Sydney Gu

Inspired by elements of performance theory from Josette Féral and Ronald P. Bermingham’s “Theatricality: The Specificity of Theatrical Language” (2002), Elinor Fuch’s “EF’s Visit to a Small Planet: Questions to Ask a Play” (2004), and Elise Morrison’s “Discipline and Desire: Surveillance Technologies in Performance” (2016).

Recasting Repertoires examines theatricality as a phenomenon not constrained by or bound to explicitly performative spaces, such as the stage or the theater, and the idea that the ‘gaze’ that creates theatrical spaces is one that can belong to any spectator. It explores how embodied memory and traditions of movement, as traditionally passed down through dance, can be brought into and transform existing spaces with the help of computerized methods.

By contrasting the archival footage of Norman McLaren’s 1969 experimental film Pas de Deux (performed by Margaret Mercier and Vincent Warren of Les Grands Ballets Canadien, published by the National Film Board of Canada, accessed through the Internet Archive) with everyday footage filmed in front of the University of Chicago’s Regenstein library, it ultimately leaves us with a number of questions: Can we recast the unsuspecting passerby moving through their everyday lives as performers executing complex routines under the directorial, panoptic gaze of power? Is technology capable of replacing the spectatorial gaze that is vital to the creation of theatrical spaces, and what implications does this have for the role of human input in theatricality given the potential newfound ability of technology to create theatrical spaces as an external productive force? And lastly, how does the directionality of the relationship between spectator and performer, along with their individual intent (or lack thereof) in participating in theatricality, shape and transform our external understandings of what constitutes a theatrical space in the age of contemporary societies permeated by technology?