{"id":190,"date":"2019-10-21T10:24:58","date_gmt":"2019-10-21T10:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/?p=190"},"modified":"2022-02-05T13:28:38","modified_gmt":"2022-02-05T13:28:38","slug":"no-womans-land-walking-as-a-dramaturgical-device-in-performance-of-maternal-migration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/no-womans-land-walking-as-a-dramaturgical-device-in-performance-of-maternal-migration\/","title":{"rendered":"No Woman\u2019s Land: Walking as a Dramaturgical Device in Performance of Maternal Migration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rosie Garton<\/strong>*<\/a> and Ildik\u00f3 Rippel<\/strong>**<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

In reference to Zoo Indigo\u2019s autobiographical production No Woman\u2019s Land (2016), this chapter discusses the performance walk as a methodology towards a dramaturgy of migration. Ildik\u00f3 Rippel and Rosie Garton (Zoo Indigo) physically retraced the 220-mile migratory walk of a refugee mother, in search of an embodied experience of endurance. The chapter argues that, through the concrete experience of the walk and the staging of the exhausted maternal body, the performers developed a dramaturgy of authenticity in the performance of migration. In reference to kinesthetic empathy, the chapter proposes that audiences equally experience an authenticity effect in witnessing exhaustion and the act of walking on stage.
Keywords: <\/strong>No Woman\u2019s Land, performance walk, walking women artists, kinesthetic engagement<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

In 1945, Ildik\u00f3 Rippel\u2019s grandmother, Lucia, was expelled from her place of birth in lower Silesia. The area was liberated by the Soviet Army and a systematic rape of German women was ordered as a retribution for the atrocities and war crimes committed by Nazi Germany. After being raped, Lucia was forced to leave her home. She walked three months through the fractured post-war landscape of Europe, dragging her two small children and all of her belongings in a cart. In August 2015, seventy years after the end of the Second World War, Rosie Garton and Ildik\u00f3 Rippel (Zoo Indigo theatre company) re-walked this 220-mile journey from Brze\u017anica, Poland, to Pulspforde, Germany, crossing borders, climbing fences, bleeding, blistering, carrying their own children as life-size cardboard cut outs, strapped to the performers\u2019 backpacks in flat-pack form. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nre-tracing of this walk produced a change of the performers\u2019 bodies, an\n\u201cauthentic\u201d physicality, marked by exhaustion and the bodies\u2019 memory of the\nendurance. The project explored a dramaturgy of migration, the maternal body\nand authenticity in performance, through the inclusion of real (hi)stories and\nthe embodied experience of a migratory walk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Zoo Indigo\u2019s performative response to the walk, No Woman\u2019s Land <\/em>(NWL<\/em> 2016), the duo re-engaged with the experienced endurance. Throughout the piece the performers (and sometimes audience members) walked on treadmills through digital projections of past and present landscapes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\narticle discusses the performance walk as a methodology towards a dramaturgy of\nmigration, enabling an authentic representation of the migrant mother through\nthe staging of the exhausted female body, the interweaving of documentary\nfootage and the real act of walking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rosie and Ildiko walking with flatpack kids. Preparing for the walk. Photo: Tom Walsh<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Re-tracing Migration:\nA Performance Walk <\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Walking as durational performance has been explored frequently in contemporary art practices. One of the earliest and most piercingly poetic examples is Lovers: The Great Wall Walk<\/em> (1988) by performance art couple Marina Abramovic and Ulay. The artists walked 2,500 kilometers each from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China to meet in the middle for a last embrace\u2014to separate and end their relationship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video 1<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n