Leaving Lethe for the Bardo: Staging the Disembodied Voices and Silent Bodies of Lampedusa Migrants in the Underworld of Europe Michelle Cheyne (Dartmouth) This article looks at tropes used to represent European-bound migration, notably the experience of “ Lampedusa ” migrants who drown or are rescued in the Mediterranean. It considers how the same evocative tropes can be instrumentalized for varying reasons and with very different consequences. Attention is focused on evocative tropes that remain easy to manipulate, notably the image of the orange life-jacketed African refugee as the “ zombie refugee ” or the “ living dead ” . We examine how the trope of the Mediterranean as a cemetery is constructed and mobilized in the performing arts (theatre, contemporary ballet) and the larger consequences of adopting such an image. Specifically, we interrogate how symbolizing this maritime space as a cemetery transforms the figure of the migrant in the public imagination and ask whether alternatives, either real, or potential exist that might possible reshape the public ’ s vision of the figure of the migrant. On June 28, 2018, the morning the “ Europe ’ s Staging - Staging Europe ” conference began in Innsbruck, I checked the local and international news. Two images and the accompanying commentary caught my attention because they bring us to the very heart of the question of how Europe is staged and on what stages this happens. At the same time, both underscored for me the unconscious ways in which the original proposal for this current paper on artistic representations of the trans-Mediterranean migrant 1 experience is rooted in my own Europhilic assumptions, on the one hand, and the ways the abstract was the product of a more optimistic moment in history, on the other. As the reports from ZIB and the BBC illustrate, the ways in which issues and institutions — here migration and the EU — are viewed are subject to change. Moreover, these shifts in public perception, at times, appear to accelerate. How accurate the impression of sudden change might be remains a larger and thornier question that we will not tackle here, even if gauging the accuracy of impressions and claims is of interest to us. In this chapter, I will be specifically discussing how the figure of the migrant and the trope of boats foundering off the coast of Lampedusa serve to stage the European Union and its ideals, even as they problematize it. The two news pieces to which I refer, however, offered an alternative reading, one that marries anxiety, xenophobia, and Euroscepticism to stage the impossibility of Europe. In fact, the vision of Europe that the Austrian and British journalists offered respectively in late June 2018 mobilizes precisely the same figures and images analyzed in this paper. Let us examine how. The first report appeared in the 7 a. m. broadcast of ZIB (Zeit im Bild), the news for ORF 2, one of the four Austrian public news channels. Two minutes into the program, the screen is visually split. On the right, we see the female newscaster, Gaby Konrad, speaking to us directly about Malta ’ s accepting the arrival of a vessel carrying a group of rescued migrants that Italy had prevented from docking. The journalist appears from the waist up and against the background of an early morning sky over city lights. On the left side, a large Forum Modernes Theater, 31/ 1-2 (2020), 198 - 210. Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen DOI 10.2357/ FMTh-2020-0018 still frame shows the prow of a small docked ship. The ship ’ s hull is bright blue and the upper decks and wheelhouse white. This contrasts sharply with the bright orange of life jackets worn by the people standing crammed on board. The quay is equally crowded, but with people in hazmat suits and crowd barriers. This image occupies roughly 2/ 3rds of the left of the screen and contains the caption “„ Lifeline “ in Malta angelegt ” ( “ Lifeline ” docked in Malta). ZIB ’ s logo appears at the lower left under this. This is followed by a full screen shot of the scene with voice-over. Konrad ’ s story gives the bare bones: a group of migrants foundering at sea as they sought to find Europe only arrived at its shores after an emergency summit in which E. U. leaders and diplomats arrived at a grudging compromise. As the migrants disembarked, however, Malta indicated that it would no longer accept humanitarian rescue ships until there was further clarification as to whether the aid boats in question were following international law. In this report, Europe appears just as “ at sea ” or “ lost ” as the boat of migrants in the face of protectionism from the different constituent nations. The second image and text comes from a story filed for the BBC news website by their Europe editor Katya Alder. The subject is the same, but the rhetoric more charged. Here, under the provocative title “ Europe ’ s migration crisis: Could it finish the EU? ” , 2 we see a side view of the same search and rescue ship from the registered association, Mission Lifeline. In this AFP photograph, Mission Lifeline ’ s boat is still out at sea and in the middle of a rescue attempt under a forbidding grey sky. In the foreground, on the right, there is a small black zodiac manned by three aid workers in black clothing and red helmets. In the background, covering more of the visual frame, we see a much larger, over-loaded grey inflatable boat alongside the Mission Lifeline ship. Visually, the bright orange life vests worn by the people seated in this grey boat strike a vibrant and familiar note against the blue hull of the ship. The caption under this image reads “ The splits within the EU have been highlighted by Italy ’ s refusal to accept migrants carried by NGO rescue boats in the Mediterranean. ” Adler ’ s article begins: “ Hardened Eurosceptics might love to think the EU ’ s in trouble, but as leaders gather in Brussels for their summer summit on Thursday, dedicated Europhiles are also sounding the alarm. ‘ The fragility of the EU is increasing, ’ warns the EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker. ‘ The cracks are growing in size. ’” 3 Here, the BBC — less than nine months before the original date for Britain to leave the EU — stages a Europe that is actively breaking apart in a way that frightens even “ dedicated Europhiles ” . The Europe staged by the Austrian and British journalists is a Europe under siege, but to a large extent, this siege is just as much from xenophobia and Euroscepticism as from migration and refugees seeking asylum. I would argue that these images of rescue boats full of migrants are used here to stage the limits of Europe, not as borders, but as ontological and political impossibilities. These images and others like them are harnessed to represent the European Union and its ideals as untenable and unviable. Add spin and the same images used to represent Europe can be appropriated to represent the impossibility of Europe instead of hope and rescue. Now, the idea that figures can be manipulated to show one thing and its opposite is not new. So, why point it out? My flagging this phenomenon serves a double purpose. First, it allows us to shift our attention slightly and move the discussion from staging Europe, per se, to staging the experience of European-bound migrants and, in particular, the “ Lampedusa ” migrants, that is to say those who head towards this Italian island in their attempts 199 Leaving Lethe for the Bardo: Staging the Disembodied Voices and Silent Bodies of Lampedusa Migrants to reach Europe. Second, focusing our attention on these two images also underscores the fact that the same tropes can be instrumentalized and are instrumentalized for different reasons and with different consequences. Articulating this is important because I want to suggest that the more evocative a trope is, the more it can be manipulated. The more a figure resonates and feels pregnant with meaning — whether it be the image of the orange life-jacketed African refugee or that of the “ zombie refugee ” or the “ living dead ”— the more likely it is that we may have trouble perceiving first, how and when this trope refers to different things and second, how and when it creates different consequences. This paper is born out of a desire to better understand how the trope of the Mediterranean as a cemetery is used in the performing arts (theatre, contemporary ballet) and the larger consequences of adopting such an image. How is the trope constructed and how often is it mobilized? When the figure of this maritime space as cemetery is used, how does that symbolic choice transform the figure of the migrant in the public imagination? Are there alternatives, either real, or potential? Would they reshape the public ’ s vision of the figure of the migrant? Bodies of Water, Bodies of Evidence Let us begin by turning to bodies: bodies of water and bodies of evidence. The dead and drowned bodies of migrants mark the boundaries and limits of the European Union to the South. While humanitarian action seeking to preserve life responds to the “ waves ” of migration across the Mediterranean, artistic response to the migrant experience has tended to focus on the humans lost, on those who do not survive. The memorializing impulse is strong in these works. Consider, for example, Mimmo Paladino ’ s sculpture Porta di Lampedusa, Porta d ’ Europa 4 that stands on the southern shore of the island of Lampedusa looking out over the Mediterranean towards Africa. Alternately called the Door of Lampedusa, the Door of Europe, or the Lampedusa Gate in English translation, this artistic monument was dedicated on June 28, 2008. What could be a wall in refractory ceramic standing five meters high and three wide is transformed into an open door. Amani and Arnoldo Mosca Mondadori and their charitable organization, the Fondazione Amani 5 commissioned the sculpture in “ memory of those migrants who lost their lives at sea ” . 6 The Alternativa Giovani e la Comunità of Koinonia, Italian Ministry of the Interior and the UN Hugh Commissioner for Refugees also supported the project. 7 The Fondazione Amani explains that “ [t]he monument stands as a memorial for future generations to the inhuman tragedy of so many migrants dead and dispersed in the Mediterranean, often without witnesses ” . 8 Their website emphasizes the need to keep the dead present in the memory of the living. Thus, it insists: “ La Porta di Lampedusa un monument ai vivi ” ( “ the Lampedusa Gate a monument to the living ” ), while it still focuses on the dead: “ La Porta di Lampedusa opens on a sea where it is estimated that in the last ten years, 10,000 people have perished while attempting the difficult crossing. In a certain sense, this is an unfinished work. It can remain as a sign of peace and a place to collect oneself (luogo di raccoglimento 9 ), or it can become a cold funeral monument like so many others, or it can spread wide and become the symbol of a Europe that opens towards Africa, towards a new welcome and solidarity. ” 10 The performing arts and the written word are also used to memorialize the migrants who have died. Works by playwrights like Lina Prosa (Trilogia del Naufragio: Lampedusa Beach, Lampedusa Snow, 200 Michelle Cheyne Lampedusa Way 11 ), Marco Martinelli (Rumore di acque 12 ), and Anders Lustgarten (Lampedusa 13 ) as well as works by choreographers like Crystal Pite (In the Event 14 , Flight Pattern 15 ) and Bruno Bouché (Undoing World 16 ) create a corpus of corpses. 17 The number of dead keeps growing. Already in 2010, Martinelli has the narrator in Rumore di acque describe the situation as: “ questa montagna di morti/ che si alza immacolata verso il cielo ” ( “ this mountain of the dead/ that rises immaculate towards the heavens ” ). 18 Yet, as we look at how these bodies are reanimated, we note that in these seven works, this mountain of dead bodies, this corpus of corpses, is not waves of zombie hordes. Hence, in these texts, the phenomenon that we observe differs from the image of a haunted Europe evoked and invoked through the theatrical practice on European stages as one sees in the specific examples of Elfriede Jelinek ’ s Die Schutzbefohlenen 19 , Nicolas Stemann ’ s staging of this at the 2014 „ Theater der Welt “ , and Christian Lollike ’ s Living Dead (2016) 20 . Indeed, the trope of the zombie is invoked in productions of the two plays. Nevertheless, the portrayal of the dead in these seven examples (Lampedusa Beach, Lampedusa Snow, Lampedusa Way, Rumore di acque, Lampedusa, In the Event, Flight pattern, Undoing World) differs starkly from Jelinek ’ s and Lollike ’ s plays. I would suggest that it is important to probe the tropes used to characterize the migrants — dead and alive — in other works further before we look at the concept of the bardo as an alternative trope or image to describe theatrical practice engaging with the notion of migration on European stages. Thus, I suggest reexamining the spectral metaphors and related notions of haunting and ghosting and ghostly border crossing that have become quite popular in critical discourse. Raising the Dead or Bringing the Dead to Life? Laure Sarnelli ’ s 2015 article “ The Gothic Mediterranean: Haunting Migrations and Critical Melancholia ” , 21 references and extends Hanif Kureishi ’ s 2014 piece in The Guardian, “ The Migrant Has No Face, Status, or Story ” 22 . Kureishi argues strongly for the importance of tropes that form what Sarnelli defines as the “ Gothic Mediterranean ” . Note the language Sarnelli and Kureishi use. Sarnelli speaks of “ haunting migrations ” , “ ghost ships ” , “ shipwrecks and drownings that haunt the Mediterranean ” , “ the migrant condition of living death ” , “ massive invasion ” , “ inhuman waves ” , “ contagion, horror, omnivorous figures ready to eat you alive ” 23 . Kureishi, on the other hand refers to a “ Zombification of the Other ” in his description of the figure of the migrant. Unlike other monsters, the foreign body of the immigrant is unslayable. Resembling a zombie in a video game, he is impossible to kill or finally eliminate not only because he is already silent and dead, but also because there are waves of other similar immigrants just over the border coming right at you. Forgetting that it is unworkable notions of the “ normal ” - the fascist normal - which make the usual seem weird, we like to believe that there was a better time when the world didn ’ t shift so much and everything appeared more permanent. We were all alike and comprehensible to one another, and these spectres didn ’ t forever seethe at the windows. Now there seems to be general agreement that all this global movement could be a catastrophe, since these omnivorous figures will eat us alive. From this point of view, the immigrant is eternal: unless we act, he will forever be a source of contagion and horror. 24 Note how he points to “ the undead who still invade, colonize, and contaminate our borders ” , “ migrants as dehumanized beings living in a liminal space ” and he states, 201 Leaving Lethe for the Bardo: Staging the Disembodied Voices and Silent Bodies of Lampedusa Migrants “ unlike other monsters, the migrant is unslayable, the zombie in a video game, haunting interloper with no face and no status ” , insisting that “ [t]his group fantasy and prison of cliché - a base use of the imagination - reduces the world to a gothic tale where there is only the violence of exclusion, and nothing can be thought or done. ” 25 It is fascinating to see the extent to which such figures of speech and the images of “ ghost ships ” and the “ living dead ” resonate in relation to trans-Mediterranean migration and in discussions of drownings and rescue efforts off the coasts of Libya and of Lampedusa. I would speculate that the popularity of these tropes regarding clandestine migration, human trafficking, and the process of claiming asylum are linked in part to the large numbers of migrants who drown in these dangerous sea crossings. At the same time, these tropes offer a striking way to describe the legal limbo in which asylum seekers and refugees often themselves. Yet, it is precisely this seductive resonance that forces us to reassess the evidence to make sure that we are not in an echo chamber. When we look carefully at the texts and choreographies of the seven pieces I am discussing, we note there is a disconnect. Despite the popularity of the images linked to Sarnelli ’ s “ Gothic Mediterranean ” , which is supposedly haunted by the living dead, these works do not mobilize the tropes of zombies or ghosts to portray the dead. Likewise, they do not speak of ghost ships ferrying the dead. Thus, the seven pieces I am discussing stand in contrast to the German, German-Camerounais, and Danish productions of Jelinek ’ s Die Schutzbefohlenen and Lollike ’ s Living Dead. The rhetoric of contamination or cannibalism are not used in the works I am discussing. In these pieces, the dead do not “ invade ” or “ overrun ” European countries. The migrants who ask for asylum are most definitely not dead. The ships that carry these migrants are not peopled with ghosts. The Mediterranean dead are quite literally that. Perhaps the closest we get to this would be in Lustgarten ’ s Lampedusa when the Italian narrator describes the grueling rescue attempt during a storm at sea in which he and his friend Salvatore fish 57 dead bodies out of the sea and to Stefano, each one of them appears to have the same face as Modibo, the migrant who has befriended him, 26 or in Crystal Pite ’ s ballet, In the Event, where a migrant woman ’ s drowning and passing from life to death are related as a flashback. In fact, just as we do not find ghosts per se as figures in these seven texts, we also do not find zombie-like undead. It is true, however, that the dead bodies come back to life, but this is through the agency of the European artist or storyteller. In their productions, Prosa, Martinelli, Lustgarten, Pite and Bouché do systematically bring the figure of the refugee to life as they attempt to relate the experience of the trans-Mediterranean migrant. All of these artists exploit the representative and symbolic potential of their media to reincarnate the voices and reanimate the bodies of the Lampedusa dead in productions that layer political action, aesthetics, and artistic experimentation. These 21 st -century European playwrights and choreographers use a variety of rhetorical, gestural, and staging techniques to confront spectators with the human cost of human trafficking and migration across the Mediterranean. Furthermore, based on close readings, I would argue that by temporarily ferrying the figure of the dead migrant back towards the living, these pieces do more than commemorate the dead and lay them to rest. These works also render visible a European underworld peopled by those — both the living and the dead — whom the Schengen space seeks to exclude. We find a striking artistic representation of this in Jason Decaires Taylor ’ s underwater sculpture, The Raft of Lampedusa 27 (2016) which 202 Michelle Cheyne can be found in the Museo Atlantico, 14 meters down off of the southern coast of Lanzarote. The Raft of Lampedusa provides a striking artistic representation of this European underworld. Still, Taylor ’ s marinegrade cement sculpture of a small inflatable raft with migrants and three corpses on the ocean floor off a Spanish island references Gericault ’ s Radeau de la Méduse and not a “ Gothic Mediterranean ” . The European Underworld It comes as little surprise that the image of the underworld peopled by dead Europeanbound migrants is a strong and evocative one. Thus, the trope of the underworld begs further analysis. One the one hand, it connects to the criminal underworld of the human trafficking industry and its infamous business model that increases its profits whenever Europe attempts to respond to foundering boats and drowning migrants. On the other, it connects to an underworld that vibrates with memories of Greek myth. Europa, Orpheus, Charon, the Styx, Lethe all rise to mind for those schooled in Greek myth. These echos feel particularly strong since journalism and critical discourse have popularized the description of the Mediterranean as a vast cemetery. Esther Peeren insists in The Spectral Metaphor. Living Ghosts and the Agency of Invisibility (2014) that the “ Mediterranean has turned into a mass grave ” 28 and Tania El Khoury “ Swimming in Sewage ” (2016) suggests that one cannot “ reflect about the Mediterranean sea without imagining it as a death trap for refugees of war. ” 29 If you do a google search for the “ Mediterranean ” and “ cemetery ” , the prevalence of this image in journalism stands out. The aptness of these images is undeniable and it is easy to assume they will be adopted by artists. Do they? Despite the impressionistic notion that the description of the Mediterranean as a cemetery is a common artistic trope, textual analysis does not back this up for the seven works I examined for this paper. Only Martinelli ’ s Rumore di acque refers to the Mediterranean as a cemetery. Back then/ every day two or three boats/ adrift/ On every big boat/ at minimum one corpse/ that you are not going to tow to land/ you toss it back in the sea/ there ’ s a funeral for you/ there ’ s no more efficient cemetery than that/ no cheaper one/ A little cosy place down there costs nothing/ all done up like it should be/ Atmoshpere/ What ’ s there to say about the atmosphere/ Light and fish, sand and reefs/ suggestive/ that was his funeral/ on every boat, minimum of one corpse [. . .]. 30 Yet, whether the term cemetery is used explicitly or not, clearly these plays and ballets refer to an underworld that is a seabed piled with unrecovered, drowned bodies of dead victims. At the same time, the plays also portray the Mediterranean, whether above or below the waterline as an underworld in the sense of a space outside of legality. Whether the focus points to the traffickers or to the illegal migrants as the guilty parties, they are all presented as part of the criminal underworld. In Lampedusa Way, the last part of Prosa ’ s Trilogia del naufragio, Mahama and Saif are the foster parents who have each travelled legally to Lampedusa in search of the body or news of their respective foster children. The audience knows, of course, that the foster children, Shauba and Mohamed, have died. At the end, still waiting to hear news, Mahama and Said do not board the boat back to Africa when they are supposed to. Instead, they melt into this underworld that is the space of illegality. “ M AHAMA : “ We didn ’ t choose. . ..look, the ship has already sailed./ S AIF : We are illegal aliens! ” 31 A few lines later, Saif asks who they will be ( “ chi saremo ” ) and Mahama re- 203 Leaving Lethe for the Bardo: Staging the Disembodied Voices and Silent Bodies of Lampedusa Migrants sponds “ [t]wo old illegal aliens who are out of their heads ” ( “ due vecchie clandestini fuori di testa ” ). 32 Leaving Lethe for the Bardo Far from being the dominant trope used to stage migrants in artistic productions, the image of the zombie is used by some Europeans artists to condemn European xenophobia and anxiety over market competition. Curiously, as we saw earlier with Kureishi ’ s description of migrants and Adler ’ s description of the European Union, the condemnation or critical stance actually stage a hostile view, which may not be intended. Kureishi portrays migrants as monsters, the zombie hordes, contagion, and horror, while Adler portrays the EU as splintering apart and a finished. The figure of the Lampedusa migrant and the underworld are key here, insofar as they remain strongly associated with dead bodies, with criminal networks, and with potential responses to integrating migrants. I would argue that the xenophobia and anxiety are about the dead bodies and more about integrating live bodies. Furthermore, I would suggest that the performing arts have often staged the dead bodies as an attempt to increase pressure upon society, governments and supranational institutions to improve their integration of migrants. Kureishi ’ s use and description of the trope of the Gothic Mediterranean denounces the gap between need and action. It articulates frustration artistically. Jelinek, and Lollike ’ s productions tap into the same trope to express deep frustration with social injustices. Prosa, Martinelli, Lustgarten, Pite, and Bouché also engage artistically with the subject of the injustices facing migrants. Artistic engagement complicates the notion of art by adding in a separate criterium for evaluating quality. Suddenly, aesthetics and performance no longer suffice. Ethics also are considered. Moreover, this ethical dimension inherits the paradoxical tension of the need to mask and deny material benefits and gains by the artist. (The need for the artist to have “ pure and philanthropic intentions ” is not new. Victor Hugo was instrumental in imposing and normalizing this in the 19th century and his legacy lives on.) The uncompromising stance of the artist stands as guarantee of not having been compromised, and yet in practice does uncompromising mean uncompromised? Paradoxically, in his condemnation of hypocrisy and what constitutes the “ fascist normal ” , Kureishi demonstrates the purity of his own ethical stance using statements like: Unlike other monsters, the foreign body of the immigrant is unslayable. Resembling a zombie in a video game, he is impossible to kill or finally eliminate not only because he is already silent and dead, but also because there are waves of other similar immigrants just over the border coming right at you. 33 While this is one way to engage artistically and while the trope of the Gothic Mediterranean is a striking and memorable one, it is not the only mode of engagement. In fact, the examples above suggest that the frequency of use of this type of engagement may be perceived as overly prevalent because it is so memorable. The uncompromising stance works like a Derridean supplement 34 : the more one attempts to prove artistic ethical integrity, the more the tensions at root become obvious. While the Gothic Mediterranean and zombie hordes may be provocative and evocative, to what extent does it play to European audiences ’ delight in the macabre? To what extent does it appeal to cultural — and intellectual — fashion trends? Do the artists reproduce the very phenomenon they denounce? Those are deeper questions that cannot be conjured away. 204 Michelle Cheyne They remain constant challenges for all artists. While the Gothic Mediterranean may be a more memorable way of speaking about migration, in the first two decades of the 21 st century, artistically-engaged practice appears more inclined to memorialize the migrant dead, laying them to rest publicly and less inclined to raise them as frightening spectres. To be clear, my research, here, looks at a corpus of texts that does not include Jelinek ’ s or Lollike ’ s texts nor does it include Maxi Obexer ’ s prose works, Wenn gefährliche Hunde lachen 35 and Europas längster Sommer 36 nor Obexer ’ s play, Gehen und Bleiben, which Karsten Forbrig discusses in his chapter “ Leaving and remaining ” - The Staging of Europe in the work of Maxi Obexer ” in this present volume. Thus, if I suggest that the productions of Jelinek and Lollike ’ s two plays do not align in terms of the phenomenon I am describing, the Obexer texts do appear, at first glance, to use similar tropes and mechanisms, I want to emphasize that these are provisional conclusions. Further analysis of the Jelinek, Lollike, and Obexer texts and performances would be needed. It would be useful to investigate to what extent this hypothesis is true. How can we understand the artistic practice that aligns with what we observe in the cases of Prosa, Pite, Lustgarten, Martinelli, and Bouché? Does memorialization instrumentalize art in a political process of pacification and integration? Have the artists sold out? Worse, are the artists merely trying to increase their professional and economic capital? Here, the accusation of “ socioliberal conformism ” and exploitation of the subject of migration that Hubert Winkels, the president of the jury for the Ingeborg Bachmann Award, levelled at Obexer for her 2017 lecture for that award points to just these questions. It is an accusation that might be levelled at the artists whose work I am studying. Prosa, Martinelli, Lustgarten, Pite, and Bouché have all won awards for their artistic pieces that represent the migrant experience and, very often, migrant deaths. They are routinely quizzed on their motivations. Let us look at how Bouché and Pite have responded since modern dance is often seen as a more opaque mode of artistic expression and since interviews with Prosa, Martinelli, and Lustgarten may be more familiar. In preparing the publicity page for the Ballet de Paris website, Solenne Soriau probes Bouché ’ s regarding his objectives in Undoing World asking the choreographer what themes his ballet tackles and whether it is political. His answer accounts for his interest in both senses of the term: For this piece, which in a way marks my farewell to the Paris Opera, the theme of a quest seemed an obvious one: the quest for elsewhere, a change of direction, another reality. I placed this quest at the heart of my work, with all that it implies in terms of physical and mental trials: wilderness, exile, the loss of familiar landmarks and even a certain chaos engendered by these changes of direction. One can interpret this in the light of recent events but also in a more metaphysical sense. [. . .] I have been directly confronted with the refugee issue in my own life but I didn ’ t want to pass on a message or create a polemical work. I ’ m more concerned by poetic constructions. I wanted to open up pathways, widen horizons of interpretation. My sources of inspiration were as much Dante and the passage through hell in The Divine Comedy as recent events, which have touched me a lot. The capacity to care for others has been part of my thinking in my work with the dancers. 37 Bouché explicitly acknowledges the political and artistic dimensions of his work, but emphasizes his engagement with the issue of migration is dominated by his position as an artist concerned with “ poetic constructions ” and universals. Parenthetically, the develop- 205 Leaving Lethe for the Bardo: Staging the Disembodied Voices and Silent Bodies of Lampedusa Migrants ment of poetic constructions, should not be dismissed since it teaches audiences a new vocabulary for understanding and engaging with the world. Pite, for her part, addressed similar questions when interviewed at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2017. She explains first her own artistic practice: I try to work with big ideas. I try to work with things that I cannot understand or that cannot be understood. I try to work with with (sic) the unimaginable. And because I am reaching far into things that I don ’ t necessarily have the capacity to hold, then that ’ s the state that I need to be in when I ’ m working with it. The state of being at my limit, the limit of what I can manage. Then it feels like there is this vital tension [. . .] when I try and convey a specific passage of dance it is because I am trying to get at something that cannot be expressed in words and maybe needs to bypass verbal language in order to resonate. 38 She describes her ballet Flight Pattern designed for the Royal Ballet in London: I feel that this creation [Flight pattern] is my way of coping with the world at the moment and I can ’ t not talk about it. . .. This began with a choice of music and I chose the first movement of Górecki ’ s Symphony No. 3 . . . because at the time of making that choice, I was as most people are busy with the humanitarian crisis that we are facing and the plight of the refugees and the feeling that this is really the story of our time. So, the title of the work is Flight Pattern and I was caught by the word flight in its double meaning of to flee, to escape, to leave an impossible situation and that sense of hope and possibility and a kind of freedom that is yearned for. [. . .] I am working with cast of 36, which is a big number, but what amazes me when I work with a big group is how intimate the experience can still be. . .. Working in the theater, the collaborative aspect, building something together that is bigger than all of us. . . As I have been working on the piece, I have felt a sense of being overwhelmed, of crushed or pressurized by the subject. . . I wonder whether I have the capacity to manage something so overwhelming, but at the end of the day, I know that is really, it is only through dance that I have any hope of speaking clearly and truthfully about something that I care so deeply about, so I have to try. 39 Pite emphasizes her engagement, but also how dance, her artistic medium, is a language through which she can contribute to improving a situation. As in the case with Obexer, Prosa, Martinelli, and Lustgarten, the position of the engaged artist balances between critique, education, and art. The focus of the works in this corpus lies predominantly in educating the public in order to change behaviors. They navigate between the intensely personal and the universal as they memorialize dead migrants, in specific, and victims, more generally, in hopes of effecting social change. In light of the unspoken — an optimistic — ideal of a European Union that inclusively integrates refugees and migrants that subtends these pieces, I would argue that these works function less as cemetery and more as an “ artistic bardo ” . The notion of “ artistic bardo ” that I want to introduce owes a great debt to Georges Saunders ’ novel, Lincoln in the Bardo 40 (2017) which itself mobilizes the Tibetan Buddhist concept of an intermediary space in between death and rebirth. Specifically, the OED defines it as “ (in Tibetan Buddhism) a state of existence between death and rebirth, varying in length according to a person ’ s conduct in life, and manner of, or age at, death. ” 41 Pema Khandro Rinpoche ’ s description of the bardo links it to bereavement that she describes in a way that brings in once more the “ living dead ” : In bereavement, we come to appreciate at the deepest, most felt level exactly what it means 206 Michelle Cheyne to die while we are still alive. The Tibetan term bardo, or “ intermediate state, ” is not just a reference to the afterlife. It also refers more generally to these moments when gaps appear, interrupting the continuity that we otherwise project onto our lives. 42 Hence, the trope of the bardo allows us to describe the feeling of “ living death ” that the migrant experiences without characterizing the migrant as a monster. Wikipedia — which, granted, is not a vetted academic source — develops this idea further: [Bardo] is a concept which arose soon after the Buddha's passing, with a number of earlier Buddhist groups accepting the existence of such an intermediate state, while other schools rejected it. In Tibetan Buddhism, bardo is the central theme of the Bardo Thodol (literally Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State), the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Used loosely, “ bardo ” is the state of existence intermediate between two lives on earth. According to Tibetan tradition, after death and before one's next birth, when one's consciousness is not connected with a physical body, one experiences a variety of phenomena. These usually follow a particular sequence of degeneration from, just after death, the clearest experiences of reality of which one is spiritually capable, and then proceeding to terrifying hallucinations that arise from the impulses of one's previous unskillful actions. For the prepared and appropriately trained individuals, the bardo offers a state of great opportunity for liberation, since transcendental insight may arise with the direct experience of reality; for others, it can become a place of danger as the karmically created hallucinations can impel one into a less than desirable rebirth. 43 Saunders ’ novel, Lincoln in Bardo, emphasizes — and arguably extends — the crucial role that past actors and present actors play while the dead person is in this intermediary space. It also posits the danger of remaining in the bardo. The resonance with the migrant experience is strong. Both are traumatic intermediary states. For both, the quality of the next state of existence depends largely on a range of factors, including the person ’ s past, age at “ passing ” , length of time in the intermediary space, help they receive transitioning to the new state, and willingness to let go of the previous state. Pite, in an interview with BBC journalist Kristy Wark, describes her ballet, In the Event, speaking about just such a process: I wanted to try and evoke a stage in the journey of these people that is more of that limbo state of having left one situation, having left an impossible situation, to not yet have entered the next phase of life, to be in between, so the past is clinging to you and there are flashbacks and there are memories and there are wonderings and regrets and yet the future is still completely unformed and uncertain. I was imagining what is it like to come up against a border or a holding area, or a waiting room, a checkpoint, a camp and to be held and to not be able to move forward and to not be able to move back. 44 Creating a representation of this nature appears, thus, as an effort to make the audience understand, at a visceral level, the migrant experience. Given the similarities in the two structures — migration and the bardo — , I would suggest that the bardo offers a useful paradigm to understand the mechanisms at work in politically-engaged drama and dance staging the Lampedusa dead and European underworld as an intermediary space between the migrants ’ past and different options for a future. I want to suggest that the works in the corpus I analyze reanimate the bodies and attempt to amplify the silenced voices of living and drowned migrants through a mechanism of “ artistic bardo ” that is tied to the artists ’ idealism (even if it is highly critical idealism) with respect to Europe. In these artistic representations of 207 Leaving Lethe for the Bardo: Staging the Disembodied Voices and Silent Bodies of Lampedusa Migrants the trans-Mediterranean migration, playwrights and choreographers attempt to integrate both dead and living migrants into Europe and they suggest that these migrants can nourish Europe in different ways. Such a portrayal is of particular relevance. The positive role of migrants stands in contrast with the negative images that journalism and political discourse mobilize so often. I would argue that the trope of the bardo accounts better for how politically engaged drama and dance attempt to stage the Lampedusa dead and European underworld. I specifically mean that it does this at a structural level in terms of how the performance text and production is constructed. They focus on the intensely personal and emotional to help frame both the experience and the solution as necessarily universal. Here, the memorialization of the dead on an individual scale and on a monumental scale is a key step to engaging — hopefully, although success is never guaranteed nor achieved permanently — the audience in inclusionary behavioral change. These texts present an intermediary space, but not the ‘ living dead zombie landscape ” of the Gothic Mediterranean. Instead, these artists probe this intermediary space between the migrants ’ past and different options for a future and they also probe the role of Europeans in improving or degrading the new life for the migrant. Lustgarten ’ s play Lampedusa actually takes this idea and makes it reciprocal by explicitly suggesting that these migrants can nourish Europe. Clearly, all of these artists are showing ways that the migrants nourish European art and they are invested in suggesting that integrating migrants into the European imaginary is imperative. Lustgarten, however, pushes it the furthest claiming: They ’ ve given us joy. And Hope. They ’ ve brought us the things we have nothing of. And I thank them for that. (pause) They don ’ t know what ’ ll happen. If either of them [Modibo and his wife Aminata] will get to stay long term. But they ’ re here, in this moment, alive, and living. And that is all you can ask for. (pause) I defy you to see the joy in Modibo and Aminata ’ s faces and not feel hope. I defy you. 45 Lustgarten is not alone in his efforts to inspire compassion in the audiences. All of these artists seek to do this and their efforts are related to an attempt to show the migrants as part of a European story, but a European story that is ultimately optimistic. This notion of migrants contributing positively to the host country ’ s culture is particularly interesting since it stands in contrast with journalism and political discourse that tend to burden the figure of the migrant with negative connotations. Notes 1 I am deliberately using the term “ migrant ” and not “ asylum seeker ” or “ refugee ” . I want to look very precisely at the migrant experience without differentiating between those who wish to move to a new culture and country for personal or economic reasons and those who are fleeing for their lives. Why? There are similarities in the experiences regarding feelings of displacement, exclusion, cultural ignorance, and xenophobia. Parts of the migrant experience are universal. Moreover, “ refugee ” is a term for a particular category of migrants granted protective status because of vulnerability and yet, at the same time, once one is a refugee, one is no longer a migrant, but an immigrant. The journey has ended even if the challenges of integration and inclusion have not. Asylum seeker is also a specific term for vulnerable migrants who flee to safety as well as migrants who may or may not fit these criteria but who seek state/ international protection abroad. Asylum seekers are, by definition, still in transit if not necessarily in present movement. Shorthand leads to slippage among these terms in 208 Michelle Cheyne both inclusionary and exclusionary discourses despite the ontological and legal specificities that distinguish between them. 2 https: / / www.bbc.com/ news/ world-eu rope-44632471 [accessed 30 August 2019]. 3 Ibid. 4 http: / / www.schengenborderart.com/ portfo lio/ mimmo-paladino-porta-di-lampedusaporta-deuropa/ [accessed 30 August 2019]. See also http: / / www.amaniforafrica.it/ cosafacciamo/ la-porta-di-lampedusa/ 10-anniver sario-della-porta-di-lampedusa/ and http: / / www.spiegel.de/ international/ europe/ afri cans-remembered-a-memorial-for-europes-lost-migrants-a-560218.html [accessed 30 August 2019]. It is perhapas a fitting coincidence that the international conference that gave rise to this volume began on the 10 th anniversary of the unveiling of the Porte of Europe monument on Lampedusa. 5 http: / / 206.189.250.253: 8080/ fondazione-a mani/ [accessed 30 August 2019]. 6 http: / / www.amaniforafrica.it/ cosa-facciamo/ la-porta-di-lampedusa/ 10-anniversario-del la-porta-di-lampedusa/ [accessed 30 August 2019]. 7 https: / / www.google.com/ search? client=fire fox-b-1-d&q=un+commis+refugees [accessed 30 August 2019]. 8 Ibid. 9 http: / / www.amaniforafrica.it/ cosa-facciamo/ la-porta-di-lampedusa/ la-porta-di-lampedu sa [accessed 30 August 2019]. I have deliberately chosen the literal translation despite its being less graceful. While “ luogo di raccoglimento ” is a place for reflection or contemplation, the etymology here echoes so strongly with the idea of gathering together, collecting together at a place of loss and dispersal, that a clumsy but resonant word seems more appropriate to me. 10 “ La Porta di Lampedusa si apre su un mare dove si stima che negli ultimi dieci anni siano perite diecimila persone tentando una difficile traversata. È, in un certo senso, un ’ opera incompiuta. Può restare come un segno di pietà e un luogo di raccoglimento, o diventare un freddo monumento funebre come tanti, o allargarsi e diventare il simbolo di un ’ Europa che si apre verso l ’ Africa, verso l ’ accoglienza e una solidarietà nuova. ” Translation my own. http: / / www.amanifora frica.it/ cosa-facciamo/ la-porta-di-lampedu sa/ la-porta-di-lampedusa [accessed 30 August 2019]. 11 Lina Prosa, Trilogia del Naufragio: Lampedusa Beach, Lampedusa Snow, Lampedusa Way), Spoletto, 2013. 12 Marco Martinelli, Rumore di acque, Spoletto, 2010. 13 Anders Lustgarten, Lampedusa, London, 2015. 14 Crystal Pite, In the Event, World premiere on 16 April 2015. This ballet premiered four days after a ship carrying approximately 550 migrants sank and approximately 400 died. It was the largest loss of life in such an accident in the Mediterranean since 13 October 2013. The drowning of those 400 people was eclipsed days later by a single ship sinking from which only 28 people were rescued. The remaining 700 - 900 people all drowned. 15 Crystal Pite, Flight Pattern, World premiere March 2017. https: / / www.roh.org.uk/ produc tions/ flight-pattern-by-crystal-pite [accessed 30 August 2019]. 16 Bruno Bouché, Undoing World, World premiere 13 June 2017. 17 This list is by no means exhaustive. Other chapters in this volume discuss artists and works that I have not mentioned here, which highlights how partial my list is in both senses of the term. 18 Martinelli, Rumore di acque, p. 58 19 Elfriede Jelinek, Die Schutzbefohlenen in Die Schutzbefohlenen. Wut. Unseres, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2018. 20 Christian Lollike, Living Dead, unpublished script, September 2016. Cited by Tropper. 21 Laura Sarnelli “ The Gothic Mediterranean: Haunting Migrations and Critical Melancholia ” , Journal of Mediterranean Studies 24/ 2 (2015), pp. 147 - 165. 22 Hanif Kureishi, “ The Migrant Has No Face, Status, or Story ” , in: The Guardian (30 May 2014). https: / / www.theguardian.com/ books/ 2014/ may/ 30/ hanif-kureishi-migrant-immi gration-1 [accessed 30 August 2019]. 209 Leaving Lethe for the Bardo: Staging the Disembodied Voices and Silent Bodies of Lampedusa Migrants 23 Sarnelli, “ The Gothic Mediterranean ” , pp. 147 - 165. 24 Kureishi, “ The Migrant Has No Face, Status, or Story ” . 25 Ibid. 26 Lustgarten, Lampedusa, p. 28. 27 https: / / artimage.org.uk/ 21278/ jason-decair es-taylor/ the-raft-of-lampedusa - lanzarote - museo-atlantico - 2016 and for a description of the installation and museum, see https: / / www.pbs.org/ newshour/ arts/ europes-firstunderwater-museum-offers-a-stark-remin der-of-the-refugee-crisis [accessed 30 August 2019]. 28 Esther Peeren, The Spectral Metaphor. Living Ghosts and the Agency of Invisibility, London 2014, p. 187. 29 Tania El Khoury: “ Swimming in Sewage ” , in: Performance Research 21: 2 (2016), pp. 138 - 40, p. 140. 30 “ Erano anni quelli / ogni giorno due tre barconi/ alla deriva/ Su ogni barcone/ minimo un cadavere/ / che mica stavi a riportarlo a terra/ lo ributtavi a mare/ quello era il suo funerale/ Non c ’ è cimiterio più eficiente economico/ Un posticino lagggiù non costa niente/ addobbato come si deve/ Ambiente/ che dire dell ’ ambiente/ luce e pesci, sabbia e scogli/ suggestivo/ quello era il suo funerale/ Su ogni barcone/ minimo un cadavere, ” translation my own. Martinelli, Rumore di acque, p. 26. 31 “ M AHAMA : Non abbiamo scelta. . . guarda, la nave è già partita./ S AIF : siamo clandestini! ” . Translation my own. Prosa, Lampedusa Way, p. 102. 32 Ibid. 33 Kureishi, “ The Migrant Has No Face, Status, or Story ” . 34 Jacques Derrida, De la Grammatologie, Paris, Éditions de Minuit (Critique), 1967. 35 Maxi Obexer, Wenn gefährliche Hunde lachen, Wien 2011. 36 Maxi Obexer, Europas längster Sommer, Berlin 2017. 37 Solène Souriau, „ Choreography as a Means of Resistance: Encounter with Bruno Bouché “ . https: / / www.operadeparis.fr/ en/ m agazine/ choreography-as-a-means-of-resis tance [accessed 30 August 2019]. 38 https: / / www.youtube.com/ watch? v=9tSBk T9AFWA [accessed 30 August 2019] and Mel Spencer, “ Crystal Pite: Flight Pattern is My Way of Coping with the World at the Moment: The Canadian Choreographer's New Work for The Royal Ballet Addresses the Refugee Crisis ” , March 9, 2017: https: / / www.roh.org.uk/ news/ crystal-pite-flight-pat tern-is-my-way-of-coping-with-the-worl d-at-the-moment [accessed 30 August 2019]. 39 Ibid. 40 George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo, New York, 2017. 41 https: / / en.oxforddictionaries.com/ defini tion/ bardo [accessed 30 August 2019]. 42 Pema Khandro Rinpoche, “ The Four Points of Letting Go in Bardo, 15 July 2017, https: / / www.lionsroar.com/ four-points-for-lettinggo-bardo/ [accessed 30 August 2019]. 43 https: / / en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Bardo [accessed 30 August 2019]. 44 https: / / www.youtube.com/ watch? v=SYv1v Q-5wKk [accessed 30 August 2019]. 45 Lustgarten, Lampedusa, p. 33. 210 Michelle Cheyne