 and welcome to the fourth episode of the School of Resistance, a livestream format that invites experts on change around the world to discuss valuable alternatives for the future and to create a blueprint for a politics of resistance. The project is a collaboration between Ante Gent, IIPM, Akademieder Künste Berlin, Kutur Stiftung des Bundes and HowlRound Theatre Commons. This fourth episode is titled Why Theatre, which is also the title of the upcoming book the fifth part of a series of golden books that Ante Gent publishes with the Berlin Verbrecher Verlag and it will be published in October. My name is Kati de Geist. I am co-editor of the Why Theatre book together with Milo Rau and Carmen Hornpostel and today we will have a conversation with two contributors in the book, Professor Chantal Mouff and Nora Schipamire, whom I will introduce in a bit more detail in a second. You're very happy that they are with us this evening. Thank you once again. Thank you for having us. Apart from Chantal Mouff and Nora Schipamire, we have asked over a hundred activists, artists and intellectuals worldwide to reflect on the current state of theatre and performing arts. Their answers, ranging from utopian manifestos, invented dialogues, love letters and personal memoirs, compose a global polyphony of voices and make a strong case for theatre in emergency. Before I introduce our guests, we will watch a compilation of the 106 contributions from the book Why Theatre. The question Why Theatre is almost like asking why water. Everything around you is theatre. You are theatre. Watering the plants, listening to classical music, thinking about what's going on in the world, reading poetry, drinking tea with cardamom, my mother's warm hand in mine, no more distance between us, no more distance between any of us. It was theatre I still didn't know. The theatre is about everyone. The gestures that look like life, but are not. What kind of show are you putting on the stage of our planet? We create theatre for the pleasure we experienced during rehearsals, sitting there in the dark, watching the stage. In the years to come, we will need to use all our creativity and joy of experimenting to deal with the repercussions that inevitably will come. Today it is tense, theatre and tomorrow it will be something else. Theatre is a powerhouse, which produces the energy of its own destruction. Theatre is a dead art form. The dead are asking why theatre. The poor, that is what theatre is and why theatre could never disappear. Theatre creates futureness. It is a step into the void. Theatre is a rehearsal of the revolution. Every time we stage, we should factor in the possibility for it to become an actual revolution. Who is the hated Prometheus of our time? Who is the visionary? I need someone to think. It is no coincidence that the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Velvet Revolution in Prague and the revolution that led to the creation of Belgium, began in the theatre. It's not about producing art, it's about implementing it. Whether you want to admit it or not, theatre is ideological. And when I became aware of this, I just knew that I would do anything to occupy those theatre spaces with my Roma body. Need I say more? Theatre is political, just like bread. Mr. Shakespeare, you are wrong. The actors are more important than the stage. Quixote, Robin Hood, Hamlet, we must not only portray them, we must become them. The more art, especially the performing arts, takes on the role of wanting to be of benefit to society, the more it opens itself up to regulation by state bodies. On the other hand, who would want art that believes itself to be completely free of the gravitational fields of social conflict? Questioning this social theatre allows us to question the system in which we evolve and which is deployed even in our own flesh. Between fiction and reality, an opportunity for imagination emerges. The Greeks in their theatre looked at the vast sea, the medieval theatre looked at heaven and hellmouth, and we, all we look at is darkness. Since that evening, my boredom in ordinary life began, in my job, on my travels, in my marriage, even in front of my children. Doesn't theatre become itself also through disappearance? Because here, as watchers and as watched, we are always breathless of the same air, mutual authors of each silence. Why not? Theatre now needs to be lighter on its feet, examine its large administrative structures, reduce its operational carbon, be more flexible in how it moves between the digital and the life. Theatre is the way to connect with our ecological being, with what we have always been, natural beings with the capacity to symbolize. How can I trust the choreographer, director, dance or theatre company that contributes to global warming? How to cope with a room with black walls and artificial light, inhabited by liars. We obstinately insist on wanting to make theatre, why we could do voluntary social work for so many invisible people. Will you design sets for plays about refugees when you could design tools to cut through the border fences? We produce too much in too little time and too expensive. I do not want art to exist as a luxury, when what it does should be a necessity. Precisely because it is not essential. No panic. Because everyone knows what theatre is, because nobody knows. Answering why can give a false sense of security, a false sense of understanding. It is very likely that the answer I give to this question on May 26, 2020 will not be valid on the day you read it. This is a lesson I have learned from theatre itself. I think my fear might read to answer the question why theatre and provide my essential contribution to this work is somehow rooted in the need for originality or in the need of being loved, liked, accepted, applauded. Listening to the victim who whispers remember me in our ear. Theatre actually cries for all of your attention. A book you can just put aside or away, theatre you cannot. This is the radical power that theatre has, the suspension of freedom. We want to defend the theatre because we want to defend our freedom. I am tired of the metaphors, the poems, the prayers and all the Jesus had turned the other cheek bullshit. Because I'm not religious, it is the temple in which I reflect. Because theatre is the right of presence. We must preserve the moments in which we dedicate ourselves to the mysteries. The only salvation of our ancient dance around the fire is that human beings want to see others take risks, make something happen that does not exist. A fantasy that the world had ended and we had to build a new one. We made memories, sometimes we lost control. Thinking of the end of the world in costume. Chaos becomes order. Because it made me feel like I could breathe. Because it is an act of resistance and of freedom, a sensible experience of beauty, of violence and of the vulnerability of the living. Why friendship? Why sorrow? Why war? Why sensibility? Why heroine must posh? Do atoms dance? Do flowers dance? Do birds dance? Do clouds dance? Do stars dance? Finally we will not stop fighting for beauty. The pursuit of beauty is the torture of the soul. Hearing the previous requiem, looking at the upcoming madness, all turning into expression. My definition of theatre is fiction coming to life, right in front of you. In its physical reality and primitive truthfulness, theatre is eternal. However, these days the theatres are empty and dark and the action takes place on the streets as it should. If we stripped away everything that isn't essential to theatre, what would be left? One can see how people decide in times of need. During this epidemic, we see many musicians playing at home, dancers dancing at home, writers reading poems aloud at home, as such bringing the territory of art back to the base of life. Let's need each other more instead of trying to be saviours of one another. Sometimes, between collecting the dead, letting wounds heal and surviving, we take to the streets and sing our rage. Whatever you do, stay together. I long for a theatre that makes me feel like a stranger among my people, family and friends. There is a fifth glass wall between the stage and society waiting to be torn down. So, honey, can you imagine a world without large crowds of people? Oh, no, Sandra. How to echo in the elusive and real experience that theatre is our little story strongly intertwined with history? How to speak to audiences from all social backgrounds while surviving in the midst of ephemeral trends and fashion? Is theatre, while our civilization has started to fall apart, going to find a new language and form? Or will it just go down with all the rest, wriggling and shouting in closed spaces? Theatre does not entertain me. It angers me to the bone. Theatres are fantastic. It's not just the building. Once the theatre is no longer there, the building also loses its cool lustre, its power, its inevitability. Shakespeare had to compete with popular dogfights and public torture. The people were overcome by so much fun. Yet Shakespeare still loved people and working together. And theatre. Escalation. The play we are watching is about total surrender. The drama is cosmic and encompasses all life. The play has no director, no script, no final outcome. Because you can't forget that scene towards the end of the evening. We may have forgotten what we saw while drinking the first pint after performance, or we carry images, sounds, smells with us for the rest of our lives. It was there that I thought maybe the purpose of theatre was to offer the state of being incomprehensible. Confusion is a great responsibility. There was no riddle, no hidden meaning. Susan Sontek was God. Okay. As a privileged terrain for the mobilization of effects and the construction of new subjectivities, theatre practices are crucial in the hegemonic struggle. Our opera is a village. In reality, artivism is often nothing more than a powerless grandchild of two outdated western traditions. The historical avant-garde and the petty bourgeois experience of art. I'm talking to you about theatre, revealing the gods and demons that hide deep within our souls. Eiskulos was chosen to write the victory celebration of the Greeks over the Persians. He instead produced the most heart-rending lamentation for the mothers and widows of the slain Persian warriors. Why? To achieve catharsis. The first thing I did under 2002 Israeli military invasion and curfew in the West Bank was to go back to dancing after years of interruption. Theatre is both an escape from reality and a representation of that reality. In South Africa in those days, theatre was also one of the first places of breaking the boundaries that apartheid enclosed. The timing is not great for a celebration, but like always we are stronger together. Even God wasn't content to publish and spread his thoughts and commandments by dictating them to prophets of all types, but apparently found their embodiment through a son necessary and meaningful. In our dreams, we are naked and unprepared, curtain up. He feels confused about the question that someone just asked him. He gets down on his knees in front of the grave and asks his dead grandmother Eva Britt. What is the most important thing in your life? Theatre. Okay, why do you like theatre, Marc? I've seen theatre. But then he laughs and pause. Those were some quotes from the contributions in the book and now I will happily introduce our guests. Nora Chipamire is a choreographer and performer born in Zimbabwe and currently based in New York. With her work, she has been challenging and embracing stereotypes of Africa, the black performing body, art and aesthetics for two decades. Her work critiques colonialism and complicated notions of spectatorship and power and fuses the personal and political experiences of growing up in Zimbabwe. Questioning how status and power are experienced and presented through the body. Nora Chipamire is a four-time Bessie Award winner and was a proud recipient of the Trisha Mackenzie Memorial Award in 2016 for her impact on the dance community in Zimbabwe. Other accolades include the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Doris Duke Artist Award. She is currently a fellow at Quick Center for the Arts at Fairfield University and an artist in residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Chantal Mouff is a Belgian political theorist, especially known for her agonistic theory of democracy and Professor Emeritus at the University of Westminster in London. She has held research positions at Harvard, Cornell, the New School and Princeton among many others. Her most recent book for left populism was published by Verso in 2018. In her theories, she defends what she calls a dissociative conception of politics, according to which politics has to do with conflicts, specifically with those that are called antagonistic, because they cannot have a rational solution. This is why, according to Chantal Mouff, democracy cannot do without conflict. Conflict is a driving force of democracy. Her view on politics and society inspires other thinkers but also resonates with political movements, such as Podemos in Spain and La France and Soumise in France, of which she is a prominent analyst. So before we start the conversation, I quickly want to remind the audience at home who are watching live, if they want to engage in the conversation, you are very welcome to send us questions either by email at schoolofresistanceatantehand.be or by commenting on the live stream on the Facebook pages. That's either on Antigand or IIM's Facebook page or on Twitter via the hashtag schoolofresistance. So as we are now talking about a book that has not been published quite yet, maybe it would be a great idea to start at the contributions that you both have written for the book. Maybe Nora, we could start with yours. Your contribution starts off with a date, a very specific date, April 16th, 2020, as if it were a letter. So maybe you could expand on how you took on this question of why theater, why you opted for the letter format, and for example over the manifesto format, which you have also been known to write. Yeah, I like it. Thank you so much and hello everybody. It's wonderful to participate on this platform like participating in anything that has the potential for resistance or to think about what resistance could be. So I'm really quite happy to be with you. Why the date? That's the exact date I was thinking about how to respond to this invitation, which I was more than chuffed about. And I think something to do with timelines, April 16th, 2020, it was also at 1.37 pm that I started to drop down my thoughts. Something to do with marking that moment, especially in these times where it seems like time seems to ebb and flow in a way that you can't quite put your finger on, it seems to be perpetual time. Because nothing apparently happens. I have been in my apartment for the longest time since I can remember living in New York City. So that date, the marking of the date seems to me to be kind of an important way to start. And also to kind of mark it as a letter to myself. We hardly write letters anymore. My practice is handwriting first before I type anything out because I'm old enough to have learned how to use pen and paper. That feeling of writing almost a letter to myself and dating it and then thinking through why theater could be important, even that gesture of writing the date seemed to be a theater. I come from a culture that is dedicated to theater in general, like storytelling. And you always say, in the beginning, you always stuff the story as in the beginning. So the date seemed to me to be a way to say in the beginning, I don't know if I should go on more about my contribution. I go on to ruminate about daydreaming about my mothers and grandmothers and aunties and family and thinking about why theater and removing it from a Western thinking of what theater is. And returning it to a place where I've experienced things as theater, which is at home, which is receiving guests, cooking with relatives, those sort of gatherings that I think as a way to decolonize the spectacle of theater, which I think when we say theater, we all mean those things that happen in a space that is dedicated to theater. And not many of us are invited or have the opportunity to enter into that space. Which is also equally a business, which is also about the class you belong to, which is also about an ability to use a certain language that is deemed as theater. So yes, I was attempting to write a letter that removed the theater from the space of business or from commerce into a space that felt very much like home to me. And in that sense, a very optimistic space, that space as long as the annihilation of black bodies is a constant thought in our brains, that space of theater at home will remain. And so I'm optimistic about that. Yeah, I also wanted to maybe ask you about, because in an interview with France Crouture last year, you have stated, and I quote, the words come after the body is needed to think. Maybe you could give some insights in how you, like how the thinking process happens for you as a choreographer, where the body comes before the words. Yes, and I would also hasten to say that that word choreographer is what people put on me. I don't quite own that word personally. I think it also exists outside of myself. The body has to be present for things to happen, and the body itself, the bone marrow, the cells, the musculature, places where thinking happens, organization happens, understanding happens, meaning happens, language is created and happens. So without it, you have nothing. Again, the entirety of my work as an artist is to move away from this space of whiteness, which kind of separates the head and the body, the intellectual work from the physical work, as if the head was a separate element from the body. So yes, without the body for me, without the ability for the skin to sense danger, without the ability for the heart to pump blood to the different parts of your body so that you can create gesture, nothing happens. The heart is for me the most vital space for thinking. What does it feel like there? And every part of the body is then brought to, has to attend to this whole business of thinking, whether it is the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth, the kidneys, everything is brought to attend to the work of thinking. So the body is first without it, you have nothing. Yeah, thanks. So in your contribution, Chantal, you state, and I quote, what we are likely to see in the aftermath of COVID-19 is a renewed struggle between competing political projects about the future of our societies. I am convinced that cultural and artistic practices could have a significant role in this struggle. Could you maybe expand a bit on this thought and illustrate how you perceive the way cultural and artistic practices could influence these competing political projects and thus potentially adjust the future of our society? Hello, everybody. I'm really happy to be here. Well, my contribution is a bit higher because I'm a political theorist and of course the kind of reflection I'm going to present is very theoretical, but I think it has got very important political implications too. In fact, what, and first I also want to say that my reflection is about cultural and artistic practices in general. So I'm not a specialist. I'm not a practitioner of any of them on top of that, but I think that there is a reflection that can be done. Of course, at some point, I'm going to insist on what I think is specific to theater, but what I'm saying now is valid for all performing art, but also, you know, for visual art, for every and cultural practices in general. What I'm going to focus in, and this is something which I've been developing in my work, is if we want to understand in what sense cultural and artistic practices can have an impact on politics, on, you know, transforming the world, we need to have an adequate theoretical approach. Because unfortunately, I think many people who work on, I'm not speaking of artists, but theorists about artistic and cultural practices adopt what is, to my view, hunk approach. It is something that can be called an objectivist and essentialist approach. I explain what I mean by that, you know. Objectivism, it means that the world is there, you know, and then we can represent it, but we are not really part of the constitution of the world. And the idea of essentialism is very similar, is the idea that they are, you know, particularly is for the field of subjectivities. They are some form of subjectivity that correspond necessarily to your position. For instance, in several of my work, particularly in hegemony and socialist strategy written by Tenezt Olaqlo, we criticize what we call Marxism essentialist. The idea that your subjectivity is necessarily linked to your place in the relational production. So if you are a worker, you've got a specific subjectivity, same for bourgeoisie. But of course, that's not the only form of reductionism. You can also have a feminist reductionism or a race reductionism. The idea that if you are a woman, you know, the automatically you've got some ideas, or if you are black, you necessarily, so I want that is the constitutional tactic is there's not really a law to understand, oh, you know, artistic practices can transform the world. Because I think that what's important, and that's the basis of my approach, which is called, you know, non essentialist, to start, there is no natural order, an order that will be there that we've got to accept as it is. In fact, every order, in fact, as I'll call it, is the temporary and precarious articulation of contingent practices. The idea of contingent is very important here because it put into question the idea that there is a necessity, a necessary law of history that really leaves us, you know, in a certain position and will lead to another position that things, in a sense, are predetermined. So everything is contingent. It depends in fact of practices. Human practices are the one who make the world. And those human practices, they necessarily have a political composition. There is power in them. Because in a sense, this perspective that we develop in hegemony could be also called constructivist. You know, there are many theorists, very important, like, for instance, who develop a constructivist idea, which is similar to our view of hegemony, the sense that, you know, the world is socially constructed, except that, and I think it's an important difference, they don't necessarily give the same role that we give to relation of power. And this is why our approach we call an hegemonic approach. The world is constructed by human being, but there is always, you know, a dimension of power relation in those constructions. So the idea is that the world is a construction of political hegemonic practices. What appears as the natural order, because of course, you know, we are told that this is all things. And as the, for instance, something which is very important in the ideology of neoliberalism, there is no alternative. You know, what the world is like that because of the evolution of the technology. Well, our perspective put that into question. What appears of the natural order is always some kind of naturalization of political party that appears to be necessary, but they are not necessary. Things could always have been otherwise. That I think is very important in my conception. Now I come to what is more directly related to cultural and artistic practices, because the first point is basically background, you know, which is necessary, because every of hegemonic order is accompanied. There is go together with a symbolic order. The symbolic order is expressed in what we can call, but here I'm using a term that is developed by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, common sense. Common sense is not, you know, something that is natural. Every common sense is always a political construction. Common sense is what at a given moment tell us what reality is, you know, of the world is, what we can expect, what is justice. And here what I think is very important to understand is that cultural and artistic practices, they play a crucial role in the creation of this common sense. For instance, it means that the way we see the world is in fact also a consequence of the play that we see, the dance that we see, the book that we read, that creates, you know, the common sense, the way in which we are going to perceive reality. So here the important point is the following. Cultural and artistic practices, they are also really decisive in the construction and the maintenance, the repetition of a common sense, or in this challenge, which means that in fact they are always, they are always political. There's always a political dimension. And this is why that's something I have very often developed. I don't think that it makes sense to speak of political art as if there was art, which is not political. For me, there is a political dimension in all form of artistic practices. Either, you know, they don't challenge the world, they reproduce it, or they challenge it. So this is why I think instead of speaking of political art, like, you know, there was art, which is not political, let's speak of critical art. So what we normally call political art, I think we should call it critical art, that is an art that challenge the egemonic order. There are that want to create these senses. But the art that does not do that is also political, because it fucking tends to be reinforced existing order of thing, you know. So that I think for me is very important. Another point, and after that I will stop. The question of identities is of course very related. The world is always a construction of signifying practices, but identities also they are never given. You know, they are, as I was saying, we need to put into question the idea of an essentiality. So, and here my reflection is very much influenced by psychoanalysis and something that's heard is that there is in fact no identities, no religion. What we call identities are always form of identification, that they are always the result of sense of practices, the things in which we are inscribed and, and I think that's absolutely crucial here, those form of identification, they necessarily have a very important affective component. There is no form of identification that means is identified with something is always something which is affective. And again, I think that cultural and artistic practices are central or into that process of identification, because they are precisely from that make us, you know, really identify with something and that is going to form our personality. And I think that theater practices are in fact a privileged terrain for this process of identification. This is a process which is present in all form of artistic and cultural practices. But theater practices are privileged terrain because in fact they are very important for mobilization of affects. And here I think to make reference to something that Nora was saying, I think that that's of course also true for for dance, you know, because dance also is like theater. Well, of course, we can hear because dance is part of theater, I'm not going to enter into those discussionable to think, but you know, those performing arts are in fact very important because well, as Nora was saying, they've got to do with the body, they are very important for the mobilization of affect. And in fact, there are ways in which one can connect ideas with affects. Here there is something that I really want to insist because I think for me it's important. Artistic practices, they are not their object, you know, is not the construction of concept. That's what philosophy is. They're artistic practices, they're in fact on the sensation. And I think that this is really important to recognize because they permit in a sense to connect ideas with affect, which is crucial because ideas, if they don't have a relationship with affect, they are powerless. Here it's something that's been also, for instance, and they clearly say, it's only when ideas meet affects that they really become a force. And I think that precisely artistic practices like theater permit this connection of ideas with affect. And this is what they are so important in the creation of form of identification. They find that they help to see the complexity of the world, they also do complexity of human emotion. This is something that of course you find that in the cinema, you find that in novels, but you know, the artistic power of theater and that dance performing act is even stronger because there, you know, and I think the role of the body is very important, you feel this in term of identification, they've got a very strong force. So for me, this is why we need to see that if we want, and of course, this is something which term of politics is crucial to create new form of subjectivities, you know, form of subjectivity, which are going to participate and we can come back in a moment for another question, counter-egemonic struggle. Well, critical artistic practices and for theater are very important because they allow for the creation of new form of subjectivity, that allow people to see things differently and to really become, accept new form of identification. So maybe I can kind of conclude or if I feel from both of your contributions in the book that you're actually quite optimistic about the future of theater, the role of performing arts in the future, although we are currently in a state of crisis regarding live arts because of the seaward. So Nora, in your contribution, for example, I feel when I first read it, you seemed very convinced of the fact that theater will never disappear. Sounds optimistic, could also be seen as a more neutral accomplished fact. But then in your statement for the Ruhr Trianala, where you were supposed to perform your trilogy two weeks ago, but which was canceled also due to the virus, you relate this idea of persistence of work and artistic work to a quotation from the League of Revolutionary Black Workers that existed in Detroit in the 1960s. And I quote, I don't mind working, but I do mind dying. To not work is to die for those of us whose work is the body. To not work is to die. We are necessary, but disposable. So I was wondering where your thoughts were on this today. Are you more hopeful or more pessimistic in your belief that this art form will persist? And could you expand on why you believe that it would persist? Yes, I was trying to maybe propose that the work that we do as artists is no different from great peekers, from mechanics, from people who physically put together stuff, people who traditionally would probably unionize, belong to a union, and have representation for labor, for their labor in this way. And I was, I continued to be really interested in ways in which those of us who work with a creative imagination could bond together. And even though we are implicated in this kind of business of the theater, the industrialization of theater, how we can implode it, how we can arrive into these spaces as a mullet of cocktail and blow it up. For me, the work of the revolutionary black workers is kind of seminal and instructive in that way. I don't belong to a union. I think I should. I think these are times when artists such as myself should think together about all the things that we agree to in terms of contracts, in terms of renumeration. I mean, you know, the way we work, the way the work is disseminated. And so which is why I personally make this separation between the Western theater and that which I would want to aspire to, which is a theater of the African and the theater of the worker, the theater of the poor, which is constant and ongoing and is nonstop unless you die, you know. And even as an animist in that sense, I may even think that beyond death, there could still be theater. So am I optimistic about the survival of theater, but not in the way it is currently constructed, which benefits basically those who have been to art school and can speak a certain language. And I would want to agree with what Shantala has always articulating around that, you know, that it's an ID. It's like, it's like, you know, theater, these premises that we enter into are like a checkpoint, you know, at the airport or some border crossing, that it's, you know, forms of identifications that allow you into it. And then everything becomes about, you know, this construction of these identities, the mobilizing of affect or effect. I think I wasn't, I hope I'm not misrepresenting what I was hearing. I am keen to see the end of that type of theater and perhaps, you know, an effortful emergence of another theater that really, really considers that the body is theory, that there is no separation between the critical ability of the body to think and to theorize itself. This is not something that happens there. And then we simply, as the artists, you know, make it a sensation or something that you can understand. I think there is more to what we do beyond the sensation, beyond the affect. And perhaps I come to that, and I will always come to the work as a black African body. I have no choice but to articulate that as my entrance into the world as, you know, something I cannot undo, what the world has done, has marked on the black African body. So it is always from that point of view that I come into these spaces and hopefully work as a molotov cocktail and blow it up from inside. So in the future there will be the creative imagination union, we hope, and ask for a strike. Yes, I hope all of us could actually agree to be in a general strike, which again, you know, part of the conflict that I think Shantel was talking about, without the conflict, it's just no anything. And the general strike is an agitation towards that conflict, that conflict of thinking. Had the Africans simply accepted that we were lesser than the white body, we would, I mean, we continue to be under all kinds of financial domination by the West. But certain, certain at least questions continue to be asked around that formulation of power, you know. And that makes, that makes really powerful and urgent critical theater. We need to constantly question power. And if we can do it en masse, you know, as a league, all the more better. So Shantel, you already started talking about this a little bit, but maybe we can take a little throwback to 2007, when the journal Art and Research published one of your articles, which was titled Artistic Activism and Agonistic Spaces. You opened with the following question, can artistic practices still play a critical role in a society where the difference between art and advertising have become blurred, and where artists and cultural workers have become a necessary part of capitalist production? So in a way, you could state that the why theater question that came to you now from us is a similar question is the same question. Now we are 13 years later. Do you think art has already been able to live up to those expectations when visioned for 13 years ago? Well, I think that it's important to remind you of what the context in which I wrote this piece, because I think that things are, in fact, better, although I will say, but let's see, because in 2007 at that moment, in fact, there was a debate, precisely, a lot of people say, oh, no, critical art is impossible, you know, because everything is not recuperated, every critical gesture is absolutely neutralized. And I was disagreeing with that. I was saying, no, from the point of view of the theory of hegemony, there are always alternatives. You can never say, okay, no, there is no possibility of this. Every order is temporary. It can be destabilized. It can be, we can intervene. So from this approach already, allow us that moment, which, of course, it was not a moment that was particularly good for critical artistic practices, because there was really, it was, in fact, the moment in which the hegemony of neoliberalism was almost a challenge. It's not completely because there were, but it was really a moment in which there was not much, for instance, the idea that there was no alternative to neoliberal globalization, remember the moment in which I'm also, for example, the book about the end of history, this is, this was the general view, you know, but I was saying, even then, no, it's possible, that we should go on fighting. But by the way, I did not, at an expectation, I'm not put, that is what we should, but I was saying, it's worth continuing fighting, because there is still a possibility. Well, I think that today, things are from that point of view, much better, of course, other point of view of work, but because in fact, no, we are the moment in which there is a crisis of neoliberal hegemony. And this is what I speak of a return of the political, you know, in my last book for left populist, I said that we are in a populist moment, populist moment, not in the sense in which, you know, the opinions, oh, that's only negative, no. I mean, for me, populist moment, of course, is there is right wing populism, but there is also, for the most of, for instance, to me, there is also left wing populism. So we are at the moment where there are more possibilities, you know, that we don't have any more decided that there is no alternative to neoliberal globalization. We see multiplication of practices, for instance, what I find very interesting is the growth of what is called activism, artistic activity, you know, it's very, very important. There is a multiplication of critical practices. So the situation is more promising today from that point of view. It doesn't mean, and I will say that in fact, the crisis of the COVID-19 is exacerbated the crisis of neoliberalism, you know, so yeah, the situation is open for more possibilities, which doesn't mean, of course, that necessarily the issue is going to be something, you know, like the revolution, which are not the final crisis of capitalism. I don't believe that. I think that there's still a possibility and in fact, for capitalism to try to renew itself, we are very much seeing in fact, or liberalism is trying to adopt, you know, a form of technological solution, as some people call it, you know, and on the other side, there is also, of course, the attempt by a right wing populism to impose a form of, you know, authoritarian nationalism. So the things is very much open. I'm not saying that we definitely are going towards that, but I think that there are more possibilities and we are in fact at the moment, precisely, you know, post COVID, we are not yet completely post COVID, but people are already wondering, okay, so what are we going to happen? I think there is possibilities and this is why I think that it's a moment which is crucial for artistic and cultural practices, because they can play a very important role in order to create you know, I, I, I aid to the transformation of the world in a way in which we are going to be able to bring down neoliberal legality, but neoliberalism is still there, but it's really, you know, not very strong anymore. So let's push, you know, in order to create a process which I call a process of radicalization of democracy. And I think, and I'm really convinced of that, that cultural and artistic practices have got a very important role to play in that process. So this is, yes, from a certain point of view, I, I'm optimistic in the possibilities. Yeah. So as you were talking about these leftist populist and activist movements that art could support in a way, there's also this talk about a term like artivism, so combining activism and artivism. Nora, maybe in an interview with a Dutch theater grant last year, you have stated that you actually try to steer clear from those hip and new terms like artivism, and that you are more focused on gathering and sharing knowledge, inciting engagement with your audience. Maybe you could expand a bit more on your views on this concept of artivism and how it differs from your practice and the way your work aims to engage and activate. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think there's a neoliberal kind of space is very capable of constantly producing words that seem hip and cold, such as, you know, post-black, you know, artivism, you know, yeah, these are just, these are just words. The fundamental issue of like, there is a power dynamic that governs bodies. And unless we address this power dynamic, very little changes, you know, and so for me, and kind of the constituents that I come from, there is a lot of work to do in helping people understand what is that power dynamic. You know, what is that power dynamic? A lot of people are illiterate and have not read Gijek or Derridaal or, you know, do not come from this place of the academia to be able to analyze what their situation is. And I'm talking about a great deal of the global south, but that doesn't mean they're stupid. That doesn't mean they don't understand that Europe is where all the money is. And so we should make stuff that sells in Europe. Yeah. So I'm interested in using the spaces that I can occupy that maybe I'm allowed to occupy as spaces to kind of share knowledge, you know, how have we got to this point? Why is it that the black body seems to have all the exuberant energy that is consumable as kind of art practice, but cannot find itself in a position to produce, present, and develop that artwork? So why is the market constantly and still in 2020 looking to Europe and the West and not looking to Africa? Why aren't they more spaces on the continent of Africa that we could be in residence and develop our work, our work for the African public, you know, which is equally deserving of the beauty, of the information, of the knowledge, of the criticality, of the interrogation. You know, so yeah, I think I want to steer away from just sexy words and just like just do the work, just do the work, go to work and allow people to have ways in which information is delivered to them. I don't know if that answers your question, but yeah, I'm very much anti this, you know, and I think the best philosophies are that which, you know, people can understand without having to look it up in dictionaries, you know. So, you know, there is work to do there with decolonizing this space of knowledge. Can I say something here, because I think that Katja, yes, can I speak? Yes, please. Well, it's a pity that we don't have more time for discussion, because I think that there is some basic misunderstanding between what, you know, I'm saying and what Nore is saying, because I don't think that one should oppose those things like, you know, I'm not, I mean, I think very much on the importance of thinking politically, starting from specific conjuncture, you know. And obviously, there are different conjunctures. I'm speaking, thinking very much from the conjuncture, which is happening in Western Europe. The case of Nore, she's thinking from the case of Africa. I think it's very important to have a multiple, I'm very much a pluralistic at that level. And I think that it's important that each speak from their experience, from how they can, they see what can be done from the, where, from where they are, you know. And for example, I don't think that artistic activism is such a complicated term. You don't need to go into dictionaries to understand, you know. But that's not what I mean. I think that's, that's a low blow. That's not what I mean. If that works for the Western world and to, you know, keep creating words, of course I understand it, but it doesn't serve me any to. I'm not saying you don't understand it, but I'm saying that, well, I, okay, look, there's no, there's no, I mean, we don't have time to discuss here, but I think that you are really presenting my view in a way, which is, distorting. I'm not actually, I think I'm not actually, distorting your views. I'm answering the, to the question, artivism. I don't care for it. I think we just have to do the work. And I don't, I don't know if you coined the word, artivism. No, no, it's not coined the word. And I, I usually speak, I do do, and I didn't coined that word either of artistic activism. And I think it's quite important to be able to and I know many, for instance, a very interesting example for me of artistic activism is what's happening today with extension rebellion. You might not want that movement, but it's incredible, the way in which they are able to use, you know, artistic form to link that to a political struggle is really very interesting. You know, and I think that it is, and again, it goes to the argument I was making, it gives a force to some form of activism to take to an artistic form, because artistic form are something that speak to the, the, the effect that move people to the effect. It's not the kind of dry thing, you know. And I mean, I mean, I appreciate what you're saying, but I don't think anybody who has actually seen my work and experienced it would call it not political, not activist, and not whatever. I mean, but did I ever suggest that? I mean, I'm just trying, I'm just, I actually don't think we're in disagreement. Yeah, it's what I'm trying to say. Exactly. I also feel that we are not in disagreement because I feel very much with what you are saying, but you are the one who tried to present that as, you know, I think. Yeah, it's not, I'm interested in everyday language. I'm not interested in this platforming of words and putting them on some kind of special show is what I'm trying to say. And so perhaps there's also just a question of the language which we, which we bring to the world, you know, you know, I think the English language is itself a space to continue to wage war. But you know, there are certain words that I'm not taking on for myself. So I just, I just refuse them. And I think I have the right to refuse them. Okay, you know, and I think that we are thinking of resistances. I think there are multiplicity of form of resistances. And that we need to celebrate that. I mean, should not say this is the form of resistance, which no, we are all. I think that's great. I think that's great. Let's accept a multiplicity of form of resistances. And in fact, this is precisely what I. That sounds also equally as neoliberal as you can get, you know, it's all good. Okay, okay. So Katja, do you want to ask me some of it? Are we? We should maybe go to the questions from the audience, because I've been getting some questions from there, the question that could actually be maybe replied to by both of you. Maybe Nora, you could start the question was, could the theater or performing arts today also play a reconciling role in the very divided U.S. society? And how if so? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think everything, everything should be brought to bear on constitutions or laws that are unjust. But it's not the singular role of the performative arts by itself. Of course, we should agitate through language, through literature, through, you know, the voting processes. The thing that has to go is the entire infrastructure. You know, I guess that's what I'm trying to say, you know, the entire infrastructure of capital and that it has been built on the back of black bodies and keeping them down. So what can the black artists do today is to speak power to the truth, to keep unpacking the situation of how we got to be the bodies upon which everything and all the money and all the power has been amassed. Where do we get some kind of equity in this thing? So yeah, we do have work to do, but it's not the sole provenance of the artists to undo capitalism. Maybe Shantar, you want to? I very much agree that it's not the whole of the artists who do capitalism. And in fact, I was part once at the conference and they say, can art change the world? And I say, I don't think that art can change the world on itself, but art can contribute to change the world in accordance because that is something which has been at the moment. Well, not so much today, but the moment in which I was writing in 2007, you know, the idea that politics is completely blocked. So no artists are going to be the one which are the political subject. And art is going to change the world. I don't believe that the art will change the world. And I don't believe that the whole of the artists is to change the world, but they can contribute to give other perspectives, to denounce something and to create some form of dissensus because, you know, what is the center of my reflection of the idea of the democratic, agonistic democracy is precisely that democracy is not to try to reach an absolute consensus among everybody because this is not possible because they are antagonistic, they are a relation of power. And in fact, the role of art is precisely to bring to the force those relations of power, the dissensus. So in answer to the question, you know, I don't think it's the role of the to bring people together. Art is not to bring people together. Art is something which precisely show the relation of power, create dissensus, bring, breaks the neoliberal hegemony that, you know, said that there is no alternative. So no, definitely, this is not why I see the role of culture of art to bring people together. It's to create dissensus and disrupt the neoliberal hegemony. Yeah, I received two more questions from the audience that are kind of similar. So I might wrap them together. So the question is what is or should be the function of theater in times of the pandemic where the artistic bodies and the bodies of the audience are not allowed to meet in a common space? Or what happens to the performing arts when it must move to the online sphere? Maybe Nora? Of course, of course, I sit with this so with this conundrum every day as you know, this is my work, bodies are not welcome anymore. But again, I want to say that I think there's something about the black bodies that have never been welcome unless they were simply objects to be exploited, to be extracted, some kind of, you know, something being extracted from them. So this moment kind of heightens this kind of commerce that is hidden under the language of, oh, isn't it great to tour? You're just everywhere. Everybody is like, this exchanges with the public. Yeah, I mean, on some level, this is this is the work, but it hides a very severe ugly truth, which at the moment, the inability to socially be intimate, you know, kind of makes us aware, you know, can the world survive without art? Perhaps it's possible. I mean, I don't really know. I'm an artist by conviction, not to, you know, this is who I am. This is what I was born to do. I have not done anything else in my life other than to make things that hopefully other people, you know, like, so what does it mean to be unable to do that? It is a certain kind of death. How do we move into the digital platform very reluctantly? You know, we have to learn new skills and the pace with which, you know, things moving don't allow us to really learn the skills fast enough to fully represent the ideas that we have in our bodies. So of course, I am, you know, participating in this kind of platforms that are all talky talky, making digital matter, you know, trying to, you know, bring that kind of molotov cocktail into this platform that is really just image driven. It's, you know, it's, it's another kind of work. It's another kind of work. So what happens is I think those people who are tech people are going to make these advances at this time because everything is dependent on their skills. You know, I'm grappling right now with trying to get some tech people to understand what I mean, because unfortunately, a lot of this technology is designed by people who live completely outside of their bodies and have no connection to what being inside of a body means. You know, so they're more interesting and not interested in how the thing delivers in their way, not even to think of new ways to corrupt this digital space. So there's a lot of work to do. I think if we're going to be on this digital platforms for a long time, I hope more and more people who know something about kinesthetic feel can work in this medium. Otherwise, it's just a reproduction of website stuff, of video games, of dance captures, of stuff that is absolutely, you know, kind of pathetic and we've seen it all before. I think maybe this is a nice way to already conclude. I'm afraid because we have already run out of time a little bit, but this inability to gather bodies is also kind of the was kind of the incentive for for intelligence to start working on this golden book. And we are very happy that so many people responded and that Chantal and Nora responded to our question of why theater and that they in addition also wanted to be part of this live stream. I'm very grateful for that. I think the only thing that's resting for me now is to just invite the audience at home for the next episode and also of course Nora and Chantal are very welcome to tune in. It will happen in three weeks on the 25th of September at 6pm and the topic will be beyond Europe, building transnational futures. The guests will be Ulrike Gero and Srećko Horvat. Thank you for tuning in and have a nice evening. Thank you Chantal, thank you Katya. Bye bye. Bye bye.