schluss e

«schluss mit kunst» - 2011

Enough of arts!? From storm and stress to agitprop and revolutionary art: for hundreds of years artists have wanted to enlighten, awaken, preach… but can the arts really play a part in changing the world? It needs to be changed, today more than ever.

«schluss mit kunst» entsteht 2011 in Salzburg

performers: Tomaz Simatovic, Spela Vodeb, Manel Salas Palau
artistic direction, choreography, directing: Editta Braun

co-directing: Arturas Valudskis

co-choreography: Juan Dante Murillo Bobadilla

composition: Thierry Zaboitzeff

dramaturgy: Gerda Poschmann-Reichenau

lightdesign: Thomas Hinterberger

texts by Kurt Palm, Bernhard Jenny, Christian Felber

visuals: explosive egg, Editta Braun

Premiere: 5.+6.+7. Oktober 2011, ARGEkultur Salzburg

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No rational, intellectual analysis can portray the real suffering, the insanity experienced daily, than the writhing, springing, communicating, fighting bodies. (...) Every moment of this evening showed me how much nearer art can bring me to the world’s injustice and absurdness than a mere message can. Tobias Fembacher, viewer

I’m glad to see this vision of theater, although the damned of this earth won’t rise up until they have nothing left to eat or are being choked to death, in our feel-good-society an uprising appears to be an illusion, yet still we should keep it in mind. Christoph Luber, theater director

I greatly respect and admire your courage to say things straight forwardly, and the way you can balance between making the audience think and feel about your theme. It has been a long time I’ve left the theatre feeling I’ve receiving something, and that happened with your piece, so, thank you :)

Dorota Lecka, dancer

we have certainly not had enough of art. If art makes a statement and artists take a position on their

powerlessness and desperation as well as their dreams and longings, then this is exactly the right way to lead us

to new ideas, which we all badly need.

Bernhard Jenny, activist

Currently, various global crises superimpose each other, making each other worse. Climate change, financial crisis, litter pollution, extinction, starvation here and excess there – catchwords that everybody knows, words that overwhelm us. Reality overwhelms us. Everybody’s in the know, but what should be done? What can we do?

The alternatives are resignation or insurrection. Closing our ears or standing up. Now, immediately. We no longer have time for indirect messages. The party is over.

And where is there still room for arts?

Time is running out. We can no longer send artistically cryptic, prettied-up or outlandish messages which will tire out the audience puzzling over them. Maybe art is unnecessary ballast in the resistance against inevitable doom. A detour which we cannot afford anymore, irresponsible distraction from our own superfluous luxury, fatal concealment of what’s essential, opium for the people. A detour which in truth stabilizes the very system it tries to criticize?

Will ‘enough of arts! – stop beating around the bush’ be our battle cry?

Or can we use art as a way to empower, to gain a new outlook, experience the unthinkable and, through surprises, unexpected twists and approaches train our brains to think and feel differently and so maybe (maybe!) develop the creative abilities we need to make survival possible?

The performers start with the resistance against their creative efforts that they experience daily. They clear the stage and make room for plaintext from the internet, for political analysis and rousing speeches. They feel with body, heart and soul the narratives, arguments and demands, let themselves fall into the paradox of making art in view of global catastrophe and plumb with desperate lust the deepest corner of political art in it’s broadest sense.