Tomaž Toporišič | University of Ljubljana (original) (raw)

Papers by Tomaž Toporišič

Od Svetinove Metke do Visoške kronike | Razprave 31, 2024

Članek analizira in sintetizira Stritarjevo ukvarjanje s teorijo in prakso dramatike in gledališč... more Članek analizira in sintetizira Stritarjevo ukvarjanje s teorijo in prakso dramatike in gledališča ter njegov prispevek k poskusom formiranja nove slovenske dramatike in gledališča, njegovo jasno in samokritično detektiranje ene temeljnih dilem slovenske dramatike, literature nasploh, ob tej pa tudi gledališča: odločitev za bodisi estetsko bodisi etično-narodno komponento dramatike in gledališča nasploh.

Das Kapitel analysiert und synthetisiert Stritars Auseinandersetzung mit der Theorie und Praxis des Dramas und Theaters und seinen Beitrag zu den Versuchen, neues slowenisches Drama und Theater zu formen. Es stellt seine klare und selbstkritische Feststellung eines der grundlegenden Dilemmas der slowenischen Dramatik, der Literatur im Allgemeinen und des Theaters dar: die Entscheidung entweder für eine ästhetische oder für eine ethisch-nationale Komponente des Dramas und des Theaters.

A Lexicon of the Central-Eastern European Interwar Theatre Avant-garde (Leksykon międzywojennej awangardy teatralnej Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej), 2024

The Polish version of the Chapter of the “Lexicon of Central and Eastern European Avant-Gardes,” ... more The Polish version of the Chapter of the “Lexicon of Central and Eastern European Avant-Gardes,” published by Polish Theatre Institute and Performance Research Books, offers the first comprehensive view of the decentralized history of European historical avant-gardes, featuring special chapters on the Slovenian theatrical avant-garde (including figures like Ferdo Delak, August Černigoj, and publications such as Novi oder and Tank, as well as Slavko Grum and the workers’ theatre): This chapter dedicates to the city of Triest as a nucleus of the historical avant-garde movements, futurism and constructivism. It explores various aspects of Central European avant-garde theatre in and around Triest in between the two World Wars, including programs, projects, and achievements of the theatrical avant-garde, which faced similar historical threats of marginalization and, in many cases, literal colonization and conquest.
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W trzech pierwszych dekadach XX wieku działalność słoweńskich artystów awangardowych była rozproszona między kilka ośrodków (Ljubljana, Novo mesto, Triest i Gorizia) i państw-Austro-Węgry, Słowenię, będącą częścią Jugosławii, i Włochy. W niniejszym rozdziale omawiam przypadek "kosmopolitycznego" miasta Triest, jego specyfikę i wpływ, jaki wywarło na słoweńskiej awangardzie oraz na interakcjach z artystami z sąsiadujących wschodnich ośrodków tj. Gorizii, Ljubljany, Zagrzebia, Novo mesto i Belgradu.

Jezik in slovstvo, 2023

The essay deals with one of the fundamental dilemmas that Slavko Grum’s plays, especially An Ev... more The essay deals with one of the fundamental dilemmas that Slavko Grum’s plays, especially An Event¸in the Town of Goga, repeatedly raise, and it is connected with their multi-layered, almost paratactic character. It is precisely because of this characteristic that both literary and theatrical history oscillate between labels such as expressionism, decadence, symbolism, modernism, and so on. It attempts to show how the specifics of this new drama and the new concept of theatre and art in general are revealed precisely through the juxtaposition of An Event in the Town of Goga with the aesthetic revolutions of the historical and partly neo-avant-gardes, as well as of the modernism and neo-modernism of the twentieth century. In this way, when read and compared with contemporaries and successors, the (inter) media map of this highly interesting literary work emerges, which, like the Futurist, Dadaist, Absurdist,
Surrealist and Expressionist syntheses, problematised the fundamental thematic preoccupation of the twentieth century: the crisis of the new-modern subject in the world proclaimed by Nietzsche with the absence of God. Grum’s oeuvre was thus, like that of the Expressionists and, at the same time, of Kosovel’s dramatic fragments, Mrak’s Obločnica, and Delak’s The Serpent in the Sky’s Dawn, heterogeneous.
The various avant-garde tactics that developed simultaneously in European and American modernist drama and prose of the first half of the twentieth century entered into dialogue and interesting relationships with each other, and it is An Event in the Town of Goga that comes closest to some modernist or avant-garde procedures within Grum’s oeuvre.

Razprava se ukvarja z eno temeljnih dilem, ki jih vedno znova sproža dramatika Slavka Gruma, še posebej Dogodek v mestu Gogi, in je povezana z njeno večplastnostjo, skorajda že parataktičnostjo. Prav zaradi te lastnosti tako literarna kot gledališka zgodovina vedno znova nihata med označitvami, kot so ekspresionizem, dekadenca, simbolizem, moderna ... Pokazati poskuša, kako se specifika te nove drame in novega koncepta gledališča ter umetnosti nasploh razkrijejo prav skozi sopostavitev Dogodka v mestu Gogi s pretežno sočasnimi, delno pa tudi predčasnimi ali kasnejšimi estetskimi revolucijami zgodovinskih in delno tudi neoavantgard ter modernizma in neomodernizma dvajsetega stoletja. Na ta način se ob prebiranju in primerjavi s sodobniki in nasledniki izriše (med)mrežni zemljevid tega nadvse zanimivega literarnega dela, ki je podobno kot futuristične, dadaistične, absurdistične, nadrealistične in ekspresionistične sinteze, igre in včasih že antiigre problematiziralo temeljno tematsko preokupacijo dvajsetega stoletja: krizo novodobnega subjekta v z Nietzschejem proklamiranem svetu kot odsotnosti boga. Grumov opus je bil tako, podobno kot tisti ekspresionistov, ob tem pa Kosovelovih dramskih fragmentov in Mrakove Obločnice ter Delakove Kače na nebesnem svodu heterogen. Različne avantgardne taktike, ki so se predčasno, sočasno ali kasneje razvile v evropski in ameriški modernistični dramatiki in prozi prve polovice dvajsetega stoletja, so med seboj stopale v dialog in zanimiva razmerja. Pri tem se znotraj Grumovega opusa najbolj približa nekaterim modernističnim ali avantgardnim postopkom prav Dogodek v mestu Gogi.

Amfiteater 1, 2023

The essay focuses on selected examples of the deconstruction of the opposition between representa... more The essay focuses on selected examples of the deconstruction of the opposition between representation and presentation, characteristic of post-mimetic art from the neo-avantgarde to the post-millennium. It discusses the authors who have been deconstructing the concept of drama and inventing new forms of redramatisation and post-dramatic intermediality from the 1960s to the present day. Despite persistently creating disruptions in the fictional textual cosmos, particular authors – such as Peter Handke in Offending the Audience, the group Pupilija Ferkeverk in Pupilija, Papa Pupilo and the Pupilceks, Dušan Jovanović in Monument G and Play a Tumour in the Head and Air Pollution, Milan Jesih in Limits and The Bitter Fruits of Justice, Matjaž Zupančič in The Corridor and other plays, Dragan Živadinov and his team in Supremat and other farewell rituals, Oliver Frljić in Damned be the Traitor of His Homeland, Simona Semenić in 1981, and Žiga Divjak and Katarina Morano in various projects – establish a strong process of redramatisation in their theatrical texts and performances. It is as if, alongside the deconstruction of drama, they inject dramatic and theatrical elements into the post-dramatic process of staging and writing. Thus, post-mimetic art coexists with pre-mimetic art, as this “stripping down” of the representativity of drama led to the establishment of fiction.

Slavia Centralis, 2023

The essay deals with the attempts of Srečko Kosovel, Ferdo Delak and Ivan Mrak to form a contempo... more The essay deals with the attempts of Srečko Kosovel, Ferdo Delak and Ivan Mrak to form a contemporary, modernist or avant-garde drama. The modern writings and concepts they used were diverse. This diversity can partly be explained by anomalies in the distribution and reception of their concepts, performances and texts, but at the same time (as Marko Juvan did with Kosovel), they can be understood “as an eminent symptom of modernism as a system of divergent sociolects responding to a common problematic complex.” All three avant-gardists, however, certainly understood new forms and new avant-garde art as follows: “The modern poet breaks down form to come to vivid direct life” (Kosovel).
The art of the second and third decades of the twentieth century in Slovenia, with the dramatic hybrids of Kosovel, Mrak and Delak, also asserted particular kinds of tensions between the grotesque and the sublime, the poetic and the almost documentary, which were characteristic Futurist, Constructivist and Expressionist aesthetics of the time.
All of these plays were, as a rule, written after the peak of Futurist syntheses, which virtually ceased to be produced after 2021, and before most Russian or Soviet absurdist drama. Like the Futurists, the three Slovenian avant-gardists were characterised by the need to speak in a new, non-classical way about the paradoxes of the contemporary
world and the new, modern experience of it. In this respect, only in Mrak can we find traces of futuristic ecstatic vitalism, while in Kosovel and Delak it is an acute crisis of the subject and of civilisation. Undoubtedly, the furthest in terms of performance among the trio was Ivan Mrak, who staged his own Obločnica with his avant-garde group, thus pointing out possible paths for avant-garde contemporary performance practices
stemming from the new drama. Soon afterwards (probably also because of the scandal of the first performance), he turned his concept of drama away from the avant-garde and towards the concept of hymnic tragedy. Thus, the new texts by the three artists can be considered as “a pebble that acted provocatively, revolutionarily, non-academically, subversively and groundbreakingly.” (Vrečko)

Razprava se ukvarja s poskusi Srečka Kosovela, Ferda Delaka in Ivana Mraka formirati sodobno, modernistično ali avantgardno dramo. Njihove pisave in koncepti so bili raznorodni, kar lahko delno razložimo z anomalijami v distribuciji in recepciji njihovih konceptov, predstav in tekstov, hkrati pa jih lahko (tako kot Marko Juvan ob Kosovelu) razumemo »kot eminenten simptom modernizma kot sistema divergentnih sociolektov, ki se odzivajo na skupen problemski kompleks«. Vsi trije avantgardisti so razumeli nove forme in novo, avantgardno umetnost tako kot Kosovel, ko je zapisal: »Moderni pesnik razdira formo, da pride do živega neposrednega življenja.« Umetnost je tudi v Sloveniji z dramskimi hibridi Kosovela, Mraka in Delaka uveljavila posebne vrste napetosti med grotesknim in sublimnim, pesniškim in že skorajda dokumentarnim,
ki so bili značilni tako za futuristično kot konstruktivistično
in ekspresionistično estetiko časa.

Quart, 2022

The essay outlines two attempts to revolutionize the periphery-centre relationship in Central and... more The essay outlines two attempts to revolutionize the periphery-centre relationship in Central and Eastern Europe. First belongs to the time of the historical avant-gardes of the 1920s and 1930s. The second to the retro-gardes at the turn of the centuries, that re-enacted some basic ideas of the constructivist and futurist utopian questions. The retro- and post-generations were proud to announce that they are the heirs of the artistic generation of the constructivists and zenitists, that wanted to promote Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade and Trieste as the centres of the new art, to establish a new bridge between the East and West.

Amfiteater, Journal of Performing Arts Theory, Ljubljana, 2021

The opening talk of Erique Vargas of Theatro de los sentidos for the 2020 Maribor Symposium on Se... more The opening talk of Erique Vargas of Theatro de los sentidos for the 2020 Maribor Symposium on Sensorial Theatre and short conversation with him and Gabriel Hernandes, prepared for the print version by Barbara Pia Jenič and Tomaž Toporišič.

What happens to us when we enter a Teatro de los Sentidos (Theatre of the Senses)
experience? Why do we need to play? Where does our need to play come from? Why is
sensory theatre relevant today? For what strange reasons do humans like to play getting
lost and finding themselves in the dark? I want to share with you the reasons why Teatro
de los Sentidos has been significant to me ever since I became aware of inventing myself
and inventing it in my childhood games, imagining forbidden labyrinths in Colombian
coffee plantations, until today, at my eighty years of age. It is clear that a lot of primal
and parallel knowledge has developed over time in all cultures. Myths, celebrations,
imagination, poetry, symbolic powers ... resonate differently, each according to historical
circumstances. Let us ask ourselves together: what potential does sensorial theatre have
today? (Enrique Vargas: Some questions before the symposium.)

The article deals with relations between the institutional-repertory theatre scene and experiment... more The article deals with relations between the institutional-repertory theatre scene and experimental, alternative, and later non-institutional performing arts, often related to as “amateur and dilettante” by the “drama theatre” critics. It explores how, at the turn of the 1960s to the 1970s, a specific form of student experimental theatres emerged in Slovenia in interaction with the student and civil movements and alternative culture (Pupilija Ferkeverk Theatre, Pekarna (Bakery) Theatre, Vlado Šav and Vetrnica (Windmill)). The new movement consciously decided to exclude classical theatre actors from its circle and to replace them with non-professionally-trained staff. Thus, the phenomenon of student experimental theatre blurred the boundaries between artistic genres, high and low cultures, professional and non-professional actors. It created a new, liberated performative territory, from which the alternative theatre and culture of the 1980s and the non-institutional performing arts s...

AMFITEATER, 2022

The essay analyses the corpora of the dramatic or non-dramatic texts of contemporary authors (Sim... more The essay analyses the corpora of the dramatic or non-dramatic texts of contemporary authors (Simona Semenič, Milena Marković, Tim Crouch, Oliver Frljić, Katarina Morano and Žiga Divjak, Anja Hilling, Wajdi Mouawad, Dino Pešut and She She Pop) as a border area belonging to both the field of literature and theatre. While detecting the specifics of the interpretation of drama and theatre, the author uses eclectic tools offered by literary and performing arts studies to analyse the corpora of contemporary drama or no longer drama and performing practices. Focusing on a series of contemporary playwrights and theatre directors, he seeks answers to the question of how we can interpret the changes in drama and theatre. How did the specific return to the theatre of words, as defined by the French theorist of contemporary drama Élisabeth Angel-Perez, take place, and to which extent are today’s theatre and drama still post-dramatic but evertheless establish a new return to the dramatic and dramatised? How do these “experiments belonging to the so-called ‘post-dramatic theatre’ which is also a (post-)deconstructionist theatre, eventually, end up redramatising whatever it was they strove to un/de-dramatize” (Angel-Perez)? Thus, paradoxically, “‘no-longer-dramatic’ texts put forward a new dramaturgical form that subverts the dramatic representation of the world as a fictive whole and accommodates the ‘unsurveyable present’ (Lehmann) of the mediatised-globalised world”.

Jezik in slovstvo, 2022

In our examination of the selected plays and tragedy, we have focused primarily on gender politic... more In our examination of the selected plays and tragedy, we have focused primarily on gender politics, and more specifically on the phenomenon of female protagonists on the world stage, which is the title of this year’s essay as a part of high-school exit exam in Slovene as the mother tongue. The theme was explored through a comparative analysis of four classics of drama and theatre from antiquity to the second half of the 20th century, focusing on a selection of themes that are still of concern today: the position of women and gender equality in contemporary societies. The women dramatized in the selected plays are representatives of groups that, according to Julia Kristeva’s interpretation, are marginalised in the patriarchal symbolic order and are subjected to various forms of repression of femininity. The determination of biological sex in these plays repeatedly turns out to be socially constructed, as it is based on social norms and regulations. It is the violation of these rules that gives rise to the dramaturgical strategies and gender politics of the plays from antiquity to the present day.

V obravnavi maturitetnih dram in tragedije smo se osredotočili predvsem na politiko spolov, točneje fenomen ženskih junakinj na odru sveta, ki je tokrat naslov tematskega sklopa za maturo. Tematiko smo razprli skozi primerjalno analizo štirih klasik dramatike in gledališča od antike do druge polovice 20. stoletja s poudarkom na izbrani in še danes vznemirljivi problematiki položaja ženske in enakosti spolov v sodobnih družbah. Ženske, ki jih dramatizirajo izbrane drame, so predstavnice skupin, ki so v patriarhalnem simbolnem redu po interpretaciji Julije Kristeve marginalizirane in so izpostavljene različnim oblikam represije feminilnosti. Prav spol se skozi drame, ki smo jih raziskali, pokaže šele kot dejanje. Določenost biološkega spola se v teh igrah vedno znova izkaže kot družbeno konstruirana, saj temelji na družbenih normah in predpisih. Prav kršitve teh predpisov pa so tiste, ki sprožajo dramaturške zaplete dramatike, povezane s politiko spola, od antike do danes.

Amfiteater, 2021

The paper discusses the liminal nature of the sensorial languages in contemporary performing arts... more The paper discusses the liminal nature of the sensorial languages in contemporary performing arts. Its starting point will be the following chain of thoughts: during artistic events, a performative action reshaping the performers and the audience takes place, along with the interchange of the roles between the “stage” and “auditorium”, either in the sense of Augusto Boal’s spect-actor or the destruction of the fourth wall and the specific “autopoietic feedback loop” (Erika Fischer-Lichte) between both parties involved. We aim to rethink and re-examine the role of the sensorial language as one of the rarely used yet highly efficient tools of the performative revolutions of the 20th and 21st centuries. These revolutions started with the Futurists, continued with the tactile and sensorial performances and politics of Marina Abramović and Yoko Ono, and culminated with Enrique Vargas and his sensorial theatre in different stages from New York’s La Mama radical 1960s productions to his 19...

Primerjalna Knjizevnost, 2018

This article analyzes Lado Kralj’s theatrical and scientific-research work. As clearly seen from ... more This article analyzes Lado Kralj’s theatrical and scientific-research work. As clearly seen from a historical and critical overview of his work from the end of the 1960s to the present, Lado Kralj is a key figure in both fields and a personality uniquely interweaving the fields of theory and practice. He started his career as a literary theoretician who formed himself through the theories of comparative literature of Anton Ocvirk and the analysis of the poetics of the fiction and drama opus of Slavko Grum. Following his collaboration with theatre director and performance theorist Richard Schechner in New York he co-founded in Ljubljana two of the most important experimental Slovene theatres (EG Glej and Pekarna) in the 1970s. His artistic work within the field of experimental theatre influenced his exploration of historical avant-garde, especially Expressionism from 1970s till present. Later, his artistic leadership of the Ljubljana National Theatre and the role of a professor at th...

Slavistična revija, 2011

V raznolikih poskusih zgodovinjenja slovenske sodobne drame nesporno ostaja ob strani ena izmed p... more V raznolikih poskusih zgodovinjenja slovenske sodobne drame nesporno ostaja ob strani ena izmed pomembnih lastnosti slovenske absurdne drame, namreč njen pomen pri dekonstrukciji t.i. literarnega oziroma dramskega gledališča ter udejanjitvi performativnega obrata (Fischer-Lichte) na prelomu iz šestdesetih v sedemdeseta leta prejšnjega stoletja. Pričujoča razprava s pomočjo analize lastnosti poetik Petra Božiča, Dušana Jovanovića, Milana Jesiha in Rudija Šelige skuša prikazati prav to na videz paradoksalno lastnost slovenske drame absurda in absurdne drame, ki je privedla do ene največjih estetskih revolucij (Rancière) v slovenski umetnosti in kulturi po drugi svetovni vojni. Ključne besede: performativ, absurdna dramatika, performans, performativna kultura Various attempts to historicize contemporary Slovene drama have doubtlessly neglected one of the important features of the Slovene absurd drama, i.e., its significance in the deconstruction of the so-called literary or drama theater and in the manifestation of the performative turn (Fischer-Lichte) at the turn of the 1970s. Using the analysis of poetics of Peter Božič, Dušan Jovanović, Milan Jesih, and Rudi Šeligo, the present study attempts to illustrate this seemingly paradoxical characteristic of the Slovene drama of absurdity and absurd drama, which led to one of the greatest aesthetic revolutions (Rancière) in Slovene art and culture after World War II.

Theatre and Community, 2020

Within the twenty-year period that coincides with the first twenty years of the Glej Theatre, the... more Within the twenty-year period that coincides with the first twenty years of the Glej Theatre, the essay concentrates on the formation and transformations of non-hierarchical theatre communities, or, in the words of one of its founders, Dušan Jovanović, theatrical tribes. Using historical and present-day examples, the author will try to map the specific devised theatrical procedures producing what Badiou names “a generic vacillation”: “Theatre turns every representation, every actor’s gesture, into a generic vacillation so as to put differences to the test without any supporting base. The spectator must decide whether to expose himself to this void, whether to share in the infinite procedure. He is summoned, not to experience pleasure (which arrives perhaps ‘on top of everything’, as Aristotle says) but to think” (Rhapsody, 124).The essay strives to answer the following questions: How did the Slovenian experimental and non-institutional performing arts scene (as a reaction to the hie...

Scena, No. 2, 2021, Novi Sad, Serbia , 2021

The stormy period of the historical avant-gardes in the geographical basin of Slovenia, Croatia a... more The stormy period of the historical avant-gardes in the geographical basin of Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia during the period at the beginning of the XX. Century and more specifically during the period 1910–1930 witnessed several waves of artistic and cultural as well as political movements with typical Central-European avant-garde features. Ferdo Delak and Avgust Černigoj were highly sceptical of the Futurists' political engagement in Fascist Italy, but still entertained a liaison dangereuse with them and introduced many Futurist ideas into the Slovene historical avant-garde of the 1920s. But they also used with all their efforts the hand given to them by Ljubomir Micić and his Zenitist movement. Thus, the avant-garde representatives Černigoj, Delak and Micić walked hand in hand to establish new territories of the Slavic avant-garde. In the beginning Delak and Černigoj tried to use the links of Micić, who exiled in 1926 to Paris. But his French project did not work very well, he was losing a lot of his power and thus he became one of the invited editors of the newly established magazine Tank, joining the “sub-editorial posts in Germany (Hannes Meyer in Dassau), Italy (Sofronio Pocarini in Gorizia), Switzerland (Jean Bard in Geneva)« to become the sub-editor for France and Serbia. Thus Irina Subotić points to the fact that the “Slovenian Constructivists gathered around the magazine Tank and the Trieste group were in a way the spiritual successors of Zenithist ideas and procedures.” Černogoj thus wrote in a letter to Micić that the west is rotten using the famous statement very close to the idea of Micić about the Slovene, Croatian and Serbian Barbarians being more artistically talented than the the Western Europeans.
Thus, the story that began with Suncokret and Zenit was to be continued with Novi oder and Tank. Its biggest international success was the lecture of Ferdo Delak on the new Slovenian arts in the house of Der Sturmt in 1928 and a special issue of Der Sturm (vol. 19, no. 10) in January 1929 entitled “Junge slowenische Kunst” (new Slovenian art).

Ars & Humanitas

Razprava bo na podlagi študije šestih primerov iz sodobne gledališke in uprizoritvene prakse prev... more Razprava bo na podlagi študije šestih primerov iz sodobne gledališke in uprizoritvene prakse preverjala, kako lahko Lotmanov koncept semiosfere kot ekosistema, ki zajema tako prostor kot čas predstave, okoljski in ekonomski vidik ter politično okolje, ki obdaja gledališki dogodek, uporabimo za teorijo gledališča po prostorskem obratu ter v postkolonialnem in interkulturnem okolju. Njegov pojem semiosfere kot prostorsko-časovnega fenomena, kombinacije različnih (ne) verbalnih jezikov, ki so v neprestanem dialogu drug z drugim, bomo uporabili za analizo prostorskih odnosov in politik prostora v sodobnih uprizoritvenih praksah, da bi odkrili, na kakšen način uprizarjanje ustvarja semiotične jezike, ki niso enostavna vsota posameznih znakovnih sistemov, ampak v dinamični interaktivnosti vzpostavljajo gledališki dogodek. Predmet analize bodo gledališke predstave kot semiotični prostori prehodnih oblik, ki nastajajo med različnimi mediji, prestopanja meja med odrom in avditorijem ter spre...

Ars & Humanitas

Prispevek se ukvarja s posebnimi procedurami spomina v sodobni dramatiki, ki kljub navidezni abso... more Prispevek se ukvarja s posebnimi procedurami spomina v sodobni dramatiki, ki kljub navidezni absolutnosti sedanjosti, ki jo vedno znova reprezentira, velikokrat uporablja spomin, a ne več kot kontinuiteto spomina v smislu svetega Avguština in njegovih Izpovedi, ampak diskontinuiteto spomina v smislu beckettovskih junakov, pri katerih spomin dekonstruira veljavnost samega sebe. Na podlagi primerov (ne več)dramskih taktik od poznega modernizma do (ne več)postdramskega bomo prikazali transformacije drame spomina in spominjanja od negotovosti in izbrisa spomina poznega Samuella Becketta, preko raziskav spomina in osebne ter skupne identitete Dušana Jovanovića do postdramskih sopostavitev kolektivnega spomina novejše zgodovine in sedanjosti v dramski pisavi Simone Semenič. Teza, ki jo preverjamo, je, da sintetični model dramske gradnje ni brez alternative, ampak ga je v sodobni drami zamenjal analitični in »pripovedni« model gradnje ne več dramske pisave, v katerem se spomin emancipira o...

Clothing presents an inseparable part of the human body. Linking art with clothing synthesizes th... more Clothing presents an inseparable part of the human body. Linking art with clothing synthesizes the spiritual and social nature of human conduct, and it also creates metaphors and symbolic relationships in the anthropogenic environment. The aim of this synthetic view is to help us understand our internal worlds. The body represents the only support or shelter that a person (or humankind) can rely on. Through clothing, a person can make their fi rst step in non-verbal communication towards the world. Clothing not only shows our appearance, but also represents our interior world. We attract attention with the help of our clothing. With apparel, we communicate with others, express acceptance or rejection, or collective attitudes in relation to understanding something that is likeable, sociable, moral etc. Clothing can be interpreted as a transmission of information between a carrier and recipient through symbolic messages in the general or specifi c scope of the clothing culture. In suc...

International Yearbook of Futurism Studies 2014, 2014

Od Svetinove Metke do Visoške kronike | Razprave 31, 2024

A Lexicon of the Central-Eastern European Interwar Theatre Avant-garde (Leksykon międzywojennej awangardy teatralnej Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej), 2024

Jezik in slovstvo, 2023

Amfiteater 1, 2023

Slavia Centralis, 2023

Quart, 2022

Amfiteater, Journal of Performing Arts Theory, Ljubljana, 2021

AMFITEATER, 2022

Jezik in slovstvo, 2022

Amfiteater, 2021

Primerjalna Knjizevnost, 2018

Slavistična revija, 2011

Theatre and Community, 2020

Scena, No. 2, 2021, Novi Sad, Serbia , 2021

Ars & Humanitas

International Yearbook of Futurism Studies 2014, 2014

Book of Abstracts, PSi #29 Assemble, Section 77, 2024

The hybrid conference focuses on the main theme of Assemble. To assemble has multiple meanings: t... more The hybrid conference focuses on the main theme of Assemble. To assemble has multiple meanings: to gather in one place for a common purpose or to put together the parts of something. The section 77 focused on contemporary theatrical and performative practices using the notion of assemble. It reconciders how to assemble, how to come together, to build, to imagine, to co-create in hostile conditions, and, conversely, what we need to disassemble, to take apart, to dismantle, to decenter, to unlearn.

Diaries in 20th Century – International Conference, UCD, Dublin, 8-9 December 2023, , 2023

Our contribution will introduce to international scholars the Diaries of the Slovene avant-garde ... more Our contribution will introduce to international scholars the Diaries of the Slovene avant-garde poet Srečko Kosovel (1904-1926), a contemporary of F. T. Marinetti from the Karst Region of Trieste, which conceived his own version of hybrid constructivist poetry with some clear influences of Italian futurism and Soviet Constructivism. Both Marinetti and Kosovel jotted down their thoughts in the tiny notebooks that followed them almost everywhere. Their diaries cover one of the most dramatic moments of the twentieth century, a period that comprises the experience of the Great War in Italy and Slovenia. However, in comparison to Marinetti's highly political and extrovert diaries about the birth of fascism, Kosovel's diary is very intimate, conceptual, and lyrical. It comments the political life, but in a highly specific manner combining poetry, essays and other literary forms. Using some examples we will show in which way Kosovel's diaries are not what Hocke names with the term "fictive diaries” and Abbott “diary fiction” but use hybrid forms from autobiographical notes and writings to essay or manifestative forms that one could link to diaries of Nikolay Punin. They nevertheless produce one of the most remarkable perspectives on the cultural and political history of the twentieth century’s first decades. The statements in his diaries are of such a kind, as Kosovel would never dare to publish in a review, essay, or a similar objective genre; they can only appear in the diary, where the pressure of language and the process of writing immediately begin to change the initially objective position into something that is increasingly fictional.

EAM2022 Lisbon Abstract Book, 2022

The presentation will outline two attempts to revolutionize the peripherycenter relationship in C... more The presentation will outline two attempts to revolutionize the peripherycenter relationship in Central and Eastern Europe. First belongs to the time of the historical avant-gardes of the 1920-s.
The second to the post-avant-gardes at the turn of the centuries, that re-enacted some basic ideas of the Constructivist and Futurist utopian questions. Appropriated in the global world of exchange they present the foregoing avant-gardes as a starting point for the work today. The retro- and post- generations were proud to announce that they are the heirs of the artistic generation of the constructivists and zenitists, that wanted to promote Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade and Trieste as the centres of the new art, to establish a new bridge between the East and West. The avant-gardes thus revolted against asymmetry of international artistic lines of force. According to them the new, avant-garde world order should introduce a specific asymmetry described by Ljubomir Micić in his 1821 manifesto: “[D]o close the gate / East – North – and Central Europe / Barbarians are coming / do close do close / but we are going to enter anyway.” The presentation will discuss to what extent within the horizontal perspective of art history (Piotrowski) the historical avant-gardes of Micić, Delak and Černigoj, Serbian and Czech surrealists together with the retro-avant-gardes of Neue Slowenische Kunst at the margins of European Cultural Space radically redefined centrality and marginality and undermined the tools of cultural appropriation. We will try to open up the frame of the globalised landscape, but also to find a narrative process reflecting the past within a new historical perspective. To show, how »margins do not merely exist as extensions of the core”. (Mishkov How they challenge their asymmetric conceptualization by the centre and assert agency through construction of alternative regional categories and alternative modes of collective identification.

Authorship, Staging and Beyond - EASTAP MILANO , 2022

The paper explores the idea of a collective “theatrical mind” in both directorial and devising pr... more The paper explores the idea of a collective “theatrical mind” in both directorial and devising practices including a number of creative methods aimed at rethinking theatrical language. Using the methods of performanceart conceptualized by the XX. Century reformers (from Meyerhold to Strehler) contemporary practitioners (Milo Rau, Oliver Frljić, Ontroerend Goed, Pippo Delbono, Brett Bailey, She She Pop, FC Bergman…)
see art as something that is no longer a rival to philosophy and theory, but as something that carries its own self-sufficient truth. The contemporary performative practices follow the assumption of Georg Fuchs (in his 1909 book Die Revolution des Theaters) that “drama is possible without words and without sound, without sets and without costumes, as pure rhythmic motion of the human body.” The authentic
provoker of the dramatic phenomenon being the actor. Or, as Manfredo Tofuri puts it (in “The Stage as virtual City”): “The stage obliges the real to compress itself into it and then to explode at the spectator.” But the stage also obliges the artist to become (as Giorgio Strehler puts it) “only the instrument of the poetry of theatre”.
We will explore some examples of contemporary theatre that create a singular event, the repetition of which, night after night, “does not in any sense hinder the fact that, each and every time, the performance is evental; that is, singular” (Badiou, Handbook of Inaesthetics). In contemporary theatre “what counts in art, what makes art art /… / is neither the ‘beautiful’ nor the ‘sublime’; it is neither ‘sensible manifestation’ nor the ‘putting into work of truth’” (Jean Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural). In a world in which the famous sentence of Antoine Vitez “On peut faire theatre de tout”, still holds true, the new artistic communities and groups reinvent the category of directing, collaborating and theatricality itself.

Creating for the Stage and other Spaces: Questioning Practices and Theories, ed. by Claudio Longhi and Daniele Vianello, III EASTAP Conference, Alma mater studiorum, University di Bologna, 2000

The paper will take a closer look at a specific writing procedures for stage: essay on stage, a f... more The paper will take a closer look at a specific writing procedures for stage:
essay on stage, a form of expression within a given performative system that
reveals the limits of that system as inadequate, imposed. A theatrical essay or
an essay on stage belongs to the tradition of the borders crossing experimental
performance-art pieces conceptualized in the twentieth century by Craig,
Artaud, Meyerhold, futurist synthetic theatre, neo-avant-garde theatre… This
specific form and procedure produces particular truths and also reveals the
limits of artistic genres. It is far from a stable category and it establishes its
inventiveness and singularity by operating at the very unstable limits of the
theatrical and by reinventing the category of theatricality itself. In the words
of Derek Attridge: it is “a work that is genuinely original, and does more than
extend existing norms, it introduces into the cultural matrix a germ, a foreign
body that cannot be accounted for by its existing codes and practices” (The
Singularity of Literature, 55-56). Among numerous possible examples of this
“critical art” we will choose the following ones: the 2009 performance Alice
in Wonderland: A Theatrical Essay on the End of a Civilization, by Italian director
Armando Punzo, staged in Voltera Prisons; the 2012 performance Drawers
(Schubladen) by a German collective She She Pop and Oliver Frljić’s 2016 performance
Our Violence and Your Violence based on Peter Weiss’ novel The Aesthetics
of Resistance. Using the listed examples, we will try to map this specific
devised textual procedure producing what Badiou names “a generic vacillation.
The true theatre makes of each performance, each actor’s every gesture,
a generic vacillation in which differences with no basis might be risked. The
spectator must decide whether to expose himself to this void, and share the
infinite procedure. He is called, not to pleasure …, but to thought” (Rhapsodie,
91-92).

The paper will discuss the tensions between repetition and representation in two cases of contemp... more The paper will discuss the tensions between repetition and representation in two cases of contemporary theatre and drama. Our starting point will be the artistic procedure of the theatre director Oliver Frljić in the performance Damned be the Traitor of His Homeland! According to him the inflation of death, the incessant repetition of the unrepeatable emphasize a theatrical mechanism that always remains the representation of a certain external reality. It challenges the theatrical representation of death as well as the idea of theatrical representation itself through compulsive attempts to stage collective death. The repetitions of death, occurring on stage in almost regular intervals and after which the performers ‘come back to life’, reveal a standstill of theatrical representational mechanisms. It is these mechanisms, producing fiction and most often remaining hidden, that oust any framework in terms of content and theme, thus remaining the only ones visible. We will proceed with Simona Semenič, probably the most outstanding representative of the Slovene (no longer) dramatic and postdramatic theatre and drama, that explores in her texts (e.g. the feast or the story of a savoury corpse or how roman abramovich, the personage janša, julia kristeva, age 24, simona semenič and the initials z.i. found themselves in a puff of tobacco smoke) verbal repetitions, pauses and silences, as well as language and sound effects, such as interjections in order to create a specific tension between repetition and representation in which the first undermines and challenges the second and produces a specific poetic or aesthetic device: an effect ofostranenie or defamiliarization (Shklovsky) or différance (Derrida).

One could say that dramaturgs of today are entering the Rancière's alternative perspective on the... more One could say that dramaturgs of today are entering the Rancière's alternative perspective on the effort to emancipate the spectator: to help him to deliberately attempt to traverse the abyss that divides activity from passivity by asking "if it is not precisely the desire to eliminate the distance that creates it"? (Rancière 12)
In the beginning of the 21st century the dramaturg has to enact the very emancipation of both the spectator and performer. She or he has to establish politics of performing arts that combine in a non-hierarchical way the two paradigms of the aesthetic revolutions (Brecht and Artaud). According to the Brechtian paradigm, dramaturgy has to make “the audience aware of the social situation on which theater itself rests, prompting the audience to act in consequence.” (Ranciere 4)

In the twentieth century the relations between contemporary Slovene drama and theatre was marked ... more In the twentieth century the relations between contemporary Slovene drama and theatre was marked by many changes and dangerous liaisons. This holds true also for relations
between the two artistic fields and the domain of politics. The paper explores these dynamic processes, focusing on the postdramatic and performative turn. Its aim is to show how these lively and dangerous relations led to some of the most interesting phenomena in Slovene drama, theatre and culture after World War II.

The Introduction to the theatre of Oliver Frljić, one of the most provocative post-Brechtian thea... more The Introduction to the theatre of Oliver Frljić, one of the most provocative post-Brechtian theatre directors, as well as to his world acclaimed Mladinsko Theatre production Damned be the traitor of his homeland! that radically approaches love and hatred towards theatre, surrendering both the actors and the audience to the intertwinement of madness and pain. The actors produce a scathing, disturbing, sometimes even shocking performance.

In our paper we are going to examine some of the postmodern readings of the avant-garde that had ... more In our paper we are going to examine some of the postmodern readings of the avant-garde that had been developed within the field of contemporary theatre and performing art during the latest few decades. We will focus on what Aleš Erjavec calls politicized art under late socialism or postmodernism in the postsocialist condition. The starting point for our discussion (is) will be the assumption that postmodern performing arts intuitively or rationally employ Derrida’s deconstructive reading of Western philosophy as its own (artistic) reading of western theatre tradition and its orientation “toward an order of meaning – thought, truth, reason, logic, the World – conceived as existing in itself, as foundation” (Culler) This reading of the tradition is positioned within its critique of what Derrida calls “theological stage” with its structure comporting with the elements of author-creator regulating the time or the meaning of representation understood as something that represents him, his thoughts, intentions, ideas. Postmodern theatre thus develops something that Philip Auslander calls “other grounding concepts” of logocentricity, for example director’s concept or even stage designer’s concept, in which “the logos of the performance need not take the form of a playwright’s text …”

Literatura, Novi pristopi, 2023

Knjiga analizira spremembe in prelome slovenskih dramskih pisav zadnjega stoletja. Zarisuje lok o... more Knjiga analizira spremembe in prelome slovenskih dramskih pisav zadnjega stoletja. Zarisuje lok od Cankarja in njegove hudobne farse Pohujšanje v dolini šentflorjanski, Gruma in ekspresionistične dramatike, Mraka in himnične tragedije, Zupanovega intimizma pa do poetične, eksistencialistične in absurdne dramatike v povojnih desetletjih (Javoršek, Smole, Zajc, Strniša, Taufer, Kozak, Božič, Makarovič, Jovanović, Jesih, Šeligo, Svetina, Jančar). Posebno pozornost namenja tudi dramskim pisavam v postdramskem gledališču in temu, kar mu je sledilo (Filipčič, Zupančič, Mirčevska, Semenič, Morano in nove generacije). Ob tem reflektira premike znotraj slovenske dramatike, hkrati pa tudi gledališča in kulture. Monografija med drugim poskuša odgovoriti na vprašanje, kako je vse to ustvarilo nove definicije besedilnega, dramskega oziroma ne-več-dramskega ali postdramskega, medmedijskega, medkulturnega in medbesedilnega ter rapsodičnega v gledališču 20. in prvih desetletij 21. stoletja. In kako so besedilne prakse vztrajno redefinirale sodobno gledališče, performans in uprizarjanje na splošno.
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The book Dramatic Writings of the Century: from Ivan Cankar to Simona Semenič and beyond traces and analyses the transformations and turning points of the last century’s dramatic writings. It starts with Ivan Cankar and his farce Pohujšanje, Slavko Grum and expressionist drama, Ivan Mrak with his avant-garde drama and hymnic tragedy, Srečko Kosovel’s hybrid dramatic attempts, Ferdo Delak’s synthesis influenced by the Futurists. It proceeds with the analysis of the transformations and turning points of the dramatic writings after WW2, from the intimism of Vitomil Zupan and the poetic, existentialist and absurdist drama of the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s as written by Jože Javoršek, Dominik Smole, Dane Zajc, Gregor Strniša, Veno Taufer, Primož Kozak, Peter Božič, Svetlana Makarović, Dušan Jovanović, Milan Jesih, Rudi Šeligo, Ivo Svetina, Drago Jančar. To be followed by the post-dramatic drama of Emil Filipčič, Matjaž Zupančič, Simona Semenič, Žanina Mirčevska, Jera Ivanc and the new generations, to the post-dramatic drama of the first decades of the 21st Century. It theorises and historicizes the shifts within Slovenian drama, but also within theatre and culture, of aesthetic revolutions from the periphery to the centre, and of the changing maps of Slovenian art and culture in the “century of wars” and “the new (that) can only come about as the seizure of ruin.” (Badiou).
The book pays special attention to the “in-betweenness” of dramatic writing, which was pointed out by Andrej Inkret when describing to what extent drama belongs in a direct and inseparable way to both verbal and theatrical art. Moreover, to the fact, stressed by Peter Szondi, that theoretical model should be used in such a way that they always derive from practice, and not to rape practice with them. The book examines to what extent and how the blurring of the boundaries between reality and fiction in theatre and society has been carried out, taking into account the fact that contemporary dramaturgy has stressed its non-absoluteness. The Slovenian drama has often (as in the paradigmatic case of Pirandello and his Six Persons in Search of an Author) refused to concern itself solely with the dramatic representation of reality. Because of that it has deliberately integrated the creative process of writing and performing into the communicative process of reception, whether that of reading or watching a theatrical performance. The acts of reading and watching were thus increasingly transformed into a meta-critical stances towards (no longer) dramatic writings for theatre.
Through a series of theoretical readings of the history of Slovenian drama, theatre and culture over the last century, the book attempts to show the geographical breadths, to which Slovenian drama and writings for the stage have ventured. It tries to find answers to the question, where or in what places the playwrights have regained their strength, so that the notion of a renaissance of writing for the theatre has even emerged sporadically. Theatre thus made a return to realism or the post-postdramatic, and often aimed at the specific creative process of performance. In analysing the textual corpora of playwrights, we have focused on the mutations of playwriting, theatre and the performing arts as they can be discerned in the writings of authors, usually associated with the transformations of contemporary European drama over the last hundred years.
Drama and theatre in the 20th and 21st century have been characterised by a transition from one cultural landscape to another, and to a certain extent also by the creation of new pathways between a multitude of expressive and communicative forms. Both drama and theatre have been marked by the specific relationship between text and audience, which is characterised by “mutual activity: the text tends to adapt the audience to itself, to impose its own system of codes, and the audience responds to it in the same way” (Lotman 2006 97).
To sum up, Dramatic Writings of the Century: from Ivan Cankar to Simona Semenič and beyond shows, how the transformations of drama and text have produced new definitions of the textual, the dramatic, or no longer dramatic or post-dramatic. It became part of the inter-media, the intercultural and inter-textual exchange. The textual practices have persistently redefined contemporary theatre, performance and staging in general. The passion of the 20th century to destroy the old and create the new (Cankar, Kosovel, Delak, Grum, Zupan, Jovanović, Jesih, etc.) has also been embodied in the 21st century through various translations and reinventions, e.g. in the writings of Simona Semenič, Žanina Mirčevska, Katarina Morano, Varja Hrvatin, etc.
Artistic and cultural initiatives have been and are being created with the need to change art and the world. If the aesthetic revolutions of the 20th century have mostly turned out to be utopias, they have not been without consequences, neither for the reforming artists nor for their works. Nor for the public. We have witnessed, are witnessing and will continue to witness a series of micro-revolutions that are at once artistic, cultural and micro-political. In the chapters of this book, we have followed in the footsteps of reading and watching these revolutions and have tried to guide our readers into new territories of drama, text and scripture in the theatre and performance practices of the last century.
The primary interest of the book was centred on the idea to sketch to which extent and in what ways dramatic writings have enacted the revolution of forms and through. To which extent they were able to speak dramatically and theatrically about the status of fiction and reality in art, culture and society. In doing so, the book applied to the body of Slovenian drama the idea of Patrice Pavis that contemporary drama, in all its versions, as a rule implies reflection and manipulation of illusion. It examined in what ways and to what extent Slovenian drama of the last century has been a series of departures from the traditional, but also an invention of new dramaturgical approaches and the formulation of dramatic material, a dismantling of the classical drama, tailored on the basis of Aristotelian rules, and its transformation into its opposition an open form.
Zbirka NOVI PRISTOPI

Art between practice and theory : theoretical reflections on artistic reality on the threshold of the third millennium. , 2023

The chapter focuses on specific forms of the intertwining of media in contemporary pe... more The chapter focuses on specific forms of the intertwining of media in contemporary performative and visual practices. One could here point out performance art as the most ostensibly intermedial form; however, we choose to go down a slightly different path and use some examples from theatre and contemporary drama: no longer dramatic texts and contemporary theatre. We will focus particularly on the area of interme-dia and the interlacing, or rather, intertwining of performative and visual arts; the relationship between performance art and theatre; post-dra-matic texts on the one hand and visual culture and art on the other. It is a characteristic of this inter- or trans-disciplinary intertwining that it elic-its insistence on traversing the borders between different genres of art, as well as between art and life itself.1 The research for this paper was supported by the Slovenian Research Agency (programme no. P6-0376, “Gledališke in medumetnostne raziskave” [Theatre and interart research]).

University of Ljubljana Press, 2021

The book explores the processes of dangerous relationships between drama and the-atre while ana... more The book explores the processes of dangerous relationships between drama and the-atre while analysing the body of a dramatic or non-dramatic text as a border area belonging to both the field of literature and theatre. It follows the processes of trans-lation from the literary into the performative dimension and vice versa, and shows some possible uses of the term interpretation as part of the creative process. In the field of drama or post-drama, interpreting can mean in the Slovene language either “interpreting” in the sense of a specific reading, or acting or directing a play in the sense of acting or theatrical interpretation as a Bourriaudian media translation from the literary to staged. However, this interpretation and translation can also coincide with intercultural translation from one culture to another. The basic aim of the book is to explore the analogy between critical (hermeneutic) interpretation and artistic interpretation, which we always require to be productive and coherent and thus convincing to us. While detecting the specifics of the inter-pretation of drama and theatre, the book uses eclectic tools offered by literary and performing arts studies to analyse the corpora of contemporary drama or no-longer drama46 performing practices

Creating for the Stage and Play, Arti della Performance: orizzonti e culture, Collana diretta da Matteo Casari e Gerardo Guccini:, 2021

The chapter will take a closer look at a specific writing procedure for the stage, the essay on s... more The chapter will take a closer look at a specific writing procedure for the stage, the essay on stage, a form of expression within a given performative system that reveals the limits of that system as inadequate, imposed. A theatrical essay or an essay on stage belongs to the tradition of the bordercrossing experimental performance-art pieces conceptualized in the 20 th century by Craig, Artaud, Meyerhold, futurist synthetic theatre, neo-avant-garde theatre, and others. I. Towards a definition of the term One can call an essay on stage any performance practice that (like the essay according to Graham Good) makes «a claim to truth, but not permanent truth. Its truths are particular, of the here and now. Nothing is carried over» (Good 1988: 9). This specific form and procedure produce particular truths and reveals the limits of artistic genres. It is far from a stable category, and it establishes its inventiveness and singularity by operating at the very unstable limits of the theatrical and by reinventing the category of theatricality itself. Among numerous possible examples of this "critical art", we will choose the following ones: 1) The 2009 performance Alice in Wonderland: A Theatrical Essay on the End of a Civilization, (Alice nel paese delle meraviglie-Saggio sulla fine di una civiltà) by the Italian director Armando Punzo, staged in Voltera Prison; 2) The 2012 performance Drawers (Schubladen) by the German collective She She Pop; and 3) Oliver Frljić's 2016 performance Our Violence and Your Violence (Naše nasilje in vaše nasilje) based on Peter Weiss's novel The Aesthetics of Resistance (Ästhetik des Widerstands). Using these examples, we will try to map this specific textual procedure that produces what Badiou terms «a generic vacillation» (Badiou 1990: 91).

Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete, 2018

Monografija je zastavljena hkrati kot znanstvena monografija in študijsko gradivo, v katerem so p... more Monografija je zastavljena hkrati kot znanstvena monografija in študijsko gradivo, v katerem so predstavljeni ključni koncepti, teorije, razpotja in dileme medkulturnosti in medmedijskosti. Avtor omenjeno tematiko ne le predstavi s stališča raznovrstnih teorij, pač pa jo zasidra tudi v obravnavi vrste ključnih uprizorjenih del zadnjih nekaj desetletij. S tem postane tematika knjige otipljivejša, kar je še posebej dragoceno v današnjem brezbrežnem prisvajanju uprizoritvenih in siceršnjih teorij in hkrati praks.

University of Ljubljana Press, 2018

The book speaks about the process of re-examining and restructuring theatre and drama... more The book speaks about the process of re-examining and restructuring theatre and drama as well as performance arts in general by means of intertextuality, intermedi-ality and interculturality. During the last few decades of the 20th century, the (post-)dramatic textual and performative tactics developed together with a new wave of “post-avant-garde”, “post-conceptual”, and theatre of images that governed most Slovene stages in the confusion of the post-socialist world. This was clearly seen in performances which undermined both the notion of theatre as mimesis, and the logo-centricity of dramatic theatre.

The dramatic and no longer dramatic innovations can therefore be seen as a part of the specificity of the second part of the 20th century, marked by unrest and a Badioui-an inability to decide between ending the old and beginning the new. The artists wit-nessed and participated in a series of aesthetic revolutions that disrupted the configu-ration of drama and theatre. They were not only witnesses but also the key figures of a process in which media, theatre and literature went through distinct transformations from the dramatic to the non-dramatic, non-literary, and post-dramatic, and to the primacy of the performative. Throughout the century the stage itself was re-examined and restructured, dismantled, and newly put together over and over again

Knjižnica MGL, 2020

Prostori mojega časa, spremna beseda h knjigi Mete Hočevar Prostori mojega časa je knjiga, pos... more Prostori mojega časa, spremna beseda h knjigi Mete Hočevar

Prostori mojega časa je knjiga, posvečena fenomenologiji prostorov gledališča kot ustvarjalkinega in razmišljevalkinega časa, bralcem, ki hočejo razumeti in brati gledališče skozi njegove prostorske in časovne komponente, povezane z zgodbami dramskih in nedramskih tekstov in živo prezenco igralca, ki šele vzpostavlja gledališki prostor. S knjigo vstopamo v prostore in čase gledališ ča, hkrati pa nam bosta omogočili, da lahko te prostore skupaj z avtorico, ki jih kreira in razlaga, tudi mislimo. Meta Hočevar je namreč utelešenje umetnika, ki misli skozi umetnost oziroma – kot bi rekel Alain Badiou v svoji inestetiki – kreira svojo lastno resnico. V vseh obdobjih svojega ustvarjanja in refleksije prostorov in časov gledališča je na gledališko predstavo vselej gledala kot na celostno umetnino.

Ideology in the 20th century : studies of literary and social discourses and practices, Beguš, Ana, Potocco, Marcello, Vinkler, Jonatan. (ed.) Založba Univerze na Primorskem. , 2019

We live in a decade of powerful uncertainties regarding the means, goals and borders of 'glocal' ... more We live in a decade of powerful uncertainties regarding the means, goals and borders of 'glocal' societies, which are being confronted by humanitarian catastrophes, terrorism and post-colonialism. In order to investigate how literature and art are included in the flow of significations and representations that build societal truth, we will use two case studies. First, the novels of Winfried Georg Sebald, with his special narrative technique of connecting the textual and the visual, words and photographs , a literary journey among signs, interrupted by black-and-white photographs. Nicolas Bourriaud perceives them as a symbol of mutation in our recognition of space and time, in which history and geography complement each other, sketch the path and weave a network. The other example is the work of Oliver Frljić, the Bosnian-Croatian theatre director who intervenes into his shocking productions after his own personal, war and political traumas, in order to ask universal questions about the borders of artistic and social freedom, individual and collective responsibility , tolerance and stereotypes. If in his criticism of the contemporary world Sebald is implicit, then Frljić is explicit, almost even demonstrative.

Meta Hočevar: Prostori igre, Knjižnica MGL, 2019

Knjiga Mete Hočevar Prostori igre je takoj po izidu leta 1998 spremenila poglede in interpretacij... more Knjiga Mete Hočevar Prostori igre je takoj po izidu leta 1998 spremenila poglede in interpretacije fenomenov slovenskega, jugoslovanskega in tudi evropskega gledališča. Pokazala in ponazorila je, da scenografija ni več ločeni prostorski element, ki ga dodamo predstavi, ampak je nekaj, kar vsebuje vse druge komponente, ki sestavljajo predstavo. Za gledališki prostor je značilno, da vse združuje, zato v njem potrebujemo vsa svoja čutila. Je tudi prostor, ki ga moramo – tako kot Paul Klee sliko – razumeti kot nekaj, kar je tudi časovna oznaka.

Ponatis te temeljne knjige bo skupaj z novo knjigo Prostori mojega časa, posvečeno fenomenologiji prostorov gledališča kot ustvarjalkinega in razmišljevalkinega časa, bralcem, ki hočejo razumeti in brati gledališče skozi njegove prostorske in časovne komponente, povezane z zgodbami dramskih in nedramskih tekstov in živo prezenco igralca, ki šele vzpostavlja gledališki prostor, sestavljal neločljivo in komplementarno celoto. Z obema knjigama bomo lahko vstopali v prostore in čase gledališ ča, hkrati pa nam bosta omogočili, da lahko te prostore skupaj z avtorico, ki jih kreira in razlaga, tudi mislimo. Meta Hočevar je namreč utelešenje umetnika, ki misli skozi umetnost oziroma – kot bi rekel Alain Badiou v svoji inestetiki – kreira svojo lastno resnico. V vseh obdobjih svojega ustvarjanja in refleksije prostorov in časov gledališča je na gledališko predstavo vselej gledala kot na celostno umetnino.

International Yearbook of Futurist Studies, Ed. by Berghaus, Günter, 2014

The Slovene avant-garde movements of the first three decades of the twentieth century can be clea... more The Slovene avant-garde movements of the first three decades of the twentieth century can be clearly linked to Italian Futurism. All three generations of the Slovene historical avant-garde were familiar with Futurist activities from their very beginnings. The third generation Slovene avant-garde, represented by Ferdo Delak and Avgust Černigoj and his Triestine circle, adapted some Futurist innovations, but the complicated and controversial relation of Italian Futurism to Fascism made them turn away from Futurism and move into the realms of Constructivism. Ideologically and politically linked to Russian Constructivism as well as to its intermediaries at the Bauhaus, the manifestos of the Young Slovene Theatre were filled with Russian Constructivist terminology, but they also echoed the proclamations issued by Marinetti, Prampolini and other Futurists. In this essay, I outline the specific political circumstances of the Slovene reception of Italian Futurism and, on this basis, investigate its influence on the Slovene theatrical avant-garde of the 1920s. This evokes the specificity of the interrelation of the two movements that can be explained by an artistic and political game of liaisons dangereuses.

EEPAP, 2013

As in most countries of the so called New Europe, political changes that occurred in Slovenia in ... more As in most countries of the so called New Europe, political changes that occurred in Slovenia in 1990s were not followed by any radical breakthroughs in the area of cultural politics, but nevertheless brought changes to the “geography” of the sphere of theatre. On one hand the organizational structure of the repertory theatres was left almost intact, but on the other hand we witnessed a strong explosion of the independent or non governmental theatre and performing arts initiatives, although its foundations were established back in the socialist era. Th e changes in the fi nancing of theatrical activities encouraged the activity of independent theatres and companies. As 1990-s the beginning of 2000-s was marked by the fi rm although sometimes too predictable institutional repertoire background allowing for the development of noteworthy theatre laboratories, experimental theatres of the mixed media, which did not merely transfer the trends but also produced highly original and internationally competitive concepts and performances.

Experimental Theatre in the Second Half of the 20th Century

The first part of the book deals with nomadic journeys through drama and threatre of the second h... more The first part of the book deals with nomadic journeys through drama and threatre of the second half of the last century, which trace rhizomatic structures and turning points, interruptions of intertexts as fabrics of citations. In tracing the mutual operation of texts it lingers over selected examples of Slovenian drama and theatre texts from around 1990 (Dane Zajc, Mirko Zupančič, Dušan Jovanović, Drago ¬Jančar, Ivo Svetina). The sites of intertextuality and maps of nomadic paths in the continuation are found within the dramatic works of Veno Taufer and Emil Filipčič and the dialogues between the dramatic and novelistic writings of Dane Zajc and Samuel Beckett. Thus it tracks the techniques and tactics of intertextual seduction and suspicion.
The second part of the book covers the crossing over of the dramatic to the (no longer) dramatic, post-dramatic, and rhapsodic. Of interest are the processes and results of the rhapsodic emergence of the theatre, the intensive rhapsodization of theatrical texts: montages of forms, tones, deconstructions and reconstructions of theatrical, paratheatrical (especially the philosophical dialogue) and extra-theatrical (the novel, novella, essay, letters, diary, confession, etc.), as practiced by such different writers as Ivan Cankar, Bertolt Brecht, Samuel Beckett, Heiner Müller, Marguerite Duras, Gregor Strniša, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Thomas Berhnard, Elfriede Jelinek, Bernard Marie Koltès, Umberto Eco; and by directors in dialogues with writers, for example, Mile Korun with Dostoyevsky and Jančar, Dušan Jovanović with Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, and Krystian Lupa with writers such as Alfred Kubin, Robert Musil, Thomas Bernhard, R. M. Rilke, Hermann Broch, F. M. Dostoyevsky, Mikhail Bulgakov, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Stanislaw Lem.
The third part of the book explores the concept of subversiveness in theatre and staging practices of the second half of the 20th century in Slovenia, and along with it in the art of the second world during the period of socialism and post-socialism and finally in the art of the first, western world: Europe, the United States, and Canada.

A chapter from a book / Poglavje iz knjige Levitve drame in gledališča, str. 137-153. Založba Ari... more A chapter from a book / Poglavje iz knjige Levitve drame in gledališča, str. 137-153. Založba Aristej, Maribor, 2008.

The book directly opens possibilities for cross examination of the theatre theory status, the for... more The book directly opens possibilities for cross examination of the theatre theory status, the formations from the history of theatre and the potential contextualisations of theatre works (procedures, institutions, events) in Slovenian culture after the year 1950. The author’s selection of examples (theatre works, contexts, author profiles, historical orientations) remains within the field of evolutions, revolutions and deconstructions of the theatre work, ranging from radical modernist existential theatre (such as Oder 57) and late-modernist or neo-avant-garde experimental groups (Pupilija Ferkeverk, Glej, Pekarna) to postmodern eclecticisms of the 80s (the directing practice of Jovanovič, Ristič, Pandur and Živadinov) and plural happenings of the conflict or non-conflict heterogeneities of the dramatic and postdramatic theatre in the 90s (Meta Hočevar, Pandur, Betontanc, Kušej, Berger, Hrvatin, Živadinov). That is history, but a history which is theoreticised in the sense that has been let through the interpretative filters of contemporary theories, which serve the examination of the thesis on the confrontation of textocentrism and scenocentrism. (Miško Šuvaković about the book)

Combining analyis of the post-structuralist crisis of the author in relation to contemporary theo... more Combining analyis of the post-structuralist crisis of the author in relation to contemporary theories of drama with discussions about selected dramatic authors of the 1980s and 1990s whose works further pushed Aristotelian theatre into crisis, the book determins that the role of the dramatic author has evolved through the creation of new textual and performative practices, though its status remains vulnerable.

Osemdeseta in devetdeseta leta je tudi v slovenskem prostoru označila dekonstrukcija dramskega gl... more Osemdeseta in devetdeseta leta je tudi v slovenskem prostoru označila dekonstrukcija dramskega gledališča, ki je tekstualno (govorno) zamenjala z vizualnimi in prostorskimi formami in se je že gibala znotraj “postdramskega gledališča”, ki “je postbrechtovsko gledališče” (Lehmann, Postdramsko gledališče, str. 43). Linija Brecht — Artaud — gledališče absurda — Foreman — Wilson je v drugi polovici dvajsetega stoletja pripeljala do razumevanja gledališča kot nečesa, kar je onstran drame, npr. v Lyotardovem konceptu “energijskega gledališča”, ki naj ne bi bilo več gledališče pomena, seglo naj bi onstran reprezentacije.

Mladinsko Theatre History, 1997

Rapa Šuklje’s lucid observations of the Slovene theatre (first recorded in 1964, when she started... more Rapa Šuklje’s lucid observations of the Slovene theatre (first recorded in
1964, when she started writing reviews and essays) today undoubtedly constitute one of the essential elements of the Slovene post-war
theatre and drama history and are a point of interest to any researcher. She was a publicist, critic and translator, who – after obtaining a
bachelor’s degree in law and completing her studies of comparative literature – focused her reflections on various areas of art (film, literature and theatre). In addition to numerous translations and commentaries of the fundamental works of world literature (Oscar Wilde, the Brontë sisters, Knut Hamsun, Virginia Woolf, Alfred Döblin, Jane Austen, Aldous Huxley …) and her essays and monographic writing on film, a significant part of her
attention was turned to Slovene theatre actors and actresses, to the Mladinsko Theatre and contemporary theatre reviews for different media.

Lucidni zapisi Rape Šuklje o slovenskem gledališču (prvi so nastali
leta 1964) so bili pov od za izčrpen intervju.

50 Years of Mladinsko Theatre, 1997

The name Balbina Battelino Baranovič is incorporated into the very beginnings of the Slovene prof... more The name Balbina Battelino Baranovič is incorporated into the very beginnings of the Slovene professional theatre after the Second World War. Born in Vienna, she studied stage arts and journalism there during the war, then later enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Arts (now AGRFT) in Ljubljana immediately after it was established and graduated from its Directing Department. In the period after 1950, as artistic director, she
helped to turn the Prešeren Theatre in Kranj into a professional
theatre.
After 1955, she launched the founding of the first professional theatre for young people, the Mladinsko Theatre. She not only directed performances between 1955 and 1963 but she simultaneously set up its organizational, conceptual and programme foundations. Through these activities, she actually laid the groundwork of the Mladinsko Theatre’s future development as a live theatre with an unconventional repertoire, a challenging and, above all, experimental theatre for young people “from 7 to 70 years of age”.

In a rare interview concentrating on his revolutionary work for Mladinsko Theatre nd political ... more In a rare interview concentrating on his revolutionary work for Mladinsko Theatre nd political theatre of the 1980's Jovanović unfolds some of the most crucial decisions of his generation, the politics and aesthetics of his stage and political revolutions that transformed Ljubljana Mladinsko thearte in one of the most prominent centres of the new politicised postmodern and postdramatic theatre in Eastern nd Central Europe. /
Dušan Jovanović je ime, ki je neizbrisno zapisano v zgodovino slovenske dramatike in
gledališča zadnjih štirih desetletij. Rojen leta 1939 je bil od konca sedemdesetih let do sredine naslednjega desetletja je bil umetniški vodja SMG. Tokratni pogovor z izjemnim eruditom in lucidno umetniško osebnostjo je potekal o zgodovini SMG, ki jo je najprej pomembno soustvarjal kot režiser, potem kot umetniški vodja, avtor
novega, propulzivnega koncepta sodobnega gledališča, ki je v osemdesetih letih postalo vodilno v prostoru nekdanje Jugoslavije ter se je mednarodno uveljavilo
v Evropi in zunaj nje.

In an interview with the dramaturg Tomaž Toporišič, one of the most prominent and discussed new E... more In an interview with the dramaturg Tomaž Toporišič, one of the most prominent and discussed new European theatre directors Oliver Frljić, describes specific procedutes he uses in his latest and most controversial performance Our Violence, Your Violence causing protests of the catholic public and political deputies in Poland and Bosnia.

Quelle est la spécificité du théâtre ? Pourquoi faire du théâtre pour dire cela ? Oliver FrljiĆ:... more Quelle est la spécificité du théâtre ? Pourquoi faire du théâtre pour dire cela ?
Oliver FrljiĆ: Je pense que le théâtre ne représente pas une seule voix mais crée une situation où de nombreuses voix peuvent être entendues. Je ne crois pas dans la démocratie directe, parce que je pense que c’est impossible étant donné les circonstances politiques actuelles. Mais j’ai la conviction qu’au théâtre, nous sommes à l’abri de la répétition.

On the basis of the disintegration of the former common country, the symbolic space in which this... more On the basis of the disintegration of the former common country, the symbolic space in which this disintegration occurred, and the establishment of the new national states, this performance researches -through the seemingly high level of politisation -theatre mechanisms of constructing and deconstructing fiction. By using extremely politically incorrect language it

The contemporary Central European and Slovene theatre of the last decades of the 20th century can... more The contemporary Central European and Slovene theatre of the last decades of the 20th century can therefore, probably very justifiably, be interpreted through several theoretical concepts. That is, Jacques Derrida’s and Philip Auslander’s concepts of detheologization of the stage, Bonnie Marranca and her concept of the theatre of images and Richard Schechner’s anthropological theory of performance, and simultaneously to Lehmann’s concept of postdramatic, often overlapping with Jean-François Lyotard’s concept of the theatre of energy. The interview abords these questions focusing on Mladinsko and independent theatre productions of the last four decades.

AKADEMIJSKI LIST AGRFT 1, 2019

AKADEMIJSKI LIST AGRFT 2019/2020 LIST AKADEMIJE ZA GLEDALIŠČE, RADIO, FILM IN TELEVIZIJO LETNIK V... more AKADEMIJSKI LIST AGRFT 2019/2020
LIST AKADEMIJE ZA GLEDALIŠČE, RADIO, FILM IN TELEVIZIJO
LETNIK VII, ŠTEVILKA 1
Študijsko leto 2019/2020
ISSN: 2712-2875
Izdajatelj in založnik
UL AGRFT
Zanj: PROF. TOMAŽ GUBENŠEK, DEKAN
Uredniški odbor
LUKA MARCEN,
JAKA SMERKOLJ SIMONETI,
IVANA VOGRINC VIDALI,
IZR. PROF. DR. TOMAŽ TOPORIŠIČ (MENTOR)
Odgovorni urednik
PROF. TOMAŽ GUBENŠEK
Producentka
MIJA ŠPILER
Lektorica
KLASJA KOVAČIČ
Oblikovanje in likovna zasnova
ČRT MATE
SARA RMAN
Fotografije novih produkcij in intervjuja
SARA RMAN
Tisk:
DEMAT, D.O.O.
LJUBLJANA, JANUAR 2020
300 IZVODOV

ADEPT, 2019

ADEPT Revija sodobnih gledaliških in filmskih ustvarjalcev LETNIK VI, številka 1, 2019/2020 ISSN:... more ADEPT
Revija sodobnih gledaliških in filmskih ustvarjalcev
LETNIK VI, številka 1, 2019/2020
ISSN: 2385-9164
Izdajatelj in založnik
UL AGRFT, zanj: red. prof. Tomaž Gubenšek, dekan
Glavni in odgovorni urednik
Jaka Smerkolj Simoneti
Uredniški odbor
Filip Mramor, Ivana Percan Kodarin, Jernej Potočan, Tery Žeželj, Tajda Lipicer
Mentor
doc. dr. Blaž Lukan