En fin, lo único que se me ocurre para dejar trazos de mi estado, es poner frente a ustedes mis dos propuestas de tesis. Las dos (aunque no parece) tienen el mismo origen: un proyecto detrás. Cómo se perfila mi vida en ellas? Qué tan estratégica debiera ser la relación rumbo al futuro? Todas esas preguntas me rondan la cabeza. Creo que me inclino por una. Pero ahí les dejo ambas, y la preguunta: en cuál de las dos estoy más....
Propuesta 2A:
Topic: Modes of production of independent research theatre companies in México City in the democratic era (post 2000).
Thesis Statement:
The independent research theatre companies in México City lack an overarching strategy/vision that allows them to coherently articulate their ideas about performance, their modes of production, and their performance as participants in the building of a new understanding and engagement of the public sphere in the Mexican democratic times (post 2000).
Justification:
The ideas relating to what performance is that the independent research theatre companies have determines the way they negotiate their need of funding, their organizational culture, their artistic agendas, their modes of engaging with audiences, and the specific historical context/moment. This in turn affects their performance as organizations belonging both to a theatre ecosystem and to the citizen’s public space in the democratic era (post 2000). It is important to examine their performance in a wider context to judge the nature and impact of their intervention in the political life of the country. Their work is significant at a national level for the level of visibility that the capital gives, and because of the probability that companies in other parts of the country could follow their example.
Theatre companies could (should?) engage constructively with these circumstances. This is better understood if one considers that there exists the assumption that art organizations entities of public interest (and thus allows for government funding to be allocated to their projects) –financial criteria. Second, because a premise of research is that it should be undertaken in order to foster the betterment of the human condition in a given society –ethical criteria. Third, because the country is going through a period of redefinitions after the consolidation of electoral democracy in 2000 and all the changes to the behavior of the political actors and system, and with the emblematic moment that for national identity represents 2010 as anniversary of 100 years of the Mexican Revolution (1910) and 200 years of the War of Independence (1810). Both facts along with a general feeling of dissatisfaction with the performance of the country ask for a redefinition of political practices, the revision of the handling of the public sphere, and the redefinition of the rules of the game.
In fourth and last place, the companies could probably find new ways of creatively engaging with their audiences in a long-term basis, giving them better odds for their sustainability as entrepreneurial efforts.
Case Studies:
Established independent theatre companies in México City claiming to have research as one of their aims.
Artillería Teatro. http://www.artilleriaproducciones.com.mx/
Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes. http://www.ciertoshabitantes.com/
Teatro Línea de Sombra. http://www.teatrolineadesombra.org/
La Máquina de Teatro. http://www.lamaquinadeteatro.com/
Los Endebles. http://www.losendebles.org.mx/
Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol. http://lagartijastiradasalsol.blogspot.com/
Proyecto 3. http://proyecto3.info/
Methodological approach:
Asking this kind of questions needs of three very differentiated phases.
1. A mapping of the context (both in wide sociopolitical terms and in terms of the theatre making conditions). This can be done mainly referring to the literature, diagnostics and official information available.
2. An examination of the theatre companies (Interview with the artistic and executive directors; Organizational information; Websites; Archive; Funding; Traces of their works in the media; A basic questionnaire with a second round of interview to try to fill specific blanks) which requires contacting and getting the collaboration of the companies, devising the tools for research, collecting information.
3. Analyzing the performance of the companies based on the literature of Creative Management, Genetic approach to analyzing performances (Fèral), and Theatre ecology (Kershaw).
Questions:
What is the context of the public sphere in México after the consolidation of electoral democracy? What are the general conditions for theatre making in México City? What are the general conditions of the independent theatre companies in México City?
What are the notions of performance that independent research theatre companies in México City have? What are their notions of research and how do they conduct it? What are their modes of production (considering artistic, organizational, entrepreneurial and political aspects of it)? How do they conceive their role as an organization in the wider context of the city, the country and the public sphere?
Can active engagement with the discussion and remaking of the public sphere be an overarching strategy for long-term sustainability? Can research be an overarching strategy for long-term sustainability? How to negotiate a successful entrepreneurial attitude and the work of the companies without compromising artistic research?
Propuesta 2B
Topic:
Gardens & Cityness: liminal-tidal places for slow-paced performances of listening
Thesis Statement:
The serene, patient, slow-paced of gardens is a phenomenon that should be read as an integral part of the cityness, thus validating the knowings besides the knowledge that is foundation of its logic. Studying gardens as exemplary case studies of the tidal-liminal within of ‘the city’ and ‘gardening’ as their performance-correlate can help us better understand the ecologies of cityness.
Justification:
A.In the same way that we can talk of a Human Condition (Arendt) or a Postmodern Condition (Lyotard), it is possible to imagine a widespread ‘Urban Condition’, arising from the episteme/paradigm/logics of Cityness (Amin and Thrift) common to the global capitalist economy. The 2007 United Nations Population Fund Report confirms this global trend: for the first time in history more than 50% of the world population lived in cities (unfpa.org) and Zygmunt Bauman characterizes it as the liquidity of our times (Bauman).
B. A city is not an homogeneous phenomenon. Its surface shows different intensities and dynamics. Thus, the urban condition is not only represented by an urban dweller commuting/producing/consuming or its counterpart in the private spaces of the house that prepare the individual to connect to these (and other dynamics). The flaneur is an alternative to these model, but it’s not the only one. It is interesting to try to think to other more ‘passive’ or ‘intimate’ alternatives.
Green areas present themselves as abnormalities in the logics of the city. This is especially true with those ones prone to intimacy and non-utilitarian ends. House gardens are a good example of such spaces. They are very interesting for they found themselves as liminal areas (cultura/natura, public/private) and behave in tidal fashion (the space performs differently in different moments).
C. They also make interesting case studies because they promote a praxis/ethos that I will call ‘gardening’.
·A performative action that opens a space based on a serene and patient temporality (use of time); an embodied time for experience encouraging a ‘humanization of the senses’ (Marx).
·A place of containment (as opposed to flux), proper for intimacy and communication: listening.
·A slow-paced crafty act allowing for duration (thus revelation, epiphany); a space of representation (Knowledge) and of non/meta-representation (knowings) achieved by accretion during the representing.
·An ethical structure that witnesses (Etchells) and attests (Ricoeur) the other.
D. ‘Gardening’ is a place specific activity, but it is mirrored in some other ‘places’ through the situation of ‘listening’. ‘Listening’ characterized by slowness and intensity, could happen in different forms in specific circumstances, i.e., gardening (ecological), altar (ritual), rehearsal (political), listening (ethical). ‘Listening’ should be understood not as a communicative act, but in its dimension as a Performative act. It seems to constitute a little space for observation (theatron), that underlines the dignity of what shows up (both a priori and as an achievement).
Case Studies:
Gardens as places; the performances that they promote.
Listening as social activity (in a wide sense).
Methodological approach:
The City is a topic that will need to be illuminated as a contemporary phenomena, not as a specific place but as phenomena dictating the context for experiencing the human condition in the beginnings of the XXIst Century: as cityness, specially related to uses or economies of time and exploring the possibility of an ‘urban condition’. Then, an approach through urban studies and cultural geography should be attempted to explain gardens as a space –or maybe as an utterance (performative act) within the discourse of contemporary cities.
The next step would be to try to talk about the modes of dwelling that gardens as spaces promote (‘gardenings’), putting special emphasis on the temporalities (uses of time) they allow for. This could be done through the academic studies available, and through literature regarding the experience of gardens (Harrison). The Genetic Approach to analyzing performances through their traces could also be considered. A Performance Studies approach is a strong possibility, perhaps through the Non-representational style to theory proposed by Nigel Thrift.
The next step would be to focus on the issue of ‘listening’. A wide approach to ‘listening’ is suggested- such as the one that can be adopted through sociology (White; Back)-, followed by some illustrations of practices that could be listed as ‘listening’. Then a comparison of ‘gardening’ as a parallel structure in the realm of space is done with ‘listening’ in the realm of the ethos could be explored (gardening-city:listening-urban condition). Both ‘gardening’ and ‘listening’ seem to inaugurate a space for knowings that go beyond (besides?) the representational. Of special interest in the parallel is the liminal-tidal space, with palpitating dynamics of opening-closing/containing-projecting. Also of interest is the agency of the seemingly passive act of listening or inhabiting a garden, their crafty character, and their ‘duration’ in relation to the ‘speed’ of the city.
Questions:
What is a liminal-tidal space? Is ‘gardening’ a useful metaphor to talk about what happens in liminal-tidal spaces? What is the function of such liminal-tidal non-utilitarian spaces within the ecology of the city? What do they say about the urban condition?
What do these tidal dynamics (closure-openess/contention-projection) tell us? What is the underlying logic to their movement?
How can we think about those phenomena in a non-representational style? Is it possible to escape dualist approaches to it?
What is that space that is opened through gardening/listening? How should we call it? Is it appropriate to call it a theatre? What performances does this space allow for?
En caso que tengas el alma dividida aún...y que dudaras de mi voto...a güevo por la propuesta A...A güevo..jejeje. Y un te quiero. Sea la que sea...M
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