità e performatività ma soprattutto l’aspetto particolarmente radicale e assiduo (e anche paradossale) del loro doppio sforzo, che consiste nello spingere la propria disciplina oltre ogni confine prestabilito e nello stesso tempo nel cercare di ri-definire i suoi codici fondanti e lo statuto ontologico che la distinguerebbero dalle altre discipline performative. Sono esaminate anche diverse teorizzazioni della performance con particolare attenzione a quei contributi che mettono in luce (e in questione) il delicato rapporto fra il teatro e la performance (art) attraverso una (ri)concettualizzazione e comparazione dei termini di teatralità e di performatività. La tesi esamina l’evoluzione della comprensione di quel rapporto all’interno del campo teorico-storico e artistico che inizialmente riflette la tendenza a percepire il rapporto in termini di opposizione e addirittura esclusione per approdare col tempo a una visione più riconciliante e complementare. Le radicali pratiche contemporanee fra il teatro e la performance rappresentano forse una nuova forma-processo performativa specifica e autonoma – che potrebbe essere definita tout court “performance” – e con cui viene definitivamente superato il progetto teatrale modernista?

Fluxus. Prima, durante, dopo

Fluxus è stato definito il più radicale e sperimentale movimento artistico degli anni Sessanta. Dalla prima comparsa ad oggi è stato osannato, analizzato, dimenticato e riscoperto molte volte, tuttora però rimane una delle più grandi incognite critiche della storia dell’arte del Novecento. La ricerca si sviluppa secondo uno schema tripartito: indagare origini, ascendenze e ispirazioni; collocare e contestualizzare il periodo di nascita e sviluppo; esaminare influenze e lasciti. Attraverso un confronto di manifesti, scritti autografi e opere si è cercato di verificare punti di contatto e di continuità tra Fluxus e le Avanguardie Storiche, con particolare riferimento a Futurismo e Dadaismo. Successivamente si è cercato di ricostruire le dinamiche che hanno portato, alla fine degli anni Cinquanta, al definirsi di un terreno fertile dal quale sono germinate esperienze strettamente legate quali Happening, Performance Art e lo stesso Fluxus, del quale si sono ripercorsi i cosiddetti “anni eroici” per evidenziarne le caratteristiche salienti. Nella terza sezione sono state individuate diverse ipotesi di continuazione dell’attitudine Fluxus, dal percorso storico-filologico dei precoci tentativi di musealizzazione, alle eredità dirette e indirette sulle generazioni successive di artisti, fino alla individuazione di idee e concetti la cui attualità rende Fluxus un elemento imprescindibile per la comprensione della cultura contemporanea.

Il teatro e Derek Walcott. Prospettive postcoloniali e multiculturali

This thesis explores the function of the theatre in Derek Walcott's literary achievements. Focusing on the semiotic theories that characterize the study of drama as a literary text and as a staged text, the initial approach aims at creating a relationship between semiotics and postcolonial theories. In particular Pavis's concept of intercultural semiotics and Peter Brook's innovative visions about the regenerative function of the space of the theatre represent a useful theoretical basis to consider the specificity of postcolonial theatre as an innovative space, where new cultural meanings emerge. Derek Walcott's dramatic production is studied according to this approach, in order to be defined as a new hybrid, syncretic and multicultural space. After considering the development of drama from a postcolonial and Caribbean perspective, this study begins with an insight into Walcott's views on theatre, taking into consideration his linguistic depth, linked to the European tradition, but also his strong concern with the Caribbean public's cultural needs. The double tension characterizing Walcott's cultural identity as well as his art represents an essential element to analyse his dramatic texts. With an ambivalent approach, which takes into consideration language and performance, this thesis offers an insight into Walcott's plays to detect their postcolonial and multicultural elements. The analysis of the different texts are divided into two chapters (third and fourth). The third chapters - mainly focused on postcolonial themes - explores issues such as language, identity and space, whereas the fourth chapter centers on multiculturalism in text and performance. Dealing with interracial interactions, issues like re-writing classical texts and the manipulation of personal and collective memory as a way to re- establish new historical perspectives, the last part of the thesis aims at demonstrating the idea that Walcott has created a new space in the theatre made by the harmonic fusion of different and opposed cultural elements, which are visible in the literary as well as in the staged text. The textual perspective of Walcott's drama fits into Pavis's definition of intercultural semiotics, as the faithful representation of a multicultural creole society: that of the West Indies.

Il teatro di Sarah Kane fra biografia, performance e scrittura

Il presente studio si propone come una rilettura del profilo drammaturgico e teatrale di Sarah Kane a partire dalla ricostruzione e integrazione dei dati biografici e delle interazioni artistiche e personali dell’autrice. Lo studio si articola in due sezioni: in un primo momento esso inquadra contestualmente la drammaturgia inglese del secondo dopoguerra, origine della prima generazione dei Giovani Arrabbiati e sostrato della trasformazione teatrale britannica degli anni Novanta. La seconda sezione, invece, si articola come un’indagine biografica della vita della Kane scandita da documenti e immagini inediti. Tali immagini restituiscono una preziosa testimonianza dei primi spettacoli giovanili, delle prime regie e del percorso professionale maturo della drammaturga/regista, oltre a far luce sulla sua vita personale e famigliare e sugli influssi della stessa sul suo teatro. Inoltre, lo studio approfondito delle vicende biografiche dell’autrice ridisegna le caratteristiche fondanti dell'universo teatrale britannico comprendendo il valore che hanno: i teatri, la critica giornalistica e le strutture universitarie, per la configurazione del sistema teatrale.

Chortheater. Genesi di un modello Tipologie corali nel Novecento

In the Nineties year in the German Studies’ area appears a new reflection around the theatrical chorus thank to the activity of theatrical personalities as Heiner Müller, Einar Schleef, Elfriede Jelinek or Christoph Marthaler. So Hans Thies Lehmann, in his compendium about the Postdramatic Theater (Hans-Thies Lehmann, Postdramatisches Theater, Verlag der Autoren, Frankfurt am Main 1999) advances the new category of the Chortheater (Chor Theatre) to explain e new form of drama and performative event; again in 1999 appear the important essay of Detlev Baur (Detlev Baur, Der Chor im Theater des 20. Jahrhunderts. Typologie des theatralen Mittels Chor, Niemeyer, Tübingen 1999), that gives an important device about this instrument but without giving the reasons of the its modifications in such different historical times. Then in 2004, Erika Fischer-Lichte, (Theatre, Sacrifice, Ritual. Exploring Forms of Political Theatre, Routledge, London-New York 2005), reflects about the connection between ritual and theatre in the 20th Century. Thank to this studies the search aim was to give a new story of the chorus as theatrical and performative tool, in his liminal essence in creating immersive or alienating theatrical relation with the audience and to give specific features to distinguish it from general categories such as choral theatre o ensemble theatre.

Percorsi di gender performance: fotografia tra arte e moda dagli anni Novanta ad oggi

My project explores and compares different forms of gender performance in contemporary art and visual culture according to a perspective centered on photography. Thanks to its attesting power this medium can work as a ready-made. In fact during the 20th century it played a key role in the cultural emancipation of the body which (using a Michel Foucault’s expression) has now become «the zero point of the world». Through performance the body proves to be a living material of expression and communication while photography ensures the recording of any ephemeral event that happens in time and space. My questioning approach considers the gender constructed imagery from the 1990s to the present in order to investigate how photography’s strong aura of realism promotes and allows fantasies of transformation. The contemporary fascination with gender (especially for art and fashion) represents a crucial issue in the global context of postmodernity and is manifested in a variety of visual media, from photography to video and film. Moreover the internet along with its digital transmission of images has deeply affected our world (from culture to everyday life) leading to a postmodern preference for performativity over the more traditional and linear forms of narrativity. As a consequence individual borders get redefined by the skin itself which (dissected through instant vision) turns into a ductile material of mutation and hybridation in the service of identity. My critical assumptions are taken from the most relevant changes occurred in philosophy during the last two decades as a result of the contributions by Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze who developed a cross-disciplinary and comparative approach to interpret the crisis of modernity. They have profoundly influenced feminist studies so that the category of gender has been reassessed in contrast with sex (as a biological connotation) and in relation to history, culture, society. The ideal starting point of my research is the year 1990. I chose it as the approximate historical moment when the intersection of race, class and gender were placed at the forefront of international artistic production concerned with identity, diversity and globalization. Such issues had been explored throughout the 1970s but it was only from the mid-1980s onward that they began to be articulated more consistently. Published in 1990, the book "Gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity" by Judith Butler marked an important breakthrough by linking gender to performance as well as investigating the intricate connections between theory and practice, embodiment and representation. It inspired subsequent research in a variety of disciplines, art history included. In the same year Teresa de Lauretis launched the definition of queer theory to challenge the academic perspective in gay and lesbian studies. In the meantime the rise of Third Wave Feminism in the US introduced a racially and sexually inclusive vision over the global situation in order to reflect on subjectivity, new technologies and popular culture in connection with gender representation. These conceptual tools have enabled prolific readings of contemporary cultural production whether fine arts or mass media. After discussing the appropriate framework of my project and taking into account the postmodern globalization of the visual, I have turned to photography to map gender representation both in art and in fashion. Therefore I have been creating an archive of images around specific topics. I decided to include fashion photography because in the 1990s this genre moved away from the paradigm of an idealized and classical beauty toward a new vernacular allied with lifestyles, art practices, pop and youth culture; as one might expect the dominant narrative modes in fashion photography are now mainly influenced by cinema and snapshot. These strategies originate story lines and interrupted narratives using models’ performance to convey a particular imagery where identity issues emerge as an essential part of fashion spectacle. Focusing on the intersections of gender identities with socially and culturally produced identities, my approach intends to underline how the fashion world has turned to current trends in art photography and in some case turned to the artists themselves. The growing fluidity of the categories that distinguish art from fashion photography represents a particularly fruitful moment of visual exchange. Varying over time the dialogue between these two fields has always been vital; nowadays it can be studied as a result of this close relationship between contemporary art world and consumer culture. Due to the saturation of postmodern imagery the feedback between art and fashion has become much more immediate and then increasingly significant for anyone who wants to investigate the construction of gender identity through performance. In addition to that a lot of magazines founded in the 1990s bridged the worlds of art and fashion because some of their designers and even editors were art-school graduates encouraging innovation. The inclusion of art within such magazines aimed at validating them as a form of art in themselves supporting a dynamic intersection for music, fashion, design and youth culture: an intersection that also contributed to create and spread different gender stereotypes. This general interest in fashion produced many exhibitions of and about fashion itself at major international venues such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Since then this celebrated success of fashion has been regarded as a typical element of postmodern culture. Owing to that I have also based my analysis on some important exhibitions dealing with gender performance like "Féminin-Masculin" at the Centre Pompidou of Paris (1995), "Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose. Gender performance in photography" at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of New York (1997), "Global Feminisms" at the Brooklyn Museum (2007), "Female Trouble" at the Pinakothek der Moderne in München together with the workshops dedicated to "Performance: gender and identity" in June 2005 at the Tate Modern of London. Since 2003 in Italy we have had Gender Bender - an international festival held annually in Bologna - to explore the gender imagery stemming from contemporary culture. In few days this festival offers a series of events ranging from visual arts, performance, cinema, literature to conferences and music. Being aware that any method of research is neither race nor gender neutral I have traced these critical paths to question gender identity in a multicultural perspective taking account of the political implications too. In fact, if visibility may be equated with exposure, we can also read these images as points of intersection of visibility with social power. Since gender assignations rely so heavily on the visual, the postmodern dismantling of gender certainty through performance has wide-ranging effects that need to be analyzed. In some sense this practice can even contest the dominance of visual within postmodernism. My visual map in contemporary art and fashion photography includes artists like Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, Hellen van Meene, Rineke Dijkstra, Ed Templeton, Ryan McGinley, Anne Daems, Miwa Yanagi, Tracey Moffat, Catherine Opie, Tomoko Sawada, Vanessa Beecroft, Yasumasa Morimura, Collier Schorr among others.

La traduction des textes de théatre. Analyse comparée des réalités contemporaines française et italienne

The aim of the present study is to address contemporary drama translation by comparing two different scenarios, namely France and Italy. For each country, the following areas are described: publications of translated drama texts, their promotion and dissemination, the legal framework concerning copyright in publication and performance contracts. Moreover, the analysis highlights that the translation process of drama texts is part of a working cycle networking different professional figures, such as dramatic authors, directors, actors and publishers. Within this cycle, the translator is in a middle and central position at the same time, a sort of border zone between different contexts, i.e. the source language and culture and the target language and culture. As regards translation-related issues, on the basis of theoretical approaches that can be applied to drama translation, a number of translators’ opinions, statements, positions and practices are compared, thus highlighting an idea of drama translation wavering between translation and adaptation. Drama translators seem to follow these two orientations simultaneously, in compliance with translation ethics and the functional needs of target texts. Such ambivalence is due to the desire and difficulty of translating the specific nature of drama texts, i.e. translating textual elements that are linked, eventually, to stage performance. Indeed, the notion of text or form fidelity is replaced by the notion of fidelity to the theatrical value of a text, in terms of fidelity to its theatrical nature and rhythmical tension. The analysis reveals that drama translators work together with theatre operators, and that in many cases translators are authors, directors or actors themselves. These drama skills enable translators to apply relevant strategies when translating elements that generate rhythm, thus choosing from deleting, reproducing or recreating.

Studies on the dual in Mycenaean, in the Homeric poetry and in the Attic Theatre of the 5th century — morphological, dialectal and stylistical variations

The present dissertation focuses on the dual number in Ancient Greek in a diachronical lapse stretching from the Mycenaean age to the Attic Drama and Comedy of the 5th century BC. In the first chapter morphological issues are addressed, chiefly in a comparative perspective. The Indo European evidence on the dual is hence gathered in order to sketch patterns of grammaticalisation and paradigmatisation of specific grams, growing increasingly functional within the Greek domain. In the second chapter syntactical problems are tackled. After a survey of scholarly literature on the Greek dual, we engage in a functional and typological approach, in order to disentangle some biased assessments on the dual, namely its alleged lack of regularity and intermittent agreement. Some recent frameworks in General Linguistics provide useful grounds for casting new light on the subject. Internal Reconstruction, for instance, supports the facultativity of the dual in each and every stage of its development; Typology and the Animacy Hierarcy add precious cross linguistical insight on the behaviour of the dual toward agreement. Glaring differences also arise as to the adoption — or avoidance — of the dual by different authors. Idiolectal varieties prove in fact conditioned by stylistical and register necessity. By means of a comparison among Epics, Tragedy and Comedy it is possible to enhance differences in the evaluation of the dual, which led sometimes to forms of ‘censure’ — thus triggering the onset of competing strategies to express duality. The last two chapters delve into the tantalising variety of the Homeric evidence, first of all in an account of the notorious issue of the Embassy of Iliad IX, and last in a commentary of all significant Homeric duals — mostly represented by archaisms, formulae, and ad hoc coinages.

L’IMMAGINE RIFLESSA: Una lettura antropologico-culturale del teatro di Grotowski. La (de)costruzione dell’identità del Performer tra Parateatro e Teatro delle Fonti

Il continuo sdoppiamento e la riverberazione sono le matrici di sviluppo di questa tesi, in cui le ricerche di Grotowski legate al Parateatro e al Teatro delle Fonti sono indagate e interpretate a partire da un pensiero polivalente che prende avvio nella sociologia della cultura e si radica in un terreno antropologico. La ricerca si configura come un’interpretazione possibile delle scelte operate da Grotowski e, complessivamente, dal Teatro Laboratorio, nel contesto delle trasformazioni socio-culturali successive agli anni Sessanta verificando come nel periodo dal '70 all'82 le scelte stesse rispecchino i valori culturali dell’epoca.La ricerca ricorre alla categoria della “festa” - intesa come realtà quotidiana elevata alla forma rituale, attraverso gli elementi culturali e identitari del gruppo di appartenenza - e, a partire da essa, sovrappone criticamente la logica dell’“identità in performance” con la nozione di “Incontro” elaborata da Grotowski. Questa logica è, successivamente, problematizzata attraverso il “diamante culturale”, un dispositivo di analisi della sociologia della culturache, a sua volta, è discusso eridimensionato a partire dalpresuppostodi “Decostruzione” e dall’idea di “Decondizionamento”legata al lavoro del Performer, inteso come individuo.Tre immagini e un’incognita rivelano i campi d’azioneed i principi che permeano l’intera ricerca raddoppiandosi e congiungendo l’immagine del Performer come individuo riflessivo. L’immagine riflessa si configura nel contrasto fra apparenza e presenza: nella domanda posta da Grotowski “che si può fare con la propria solitudine?” si evidenzia uno dei problemi a cui deve far fronte l’individuo in una determinata struttura culturale e, al contempo, viene suggerita una possibilità di amplificazione della percezione di “se stesso” da parte dell’Attore-Performer come Individuo.

"Il carceriere di sé medesimo" di Lodovico Adimari e Alessandro Melani, Firenze 1681. Dalla «comedia» di Pedro Calderón de la Barca al «drama per musica» italiano di fine Seicento

Questo lavoro è imperniato sullo studio di uno dei melodrammi più interessanti della fine del XVII secolo: “Il carceriere di sé medesimo” di Lodovico Adimari (1644-1708) e Alessandro Melani (1639-1703), allestito per la prima volta a Firenze nel 1681, e ripreso nel giro di una ventina d’anni a Reggio (1684), a Bologna (1697) e a Vienna (1702). L’opera vanta un’origine drammatica di spicco: risale infatti alla commedia “Guardarse a sí mismo” di Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681) mediata dal “Geôlier de soi-mesme” di Thomas Corneille (1625-1709), e presenta qualità poetiche e musicali evidenti, assicurate dai nomi del poeta Lodovico Adimari e del compositore Alessandro Melani. A ciò si aggiungano una tradizione articolata in quattro allestimenti, nonché un elevato numero di testimoni superstiti: cinque edizioni del libretto (testimoniate da numerosi esemplari) e il numero fortunatissimo di tre partiture manoscritte, conservate a Parigi, Bologna e Modena. La tesi contiene l’edizione critica del “Carceriere di sé medesimo” di Adimari con tutte le varianti accumulatesi nella riedizione del libretto e nella copiatura della partitura, l’analisi del dramma, a partire dal confronto tra i testi di Calderón, Corneille e Adimari, e lo studio delle sue componenti drammatiche, formali e contenutistiche. Si aggiunge uno studio sul contesto storico-musicale degli allestimenti di Firenze, Reggio, Bologna e Vienna, nonché l’edizione dei restanti tre drammi di Adimari: la commedia “Le gare dell’amore e dell’amicizia” (1679), e il dramma per musica “L’amante di sua figlia” (1684).

Intercultural Performance and Dialogue. From Richard Schechner Performance Studies Onwards

Attraverso un excursus storico, teorico e metodologico, questa tesi di dottorato analizza la nascita, gli sviluppi e l’attuale dimensione costitutivo-identitaria dei Performance Studies, un ambito di ricerca accademica che, nato negli Stati Uniti alla fine degli anni Settanta, ha sempre palesato una natura restia nei confronti di qualunque tentativo definitorio. Se i Performance Studies concepiscono la performance sia come oggetto d’analisi sia come lente metodologica, e se, come evidenziato da Richard Schechner, praticamente tutto può essere “elevato a performance” e quindi indagato secondo le categorie analitiche di questa disciplina, ecco allora che, con uno slittamento transitivo e “meta-metodologico”, questa ricerca dottorale ha scelto come proprio oggetto di studio i Performance Studies stessi, osservandoli “as performance” e avvalendosi degli strumenti metodologici suggeriti dal suo stesso oggetto d’analisi. Questo lavoro indaga come l’oggetto di studio dei Performance Studies sia, seguendo la teoria schechneriana, il “behaved behavior”, e dunque come di conseguenza, il repertorio, prima ancora che l’archivio, possa essere considerato il fedele custode delle “pratiche incorporate”. Soffermandosi su esempi di “reenactment” performativo come quelli messi in atto da Marina Abramović e Clifford Owens, così come sui tentativi condotti dalla sezione dell’Intangible Cultural Heritage dell’UNESCO, suggerisce validi esempi di “archiviazione” della performance. L’elaborato prende poi in esame casi che esemplificano la proficua identificazione tra “studiare performance” e “fare performance”, sottolinea il ruolo cruciale e imprenscindibile determinato dal lavoro di ricerca sul campo inteso come “osservazione partecipante”, ed evidenzia il costante coinvolgimento sociale e politico assunto dai Performance Studies. Questa dissertazione affronta e supporta l’efficacia dei Performance Studies nel proporsi come uno strumento innovativo in grado di analizzare un mondo sempre più performativo nelle sue dinamiche. La loro natura tanto interdisciplinare quanto interculturale sembra farne una lente adeguata attraverso cui promuovere livelli diversi di performance dialogica tra culture localmente distinte ma globalmente assimilabili.