 Welcome, everyone back here to Segal talk. I know we have quite quite a lot of them this week, but this is a very important and significant one we think here at the Segal Center. My name is Frank Henshka on the director of the center and I'm actually in good a loop at the moment where we collaborate with our friends following up on our Caribbean theater project Caribbean The citizens of New York, actually the largest immigrant group they're not really represented on the stages and the minds and their stories and we make a small contribution to connect and reach out to this truly important part of the world we actually have a talk tomorrow about the history of the blacks or Hispanic as they say here politically slightly incorrect based on the text by Edouard glissand and created in the round with drums and using all traditional indigenous theater forms with us today, we have I think one of the important important thinkers of theater global theater with us is Florian malzacher, he's a curator a writer researcher producer, and, and he's going to talk about his book his new book which is new in English at least we helped also to publish this it's with the Alexander for like Florian welcome Where are you what time is it. Well, thanks a lot for having me and hello yeah I'm in Berlin it's an early evening 630pm and the sun is shining which is not necessarily the case in Berlin. Yeah. And tell us a little bit about the book I know you you wrote it and it came out shortly I think before the corona time. And now we looked in a way to get it published English I think it's one of the important observations actually on contemporary theater. And like a Thomas Oberhander, who we also had in our program you, Florian also somehow outside academia but you generate ideas you generate thoughts you connect things that perhaps are obvious but we don't really see it. And, and I want to know how, what have you done how did you, how did you come to write this book about the political and the political theater today. I would say in a way it's a kind of like maybe not a resume but the kind of like looking at things, how they developed over, I don't know 10 or more years where I got interested like many others and the questions of how political, how art can be political, how art can be political, you know, after the square occupations in Tunisia in Egypt and then occupy waltz with and and and for so many artists, the question arose newly I mean it's not a new question but it has to be asked again and in different ways, what is the relationship between the artistic work and the political situations we are living in. And this also spread into theater and there was a new interest in rethinking political theater and theater as assembly and so for me it was kind of like, you know, after basically like 10 years or 1011 years looking at it, what I developed what has happened in this time, and how has political theater changed because I think it's kind of like took a new again and new form and different form than it had in years before so that was kind of the reason to do it. And as you said, you know, strangely enough, in English it's called the Art of Assembly and it was happening, it was published in German, right at the beginning of the pandemic so basically on the day. So in the moment where nobody would assemble, where no theater would happen, and that of course gave it even more, a little bit the feeling of looking back at something, and maybe less at being in the middle of it so it wasn't a strange But in the end also an interesting moment for me because it kind of made also a seizure in the timeline of course and we don't know what all has changed or if things just continue like this so and then at the end of the pandemic, the hopeful end of the pandemic it's coming out in English so that's great. Thanks so much also for your help with this. Yeah, actually almost the day when the, at least in New York City and also the US, you know, in the mandate for wearing masks. And Florian, you're also well known as a curator and you create also the Art of Assembly talks, and you made a number of books on theater companies you admire, and you very closely studied their work tell us a little bit about that word what you do. For me like, yeah curating projects, I mean I used to be also director of festival or co curators of festivals, and in recent years more was more working on on on projects and series of things. For me, the curatorial work was also always related to writing about things and thinking about things maybe also because I started off as a journalist I kind of had the desire I guess to kind of communicate also a little bit. So what, what is the artistic work that is engaged and, as I said in recent years my interest also as a curator was very much connected to the question of how art can be political how theater can be political. So I started a bit more than 10 years ago with the project still in Graz, there was a health service that we call truth is concrete, which was in the middle, it was right after occupy but in the middle of all these political events still very invited hundreds of activists the artist theorists to discuss this relation between our politics and from this came other projects, training for the future together with the artist do not style. For the series the art of assembly that you mentioned, where it's about having conversations a bit like, like you do it in a way having conversations with different artists theorists and activists about questions of assembling in art and politics. How many talks have you done in the art of assembly. I cannot compete with you we have that 23 talks so far. It's a remarkable number and for our audience to remind us this we are now talking to someone who was a curator who studied theater, who has seen a lot talked to too many significant people also contemporary theater as the week we now like to to say the move in contemporary art, and it is a condensed now version of what your experience was in that field and I like your insistence in a way also to think about as theater, not as the political theater but as theater but the political. It's important, I think, and my tears leading tile road, you know, since Hans these lemons. Post traumatic theater book this is perhaps the most significant observations on on theater, listening to artists but lemon always said I said, we observe artists theater artists and then we create a theory that might fit around it. And it comes first this theater and I think this is what you do and perhaps that's also why it is so important and successful and different than, than other books who might not be as close with the ear to the field. Let's start from the beginning of your book in Germany it's called gesellschaft spiele parlor games you quality of the art of assembly, which I think is a great title. You. Talk about the new world we live in the new era the end of history for Koyama you you you quoted and Chantal move where you say, we are moving in a new territory in art and also theater has to react to it. You focus on that term agonistic pluralism which sounds a bit complicated but it's a great concept and it's a very, very important concept I think and I think it has answers for all of us who are in theater writing about theater, watching theater, but also, especially creating Yeah, this, I mean, this comes from the fortunate situation that I could have double conversations with Chantal move with the Belgium philosopher created this term, this concept of agonistic pluralism. And what it means I mean yes it's a complicated concept and of course but when we put it in nutshell it says that there was an age of consensus and politics where it was said there's no alternative to anything so we have to do like this and this, which is related to this idea of end of his end of history. So we. So certain opinions were not possible to have in a way and and yet Chantal move says, it's important not to have consensus and society and democracy. It's important to to have struggles to have fights about ideas. And because if you if you don't allow these struggles, what will happen, they will turn into not agonism, but antagonism, which is basically a clash or civil war or something like this I think some situations in the US, or in Brazil or whatever I reminded, reminded of that. So, so, so she says like democracy has to be an arena where adversaries can compete with ideas. And, and I found it interesting that that this is not necessarily a pleasant idea. And also brings the question, what, what do we accept on stage or in our societies and whatnot where the limits to it so it's like, because it's also not the limited freedom, but this, this need for, for, for conflict also in society. And it's very much related for me to theater, which is always a medium of conflict, you know, like, if it's, if it's different historic characters or people are later than wife and husband on stage or even inner conflicts within a person it's, it's all about often, or most of the time I would say about conflict and the term agonism comes of course from, from, from, from the Greek, agon, which was a competition of arguments in the Greek tragedy. So, so, so I think it's also related by this. And that's the kind of like a idea that I thought interesting that theater can be can provide sometimes these, these arenas for political discourse for political discussions for for disagreement and how that looks in different parts of the world. And that means also that theater is not this, the theater I'm talking about is not the theater that just observes and represents and, and like, you know, like a represent situations, like maybe in a certain kind of practice theaters of the 70s where it was very much about representing the dilemmas of the world, the conflicts of the world. I think the theater that I'm writing about also wants to directly engage and create situations not represent situations only but create situations that are themselves. And by this becoming this kind of agonistic arena. So it maybe starts a bit earlier than the most people I'm talking about with the German theater maker Christoph Schlingsiew and work in Vienna, where he really brought in the conflict in the city where the streets and discussions and so on because he was restaging a kind of a big butter game with asylum seekers that could be voted out by the, by the people out of the country, and and of course created a lot of a lot of discussions and continues to many other works all over the world up to I don't know Milo Rau and other works that kind of like create the situations of engagement all the body for the audience. So just to, to come back to it this kind of radical idea and perhaps, and most of the really the truth of the matter. So there will never be a world without power structures you know they will always be special interests there will be people fighting about space about money about material goods. They will find a way to balance this out and there will never be a paradise is the living theater hoped in paradise now so it's just around the corner, the big hope of Marxism there will be a paradise on earth, the workers paradise, and this idea of how, actually, this is not how the world works and functions we just had Andreas Weber the philosopher with us, who said it will always be more like a biological state of the world, while that's chaotic are the and so on. Everything things are happening and in theater, as you say, and smooth says is a place is a public space where we can address these political issues, social issues, personal issues with a set of rules, you know that it is, as you say not antagonistic but we will present a case like lawyers like we will talk about later these ideas of parliaments and trials now in contemporary theater, but theater can be that place where society a city a community and they brought can look at itself. Do you feel that this is a dominant trend in contemporary theater, the political. I think it has been a dominant dominant I don't know but an important trend and then maybe nothing in all theaters but it has been an important trend, and also with the game changer, I think for many, many artists to kind of reconsider what political theater means. And, and on the other hand, of course, I mean I'm showing confrontations and conflicts on stage or enabling them with the set of rules is one thing on the other hand there's of course a desire for safer spaces there's a desire that not everything is possible on stage. And this is I think not necessarily. I mean this sounds like it is agreement that something to negotiate and because of course there's also their different interests and different needs. So that's, I think, in very recent years of course this question came more into play so so so what kind of opinions and views should be visible on in theater and in society in general, and which shouldn't and this is difficult to answer and it's not that I'm saying like oh yeah it doesn't happen. But I think it needs to have an awareness that conflicts don't going to go away or certain positions don't go away by by ignoring or forbidding them. So I think this is the kind of negotiation which very interesting ways as happening. So, so I think, although, of course the the algorithm can be something that happens between stage and audience. It might be it might be the desire to create a safer space of stage, but it might be a confrontation with with people that are confronted, then in the audience with certain stories and experiences that they might not want to have that close so this kind of agonizing can happen in many, many different ways. Yeah. Yeah, but I think it is quite a significant and really important. As you would say, a duty of the theater or possibility and where perhaps also a reason why to do theater at all to create in a public place. These kind of agonistic ideas I remember Michael Frank once was at the Segal Center the Great British playwright and he said in a good play everyone is right. Because you know it's a good play, but you look at the thing that hopefully then the audience will be able to make up their minds to see that we do live in contradictions, and that nothing is in that way black and white, and that the people who tell us that the world is black and white are the ones who are lying to us. You wrote the world will not only be shown in theater but it will be shaped by theater. Of course Miller also says we should take action now. I really think, what is the influence of theater I know you work in Europe you see European context it's also what you talk about in your book, but do you think theater still is is shaping in that sense or is it what you say is we have to redefine and get into this arena of agonism to find our place again. This claim is more modest than it sounds because of course obviously I don't believe that the theater play will change the cause of the world. Like like other political actions might might do. And, but I think it when we talked about that that in a certain kind of theater situations are not only represented but created. It means it shaped this part of the world at least it's already at least shaped somehow that the experience of the people that are in there not only as, as passive witnesses in a way you can. I am interested in works that that like like, for example, what what the judge Butler wrote about assemblies famously about by Wall Street that these assemblies are performative in the way that they create a reality. And that they not only are there important because they protest something or they have certain claims, but they try already to have a different kind of being together. And this is I think the way that theater as the form which always somehow collected where people have to come together. It's like the unique selling point of this art form of creating realities. So, so and by this hopefully of course also have some impact on the environment depending on the work but not, not by a big claim and then tomorrow every bit of you follow it obviously. I think maybe it's important to also mention, and even even if in a lot of this theater that I describe they're not actors on stage there the protagonist are other like in the trials or parliament that you mentioned these are people with their own claims on stage so it's not it's not also there's not a representation by an actor, but, but at the same time I think it's important that it is there's a difference between an assembly and theater parliament and theater and court and theater, etc. And the real court outside of the theater. And I think that's important to also stress because that's the specific potential I believe in it, when being very question here that the theater has that it, that it's always real and symbolic at the same time. That it's that it's always fictional and true at the same time by the fact that real people are coming together. And at the same time it creates a narration. So we have this even the most conventional theater of course like you know like we all know the guy on stage is not really hum let it's wherever and we can do this double take. But I think this this double take is especially the potential to kind of bring us in a situation that is real, but enables us at the same moment to kind of reflect on it to understand it to analyze. Okay, what is actually happening. What are the conflicts here what are the hierarchies happening. And, and this kind of double take being in and outside of a situation is the specific feature, which is a little bit related of course like a personal effect that other. Yeah, I like what what you said also that you say political theater is always a social practice, but always self reflective and because it's self reflective. You say there's a chance in that to talk a bit what you what you mean by that. I think the question of self reflection relates all this this discussion between content that form and in a very simplified way and of course being unjust to many theater makers. I would say there was a form of political theater in the 70s and 80s dominant, and which is the time where most people maybe still would say that was the real political theater. And where it was about to represent a representing the beds of the world and the evil of the world and the political struggles of the world. And so the focus was very much on the, on the what on the topic in this representation. And I think this had a reaction to like, which is related to the, to the rise of post dramatic theater. I might call it with Lehmann, where suddenly there was a big interest in the how of the of the work in the aesthetics and there was a little bit of the idea that basically the main political impact the main political mess of an artistic work is in the, in the how in the aesthetics in the form, and not in the content. And I think this was very helpful in the struggle of balancing it, but at the same time, also led to a lot of work and would say at a certain moment, where the term of the concept of the concept of politics both, and was like becoming quite empty, because then, you know, like in a certain moment, everything could be political because it was, if it's only about the form of it, and the certain moments of irritation. So then there was another reaction to that again, and I'm not saying anything of this was wrong. It's like everything is theaters always in its time. So, so there was a moment for something else again and I think the works that I am interested in and that are described in the book. Try to just see the how and the what is necessary in the political work and so it's not only about talking about political issues, but also finding a form of representing it that is political and bringing this together. And so that's in the, that's in the core of these, these questions. And now I think I, I know that I said it because of your question but I don't remember how to pick it back to what you said. It's quite a big, big statement that is also especially also in American theater something to realize that the how you represent the aesthetic forms you find and the way you produce actually, you know, is as important. And it's more important of what it is about love to enter form and Panama child soldiers in Africa, say, how do theater companies produce their work. Are they aware, you know, of their of the effect of what it does have in this highly symbolic space, what we do so I would say one of the big changes in that political theater and theater is political no longer just if you write political slogans on posters and recite them in chorus, but in the way you do it how good is it if it's organized by a dictatorial director who treats the actors doesn't pay them. You quote rainy polish right in in in one quote when he talked about what he didn't like in in in fear that actually is reproducing the existence we live in is reproducing actually is a model for the state for the powers who are not creating things that are working the actions are not working but on this leader often things get represented. There's already oppression idea also set in already in the short organ on, as we said, like people in the audience, which is the people, in a way, experienced theater is on stage, which is not, which is not changeable so society is not changeable by by them. And that's how it functions that I would say Polish relates in a way to that. And that's what you, what you say is very important time. It is about the how of the performance of course the relation between the audience and the stage and and and what kind of like reality do you create and of course it's also important, what happens backstage, what happens in the production field and that's a discussion, obviously that we have in many parts of society. Now it's not, it's not enough to just produce a work, which is great or politically correct. It's also about how it is achieved and what is happening behind the scenes and and that you have to, the test is also maybe an political impact. Of course that's that's something that a lot of theater makers now are very concerned of and of course a lot of the theater makers we're talking about, I'm talking about the book. Also, trying to find other organizational forms in the way that they are collectives, like she she pop or other groups that that also really tried to have different working models. It's the system of the director and his or her actors. Yeah. Yeah, I think your book really points out that we entered also in theater, you know, a new phase, people said what's going to come after that idea of the post dramatic the brilliant idea that they are still there of Shackner's performance and stories, but I think you're you're you're highlighting the significance of theater and these new ways is something we say yes there is something has changed and you put your finger on it this. We live in a post fundamentalistic world, you know, quality, you quoted all about my chart and, and you said it's no longer good enough to have as you call simplistic moralizing ideals on stage. We need an emancipated spectator, you know, and quote cons here and you say, and something has happened I like that you quote theater artists in all along your book that the big part of your book is about the work and describing their projects You know, someone who wants to get a view on contemporary European theater or global theater. You, you did with the book before we maybe talk about the artists you also I'd like that quote. Who you quoted, and you said that emotional blackmailing in political rank I'm not either I'm gone or you're gone. I don't know who is my back. I think I was going to your back, you were gone for a moment. You know, the Caribbean Internet here in Guadeloupe which normally is very good, but you, the member if I said right who said, you know, we have to look differently at how we discuss ideas how we do things and I think you quote him This is the longest quote in your book maybe talk a little bit about it. Why do you feel that radical agency is not about sharing borders it's about putting down borders and not feeling you said you're pure than your neighbor so what tell me a little bit about his ideas I think they are important and theater makers should know about it. Well, I mean, there's a chapter on identity politics and related issues which are of course very important in theater at the moment and I think it's very, it's very difficult. Because there are many, many very necessary and obviously important demands also towards the theater to represent other stories other characters other ideas and then to to to get out of certain hegemonies. So, so that's very clear on the other hand, and the, the, the question of who can represent whom on stage is very tricky for theater, because of course in the end it's always a representation so it's a negotiation I'm not. I think making the book very clear that I don't think it's a good idea for everybody thinking that they can represent anybody that an actor, I don't know that the, that white male actor to use the cliche, can just represent whatever they want. That's not the point not the opposite I would say, on the other hand, we will always get to a point where it is about understanding and bringing in other ideas on stage. It's very difficult issues and I find what member writes about it is very, very helpful because he kind of also balances this of the right to say like no, listen you have to shut up now and listen. And on the other hand, keeping an interest in in different stories and in allowing art to try to bring in different point of view so it's a bit. Yeah, it's maybe less, less easy to say but I think it's an important aspect to navigate for theater because theater is of course very essentially hit by this discussion because it's always represents something as much as it should create something it's also representing something. So I think it's important to acknowledge that we will never get out of representation, neither in democracy I believe I mean some some people disagree, but I would say with movement market and others again I would say no representation will always be important in in society in politics, but I think also in theater it will be about representation, and you have to look at it carefully and then and have these discussions and fights and find the path to there and it will be and it's already very different than it was five years ago and that's good, but it will also change again so we have to see how it develops. And also for our viewers, let's talk a little bit about the productions than artists, you mentioned, and describe a little bit by your felt, they are part of, you know, we are an event that you know we live in contemporary art. It's a moment that modernism the postmodernism over contemporary art and she quotes about so about to echo on many others as a part of our time mobile that we live in a new different time. And I think these artists who you quote. And also you know I trying something you have found something and I, I like that you have them in the center as I said before and that you try to comment on it and and carefully, you know, create thoughts around the body of work of these artists one of the ones you talk about is about my answer for him, I was applied down in the mention of Kamerspieler, and, and another director came in and did something with it tell us a little bit. And then I also thankful for mentioning because now we talk about theory all the time and I hope the book is actually trying not to, to, to explain art to theory but bring theory in where it is in relation to artistic work and it actually also used by the artists so it's a good shift here. Because I think it hopefully gives the wrong idea that we have been talking so much about the theoretical part. The work middle right that you mentioned was quite an important work I think in the discussion in German theater on one of the biggest stages and in Germany adventure Kamerspieler. As you said, there was an existing work called middle right by, which was based on a novel by the autobiographic novel by the actor. And it plays in a Bavarian family after the war after the Second World War. It's about this peers of this family, peers of the future but also peers of refugees actually German refugees coming in from, from, from Salilia and other parts of former Germany. And what happened is that I'm telling a record. I took this play one to one and replace the all white cast with an all black cast. And that otherwise didn't make any changes it was the same, the same set design, the same text, the same costumes, everything was the same stage movements, also the same as much as much as possible. Exactly. So there was as little as possible changes, just a black cast. And this of course, like you can say is a classical strategy of appropriation art of Sturtevant and others. And it really created a very amazing show because it made very clear it made obvious that there was no, no people of color on stage before in this performance. It, but it also brought all kinds of double readings, the precarious of the felt the kindness of the, of the family on stage, the talking about refugees, and all these things came came up and it created a beautiful show, very powerful show, but also huge discussions in the fairy tales about this work, with sometimes quite embarrassing reactions by some of the journalists that then we're about to talk about trying to talk instead about the qualities of actors or whatever and but really getting any point. And so it was also, as I said, it was a work of appropriation art in a way or a tradition of appropriation art. It was also a work of institutional critique which is not happening very often in theater, which is also interesting. I think like why it's a visual genre in theater there are not many works of institutional critique I would say, some more recently but but not so many, because it of course talked about the cast, the ensemble of the Michner Kammerspieler, which, which didn't have black people to perform in there so they all had to be guests. We talked about the audience who's in the audience and so on so it became a conversation about the theater itself also. So that was a, I think a very, very important and very much the cast moment in German theater. And of course, what has to remember that the German situation is very different from the US or the British situation where also a lot of post colonial topics. It was addressed very late, comparatively, not arriving or have been arriving in recent years only in the public discussion. Yeah. And, and also they didn't have any black actors, you know, in the, in the ensemble anyway so they have to go outside. It was, it was, it was all yes. So that was part of the I mean this all was part of this all this conversation was part of the show. The show was was there and it was an impressive show. Because also, the show didn't stop in the show, the show was also then in the after talk or in the, in the discussion in the fairy tales and so on. It continued there anyway by raising all these questions. Yeah, so like a very simple idea and exposing also the apparatus I think of theater and the expectations and, and all of it. Talk also about the work of she she pop an ensemble that is also trying to work in a different way maybe talk a bit about their work why you why do you think that is their work is important. I mean, the work of she she pop is maybe bought in a different way they were just mainly important for me. I mean, in one way in the early works they experimented a lot with participation and confrontation with audience that was that's one thing. But I think more important is that this is a group that exists now for almost 30 years or maybe 30 years now I don't know I said around 30 years. They're working as an ensemble and as a collective working with changing roles like like there's no director but somebody might direct and be inside outside. They, they even in the beginning and they change a little bit where it was important for them that they would also do all the administration around or if somebody else would do it that they also would be on stage like that they would be really a shared a shared work on it without without hierarchies. They even now, in recent place it wasn't a couple of years now, make performances where they can replace each other in different shows so that's not even one role in there that only one of them could play. So, and, and in their work and then their trajectory over 30 years you can see that collective working is not easy of course I mean it's like a redefinition all the time and and having an aesthetic and artistic demands at the same time so it's like not their job is not being a collective but the job of the collective to create artistic work. And that I think that that's why they are really an important example for many younger groups also in the way how they work, but also how they on stage represent themselves the group, also know a group of women that are in their, in their 50s by now. And addressing very often all the questions of what does it mean to be a woman on stage, what kind of representations and idea go along with that. And so, so I think they are really a key, key group, key collective in a German speaking scene, mainly of course, but I think all the beyond. I mean I'm just going to mention some names and maybe we can go into them of them, who you mentioned you know rainy Polish, the gobsquad Lula Arias a remedy protocol quarantine from Manchester was a mouche. In comparison to Paris creation FMA or the Polish theater 21 aura Switzerland, Mark Burke from the Netherlands, Jerome Bell of course and many, many, many others and you talk very clearly about their their work for example can I ask that the Dutch Mark Burke I don't know I haven't heard what they are actually, I mean they are actually really just mentioned, I'm talking about the aura in terms of work with people with cognitive disabilities and how this. And so there's several, several companies of course in the world, working doing impressive work. I focus a little bit on the Swiss theater aura, which did the work with Jerome Bell, which was interesting, I think. And it's a bit an older work which is maybe also important to mention because I think also there have been developments, but at this time for Jerome Bell as a famous French choreographer, quite a challenge to work with a company that had different ways of working different ways of obeying him as a choreographer for example by also ignoring him or doing things that they wanted. He chose at that time in a beautiful show called disabled theater. He chose to basically put a dramaturg on stage which was always giving telling the orders the directors choreographers orders he gave Jerome Bell said to this and this show solo and so on so it was always clear. There was an attempt of a hierarchy. On the other hand, the performance of horror are so strong and so powerful and also so strong minded that they often ignore it or they do their own thing with it and there's so it was really about questioning the rules of theater as we usually perceive it. The work is more than 10 years old so of course it was also the beginning of something, but it's interesting that Jerome said that he always considered himself to be a theater maker that breaks rules and challenges rules and so on. And that he noticed in the beginning when he started working with the ensemble of Bora that he was demanding, listen to me now or do this please and kind of like suddenly did the things that they always criticized the theater himself and that you had to react to that. And that actually they were much better in breaking the rules of theater than him because he was saying like, but behind the scene you have to be silent, but they wouldn't be silent. So they just ignored it. And here to understand, okay, but that's actually maybe that makes sense, not only as a social project but as an artistic and aesthetic questioning of theater and the apparatus of theater. Yeah, yeah. And also you mentioned of course back to back theater. And I think it is a time where we do question everything and we have to find our relevance. And how is the situation in Germany, people going to the theater is the experience the same I speak to many people here and they say you know I look at a play now and somehow it doesn't touch me doesn't reach me maybe before Corona, the time of Corona would. How was the situation in in Germany. Well the theaters are obviously opens in since a while now and I think it's like in general terms. A lot of audiences come is back to the theaters, but I would say and I'm not sure it's empirically through it's mainly more my my private empiric or statistics that was more difficult for for theater. Other events to get an audience back for things that you don't expect. So what is that what works best is is performances where people kind of already know what what they get, because they know the artist well or that they know the play or whatever. They have less struggles, getting audience back then then things where you also as an audience member might take a risk, because we don't know what's going on. So, so that's of course for the kind of theater I'm writing about a big problem because that's kind of the career characteristic that you usually don't know how the evening will go even if you know an artist. So I think that's also a little bit getting getting better but I think the willingness to take risks might have been a bit might be a bit reduced still at the moment. On the other hand, I would say, of course, and many people have talked and written about it in the Bishop of course I also quoted the book and under the question of participation has changed in theater there's actually quite quite a lot of audiences that that enjoy participation now, which sometimes is also a problem because I think participation is not as such a good thing. I mean I think participation is an important feature, but participation might be also fake participation if you just follow. You know, you just have a choice if you can go to the left or the right but some director we thought both ways for you and then you're just performing. You know, you're performing participation but you don't don't actually get it, but I would say that's that's quite changed that actually a lot of audiences very fond of it and and I think maybe one consequence of covid degree degrees is that a lot of people want to be part of it and talk themselves which I find quite interesting I've seen performances where the audience took basically over, which was legitimate because you see like people really have a demand to to speak them might miss over the years and also a renegotiation and social encounters and and and dealing with each other seems to be happening in some some parts maybe that's also a job of theater to see like okay out how do we interact again after after these years of strange encounters that are behind us. Yeah, yeah, and as you say there's the one that we expect anyway and that perhaps has a time now in a time of uncertainty but the artist you write about it and vote some more the London rebel clown army you know and of course Reverend Billy yes man and the black tent and say all art makes make arts policy and so many many others that he had to negotiate the remedy protocol work and all significant work that is radically different from the expected from the was things we already know. You mentioned also a lot Milo Rao and he emerges as a major force in the moment you know I'm also in contemporary theater tell a little bit what what do you think about his work. And I would say I'm. Well, on one hand, I really admire Milo Milo's. I mean this work is strength his presence and I think he's really also is very important also as a public intellectual. So, so, and he challenges theater all the time so I think that's that's really doesn't is doing an impressive work. Personally, I think I'm most interested in the work that he did. Many some years ago, and well it was just also in current work where he was staging trials and tribunals like the Moscow trials talk a little bit about project people I'm sure people have not heard of it. So the Moscow trials is a piece like that now 10 years ago and obviously it would not be possible. Not only at the moment but in the last five six seven years already not have been possible anymore. And there were three famous trials against artists curators etc in Moscow in the 21st century. There were three exhibitions that dealt with the religion and the third one the very famous case against pussy riots after their performance performance as done in the, in the, in the church in Moscow, Moscow after which they were imprisoned. And this was the world famous case so so these three cases all related to the freedom of art versus the freedom of religion, but what could say actually maybe rather against that religion was also used just to to shut down critical artists. He created in the center of center in Moscow, a courtroom, and all the protagonists in this were protagonists that were really involved in these three cases and between these three cases were reopened so to say, each for one day with artists, theater critics curators that were accused or even a sentence. In these cases, but on the other hand also orthodox activists right wing TV moderators from the other side, so to say as to persecution us. So it was really an heavily agronistic situation in the space I think it's like a textbook example for what one could mean with an agronistic theater. All these people in a space with real advocates and real judges. Real one but partly also the judge, the advocates were where curators and theater critics or TV right wing activists. So it's also the, the persecution it was, and was a very well known writing TV moderator and member of parliament at the time. So this is really like so it was an extremely intense work there's a good documentary Milo made about it, and most people because it was a very small situation there so so people know it of course from the film and not from the, usually from the, from having been there, I wasn't there either of the protagonist, and it was. So it was really intense situation where the end theater was the only place where this kind of open conflict could happen at all. Outside it was already a situation in society where this could not have been happened anymore this encounter. And, and also afterwards not Milo was forbidden the entry to Russia afterwards as it was really a moment where theater could offer this kind of space. And it was very important. As I said, I know, know some people involved their protagonist in there and it was also important for them to have the chance to kind of like tell the story and to have this conflict also I mean it was also hard to be confronted with with some right wing activists and so on but they, they wanted this chance there also they needed this this opportunity to have this conflict stage. So I think that's that's the work I really find very impressive. I would say, with some other works of Milo, which are politically very interesting and always very, very challenging and intelligent, but as a director of other office other place. He is, I would say more on the side of Stanislaw last last day then a break. So he creates a duration which are very powerful in emotionally engaging the audience. And, and, and in a way I would say a bit. Sometimes maybe taking the audience as hostage of certain of certain emotions and feelings. And I think that's that for me is a conflict in terms of when it comes to that which is totally fine. Of course why not. But if it comes to political theater, I think emotions are important as part of it. But, but I think, you know, like, like a kind of domination to the to the director is in a contradiction to the idea of empowering an audience to own thoughts. And I think that's an interesting conflict in his work, which we also discussed with each other and on the other hand, of course, that's part of the reason why he's so successful, because he gets his audience and also emotionally very strongly. But here I would be the classic conflict I would be on the side of breath and think it's about making an audience understand structures behind things and to, to, to observationally understand what the situation is and not hitting them with them with the Stanislaw skip bet over the head. And he does it very well. I mean, he's an amazing director. Yeah, and in a way what a great idea, instead of the traditional way which is, you know, the dominant way that the writers it's in her in his room on they live in the room and write a play and then hopefully it gets selected and then it's put up with actors on the stage and people pay and come and then go home and are entertained. He took a real world situation like the trials that never happened against pussy right because they were put into jail right away on the tango tribunal which he created about a Swiss company that was actually killing people you know for for minerals, the rare minerals in the earth are lying and destroying the planet and he did this or his work in a theater where he put activists of farm workers of seasonal workers immigrants on stage worked with them they played Jesus. So the idea of a trial or the idea as you also mentioned the idea of of summits or summits is this remedy protocol staged in a theater, a climate change summit we just had also a parliament with Michael clear with us here and we talk about it so it's something is happening something is different. And it is more interesting and it ask and opens and opens question what what is the play what is the work what you have seen where you felt that that changed you and that that that was a powerful that the greater things we mentioned or maybe something you saw before the book came out. What, who are you following. Well, I mean, I think still that there is a bit more difficult to say for the moment because it really I think a lot of things. And just reformatting there was a lot of works that were shown that should have been shown years ago and you know the situation but I don't really know I'm not I'm not sure I ever really agree on where we are now. And, but to just talk about a very recent example I think one of the most impressive and works I've seen for quite a while is Florentino Holzing us. Ophelia got got talent at the folks been in Berlin, which is also I think the, the talk of the town so it's not not even a very original thought that I'm offering. Talk about nobody has seen it here. Florentino Holzing is a choreographer and theater maker from Austria, and she, she is a very clearly a very feminist theater maker but also, let's say, very physical theater maker so she so in her works always. And what does things work. How do you call the in circus people like on a base or acrobat and like like a very sport of very extreme versions of sport and hanging in ropes and so on play a role. It kind of creates a situation which is somehow between, between circus game show, but also very, very heavy physical encounters with all women cast. So, so she should really create some difficult you see me I didn't write about it and it didn't formulate it yet so you see me a little bit stumbling to describe it, because it's a, it is a, it is an event it's a theater show about very different women on stage with very different bodies and then it creates and more doesn't really have a narration it creates an experience for an audience over, I don't know two and a half hours of very physical encounters of scenes that are might attend you because they are very physical or it's like she putting such is also very Austrian, it's a genius in terms of like body art aspect, but what she creates basically is a, I would say kind of community and stage, and, and a theater that is, is really creating unexpected situations and it's on the same stage that 20 years before Christoph Schlingesie was showing 15 years ago, 15 years ago, Christoph Schlingesie was showing Kunst und Gemüse, another work which was like having all kinds of people on stage, very chaotic Florentina is on stage herself as Christoph was on stage himself and directing and changing things again and, and it jumps from a game show to a review to very well choreographed dance scenes and so on, so it's really a spectacle in a way, but at the same time, very intelligent, very political, very confrontational. Yeah, it's quite an event but I realized that I'm lacking a little bit the words here to describe it but maybe that's something about the kind of work that she's doing. You also write about Stefan Kegi from the Remini Protocol, the uncanny, uncanny valley about the robots on stage, the experience of it, or talk a bit about Susanne Kennedy, the coming society where, you know, the robots actually portrayed by humans, like things we don't really see here, but you mentioned in the book and you all put it together in a, in a form and a context you give all these performances kind of a, a landscape a home where they are situated in. And so Susanne Kennedy. I accept that because of course what is happening now that more and more all the questions of the modern human of non human actors of our relationships to the world in a not so only human centered world is coming on on stage so that's that's important questions. And I would say theater is in sometimes not the best place to ask these questions because I think it's for the better or the worse it's kind of a human centered medium. So I see a lot of attempts to talk about the more than human concepts that that kind of fail for me because they stay very symbolic, but their works like you mentioned Stefan Kegi with the with the with the robot resembles a well known German actor, or the work of Susanne Kennedy that kind of find ways of discussing this topic Susanne Kennedy. Yeah produces shows in an aesthetic in a very internet aesthetic and and characters often are kind of our task on stage in different relations and at the same time, they're physical they're real people so you have the, you have an interruption of it you have this idea of something that is like two dimensional and clean and non physical at the same time, you have performance that starts swept because they are in a complicated position or they tremble or so so so they break the situation and create a different kind of conversation she I would say, there was a couple of years ago, a vape of so called post post internet art or some of the famous New York protagonists and other us protagonists. And, and this was usually in the realm of video or screens and Susanne Kennedy for me as a post internet art in the theater which is an interesting contradiction and produce a friction and agonism in the images I would say of what she's talking about. Yeah, yeah, and in this kind of David lab chapelle like glimmer and shine and super natural futuristic anticipation of a future as you wrote in the in your book you know theater does not really represent the future, you know, for what will come but we move towards the future and we kind of try to get accustomed to it and I think your work but also the work of the artist you you chose. Really something important to say and I really encourage everyone who works in theater studies theater to to to have a look at what you think on your vast experience and you put it in a form you make decisions. What to write about to really have a look and see what what floor your mouth sucker and saying it's worth to spend time with. And I also like next to so many other things we could talk about you do you talk about it did he really want and of course works with Edouard Louis. And both of them make the case that the kind of old fashioned models of just working class and were are no longer really working that are just about feminism that is just about climate they're making the case that everything is connected that we have to look at the world in a different way it while we asked or talk of him in Athens you know who said when I look at talk at my father. You know of course he was a victim of capitalism of the Macron policies but he also beat his wife or he you know didn't accept him as a gay son and and and refused to you know to participate in live or that perhaps might have a better family situation so he says, so we can no longer look at the world and the categories, perhaps we have been taught to by Brecht and others or was the hopes of the living theater that the theater is a way to help us to get a paradise from around the corner closer to us that it really is a part of the existence of life in live men as Andreas Weber called it, and that we are live beings like plants and animals here on earth and we are part of it no longer and there is a constant struggle but theater gives us a way to look at these conflicts about the meaning. And I think that's as much as I like sports why it is superior because we really can look from different sides and understand something we haven't known before we learn something. Maybe as the closure of our talk I like your apollo and very much is so short will be a couple of minutes but if you don't mind. Maybe, maybe read read read plus we also hear your voice and the Corey terminal translation. And thanks to Alexander Beverka of course an answer for helping us to make that happen that translation of the book and the publication of it. I'm mentioning Corey Tamla, she translated the book so I also have. Yeah, I'm very grateful to her. And I will, I never do this so it's a premiere for me to read out of the book because you know this kind of books you don't have a readings but rather discussions but so thanks for this invitation. What theater do we need at a time when democracies are being dismantled right wing populism is on the rise worldwide, and social injustice continues to grow wars are spreading and the climate catastrophe requires all our attention. We could conjure up worlds gone by all solution. I noticed that everything has been shown that and represented as it used to be. We could wish the audience back in the darkness for an art in which the concepts of ethics and aesthetics are neatly separated in which proscenium and frame still guarantee autonomy. We understand present dangerous as a mission for the theater unclear circumstances are rich breeding ground for art, permanent learning by doing no time to sit back and watch. Start cooking the recipe will follow advises Brian you know, precisely because optimistic forecast are hard to come by at the moment. It does not help to bury our heads in the sand. The crisis of current social political and ecological systems is a doubt, undoubtedly a threat, but it also holds an opportunity to gain more time for democracy. The world will be different and so will art. In this situation we need a theater in which agonistic confrontation is possible, a theater which grows itself into necessary conflicts beyond its own walls. A theater that pulls its weight in the increasingly intractable struggle shaping policies, politics, and everyday life, almost every day everywhere on earth. While neoliberalism has recently gotten somewhat out of passion as a persona, the extreme right has perfectly and with some finesse, taking over anti fascist philosopher and politician Antonio Gramsci's concept of cultural hegemony. Gramsci describes how in order to win election, one must first struggle for cultural supremacy with all the communicative means at our disposal from classic newspapers to the common sections of virtual social networks to mean production. Public debates must be influenced massively and for such an extended period of time that the social discourse as a whole is changed and ideological infiltrated. Electoral success itself is then only the final logical step. A gradual shift in what can be believed said or done at the most basic level must come first. As a response to such seductions of illiberal to right-wing demagogues, mere opposition is not enough. Sending up to them is important. Above all, however, other social narratives are needed. Narratives that are both daring and relatable, truly progressive alternatives. We must create our own new images of the future and fight for social discourse. Political theater can be a laboratory for developing with radical imagination, such new narratives and testing them on a small scale. Like you know style, one can also call this counter propaganda quote, we should begin to develop fact based propaganda narratives for own new narratives about where we come from, who we are, and most of all, who we can still can become. End of quote. It's not enough to refute the lies of others. The tools also needs new stories and images with which it can be spread. The example in these books show the manifold ways in which political theater today, together with its audience, invent such narratives, such images, but also new forms of social coexistence. There's no short or long organism that we could simply follow. We are in the face of experimentation of finding out as artists, as well as the fact that it does. But there are numerous approaches to artistic work and social commitments that make clear the potential of the encounter between art and political action. What is needed is an art that is self reflective, but does not fall into the trap of pure self referentiality. An art that does not take up political issues as heated cliches, yet dares to take clear positions and then use both internal and external contradiction. An art that does not regard its knowledge of the contingency of our world as an excuse to leave everything to chance, but as a mission to counter the laboratories of life again and again with its own necessary designs. An art that not only demonstrates and criticizes the ills on this planet, but actively participates in making the world a better place, as corny as that might sound. What theater can contribute to this is its special competence in bringing people together in situations that are at once peculiarly real and fictional, actual and symbolic. In the paradoxical machine of theater, we can be part of a social game, and at the same time, critically observe ourselves from the outside, while we are busy understanding the rules, negotiating them, changing them, or even trying out completely different games. It's that simple, and that complicated. Wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you and it's good to hear I think the voice of the writer and you are also a writer, philosopher of theater and we encourage you to even do more and write more about theater, and your thoughts and your reflections and I think it's an important book and a great contribution and an ongoing dialogue, I think discourse and so you entered in the way the public sphere was your book. And then we hopefully you will hear voices that said, No, that's wrong that's missing that's what you know but I think it's a great signal you're sending here and and you are. As Lehmann said, you know, you're the the emission and reception happens at the same time that's the sign of the new new theater where we are in and we would like to thank you for for doing this and all the work and also the art of assembly talk they were very important, especially also in the time of Corona and COVID brought many people together and I also, if you're intrigued by the talk today go back and go to the archive you can find it. The art of assembly website and these conversations that led also to this book like Adrian Kennedy wrote this great book people will let to my place, the conversations that led to the book of Florida so thank you all. And then we came to more for our second talk from good a loop is to add in there by it was missing. And then on Monday, we have a place that we have a discussion about a great, great event that is cooking up in Boston about Ukrainian and Russian directors getting together about reaction to to the current situation. Thank you all thanks for how I want the and Vijay for hosting us and goodbye Florian and hope to see you soon. Thank you so much. Thanks for the invitation. Yeah.