Power and Powerlessness in Performance: An Introduction in Three Parts

Georg Döcker; Eve Katsouraki; Gerald Siegmund

doi:10.21476/PP.2022.71377

Abstract

This editorial is an introduction to power / powerlessness, theatre and performance conceived as an intervention piece in three parts written by each of the three editors of this issue. The first part is an extended analysis of power and powerless in performance developed by Georg Döcker. The second part, developed by Eve Katsouraki, discusses the implications of a powerless theatre, especially during times of crisis such as the recent pandemic, and urges us to consider a new resilient model of theatre. Finally, the third part, by Gerald Siegmund, focuses on the interface between powerlessness and the aesthetics of theatre and performance. All the three interventionist parts of this introduction offer a conceptual framework upon which the articles of this issue can be seen to develop their examinations. We decided against offering descriptions of the articles themselves since each author has provided an abstract of their article.

Author Biographies

Georg Döcker

Georg Döcker is a PhD-student at the University of Roehampton, London, and the recipient of PhD stipends from both the University of Roehampton and the AHRC Techne Consortium. His PhD research invests in an analytics and genealogy of “practice” (also referred to as “daily practice, “studio practice”, “performance as practice”, etc.) as dominant tendency in contemporary theatre, dance, and performance. Georg's overall research interests include: theatre, dance, and performance considered through the triad of power – action – life; self-organisation; mimesis and theatricality; and the work of Antonin Artaud. From 2015–2018, Georg was a researcher in the framework of “Theatre as Dispositif”, a research project located at Giessen University, Germany, which was funded by the German Research Foundation. He has published in English and German peer-reviewed journals and anthologies, written essays for magazines, theatre institutions, and festivals, and runs a blog at: https://georgdoecker.wordpress.com/.

Eve Katsouraki

Dr. Eve Katsouraki (University of the West of Scotland) is one of the main editors of the international, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed Performance Philosophy journal, and has two co-edited collections: Performing Antagonism: Theatre, Performance and Radical Democracy (Palgrave 2017) and Beyond Failure: New Essays on the Cultural History of Failure in Theatre and Performance (Routledge 2018). Both are pioneering investigations that rehabilitate perceived notions of the political from the point of radical vulnerability, brokenness, and resilience. She is also currently co-editing a themed journal issue for Performance Research 'On Biopolitics’ (July 2022). She is currently working on two monographs, the first examines the intersections between philosophy and the modernist director and the second explores posthumanist theatre.

Gerald Siegmund

Dr. Gerald Siegmund is Professor of Applied Theatre Studies at the Justus-Liebig University in Giessen, Germany. He studied Theatre, English and French literature at Goethe-University in Frankfurt am Main. Among his research interests are theatre and memory, aesthetics, dance, performance and theatre since the beginning of the 20^th century. Between 2012 and 2016 Gerald Siegmund was president of the German Association for Theatre Studies (GTW). He has published widely on contemporary dance including the work of William Forsythe. His most recent publications are: Theater- und Tanzperformance zur Einführung (Hamburg: Junius Verlag, 2020) Jérôme Bel. Dance, Theatre, and the Subject (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and together with Rebekah Kowal and Randy Martin The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Politics (Oxford: OUP, 2017).

References

Agamben, Giorgio. 1998 Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Translated by Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press..

Agamben, Giorgio. 2009. “What is an Apparatus?” In What is an Apparatus and Other Writings, 1–24. Translated by David Kishik. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Agamben, Giorgio. 2021. Where Are We Now? The Epidemic as Politics. Translated by Valeria Dani. London: Eris.

Aggermann, Lorenz, Georg Döcker, and Gerald Siegmund, eds. 2017. Theater als Dispositiv Dysfunktion, Fiktion und Wissen in der Ordnung der Aufführung. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang. https://doi.org/10.3726/b10470

Alliez, Éric, and Maurizio Lazzarato. 2016. Wars and Capital. Translated by Ames Hodges. South Pasadena, CA: Semiotext(e).

Arendt, Hannah. 1973. The Origins of Totalitarianism, new edition. New York: Harcourt Brace.

Berardi, Franco “Bifo.” 2022. “Resign.” E-flux Journal 124. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/124/443422/resign/

Berardi, Franco “Bifo.” 2017. Futurability. The Age of Impotence and the Horizon of Possibility. London/New York: Verso.

Berardi, Franco “Bifo.” 2016. “A Short History of the Humiliation. National Workerism and the Showdown of Two Centuries of Colonialism.” Lecture in the framework of the symposium A New Fascism? at Fridericianum, Kassel, 17 December. Accessed February 27, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvej59cNi78

Boltanski, Luc, and Eve Chiapello. 2010. The New Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Gregory Elliott. London and New York: Verso.

Boltanski, Luc, and Eve Chiapello. 2018 [2005]. “Die Arbeit der Kritik und der normative Wandel.” In Kreation und Depression. Freiheit im gegenwärtigen Kaüitalismus, edited by Christoph Menke and Juliane Rebentisch, 18–37. Berlin: Kadmos.

Bratton, Benjamin. 2021. “Agamben WTF, or How Philosophy Failed the Pandemic.” Verso Blog, July 28. Accessed March 5, 2022. https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/5125-agamben-wtf-or-how-philosophy-failed-the-pandemic

Brown, Wendy. 2009. “Power after Foucault.” In The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory, edited by John S. Dryzek, Bonnie Honig, and Anne Phillips, n.p. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199548439.003.0003

Butler, Judith. 2020. “Mourning Is a Political Act Amid the Pandemic and Its Disparities.” Interview by George Yancy. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 17: 483–487. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-020-10043-6

Butler, Judith. 2020. “Capitalism Has its Limits.” Verso Blog, March 30. Accessed March 31, 2020. https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4603-capitalism-has-its-limits

Butler, Judith. 2002. “Bodies and power, revisited.” Radical Philosophy 114 (July/August): 13–19. https://www.radicalphilosophyarchive.com/issue-files/rp114_article1_bodiespowerrevisited_butler.pdf.

Butler, Judith. 1997. The Psychic Life of Power. Theories of Subjection. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503616295

Caillat, François. 2017. “Introduction.” Translated by David Homel. In Foucault against Himself, edited by François Caillat, 13–24. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.

Castorf, Frank. 2020. “Ich möchte mir von Frau Merkel nicht sagen lassen, dass ich mir die Hände waschen muss.” Interview by Wolfgang Höbel. Der Spiegel. April 28. Accessed April 30, 2020. https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/frank-castorf-ueber-angela-merkel-und-corona-moechte-mir-nicht-sagen-lassen-dass-ich-mir-die-haende-waschen-muss-a-5ff19227-383c-4168-a1da-6aef96950855

Castoriadis, Cornelius. 1997. The Imaginary Institution of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Chandler, David. 2014. Resilience, the Governance of Complexity. New York and London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315773810

Deleuze, Gilles. 2006. Nietzsche and Philosophy. Translated by Hugh Tomlinson. New York: Columbia University Press.

Deleuze, Gilles. 2006. “Desire and Pleasure.” Translated by Ames Hodges and Mike Taormina. In Two Regimes of Madness. Texts and Interviews 1975-1995, 122–134.. Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e).

Deleuze, Gilles. 1997. “Desire and Pleasure.” Translated by Daniel W. Smith. In Foucault and His Interlocutors, edited by Arnold I. Davidson, 183–192. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Deleuze, Gilles. 1988. Foucault. Translated by Seán Hand. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Deleuze, Gilles. 1992. “Postscript on the Societies of Control.” October 59 (Winter): 3–7.

di Cesare, Donatella. 2021. “Dear Agamben, I Write to You…” Translated by Nihil Evadere. L’Espresso/Medium. November 9/December 20. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://medium.com/contrahistorical/donatella-di-cesare-dear-agamben-i-write-to-you-48e58d4b1d52

Döcker, Georg. 2021. “Potential, Need, Risk. On Control and Subjecitivation in Contemporary Production Networks.” In Theatre Institutions in Crisis. European Perspectives, edited by Christopher Balme and Tony Fisher, 194–205. New York and London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429294167-19

Düttmann, Alexander Garcia. 2020. “The Accomplice.” Crisis and Critique 7 (3): 62–70. Accessed April 7, 2021. https://crisiscritique.org/uploads/24-11-2020/alexander-garcia-duttmann.pdf

Dziewańska, Marta, and André Lepecki, eds. 2017. Points of Convergence: Alternative Views on Performance (Museum under Construction). Warsaw/Chicago, IL: Museum of Modern Art/Chicago University Press.

Esposito, Roberto. 2020. “The Biopolitics of Immunity in Times of COVID-19.” Interview by Tim Christiaens and Stijn De Cauwer. Antipode Online, 16 July. Accessed 5 March, 2022. https://antipodeonline.org/2020/06/16/interview-with-roberto-esposito/

Esposito, Roberto. 2020. “The Twofold Face of Immunity.” Translated by Arbër Zaimi. Crisis and Critique 7 (3): 72–79. Accessed April 7, 2021. https://crisiscritique.org/uploads/24-11-2020/roberto-esposito.pdf

Fisher, Tony, and Kélina Gotman. 2020. “Introduction: Theatre, Performance, Foucault.” In Foucault's Theatres, edited by Tony Fisher and Kélina Gotman, 1–21. Manchester: Manchester University Press. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526132079.00006

Foucault, Michel. 2007. Security, territory, population: lectures at the College de France, 1977–78. Translated by Graham Burchell. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Foucault, Michel. 2003. “Society must be defended.” Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975-76. Translated by David Macey. New York: Picador.

Foucault, Michel. 2000. “Governmentality.” In Power: Essential works of Foucault, 1954–1984, edited and translated by James D. Faubion, Volume 3, 201–22. New York: The New Press.

Foucault, Michel. 2000. “Interview with Michel Foucault.” In Power: Essential works of Foucault, 1954–1984, edited and translated by. James D. Faubion, Volume 3, 237–97. New York: The New Press.

Foucault, Michel. 1997. “The Ethics of the Concern of The Self as a Practice of Freedom.” Translated by P. Aranov and D. McGrawth. In Ethics. Subjectivity and Truth, edited by Paul Rabinow, 281–301. New York: The New Press.

Foucault, Michel. 1982. “The Subject and Power.” (Parts of the article) translated by Leslie Sawyer. Critical Inquiry 8 (4) (Summer): 777–795. https://doi.org/10.1086/448181

Foucault, Michel. 1980. “Prison Talk.” Interview by Jean-Jacques Brochier. Translated by Colin Gordon. In Power/Knowledge. Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, edited by Colin Gordon, 37–54. New York: Pantheon Books.

Foucault, Michel. 1978. The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, Volume 1. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Penguin.

Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Pantheon Books.

Gentili, Dario. 2013. “Crisis as Art of Government.” iMex. México Interdisciplinario/Interdisciplinary Mexico 2 (4) (Summer): 21–29.

Gerhardt, Volker. 2011. “Wille zur Macht.” In Nietzsche-Handbuch. Leben—Werk—Wirkung, edited by Henning Ottmann, 351–355. Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler.

Gordon, Kim. 2020. “The Stars at Noon.” Texte zur Kunst., May 27. Accessed July 14, 2020. https://www.textezurkunst.de/articles/stars-noon/

Hamacher, Werner. 1994. “Afformativ, Streik.” In Was heißt 'Darstellen'?, edited by Christiaan L. Hart Nibbrig, 340–371. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.

Hamza, Agon, and Frank Ruda. 2020. “Introduction: 2020 – The Year of the Virus. SARS 2/COVID 19.” Crisis and Critique 7 (3): 4–9.

Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. 1972 [1942]. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Translated by John Cumming. New York: Continuum.

Klein, Naomi. 2020. “Coronavirus Capitalism—and How to Beat it.” The Intercept, March 15. https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-capitalism/

Kotso, Adam. 2022. “What Happened to Giorgio Agamben?” Slate, February 20. Accessed March 5, 2022. https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/02/giorgio-agamben-covid-holocaust-comparison-right-wing-protest.html

Kunst, Bojana. 2015. Artist at Work: Proximity of Art and Capitalism. Wichester/ Washington: Zero Books.

Lagasnerie, Geoffroy de. 2016. “Beyond Powerlessness.” Open Democracy, February 18. Accessed July 23, 2017. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/digitaliberties/beyond-powerlessness/

Lagasnerie, Geoffroy de. 2017. “What Does it Mean to Think?” Translated by David Homel. In Foucault against Himself, edited by François Caillat, 111–148. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.

Lagasnerie, Geoffroy de, and Edouard Louis. 2015. “Manifesto for an Intellectual and Political Counteroffensive.” Los Angeles Review of Books, October 25. Accessed July 23, 2017. https://v2.lareviewofbooks.org/article/manifesto-for-an-intellectual-and-political-counteroffensive

Leipzig, Adam. 2010. “How Theatre Invented Democracy.” Cultural Daily. Accessed 2 April 2022. https://culturaldaily.com/how-theatre-invented-democracy/

McGrath, John. 2002. “Theatre and Democracy.” New Theatre Quarterly 18 (2): 133–139. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X02000222

McKenzie, Jon. 2011. Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance. London and New York: Routledge.

Menke, Christoph. 2018. “Das Spiel des Theaters und die Veränderung der Welt.” In Theater als Kritik. Theorie, Geschichte und Praktiken der Ent-Unterwerfung, edited by Olivia Ebert, Eva Holling, Nikolaus Müller-Schöll, Philipp Schulte, Bernhard Siebert, and Gerald Siegmund, 37–48. Bielefeld: Transcript. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839444528-003

Menke, Christoph. 2003. “Die Disziplin der Ästhetik. Eine Lektüre von‚ Überwachen und Strafen.” In Kunst als Strafe. Zur Ästhetik der Disziplinierung, edited by Gertrud Koch, 109–121. München: Wilhelm Fink.

Moten, Fred. 2017. “Some Propositions on Blackness, Phenomenology, and (Non)Performance.” In Points of Convergence: Alternative views on performance, edited by Marta Dziewanska and André Lepecki. Warsaw: Warsaw Museum of Modern Art.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 2006. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Translated by Adrian del Caro. Edited by Adrian del Caro and Robert Pippin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 2003. Genealogy of Morals. Translated by Talfourd Barnett Ely. New York: Dover Publications.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 2003. Writings from the Late Notebooks. Translated by Kate Sturge. Edited by Rüdiger Bittner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 1999. Nachgelassene Fragmente 1885-1887, new edition. Edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino MontinariMunich/Berlin: De Gruyter/DTV.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 1911. The Dawn of Day. Translated by John McFarland Kennedy. New York: MacMillan.

Ostermeier, Thomas. 2020. “Die Lage ist dramatisch—machen wir ein Drama daraus! Zur Zukunft des Theaters.” Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 15. Accessed May 25, 2020. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/theater-coronavirus-albert-ostermaier-1.4907514

Pfaller, Robert. 2021. “Mich beunruhigt die Diffamierung aller, die an der Corona-Doktrin zweifeln.” Interview by Tobias Becker. Der Spiegel, January 31. Accessed March 9, 2022. https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/robert-pfaller-ueber-corona-sterben-muessen-wir-ohnehin-irgendwann-a-f1b3c5af-9725-4a2a-87e5-dbee9cbee1bb

Pfost, Haiko, Wilma Renfordt, Falk Schreiber, NRW KULTURsekretariat, Impulse Theater Festival, eds. 2020. Lernen aus dem Lockdown? Nachdenken über Freies Theater. Berlin: Alexander Verlag.

Power, Nina. 2021. “Life and Humanity in Covid Times with Reference to Ivan Illich and Giorgio Agamben.” Ninapower.net, August 30. Accessed March 5, 2022. https://ninapower.net/2020/10/26/the-politics-of-care-rethinking-collective-being-in-the-wake-of-covid-19/

Rancière, Jacques. 2018. La méthode de la scène. With Adnen Jdey. Paris: Lignes.

Rau, Milo, Kaatje De Geest, and Carmen Hornostel, eds. 2020. Why Theatre? Berlin: Verbrecher Verlag.

Rose, Mitch. 2014. “Negative Governance: Vulnerability, Biopolitics and the Origins of Government.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 39 (2): 209–223. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12028

Rotter, Hannah Maria. 2019. Selbsterhaltung und Wille zur Macht. Nietzsches Spinoza-Rezeption. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110615234

Saar, Martin. 2007. Genealogie als Kritik. Geschichte und Theorie des Subjekts nach Nietzsche und Foucault. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus.

Sarasin, Philipp. 2020. “Mit Foucault die Pandemie verstehen?” Geschichte der Gegenwart, March 25. Accessed March 28, 2020. https://geschichtedergegenwart.ch/mit-foucault-die-pandemie-verstehen/

Siegmund, Gerald. 2019. “Energetic Forces as Aesthetic Forces. The Doubling of Man and its Other.” In Energy and Forces as Aesthetic Interventions. Politics of Bodily Scenarios, edited by Sabine Huschka and Barbara Gronau, 87–8. Bielefeld: Transcript. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839447031-006

Sloterdijk, Peter. 2020. Infinite Mobilization. Towards a Critique of Political Kinetics. Translated by Sandra Berjan. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.

Stiegler, Bernard. 2015. “Power, Powerlessness, Thinking, and Future.” Los Angeles Review of Books, October 18. Accessed July 23, 2017. https://v2.lareviewofbooks.org/article/power-powerlessness-thinking-and-future

Stiegler, Bernard. 2017. Philosophising by Accident: Interviews with Élie During. Edited and translated by Benoît Dillet. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474408240

The Drama Review editors. 2020. “Forum. After Covid-19, What?” The Drama Review 64 (3): 191-224. https://doi.org/10.1162/dram_a_00960

The Invisible Committee. 2015. To Our Friends. Translated by Robert Hurley. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).

Walker, Jeremy, and Melinda Cooper. 2011. “Genealogies of Resilience: From Systems Ecology to the Political Economy of Crisis Adaptation.” Security Dialogue 42 (2): 143–60.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010611399616

Weber-Krebs, David, ed. 2020. And then the doors opened again. Eindhoven: Onomatopee.

Žižek, Slavoj. 2012. “Occupy Wall Street: What Is to Be Done Next?” Guardian, 24 April. Accessed 2 April 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/24/occupy-wall-street-what-is-to-be-done-next

Power and Powerlessness in Performance

An Introduction in Three Parts

Authors

Downloads

Abstract

Author Biographies

Georg Döcker

Eve Katsouraki

Gerald Siegmund

References

Published

Issue

Section

License