Contemporary Performing Arts Practices beyond the Status of Difference

Nenad Jelesijević

The potential hybridity of theatre expression is the starting point for a look into contemporary performing arts practices that deviate from any kind of delineations that basically reinforce classification (on the basis of culture, language, ethnicity, gender, economic criteria, etc.). Using specific examples of the Belgrade manifestation Kontra Dibidon, the trans-Yugoslav theatre initiative KPGT and the Ex Ponto Festival in Ljubljana, we consider the influences of intercultural exchanges and the representations of otherness on stage expressions, especially regarding a critical reflection of the existing situation. Through a comparative analysis of several recent performance art works, we attempt to shed light on this issue while searching for those juxtapositions of scenic procedures and approaches that assert the transformative potential of theatre, or rather, contribute to its political emancipation – beyond the status of difference.

Nenad Jelesijević writes about contemporary performing arts, performance art, interdisciplinary practices, film, architecture and design and researches critical art. He received his master’s degree in video and new media and later earned his PhD in philosophy and the theory of visual culture with a thesis on the critical work of art and symbolic capital. He occasionally lectures in the Department of Cultural Studies of the Faculty of Social Sciences (FDV), University of Ljubljana. He co-organises artistic, educational and research projects at the Institute for Artistic Production and Research KITCH and is active in the non-artistic tandem KITCH (www.kitch.si).