Performing Ends: a theoretical-methodological inquiry on posthumous dramaturgy.

In response to the ecocatastrophe, and to the increasing degree of technological surveillance, replacement and manipulation of democracies, contemporary theater makers and choreographers are making performances on 'ends'. Death, ghosts, extinction, collapse, machines fused with more-than-human beings that go on without humans: these themes are key in 'Performing Ends'. This research claims that the posthumanist wave in theory and performing arts is moving towards the 'posthumous'. Under the horizon towards ends, the subject-object divide is blurred, theater moves beyond any meaningful drama, and human performers are lost in a world they can no longer understand. A dramaturgy of ends starts after the catastrophe and unfolds in a durational 'epilogue'. Kris Verdonck's work on extinction and exhaustion, Amanda Piña's decolonial dramaturgies of endangered dances and Arkadi Zaides' spectral performances of the dead and radiation will be at the core of this research. Moreover, this project uses dramaturgy as method and practice: the research develops a methodology for studying dramaturgies of ends and inquiries into posthuman performing arts in general. Building on insights in science and technology studies, posthumanist performativity and "field philosophy", we will work out a theoretical frame to study the creative process, in order to understand how more-than-human actors are intrinsically part of dramaturgies of ends.

Keywords:THEORETICAL STUDY, INTERVIEW

Disciplines:Criticism and theory, Performance studies, Theatre science, Choreography, Dramaturgy

Project type:Collaboration project