Powerlessness as Potential

Gigi Argyropoulou on artistic self-organisation in times of crisis, the micro-physics of power in theatre occupations, and how performance can learn from children. An interview by Eve Katsouraki and Georg Döcker

Authors

  • Gigi Argyropoulou
  • Georg Döcker
  • Eve Katsouraki

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Abstract

In this interview piece, the theorist, practitioner and curator Gigi Argyropoulou discusses current forms of political theatre in public spaces that she’s been involved with. She focuses particularly on her work with Eight (Το Οχτώ), the Green Park and the Embros Theatre, all of which are theatre projects situated in central Athens, in Greece. She analyses the dynamics of creating work collectively as a group of practitioners that share similar political and artistic objectives. The interview took place during the Covid pandemic which Argyropoulou discusses in relation to how it has affected her practice and the practice of performance projects she was currently running. Her analysis of the problematics and aspirations of a collective aesthetic in performance-making, discussed in relation to the occupy movement and the future of political performance in public spaces, offers us a sobering yet optimistic view of theatre in times of crisis as well as of the potential of theatre-making in future radical projects of protest, collectivity, and resistance.

Author Biographies

Gigi Argyropoulou

Gigi Argyropoulou is a researcher, dramaturg, theorist, and curator working in the fields of performance and cultural practice and based in Athens and London. Gigi has initiated and organized public programs, interventions, performances, conferences, festival, exhibitions and cultural projects both inside and outside institutions. She is a founding member of EIGHT - critical institute for arts and politics (2019), Green Park (2015), Mavili Collective (2010), Institute for Live Arts Research (2010) and F2/Mkultra (2002). As a member of Mavili and other collectives Gigi co-initiated/organised occupations, interventions, programmes and cultural critique actions during the crisis. Gigi received the Dwight Conquergood Award for her work in 2017 and the Routledge Prize (PSi18) in 2012. She holds a PhD from Roehampton University focused on space, politics and performance. She has taught at undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Gigi publishes regularly in journals, books and magazines and is editor (with H. Vourloumis) of the special issue of Performance Research "On Institutions.” She is a member of the curatorial and editorial board of HKW’s 'New Alphabet School' and co-curating the upcoming edition “On Instituting.” Currently she is completing her first monograph. 

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.

References

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Published

22-04-2022

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2022): Power and Powerlessness in Performance

Section

Articles

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