Historiography as Metonymy
Editors
Rashna D. Nicholson, Tancredi Gusman, Dorota Sosnowska
Synopsis
Over the last five years, there has been considerable emphasis on the nature and purpose of theatre historiography. Two authoritative collections, Claire Cochrane鈥檚 and Jo Robinson鈥檚 (eds.) The Methuen Drama Handbook of Theatre History and Theatre Historiography and Tracy C. Davis鈥 and Peter W. Marx鈥 (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance Historiography, underscore the expansive scope of theatre history鈥檚 current concerns, probing what the discipline of theatre history has to 鈥榌offer] to the world鈥 today. Due to the sweeping breadth of both volumes, which provide surveys of the academic discipline of theatre history and an extensive range of methodological approaches relevant for its practice, scholars have called for 鈥榓 brief moratorium on any more theatre and performance historiography anthologies鈥.
In response to this protest, this special issue of is more limited in size and less comprehensive in its aims yet explores an uncharted theatre historiography approach. It takes as its conceptual starting point 鈥榯heatrical things鈥 too commonplace to ordinarily deserve scholarly notice 鈥 fans, statues, cigarettes, oil lamps, mothballs. The special issue sheds light on how unassuming features of performance practice constitute critical apertures for the study of theatre historiography, telling us something vital about theatre-making and sense-making. In the study of theatre history, Davis says, there is a premium on asserting originality and innovation, so we are ill-disposed to acknowledge consistency, unoriginality, and derivation. Following Davis鈥 line of thought, we consider how utterly commonplace theatrical things become interfaces between theatre and worldmaking or microcosms for understanding theatre practice in ways that social 鈥榗ontext鈥 does not allow us to imagine. We denote this form of historiography as metonymy.
Conventionally, metonymy refers to the process by which a concept or phenomenon is substituted with a more abbreviated term or phrase closely associated with it, typically based on contiguity or closeness. Historiography as metonymy similarly entails physical proximity rather than symbolic reference (the relationship between signifier and signified) or, in other words, a process of looking beyond archival documentation鈥檚 reconstitution of the historical past. Unlike metaphor, which relies on processes of representation 鈥 acts of referring to or signifying aesthetic conventions, production and reception habits, cultural assumptions, and socio-political phenomena 鈥 metonymy operates through proximity, exchange, and 鈥榮tickiness鈥.
Following Sara Ahmed鈥檚 theory of affective economies in her Cultural Politics of Emotions, we believe that a 鈥榮ticky鈥 relationship exists between past performances and their 鈥榬elics鈥 or leftovers. Stories, images, and feelings stick to the remains of historical performances, generating 鈥榚ntanglements鈥, that is, a blurring of the boundaries between the ephemeral nature of live events and the material objects associated with them. It is this metonymic relationship that has allowed us to preserve, exhibit, and collect performance art over the decades (for example: remnants of land art such as Spiral Jetty; the 2,000lb clay sculpture from Heather Cassils鈥 Becoming an Image; bricks moved from a wall in Guangzhou in Lin Yilin鈥檚 Hotbed; or the taught pantyhose previously worn by dancers in Senga Nengudi鈥檚 R.S.V.P. series). Erupting, undulating, cascading, promiscuously proliferating, these artefacts do not simply represent the performance. Rather, their close proximity suggests 鈥榣鈥檈vocation et non l鈥檌llustration鈥, that is, the ability to trigger a tactile gaze or physical response, evoke the pleasure of movement, and thereby capture the essence of a performance and convey it through time. Unlike metaphor, which relies on resemblance, metonymy operates through proximity and exchange, enabling these material remains to metonymically replace the absent performance. While contemporary performance art serves as a compelling illustration, these concerns extend more broadly to all object-remains in theatre history. Prompting fundamental inquiries into the relationship between theatre and its material components, the artefacts leftover from past performances bring to the forefront considerations about the limits of representation in theatre history-writing.
Here, Hermann Nitsch鈥檚 reference to a seismometer 鈥 the device which measures the movement of the earth during earthquakes 鈥 provides valuable insight. Theatrical relics, we argue, are akin to seismometers in that they capture, record, and transmit (rather than simply depict) the affective vibrations of past performances. Nigel Thrift describes these vibrations as 鈥榥on-representational鈥 鈥 the background of an event. Historiography as metonymy can be understood as bringing this background 鈥 the sphere of non-representation 鈥 to the centre of scholarly interest. In Atmospheric Attunements, Kathlene Stewart usefully explains what a focus on non-representational atmospheres entails. She states, 鈥榓tmospheric attunements are a process of what Heidegger (1962) called worlding鈥 Here, things matter not because of how they are represented but because they have qualities, rhythms, forces, relations, and movements.鈥
Following this line of inquiry, our special issue probes theatrical remains as conceptual starting points for understanding and doing theatre and performance history. Some of the questions that the articles explore are:
鈥 What is the phenomenological relationship between a performance and its remains?
鈥 How does the contiguity between performance and its remnants validate the latter as archival sources of performance?
鈥 Can an object from a performance approximate or bear a coterminous relation to the absent whole of the performance event and actively participate in the unfolding of the performance鈥檚 meaning over time?
鈥 Can relics be understood not only as physical objects 鈥 material remains, documents, and recordings 鈥 but also as affects and emotions, past gestures, rhythms, forces, relations, and movements, that is, all that is common, trivial, and rooted in everydayness?
鈥 Can object-remains function as 鈥榤nemonic devices for remembering the past鈥, which make memories of both the living as well as the dead tangible? How do they articulate 鈥榙ifficult pasts鈥? How do they conjure beings whose bodies are no longer there?
鈥 Is it possible to surpass the sphere of representation in historiographic thinking? What would be the politics of such a shift?
鈥 What existing models can help us move beyond the idea of performance history as representation of the theatrical past? For example, renaissance philosopher Giulio Camillo鈥檚 Memory-Theatre 鈥 a physical model for 鈥榮taging鈥 and accessing memory inspired by mnemonic techniques of cataloguing knowledge; or Hito Steyerl鈥檚 concept of 鈥榮pam鈥 as a withdrawal from representation? How can such models help us rethink the practice of theatre history writing?
Publication
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