Omförhandlingar : Kropp, replik, etik

Abstract

Renegotiations:
Body, Line, Ethics departs from questions concerning authorship and
agency for actors in institutionalised settings and moves towards a discussion
on ethics, responsibility and possibilities in the body – text relationship.
The question of how bodies can be renegotiated in and by the theatrical line is
central to the work. Against a backdrop of previous and other stage productions
in theatre institutions and independent constellations the staging of three
texts by Elfriede Jelinek: Rosamunde,
The Wall and Winterreise becomes the method for investigating and articulating
the authorship of the actor. An investigation of the possible renegotiation of
the (female) body from social objectivity to existential subjectivity has
unfolded through the three works, partly in dialogue with the thematic content
of the texts but mainly through the process of reflection and action spurred by
the actor's translation of the dramatic line into bodily and oral specificity,
in the labour of making poetry concrete. The ethics of ambivalence proposed by
Simone de Beauvoir has emerged as an important artistic method in these
processes, as her ethics not only suggests a conceptual and political framing
of the work and authorship of the actor as inherently ambivalent and
transcendent, but also offers a range of methodological approaches to agency
coupled with rather than opposed to doubt and self-criticism, for a
simultaneous construction and questioning of subjectivity. Photos and videos
from the three performances are part of the final presentation of the
dissertation, as are three freely articulated responses from Christina
Ouzounidis, Annika Nyman and Hanna Hallgren, who each expose critical,
methodological and thematic aspects in one of the works.

Part of the presentation is
also an essay in four chapters. Departures and conflicts in the project is
discussed, in a topology extending from institutional critique to methodology
and feminist theory. The work and position of the actor is articulated in
relation to thinkers as Hannah Arendt and Virginia Woolf, together with a feminist
reading of a dialectical theatre tradition and the historical and philosophical
understanding of "the woman" as proposed by Simone de Beauvoir. With
Beauvoir the essay moves into a discussion of the theatrical situation as
constituted by body and time rather than by social circumstances. This
discussion is further deepened by the psychoanalytical approach offered by
Julia Kristeva's understanding of the relationship between language and the
speaking subject, and then moves into a description of the methods used, using
the staging of Rosamunde as example.
Finally, an attempt at articulating the actor's work as an ethical practice is
presented, as a consequence of the previous discussion but also informed by the
postcolonial analysis of feminism and translation of Gayatri Chakravorty
Spivak, Sara Ahmed's queer phenomenology and Judith Butler's approach to what
constitutes "the possible."

Rather than understanding the
practice of the performing actor as a work aiming at communicating themes or
ideas and bringing narratives to life, this dissertation suggests understanding
it as a social and political becoming, where the performing body can create the
possibility of observing itself and the possibility of renegotiating the
creation of subjectivity; all in the moment of the performance. Thus the work
concludes with an insisting on the body – text relationship as performative and
potentially radically transformative: a becoming with the other and others
where the body is exposed to the risk and possibility of change, a change in
which desire, grief and insecurity are embraced as ethical resources.

• author: Fransson, Petra
• opponent: theatre critic Benér, Theresa; professor Roos, Cecilia, Stockholm University of the Arts
• organization: Teachers (Malmö Theatre Academy); Malmö Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts
• publishing date: 2018-01-15
• type: Thesis
• publication status: published
• subject: Performing Arts
• keywords: acting, body, theatrical line, ethics, action, feminist theatre, critical practice, speaking subject, ambiguity as method, performativity, artistic research, Elfriede Jelinek, Simone de Beauvoir, Julia Kristeva, Hanna Arendt, Virginia Woolf, Judith Butler, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Sarah Ahmed
• in: Doctoral studies and research in fine and performing arts
• issue: 20
• pages: 331 pages
• defense location: Malmö Theatre Academy
• defense date: 2018-02-12 14:00:00
• ISSN: 1653-8617
• ISBN: 978-91-7753-546-1
• ISBN: 978-91-7753-545-4
• language: Swedish
• LU publication?: yes
• id: d982ae99-5a94-47cd-b914-e1ff9780fd2a
• date added to LUP: 2018-01-15 09:11:59
• date last changed: 2022-03-18 10:47:43