The STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABEŞ-BOLYAI issue article summary

The summary of the selected article appears at the bottom of the page. In order to get back to the contents of the issue this article belongs to you have to access the link from the title. In order to see all the articles of the archive which have as author/co-author one of the authors mentioned below, you have to access the link from the author's name.

 
       
         
    STUDIA DRAMATICA - Issue no. 1 / 2012  
         
  Article:   KANTOR ET L’URGENCE DU PRÉSENT. LA PRÉ-EXISTENCE SCÉNIQUE COMME MODALITÉ DE RÉSISTANCE À LA RÉACTION ESTHÉTIQUE / KANTOR AND THE URGENCY OF THE PRESENT. STAGE PRE-EXISTENCE AS MODE OF RESISTANCE AGAINST AESTHETIC REACTION.

Authors:  BENJAMIN ABITAN.
 
       
         
  Abstract:  Kantor and the Urgency of the Present. Stage Pre-existence as Mode of Resistance Against Aesthetic Reaction. In France, it is generally accepted that Kantor left no legacy. However, we are currently witnessing a renewed interest in his work amongst younger artists. This can partly be explained as the need to break away from a certain reactionary climate in terms of aesthetics, which is visible notably throug: - the existence of a general defiance against the autonomy of the stage, therefore implying a need to work on supposedly “legitimate” themes; - the explicit political position of the artist as a prerequisite to subsidized creation.
The opposition stated here does not come from a generational conflict, but rather a dichotomy that positions French theatre between a theatre of representation, which is the largely dominant pole, and a theatre of presence, of which Kantor contributed to open up the way. There are in France, therefore, two opposing visions of the actor, seen either as having a proficiency that is summoned from a “neutral” state, or as a real presence that comes before all fictional construction; likewise, there are two ways of considering the separating line between the stage and the public, either as a threshold that calls to fraternize or as an unassailable barrier.
This point of view is not that of a researcher, but rather one of a practitioner, educated at university and then at the Conservatory in the 2000’s and who, therefore, knows Kantor’s work only from its traces.

Keywords: Tadeusz Kantor, legacy, France, young theatre companies, esthetic reaction, autonomy of the stage, theatrical pre-existence, legitimacy of art, politicization, subversion, function of art, post-dramatic theatre, avant-garde, actor, illusion, representation, presence, stage/public separation, crisis of meaning.
 
         
     
         
         
      Back to previous page