Mobile People, Weapons, and Data Streams; Mobile Audiences and Theatre Spaces: Rimini Protokoll’s Situation Rooms as a Globalised Theatre Experience
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Christine Schwanecke
Christine Schwanecke holds a Juniorprofessorship for the Study of British Literature and Culture at the University of Mannheim. She is writing her second thesis (Habilitation) on “A ‘Different’ Theory and History of English Drama: The Cultural and Performative Power of Dramatic Narration from the Renaissance to the Present.” Her publications include the monograph Intermedial Storytelling: Thematisation, Imitation and Incorporation of Photography in English and American Narrative Fiction at the Turn of the 21st Century (WVT, 2012), three co-edited volumes on literary theory and history and questions in the study of culture (e. g., questions of ‘experience and space’) as well as various articles, among them “Filmic Modes in Literature” (in: Intermediality: Literature – Image – Sound – Music, edited by Gabriele Rippl, De Gruyter 2015, pp. 268–286), and “The Performative Power of Unreliable Narration and Focalisation in Drama and Theatre: Conceptualising the Specificity of Dramatic Unreliability” (with Ansgar Nünning; in: Unreliable Narration and Trustworthiness: Intermedial and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Vera Nünning, De Gruyter, 2015, pp. 189–219).
Abstract
This article explores Rimini Protokoll’s 2013 performance piece Situation Rooms, which deals with movement and mobility in their various, currently most pressing shapes: it thematises the mobility of weapons, people, and data streams; it makes its audiences physically move; and it moves theatre itself – out of what Christopher Balme has called the ‘black box.’ The performance, which stages the dynamics between distance and nearness, makes mobility and movement graspable from challenging angles, and links them to the political, economic, and social workings of globalisation.
Therefore, this article investigates the political and social thrust of Situation Rooms by exploring its different kinds of mobility and examining how these kinds of mobility are characterised. It will also ask about the experiences of mobility that the production invites its recipients to make and with which it arguably creates an awareness of mobility’s social and political effects. Lastly, the article addresses the question of how the piece’s staging and its use of digital technology expresses the multifaceted kinds and experiences of mobility.
About the author
Christine Schwanecke holds a Juniorprofessorship for the Study of British Literature and Culture at the University of Mannheim. She is writing her second thesis (Habilitation) on “A ‘Different’ Theory and History of English Drama: The Cultural and Performative Power of Dramatic Narration from the Renaissance to the Present.” Her publications include the monograph Intermedial Storytelling: Thematisation, Imitation and Incorporation of Photography in English and American Narrative Fiction at the Turn of the 21st Century (WVT, 2012), three co-edited volumes on literary theory and history and questions in the study of culture (e. g., questions of ‘experience and space’) as well as various articles, among them “Filmic Modes in Literature” (in: Intermediality: Literature – Image – Sound – Music, edited by Gabriele Rippl, De Gruyter 2015, pp. 268–286), and “The Performative Power of Unreliable Narration and Focalisation in Drama and Theatre: Conceptualising the Specificity of Dramatic Unreliability” (with Ansgar Nünning; in: Unreliable Narration and Trustworthiness: Intermedial and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Vera Nünning, De Gruyter, 2015, pp. 189–219).
Works Cited
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© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Staging Reverberations of Past Events: A Documentation and Analysis of the Poetics and Politics of Sibikwa Theatre’s Chapter 2, Section 9
- “Born in the Wrong Body:” The Articulation of Sexual Self-Perception in Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis
- Moving Women Centre Stage: Structures of Feminist-Tragic Feeling
- The Limits of the Goat Song in Edward Albee’s The Goat or Who is Sylvia?
- Between You and Me and the More-than-Human World: Ritual and Reference in Jez Butterworth’s The River
- Flying? Falling? – Conflicting Representations of Disability in Kevin Kerr’s Skydive (2007) and Brad Fraser’s Kill Me Now (2013)
- Mobile People, Weapons, and Data Streams; Mobile Audiences and Theatre Spaces: Rimini Protokoll’s Situation Rooms as a Globalised Theatre Experience
- Reviews
- Dorothy Chansky. Kitchen Sink Realisms: Domestic Labor, Dining, and Drama in American Theatre. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2015, 291 pp., $55 (paperback, PDF ebook).
- Áine Phillips, ed. Performance Art in Ireland: A History. London: Live Art Development Agency/ Intellect Books, 2015, 288 pp., £25.
- Sandra Umathum, and Benjamin Wihstutz, eds. Disabled Theater. Zurich: Diaphanes, 2015, vii + 245pp., € 24,95.
- Andy Lavender. Performance in the Twenty-First Century: Theatres of Engagement. London: Routledge, 2016, xii + 235 pp., £ 80 (hardback), £ 24.99 (paperback).Florian Malzacher, ed. Not Just a Mirror: Looking for the Political Theatre of Today. Berlin: Alexander Verlag/Live Art Development Agency, 2015, 195 pp., € 14.90 (paperback), € 9.99 (PDF ebook).
- Emma Creedon. Sam Shepard and the Aesthetics of Performance. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, xi + 199 pp., $90.00.
- Martin Middeke, Peter-Paul Schnierer, and Greg Homann, eds. The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary South African Theatre. London: Bloomsbury, 2015, vii + 384 pp., £70.
- Causey, Matthew, Emma Meehan, and Néill O’Dwyer, eds. The Performing Subject in the Space of Technology: Through the Virtual, Towards the Real. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, v + 242 pp., $90.00 (hardback), $69.99 (PDF ebook).
- Maaike Bleeker, Jon Foley Sherman, and Eirini Nedelkopoulou, eds. Performance and Phenomenology: Traditions and Transformations. Routledge, 2015, x + 254 pp., £ 90.
- Cristina Delgado-García. Rethinking Character in Contemporary British Theatre: Aesthetics, Politics, Subjectivity. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015, xii + 228 pp., € 99.95 (hardcover, PDF ebook).
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Staging Reverberations of Past Events: A Documentation and Analysis of the Poetics and Politics of Sibikwa Theatre’s Chapter 2, Section 9
- “Born in the Wrong Body:” The Articulation of Sexual Self-Perception in Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis
- Moving Women Centre Stage: Structures of Feminist-Tragic Feeling
- The Limits of the Goat Song in Edward Albee’s The Goat or Who is Sylvia?
- Between You and Me and the More-than-Human World: Ritual and Reference in Jez Butterworth’s The River
- Flying? Falling? – Conflicting Representations of Disability in Kevin Kerr’s Skydive (2007) and Brad Fraser’s Kill Me Now (2013)
- Mobile People, Weapons, and Data Streams; Mobile Audiences and Theatre Spaces: Rimini Protokoll’s Situation Rooms as a Globalised Theatre Experience
- Reviews
- Dorothy Chansky. Kitchen Sink Realisms: Domestic Labor, Dining, and Drama in American Theatre. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2015, 291 pp., $55 (paperback, PDF ebook).
- Áine Phillips, ed. Performance Art in Ireland: A History. London: Live Art Development Agency/ Intellect Books, 2015, 288 pp., £25.
- Sandra Umathum, and Benjamin Wihstutz, eds. Disabled Theater. Zurich: Diaphanes, 2015, vii + 245pp., € 24,95.
- Andy Lavender. Performance in the Twenty-First Century: Theatres of Engagement. London: Routledge, 2016, xii + 235 pp., £ 80 (hardback), £ 24.99 (paperback).Florian Malzacher, ed. Not Just a Mirror: Looking for the Political Theatre of Today. Berlin: Alexander Verlag/Live Art Development Agency, 2015, 195 pp., € 14.90 (paperback), € 9.99 (PDF ebook).
- Emma Creedon. Sam Shepard and the Aesthetics of Performance. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, xi + 199 pp., $90.00.
- Martin Middeke, Peter-Paul Schnierer, and Greg Homann, eds. The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary South African Theatre. London: Bloomsbury, 2015, vii + 384 pp., £70.
- Causey, Matthew, Emma Meehan, and Néill O’Dwyer, eds. The Performing Subject in the Space of Technology: Through the Virtual, Towards the Real. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, v + 242 pp., $90.00 (hardback), $69.99 (PDF ebook).
- Maaike Bleeker, Jon Foley Sherman, and Eirini Nedelkopoulou, eds. Performance and Phenomenology: Traditions and Transformations. Routledge, 2015, x + 254 pp., £ 90.
- Cristina Delgado-García. Rethinking Character in Contemporary British Theatre: Aesthetics, Politics, Subjectivity. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015, xii + 228 pp., € 99.95 (hardcover, PDF ebook).
