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75982-01 - Lecture: Stage and State. Theatre, Performance and Protest in 20th and 21st Century Eastern Europe (2 CP)
| Semester | fall semester 2025 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers | Anna Hodel Laszlo (anna.hodel@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | This lecture explores the story of theater, performance art and protest from the early 20th century to the present day. To this day, theater continues to be a venue for social processes, a stage for action and, not infrequently, a manifesto, demanding analysis, emancipation, and political action. Confronting the “state” in terms of political systems, but also the “state of the art” in terms of societal norms, taboos and borders, theatrical and performative practices and projects have created many forms of resistance, provocation and subversion that have both advanced new forms of performative creativity and new social spaces, roles and forms of communication. Using theoretical approaches to theater as a platform of societal reflection and action (including by Efreinov, Rancière, Rebentisch, Menke, Malzacher, Lehmann, and others), the lecture focuses on virulent chapters of (Eastern) Europe’s theater history and on their relevance for pressing issues of our contemporary world. Starting with the historical avant-gardes (Brecht, Artaud, Kurbas, Stanislavski, Tret’yakov, Meyerhold and Witkiewicz, among others), we will discuss the neo-avant-gardes of the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s (performance practices, action theatre, collective actions, etc.) before moving on to (post)dramatic practices of recent decades (e.g. the work of artists such as Oliver Frljić, Teatr.DOK, Ivana Sajko, Theatre of the Displaced People and Belarus Free Theatre). In Eastern Europe in particular, theatre and (guerrilla) performance art have just lately once again become one of the few platforms for confronting totalitarianism, repression, violence and war. Eastern European theater thus allows us to not only decentralize European (theater) history, but also to examine the positioning of theory building around art and politics in a broader dialogue between the Global West and East as well as between the 20th and 21th centuries. |
| Learning objectives | Gain an overview of important chapters in the history of theater in (Eastern) Europe; study European history over the last 100 years through the prism of themes and issues that have been taken up and criticized by theater artists; gain insights into the historical repertoire of performative protest positions and possibilities; decentralize theory building around art and politics in a trans-Western-Eastern perspective, and reflect on possibilities for performative emancipation in our present-day societies. |
| Bibliography | At the beginning of the semester, a list of drama texts and related materials, of theater histories, as well as theoretical approaches from theatre and performance studies will be provided and commented on. The titles here below might provide some entry points. For a start, listen to these voices: "We just want to get away from the old theater, where the audience sits there sluggish and silent. The audience should be involved in the action. (...) Life and theater should blend together. Cars, trams, and airplanes should arrive and depart in the auditorium. (...) We want to stir things up», Vsevolod Meyerhol’d wrote in 1923. In 1940, he was killed by Stalin’s secret police. In 1930, Antonin Artaud wrote in a letter to André Breton: “I left because I realized that the only language I could have used with the audience would have been to take bombs out of my pocket and throw them in their faces as a gesture of unmistakable aggression.” Marina Abramović explained on SRF in 2025 that back in Yugoslavia of the 1960s and 70s, she was like a black sheep, like the first (wo)man on the moon, when in her 1975 performance «Rhythm 5» performatively confronting the ritualization of the Communist five point star, she burnt her hair and nails and lost consciousness. “I'm interested in breaking through the conventional, rigid wall that stands between the so-called illusion on stage and the reality in the audience. In short, I'm interested in what remains when the illusion is shattered”, Ivana Sajko stated in an interview about her 2004 piece “Žena-Bomba” (“Women-Bomb”). Some theoretical literature: Beumers, Birgit/ Lipovetsky, Mark 2009, Performing Violence. Literary and Theatrical Experiments of New Russian Drama, Bristol: Intellect. Boroch, Robert, Korzeniowska-Bihun, Anna (eds.) 2021, Conflict and Performing Arts – Class Act Project – Ukrainian Theatre as an Anthropological Defense, Wiedza Obronna 274, 1:119–35. Bryzgel, Amy 2013, Performance Art, East and West. Introduction, in: ibid. Performing the East. Performance Art in Russia, Latvia and Poland Since 1980, London: Tauris, 1-33. Colleran, Jeanne/ Spencer, Jenny S. 1998 (ed.), Staging Resistance. Essays on Political Theatre. Michigan: University of Michigan Press. Curtis, J.A.E. (ed.) 2020, New Drama in Russian. Performance, Politics and Protest in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, Bloomsbury Academic: London/ New York. Deck, Jan 2011, Politisch Theatre machen – Eine Einleitung, in: Deck, Jan/ Sieburg, Angelika (ed.): Politisch Theatre Machen. Neue Artikulationsformen des Politischen in den darstellenden Künsten, Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 11-28. Fischer-Lichte, Erika 2005, Theatre, Sacrifice, Ritual: Exploring Forms of Political Theatre, New York: Routledge. Hensel, Andrea 2017: Independent Theatre in the Post-Socialist Countries of Eastern Europe: New Forms of Production and Creativity in Theatre Aesthetics, in: Brauneck, Manfred (ed.), Independent Theatre in Contemporary Europe: Structures – Aesthetics – Cultural Policy, Berlin: transcript Verlag, pp. 185-274. Hoffmann, Agnes/ Kappeler, Annette 2018, Einleitung, in: idem. (ed.): Theatrale Revolten. Paderborn: Fink, pp. 9-22. Jestrovic, Silvija 2013, Performance, Space, Utopia: Cities of War, Cities of Exile. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Malzacher, Florian 2015, No Organum to Follow. Possibilities of Political Theatre Today, in: idem. (ed.): Not Just a Mirror. Looking for the Political Theatre of Today. Berlin: Alexander, pp. 16-30. Malzacher, Florian 2020, Gesellschafts-Spiele. Politisches Theatre heute, Berlin: Alexander Verlag. Maslan, Susan 2005, Revolutionary Acts: theatre, democracy, and the French revolution, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Rebentisch, Juliane 2014, Das Spektakel der Demokratie. In: id.: Die Kunst der Freiheit. Zur Dialektik demokratischer Existenz. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, pp. 271–341. Sajewska, Dorota 2019, Necroperformance: cultural reconstructions of the war body (translated from Polish by Simon Wloch), Zürich: Diaphanes/ Warsaw: Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute. Shawyer, Susanne 2019, Emancipated Spectactors: Boal, Rancière, and the Twenty-First- Century Spectator. Performance Matters 5.2., pp. 41–54. Shevtsova, Maria 2016, Political Theatre in Europe: East to West, 2007–2014. New Theatre Quarterly, 32(2), pp. 142-156. Warner, Vessela S. 2020, Alternative Theatre in the Postcolonies of Communism, in: ibid./ Diana Manole (ed.): Staging Postcommunism. Alternative Theatre in Eastern and Central Europe after 1989, Iowa University press, pp. xvii-xxv:xxv. Warstat, Matthias 2005, Theatralität der Macht – Macht der Inszenierung. Bemerkungen zum Diskussionsverlauf im 20. Jahrhundert, in: id./ Erika Fischer-Lichte/ Christian Horn / Sandra Umathum (ed.): Diskurse des Theatralen. Tübingen/ Basel: A. Francke, pp. 171-192. Wihstutz, Benjamin 2013, Other Space or Space of Others? Reflections on Contemporary Political Theatre, in: Fischer-Lichte, Erika/ Benjamin Wihstutz (ed.) 2013: Performance and the Politics of Space: Theatre and Topology, New York: Routledge, pp. 182-197. |
| Admission requirements | None. |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Course auditors welcome |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| wöchentlich | Thursday | 10.15-11.45 | Kollegienhaus, Hörsaal 114 |
Dates
| Date | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday 18.09.2025 | 10.15-11.45 | Kollegienhaus, Hörsaal 114 |
| Thursday 25.09.2025 | 10.15-11.45 | Kollegienhaus, Hörsaal 114 |
| Thursday 02.10.2025 | 10.15-11.45 | Kollegienhaus, Hörsaal 114 |
| Thursday 09.10.2025 | 10.15-11.45 | Kollegienhaus, Hörsaal 114 |
| Thursday 16.10.2025 | 10.15-11.45 | Kollegienhaus, Hörsaal 114 |
| Thursday 23.10.2025 | 10.15-11.45 | Kollegienhaus, Hörsaal 114 |
| Thursday 30.10.2025 | 10.15-11.45 | Kollegienhaus, Hörsaal 114 |
| Thursday 06.11.2025 | 10.15-11.45 | Kollegienhaus, Hörsaal 114 |
| Thursday 13.11.2025 | 10.15-11.45 | Kollegienhaus, Hörsaal 114 |
| Thursday 20.11.2025 | 10.15-11.45 | Kollegienhaus, Hörsaal 114 |
| Thursday 27.11.2025 | 10.15-11.45 | Kollegienhaus, Hörsaal 114 |
| Thursday 04.12.2025 | 10.15-11.45 | Kollegienhaus, Hörsaal 114 |
| Thursday 11.12.2025 | 10.15-11.45 | Kollegienhaus, Hörsaal 114 |
| Thursday 18.12.2025 | 10.15-11.45 | Kollegienhaus, Hörsaal 114 |
| Modules |
Electives Bachelor History: Recommendations (Bachelor's degree subject: History) Modul: Basiswissen Osteuropa (Bachelor's degree subject: Eastern European Cultures) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: Slavic Studies) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: English) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: German Language and Literature) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: French Language and Literature) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: Spanish Language and Literature) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: Italian Language and Literature) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: German Literature) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: Latin Philology) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: Nordic Philology) Modul: Interphilologie: Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's Studies - Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences) Modul: Literatur im Zusammenspiel der Künste und Medien (Master's degree program: Literary Studies) Modul: Literaturgeschichte (Master's degree program: Literary Studies) Modul: Slavische Kulturwissenschaft (Master's degree subject: Slavic Studies) Modul: Slavische Literaturwissenschaft BA (Bachelor's degree subject: Eastern European Cultures) Modul: Slavische Literaturwissenschaft BA (Bachelor's degree program: Eastern European Studies) Modul: Slavische Literaturwissenschaft MA (Master's degree subject: Slavic Studies) Modul: Transfer: Europa interdisziplinär (Master's degree program: European History in Global Perspective) Wahlbereich Master Geschichte: Empfehlungen (Master's degree subject: History) |
| Assessment format | record of achievement |
| Assessment details | Regular attendance and a written exam/essay in the last session. |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | one repetition, repetition counts |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Slavistik |