The field and unleashing creative energy.”
Dr. Mohamed Jalal Aarab
Ibn Zohr University, Agadir.
By way of introduction :
The relationship between performing arts and the city represents one of the important topics in contemporary philosophy and urban studies. After a long period of time, scholars from various disciplines and backgrounds have noticed this relationship, which traces its roots back to ancient civilizations, deeply embedded in history. Historical, social, political, and economic transformations, as well as lifestyles and ways of thinking, have expanded the scope of interest in this field since the mid-20th century. In the wake of the crisis of modernity and the call for post-modern ideas, there has been a loosening of human value systems due to a series of wars, setbacks, and disasters. Attention has shifted towards the city, public space, ideological polarizations, and public debates on a range of hot-button issues with political, economic, social, demanding, and religious dimensions. The protest movements of racially oppressed minorities, as well as other groups advocating liberation projects and free thought, have contributed to discussions on freedom of belief, freedom of social behaviors in public space, LGBTQ+ movements, gender issues, religious matters, and more. These factors have spurred the emergence of various performative, artistic, and aesthetic practices centered around the city, with the streets, alleys, and marginal spaces as their stages.
These historical and philosophical data form the background of city arts and their performative manifestations in public spaces, whether explicitly and openly or subtly and implicitly. At the same time, it is essential to emphasize the spontaneous nature and social necessity that lie behind the representations of many elements of popular culture in public space. They are associated with rituals, customs, ceremonies, and religious backgrounds (such as in the Shi’a mourning rituals commemorating the events of Karbala) as well as artistic and aesthetic expressions in Mediterranean culture (such as carnivals, folk comedies, Samer, Hlayeqi, acrobatics, puppetry, circus, and other diverse aspects of popular culture).
We will attempt to expand on the elements mentioned above to delve into the intricate relationship between performing arts and the city, exploring their unique characteristics, dynamics, and the evolving and continuous interplay they impose within the ever-renewing perspectives of urban space. Furthermore, we will examine their dynamism in shaping social life, both within communities and on a national level, as well as their impact on artistic production.
The need for a productive public space is crucial.
Immanuel Kant distinguished in his philosophical project between the public use of reason and the private use of reason, associating the former with reading, performance, dialogue, debate, and human gatherings, and linking the latter with the exercise of responsibility. He blended freedom, reason, and enlightenment together. The public use of reason is always free, and it alone is capable of spreading enlightenment among people. On the other hand, the private use of reason may, in many cases, be strictly limited without hindering the progress of enlightenment in particular. Kant’s notion of public use refers to the use of reason as a scholar in front of the entire public, which constitutes the world of reading. He refers to the private use as the use of reason allowed to an individual in fulfilling their responsibilities or the role assigned to them as a citizen.
Jürgen Habermas drew inspiration from Kant’s concept of public use to renew the philosophical perspective of the public sphere, granting it a political dimension. The public sphere becomes an essential component of political public opinion and an effective propositional force in its struggle and interaction with the system’s apparatus, which seeks to possess and dominate the public space. Control and ownership of the public space guarantee the continuity of governance and the system. In his book “The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society,” Habermas explains how a critical bourgeois public emerged after the English Revolution in the 17th century and subsequent revolutions in Europe between 1710 and 1730. Independent newspapers emerged, detached from the state, whose owners belonged to the bourgeoisie, an opposition class to the aristocracy. At that time, the state monitored gatherings in cafes and tea salons as they became places where strong discussions against the government took place.
From this perspective, according to Nancy Fraser, the Agora served as a symbol of Athenian democracy and a center for dialogue, debate, and justice. The discussion around the public sphere has been renewed since the 1960s, particularly through the influential work of Jürgen Habermas, who established, revised, and developed his philosophical project, culminating in what he calls “the ethics of discussion and positive political communication.” This philosopher’s theory has introduced certain concepts and terms that have circulated in contemporary culture, such as justice, participatory democracy, the nation-state, civil society, and the public use of reason in managing and governing the public sphere. However, this perspective has become classical in comparison to historical transformations, philosophical research, and contemporary ideological calls. A critical and popular public sphere has emerged from within the bourgeois public sphere, the difference being that the former is associated with newspapers and parliaments, while the latter is linked to discussions within popular protest movements. The latter type is more important due to its historical and realistic value, its power to engage the public sphere, and its ability to shape an opposing, rebellious, and insurgent public opinion. It contributes to criticizing and discussing public policies on an international level and advocates for participatory democracy, which has proven its efficacy in many countries experiencing oppression and persecution during the third millennium.
The philosophical and conceptual delineations of the city, its productive activities, and its interpretive processes are influenced by sociological, rights-based, and geographical approaches to space, semiotics of the public sphere, the arts of observation and performance, the role of media and communication in shaping public opinion, literary production and the public sphere, city/state politics, and the role and power of religion in the public sphere. These and other questions make performance and the arts of the city a focal point for production and interpretation.
The street as a text.
The concept of the text has undergone extensive explorations and specificities among linguists, semioticians, anthropologists, sociologists, and other fields of knowledge. These explorations have expanded the horizon of the text beyond its association with the written and traditional literary texts. The transition from the text to discourse, considering the latter not only as originating from writing but also as constituted by other textual structures, linear or non-linear, cohesive or fragmented, present or absent.
These texts are scattered in the everyday, the imaginary, the lived, and the visual, either by coincidence or complicity. They are texts that are present with us and within us. It may be ventured, with social semiotics, to consider that “the street is a cohesive text that can be read, and the underlying structural rules can be extracted. In this regard, it is no different from other literary texts, as passersby accept it in the form of fragmented excerpts outside its comprehensive textual context. They do not see the connections and rules that link the elements of the street (store names, street labels, advertising images, architectural design, etc.). They only perceive what matters to them (such as searching for a store, an office, or something to buy). Understanding the governing rules of this text becomes difficult, as it is not perceived as a complete and interconnected entity.” 1
1 Dr. Mohsen Bouazizi, Social Semiology, Center for Unity Studies, Beirut, First Edition, 2010, p. 177.
It is an open text with multiple possible interpretive readings. This richness, as a distinct characteristic of the city as a text, makes it a product of a multidimensional semiotic field (polysémie), where possible meanings are realized that are aimed at by the methods of studying texts. “However, the textuality of the street penetrates various spaces, such as the educational space, public spaces, the metro or bus, the street, the alley, the residential neighborhood, and the community hub, all of which can be explored for their organization. It is the product of human experience, and it realizes its existence within society.” 2 But someone goes even further when talking about what they call “the rhetoric of the soccer text »: “In football, there is no readable text, but rather a visual, tangible text, yet it is a silent text, a mute text. You only hear external decorations of crowd cheers wanting to win at any cost, and these are cheers that if we were to mute, only the players’ voices and their calls to each other would appear.”3 Then he add: “The soccer text is not necessarily about soccer, but it revolves around it and is surrounded by a set of technical data that move horizontally and vertically to shape its basic structure as an open text first and foremost. However, it is capable of taking a direction in which it can become a celebratory, crowd-oriented text that can expand through the abundant gathering of symbols…”4
The development of humanities curricula and their acquired flexibility, thanks to their evolution through practice, field research, procedural observation, and the monitoring of evidence and results leading to the extraction of established scientific laws and facts, has enabled previously marginalized fields to qualify and enter the realm of study and research approaches. Examples of such active fields include the phenomenon of sports play, human gatherings in public spaces, advertising sizes and forms in squares, corridors, roads, and facades. Humanities curricula have transitioned from traditional and modern approaches focusing on written texts to other visual and oral texts. This shift in curriculum engagement has the potential to generate new knowledge and insights.
2 Same previous reference, p. 178.
3 Ward Badr Al-Salem, The Aesthetics of Football : The Rhetoric of the Football Text, Al-Jadid Magazine, p. 124.
4 Same previous reference, p. 124.
The street as an art form.
The process of city investment in the production of performance arts and the establishment of major works is embodied through diverse experiences in urban arts that are difficult to contain and limit, as they are creatively and aesthetically open with the spatial openness of the city. Despite the multitude of visual forms that have dominated urban spaces, this expansion and dominance have led to density and diversity in various visual cultures. I find myself amazed by an experience that has garnered global attention in recent years. It represents a fusion of arts and modes of expression, and the proxemics of shaping relationships between automated and mechanical performances, sometimes producing semantic patterns in the city by the public and visitors. This experience is epitomized by the works of Christian Boltanski, who moved from his enclosed sculptures and paintings into open and vast urban spaces, transforming them into artistic and aesthetic installations5 that astonished observers and audiences over a consecutive two-month period in Paris.
5 The concept of installation emerged from the reforms that sculpture underwent during the 1970s, represented by the surpassing of minimalism, which relied on the use of primary and exclusive materials and employed simplified and limited methods in terms of time and space. Sculpture is the natural domain of installation, but the migration of this concept to neighboring art forms allowed it to acquire dimensions and characteristics it did not possess before. The connection between the public and performance arts, and their entry onto the stage through wide-ranging avenues, further expanded the scope of installation. It utilizes materials such as video and theatrical direction to create complex hybrid compositions. The viewer is invited to adopt new receptions of the artwork. In the 1970s, American artists revolutionized the two-dimensional surface that materialized through the performer-audience relationship. Installations emerged to penetrate the harmonious structure of other art forms by creating new, discordant, and unstable installations. This gave rise to what is known as the rhetoric of aesthetic dissonance. Interactions materialize through video installations, photography installations, painting and sculptural installations, and other potential creative forms that utilize symbolic and situational markings within the trajectory of theatrical installations. The theatrical installation is an organic architectural engineering that evolves throughout the performance. It proposes multiple perspectives according to changes in theatrical perception. Its principle is based on valorizing the multiple qualities of the same theatrical subject, transforming and diversifying it to showcase different referential forms. The main characteristic of theatrical installation is not limited to the theatrical space but rather establishes structural textures that contribute to enriching the semiotics of the entire artwork. This new situation inevitably affects the viewer, who sometimes finds it difficult to decipher and deconstruct the signs from the artistic affiliations of different references. Contemporary artistic discourse presents us with the dissonance represented in practices and forms that hinder our ability to conceive a harmonious whole and also impede our ability to arbitrate.
“Personnes” (People)6 is the title given by Boltanski to his installation work. It is difficult to categorize this work as theater or performance ; rather, the closest term that captures the phenomenon and meaning is “spectacle” or “show.”7 Spectacle encompasses more than just theater and performance. Boltanski followed the same approach in his other works: “No mans land,” “Après,” and “Les archives du cœur” (The Heart Archives). This implies that the artist has a conceptualization and practical choices in his creative process. His transition from sculpture to spectacle through installations is evident, whether through sound as seen in “The Heart Archives” or through objects as mentioned in “Personnes” (People).
The installation “Personnes” was realized on the occasion of the third edition of the MONUMENTA exhibition, which took place from January 13 to February 21, 2010. This major artistic event is organized by the French Ministry of Culture in collaboration with other partners from national museums, specifically the Grand Palais in Paris. The festival’s management assigns a prominent contemporary artist in each edition to create a monumental work within the festival space. The 2010 edition was dedicated to the artist Christian Boltanski.
The installation “Personnes” aims to highlight the recent transformations associated with the field of aesthetics. These transformations have also affected the position of the spectator in the act of spectatorship by occupying a new role within it. The spectator now experiences a decisive moment manifested in the shift from the “presentation system of the arts” to the “aesthetic system of the arts.
6 The artwork is titled “Personnes” (“People”), yet there is not a single person present in this installation. The entire work consists of used clothing, a machine that moves these clothes, sizes and music, and the sound of heartbeats. It is worth noting that many installations deal with absence as presence. The same can be seen in “The Blind” by Anselm Kiefer and in the installations and works of Robert Lepage. All of these mentioned works pay homage to the theme of “death,” suggesting a clear connection between absence and death.
7 The International Center for Spectator Studies has organized numerous seminars and international conferences for over a decade during the annual event known as “Tangier Scene,” aimed at discussing the concepts of spectatorship, performance, interweaving, and many other foundational concepts for a new critique in Moroccan theater. In the current research project on “Social Theater,” supported and coordinated by the African Forum for Social Theater, significant attention has been given to studying the relationship between theater, performance, and spectatorship within the framework of their interconnectedness and distinct domains of operation.
” The transformation of the “Personnes” installation into a theater of experience successfully combines the arts of time and the arts of space. This combination has led to the success of the experience in an enriched, open space that attracts audiences throughout the installation’s presence.8 Prior to the audience entering the designated space for the artistic installation “Personnes,” Boltanski created a massive wall consisting of 5,600 rusty biscuit tins. These tins were thrown into a large tank and water was added to accelerate their rusting and decomposition. The wall is considered by the artist as a pivotal moment between two contrasting worlds: the external world and the internal world. With this concept, Boltanski creates a separation between the external world from which the spectator comes and the internal world he refers to as the “hellish” world.
Once the wall is crossed, the audience finds itself in front of a cement floor, on which sixty-nine large rectangles are formed. Each rectangle contains sixty coats, making a total of four thousand two hundred coats. The rectangles are arranged symmetrically and divided into two groups : the first group consists of three horizontal rows, and the second group consists of dozens of vertical rectangles. The audience walks among these rectangles, and at the end of each rectangle, there is a rusted iron column. The used clothes are placed on the floor, and on each iron column, there is a rusted speaker that emits varied sounds of heartbeats, reaching up to seventy different beats. To create a specific theatrical ambiance, dim lighting is used, cast upon the used clothes.
At the entrance of the space, there are stairs with two large heaps of used clothes placed in front of them. Meanwhile, a machine descends from above to grab some of the clothes and lift them upwards, then releases them over the large heap in a mechanical and deceptive manner. The installation “Personnes” speaks about death, and when the mechanical machine throws the used clothes from top to bottom, without the presence of a body using these clothes, it deals with absence, with death.9
8 In the collective book “The Site-Specific Experience in Arab-Islamic Contexts” by Khalid Amin, published by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities in Tétouan, a series of seminars, March 2011, 1st edition, page 6, it is stated: “The site-specific experience occupies a symbolic space characterized by its rich symbolism. It does not establish a separation between the realms of the public and the private by isolating the performers from the morphology of the place and the audience. Moreover, most site-specific experiences lure their audience to participate in creating the experience rather than passively receiving it. This means that the audience quickly becomes co-creators. There is no clear distinction between illusion and reality. This oscillation between the sacred and the mundane, the public and the private, simply situates it in the in-between spaces.”
9 Véronique Hudon, l’installation : une expérience limite du théâtre ? Le cas de PERSONNES de Christian Boltanski, mémoire, Maitrise en théâtre, Université du Québec à Montréal, Avril ? 2013, p. 3
Polanski’s conception of installation carries a tendency towards creating a meeting point for the arts of time and the arts of space, and a inclination towards fascination and astonishment through unexpected elements in the staging arrangements of the installation, giving a sense of austerity and grandeur to his works, moving them from the ordinary to the extraordinary. The installation “Persons” embodies this conception and these objectives, taking on the task of creating a unique atmosphere within the installation space, where objects, sizes, machines, quantity, and the cyclical, deadly process, as well as the audience’s engagement and retreat, become integral to it. The installation lives and dies with the audience’s participation in the game, and through the sounds of the “heart archive” emanating from the speakers, signifying both life and death at the same time.
For Boltanski, it is necessary to introduce a condition to unsettle the viewer, for example, having all the exhibits presented in darkness, considering that the viewer does not perceive things in light and darkness in the same way, as humans are fragile. They are now in a different atmosphere. I attach great importance to the ambiance in my works. Some works should be presented in a cold ambiance, while others in a warm ambiance. It is an important factor in determining the intensity or coolness of the exhibition experience. 10 The climatic condition affects the nature of experiencing the artwork. This is another aspect that Boltanski follows in his installations and artistic works, whether they are presented in galleries and enclosed spaces or in the context of public installations and spaces.
The categorization of performance arts in urban spaces.
We base this typology classification on a set of indicators that reflect the patterns and models of arts practiced in the city. By employing this classification, we do not intend to draw rigid boundaries between arts or create isolated archipelagos, but rather to adopt a systematic approach aimed at providing precise definitions for the various artistic practices in the city. Additionally, it emphasizes the proximity, interactions, and interplay between these models and their dialogues in many instances and experiential contexts.
The classification of arts in urban spaces appears as follows:
10Entretien avec Christian Boltanski, réalisé par Alain Fleischer et Didier Semin, « l’œuvre au noir », in Art press, n°363, janvier 2010, p.59
Traditional Spectacle Arts– Visual Spectacle Arts– Contemporary Performance Spectacle Arts.
The first component, Traditional Spectacle Arts, includes performance spectacles from Moroccan heritage, such as “Hakawati” (storytelling), “Halaiqi” (jugglers), “Taganja” (acrobat), “Sidi Al-Katfi” (folklore character), “Al-Bassat” (puppetry), riddles, children’s games, “Belmaoun” (singers), “Im’asharne” (gnawa musicians), “Im’diyazen” (musicians), as well as folk dances rich in spectacle and performance elements. These dances have characteristic stage designs, such as “Ahwash,” “Ismkane,” “Al-Aita,” “Al-Alaoui,” “Al-Rakada,” and the list goes on.
As we celebrate the traditional spectacle arts and enhance their integration into the authentic public spaces, we aim to correct the perspective that solely focuses on the preserved heritage and touristic folklore aspects. Instead, we pay attention to their spectacle and performance elements, reflecting an anthropological culture. Through these performances, dances, and expressions, complex human needs and relationships with rituals, ceremonies, the universe, and humanity are conveyed.
Since 2003, UNESCO has recognized the importance of popular spectacles and intangible cultural heritage in preserving the collective memory of nations and peoples. Some of these spectacles have been classified under the designation of “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.” For example, the “Festival of Al-Fnay” has received this prestigious designation. This serves as another testament to the significance of what we aspire to achieve in this classification and modeling of spectacles.
The second component, the spectacle of form, is manifested in circus performances, acrobatics, giant puppets, and various phenomena such as the “Children of Sidi Ahmed O Moussa,” the Candle Procession in Salé, the integration of archaeological sites with performing arts (such as the “Welaya” in Meknes, the “Aswar” of Ismailia, Bab Fettouh in Fez, and Bab Sidi Abdelwahab in Oujda), carnivals, and masquerade parties. These forms draw from the local and national cultural repertoire and the imaginative performance in creating these shapes, sizes, and play in open spaces, public squares, and the ancient sites and narrow streets of cities. Here, the essence of memory and history harmonizes with the spectacles of form, engaging residents and spectators alike, resulting in the production of creative and aesthetic meanings through play skills, transformations, changes in locations, and distances. The spectacle of form is characterized by the marvelous, grotesque, and bizarre, making it a focal point of attention and admiration for spectators.
As for the third component, contemporary performance arts, it encompasses street theater, improvisation, physical and choreographic expression, and contemporary dance. The multiple relationships between these arts are founded on harmony, interweaving, and dialogue within the urban space to create a form of reconciliation with the public space, aesthetic appreciation, and artistry. It aims to create performance forms that have long been neglected by city policies, which are part of state policies. Public spaces are the most capable arenas for showcasing creative abilities and skills, serving as a platform for transmitting messages of change, reform, and engaging in discussions on societal issues. They allow individuals and groups to express their needs, hopes, and pains. In addition to serving as spaces for public opinion, they also become spaces of beauty and creativity.
This classification/modeling is not considered fixed, as it does not create strict boundaries between its components. Rather, it serves as a methodological framework to facilitate the process of allocation and designation in practice and manifestation. It acknowledges the importance of the performative culture within cultural anthropology, which aims to study and analyze the actions, practices, and behaviors of peoples and societies, and deduce cultural, artistic, and aesthetic values. Cultural anthropology is not solely concerned with the past; it also pays attention to the lived and daily experiences of individuals and groups within society.
Based on this basis, urban arts are formed through performative artistic practices, characterized by hybridity, in-betweenness, cultural dialogue, interweaving of arts and aesthetics, drawing from the past, the imagined, and the present. These practices manifest in the relationship between performers and audiences in street improvisational arts, improvisational art competitions, carnivals as a moving stage, and theatrical installations. They affirm the cyclical return to open spaces and densely populated areas such as metros, transportation stations, markets, and archaeological sites, using creative and aesthetic colors. Sometimes they draw from tangible and intangible cultural heritage, while at other times they employ experimental performance and theatrical methods, translating the creative energy of the performers to transform the urban space into a public sphere in the sense of Habermas, a space for dialogue, discussion, beauty, and influence on the audience in order to convey the spirit of initiative, participation, and change.
