Performance Studies
Ágnes Matuska: Feigning or making? Performance
studies and the possibilities of revising reality
Framed
within the exception of theatre Austin makes in his study on performative
utterances, the article outlines the institutional formation and the main scope
of interest of performance studies, touching upon the tension between the broad
definition of performance offered by performance theorists on the one hand, and
their critique of what is regarded as classic Western theater on the other.
Relying on early modern and contemporary versions of the play/theater metaphor,
the argument illustrates various attitudes and extremes of different takes on
the idea of the world's theatricality, and tries to locate the significance of
the discipline within this context.
Full text in Hungarian
Anikó
Oroszlán: Social performance and theatrical responsibility. The performance
debate and the new Krétakör Theater Company
The paper
has a double aim. On the one hand, it briefly summarizes the theoretical debate
between theater and performance studies as academic disciplines, and on the
other hand, it argues that in contemporary (Hungarian) theater practice the
division between, as well as contrasting theater and performance-related issues
are of minor importance.
Full text in Hungarian
Tibor Várszegi: Data on "A Universal History of
Chance". The Josef Nadj Troupe and "Wind in the Sack"
The title-page of the programme of Lausanne's Théâtre Vidy
was almost completely blank. On it was merely the title of the performance and
the name of the troupe, written in minute, scarcely legible letters, and a
number, which could be easily made out from afar, denoting the serial number
given by the theatre to performances that season. Josef Nadj's diptychon
entitled "Wind in the Sack", the first part of which bears the title
"Anteroom", was given the serial number 9 in the 1997/98 season,
although this number could serve just as well as the title of the work, which
is based on texts by Dante and Beckett. Naturally, it could be attributed
merely to chance that the number featuring on the programme brochure and the
number representing the deepest layers of the performance were the same. But
those who have long followed the works of Josef Nadj and his troupe would have
noticed similar chance occurrences in their earlier works as well. And not just
one. Hence, after a time such observers are prone to think that these events
are really not chance occurrences after all, although neither the director, nor
the troupe ever meant to do anything to create such coincidences.
Full text in English
Brian
Sutton-Smith: The ambiguity of play. Rhetorics of fate
Brian Sutton-Smith approaches the notion of
play both from the perspective of classical and of modern rhetorics, as well as
the difference between western and eastern philosophies. The argument is based on
the assumption that all rhetorics, including classical and modern, are based on
different forms of play. The argument supports an attitude that may be seen as
the rehabilitation of play, stressing that play serves as a model in various
scopes of life, and introduces diverse theories of play, in order to come to a
general understanding according to which dreams can be understood as play, as
well language games or academic work.
Full text in Hungarian
Jill Lane: Reverend Billy. Preaching, protest and
post-industrial flânerie
Jill Lane's study concentrates on the persona
of Bill Talen, Reverend Billy, whose performances offer a leftist critique of
consumer society and of the alienation typical of modern city life. The author
(similarly to Talen himself) takes Benjamin's storytelling as a model to reveal
the characteristics of this comic service, as well as the nature of irony
present in it. The spaces of the city play an important role in the argument as
sites where the appropriation of community culture is most prominent. Quotes
from Talen's performances support the idea that the ambiguity of Bill Talen's
persona, hovering between the real and the fictitious reverend enable Talen to
changes his roles successfully. The author also draws attention to the threats
of the persona becoming solely dominant over the performer.
Full text in Hungarian
Imre
Mátyus: Stages, bedrooms, and channels - Representation of identity on YouTube
The primary
objective of this article is to point out how YouTube can be utilized as means
of representation of identity. The article claims that users' acts of symbolic
creativity are based on their individual media literacy - patterns, topics and
narrative strategies used in user generated content are introduced by
"traditional" electronic media. The text focuses mainly on original contents of
personal video channels and video blogs (vlogs) rather than remixed or
redistributed material (e.g. movie segments or music videos).
Full text in Hungarian
Ervin Török:
Melodrama, satire. The Mikszáth-paradigm (Adaptation and tradition)
The article examines a specific type of adaptation
through comparing Kálmán Mikszáth's novel Beszterce
ostroma [The Siege of Beszterce] with Márton Keleti's eponymous film. The
novel and the film belong to different lines of tradition. Mikszáth's novel continues
the heritage of Jókai and Dickens, while Keleti takes up the thread that
characterizes Hungarian comic films of the 1930s, and brings this genre to its
culmination. The study examines the way Keleti's film recreates Mikszáth's
novel within this context. The analysis of narrative segmentation and narrative
distance reveals how Mikszáth's novel can be told in the language of comedic
film on the one hand, and how, on the other hand, such an adaptation opens the
possibility for the self-reflection of the cinematic language of the 1930s. The
creative reworking of Mikszáth's text reveals its ambiguities and which shows the
novel to be its own pre-reflexive satire. Its double structure in calling for
distancing from and identification with the text at the same time allow for
both nostalgic-tragic interpretations (e.g. Márton Keleti) as well as readings
in the mode of liberation and playfulness.
Full text in Hungarian
Hódosy
Annamária: Mary Poppins or the Winged Word
Mary Poppins or the Winged Word discusses the differences between Travers'
and Disney's Mary Poppins. Disney turns the fiction into a Buildungsroman
for contemporary parents encouraging fathers to take part in family life, while
denouncing feminism as a threat and - on a more hidden ideological level -
promoting consumerism, while Travers's novel is composed of episodes serving as
textual initiation rites that try to guide the young characters (and readers)
passing from the oral, women-dominated culture of early
childhood into the written, "official" universe of adults.
Full text in Hungarian
Review
Attila Kiss:
Marriage of body and theatre (P. Müller Péter: Test és teatralitás)
This review
essay highlights the most important elements in Péter P. Müller's new book in
light of the postsemiotic theories that gained momentum after the visual and
corporal turn. The volume contains a wide-ranging historical and theoretical
overview as well as original interpretations, and it expands the spectrum of
critical investigation beyond the traditional confines of the actor - theater
relationship in order to incorporate the interaction between human body and
theatricality, which is operational in every scene of the social network. P.
Müller attempts to establish a new definition of theatricality by understanding
it as an agency that mediates social relationalities.
Full text in Hungarian
Students' Workshop
Levente Pax: Werner
Herzog's Documentaries
Werner Herzog's
documentaries and feature films have similar characteristics and deal with
comparable topics. After pointing out the difficulty in differentiating between
documentaries vis-á-vis feature films,
the study examines Herzog's work in the light of a traditional definition of
documentaries by John Grierson, and shows through specific examples the characteristics
of Herzog's documentaries and discusses the way they deviate from Grierson's
theory.
Full text in Hungarian
Katica Babarczi: Exploited Heterotopias
The essay
studies the relationship between space and role. The function of a given space
also suggests the role we are supposed to take when we enter a territory. In
the cinema, for example, we are expected to be spectators, while in a shop we
are consumers of certain products. Is it possible, however, to find spaces
which do not require any kind of specific behavior or perfomative acts, and are
rather empty and suspend the roles of the individual? Although the main example,
public transportation, is simple and
ordinary, it is capable of examining whether such spaces exist at all, and how
are they used or even exploited.
Full text in English
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