Un dialog cu regizorii Carmen Lidia Vidu, Radu Nica și Thaddeus Phillips

Dialogul a avut loc în limba română și în limba engleză, cu subtitrare.
Premieră pe pagina de Facebook Teatrelli, în data de 17 februarie 2022, de la ora 19.30.

„Perioada actuală ne-a constrâns pe toți să ne redefinim modul de a fi. Pentru unii, ea înseamnă finalul unei epoci. Pentru alții, un nou început. Pentru fiecare, ceva pare că s-a schimbat ireversibil. Imaginea scenei contemporane reflectă această stare generală a lumii, o oglindește în chipul cel mai profund cu putință. Pe de o parte, există nostalgia celor care vor ca artele spectacolului să revină la ceea ce fuseseră înainte de efectele unei pandemii cu o durată deja insuportabilă. Pe de alta, sunt cei care vor ca totul să devină altceva, altcumva. Înregistrările și transmisiile cuminți ale unor producții vechi și noi coexistă cu tentativele cele mai originale de a face teatru altfel. Sau, mai degrabă, de a face un alt fel de teatru, apropiat de sensibilitatea unei umanități alienate, timorate și, totuși, nepărăsite de speranță. Așa s-au născut câteva experimente ce pot fi numite performative mai mult - și mai potrivit - decât teatrale, între emoția imediată a corpului viu și realitatea mediată a universului digital.

Într-o iarnă atât de stranie din prea multe puncte de vedere, sunteți invitați la un dialog despre șansa teatrului de a se redescoperi, de a se înnoi, de a ieși din propriile tipare. Protagoniști vor fi trei artiști care, prin neliniștile lor, au încercat să pună și scena, și lumea sub semnul întrebării. Carmen Lidia Vidu a semnat un spectacol manifest despre memoria culturală și traumatică a Revoluției din 1989. Radu Alexandru Nica a refuzat să capituleze în fața izolării și a generat un experiment artistic dedicat tocmai condiției de a fi singur. Thaddeus Phillips a inventat o nouă poetică a interactivității ludice, generată, paradoxal, pe ecranul unui computer. Despre nevoia de a găsi răspunsuri și curajul de a le căuta în afara convențiilor, adică despre gradul zero al teatralității, a fost vorba în această nouă ediție a dialogurilor noastre neîntrerupte.” - Octavian Saiu

EN:

THE SEASONS OF THEATRE DIALOGUE WITH OCTAVIAN SAIU

Theatricality degree zero: between drama and performance

A dialogue with Carmen Lidia Vidu, Radu Nica și Thaddeus Phillips

The dialogue was in Romanian and English, with subtitles.

Premiere on www.facebook.com/teatrelli/, on 17th of February 2022, 7:30 PM (Bucharest time).

The current global context has forced us all to redefine our way of being. For some, it is the end of an era. For others, a new beginning. For everyone, something seems to have changed irreversibly. The image of the contemporary stage mirrors this general state of the world, it reflects it in the deepest possible sense. On the one hand, there is the nostalgia of those who want performing arts to go back to what they were before this unbearably long pandemic. On the other hand, there are those who want everything to move forward and become something else. Classical recordings and broadcasts of old and new productions coexist with the most original attempts to make theatre differently. Or, rather, to make theatre different, more closely attuned to the sensitivity of contemporary humankind. This is how some new, radical experiments came into being. They can be called performative rather – and more appropriately – than theatrical, as they lie between the immediate impact of the body and the mediated effects of the digital universe.

In a winter that is strange from too many points of view, you are invited to a dialogue about theatre's chance to rediscover itself, to renew itself, to push its own boundaries. You will meet three artists who are trying to interrogate both the stage and the world. Carmen Lidia Vidu has created a performance-manifesto about the traumatic cultural memory of the 1989 Romanian Revolution. Radu Alexandru Nica has refused artistic isolation, and produced an experiment dedicated to the very condition of being alone. Thaddeus Phillips has invented a new poetics of playful interactivity, paradoxically generated on a computer screen. So, this new chapter of our uninterrupted dialogues was about these artists’ urge to find answers, and about their courage to look for them outside theatrical conventions. It was, therefore, about theatricality degree zero.” - Octavian Saiu

Professor Octavian Saiu is a scholar and professional theatre critic. He holds a PhD in Theatre Studies from National University of Theatre and Film (NUTF) in Romania, with a thesis about theatrical space, and another PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Otago in New Zealand, with a thesis about Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco. He completed his Post-Doc in Modern Literature at the University of Otago, and has been awarded his Habilitation in Theatre and Performing Arts. He teaches in the Postgraduate Programme of NUTF and the Doctoral School of Sibiu University. He was Visiting Fellow at the University of London, School of Advanced Study, and has taught courses and offered master classes as Visiting Professor at various universities in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, as well as the Grotowski Institute.

He has been actively involved, as Conference Chair and Invited Speaker, in several major theatre and academic events around the world, including the Theatre Olympics and Edinburgh International Festival, where he was Chair of the Samuel Beckett Conference in 2013. Since 2004 he has been Chair of the Conferences of Sibiu International Theatre Festival.

He has published academic articles in several international journals, as well as twelve books on theatre. He received the Critics’ Award in 2010, the Award of the Union of Theatre Artists (UNITER) in 2013, and the Order of Cultural Merit from the President of Romania in 2020.