Performance Art ist live. Theatre is Death.
My unauthorized autobiography. Interactive monologue-play on theatre and performance art. Why one sucks and the other is cool.
Meine nicht autorisierte Autobiographie. Interaktives Monologstück über Theater und Performancekunst. Warum das eine doof ist und die andere toll.
Performed at
Plot in Situ Festival. ACUD Theater, Berlin/D 03/2010
Experimentica. Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff/Wales 10/2010
Københavns Universitet. Copenhagen/DK 06/2010
Samtalekøkken: Warehouse 9, Copenhagen/DK
@work Workspace. Warehouse 9, Copenhagen/DK 04/2011
Meine nicht autorisierte Autobiographie. Interaktives Monologstück über Theater und Performancekunst. Warum das eine doof ist und die andere toll.
Performed at
Plot in Situ Festival. ACUD Theater, Berlin/D 03/2010
Experimentica. Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff/Wales 10/2010
Københavns Universitet. Copenhagen/DK 06/2010
Samtalekøkken: Warehouse 9, Copenhagen/DK
@work Workspace. Warehouse 9, Copenhagen/DK 04/2011
This monologue play juxtaposes two performative coming-of-age-stories. Jörn J. Burmester remembers his first aesthetic infatuation with the theatre, and its gradual crumbling from ages 14 to 28, roughly 1976 to 1990. In spite of his disappointment with this first love that never quite bloomed something remained, still live. The urge to see and to show something different, something more arcane. To explore better uses for the age old art. The magic remains alive in performance art. Sometimes. Quite rarely. And so the story of watching, doing and curating performance art remains to be reported, 2003 to present. Fourteen years out, seven years in.
Performance Art ist live. Theatre is death is Burmester's last ditch battle to salvage something useable from the theatre ruins. To wrestle the stage from the hands of authoritarian playwrights and directors who still try to force the audience into an emotional identification pact that has long become invalid. To amaze with tricks everyone has seen a hundred times. To teach things everyone knows. There is no more community to be affirmed from the position of superior knowledge. New knowledge can only be constructed in open processes of playing together. Where anything might happen.
To bring the life back into live art the relationship between author, actor and audience needs to be redefined. That is why there is no fixed text in this piece, no fixed sequence to its elements. The performer gives himself into the hands of his audience, who determine the dramaturgy of the evening by surfing through fragments of Burmester's memories, much like they would through a web page. The journey Burmester and they take together might lead to unexpected detours, new places, and even abandon anything that was prepared in advance.
It is an evening of common thinking about the merits and pitfalls of stuff you can watch and do on stage. Memories, questions and bad acting. An entertaining quest to rekindle a fascination with the stage that had almost been lost.
Performance Art ist live. Theatre is death is Burmester's last ditch battle to salvage something useable from the theatre ruins. To wrestle the stage from the hands of authoritarian playwrights and directors who still try to force the audience into an emotional identification pact that has long become invalid. To amaze with tricks everyone has seen a hundred times. To teach things everyone knows. There is no more community to be affirmed from the position of superior knowledge. New knowledge can only be constructed in open processes of playing together. Where anything might happen.
To bring the life back into live art the relationship between author, actor and audience needs to be redefined. That is why there is no fixed text in this piece, no fixed sequence to its elements. The performer gives himself into the hands of his audience, who determine the dramaturgy of the evening by surfing through fragments of Burmester's memories, much like they would through a web page. The journey Burmester and they take together might lead to unexpected detours, new places, and even abandon anything that was prepared in advance.
It is an evening of common thinking about the merits and pitfalls of stuff you can watch and do on stage. Memories, questions and bad acting. An entertaining quest to rekindle a fascination with the stage that had almost been lost.
