The Effect of the Real: How Do Performing Artists Affect Historiography?

Abstract

With the ‘turn’ of post-dramatic theatre and conceptual dance since the 1990s, the narration of history and the performance of stories became central in the practices and theory of theatre and dance. In this context, the format of the anecdote gained a key position for strategies in history, and narrating and dealing with the ‘effect of the real’. I will ask how narratives in/as performances work against the master narratives of social and economic hierarchies and of thought patterns of (neo-)colonialism and power relations. Theory of narration in historiography (H. White, S. Greenblatt) will be discussed, along with a reading of the performances of contemporary artists: Boris Charmatz, Rabih Mroue, and Mette Ingvartsen. What kind of knowledge do the fragments of (autobiographical) anecdotes provide – and how do performing artists practice and challenge ‘historiography’?