The radicality of opening up

– introducing Jota Mombaça, Joshua Serafin, Autumn Knight and Tiziano Cruz

Already long recognised and now institutionalized as well, the independently producing live arts have created groundbreaking new aesthetics and ways of working in recent decades, and have been a model for artistic change, inspiration and internationalisation. Social change demanded new art forms and brought them forth; institutional critique, grassroots movements and liberalisation have shaped art beyond established institutions. The performing or live art of the so-called independent scene is considered to be more experimental and risk-taking, more agile, more radical and more daring than the institutionalised theatre productions of the municipal and state theatres. Perhaps live art can therefore be seen as the quintessence of what has often been considered the role and task of art in society: it provokes the audience, challenges, transgresses and perhaps sometimes even hurts.

Access

For some years now, a new aesthetic and structural change in the live arts has been observed and discussed which is evaluated differently. Critics recognise a new softness and political correctness that takes the place of polemics, provocation and scandal, in short: the place of the characteristics that, in their opinion, used to characterise good art. More attention is now paid to each other, more approach is taken, consideration is shown, access is attempted for artists and for their audience. Different perspectives are heard and needs are taken into account, the quality of collaborative work has a high value and becomes an existential part of the artistic result.

Some people claim that this makes art less resistant, that it wants to please everyone and that it is in danger of losing its power because of all the attentiveness. That is a misunderstanding. What is true: The demands on a provocation are becoming more complex, common experiences cannot be assumed. Instead, even a perspective that differs from one's own may make some feel needled. There is a growing awareness that the audience is not a homogeneous group that shares one's own perspective and that one's own standards do not have universal validity. That aesthetics and ways of working emerge from different contexts, have different motivations and different goals. It's complicated – but it's worth it.

What is discussed under the heading of identity politics, and what is sometimes defamingly regarded as moralism under the term "wokeness", is part of it. Sharing perspectives and clarifying standpoints in order to negotiate a new, better togetherness is exhausting, tedious work, is part of the no-longer-ignorable necessity to recognise and adequately represent a diverse, globalised society – if possible in all places, and of course also in art: necessary diversity of artistic perspectives for a diverse global audience. This includes not only that marginalised artists are fortunately increasingly able to professionalise themselves and are represented in institutions, but also that the range of artistic expression is expanded to include their numerous perspectives. And that those who previously dominated aesthetics and structures are critically rethinking their own perspective; that supposed neutrality suddenly becomes a sign, supposed norm is suddenly exhibited as such. With Jota Mombaça, Joshua Serafin, Autumn Knight and Tiziano Cruz, four remarkable and strong artists are on the shortlist for The ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art, whose work is explicitly shaped by marginalised perspectives. Their aesthetics, practices and backgrounds are very different, yet their artistic starting points resonate well with each other.

Getting involved with more perspectives

New York-based interdisciplinary artist Autumn Knight's work draws on her training in theatre and the psychology of group dynamics. As an improvisational artist, she sees her strength and goal in developing participatory performances that put the audience in situations that transcend their experiential horizons in one way or another, with a focus on race, gender and authority. She doesn't need much except herself, her team and the audience. Black women are often at the centre of the action; institutions usually play a role, which are examined and questioned by Knight's settings in terms of their relationship or non-relationship to Black people. In her performances, Knight spontaneously responds to the audience and to what they bring with them, composing the course of the performances live and relying on herself. In the situations Knight creates, power relations are reversed and reorganised – unpredictable and unmasking no matter how her audience chooses to behave. Also her lectures and video installations focus on her concern to address the ways in which institutions and power structures function and leave the audience rethinking what they maybe stopped thinking about.

Jota Mombaça, an interdisciplinary artist born in Brazil and living in Lisbon and Amsterdam works on the topics of monstrosity and humanity, queer studies, anti-coloniality and the redistribution of violence. At the centre of Mombaça's work is an exploration of the struggles of Black and trans people, their resistance, their will to survive and their fight for their own rights. In the short story "The Time Has Come, In Which The Lights of This Epoch Were Lit Everywhere", which Mombaça wrote in the form of literary diary entries, the hierarchy of the world is literally depicted into an above and a below; the underground community feels like the living dead, struggling to survive in a labyrinth of tunnels, running into the unknown and suffering ongoing violence. The work "Voices, Voices...Inexplicable Machinery!" took place in Leipzig in 2022 at the site where Black people were put on display in a recreated colonial environment in 1897 and was dedicated to voices that have been extinguished or silenced. In doing so, Mombaça sees the shared attentive listening to compositions and narratives as an exercise in expanding historical lore and future perspectives. Mombaça wants to leave the dominance of the visual that addresses the intellect and focus on sensory stimuli such as sound and haptics in order to approach these elements through the sensations.

Ambiguity as a strategy

In a conversation with curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, Mombaça criticises extractivism in culture. Through the practice of differentiation, the Western perspective produces the Other as a consumable value, thus perpetuating colonial practices. In response, the "right to opacity", the right not to be understood, is valued by Mombaça as a resistant, queer practice in which a complexity and inconclusiveness can be maintained and can evade hierarchizations and normalizations marked by hegemonic attribution.

Joshua Serafin, a non-binary artist with Filipino roots who now lives and works in Brussels, also describes ambiguity as a strategy and proclaims existence in the "grey zone" as a possibility instead of decisions on polar extremes. Serafin also names the distinction as a normative act of imperialism, especially in relation to hetero-normativity; the pronouns for female and male in language, for example, only entered the Philippines through Spanish colonisation. On their own homepage, Serafin describes the artistic process as an "intense sociological exorcism of Filipino identity in relation to global ideologies"; in which "the historical violence of its feudal contemporary society and its dehumanising normality” is unpacked. Serafin works on transmigration, queer politics and representation, states of being and ways of inhabiting the body – starting from their own identity, which Serafin perceives as one between cultures, and nowhere at home. With artistic work and especially dance, Serafin tries to find a way back to the ancestral self, the ancestral body, to recalibrate other possibilities. Dance is a possible practice for Serafin to heal.

Communities

Coming from the province of Jujuy, the Indigenous Argentinian artist Tiziano Cruz has not spoken for a long time about his origins, which are linked to the poverty of his family and the history of oppression and colonisation of his people. In his work “Soliloqui – I woke up and hit my head against the wall”, he tells his mother's and his own story through letters he wrote to her during the pandemic – and also of his difficult decision to make art, which for him also means selling himself to the art world. He sees this as an important step in being able to be the author of his own story, and at the same time it means for him abandoning the community and his own values in favour of the capitalist market, which may nevertheless ensure the survival of the family. For Cruz, the possibilities of making art and gaining visibility are worth the fracture he has to accept in his life for this. He sees himself as a representative and a bridge between the worlds, and networking with other marginalised artists is an essential part of his work. 

His work “Soliloqui” consists of two parts: a stage show and – if local conditions allow it – a procession, which he develops anew for each venue with local Latin American or Indigenous communities – a parade or procession, a little different each time, with dance and ritual, with song and slogans. The procession enables him to connect with local people who share similar experiences in each place where he is a guest with the performance SOLILOQUI and to empower them, to share resources with them, and to create access points to art and institutions that remain useful for people's local activities in the long term. His stage performance is thus closely linked to this community work, belongs together with it and is not complete without it, strictly speaking.

The idea of community is inherent in the independently producing performing art or live art scene; it has always organised itself in networks, worked collectively and understood this as an important part of artistic practice. At the latest with ruangrupa as the director of documenta XV in Kassel 2022, yet another form of community has become apparent for artistic work in the public perception. As a result of an experience of exclusion, people can find protection and empowerment in communities, share knowledge, empowerment and do care work for each other. The community takes over the role and functions of the excluding structures and institutions that are not available for them. Within and with the community, own practices, codes and forms of expression can emerge, and thus possibilities for action. If institutional structures for art production are not accessible, the structures of the community become the space for artistic practice.

The radicality of opening up

The attempts of many institutions to give visibility to marginalised perspectives often unintentionally lead to phenomena such as woke-washing, tokenism, cultural appropriation or exoticisation. With structures that have even updated the exclusions so far, institutions often do not have the conditions, perhaps not even the knowledge or ultimately the honest willingness that makes an equal encounter possible. Presenting community-based art to a wider audience, inviting ambiguity and acknowledging other perspectives and needs is not always adequately feasible with established curatorial practices and challenges institutions. It is up to the host institutions to give artists a safe space, an artistic home and to welcome their structures as part of their own artistic practice. 

German journalist Tobi Müller wrote in an article this spring that the theatre of harsh provocation and political polemics is no longer popular, that it has been overtaken by reality. The artistic strategy of softness, embracing community and empowerment can nevertheless definitely be considered radical. With its potential to challenge the culture industry, it has explosive power, and even its so-called soft approaches are no less resistant than any superficial provocation. The counterculture has become the culture of the future. 

Anna Teuwen
Anna Teuwen writes from the perspective of a white able-bodied straight cis woman. She is working as a curator for performing arts at Kampnagel – International Center for Finer Arts in Hamburg, Germany after having graduated from Applied Theater Studies in Gießen, Germany in 2009.

Live Art Prize 10 Years Publication – Index:

Jennie Klien: The ANTI Festival International Live Art Prize: A Brief History in 3 Parts

The first 9 years of Live Art Prize in pictures

Anna Teuwen: The radicality of opening up – introducing Jota Mombaça, Joshua Serafin, Autumn Knight and Tiziano Cruz 

Kaino Wennerstrand: We have not earned a thing

Cassils: Big Statement from a Small Town