Did you say performance? Or did you say theater? Both, general. It seems that between these two it is the marriage of the moment. In the theater, the word “performance”, which rather belongs to the language of contemporary art, is currently everywhere: in seasonal programs, in the mouths of programmers, in the analyzes of critics, academics or journalists. Julien Gosselin, newly appointed director of the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, France’s second largest theater institution, caused a sensation by announcing that its programming would emphasize scenic forms. The Autumn Festival, which has always welcomed these mixed forms, intensifies its gesture, under the direction of the artistic director of theater and dance, Francesca Corona.
This fall, the shows that are making the rounds are, in many cases, forms classified in the “performance” tab, but that are close to theater in many ways, such as the magnificent without skin, by Théo Mercier, or theatrical forms strongly impregnated with performance. Yes it is surprising A Noiva and Boa Noite Cinderellaby Carolina Bianchi, by ceciliaby Marion Duval, with the incredible Cécile Laporte, by Black card called wish. EITHER I’d rather vomit than failby Rébecca Chaillon, or the different small shapes signed by Stéphanie Aflalo. But we could also talk about those of Marion Siéfert, Laurène Marx or Miet Warlop, who are still on tour.
Let us immediately clarify a misunderstanding: the “performance” in question is not the one that took place in contemporary art, in the rich times of the 1960s and 1970s, that is, a unique, non-reproducible action, whose traces remain thanks to photography or cinema. Rather we should talk about“performative mentality”as scholar Joseph Danan, author of an essential book on the subject, writes: Between theater and performance, the question of the text (Actes Sud, 2013).
This performative “spirit” takes many codes from this original source, which Danan details in his work: “The involvement of the artist himself; the non-separation between art and life (or the shaking of this border); the primary importance of the body; the uniqueness of the event, the role of the unforeseen, the uncontrollable, even the improvised, in any case the ephemeral nature of the thing; share an experience; protest, contestation (of academicism/political power); transgression, subversion; the feminist claim, the question posed to gender and sexual identity; marginality, always in tension with effective or possible recovery. »
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