Authenticity in Contemporary Theatre and Performance by Daniel Schulze;

Author:Daniel Schulze;
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781350000971
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK
Published: 2019-11-22T00:00:00+00:00

Aesthetic strategies

The re-authentification of theatrical experience is achieved by a number of aesthetic strategies that can be found in many immersive performances, despite their enormous variety in form and content. Scholarly study of these strategies is, however, difficult. As Machon points out, all immersive works are based on physical experience which cannot be put into words easily, or, more precisely, it will necessarily lose its strong, experiential quality when doing so (cf. 2009: 2). Therefore, the following section can at best be an outline of some strategies of authenticity, while the analysis of the two performances of Punchdrunk will attempt to put into words the effects of these strategies. Furthermore, an inspection of immersive aesthetics must also take a broad approach simply because immersive practices draw on a large number of techniques and senses. Machon finds a number of aesthetic roots or concepts that can be made fruitful for an understanding of the mechanics of immersive productions. They are, in other words, each ancestors of one aspect of immersive theatre. She cites Nietzsche’s Dionysian principle, the Russian formalists’ concept of defamiliarization (ostranenie), Barthes’ idea of a writerly text and the ‘jouissance’ in engaging with the material, but also Cixous’ and Irigaray’s ‘écriture féminine’, which demands a more sensual approach to art (cf. 2009: 35–43). Furthermore, Artaud’s ‘theatre of cruelty’, or Barker’s ‘theatre of catastrophe’, as well as Broadhurst’s liminality, which is based on Victor Turner’s theories, have a claim to ancestry of immersive theatre (cf. 2009: 44–45). While all these theories are useful and traces of them can be found in immersive theatre, none of them helps to give a thick understanding of the experience, because they only ever cover one aspect. Machon consequently develops her own concept of ‘(syn)aesthetics’ to describe immersive experiences. The concept stresses the holistic approach to perception and analysis of immersive theatre. Drawing on her theories of (syn)aesthetics (cf. 2009) and her ‘scale of immersivity’ (cf. 2013), I want to suggest that aesthetic strategies of a specific performance can best be investigated when grouped into three categories. These are: body, politics and set/frame. For Machon, ‘immersive experiences in theatre combine the act of immersion – being submerged in an alternative medium where all the senses are engaged and manipulated – with a deep involvement in the activity within that medium’ (Machon 2013: 21–22).

This definition of ‘immersion’ makes sense and can be very well applied to most large-scale immersive theatre. It is not clear, however, why Machon would count stand-alone one-on-one performances among immersive theatres as well, as they usually lack the ‘deep involvement’, which she sensibly demands (cf. 2013: 17, 76, passim).6

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