Theatre of Powerlessness, A: Acts of Knowledge and the Performance of the Many (Thinking Through Theatre)

Over the course of Edit Kaldor’s Inventory of Powerlessness, developed and performed in four European cities (Amsterdam, Berlin, Poznan, Prague) between 2013-16, a range of situations, states and feelings – from quotidian frustrations to extremes of affliction, disadvantage and oppression – were brought into the collective setting of the theatre as spoken testimony. Meanwhile, a cumulative and archivable database or ‘inventory’ of powerlessness and its contemporary intersections was projected on stage, generated live by the participants at each performance. Thus, individual accounts of powerlessness were placed in relation to others, as acts of living knowledge and as claim upon the shared articulation that theatrical working together can foster. This book, departing from but not confined to the example of Inventory, explores contemporary ways of making and performing that bring marginalised knowledges into appearance and action. The book is not only for students of theatre, performance and art, but for anyone looking to develop ways of processing their experiences of affliction, injustice and violence in a collective setting. The book begins with an in-depth account of the Inventory of Powerlessness theatre project. Analysis of its production processes and dramaturgical strategies is set alongside the voices of several of the participants as well as other collaborators and people associated with the project, focusing on the ‘acts of knowledge’ that are performed as connections are made and shared – in the contingency of live performance – between diverse life-affecting experiences. A section of commissioned essays explores the knowledge-generating potential of the contemporary stage through the same optic of powerlessness and marginalised experience worked through an international range of examples.

Edit Kaldor is recognized internationally as a unique voice in the contemporary theatre landscape. She works mostly with nonprofessional performers, mixing documentary and fictional elements, and often integrating the use of digital media. She lives in Amsterdam and works and teaches internationally. Her theatre performances, which stretch considerably the boundaries of theatrical conventions, have been presented in over 30 countries in Europe, the Americas, Asia and North Africa. http://www.editkaldor.com/

Maaike Bleeker is a Professor and the Chair of Theatre Studies at Utrecht University, Netherlands. She is President of Performance Studies international, a Member of the International Advisory Board of Maska (Ljubljana) and of Inflexions: A Journal of Research-Creation (Montreal). Her publications include: Visuality in the Theatre: The Locus of Looking (2008); Anatomy Live: Performance and the Operating Theatre (2008); BodyCheck: Relocating the Body in Contemporary Performing Arts (with Stephen DeBelder, et al).

Joe Kelleher is Emeritus Professor of Theatre and Performance at Roehampton University, UK.

Professor Adrian Kear is Programme Development Director, Performance Arts, at Wimbledon College of Arts, University of the Arts London, UK. His books include: Theatre and Event: Staging the European Century (2013); International Politics and Performance: Critical Aesthetics and Creative Practice (with Jenny Edkins) (2013); On Appearance (with Richard Gough) (2008); Psychoanalysis and Performance (with Patrick Campbell)(2001).

Heike Roms is Professor in Theatre and Performance at the University of Exeter, UK. Her books include: Silent Explosion (2015) and Contesting Performance – Global Sites of Research (co-edited with Jon McKenzie and C.J.W.-L. Wee, 2010). Her research into the history and historiography of early performance art won the David Bradby TaPRA Award for Outstanding Research in International Theatre and Performance 2011.