The Artistic Commission of the Festival KONTRAPUNKT 2010 and the Faculty of Madia and Communication of the University of Szczecin invite the audience to participate in the discussion panel about:
THEATRE AMONG TRENDS AND FASHIONS
We would like to instigate the reflection on various aspects of art of theatre and/or theatrical life that can be discussed in the perspective of broadly understood category of “fashion”. We would like our two-day debate, accompanying the forty-fifth Small Theatre Forms Festival KONTRAPUNKT 2010, to offer a space for exchange of opinions on at least two fields. The first one is about ways of presence of fashion as a subject in drama and theatre. The other is about tracing place, tasks and roles – actual as well as potential ones – of theatre establishing itself among various trends, in situation of creative influence of fashions on artistic activities (when trends/fashions became a tool, context, or point of reference for dramaturgic and theatrical interpretation of reality), and in opposite side, in conscious and declared resistance against a current trends, rejected and negated as a danger to independence and uniqueness of artistic expression.
Theatre is a place of establishment of meanings, transmission of heritage, accumulation of tradition, but also of creation of a piece of art as an aesthetic object. Analyzing theatre basically from aesthetic perspective, though not ignoring the relationships between aesthetics and politics/power and their artistic results (we discussed this subject last year, debating on “Theatre as a place of seduction”), we would like to propose some provisionally formulated issues that could become leading subject of our April dispute:
1. Fashion as a subject of a drama and/or theatrical production.
2. History and cases of “fashionable theatre”, and “trends in theatre.”
3. Pressure of trends/fashions confronted with style and convention (revolutionary potential?).
4. Integrative and/or disintegrative role of fashion in theatre.
5. Theatrical costume and its ability to represent and/or break of with current trends.
6. Actual and/or potential results of acceptance and creative resistance against fashions.
7. Artistic impacts of linguistic fashions (for example, common everyday speech, lexis and grammar of subcultures, etc.) on construction of dialogues and performances.
8. Does beautiful equal only trendy/fashionable? Does trendy/fashionable always equal beautiful? – questions about creative functions of theatrical criticism.
9. Theatrical repertoire in context of social trends/fashions (for example public discourse about education, “cultural policy”, “political correctness”?).
10. Art marketing as a factor creating idea of “trendy theatergoing”.
We save the rights of the participants of the panel to decide freely on supplement the field of concretization and exemplification of the proposed subjects. At the same time we hope for innovative analyses and creative debate. Our aim is dynamic discussion, free exchange and confrontation of various opinions, also in dialogue with the audience.
Robert Cieślak
Promotion of the book “Theatre – a Place of Seduction”
Teatr Mały, ul. Bogusława
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010, 10.00 a.m. to 1.00 p.m.
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010, 10.00 a.m. to 1.00 p.m.
