Theory Editorial April–June 2023
The TQW theory programme for April–June 2023 is marked by collaborations and crossovers. We are happy to host two events that showcase Vienna-based research on and through the arts. Media art theorist and game artist Margarete Jahrmann, head of the Experimental Game Cultures Master programme at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, will discuss games as participatory political practices in a ludic lecture. In June, TQW welcomes part of Screenwise, a symposium festival on queer and feminist film curated by Monika Bernold, Andrea B. Braidt, Brigitte Mayr and Claudia Walkensteiner-Preschl.
Bridging between the theory and the performance programme, the discussion Present Imperfect with Jules Gleeson (writer and stand-up comedian) and Krõõt Juurak (choreographer) will consider questions surrounding the creation process new PARASOL piece SCHOOL from a theoretical perspective. Researchers Elisabeth Schäfer and Julia Grillmayr will join Sabina Holzer after her performance which zones for the presentation of the book which dances – which writes, co-edited by Holzer and Schäfer, which elaborates on the research surrounding the performance. Finally, a lecture by McKenzie Wark, taking her new book Raving as a starting point, will punctuate the Rakete festival, echoing themes that will also come up during S_P_I_T_.
Spring 2023 also marks the opening of a longer-term focus of the theory programme on the topic of class/ism in the performing arts, interrogating their structural role in the dance and performance landscape: from the socioeconomic mobility and precarity of dancers, choreographers, and other dance professionals to the ecologies of work necessary for choreographic creation to be possible; from the role of education in perpetuating or blocking classist discrimination to the role of class in the legitimation of different dance genres. To start this reflection, the lab Class/ism and the performing arts will bring together artist, curator, and writer Julischka Stengele, curator, cultural worker, and diversity expert Elisabeth Bernroitner, artist and researcher Ralo Mayer, artist, curator, and cultural researcher Deniz Güvensoy and the director of The Academy goes to school programme at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna Barbora Chen to share experiences, practices and thoughts about class/ism in the performing arts, as well as possible responses to classist discrimination. The theme of class is also strongly present in the next TQW Research Affiliation, which will be held by researcher and performer Sandra Chatterjee. Critically and intersectionally approaching physical work, labour and the notion of working class, her affiliation will propose different discursive formats to counteract classist and Eurocentric aesthetic exclusions.
Anna Leon (TQW Theory)