Festival and the City: Performativity of Sexual Acts in Public Spheres

Abstract

In this article, we address the perception of sexual activities in performance within public spheres, looking at how they become aesthetic, social and cultural interventions once embodied within performative events (theater street performance, carnival, festival, rave, etc.). As part of our methodology, we study the works of two theater companies, La Fura dels Baus and Teatro Oficina. These companies’ performances in urban contexts, as well as at some festivals and particularly carnivals, become a way of staging sexual acts in public spaces, in opposition to the dominant narrative of sheltering such acts in private, domestic space. We look at how collectiveness and civic spaces become essential elements of this phenomenon, and its relevance in our contemporary reality as an element of subversion of social structures.