SYMPOSIUM PERFORMANCE & TIME

27.01.2007 12.00 Pärnu, Endla theatre ÄRKLISAAL
lecture

Björn Heile
Mauricio Kagel’s ‘Instrumental Theatre’

This paper is an attempt to approach what Mauricio Kagel calls ‘instrumental theatre’ from the perspective of performativity, which is to say from the totality of the spectacle in its acoustic and visual components within the dimensions of time and space. It will outline the dramaturgic principles of the instrumental theatre with recourse to such concepts as framing, modes of presentation and what the Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal calls ‘metaxis’, namely ‘the state of belonging completely and simultaneously to two different, autonomous worlds: the image of reality and the reality of the image’.

While these issues will be mostly explained on the basis of earlier pieces such as Sonant…/1960 (1960), Sur scène (1961) and Match (1964), a second section will deal with Kagel’s opus magnum of the instrumental theatre, Staatstheater (1970), and an epilogue will discuss issues of performance practice.

Information:

Björn Heile
Dr. Björn Heile, University of Sussex