Back in May, I was invited to present a paper at a conference in London called Systemic Crisis in European Theatre. My paper about the occupation of the Volksbühne theatre in Berlin in November 2017, a 6-day event where circumstances and people came together to reclaim the 'People's Theatre'.
The occupation is significant on a number of levels, occurring at a time in history when the neoliberal project in Berlin accelerates out-of-control, with 20%-per-year rent increases and tepid gestures from government to regulate (the so called mietpreisbremse, or 'rent handbrake') on one level, and influxes of people to Berlin looking to escape their own crippling capitalist systems - or military conflicts in its name - on the other. The 'slogan' of the occupation, a parody of the previous artistic director Frank Castorf's own parody slogans draped over the theatre's prominent facade - 'Doch, Kunst!' (translated to 'Art After All' but perhaps better translated to something like 'Art? Hell Yes!') - attempts to reclaim the role of art in this context, washed away in a tide of profit-making and exploitation.
On this level, the events around the Volksbühne have a symbolic resonance. In 2016, Chris Dercon, former director of the Tate Modern in London, was appointed the new Artistic Director, taking over from the directorship of the Marx-minded Castorf (whose directorship has now reached mythical status, if it had not before). The appointment was controversial from the beginning: Dercon had never directed a show, and was never previously an artistic director of a theatre, and was apparently employed over dinner with Berlin's Mayor, Michael Müller. That alone would be enough. But the early warning signs were that the Volksbühne was set for a complete overhaul - from the old, worker-built repertory theatre, known for being a hallmark of East German culture pre-90's and a key component of post-socialist socialism after that, the new language was about 'artist hybridisation', attracting a tourist audience, branching out into dance and visual art, and event-based programming. Of course, this had many workers of the theatre, some of whom had been there for eons, fearing for their jobs. Who needs a set-builder when your theatre is only ever hosting touring performances? What's the role of an in-house dramaturg in a place that's no longer producing any actual drama? So that in June, a year after the appointment was announced, an open letter emerged, signed by approximately 3/4 of the entire staff, seeking to bring attention to the proposed changes, and their seemingly inevitable job losses.
The appointment can be seen as an attempt to impose the worst principles of curation - now pervasive in the West's customisable lifestyles - onto the theatre, replacing the routine of show-making and building a loyal audience (and public) with a stream of events that can be marketed to different sections of the community. As the occupation points out, this fits neatly into the logic of neoliberalism that causes rent rises and destroys the fabric of communities, especially those most vulnerable. Its tactic is to sew instability among an already-precarious cultural scene, so that efficiency drives and sell-offs go unnoticed.
All of this is justifiable, rational, and evidence-based argument. But it doesn't stop people believing what they want to believe.
4 weeks before my paper, I found out that Chris Dercon was scheduled to be a keynote speaker at the Systemic Crisis in European Theatre conference. 1 week before, I found out that he had resigned. On the day of the conference itself, it emerged that he would be present anyway, and nobly fulfill his commitment that evening.
Under such shifting sands, it was difficult to articulate a meaningful position. But the situation seemed all the more difficult by the distinctly pro-Dercon crowd, who murmured in approval at his platitudes and watched in awe as he danced around awkward subjects in the fireside chat of the evening. So it was I found myself a voice strangely isolated in opposition, among a crowd with perhaps very different interests of career-protection and advancement.
The conference itself was a relatively bleak affair, with speakers organised under provocative headings like 'Anti-institutional', 'Post-Soviet', and my own 'Occupations', without ever actually seeming to deliver on the promise of these discussions. My take-away was that dialogues around the concept of 'crisis', particularly in a European context, often serves as a paradoxical reinforcement of power it pretends to threaten. Of course, this depends on what is discussed: there are genuine crises afoot which demand attention. But in this case, it seemed an inauthentic gesture towards articulating crisis, which rather perpetuated its own new ones (for example, on the level of representation, as such a subject seems to attract only white speakers for some reason). It's too connected with the cultural protectionism of the right wing, containing a hidden message of a tradition under attack - for which Dercon, as a white, Belgian silver fox, becomes an ironic figurehead.
Theatre is in crisis in Europe, but it's more like one where its founding principles demand radical rediscovery. In a time where the conception of 'public' is perpetually eroded by individualism and identity politics, theatre serves as one potential site for the negotiation of collective and common identities, with shared public interests, organised perhaps around the reforming of the state but free from its control. It seems primarily a problem of governance. Have we lost the capacity to conceive of governance meaningfully, to imagine representation as someone other than our own gender, class, race, and even ideology?
Whatever resistance is put forward, there is strong evidence that the Volksbühne is all but destroyed. Audiences are down, the theatre is now in a perpetual state of temporary artistic directorship with no new appointment made, and, like police waiting for the right time to evict the occupiers, the city seems content just to wait for it to fully collapse. The key survival tool of neoliberalism, to feed off these stalemates, is in full swing. In this sense, Dercon is little more than a puppet employed to initiate system shock, designed to ram through drastic change, so that the next, 'sensible', appointment can be made.
Endnote: The aesthetic arguments from 2 representatives of the Volksbühne occupation, Sarah Waterfeld and Anna-Sophie Friedmann, can be found in this beautifully-translated interview on Textzurkunst here (or in German if you prefer here).
The occupation is significant on a number of levels, occurring at a time in history when the neoliberal project in Berlin accelerates out-of-control, with 20%-per-year rent increases and tepid gestures from government to regulate (the so called mietpreisbremse, or 'rent handbrake') on one level, and influxes of people to Berlin looking to escape their own crippling capitalist systems - or military conflicts in its name - on the other. The 'slogan' of the occupation, a parody of the previous artistic director Frank Castorf's own parody slogans draped over the theatre's prominent facade - 'Doch, Kunst!' (translated to 'Art After All' but perhaps better translated to something like 'Art? Hell Yes!') - attempts to reclaim the role of art in this context, washed away in a tide of profit-making and exploitation.
On this level, the events around the Volksbühne have a symbolic resonance. In 2016, Chris Dercon, former director of the Tate Modern in London, was appointed the new Artistic Director, taking over from the directorship of the Marx-minded Castorf (whose directorship has now reached mythical status, if it had not before). The appointment was controversial from the beginning: Dercon had never directed a show, and was never previously an artistic director of a theatre, and was apparently employed over dinner with Berlin's Mayor, Michael Müller. That alone would be enough. But the early warning signs were that the Volksbühne was set for a complete overhaul - from the old, worker-built repertory theatre, known for being a hallmark of East German culture pre-90's and a key component of post-socialist socialism after that, the new language was about 'artist hybridisation', attracting a tourist audience, branching out into dance and visual art, and event-based programming. Of course, this had many workers of the theatre, some of whom had been there for eons, fearing for their jobs. Who needs a set-builder when your theatre is only ever hosting touring performances? What's the role of an in-house dramaturg in a place that's no longer producing any actual drama? So that in June, a year after the appointment was announced, an open letter emerged, signed by approximately 3/4 of the entire staff, seeking to bring attention to the proposed changes, and their seemingly inevitable job losses.
The appointment can be seen as an attempt to impose the worst principles of curation - now pervasive in the West's customisable lifestyles - onto the theatre, replacing the routine of show-making and building a loyal audience (and public) with a stream of events that can be marketed to different sections of the community. As the occupation points out, this fits neatly into the logic of neoliberalism that causes rent rises and destroys the fabric of communities, especially those most vulnerable. Its tactic is to sew instability among an already-precarious cultural scene, so that efficiency drives and sell-offs go unnoticed.
All of this is justifiable, rational, and evidence-based argument. But it doesn't stop people believing what they want to believe.
4 weeks before my paper, I found out that Chris Dercon was scheduled to be a keynote speaker at the Systemic Crisis in European Theatre conference. 1 week before, I found out that he had resigned. On the day of the conference itself, it emerged that he would be present anyway, and nobly fulfill his commitment that evening.
Under such shifting sands, it was difficult to articulate a meaningful position. But the situation seemed all the more difficult by the distinctly pro-Dercon crowd, who murmured in approval at his platitudes and watched in awe as he danced around awkward subjects in the fireside chat of the evening. So it was I found myself a voice strangely isolated in opposition, among a crowd with perhaps very different interests of career-protection and advancement.
The conference itself was a relatively bleak affair, with speakers organised under provocative headings like 'Anti-institutional', 'Post-Soviet', and my own 'Occupations', without ever actually seeming to deliver on the promise of these discussions. My take-away was that dialogues around the concept of 'crisis', particularly in a European context, often serves as a paradoxical reinforcement of power it pretends to threaten. Of course, this depends on what is discussed: there are genuine crises afoot which demand attention. But in this case, it seemed an inauthentic gesture towards articulating crisis, which rather perpetuated its own new ones (for example, on the level of representation, as such a subject seems to attract only white speakers for some reason). It's too connected with the cultural protectionism of the right wing, containing a hidden message of a tradition under attack - for which Dercon, as a white, Belgian silver fox, becomes an ironic figurehead.
Theatre is in crisis in Europe, but it's more like one where its founding principles demand radical rediscovery. In a time where the conception of 'public' is perpetually eroded by individualism and identity politics, theatre serves as one potential site for the negotiation of collective and common identities, with shared public interests, organised perhaps around the reforming of the state but free from its control. It seems primarily a problem of governance. Have we lost the capacity to conceive of governance meaningfully, to imagine representation as someone other than our own gender, class, race, and even ideology?
Whatever resistance is put forward, there is strong evidence that the Volksbühne is all but destroyed. Audiences are down, the theatre is now in a perpetual state of temporary artistic directorship with no new appointment made, and, like police waiting for the right time to evict the occupiers, the city seems content just to wait for it to fully collapse. The key survival tool of neoliberalism, to feed off these stalemates, is in full swing. In this sense, Dercon is little more than a puppet employed to initiate system shock, designed to ram through drastic change, so that the next, 'sensible', appointment can be made.
Endnote: The aesthetic arguments from 2 representatives of the Volksbühne occupation, Sarah Waterfeld and Anna-Sophie Friedmann, can be found in this beautifully-translated interview on Textzurkunst here (or in German if you prefer here).
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