Corpi im-memori. L’utopia dello spettatore partecipante

This essay retraces and investigates some significant moments in Italia contemporary theatre, as first step toward a “History of the spectator’s memory”. If we apply André Bazin’s theories beyond cinema, we can indeed observe that certaint theatre productions are ruled by a representation of time as a continuous flow, a sort of “imagination in becoming” re-enacting words, objects and sounds from other works: devices to activate memory and the actor-spectator relationship during the mysterious progress of artistic creation. In such a process, the encounter between the performer and the house is crucial, and some artists try to re-define, throught a transformation and re-generation of the habitus (Bordieu), the very relationship between the individual and the community. So, their performances do not offer themselves as an organic, prearranged unit; instead, each one of them is a «signifiant poliphony» (B. Dort) Thus, the engagé spectator is he/she who constantly questions them, in a “bartering” of ideas, meanings, and symbols: indissolubly united by that co-responsibility, actor/author and spectator/co-author speak and act in the “performance space” as a choir of voices, an ensemble of bodies. But which traces are left in the spectators by such experiences? And which responsibility the artist has towards the spectators and their memory?

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC-ND

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