The Ghosts of the Avant-Garde(s): Exorcising Experimental Theater and Performance

Chapter 5 - From Cutting Edge to Rough Edges: On the Transnational Foundations of Avant-Garde Performance

136 Chapter 5 From cutting edge to rough edges on the Transnational Foundations of AvantGarde Performance assume therefore that, as a result of specific historical circumstances, a theory or idea pertaining to those circumstances arises. What happens to it when, in different circumstances and for new reasons, it is used again and, in still more different circumstances again? What can this tell us about theory itself— its limits, its possibilities, its inherent problems—and what can it suggest to us about the relationship between theory and criticism, on the one hand, and society and culture on the other? edward said, “Traveling Theory” I. ‘In Advance of’: An Introduction While the Brechtian dimensions of Peter Brook’s The Mahabharata may cut across the grain of Brook’s expressed intent, and while those dimensions may highlight the unresolved tensions of an intercultural avantgarde , the tensions are arguably much less unique than one might initially suspect. indeed, they are commonplace enough in the history of the avant-gardes that one might legitimately ask whether it is perhaps a bit redundant to speak of an intercultural avant-garde as some sort of distinct subcategory of the avant-gardes. from their very inception, the Western theatrical avant-gardes have consistently found themselves entangled in the cultural politics of colonialism. examples of this entanglement are not difficult to find since they are often poorly masked beneath aesthetic categories like primitivism or negritude, to name only the most obvious, or even beneath a patronizing embrace of asian performance traditions as occurred in russia, germany, and france. in Ubu Roi, for example, alfred Jarry provocatively embraced a fashioned savage primi- From cutting edge to rough edges | 137 tivism that shocked William Butler yeats, and that theater historians have consistently cited as “the beginning of the performative avant-garde.”1 in Zurich, the Dadaists displayed similar proclivities. as i noted in the opening pages of this book, hugo Ball costumed himself in what he constructed to be a facsimile of a witchdoctor’s headdress before reciting his Lautegedichte at the cabaret voltaire.2 his friend and co-founder of the cabaret voltaire, richard huelsenbeck, followed the reading of his own fabricated “negro poems” with a debate on their authenticity, and when Jan ephriam, the owner of the cabaret, gave huelsenbeck examples of genuine african poems that he had collected as a sailor, huelsenbeck recited them at the cabaret but decided that they would be better (perhaps even more authentic) if, as in his fabricated poems, he added the sound “Umba” to the end of each line.3 even antonin artaud’s intense fascination with Balinese dance theater was mediated, as is well known, by the colonial exhibition where he first encountered Balinese dancers.4 While these and similar moments in the history of avant-garde performance are indicative of the extent to which experimental artists were anxious to find alternatives to bourgeois cultural expression, they also remind us that the Western avant-gardes sustained european cultural prerogatives even amid its most vociferous assaults on bourgeois culture. The legacies of such an entanglement have left historians of the avantgardes confronting a grossly underplayed dilemma. either we contextualize the entanglement by arguing that the whole of the avant-garde is not contained within the particulars of its colonialist attitudes, and thus circumvent the problem, or we cite the entanglement as an example of the pervasive ideological corruption wrought by Western imperialism and begin the hard task of finding models of artistic expression uncontaminated by colonialist presumptions. granted, my construction of this dilemma is polemical, but the stakes are higher than they might first appear . for the choice one makes here has a major impact on how we understand the legacies of the avant-gardes, especially with regard to how we understand the influence of the avant-gardes on the world stage, i.e., beyond the borders of europe. a profoundly neglected uncertainty looms over the question of whether we should consider the expanding influence of the avant-gardes to be an indication of a departure from their colonialist birthing or another example of imported Western cultural hegemony. With this latter concern in mind, the limits of our current theories of the avant-gardes and the need to revisit the colonialist underpinnings of avant-garde per- 138 | The GhosTs of the AvAnT-GArde(s) formance become evident. indeed, it is particularly appropriate to return to this matter now, at a...