Political Theatre and Performance in (Post-)Yugoslav Space

What is it about?

Political theatre is a trend that, during the avant-garde 1920s, emerged at the intersection of efforts to liberate artistic forms and oppressed groups in society. It was an influence on Slovenian theatrical artists at the Workers’ Stage (Delavski oder) already in the interwar period. A trend towards “political theater,” one of the tendencies of politicized performing arts in the period, flourished in Slovenia and other republics of the former Yugoslavia in the 1980s. On the background of an identity crisis of the Yugoslav state and its ideology, political theatre addressed great stories of History and the Revolution in a post-avant-garde manner. During the transition, political theatre initially lost its edge but was reborn in the 21st century. As a post-dramatic practice associated with performance, it now parses its own politics. It is a forum for critiquing small, local stories that nonetheless evince the contradictions of a peripheral nation-state in the era of transnational late capitalism.

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Why is it important?

My paper highlights continuities and difference in the evolution of the 20th-century political theatre in a European in-between periphery and its role in positioning of the arts in the political field of former Yugoslavia and the present "Yugosphere."