170539 UE Feminist Spectacle after Florentina Holzinger (2024W)

Contents:
Viennese choreographer Florentina Holzinger is currently being considered one of the most renowned choreographers from the German-speaking region; her dance productions have been touring all over the world and she has been awarded several prizes (multiple invitations to Berliner Theatertreffen, Nestroy Award, et cetera). Dance and theatre critics as well as researchers have qualified her work as feminist, but it was also been described as utterly spectacular, the latter not seldom implying distinctly pejorative connotations, in the sense of her work being superficial and betting on cheap showmanship.
In this course, we will try to take both elements – the feminist and the spectacular – seriously and ask ourselves whether investigate Holzinger's choreographies can be said to create a form of "feminist spectacle." On the basis of investigating Holzinger's practice, we will enquire into selected positions from 20th and 21st century theatre, dance, and performance to see if we can sketch out a genealogy of "feminist spectacle." Could it be that the spectacle features as an important, but not sufficiently recognised device from the toolset of feminist performance?
We will take a close look at selected works by Florentina Holzinger, among them "Apollon" (2017), "TANZ" (2019), and "A Divine Comedy" (2021); we will discuss how Holzinger stages the female* body, the vulva, and the cis male gaze; we will investigate how Holzinger responds to patriarchal and phallocratic norms from the history of dance and performance art (Balanchine, romantic ballet, but also the neo-avant-garde of the Wiener Aktionisten and Yves Klein); we will trace and discuss genealogical connecting lines that will lead us to feminist neo-avant-garde practices of Valie Export and Carolee Schneemann; we will enquire how Holzinger makes use of choreographic and theatrical means that relate to the modern theatre of spectacle (circus, vaudeville, side shows, slapstick) and to the modern political discourse of spectacle (especially Debord).

Aims:
As a course participant, you will be engaging in performance analysis with a particular focus on gender and feminist issues and the notion of spectacle which represents an important category from theatre studies; you will learn how to combine performance analysis and genealogy as a way of critically investigating theatre, dance, and performance of the present.
Additionally, you will gain crucial knowledge about Florentina Holzinger and selected feminist positions from the modern and contemporary history of theatre, dance, and performance; you will also gain further knowledge about historical gender and body norms as operating in theatre, dance, and performance.

Methods:
- Combination of performance analysis and genealogy
- Contextualisation of performance analysis and genealogical enquiry with respect to literature on Florentina Holzinger, feminist theories of the body and the gaze, as well as literature on the theatre and politics of spectacle in modernity
- Genealogy as an attitude and method in the wake of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Paul B. Preciado and others
- Joint discussion of relevant excerpts from Florentina Holzinger's performances (on video), genealogical references, and related texts