{"id":261,"date":"2020-10-18T08:55:11","date_gmt":"2020-10-18T08:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/?p=261"},"modified":"2022-11-23T20:05:55","modified_gmt":"2022-11-23T20:05:55","slug":"documentary-theatre-about-aesthetics-and-politics-an-interview-with-martha-bouziouri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/documentary-theatre-about-aesthetics-and-politics-an-interview-with-martha-bouziouri\/","title":{"rendered":"Documentary Theatre: About Aesthetics and Politics. Interview with Martha Bouziouri"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Savas Patsalidis<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. . . It is only when we exit the comfort of approval and embrace the risk of the \u201cdangerous\u201d recipient that real impact is achieved<\/p>\nMartha Bouziouri<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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Martha Bouziouri. Photo: Thomas Arsenis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Martha Bouziouri is a documentary theatre maker and social anthropologist with a multidisciplinary background. She is also the co-founder of the production company PLAYS2PLACE<\/a> and the artistic director of the newly founded International Network of Documentary Theatre<\/a> (INDT), the first research, artistic exchange and promotion network for contemporary documentary theatre across borders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bouziouri graduated from the Higher School of Dramatic Art of the Greek Art Theatre Karolos Koun. She received her BA from the Department of Communication and Media Studies (University of Athens), followed by an MA in Communication and Cultural Studies. Her PhD thesis in Social Anthropology (Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences), titled \u201cTheatre Makers with a Migrant Background: Representations of Identity and Artistic Expression in Contemporary Greek Theatre,\u201d will be submitted in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bouziouri\u2019s work as a director, playwright, dramaturge and educator has been presented in Greek and international theatre festivals and institutions (Athens and Epidaurus Festival, Dimitria Festival, Greek National Theatre, Onassis Youth Festival, Athens Biennale, Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, Chantiers d’Europe – Th\u00e9\u00e2tre de la Ville, Warsaw Biennale, Warsaw Museum of Modern Art, Wiesbaden Biennale, Spielart Festival, the American University of Beirut, Festival of New Dramaturgies, Razem Pamoja Foundation and more).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, she designed the documentary theatre workshop series “From Field to Stage\/ Dramaturgies of the Other,” which was commissioned by Warsaw Biennale, Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and the Hellenic Theatre\/Drama and Education Network, among others. The workshop draws on her approach to documentary theatre, which is informed by the ethics, research tools and narrative methods of ethnography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bouziouri is a member of Directors Lab Mediterranean (Lincoln Center Theatre Directors Lab, N.Y.), Cultural Innovators Network, Tandem\/Shaml Cultural Exchange Program and Robert Bosch Alumni Network. In 2019, she realized a short-term artistic residency at CENTQUATRE Paris, and in 2020 she was admitted as an artist in residence at the Cit\u00e9 Internationale des Arts, where she is currently developing an international documentary theatre trilogy on radicalisation and terrorism.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Amarynthos,<\/em> Athens and Epidaurus Festival 2018. Photo: Elina Giounanli<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Let us talk a bit about your involvement with documentary theatre. How did it all start? What tempted you to turn to this kind of performance?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My engagement with documentary theatre grew organically over time. My first influences derived from cinema; documentary filmmaking has always fascinated me\u2014both the journey of its creation and potential impact on the real world. Our first theatre productions with my company, PLAYS2PLACE, were all based on real life stories, infused with cinematic elements:  plays such as Adam Peck’s Bonnie and Clyde<\/em>, on the last hours of the infamous couple, or Biljana Srbljanovic’s Family Stories<\/em>, on the experience of war in the former Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, ethnography came along, and everything fell into place. My encounter with social anthropology revealed a fascinating space for creative intersection with documentary theatre, as regards shared ethics, research methods and unconventional narrative tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the core of my work lies the truth of each person (not the facts or the quest for a singular truth), the desire to \u201cmake space\u201d to question our convictions and ultimately welcome the other<\/em> through reflecting on ourselves<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe theatre has more power when the political emerges through the human-e and the cracks opened by subjective memory and experience.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Amarynthos<\/em>, Athens and Epidaurus Festival 2018. Photo: Elina Giounanli<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

You more or less answered what I had in mind to ask you now. However, I think we can still talk a little bit more about it. There is a whole debate about the aesthetics of documentary theatre; a debate that raises numerous issues. That said, I would like to hear how you understand documentary theatre?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Documentary theatre usually starts from a \u201cblank page\u201d and draws on real events or issues, aiming at a reflective revisit of the past or a critical negotiation of the present. The creative, open ended journey of its making includes an extensive period of research and often involves real people (beyond the artistic community), who are directly or indirectly connected, experientially or cognitively, with its subject matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my opinion, documentary theatre is more of a way of perceiving artistic creation in relation to the context in which it is born and matures, and its socio-political imprint, and less of a distinct genre to be demarcated. I think it is a deeply popular and inclusive theatre, for it converses with the real world within and beyond the stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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