Change is one of life's unchanging rules.
But one of the differences today is the intensity at which our environments evolve and shift around us, leaving us in various states of constant disorientation, clinging for any sense of normal. A feature of the contemporary capitalism layed out for us its its promise to resolve this apparent dissonance - to give narrative to an exponential, disorienting acceleration, that encourages us to deny our grounding human qualities of love, community, and togetherness as something outdated and estranged, and to replace it with something more distant, less intimate, and colder. That story comes in many facets - in a recent lecture in Bratislava, I called it a "smoothening" of human experience - a type of surface-level or superficialising of modes of engagement. It creates a sense of aspiration to performing boredom. Simply "fitting in" to categories is the goal, to the extent that it's performed by many of today's influencers, as a antidote to the anxieties and stresses of displacement from categories.
Cultural Centre STANICA preparing for DJ Laura Plis in 2022
- Photo: Martin Krištof
But people never fit categories - we are in a constant state of change and development, and, like the seasons, it's always been this way. The way to combat this ideology of "smoothness" is not new - materialist intervention has always been a useful counter to the violent abstraction of capitalism from its daily consequences. Today, the trade wars over energy production are a key flashpoint of a wider struggle: seen as both a key factor of production and important human right, the production of energy has its own politics, its own momentum. From divisions between the third and first worlds, to its use as a bargaining chip in negotiations over invading forces, energy production and its politics sit at the heart of various biopolitical and economic violences, while itself being in flux under the oft-mooted "energy transition" (as it's called in German, Energiewende, or turning point), with mega-companies such as Slovakia's Slovnaft, SPP, Západoslovenské elektrárne or Mochovce positioning themselves firmly in the centre, as both problem and solution.
Energy production is also a historically-prevalent tool of theatre - hence, perhaps, Kiosk 2023 has chosen "No Power" ("bez elektriny") as its theme. As well as the increasing tension and unhealthy marriages between the inherent Humanism of the western stage and the umbrella of environmental missions that attempt to point out the folly of human supremancy, the theme promises any numer of crackpot approaches to theatrical production: from bike-powered lighting systems, to more primal ritualistic performance, to performative promenades, to anti-theatre gestures. Set free of the burden of electricity, what can theatre become?
The program promises a lot, with some familiar faces returning. Brno-based D'Epog follow their super-offensive NIC-MOC with the monodrama Handsfree around an accidental fire, and the performative lecture from Adam Dragun Čo robiť (What to do?) and Last time my Parents were in the Komuna Warsaw partners the artist with Olga Ciężkowska, and Milo Juráni partners with Katarína Marková for Walking for ruins on ruins with ruins. A daily tour takes viewers to Unkulunkulu's escapescapescape in nearby Višňové, while Jakob Jautz choreographs a performative walk through the forest in Traces. There's the usual high compliment of dance works, such as Bente Bulens and Beata Rekemová's Attracted by Repulsion or Juraj Korec's Vystaviť sa telu 2: Ne-činnosť (Expose yourself to the body 2: Inaction), and complimenting the multi-disciplinary approach is a dose of poetry, such as Duo Kyseli Krastafci’s melodramatic poem SHOW ROBOŠOV - Umelci k lopatám! (Art is work) meaning something like WORKER SHOW - GET YOUR SHOVELS (Art is work).
"There is something in the air", by T.I.T.S. – (Nela H. Kornetová, Jaro Viňarský, Matthew Rogers, Jan Husták & Björn Hansson)
It's a healthy program, as usual complimented by an equally-healthy line-up of local DJs frequenting the converted cultural centre/train station STANICA and other locations nightly. Like last year's theme After Human, the program (again compiled by the evergreen Michaela Pašteková and Martin Krištof) that's sure to hit a certain zeitgeist of performance, and like that program, talks indirectly and strategically about the atrocities committed by forces invading Ukraine, a point reinforced by the inclusion of Language Barrier Equal by 'Students for Ukraine', a collaboration between Czech theatre institutions and students from Lviv University, Karpenko-Kary University in Kyiv among others. As usual, the oddball location of Žilina - Slovakia's 3rd-largest city yet somehow still a broken mystery to the world - plays host to the unfolding drama.
At a time of significant cynicism, Kiosk promises ways to use the medium of performance to re-negotiate and rebuild our trust in reality.
Let's go?
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Kiosk Festival 2023
July 27-30
Various locations in Žilina, Slovakia
Full program here (Mostly Slovak)
or pick your Google Translate language here.
Note: Current publication is done with the understanding that colleagues and communities from Kharkiv, Mariupol, Kyiv, Lutsk, and Lviv among others in Ukraine are currently under attack in an attempt to erase Ukrainian culture and identity. No artist should be forced to rehearse how to pick up the gun.