Symposium on the Theater of the Anthropocene. An Overture.

Date: June 9, 2023 Budapest

10. Theater Olympics

Description of the event:

How, and how long can we, the mankind, be co-existent to enviroment on planet Earth? And, how are her various nature entities incorporated in present day legal, artistic and  theatrical life? Moreover, how can theater along other arts contribute to the recreation of harmony of our ecology? 

In this one day workshop at the intersection of science and theater, a discourse on what role the stage can play in the Anthropocene is opened. Through this it invites the participants to reflect on their own connection to water, trees, resiliance, artistic creation and much more.

The event is in Hungarian and English (with simultaneous interpretation).

List of invited contributors:

Beaufils, Eliana (theater scholar, Sorbonne, Paris) 

Csáji László Koppány (cultural anthropologist, writer, lawyer, MMA, Budapest)

Englhart, Andreas (theater scholar, LMU, Munich)

Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg (historian of science, Max Planck Institute, Berlin)

Röggla, Katrin (writer, Austria)

Ståhlberg, Sabira (author, ethnobiologist, multiple locations)

Szarvas József (actor, artivist, National Theater, Budapest/Viszák)

Weiner Sennyey Tibor (writer, ecologist, beekeeper, Szentendre)

The workshop is organized and moderated by Frank Raddatz (dramatist, director, theater scholar, Berlin) and Johanna Domokos (author, theater scholar, editor, Budapest/Szováta)

Program overview (see the detailed program below):

11-12.30 Panel I

Lunch break

Panel II  14.30-16.00

Coffee break

Pannel III  16.30-18.00 Film and book presentations and the summary of the day

Titles and abstracts

PANEL I

On Stage: A contract with Nature

Hans-Jörg RHEINBERGER

In my presentation, I will take my point of departure from Le Contrat Naturel (1990), the French philosopher Michel Serres’ (1930–2019) Manifesto for caring about our planet and its planetary future. It is a plaidoyer for giving the things around us, for giving nature a voice again. Instead of being parasites, we have to become symbionts again.

The Tragedy of Earth. Climate change in German-speaking contemporary theatre.

Andreas ENGLHART

Climate change and species extinction are also an immense challenge for German-language theatre. Above all, facts would have to be presented and commitment encouraged. In the lecture, paradigmatic stagings of the last few years will be presented and their dramaturgical potential to adequately deal with the tragedy of the earth and to initiate necessary changes will be discussed.

The art of beekeeping

Tibor Weiner Sennyey

What a mistake Aristotle made about bees that had a huge impact on European society? How did Shakespeare keep bees? How are art, poetry and drama related to beekeeping? What is the responsibility of artists during a world crisis? Poet and beekeeper Tibor Weiner Sennyey, author of the dramas Szapphó, Diogenész and László Kun, tries to answer these questions in his presentation.

AnthropoSun Poetry Wanderung

Sabira STÅHLBERG 

An troppo sin? Ant trop scene?
Anthropocene: Human. Nature. Relationen. Dialog.
Terre. Air. Wasser. Fire. Void.
Journey into langues con translations.
Polyglot poetical Wanderungen
by a scholar and writer,
ethnobiologist and environmentalist.  

PANEL II

Inviting the terrestrial on stage in our minds and bodies 

Eliane BEAUFILS

Bruno Latour exhorts us in his last works to become terrestrial: by this he means that we should develop the conscience of all that attaches us materially to the world as well as to the others, human and non-human. Certain theatrical devices invite precisely the spectators to study the relations they have with their environment and their co-habitants. This contribution would like to analyze four immersive or participative forms, which are very different in nature: Cracks by choreographer Charlotta Ruth (DK), Devenir forêt by Marina Pirot (Bretagne, FR), Où atterrir by the collective Où atterrir founded by Latour (Paris, FR), and Democracy of Organisms by Club Real (D). I would like to examine the extent to which these artistic experiences that viewers are invited to make in a singular place can prelude the change of attitude that Latour calls for.

Acting in the Age of Multiple Crises? Acting in the Age of Ecocide? Acting on stage?

Kathrin RÖGGLA

If one turns as a writer to the central question of the multiple ecological crisis, the question of action will be a core question. Why are we not acting? Who is acting? What is action? It is noticeable that there is a lot of symbolic politics, and in the legal field progress is being made and the legal system is shifting. My text "Dear River" shows how it is itself part of an economic logic, even if it is supposedly above it. At least as applied law. When rivers become legal entities, it is a central challenge to logic. My piece "The Water" came about as a commission from science and ended up in many conversations with experts of action about what they do. Why does this huge braking effect arise and what does it have to do with the generation conflict?

Theater practice as the fulfilment of locality (in Hungarian)

SZARVAS József

The Kaszás Attila Pajta Theater and Gallery in Viszák has a fifteen-year history. All of its works are contemporary, local creative activities with an indigenous intention, combined with art. Our culture-based, multicultural, all-consuming century has tragically turned against the idea of cultivation that can and intends to cooperate with nature, the knowledge and intention to create. The present presentation sheds light on the connections between the preservation and rebirth of culture, which requires faith, language - conceptual connection - understanding, bucolic space and at least two people. Since the fulfillment of locality is the right, opportunity, task and responsibility of every age and generation, as an artist I look for those value-creating forms that unify creative physical and artistic work.

Rivers as natural and cultural entities – from the perspective of the anthropology of art

CSÁJI László Koppány

Rivers attracts people from the ancient times. They are sources of life and death, agriculture and catastrophes, while they not only divide, but also connect people. Rivers are natural and cultural entities. Their physical, cultural, and mythical aspects can be multidimensionally analysed by the anthropology of art that combines the theoretical frames of cultural and social anthropology, theory and history of art, and cultural studies. The presenter invites the audience to a virtual journey through spaces and times – he builds his comparative study on his fieldwork results besides the cultural heritage of the centuries. 

PANEL III

FILM AND BOOK PRESENTATIONS, SUMMARY

Advocates of nature

Frank RADDATZ

The Anthropocene is also always a scientific construction, thus its artistic reflection is in several respects inextricably linked to science. In this unit Frank Raddatz talks about the productions of his Theatre of the Anthropocene, a stage at the interface of art/science, founded in Berlin in 2019. Using video clips, the author and director Raddatz introduces the production Lawyers of Nature. In various countries, including Ecuador, New Zealand, Canada and Spain, forests, rivers and lagoons have been granted the status of legal subjects. Because of their legal status, the actors of nature in a growing number of countries can sue those who harm them. The wild ride through history shows that what is defined as nature is always dependent on the perspectivizations of a culture.

BOOK LAUNCH of a Scandinavian Anthropocene Literary Introduction.

Megfeleldkezni a világról magnóliavirágzáskor. Skandináv antropocén irodalmi betekintő. (L’Harmattan/ Károli, 2023) 

Johanna DOMOKOS

This book launch introduces an anthology including the works of thirty-four early and contemporary Scandinavian authors, which in itself is instructive, exciting and beautiful; but if we project it texts onto each other and pay close attention, we can see how the relationship between man and nature, which is becoming increasingly dynamic and painful these days, is shaped together into a text. By the time of the Anthropocene, almost everything around us and within us has burned out, because the destruction affects both our internal and external values. But silence, hope based on conviction and faith, meditation - and especially: aesthetic meditation - can help us to marvel at ourselves even in such circumstances and to read the solution from this miracle.

(27 March 2023)