Europe ’ s Staging - Staging Europe Nicole Haitzinger (Salzburg) & Stella Lange (Innsbruck) In the context of contemporary performing arts it should, firstly, be stated that theatre is declared as the venue of negotiation for political and social questions and that, secondly, as a consequence, Europe is staged in specified ways; thematic positing such as negotiations of borders, construction of identities or history that weave between fact and fiction are worth mentioning here. It is no coincidence that models of theatre resonate with contemporary playwriting and staging practices where theatre and politics have been articulated explicitly or alternative models of society have been designed. They carry, among others, documentary, historical, commemorative, and utopian features. Transitions from reality to fiction appear blurred, concealed or seemingly definitive. In some cases, contemporary playwriting and staging procedures refer explicitly to historical European theatrical forms such as the Attic tragedy and frequently to the tragic or mournful. This “ (dis)course on Europe ” tested in specific European Countries and particularly at international theatre festivals over the past few years faces, with exceptions, however, a hitherto virtually undifferentiated state of research. The relevance of the topic can also be tracked in a series of recent conferences, newly founded journals, and associations, as well as prominent writers and artists who proclaim their manifestos on theatre and Europe in an avant-garde manner. This edition focuses on those theatrical works that thematically discuss “ Europe ” and its social, political, economic, and cultural questions through a comparative, transnational, or decolonial perspective oriented towards performance analysis. Particular attention is paid to narrative, structural, and aesthetic strategies as well as alterations that the text is subjected to right up to the production and performance on stage. Both aspects should, thus, be taken into account: the relative source text and the theatrical event. More specifically, it begs the question whether theatrical structures, staging practices, and aesthetic parameters initiate a historical reflection on Europe in the context of theatre. With regard to the inquiry of a European or cosmopolitical society, the additional question arises which homogenous or heterogeneous forms of representation can be found for the individual, the group, or community within the theatre and how traditional theatre forms, most notably tragedy, are revisited and undergo a revaluation and update. This is, not least, because the choice of genre, resources, imagery used, and, finally, theatre aesthetics and implication is subject to specific teleological narratives or societal processes of inclusion and exclusion. Europe ’ s Staging: Three Trends in Contemporary Theatre In contemporary theatre, the staging of Europe is to be situated in the complex constellations of politics and aesthetics. If theatre is defined as a practice distinguishable from politics - and we think that in the perspective of theatre, literary studies, and the recognition of numerous historical resonances in the dispositive of a Europeanoriented contemporary theatre, it is imperative in the widest sense - then various trends can be differentiated. We would like to Forum Modernes Theater, 31/ 1-2 (2020), 125 - 129. Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen DOI 10.2357/ FMTh-2020-0011 introduce three trends briefly that can neither be classified in distinct categories of political or agitational theatre, nor can they be identified with the assertion that in theatre every position, posture, or action/ movement is political per se. (1) Documentary and Investigative Theatre, Documentality, and Forms of Documented Unreliability It is not surprising that the contemporary staging of Europe starts with a revision of documents and their function within different theatrical narratives. The archive of Europe has been grown in size since 1990 and been challenged with transnational narratives and documents from non-European countries - of course not only since the increasing migration to Europe at the end of the 20 th century. Furthermore, the constitution of the archive has changed with the cultural turn that strives to give attention to objects beyond the written paper when thinking only of oral and performative history or the inscription in a global and digital world. Eventually, with the reprise of the new ‘ real ’ or ‘ reality ’ in all arts, documents have become the prioritized reference point. Some producers refer to the genre of ‘ documentary theatre ’ claiming specifically the reference to lived ‘ reality ’ and ‘ truth ’ . Others return to documentary theatre and its last remaining witnesses in order to rewrite national history in a transnational European History. However, as Hito Steyerl and Maurizio Ferraris emphasize with reference to Michel Foucault, the function of document in contemporary arts, in general, rarely lies in mere proof or trustful representation of the presence. On the contrary, in a performative, powerful way, it serves to continue creating this social reality. In migration theatre, where ‘ document ’ also has an existential meaning, similar forms of artistic embedding of documents are possible. Then, documents can even be re-inscribed into precarious bodies exemplifying the crucial question of adequate representation beyond social and media stereotypes. Ultimately, theatre and performances that stage Europe may even rely, in a first step, on investigative strategies but, in a second, on aesthetic realization that emphasize precisely the opposite of their factual nature. (2) Staging Histories in the Plural A second trend in bringing ‘ Europe ’ to the stage is the reflection on Europe ’ s history. Additionally, one can find a reflection about the historiography and development of the European theatre itself. In this way, diverse so-called European classics, especially the Greek tragedy, but also canonical European authors as Shakespeare, or popular European theatre formats like Singspiel are proposed anew and mixed with other motifs. Finally, the rewriting of European history on stage also has consequences for the identity politics of directing: the casting for a multilingual and transcultural equipe that sometimes even reverses gender in order to question Europe ’ s constitutive outside or, when referring also to documentary theatre, that includes witnesses of all ages, sexes, cultures and languages for a ‘ provincializing ’ effect. The critical perspective on former ways of narrating and tackling the history of Europe may consist in a revision of various teleological patterns or focusing on blind spots as, for example, in postcolonial perspectives that emanate from these. In many cases, they refer to some of Europe ’ s haunting “ ghosts ” . These amateurish reproposals of Europe ’ s historiography also question Eurocentric constructions of national identity, opposing it to Transeuropean or Afroeuropean identities. In general, histories of so-called minorities are booming. 126 Nicole Haitzinger/ Stella Lange In historically-oriented stagings we often recognize the reprise of re-enactment as it enables a relational perspective on Europe ’ s past and present at the same time. Hence, reenactment or its utopian form of pre-enactment, can serve as examples for the interweaving of different historical layers. (3) Political Activism in the Context of Theatre and Performance In recent years, an increasing approximation, integration, or appropriation of forms of political activism into European theatre and performance is a third tendency that can be observed. This is to be situated in the wider context of a global rise of protest movements such as the Arab Spring, Occupy, Women ’ s March, Fridays for Futures, etc. Hence, theatre becomes associated with political action in demanding changes in the socio-political realism. Theatre and performance spaces represent political bodies in the sense that theatre makers can be politically active through their works/ stagings. By using their respective aesthetic strategies as forms of resistance or rebellion, art is set as a form of disruption in which aesthetic distance almost dissolves. However, it is exactly this difference between the realm of performative aesthetics and that of politics which marks the potential of theatre as a space for social and political negotiation. It is the capacity of theatre to play, to set a frame in its heterotopian space that may deviate reality through the aesthetic means themselves. Staging performing arts means arranging specific politics of perception which can put tension on cultural norms and change established meanings. Thus, following Jacques Rancière ’ s analysis of the relation between the political and the aesthetic, the distribution and involvement of the senses relates to the fundamental political question of who or what becomes perceptible in a society. Giving space to precarious, unheard voices can be one strategy of politically active performance. Another strategy is transforming or (re-)inventing formats of protest or politics into the realm of theatre. In other words, particles of an activist ‘ aesthetics of uprising ’ can resonate in theatrical ‘ aesthetics of resistance ’ - as well as vice versa - as Hans-Thies Lehmann describes it. The relation between recent aesthetic strategies in European theatre and political activism also becomes evident in questions of being together. This might extend from staged forms of public participation to the creation of temporary spaces for imagining as well as actively experimenting with utopian models of togetherness. While political activism in the context of protest movements is taking place on a global scale, its forms of expression have to be seen as highly specific. The same holds for its theatrical transformations. What becomes political when, where, and with which meaning is fundamentally bound to the historical and cultural context and must, in this sense, always be approached in its very concrete singular manifestation. Interweavings of the Three Aspects in the Articles When it comes to staging Europe in contemporary theatre, factual and putative similarities or contrarieties can be observed according to the authors of this publication. The research perspectives shown in the respective contributions are multifaceted and intertwined. Hence, we would like to present similar exemplary perspectives: first, the reenactment of documents and archives in contemporary theatre; second, the staging of history; and third, performing Europe in forms of protest and resistance. In Singspiel - A Proto-European Phenomenon? A contemporary practice of thea- 127 Europe ’ s Staging - Staging Europe tre, its genealogy and its potentiality, Lorenz Aggermann reevaluates Singspiel as a hybrid artistic performance from a historic perspective. From its beginnings in the 18 th century until its reappearance during the 1990s with artists like Heiner Goebbels, this “ mode of play ” uses a self-reflexive and media-critical manner to (re-)invigorate via opposition to contemporary and disciplinary mechanisms of standardization and normalization, if not even nationalization, on the theatrical stage as well as on a political stage. Looking critically at historical practices in theatre as well as at their immanent cultural archives, one comes to recognize Singspiel ’ s political gesture, namely its interrogation of the relationship to and possible renovation of the normal with the help of the abnormal - that is not necessarily a product of a mere “ European bricolage ” . In Pulse of Europe - Flash Mob - Symphony. Schiller ’ s Ode to Joy and Beethoven ’ s Ninth Symphony as Soundtrack at Public "Stagings" of Europe, Antonia Egel sketches within a historical perspective caesuras of a philosophical-artistic confrontation with the question of how a collective like Europe can grow out of the coming together of individual or rather national states. Beginning with early reflections on a European ‘ fair ’ via Gide's ideas on a possible recovery of an innocent Europe after WW1, the author focuses on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. By analysing some of the gatherings of the pro-European activist association, Pulse of Europe, it becomes evident that it is actually Beethoven ’ s Ninth Symphony that brings the European concepts of diversity and openness to the fore. The author ’ s argument is that this, and above all the latter, is conceived of as an immanent universal structure - in the interactions between Schiller ’ s lyrics and Beethoven's entire composition that also take into account Europe ’ s inspiring history. In Europe: Resonances of the Mythological Figure in Contemporary Theatre, Nicole Haitzinger shows how Europe resonates as a mythological figure and as an ancient topos in contemporary theatre. For this purpose, the respective historical, mythical, and aesthetic media are related to each other by means of historical references pointing both backwards and forewards. Europa can appear as a mother or warrior (Aeschylus/ Górnicka) or she can resonate in the context of the (white) bull (Ovid/ Castellucci, Linyekula), while as a topos, Europe returns both as a borderland, that is to say as a land of political borders and decisions (Moschus/ Rimini Protokoll), and as a utopian space still inscribed in the stars (Pseudo Eratosthenes/ Quesne). In this historical and transmedial perspective, Europe emerges as a concept that was already sketched in dashed lines in antiquity. Thus, it resonates in contemporary theatre in an updated form and at the same time awakens our political consciousness to the many contemporary challenges and problems of Europe, which have been the subject of debate since antiquity. In Staging Transitory Europe. Precarious Re-enactment Variations from Le Birgit Ensemble's Memories of Sarajevo to Milo Rau's The Dark Ages, Stella Lange explores narrative theatrical forms of a ‘ Europe in flux ’ . After approaching strategies of the Theatre of the Precarious, which rely on the trace-like representation of the Other and, conversely, on the same narrative complementation by the audience, she focuses on the reenactment and its function to narrate past from the point-of-view of the present. Analysing two theatrical works, which replicate special moments in European history based on intensive research and documentation, renders the aesthetically different overlapping of past and present obvious. Depending on the level of the interconnectedness of these time-layers, visions of a ‘ Europe at the 128 Nicole Haitzinger/ Stella Lange threshold ’ may or may not evolve. Hence, the reenactment showcases a paradigmatic form for narrating transitions, as in the case of the ‘ old ’ to the ‘ new Europe ’ , while at the same time rewriting Europe ’ s identity. Finally, these attempts to relate past and present refer also to the Theatre of the Precarious, especially when the murky relation between past and present allows an uncertain, precarious perspective on the future of Europe to emerge. In Enter the Ghosts of Europe: Haunting and Contemporary Theatre, Elisabeth Tropper uses three examples to illustrate how the liminal figure of the ghost is used to haunt contemporary Europe with its oppressed fears: the fear of seemingly foreign migrants and the associated fear of being caught up in the history of colonialism, imperialism, racism, and ultimately, slavery. In the so-called Theatre of Haunting, the three tendencies thus overlap as follows: historical borrowings from Europe's shadow history overlap with a theatrical aesthetic response to the images of mass migration apparently recorded in documentary form in the media. Thus, a political-ethical imperative for Europe itself is eventually formulated, namely to understand these ghosts not as foreign bodies, but as responses and as actual part of European identity. In Leaving and Remaining. The Staging of Europe in the Work of Maxi Obexer, Karsten Forbrig draws our attention to the South- Tyrolean author ’ s elaboration of politically engaged writing using various genres (theatre, novel, radio play, novel essay), which ultimately stages migrants ’ voicelessness in confrontation with Europe ’ s interests. Beginning with the drama Das Geisterschiff, the focus is on migration and the question how to deal with it. However, reflected mainly from a European perspective, the drama reveals Europe ’ s real motivations to capitalise on migration in various ways. Apocalyptic scenarios go hand in hand with a simultaneously critical handling of media documents on ‘ mass migration ’ , whereas utopian views on Europe only emanate from the migrants ’ point of view. As in Tropper ’ s contribution, the influence of media proves to be partly responsible for a rather disparate (self-)image of Europe. Starting from a critical documentary work on the utopian, apocalyptic and actual image of Europe, which retraces the last historical tragedies, the third tendency finally becomes evident, namely the politically motivated interrogation of Europe itself: does it want to define itself by its borders or will it remember its former political-ethical principles once again? In Leaving Lethe for the Bardo: Staging the Disembodied Voices and Silent Bodies of Lampedusa Migrants in the Underworld of Europe, Michelle Cheyne juxtaposes journalistic ‘ stagings ’ of migrants drownings with a “ corpus of corpses ” based on different theatre and ballet productions that are located in the Mediterranean. In the depiction of the half-dead and their setting, the concept of an European Underworld emerges. It is a (not) legal limbo in which the migrant - compared to the bardo of the underworld - has to wait for his new fate in future depending on his status in the past. The trope of the underworld - based on the European canon of Greek myths - however, gives rise to the supposition that the fundamentally social advancement and integration of the migrant is still possible, more than the Theatre of Haunting and its abject strategies implies. In a conscious rejection of stereotypical media images and a gesture of remembrance of the migrant tragedy stories of recent years in Europe, the politico-ethical demand for a hopefully inclusionary behaviour change becomes evident despite all criticism - whereas the Theatre of Haunting rather emphasizes the exclusionary practices. 129 Europe ’ s Staging - Staging Europe