{"id":455,"date":"2021-05-27T09:13:50","date_gmt":"2021-05-27T09:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/?p=455"},"modified":"2026-06-19T11:33:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T11:33:21","slug":"transnational-subjectivities-of-arab-artists-in-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/transnational-subjectivities-of-arab-artists-in-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"Transnational Subjectivities of Arab Artists in Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ruba Totah<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

In the last five years, hundreds of performing artists from Arab countries have been scattered throughout neighbouring countries and Europe. In exile, these artists have been increasingly forced into old and new complexities of nationalism, incorporating relational dynamics in emerging transnational spaces. The complexities have permeated artists\u2019 life stories and led to a phenomenon of replicating their biographies on European stages. By showing aspects of artists\u2019 transnational subjectivities around inclusion and exclusion, this paper examines how such subjectivities reveal that presenting migrant artists\u2019 biographies on stage acts against their freedom and offers a variant understanding of transnational theatre.
Keywords<\/strong>: transnational subjectivity, inclusion, post-migrant aesthetics, Arab performing arts, transnational theatre<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The recent wave of migration from Arab countries to Europe, including hundreds of thousands of Syrians, is well represented in the European performing arts scene (Cox and Wake 142). By taking part in the \u201cWelcome Culture,\u201d European theatres gained legitimacy by welcoming artists arriving in their cities (Wilmer 93; de Andrade and Balme 7). Host theatres established ensembles to provide migrant artists with a space for reworking their stories (Wilmer 96). Many performing artists from Syria[1]<\/sup><\/a> joined these ensembles, which produced an assortment of personal stories in the form of documentary theatre. By offering space to accommodate audiences’ increasing ethical and political curiosity around refugee artists from the Global South (Litvin and Sellman 47; Cox 4), productions tackling migrants\u2019 stories spread rapidly and grew into a European stage phenomenon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The various representations of this phenomenon show how migrants\u2019 documentary aesthetics convey both solidarity and diversity through culture. Multi-layered perceptions of these aesthetics focus on how they exclude racial referencing (Petersen 8) and avoid ethical discomfort when immersing spectators within the performing experience (Meerzon, \u201cPrecarious Bodies\u201d 34; Musca and Corr\u00eaa 389), and how they involve artists\u2019 subjectivities emergence during their travels, which promote theatre as a medium of cultural diplomacy (Tinius 271). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These migratory aesthetics deal with the distance that powers of the post-migrant space created between artists and their stories when preparing them for the stage; borrowing Schechner\u2019s term, the \u201cworked-on\u201d life story (Barba and Savarese 235). They do not unravel the multiple cognitive, relational and biopolitical processes that these artists have experienced (Totah, \u201cNo Room\u201d 6), which transform their subject when handling dynamics such as nationalism. By omitting considerable portions of subjective aspect of artists\u2019 life experience, institutional aesthetics commodifies artists\u2019 biographies (Bishop 64; Kunst 5), mythologises migration by creating the \u201cdefaced\u201d migrant figure (Meerzon, \u201cPrecarious Bodies\u201d25), and as a result dogmatises solidarity and movements calling for migrants\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hani (name anonymized) is a 37 year old artist currently based in Germany. He comments on the performance poster of the ensemble he joined: \u201cMaybe I used to have a specific feeling when I saw our poster at the theatre in Syria. Here it just did not give me the same thrill of fear, wondering how the spectators would perceive it\u201d (Hani). Once life stories are narrated in a creative process, artists construct a reflection that combines creativity with a system of what Sartre defines as subjectivation, \u201ca certain type of internal action, rather than the simple relationship of the subject to itself\u201d (Sartre et al. 3). This reflection includes awareness of relationships between the self and the other within artists\u2019 performative action (Totah, \u201cNo Room\u201d 6), which gives importance to what Kierkegaard calls their \u201cintensity of feelings\u201d (qtd. in Sartre and Baskin 7).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hani\u2019s reflection on his experience expresses feelings that deal with what Dahinden defines as transnational subjectivity, which describes the positions artists adopt as they recognise their belonging in a transnational space, one that crosses borders (1). For Boenisch, these positions comprise a self-reflection that maintains a distance from the self and can never be identical to its being (16). This paper examines how migrant artists\u2019 transnational subjectivities reveal that putting parts of their biographies on stage actually goes against their free will, echoing Sartre\u2019s conclusion of \u201cbeing condemned to be free\u201d (Sartre and Baskin 63).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A holistic approach to understanding artists\u2019 biographical narrations incorporates actions, memory and estrangement connected to home and beyond as central to artists\u2019 transnational subjectivity. It questions Hani and other artists\u2019 inclusion experiences, in homeland and in exile, when attempting to establish a home and career. This approach extends from discussions of the relationship in the Arab region between performing arts and global issues such as national struggles (Totah, \u201cPerforming the Collective\u201d 124; Nassar 16), postcolonialism (Rowe 7), resurgent anti-nationalist movements and anti-authoritarian regimes (Hussami 8), and exilic theatre (Meerzon, \u201cPerforming Exile\u201d 295). Addressing artists\u2019 subjectivities helps understand transnational theatre as a challenge to their biographic representations. Understanding artists\u2019 subjectivities holistically offers explanations of their existence, migratory aesthetics and institutional involvements, moving beyond European-oriented \u201csolidarity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By grounding knowledge from four years’ research, this paper makes use of participant observations, biographical interviews with sixteen artists, performances attendance and involvement in networks related to migrant artists in Europe. The research analysis combined several methods[2]<\/sup><\/a> in examining artists\u2019 journeys and the strategies of their lived experiences at home, and in borderlands. (Borderlands are temporary stops which have local and international ideologies that both integrate and differentiate artists as a group.) In addition, it examined artists\u2019 life trajectories in Europe, where \u201chome\u201d was a central topic of the analysis. This paper uses various findings generated about the artists\u2019 transnational experiences to provide a socio-political and existential reading of transnational theatre in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Majd Feddah, Kamel Najmeh, Kenan Hmeidan, Maja Beckmann, May Hares. Miunikh\u2013Damaskus: Stories of One City<\/em>. Directed by Jessica Glause. 5 May 2018. Munich, Germany. Photo: Gabriela Neeb<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
The Complexity of Arab Nationalism and Arab Performing Arts<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Although the term \u201cArab performing arts\u201d invites racial framing, it is analytically indicative of artists\u2019 relationships with the complexities of nationalism, which affect their subjectivities development. Edward Said has provided a multi-layered understanding of Arab nationalism, inspired by various literary and artistic experiences. He defines nationalism broadly as an \u201cassertion of belonging in and to a place, a people, a heritage. It affirms the home, created by a community of language, culture, and customs, and by so doing it fends off exile, fighting to prevent its ravages\u201d (182). He views nationalism, connected to the concepts of exile and inclusion, as implied within individuals\u2019 relational dynamics, such as behaviour and cognition. Previous research into the transnational cultural experiences of such artists postulated that the life experiences of artists from Syria incorporated various dynamics set around concepts of home, belonging and inclusion, including personal interaction with local and global politics and economies in the form of life trajectories and productions (Totah and Khoury 5; Totah, \u201cNegotiating \u2018Home\u2019 Borders\u201d 443; Totah, \u201cNegotiating \u2018Home\u2019\u201d 16).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the Syrian displacement, political topics of inclusion and exclusion in the second half of the twentieth century engaged Arab artists in various forms of activism. Said explains that the intersection between the pre- and post-1948 situations produced a turning point (for more, see Rodinson and Perl), which revealed a rift in Arab historical representation. Connected with the Palestine question, the post-1948 condition created a collective Arab national identity, a defiance of colonialism, which had not existed earlier (68). This collective ethos coincided with regional identities in every Arab country. As a persistent entity, Arabs have collectively experienced exclusion as a result of both imperialist projects and dictatorships (Ibrahim, \u201cCrises, elites\u201d 305) and populist agendas (Salloukh 53; Ibrahim, \u201cThe Trouble\u201d 377).<\/em> At the same time, they experienced inclusion through the continuous flow of nationalist resistance designed for liberation and decolonisation (Kassab 12).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Explaining the rift as a historical paradox affecting artistic production, Said discusses Arab productions\u2019 \u201cproblematic site of contemporaneity\u201d (68), linking Arab nationalism to the artistic repertoire. He proposes that after 1948, Arabs were restoring their historical continuity, healing ruptures and forging a historical possibility. The \u201cscene\u201d in Arab dramatic productions resembled a continuous site of \u201ccontemporaneity,\u201d where the past half-century’s productions, including absurdist fiction, theatre and criticism, transformed into a constant reflection on the rift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Syria, performances addressing the 1967 war affirmed the contemporaneity issue by reflecting on totalitarianism. Sadallah Wannous, a Syrian playwright (1941\u201397), situates the evolution of the performing arts movement in Syria during the past half-century in a mix of inclusion against colonialism and authoritarian exclusion. His plays, such as Soiree for the Fifth of June <\/em>(1968), examine a controversial self-imagining of a fragile Syrian national identity. Ziter reflects on Soiree<\/em> and other Wannous manuscripts\u2019 potential for transforming performances into a rehearsal space for Syrian civil society, revealing the paradox where defiance of colonialism and nation-making processes are promoted without freedom of speech and assembly (22). Until the revolt of 2011, performing artists struggled to expose the paradox, turning performances and criticism into a continuous questioning of the past, and reproducing their consciousness of inclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such contemporaneity was renewed following the Arab uprisings inside and outside Syria. Elias Khoury, in his foreword to the book Doomed by Hope: Essays on Arab Theatre<\/em>, connects Wannous and fellow artists of his era with the 2011 generation of Syrians attempting to bring hope by readdressing defeats and dictatorships. He suggests that theatre-makers\u2019 involvement in the uprising was aimed at actualising humanity through performance (xiii). As the revolt deteriorated into war, this vision produced further projects in various directions, through artists\u2019 life trajectories inside and outside Syria, including survival trajectories connected with some artists\u2019 new state of exile. Almost half a century after Wannous and nine years after the Syrian revolution, Hani reflects:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In art, there is a need to play it smart, to avoid a clash with the government apparatus and with conservative communities. Here [in exile], I need to play childishly nostalgic, thinking about how people become separated by any means but are united in making weapons of war that keep the economy running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artists\u2019 survival trajectories provide a transnational aspect to the problematic question of the contemporaneity of Arab nationalism. By emphasising the present tense in projecting his vision of the artist\u2019s role, Hani has brought together visions of the self, memory and home in space and time, including past paradoxes of nationalism and new mechanisms of survival in exile. Unlike the dramatic \u201cscene,\u201d which is static and explainable, artists\u2019 relational dynamics reveal an ongoing transnational biographic paradox between past and present, dealing with complexities of inclusion inside and outside their homeland. This paradox\u2019s spatial and temporal aspects conceived artists\u2019 unstable consciousness about self and belonging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generally, this consciousness reflects processes of realising the self, its negations and alterities, which constitute beings\u2019 subject. Subjectivity, for Agamben, results from the ongoing fight between living beings and superior powers, possibly resisted radically (\u201cWhat Is\u201d <\/em>14). For Sartre, subjectivity is a continuous struggle for the subject\u2019s freedom, distorting our fixed understanding about the self (Sartre and Cumming 13), where the subject comprises the consciousness of the self and the objects around it through reflections on the experience of the subject. By relentlessly recreating the self\u2019s consciousness through various relational dynamics in transnational spaces, artists have attempted to resume their struggle for freedom from nationalist and other framings. Through recreating their consciousness in exile, artists experience what Said calls \u201cthe exile\u2019s predicament\u201d (189), which causes resistance to acculturation by cultivating a non-indulgent \u201cscrupulous subjectivity.\u201d The following section describes how, by engaging in local and transnational social fields, artists generated biographical paradoxes to set up investigative transnational subjectivities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transnational Theatre and Arab Artists<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Following their migration, the global governance of migratory aesthetics added another layer to the complexity of artists\u2019 inclusion. Criticism has shown that performances about migration contribute to maintaining states\u2019 neoliberal sovereignty over migration\u2019s cultural forms and artists\u2019 subjectivities (P\u00e9coud 1630; Hemelryk Donald 9). Kunst addresses capitalism\u2019s reliance on creativity, imagination and dynamism in promoting the performing arts (4), while Zaroulia suggests that migrants\u2019 representations in performance neglect the escalation of conflicts and capitalism (182). By describing the instrumentalization of art, these studies place the inclusion practices of institutions and members of the host societies under a global economic system that contributes to an overarching transnational power structure that affects artists\u2019 subjects and stories.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Majd Feddah, Kamel Najmeh, Kenan Hmeidan, Maja Beckmann, May Hares. Miunikh\u2013Damaskus: Stories of One City<\/em>. Directed by Jessica Glause. May 5, 2018. Munich, Germany. Photo: Gabriela Neeb<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In the case of migrant Syrian artists, the power structure is intersectional and comprises authoritarian theatre systems, migrant authorities\u2019 economies, cultural and commercial institutions that provided networks for artists\u2019 career and mobility, and post-migrant theatre visions (Totah, \u201cNegotiating \u2018Home\u2019 Borders\u201d 435; Totah, \u201cNegotiating \u2018Home\u2019\u201d 20). The boundaries of this structure governed artists\u2019 performativity, directing mental and physical processes of their memories, and artistic choices and imagination\u2014<\/strong>the biopolitics of their lives (Totah, \u201cNo Room\u201d 3).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artists\u2019 experiences within this structure at home and in exile generated an awareness of its power and an awareness of inclusion. Hani\u2019s use of \u201cplay it smart\u201d and \u201cchildishly nostalgic\u201d reflect compliance and confrontation, which, as in other artists\u2019 stories, provide a reflexive perception of his subjective state of becoming himself. However, in creating this awareness of the self against the power structure, artists do not achieve what Sartre calls self-knowledge or complete knowledge of life experiences (Sartre and Cumming 15); their accounts recreate their consciousness by their constant attempts to know more about the self and the means of its inclusion. Spatially, the artists\u2019 stories were constructed in three multi-scalar transnational spaces: in the homeland, in a country bordering Syria and in a European country (Totah, \u201cNegotiating \u2018Home\u2019 Borders\u201d 437; Totah, \u201cNegotiating \u2018Home\u2019\u201d 21). These spaces nurtured the development of the artists\u2019 consciousness, turning their subjectivities into a continuous transnational biographical paradox built around their perceptions of local and global inclusion throughout their life history, not only in Europe. This biographical paradox offers a new perspective on transnational theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Studies on transnational theatre in Europe place it within a global perspective of diversity that promotes individuality and cross-border ties. Bullock suggests that it operates outside of national criteria, relying rather on participants from diverse backgrounds, not linked to a category of theatre, working within a culture that promotes cosmopolitanism as a theatrical vision that advances human rights (364). Balme discusses examples of transnational European theatre development programs in emerging countries, which invite cultural modernisation and the adaptation of Western practices (128). Such programs, Grace contends, enhance artists\u2019 transnational subjectivities but also extend systems of inequality and neocolonialism (9). Closely related, but central to artists\u2019 travel experiences, Meerzon introduces \u201ccosmopolitan theatre,\u201d which uses hypermodernity to turn the performance into a form of critical cosmopolitanism (\u201cStaging Subjectivity\u201d<\/em> 16). It focuses on encounters around border crossings and views on the divided self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the development of artists\u2019 subjectivities through transnational social fields introduces a somewhat variant view of transnational theatre, which grounds its understanding in artists\u2019 life stories before and during their journey of migration, without seeking to achieve Western diversity. It demonstrates the extent to which their life trajectories reproduce biographical paradoxes and influence artists\u2019 free will. It negotiates the European-oriented understanding of transnational theatre, by introducing relational dynamics of artists as a subaltern group where its members\u2019 biographical paradoxes continuously and transnationally re-structure their consciousness of the self and belonging, relying on the past. The following section demonstrates how artists\u2019 immersion within the transnational social spaces influences their consciousness of their inclusion and free will.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Majd Feddah, Kamel Najmeh, Maja Beckmann, May Hares. Miunikh\u2013Damaskus: Stories of One City<\/em>. Directed by Jessica Glause. May 5, 2018. Munich, Germany. Photo: Gabriela Neeb<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Artists\u2019 Transnational Subjectivity<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Home-making and Subjectivity<\/em><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Previous research reveals that artists\u2019 relational dynamics in transnational social fields include survival trajectories and strategies to re-establish a \u201chome\u201d that can surmount the new national boundary, where they can find settlement and belonging (Totah, \u201cNegotiating \u2018Home\u2019 Borders\u201d 445; Totah, \u201cNegotiating \u2018Home\u2019\u201d 23). Their trajectories at the borderlands include identifying with Arab migration systems, where they repeated patterns of compromise, manoeuvre and patience to cope with estrangement. Their trajectories also include disentanglement from emotional connections to the Arab collective entity and confrontation with cultural affiliations. Being contradictory but experienced in parallel, artists\u2019 trajectories show that they have struggled to identify past Arab connections that may forge possibilities of finding a new \u201chome.\u201d Their inclusion refers to overall Arab historical connections, whereas their exclusion refers to their struggle to materialise those connections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artists\u2019 consciousness of this paradoxical combination of identification and disentanglement makes for a new biographical paradox and a new problematic \u201csite of contemporaneity,\u201d not only for them, but for other Arabs after the Arab uprisings. Through being transformative, artists\u2019 life trajectories remodelled their spatial relationship with the Arab region, going from being a representing entity to an unreachable one, where connections with it comprise layers of physical and internal borders that have kept up confrontations with past examples of it. If, as Said believes, the past for a migrant is a complex combination of nationalism and belonging and their opposites, and exile is a process of continually connecting with the past to maintain a critical historical connection (26), then artists\u2019 state in Arab borderlands has reignited their skepticism of past Arab nationalism, recreating an awareness of their Arab belonging by developing subjectivities reliant on the past and its inclusion complexities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming to Europe, artists have engaged in creative processes that have introduced new survival trajectories and reformulated their biographical paradox. Previous research suggests that, after leaving their national connections at the border, artists have opted to re-engage with them, connecting cultural references and behaviour in the homeland with those in their new country (Totah, \u201cNegotiating \u2018Home\u2019 Borders\u201d 449; Totah, \u201cNegotiating \u2018Home\u2019\u201d 29; Totah, \u201cNo Room\u201d 7). To cope with the new power structure, their trajectories in Europe developed around creative processes that enabled them to move between reality and imagination.  In this imaginative world, artists redefined \u201chome\u201d as something distant which could be changed or exist in an imaginative space that is symbolic and reflexive. Through these techniques, artists have created an imagined version of their consciousness, which has deepened their biographical paradox. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sartre describes imaginative consciousness as a situation where one cannot act on something but resorts to play-acting to transcend real-world action and produce a consciousness of what it becomes (Sartre and Cumming 21). The attempt at reaching this consciousness becomes an \u201cimaginative experience,\u201d but producing a consciousness about it transforms the new experience into an existing reality. Through reflection, the story or the perception of the imagined home becomes the material that the imagination provides to surpass home\u2019s meaning, producing an embodying aspect of a home. However, bound by its imaginative consciousness that is constantly resistive, the imagined story remains resistive and weakens the meaning attributed to home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To that end, the imagination, and the perception of \u201chome\u201d act against each other, so that whatever consciousness has created about the home, or even about the self, is equivocal, unstable and transitory. It is a consciousness of something about home and self, but not the consciousness of the home and the self. Driven by this imaginative consciousness, artists\u2019 choices about the self and home contribute to resisting fixed understandings of the self and belonging to the new place and means of their inclusion. Overall, the creative processes become experienced moments of repeatedly generated perceptions and meanings of the self, home and belonging that resist a final consciousness of them, and thus resist a final appearance of their subject on stage. Such a resistive composition of the subject and its appearance\u2014its representation\u2014contributes to artists\u2019 biographical paradox of their past and present and adds a new layer concerned with reality and imagination.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, beyond the artists\u2019 consciousness, representations of their subject on stage provide a new level of resistance. The final performance, which does not necessarily include all possible representations of their subject made in the creative process, is based on the director\u2019s perception. The director\u2019s perception resists multiple representations of artists\u2019 subjects by confining them in a single representation of the director\u2019s choice. Since it is produced within the solidarity space, the director\u2019s strategy of selection aims at achieving diversity. One director elaborated: \u201cI do things intuitively, build trust, and then guide artists to a certain direction that does not repeat stereotypes about them. I make it show the collective work done.\u201d Although this strategy complies with the post-migrant vision that avoids exclusionary visions of artists as outsiders (Petersen 8), artists\u2019 imaginative consciousness in the creative process was not able to resist the way (designed by the director) their final representation appeared on stage. It thus did not transcend the reality of their representations. As such, varying strategies between artists and director still do not accommodate aspects of artists\u2019 conscious transformations resulting from the creative processes, leaving the selected representations of the documentary experience lacking aspects of artists\u2019 own (subjective) development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In summary, the transnational social fields comprise layers of biographical paradoxes. They recreate artists\u2019 consciousness of the self that maintains confrontations with the past. Spatial, temporal and imaginative processes within artists\u2019 present experiences constitute an internal movement of the self that resists a fixed definition of home and belonging and transcends the artists\u2019 self beyond their subjects. As such, the power structure that hampers artists\u2019 holistic subjectivity representation on stage limits any investigation beyond their subject towards its freedom.   <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Kenan Hmeidan. Miunikh\u2013Damaskus: Stories of One City<\/em>. Directed by Jessica Glause. May 5, 2018. Munich, Germany. Photo: Gabriela Neeb<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Solidarity Theatre and Subjectivity<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

While taking part in the transnational power structure, the host institutions’ desire for solidarity influenced their artists\u2019 subjective development by orienting their relational dynamics. Among them, the M\u00fcnchner Kammerspiele offered a transcultural approach to solidarity, establishing the Open Border Ensemble (OBE)[3]<\/sup><\/a> that enabled interaction between artists coming from Syria and their peers from Germany. The first production of the OBE, Miunikh\u2013Damaskus: Stories of One City <\/em>(2018) was directed by Munich-based German director Jessica Glause. In this storytelling theatre, the M\u00fcnchner Kammerspiele attempted to explore the possibilities of building a common space between its actors. This theatre project was prepared for a mobile stage to tour in the open air in the suburbs of Munich, engaging new audiences, most of them unfamiliar with theatre. Along with the OBE members, this production included a Syrian\u2013Palestinian guest female performer and a German actress from the M\u00fcnchner Kammerspiele itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hani commented on taking part in such performances: \u201cI felt I should share stories about my village, about caring for trees before the war started, but then I decided to be more realistic and show how we tell such stories to the audience, while war materials are still being manufactured\u201d (Hani).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A study (Totah and Khoury 7) demonstrated that such solidarity approach enables artists to create coping strategies that validate ongoing confrontations with others and readjust their political and artistic decisions, as well as the stories they share with peers, contributing to creating a shared \u201cthird space.\u201d This space becomes a \u201cseized opportunity\u201d against the strategy of the power structure (de Certeau 219), where artists recreate their consciousness of the self, including its alterity, and generate a resilience. However, if continuous adjustment of their decisions in these spaces ends by hampering representations of artists\u2019 own subjectivity, the \u201cthird spaces\u201d encourage congealing these practices, especially that they are arising from repeatedly seizing this opportunity under the authority of the solidarity space. As such, the intercultural dialogue within the solidarity spaces, which aims for diversity enhancement, pushes artists to comply with the power of the solidarity space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within this solidarity space, the artists’ resistive nature reformulated their biographical paradoxes around alterity and negation. Hani\u2019s reaction to the poster reveals that memory is a counter-performative resilience attribute that connects geography and past events with present stories, against a specific performance which he is obliged to naturalise. The study of migrant Syrian artists\u2019 performativity demonstrated resilient mechanisms against the power structure (Totah, \u201cNo Room\u201d 4). Their resilience reflects a desire that includes conscious actions and unconscious interactions related to alterities or lost opportunities throughout artists\u2019 life stories, which turn those stories into a movement between the self and its alterities, and their resulting biographies into objects resembling their other. Their desires expanded the boundaries of the self through inviting alterities and negations, widening the scope of their identity-making. These mechanisms involved what Sartre describes as a \u201ctactile experience\u201d (Sartre and Cumming 18), which explains the influence of perception through handling something rather than seeing it. The impact of these mechanisms drives artists\u2019 choices and decisions against the power structures governing their actions towards their free will. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If pursuing free will choices is a primal urge of existence, the future of artists\u2019 conscious development involves dreams about freedom from authoritarianism and dreams about actualising humanity through performance. In this case, their resilience attributes comprise their projects of extending or transcending the self to pursue their freedoms. However, as the study (Totah, \u201cNo Room\u201d 9) also concluded, their desire and resilience attributes do not avoid larger-scale restrictions on their performativity, leaving no space for what Agamben describes as the \u201cBare life\u201d (\u201cWe Refugees\u201d 116) state of migrant artists, which revolves around breaking with being migrant citizens by maintaining the tension between subjectivity development and post-migrant calls for diversity. As such, resilience mechanisms fail to achieve the artists\u2019 freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, in stressing a durable, tactile experience to achieve solidarity through theatre, institutional approaches to solidarity inevitably come to the fore. Solidarity practice resulting from artists\u2019 engagement with theatrical institutions becomes more valid when artists\u2019 moments of \u201cenduring-in-the-self\u201d are practised within longer periods of creative processes (Totah and Khoury 11). However, recent updates in theatre solidarity spaces have shifted against this prospect of validity. As of 2019, the OBE ensemble members were incorporated within the general ensemble, due to funding issues; the same has occurred in other institutions. Hence, if theatres’ inclusion processes are steered by funding and cultural diversity politics, then despite advocating for artists\u2019 free will, artists\u2019 relational dynamics in the transnational space are amalgamated with the inclusion visions of the organisers of the creative space, and their resilience mechanisms cannot break from their confederated state with solidarity and inclusion policies which direct, moderate and lead their participation in exile. Artists\u2019 choices are not directed towards their freedom but, rather, towards assimilation within these inclusion spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Majd Feddah, Kamel Najmeh, Kenan Hmeidan, Maja Beckmann, May Hares. Miunikh\u2013Damaskus: Stories of One City<\/em>. Directed by Jessica Glause. May 5, 2018. Munich, Germany. Photo: Gabriela Neeb<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The transnational relational site of contemporaneity situates artists\u2019 transnational subjectivities within the active phase of their freedom. Transnational subjectivity includes all interactions through trajectories and strategies around social, political and economic local and globalised conceptions of art, marking artists\u2019 life projects of extending the self towards what they imagined about their lives. However, through hampering artists\u2019 holistic representation of their subjective development on stage, the power structure limits their investigation beyond their subject towards free will. Moreover, in uniting with solidarity visions of the post migrant spaces, artists\u2019 choices do not accomplish dreamed of freedoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
Endnotes<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/sup><\/a> This includes Syrians and Palestinian refugees in Syria. See Maher Charif.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/sup><\/a> Empirical knowledge and transnational biographical narrative analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/sup><\/a> See: www.muenchner-kammerspiele.de<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
Bibliography<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Agamben, Giorgio. “We Refugees.” Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures<\/em>, vol. 49, no. 2, 1995, pp. 114\u201319.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014.\u201cWhat Is an Apparatus?\u201d and Other Essays<\/em>. Stanford UP, 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Balme, Christopher. \u201cTheatrical Institutions in Motion: Developing Theatre in the Postcolonial Era.\u201d Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism<\/em>, vol. 31, no. 2, 2017, pp. 125\u201340, muse.jhu.edu\/article\/663575. Accessed 8 Apr. 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barba, Eugenio, and Nicola Savarese. A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology: The Secret Art of the Performer<\/em>. Routledge, 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bishop, Claire. \u201cAntagonism and Relational Aesthetics<\/a>.\u201d October<\/em>, vol.110, no. 3, 2004, pp. 51\u201379. Accessed 3 Aug. 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boenisch, Peter M. \u201cWho\u2019s Watching? Me! Theatricality, Spectatorship, and the \u017di\u017eekian Subject.\u201d \u017di\u017eek and Performance<\/em>, edited by Broderick Chow and Alex Mangold, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, pp. 48\u201360.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bullock, Philip Ross. \u201cIbsen on the London Stage: Independent Theatre as Transnational Space<\/a>.\u201d Forum for Modern Language Studies<\/em>, vol. 53, no. 3, 7 June 2017, pp. 360\u201370. Accessed 16 Aug. 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charif, Maher. \u201cPalestinian Refugees in Syria: Fully Integrated, for Better and for Worse<\/a>,\u201d Palestinian Journeys<\/em>. Accessed 21 Aug. 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cox, Emma, and Caroline Wake. \u201cEnvisioning Asylum\/Engendering Crisis: Or, Performance and Forced Migration 10 Years On<\/a>.\u201d Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance<\/em>, vol. 23, no. 2, 2018, pp. 137\u201347. Accessed 2 Dec. 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cox, Emma. Performing Noncitizenship: Asylum Seekers in Australian Theatre, Film and Activism<\/em>. Anthem Press, 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dahinden, Janine. \u201cAre We All Transnationals Now? Network Transnationalism and Transnational Subjectivity: The Differing Impacts of Globalization on the Inhabitants of a Small Swiss City.\u201d Ethnic and Racial Studies<\/em>, vol. 32, no. 8, 2009, pp. 1365\u201386.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

de Andrade, Clara, and Christopher Balme. \u201cTransnational Networks of the Theatre of the Oppressed: The Institutionalization of a Circulating Method.\u201d Journal of Global Theatre History<\/em>, vol. 4, no. 1, 2020, pp. 3\u201320.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

de Certeau, Michel. \u201cThe Practice of Everyday Life: \u2018Making Do\u2019: Uses and Tactics.\u201d Practicing History: New Directions in Historical Writing after the Linguistic Turn<\/em>, edited by Gabrielle M.Spiegel, Routledge, 2005, pp. 213\u201323.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace, Daphne. \u201cDeceptive Entertainments: Transnational Tricksters and the Theatrical Journey to Self-knowledge.\u201d Consciousness, Literature and the Arts<\/em>, vol. 19, 2018, pp. 1\u201325.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hani (anonymized). Personal interview. 3 May 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hemelryk Donald, Stephanie. \u201cDebt, the Migrant, and the Refugee: Lampedusa on Stage.\u201d Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance<\/em>, vol. 23, no. 2, 2018, pp. 193\u2013209.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Houssami, Eyad, and Elias Khoury. \u201cDoomed by Hope.\u201d Pluto Press. 2012<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ibrahim, Saad Eddin. “Crises, Elites, and Democratization in the Arab World.” Middle East Journal<\/em>, vol. 47, no. 2, 1993, pp. 292\u2013305.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014. “The Troubled Triangle: Populism, Islam and Civil Society in the Arab World.” International Political Science Review<\/em>, vol. 19, no. 4, 1998, pp. 373\u201385.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jean-Paul Sartre, and Robert Denoon Cumming. The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre<\/em>. Random House, 1965.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jean-Paul Sartre, and Wade Baskin. The Philosophy of Existentialism<\/em>. Philosophical Library, 1965.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jean-Paul Sartre, et al. What Is Subjectivity?<\/em> Verso, 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kassab, Elizabeth Suzanne. Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective<\/em>. Columbia UP, 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kunst, Bojana. Artist at Work, Proximity of Art and Capitalism<\/em>. John Hunt Publishing, 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Litvin, Margaret, and Johanna Sellman. \u201cAn Icy Heaven: Arab Migration on Contemporary Nordic Stages.\u201d Theatre Research International<\/em>, vol. 43, no. 1, 2018, pp. 45\u201362.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meerzon, Yana. Performing Exile, Performing Self: Drama, Theatre, Film<\/em>. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cPrecarious Bodies in Performance Activism and Theatres of Migration.\u201d\u00a0Migration and Stereotypes in Performance and Culture<\/em>, edited by Meerzon et al., Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, pp. 21\u201338.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014.\u00a0Staging Subjectivity in the Age of Migration and New Nationalism: Performing Cosmopolitanism.<\/em>\u00a0Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meerzon, Yana, et al. Migration and Stereotypes in Performance and Culture<\/em>. Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musca, Szabolcs, and Gra\u00e7a P. Corr\u00eaa. \u201c\u2018White People All Over\u2019: Refugee Performance, Fictional Aesthetics, and Dramaturgies of Alterity-Empathy.\u201d Contemporary Theatre Review<\/em>, vol. 30, no. 3, 2020, pp. 375\u201389.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nassar, Hala Kh. “Stories from under Occupation: Performing the Palestinian Experience.” Theatre Journal<\/em>, vol. 58, 2006, pp. 15\u201337.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Petersen, Anne Ring. \u201cMigratory Aesthetics and Postmigrant Performance.\u201d Performance and Migration<\/em>, edited by Emma Cox, Routledge, 2020, pp. 1\u201313.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

P\u00e9coud, Antoine. \u201cWhat Do We Know about the International Organization for Migration?<\/a>\u201d Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, <\/em>vol 44, no. 10, 2018, pp.1621\u201338. Accessed 2 Dec. 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodinson, Maxime, and Michael Perl. Israel and the Arabs<\/em>. Penguin, 1973.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rowe, Nicholas. “Dance Education in the Occupied Palestinian Territories: Hegemony, Counter\u2010hegemony and Anti\u2010hegemony.” Research in Dance Education<\/em>, vol. 9, no. 1, 2008, pp. 3\u201320.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Said, Edward W. Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays<\/em>. Granta Books, 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salloukh, Bassel Fawzi. \u201cOrganizing Politics in the Arab World: State-Society Relations and Foreign Policy Choices in Jordan and Syria<\/a>.\u201d CORE. McGill University, January 1, 1970. Accessed 2 Dec. 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tinius, Jonas. \u201cArtistic Diplomacy: On Civic Engagement and Transnational Theatre.\u201d Performance and Civic Engagement<\/em>, edited by Ananda Breed and Tim Prentki, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, pp. 269\u2013300.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Totah, Ruba. \u201cNegotiating \u2018Home\u2019 Borders: Creative Processes Hosting Syrian and Palestinian Syrian Artists in Europe.\u201d European Journal of Theatre and Performance<\/em>, vol. 1, no. 2, 2020, pp. 424\u201361.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014. \u00a0\u201cTotah, Ruba. \u201cNegotiating \u2018Home:\u2019 Syrian and Palestinian Syrian Artists in Borderlands.\u201d Civil Society Review, 2020, 22\u201345, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.28943\/csr.004.009. Accessed 2 Dec. 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cNo Room for Bare Life on Stage: Biopolitics of Syrian Migrant Artists Performativity.\u201d Borders in Perspective. The Biopolitics of Borders in Time of Crisis<\/em>, edited by Astrid M. Fellner, Eva Nossem, and Tetyana Ostapchuk, vol. 7., 2021, forthcoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cPerforming the Collective: Al-Hakawati and Beyond<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0Jerusalem Quarterly<\/em>, no. 83, 2020, pp. 125\u201338, www.palestine-studies.org\/en\/node\/1650655 \u00a0Accessed 30 Nov. 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Totah, Ruba, and Krystel Khoury. \u201cTheatre against Borders: \u2018Miunikh-Damaskus\u2019: A Case Study in Solidarity<\/a>.\u201d Arts<\/em>, vol. 7, no. 4, pp.1\u201314, 2018. Accessed 30 Nov. 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilmer, Stephan E. Performing Statelessness in Europe.<\/em> Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zaroulia, Marilena. \u201cPerforming That Which Exceeds Us: Aesthetics of Sincerity and Obscenity during \u2018the Refugee Crisis<\/a>.\u2019\u201d Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance<\/em>, vol. 23, no. 2, 2018, pp. 179\u201392. Accessed 10 Nov. 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ziter, Edward. \u201cRefugees on the Syrian Stage: Soir\u00e9e for the 5th of June.\u201d Doomed by Hope: Essays on Arab Theatre<\/em>, edited by Eyad Hussami and Elias Khoury, Pluto Press, 2012. pp. 11\u201327. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

*<\/a>Ruba Totah<\/strong> is a PhD candidate at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. Her research is on \u201cCultural Transnationalism and The Arab Uprisings: Migrating Artists from Syria to Europe.\u201d Holder of a Masters degree in Gender and Development from Birzeit University BZU- Palestine, 2013, focusing on Performing Art and Social Change; view on Religiosity, Class, and Sexuality. She has extensive experience as a cultural manager of civil society organizations working in the field of Culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9<\/strong> 2021 Ruba Totah
Critical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em> e-ISSN: 2409-7411<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Creative<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution International License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":459,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essays"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/05\/image4-3.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":680,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/mutations-in-crisis-generic-engineering-in-contemporary-southeast-asian-dance\/","url_meta":{"origin":455,"position":0},"title":"Mutations in Crisis: Generic Engineering in Contemporary Southeast Asian Dance","author":"Ruba Totah","date":"June 19, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Aparna R Nambiar* Abstract This article analyzes two recent works of contemporary Southeast Asian dance staged in Singapore: Indonesian dancer Rianto\u2019s Medium (2018) and Behalf (2018) by Thai Dancer Pichet Klunchun and Taiwanese Dancer Chen-Wu Kang. I identify an emerging epoch of intense, cross-generic experimentation, as traditional cultural practices negotiate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Special Topic"","block_context":{"text":"Special Topic","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/category\/special-topic\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/06\/image8-2.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/06\/image8-2.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/06\/image8-2.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/06\/image8-2.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":669,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/the-fall-of-greatness-toward-an-aesthetics-of-co-reproduction\/","url_meta":{"origin":455,"position":1},"title":"The Fall of Greatness: Toward an Aesthetics of Co-(re)production","author":"Ruba Totah","date":"June 15, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt* Abstract Public reception of artistic inquiries into Danish colonial legacies insistently focuses on singular authorship, quality and visual representation. In public discourse, I argue, collectively uttered needs for decolonization are willfully ignored. Through an analysis of the aesthetics of reception and its entanglement in post-enlightenment onto-epistemologies of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Special Topic"","block_context":{"text":"Special Topic","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/category\/special-topic\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/06\/editorial-featured.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/06\/editorial-featured.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/06\/editorial-featured.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/06\/editorial-featured.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":484,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/interview-with-sarah-melin\/","url_meta":{"origin":455,"position":2},"title":"Crucial Collaboration in International Networks: Interview with Sarah Melin","author":"Ruba Totah","date":"May 23, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by Theresa Bener* We have never lost sight of the need to continue working, so that we can greet the audience again with our artistic productions. This does not necessarily mean going back to what was \u201cnormal\u201d before, but it could be different. (Sarah Melin) Established in 1994 as a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Interviews"","block_context":{"text":"Interviews","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/category\/interviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/05\/image8-1.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/05\/image8-1.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/05\/image8-1.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/05\/image8-1.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":556,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/interview-with-anne-cecile-sibue-birkeland\/","url_meta":{"origin":455,"position":3},"title":"Curating as Placing Stones to be Picked up: Interview with Anne-C\u00e9cile Sibu\u00e9-Birkeland","author":"Ruba Totah","date":"May 24, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by Anette Therese Pettersen* I like to think of the audience as active spectators, making their own journey through the program. (Anne-C\u00e9cile Sibu\u00e9-Birkeland) Anne-C\u00e9cile Sibu\u00e9-Birkeland currently serves as artistic director of Black Box teater in Oslo, which includes the artistic direction of the yearly festival Oslo International Teaterfestival. Sibu\u00e9-Birkeland grew\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Interviews"","block_context":{"text":"Interviews","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/category\/interviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/05\/featured-5.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/05\/featured-5.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/05\/featured-5.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/05\/featured-5.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":713,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/contexts-traces-inspiration-three-statements-of-working-principles-from-the-former-yugoslav-space\/","url_meta":{"origin":455,"position":4},"title":"Contexts, Traces, Inspiration: Three Statements of Working Principles from the Former Yugoslav Space","author":"Ruba Totah","date":"June 9, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Alexandra Baybutt* Abstract Three statements of working principles are shared to illuminate traces from Socialist Yugoslavia transformed into the practices and values of a regional network project for dance, a collective of independent artists and a museum symposium. Each statement of principles proposes collective methods of organising and perspectives on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Special Topic"","block_context":{"text":"Special Topic","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/category\/special-topic\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/06\/image4-4.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/06\/image4-4.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/06\/image4-4.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/06\/image4-4.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":625,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/theatre-strike-for-climate-lending-a-voice-to-nature-in-tribunal-theatre\/","url_meta":{"origin":455,"position":5},"title":"Theatre Strike for Climate: Lending a Voice to Nature in Tribunal Theatre","author":"Ruba Totah","date":"June 11, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Steff Nellis* Abstract In this article, I analyse the ways in which Maria Lucia Cruz Correia, Rebekka de Wit and Anoek Nuyens rethink the relationship between performance and ecopolitics. With their tribunal theatre performances Voice of Nature: The Trial (2019) and The Shell Trial (2020), the artists strive to reconfigure\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Special Topic"","block_context":{"text":"Special Topic","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/category\/special-topic\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/06\/image5-2.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/06\/image5-2.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/06\/image5-2.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2021\/06\/image5-2.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1075,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions\/1075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}