Lecture performance by Blaž Lukan
Blaž Lukan, Ph.D., takes a stroll through strategies that Via Negativa has developed to establish the relationship with its audience. It consists of the following chapters: Viewing Itinerary (Starting Point: Anger, 2002), Viewer As Accomplice (More, 2003), Performative Economy (Incasso, 2004), Game Of Conditionals (Would Would Not, 2005), Viewer Seduction (Viva Verdi, 2006; Not Like Me, 2007), Death In Viewers’ Lap (Four Deaths, 2007), Viewer As Leftover (Out, 2008). By analyzing these strategies the lecturer launches a series of performers’ demonstrations that put him in the centre of the effects he talks about. The theorist cannot avoid “getting his hands dirty with practice” – and the same holds for VN performers who find themselves in the role of his demonstrators. The audience too finds itself in a dual role: the lecturer addresses it as his student, and the performer as his viewer.
Text and lecturer: Blaž Lukan
Performers (scenes from Via Negativa performances 2002 – 2008): Katarina Stegnar, Grega Zorc, Boris Kadin, Mateja Pucko, Kristian Al Droubi
Concept and direction: Bojan Jablanovec
Producer: Špela Trošt
Production: Via Negativa, 2009, with the support by Ministry of Culture of Republic of Slovenia and the City of Ljubljana
Premiere: 26 June 2009, Performance Studies International, PSI 15 Conference, Zagreb
Duration: 75 min