Further on, Nothing

Tadeusz Kantor’s Theatre

Michal Kobialka

• Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9780816668069
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Drama
• Index: Literature

Tadeusz Kantor (1915–1990) was one of the twentieth century's most innovative visual artists, stage directors, and theoreticians. His theatre productions and manifestos challenged the conventions of creating art in post–World War II culture and expanded the boundaries of Dada, surrealist, Constructivist, and happening theatre forms. Kantor's most widely known productions—The Dead Class (1975), Wielopole, Wielopole (1980), Let the Artists Die (1985), and Today Is My Birthday (1990)—have had a profound impact on playwrights and artists who continue today to engage with his radical theatre. In Further on, Nothing, Michal Kobialka explores Kantor's theatre practice from the critical perspective of current debates about representation, memory, and history. He pursues the intriguing proposition that Kantor gave material form to a theatre practice that defined the very mode of postmodern operation and that many of its theoretical notions are still in circulation. According to Kobialka, Kantor's theatre still offers an answer to reality rather than a portrayal of a utopian alternative. Further on, Nothing includes new translations of Kantor's work, presented in conversation with Kobialka's own theoretical analyses, to show us a Kantor who continues to offer—and deliver on—the promise of the avant-garde.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• My Work—My Journey (1988)
• 1. Topography of Representation
• 2. Spatial Historiography: The Dead Class
• 3. Theatre of Similitude
• 4. Spatial Historiography: Silent Night
• 5. The Space of Khora
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Writings by Tadeusz Kantor