Theatre as Public Sphere: Spatial Networks and Re-inventing Aesthetics of Traditiony

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2022

Deniz Basar

Summary:

This presentation is derived from the two major components of my past ten years of research. First component is theatre as public sphere, which analyzes the networks of alternative theatre spaces and movements of ensembles in İstanbul, to understand how they succeeded in creating relevant micropolitical interventions that calls major socio-political taboos into discussion. These ensembles work as urban networks, which allow new political imaginaries to sprout through new ideas and sensibilites being proposed to audiences via new aesthetic languages, grounded in the intimacy of small and independent theatre spaces. Such theatrical interventions are dependent on the potential of creating non-institutional and nuanced theatre aesthetics within these ensembles, which can challenge the hegemony of the semantics and discourses of the life outside of theatre. These theatre spaces create dramaturgy laboratories within their theatres, which lead them to create new hybrids of performance languages to challenge both social and artistic paradigms. Notion of new hybrids of performance languages leads us to the second major component of my research, which is based in how these theatres create their own performative aesthetics that can destabilize rooted societal biases through utilizing suppressed Ottoman urban and non-religious traditions of performance forms such as Meddah, Orta Oyunu and most importantly, Karagöz. I will discuss these urban alternative theatre networks and their aesthetics from a theoretical and historical angle in my presentation.