Call for Papers: Zizek and Performance – Expressions of Interest by 11 June 2012

Expressions of interest are invited from scholars across the humanities interested in philosophy, theatre and performance to contribute to an edited volume on:

Žižek and Performance

Slavoj Žižek is a cultural phenomenon. Since the publication of his first English book, The Sublime Object of Ideology in 1989, his philosophical work has had a distinctive influence on numerous fields, ranging between film studies, political science, media and theology. His numerous publications have influenced the way we think about politics, psychoanalysis and a range of cultural issues in an increasingly volatile political and economic climate. Žižek never fails to provoke or to initiate heated discussion. With his eclectic critique of neoliberalism, capitalist ideology and mass hysteria, he has established himself as one of the most influential thinkers of our age. 

His impact on theatre and performance studies, is harder to assess. Unlike contemporaries such as Judith Butler or Jacques Rancière, whose work has attained near-canonical status in the study of theatre and performance, references to Žižek’s work in theatre studies are often deployed as a means of explaining his ‘more serious’ influences, namely, Jacques Lacan, G.W.F. Hegel, and Karl Marx. Assessments of his work’s practical use and its relevance to the disciplines and practices of theatre and performance are therefore rather hard to find.  

We suggest that Žižek is an important philosopher for a range of fields in theatre and performance. For one – and despite admitting that he might ‘not know a lot about theatre’* – Žižek is certainly quite the performer. The Slovenian philosopher tugs his shirt, free-associates, runs off on tangents, and tells jokes with a timing that would put Woody Allen to shame. He has been described as a ‘Marx Brother’, a ‘deadly jester’ (in a now-famous savaging by conservative journalist Adam Kirsch), and the ‘Elvis of Cultural Theory.’ But there is also something theatrical about his writing. In its witty density and its playful insistence on provocation, it is less a systematic analysis of axioms than it is a ‘performance of thought’. Leigh Clare La Berge (2007) calls it ‘The Writing Cure’, relating Žižek’s work to the role of the analysand in the deeply performative scenario of the psychoanalytic clinic. Sharpe and Boucher (2010) call it an ‘intellectual roller-coaster’. And, as numerous commentators have pointed out, Žižek seems to lack a coherent system. His books and talks often raise contradictory positions or inconsistencies. We might conclude, with Žižek, that the performance of theory, if not the whole point, is at least a great part of his work. It is in such performance — which, to paraphrase Paolo Virno (2004), is its own purpose, and requires the presence of others — that we can begin not to find answers, but to question the very validity of the questions we pose. Today, as scholars of theatre and performance wonder about the discipline in relation to serious questions of globalisation, violence, revolution and political economy, Zizek’s work on the critique of ideology, subjectivity, politics and ontology proves to be more important than ever. 

This volume will be the first comprehensive account of Žižek’s influence on, and his relevance for, performance. It asks what Žižek’s philosophy might offer to the study of theatre and performance, and vice versa. The volume is divided into two sections: the first, entitled ‘Žižek and Performance Theory’, and the second, ‘Žižek and Performance Practice.’ As we understand it for the purposes of this volume, ‘performance’ can encompass a spectrum of forms including (but not limited to) dramatic literature, site-specific performance, dance, physical and devised theatre, queer performance, feminist performance, applied theatre, improvisation and comedy. Part One is comprised of essays which both introduce key strands of Žižek’s thought as well as interrogate these through key concepts in performance theory, such as performativity, theatricality, spectatorship, liveness and so on. Part Two focuses on the applicability of Žižek’s ideas to concrete performance practices and to actual performance work. The volume concludes with an essay examining Žižek himself as a performer and the use of humour as a political/critical strategy. 

Proposals are invited on aspects of Žižek’s work and performance theories and practices for Part Two of the volume especially. 

In terms of final drafts, we will be looking at contributions between 5,000-8,000 words. The overall volume will be approximately 85,000 words with a deadline of February 2013. 

Abstracts of c. 250 words along with a brief biography should be sent to both editors:

Broderick Chow at broderick.chow@brunel.ac.uk and Alex Mangold at arm@aber.ac.uk 

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS: 11 June 2012

*‘The Spectator’s Malevolent Neutrality’, Theaterformen Festival, Brunswick, Germany, 8 June 2004

Jokes, Kafka and Bureaucracy: an appeal to fellow comics

This post is mainly targeted to comedians in the United Kingdom.

I’m working on some content for a Digital Literary Essay, which is spearheaded by the novelist and Professor of Contemporary Thought at Brunel University, Will Self, and which will be hosted by the BBC and the London Review of Books. The subject of the essay is Franz Kafka’s story “A Country Doctor” (1919). In it a doctor visits a patient whereupon he finds:

‘In his right flank, at around hip-height, he has a fresh wound as big as my hand. Pink, in many shades, a deep carmine at the centre, lightening towards the periphery, with a soft granular texture, the bleeding at irregular points, and the whole thing as gapingly obvious as a mine shaft.’

Professor Self’s approach is to engage other academics, researchers and artists in exploring and interpreting the wound. He is particularly interested in irony, with regard to Paul Fussell’s reading of a very similar wound in Joseph Heller’s Catch 22. Fussell argues that Snowden’s wound in Catch 22 is emblematic of a very European irony that stems from the experience of the First World War. Will writes, paraphrasing Fussell:

“The armies of the Great Powers that mobilised in August 1914 imagined a brief – and hopefully triumphant – conflict, fought with the chivalry of previous wars, that would – in that timeless cliché – be ‘all over by Christmas’. When the war on the Western front became bogged down in a muddy and static carnage – while that on the East, while more mobile, was equally bloody – the whole of Europe experienced a form of punishing dramatic irony. It is this dreadful juxtaposition – in Fussell’s view – that lies behind the bleak absurdism of twentieth century European culture and its wider society.”

My initial response to this subject was to look at the wound in relation to Kafka’s larger theme of a kind of all-encompassing, totalising bureaucracy, a symbolic order that structures our lives and yet seems entirely incomprehensible. There is a simple relation between bureaucracy and language itself, in that language seems to constitute our experience of the world, and yet in moments when we are at a loss for words it seems to be entirely inadequate to the task. Bureaucracy and language present themselves as total systems, but are never sufficiently universalising – there are always slippages, cracks, wounds.

Based on my own readings of Jacques Lacan and Sigmund Freud, I want to look at jokes as ‘wounds’ in language. There are some jokes where the gap between the logic of the set-up and the logic of the punch-line is so great as to be completely incommensurable. Literally, one can’t ‘make sense’ of a joke, its the total absurdity between two incompatible ideas that makes it funny, and hence only comprehensible in a kind of convulsive shaking of the flesh and viscera, that is, laughter.*

For this project I would like to consider the types of jokes that arise out of experiences of bureaucracy. I will be studying Soviet humour, but I really would like to do a sweep of comedy in the UK today, and the kind of humour produced by a time when politics, bureaucracy, power seems utterly incomprehensible and yet eminently woundable. 

What I would like from comedians based in the UK is for you to send me your most “Kafkaesque” joke. I will hopefully also solicit some reflection from you on the circumstances of the material.

I will be writing a short piece and we will try to present this joke material in some way (as yet undecided). It’s all a bit up in the air as to what this piece will look like, but I would appreciate your help in any way!

If interested, please email me at broderick.chow@brunel.ac.uk

* On this point one might consider William Empson’s distinction between sarcasm and irony in (I think) Some Versions of the Pastoral: in sarcasm the antithesis reinforces the thesis, but in irony, two things are suddenly true at the same time.

Images from Work Songs at Birkbeck, University of London

Images from Work Songs, 24 February 2012, at Birkbeck, University of London.

Upcoming dates: 8 March 2012, Platform Zero, Zion Arts Centre, Hulme, Manchester

13-14 April 2012, London Studio Centre, wrestling and dance demonstration at How Performance Thinks

4 May 2012, 9 PM, Turn Dance Festival, Contact, Manchester

Work Songs

Work Songs teaser trailer on Vimeo

Upcoming Performance:

8 March 2012

The Dangerologists will be performing an excerpt from Work Songs as part of Platform Zero, at the Zion Arts Centre, Hulme, Manchester. There will be a workshop on dance writing starting at 6:30, with the performance beginning at 7:15. FREE ENTRY.

More information at: http://www.zionarts.com/whats-on/?id=3004

#platformzero

www.watchingdance.ning.com

www.digm.org

Work Songs

by Broderick Chow & Tom Wells {the dangerologists}

A love song to the mindless drudgery and hopeless alienation of office work. A dynamic mix of dance theatre and professional wrestling.

In a thoroughly average corporate office, Tom and Brody are risk analysts with a Sisyphean job; a inbox that never gets smaller. They work and fight and look forward to lunch. Then one day the good chair is taken away and all hell breaks loose.

Work Songs is a dance-theatre and physical comedy performance exploring concepts of labour, training, attention, effort and exhaustion. the dangerologists devise physical theatre around a process of intensive physical training and the working model of ‘rowdy play.’ Work Songs explores forced relationships formed on competition and close proximity. As the two guys compete for promotions and esteem, their conflict is physicalized in the most literal way as they wrestle for the company’s love. By investigating the concept of physical work through the office environment, the dangerologists explore concepts of masculinity, daily drudgery, and the possibility of fulfilling work in the new economy.

Broderick Chow is a Canadian performance maker now living in the UK. He spent 5 years as a stand-up comedian on the UK circuit, and his previous solo work has been a mix of monologue, movement and multimedia. He is a lecturer in the School of Arts at Brunel University, and a doctoral graduate of Central School of Speech & Drama.

Tom Wells is a physical performer whose work has encompassed a variety of forms both stage and screen and site specific. Tom is artistic director of B-Road Theatre Company, whose aim is to bring theatre to the rural heart of Lancashire.

9 May

I’m off to the Palace today, as in Buckingham Palace.

From the Royal Website:

“The Queen, with The Duke of Edinburgh, is holding a reception to recognise young people working in the British Performing Arts at Buckingham Palace on 9th May 2011.”

So yes, I’m going to this.

I’m not exactly sure what I’m meant to do there, but I suppose there will be lots of brown oven food and possibly champagne!

Day 12 of 26: At the movies

I do a movie reviews podcast, which is being recorded and posted on Tuesday night, so this weekend I’ve had to see two films. Going to the cinema (unnecessary interpolation: I still find it strange saying ‘going to the cinema’ here, I prefer the quainter North Americanism of ‘movie theatre‘ — my dad still says ‘picture house’) during the festival is weird. We went to two films, The Sorceror’s Apprentice with Nic Cage and Argentinian Oscar Winner The Secrets in Their Eyes. I’ll leave the review until the podcast comes out on Tuesday, but suffice it to say, one of these films is better than the other. WHICH ONE??

The Sorceror’s Apprentice was a late show on Saturday, 11 PM. There were only two other people in the entire cinema, which I love. I often secretly revel in the fact that online piracy is killing cinema, because it just means less idiots taking up space in cinemas. My favourite thing in the world is sitting in a completely empty cinema; it’s very luxurious, plus, if it’s a scary movie you can pretend that at any moment the projectionist might turn psycho and try to kill you. (This adds greatly to the experience). But because the festival goes on and on outside the cinema/movie theatre, watching films here is kind of like sealing yourself in a bubble. I thoroughly recommend it if you need to get away.

I was interviewed for someone’s school paper the other day, which was quite nice! After saying I didn’t like young people in my last post, maybe I should say I’m a bit frightened of them, particularly their ambition. We barely had a school paper when I was in high school. If we did, I think it probably had a circulation of 10 and came out yearly, until the teacher supervising the newspaper club ran out of money to buy pizza to bribe students to be in the club with. We certainly didn’t have people interviewing comedians at the world’s largest arts festival.

Day 11 of 26: Accidental Flyering

I was waiting for a baked potato the other day when a group of youths came up to the queue. They were waving flyers in our faces and going ‘Hey, come to this show! It’s really good!’ and then giggling to themselves. It transpires, it seems, that they had taken a bunch of flyers for other shows, and were now mocking the flyerers by trying to re-flyer their flyers.

What they didn’t anticipate was when people started taking the flyers, and going ‘Oh, that sounds good, I’ll have to check it out.’ One lady even said ‘are you in the show?’ The stunned boy looked as a deer in headlight does — ready to die. Well, it’s their fault, but I do understand how frustrating it is sometimes when you want to play a stupid, mean joke and all that happens is you end up making someone’s life easier for them. Young people are horrible.

I finally got my potato (or rather, two potatoes, as it was from The Baked Potato Shop), filled with avocado salad (basically a lazy guacamole, as far as I can tell). I had really craved one the entire day. I had forgotten how sick they make you feel afterwards. I think a jacket potato with a veggie filling is a vaguely healthy option, wouldn’t you say? But portion size, Scotland, portion size! A ‘medium’ potato is the size of a Yorkshire Terrier and weighs as much as seven suns. Then they put about 2 kg of grated cheese on it, but it’s this strange cheese that never melts!

Anyways, regardless, I ate the whole thing.

Day 10 of 26: Low-level sketch show racism, show reactions

I found a flyer yesterday for a sketch show that proudly declared one of their hilarious characters would be the winner of China’s Got Talent. None of these people were Chinese. Oh good, I thought, there is almost no way this isn’t going to be a vaguely racist shambles. Why, sketch groups? Why? I just can’t believe that no one, at any point, went ‘Hey! Maybe let’s not do that! It isn’t 1955 anymore!’

You know when your parents are like, I’m not angry, I’m disappointed? I think my reaction to this idiocy is the same. I’m just disappointed some white people actually think it’s ok to effectively perform in yellow-face — I know there might be loads of this going on in, I dunno, closed communities in the Ozarks, or village fetes somewhere, but those places have the advantages of not being at the largest arts festival in the world. I think I’m also disappointed by the insulting implication that ‘China’s Got Talent’ could be a joke in and of itself. That is, ‘ho ho, isn’t is hilarious to imagine a Britain’s Got Talent show in a third-world country?’ But you know what, sketch group? China has loads of shows like that already. Asian popular culture is bigger than you could imagine. And furthermore, China has a BILLION people. Statistically, it’s quite, quite likely to have talent.

I think there’ll be the argument to this that I should just learn to take a joke (political correctness gone mad and all that b.s.). My counter argument would be ‘grow the fuck up.’ You’re not 7, and pulling your eyes back with tape isn’t the height of comic genius anymore.

Anyways, nuts to them. The festival’s ticking along. I have one more show today and then a day off. Yesterday was a lovely one, and the reactions were interesting. One elderly lady said ‘Do you think things will change through individual actions?’ I said, yes, but that’s only a part of it, a bigger part will be some form of collective will on our part. She replied ‘I think that will happen. Maybe it already is happening.’ She kind of winked at me, which only later I found a bit troubling and sinister, as if she was organising a sleeper cell in a bunker under her allotment.

Another older man kind of took me to task by repeating the usual Conservative defense of Thatcheresque capitalism. After the show, of course, that would be a really weird heckle. I like this response, because at least I know the show is working enough to get people ‘riled.’ I don’t want to preach to the choir, I want to deal with the conflicts that are going to arise. I wasn’t really prepared, so I just said, ‘well, it’s much more complicated than that.’ Good comeback, Broderick. Naomi Klein would be proud.

Day 9 of 26: Geez, how many of my blogs are about food?

A gloomy sort of day yesterday, thunderstorms and everything. I got my audience into the room, started the show, and the heavens burst — it sounded like rain on a car roof. You know, quietly lulling, which I suppose isn’t the best audience for a comedy show. They were quiet but nice, a ‘smiler’ crowd (we all have those). But after the show I had two women come up to me, both older. And we just talked about the stuff in the show; the ultra-serious bits. It’s excellent when people seriously engage with it, and when there’s a sense that maybe they’ll continue to think about it afterwards.

I popped into Ong Gie again, for japchae this time (glass noodles — made from mung bean starch; better than it sounds, promise), and I got chatting to the owner. I hope this place succeeds, they’re lovely, but Korean is an unknown element here. I’m sure the students provide a fair amount of business but July and even August must be quiet (if it’s a choice between a kebab and Korean on a drunken stumble, the kebab will always win).

It’s difficult to stay healthy during the festival, which is kind of why Ong Gie is a good thing. They’re quite into vegetables. I’m sure most comics will try a bit and go — what’s that strange plant-like taste in my mouth? It seems hauntingly familiar. In the past it was Susie’s Wholefood’s Diner that saved all of our lives, but that closed down a few months ago. Too bad, that was the first place I ever visited in Edinburgh (not during the festival), probably 7 years ago now.

Day 8 of 26: On Flyering

I did my first bit of flyering yesterday. It is a necessary evil at the Fringe. But people were genuinely lovely about it. This won’t continue on into the third week. By that point the city will be so saturated with flyers the Castle will threaten to float away on a sea of them. We’ll be sick to the point of endless chundering of pictures of male comedians scratching the back of their head and looking a bit puzzled. We’ll even be talking to charity muggers for some interaction with a stranger that isn’t wearing white face paint. By the way, why does every single play on the Fringe seem to involve white face paint? Everywhere you go you see troupes of teenagers in white face paint, doing a version of Woyzeck or Marat/Sade. I can only imagine it’s because they’re young. Maybe they think that that’s what stage makeup looks like, and under the lights it’ll be fine. They’ll get a nasty surprise when they watch the video.

There was an interesting exchange I overheard on the Royal Mile:

PERFORMER/FLYERER: Hey, come see my show? (or something to that effect)

PASSERBY: No thanks, save a tree.

PERFORMER: (Calling after him) They’re recycled!

PASSERBY: What percent?

That foxed him. The passerby walked away unmolested, didn’t take a flyer, and another tree was safe for another day. This is good advice. If you don’t want to take a flyer, use the ecological argument. And if they protest, make the argument more complicated. Like so:

PERFORMER: Hey, come see my show?

YOU: No thanks, BP Oil Spill.

PERFORMER: Obama’s fixing it, and BP’s gonna pay for it.

YOU: The oil spill should be dealt with through collective struggle, as it’s a question of the commons that affects us all. Corporate-political intervention isn’t enough, we need to from this point collectively question our own dependence on oil.

PERFORMER: It’s got 2 stars from the Scotsman.

YOU: No thanks.

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Broderick Chow: Easy, Tiger! is on every day except Sundays at 17:10 throughout August, at Surgeon’s Hall, Nicolson St, Edinburgh, EH8 9DW. Box Office 0845 508 8515

Buy Online

Tickets £5 — presented as part of the Five Pound Fringe

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