intro

 At the beginning of the XIX century, Hegel defended that human history develops towards perfection, creating ever more sofisticated, balanced and just societies. About fifteen years ago, the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama concluded that humanity had finally reached the end of history and created an ideal system: a double-bind of liberal democracy and global capitalism. But two decades later this rather naïve hope has turned into disaster. The efforts of the Bush administration to export ‘their’ democracy led to war, intolerance and contempt for international law. The globalization of capitalism went much better, but the results are extremely worrying: a growing opposition between rich and poor, an ecological catastrophe in the making and the unchecked supremacy of greed and consumerism.

 In one aspect Fukuyama was right: the lack of credible existing alternatives. To maintain our life style, it is said, the economy needs to grow and to make that happen our governments and enterprises have to be the best at the market game. Today, this logic is so impregnated that it almost seems a law of nature.

 No wonder, say the theoreticians of biopolitics: consumer society has become so sofisticated that people have interiorized their own oppression. If the cycle of production and consumption (production feeds consumption and consumption sustains production) is the very base of our prosperity, nothing is more important than to format the individual person as producer/consumer. Control and management of the population, of the bios, of life itself, has become the prime objective of politics. And it is we ourselves who support and want this, because no price seems too high for security and prosperity, nothing seems more important than to saveguard and increase our capacity of consumption. We have come to believe that our freedom coincides with our capacity of purchase.

 In times of blind consensus we need dissonant voices. When life seems to be narrowed down to frenetic consumerism, we need to look for other paths. Nobody will dare to claim that Art can save the world, but in spite of massification and entertainment (of course, art itself has also been turned into a consumer product), some still see and practice art as a form of resistance. As an attempt to visit worlds hidden behind apparent truths. As a way to question what is generally accepted, easily absorbed or simply comfortable.

 The failures of existing Marxism have made the concept of Community suspect - to many even outdated - but artists like Lemi Ponifasio, Stefan Kaegi & Lola Arias, Faustin Linyekula and Filipa Francisco place the community resolutely in the centre of their artistic practice. Spirituality may be compromised by institutional religion and New Age commercials, but Nacera Belaza creates her work out of a state of inner silence and William Yang doesn’t hesitate to call his monologue a meditation.

 Berlin and Tiago Rodrigues & Rabih Mroué look for reality behind the appearances of so different places as Beirut and Bonanza, while Nine finger by Benjamin Verdonck, Fumyo Ikeda and Alain Platel confront the unspeakable nature of violence. Akram Khan and Miguel Pereira multiply points of view in a dialogue with artists from other cultures, while Clara Andermatt, Tiago Guedes and Nature Theater of Oklahoma look for inspiration towards popular culture to experiment alternative visions of the world(s) we inhabit. Teatro Praga discusses conservatism, Michel Schweizer biopolitics and Patrícia Portela asks herself: “would the world be a better place if everybody could have a second chance?” In the hypothetical world of theatre, political and social debates acquire new meanings.

 Maybe less obvious, but no less incisive, is the minutious work that Thomas Hauert and Jonathan Burrows & Matteo Fargion develop on the borderline between music and dance. Or the varied encounters between body and matter staged by Cláudia Dias, Aydin Teker, Padmini Chettur or Zoitsa Noriega & Magdalena Sloncova. They create sites of experimentation and unfold imaginary worlds, for which little space is left in our accelerated cities.

 A well-known joke relates the story of a man falling from a skyscraper. As he is falling, he keeps repeating to himself “So far, so good…So far, so good”. Confronted with a world that insists on ignoring the end of the fall, the mumbling, grumbling, growling, meowing, humming, stammering and singing of the performers in Vera Mantero’s until the moment when god is destroyed by the extreme exercise of beauty is a precious voice of divergence.

 Mark Deputter