Performance series
Under the joint title Irresolvable we aim to question a set of irresolvable paradoxes that structure the core dynamics of our contemporary society and each individual existence. That is to say, we’ll be looking at terms, ideas, or rather concepts which represent some kind of referential points (ideas) for contemporary self-awareness (truth, happiness, freedom, reason, justice, death, equality, god, etc.), with which we are living in constant conflict. Definitions of these terms are thin and elusive. Every social (political) system seeks them out for itself from within its own value system. From the perspective of historical consciousness then, these can never represent the final answers, but merely answers in relation to the concepts that happen to be dominant in a given historical context and which condition the progress of science, religion and art. This is always a question of ideology – that is irresolvable.
In an aesthetic formal sense, the theme, itself fairly “classical”, takes us back to the theatre as a “classical” medium for acting out different roles, in which the dualisms Idea-Matter, Spirit-Body, Life-Death, Subject-Object, Man-Woman, Truth-Lie, Reality-Illusion etc., are in constant tension and conflict with each other. We take theatre to mean a medium, or an artistic tool which emerged precisely because of the irresolvable nature of these dualisms and which has remained salient, meaningful and interesting for the same reason until today. The exploration of various parts; the constant tension between Subject/Imaginary and Object/Real; our perennial need to believe in God/Future/Happiness/Goodness/Success, in other words in Illusion, constitute the basic creative field (convention) not only for the “classical theatre” but also for contemporary performing arts. The various aesthetic “disagreements” seem to us, in contrast, rather banal.
There is another, very important reason why we have embarked on a new thematic series of performances. Our aim is no longer to problematize the medium (theatre, contemporary performing arts, visual arts, etc.) or to question the artist’s position in a post-industrial age, its meaning as well as his/her relationship with the consumers of contemporary art. With the Via Nova performance series we have, in a sense, come full-circle in our self-reflexivity; a lot was said and we have grown tired of going over the same terrain. Of course, this does not mean, all has been said, nor that we’ll never be speaking about ourselves again.