schluss mit kunst

(2011)

«schluss mit kunst»

created 2011 in Salzburg

performers: Tomaz Simatovic, Spela Vodeb, Manel Salas

artistic direction, choreography, directing:  Editta Braun

co-directing: Arturas Valudskis

co-choreography: Dante Murillo

composition: Thierry Zaboitzeff

dramaturgy: Gerda Poschmann-Reichenau

lightdesign: Thomas Hinterberger  

texts by Kurt Palm, Bernhard Jenny, Christian Felber

visuals: explosive egg, Editta Braun

Premiere: 5.+6.+7. Oktober 2011, ARGEkultur Salzburg

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Enough of arts!? From storm and stress to agitprop and revolutionary art: for hundreds of years artists have wanted to enlighten, awaken, preach… but can the arts really play a part in changing the world? It needs to be changed, today more than ever.

Currently, various global crises superimpose each other, making each other worse. Climate change, financial crisis, litter pollution, extinction, starvation here and excess there – catchwords that everybody knows, words that overwhelm us. Reality overwhelms us. Everybody’s in the know, but what should be done? What can we do?

The alternatives are resignation or insurrection. Closing our ears or standing up. Now, immediately. We no longer have time for indirect messages. The party is over.

And where is there still room for arts?

Time is running out. We can no longer send artistically cryptic, prettied-up or outlandish messages which will tire out the audience puzzling over them. Maybe art is unnecessary ballast in the resistance against inevitable doom. A detour which we cannot afford anymore, irresponsible distraction from our own superfluous luxury, fatal concealment of what’s essential, opium for the people. A detour which in truth stabilizes the very system it tries to criticize?

Will ‘enough of arts! – stop beating around the bush’ be our battle cry?

Or can we use art as a way to empower, to gain a new outlook, experience the unthinkable and, through surprises, unexpected twists and approaches train our brains to think and feel differently and so maybe (maybe!) develop the creative abilities we need to make survival possible?

The performers start with the resistance against their creative efforts that they experience daily. They clear the stage and make room for plaintext from the internet, for political analysis and rousing speeches. They feel with body, heart and soul the narratives, arguments and demands, let themselves fall into the paradox of making art in view of global catastrophe and plumb with desperate lust the deepest corner of political art in it’s broadest sense.

In light of global catastrophes, does art still have any entitlement in this world? Don't we rather need clear words and political activities? A play about the paradoxes of an art that is political in the broadest sense.

Dance and agit-prop theatre, created 2011 in Salzburg, premiere 5 October 2011, tanz_house Festival, ARGEkultur Salzburg