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UDK 792,07(497,4]:7,01 7.01:792.07(497.4)
Razprava se loteva odnosov med t, i, institucionalno-repertoarno gledališko sceno na eni in t, i, eksperimentalnimi, alternativnimi in kasneje neinstitucionalnimi uprizoritvenimi praksami na drugi strani, ki jih je »dramskogledališki obrat« velikokrat označeval kar s pojmoma amatersko in ljubiteljsko, Raziskuje, kako se je na prelomu iz šestdesetih v sedemdeseta leta v Sloveniji v interakciji s študentskimi gibanji, zasedbo Filozofske fakultete, dejavnostmi Radia Študent, Tribune in Kulturnega društva Forum izoblikovala specifična oblika študentskih eksperimentalnih gledališč (Gledališče Pupilije Ferkeverk, Gledališče Pekarna, Vlado Šav in Vetrnica ,.,], Ta so se zavestno odločila, da bodo iz svojega kroga izločila klasične dramske igralce in jih zamenjala z neprofesionalnim in neklasično šolanim kadrom, Tako je prav fenomen študentskega eksperimentalnega gledališča, ki briše meje med umetniškimi zvrstmi, visoko in nizko kulturo, profesionalnimi igralci in naturščiki, s svojim podiranjem meja in tabujev vzpostavil kreativno osvobojeno ozemlje, iz katerega je kasneje izhajala alternativa osemdesetih in neinstitucionalna scena devetdesetih let, danes pa do določene mere tudi postrepertoarno gledališče v svojih drznejših oblikah, Vprašanje, na katero poskuša razprava tudi odgovoriti, se glasi takole: Kako in koliko so se pri tem zgledovali po gledališki avantgardi Richarda Schechnerja in Performance Group, Eugenia Barbe, Jerzyja Grotowskega ter drugih?
Ključne besede: Eksperimentalno gledališče, študentsko gledališče, performans, Pekarna, Pupilija Ferkeverk
Dr. Tomaž Toporišič je dramaturg in gledališki teoretik, izredni profesor za področje dramaturgije in scenskih umetnosti na AGRFT Univerze v Ljubljani, kot gostujoči predavatelj pa izvaja tudi predmet Sociologija gledališča na Filozofski fakulteti Univerze v Ljubljani, Je avtor številnih razprav in znanstvenih monografij, Njegovi primarni področji raziskovanja sta teorija in zgodovina uprizoritvenih praks in literature, predvsem interakcije med obema področjema; semiotika kulture in kulturne študije,
tomaz,toporisic@guest,arnes,si
Med zapeljevanjem in sumničavostjo eksperimentalnega, ljubiteljskega in profesionalnega gledališča1
65
Tomaž Toporišič AGRFT, Univerza v Ljubljani
1. Obrat od teksta k telesu
Prispevek se ukvarja s protislovnimi, a včasih tudi izjemno konstruktivnimi in kreativnimi odnosi med institucionalno-repertoarno gledališko sceno na eni in eksperimentalnimi, alternativnimi in kasneje neinstitucionalnimi uprizoritvenimi praksami na drugi strani, ki jih je dramskogledališki obrat velikokrat označeval kar s pojmoma amatersko in ljubiteljsko. Zanimalo nas bo, kako in zakaj so se eksperimentalna gledališča in skupine na prelomu iz šestdesetih v sedemdeseta leta oziroma v času performativnega obrata iz besedilne v telesno kulturo (Gledališče Pupilije Ferkeverk, Gledališče Pekarna, Vlado Šav in Vetrnica ...) zavestno odločila, da bodo iz svojega kroga izločila klasične dramske igralce in jih zamenjala z neprofesionalnim ter neklasično šolanim kadrom. Kako in koliko so se pri tem zgledovala po gledališki avantgardi Richarda Schechnerja in Performance Group, Eugenia Barbe, Jerzyja Grotowskega ter drugih?
Začeli bomo adornovsko, s citatom njegovega skorajda pred 50 leti izrečenega ali zapisanega stavka, ki vsekakor dobro označuje performativni obrat v Sloveniji in z njim povezano temeljno prevrednotenje in prestrukturiranje gledališča in uprizarjanja nasploh: »Samo po sebi je očitno, da ni nič glede umetnosti več očitno, [...] celo niti njena pravica do obstoja« (Adorno 1). Adorno označuje tudi značilnosti fenomena neoavantgarde performativnega obrata, ki ga je natančno prepoznal Veno Taufer, ena izmed ključnih figur prvega eksperimentalnega vala Odra 57 in kritične generacije, ko je ob uprizoritvi Šeligove Naj te z listjem posujem v režiji Lada Kralja zapisal: »Pekarna je izoblikovala že dovolj izrazit in prepoznaven profil gledališča, ki bi ga najbrž lahko imenovali svojo varianto obrednega gledališča, iščočega nekatera temeljna gledališka znamenja oziroma igralska in mizanscenska izrazja teh znamenj človekovega bivanjskega početja« (Taufer 154-5).
1 Članek je nastal v okviru raziskovalnega programa Gledališke in medumetnostne raziskave (P6-0376), ki ga sofinancira Javna agencija za raziskovalno dejavnost Republike Slovenije iz državnega proračuna.
66 Prav to novo eksperimentalno gledališče različnih skupin je v zelo kratkem času osvojilo jugoslovanske festivale alternativnega in študentskega gledališča ter postalo sinonim žilavosti in vzdržljivosti malih gledaliških skupin, ki jih je bilo do sredine sedemdesetih let vse več in so začela predstavljati alternativo repertoarnim, t. i. profesionalnim dramskim gledališčem z diplomiranimi dramskimi igralci. Zagrebški Vjesnik je (generacijsko promocijsko) celo zapisal, da strateško vojno tako dobiva »gledališka gverila« in ne paradna »gledališka konjenica« (»Kazališna« nepaginirano).
Tako je Lado Kralj v programu Gledališča Pekarna izpostavil dejstvo, da ta izhaja iz tradicije slovenskih eksperimentalnih gledališč, predvsem Odra 57, Eksperimentalnega gledališča in gledališča Ad hoc. A hkrati je poudaril, da kot »razredno gledališče« išče lasten izraz predvsem v metodah participacije, posebnem treningu igralcev, ki je psihofizičen, v izpostavljanju gledališča kot rituala, v ekipnem (danes bi rekli sodelovalnem) ustvarjanju predstave. To razredno gledališče je bilo estetska akcija nekega sloja, in sicer v Sloveniji takrat še neozaveščene subkulture. Ni ga zanimal eksperimentalni ali avantgardni teater, ki si po njegovem mnenju umišlja, da je »teater, ki hoče biti boljši in naprednejši od tradicionalnega« (Kralj, »Zanima me razredno gledališče« 21), ampak novo gledališče, ki ne bo več samo gledališče, ampak bo estetska revolucija ali »estetska akcija, kot ritual, kot izgovarjanje neizgovorljivega« (prav tam).
Bolj kot končni rezultat je bil torej pomemben proces, eksperiment »o bistvu igralstva in človeškega imitatorstva, o odnosu med fizičnim in psihičnim« (Kralj, »Hipijevsko« nepag.). To novost je kritika sprva bolj »nerazumela« kot razumela, zato je govorila o študentskem in amaterskem, a tega novega odnosa med fizičnim in psihičnim so se še kako dobro zavedali Pekarnini akterji sami, npr. eden izvajalskih nosilcev gledališča, »naturščik« Zdenko Kodrič - Koči: »Pekarna se je lepo uprla gledališkim mastodontom in z nekaj dinarji kulturne skupnosti, z duhom Stanislavskega, Grotowskega in Brooka pognala novo gledališko kolo zgodovine, ki ga je politika nasilno ustavila z Odrom 57. [...] To slovensko gledališče je imelo originalno fizionomijo, super igralce in režiserje, vratarje, glasbenike, scenografe in publiko« (Slana 27).
Vse to pa je Pekarna, zavedajoč se evropskega in ameriškega okvirja tovrstnih raziskav in eksperimentov, skušala zavestno povezati s situacijo v socialistični Sloveniji: »[N] ajti in določiti domača tla, jih prevetriti, preoblikovati v skladu s potrebami naše publike in družbenega prostora, jih pri tem spremeniti ali pa morda nekatere od njih celo zavreči« (Lado Kralj o gledališču Pekarna, nav. po Andres 112).
Gledališče Pekarna se je zavedalo, da mora vstopiti v drzen dialog s poljsko (Grotowski, Kantor) in ameriško gledališko avantgardo (Schechner, Chaikin ...). Lado Kralj to nazorno opiše ob Svetinovi knjigi o Pekarni: »Richard Schechner, moj mentor, je Grotowskemu odvzel avreolo religiozne zamaknjenosti in dodal prvine
teatra absurda, očitno tudi ironije in groteske, in še dodal antropološke raziskave 67 plemen iz Nove Gvineje in Avstralije ter bizarnih vidikov ameriškega načina življenja (americana) [...] In kar sem se pri Schechnerju naučil in tudi po svoje predelal, sem prinesel v Slovenijo, kjer sva z Ivom Svetino ustanovila Pekarno« (Svetina, Gledališče Pekarna nepaginirano).
Iz zgornjih stavkov je jasno razvidno naslanjanje Pekarne na dialog z zelo različnimi fenomeni sodobnih uprizoritvenih praks med vzhodom in zahodom, socializmom in kapitalizmom, dialog, ki je tudi pri sočasnih eksperimentalnih študentskih gledališčih premikal meje recepcije in interpretacije sodobne umetnosti, kar je pomagalo ukiniti hierarhijo in dihotomijo med visoko in popularno kulturo.
2. Študentsko, amatersko, profesionalno
V zapisu ob robu 4. mednarodnega festivala študentskih gledališč v Zagrebu leta 1964 je Kralj vzpostavil zanimivo klasifikacijo gledališča, ki je kot posebno kategorijo vzpostavljala študentsko gledališče ter ga primerjala s profesionalnim repertoarnim na eni in amaterskim, ljubiteljskim ali diletantskim na drugi strani. Tako je opažal, da se je na festivalu »zbrala kar najbolj raznorodna druščina študentskih gledališčnikov, med katerimi sta bili le dve skupini z gledaliških šol, v večini pa so to bile združbe entuziastov, ki jih kljub različnemu študiju ali poklicnim usmeritvam druži skupna izpovedna volja« (Kralj, »Mednarodni festival« 1238). In potem je nadaljeval poudarjanje posebnosti študentskega gledališča kot eksperimentalnega gledališča. Ker sta njegova klasifikacija in argumentacija zelo povezani s temo naše razprave, ju bomo obširneje citirali:
Povsem posebna je ta plast igralstva, prav tako različna od profesionalnih kot od amaterskih gledališčnikov: za poklicnega igralca je značilna njegova vezanost na lastno delo. ki je kot vsako delo neizogibna družbena nujnost in sredstvo osebne realizacije obenem. Pri poklicnem igralcu, ki ga lastni poklic ni profesionaliziral, gre torej za simbiozo neke zunanje, objektivne in notranje, psihološke nujnosti. Med Scilo in Karibdo teh dveh nujnosti bo v idealnem primeru iskal tretjo dimenzijo: svoj družbeni korelat, korespondenco z družbeno bitjo. Za igralca amaterja pa je zvečine značilna socialna neobveznost njegovega delovanja: ukvarja se s prosvetljensko dejavnostjo, ki je sicer koristna in potrebna, pa vendar tej dejavnosti ni vzrok eksistencialna nepotešenost po bližini družbene biti, temveč vse bolj psihološka nepotešenost po najustreznejši osebni realizaciji v prostem času. Največkrat ga determinira prizadevanje po formalnem približevanju resničnemu, poklicnemu gledališkemu izrazu. - Študentska gledališča pa se vključujejo v tisto večjo skupino gledališč, ki jih bom v pomanjkanju primernejšega izraza imenoval eksperimentalna. (Prav tam 1238-1239)
68 In potem Kralj nadaljuje z ugotovitvijo, ki je za takratni čas, ko se je vsaj v Sloveniji in Jugoslaviji v bistvu šele prav zares končala profesionalizacija oz. evropeizacija igralskega in drugih gledaliških poklicev, prav revolucionarna:
V študentskih in neštudentskih eksperimentalnih gledališčih se združujejo tako poklicni kakor nepoklicni teatrski ljudje. Značilen zanje je neki stalen eksperiment, ki ne velja le za odrski izraz in izbor repertoarja, ampak tudi za njih same: z nekim posebnim eksperimentiranjem, ki se imenuje igralstvo, nenehno preverjajo svoj odnos do družbene misli in skušajo nanjo soustvarjalno vplivati. Značilna črta teh občasnih, eksistencialno interesnih skupin je zaključena predstava o vlogi gledalištva v družbi. Teater jim ni niti samo poklic niti samo sredstvo osebne realizacije, ampak neodtujljiv del njihove neposredne prisotnosti v družbi, s pomočjo katerega skušajo doseči neko aktivno korespondenco z družbo. Poklicno gledališče jim ni vzor, kateremu bi se veljalo limitno približevati, ampak je njihova predstava o gledalištvu s konvencionalno predstavo večkrat celo v nasprotju. (Prav tam 1239)
Študentsko gledališče je torej po njegovi interpretaciji enako eksperimentalno gledališče, ki uvaja to, kar je Peter Božič v članku »Eksperimentalno pozorište kao socijalni fenomen iz izkustva slovenskih esperimentalnih pozorišta« označil s pojmom »popolnoma novi principi horizontalne dramaturgije z drugačnim čutenjem/ zavedanjem časa« in pa snovalno oziroma sodelovalno gledališče, »ki predstavlja dosledni približek idealu samoupravljanja, avtorja, režiserja, kostumografa, tehnike, itd.« (Božič 320).
Program Lada Kralja je bil samo vrh ledene gore performativnega obrata, ki je prinesel tektonske premike v razumevanju triade profesionalno, študentsko in amatersko. S tem pa je pokazal, da v umetnosti nič ni gotovega, tudi to ne, da se igralci ločujejo na dramske (matrične), študentske (eksperimentalne, nematrične) ter amaterske (spontane naturščike). Pri vsem tem pa gre, kot spet (kot da bi hkrati govoril o današnjem trenutku) izpostavi Lado Kralj v anketi revije Sodobnost iz leta 1969 »Slovenska gledališka situacija«, za to, »da se najdejo in definirajo ,družbene manjšine' in ,družbena večina' in da se jim omogoči ustrezna afirmacija, kajti le takšna situacija omogoča radikalne nove rešitve nad nivojem osebnih prepirov in utrudljivega stopicanja na mestu« (Kermauner 593).
Kraljeva teza, ki drži v večini elementov še danes, je naslednja: Tako eksperimentalna kot nacionalno-repertoarna gledališča morajo imeti znotraj vsake razvite gledališke krajine in kulturne politike jasno določeno področje delovanja. Prva se osredotočajo na »eksperiment na področju uprizarjanja, igre, ideje o gledališču«, razbijanju oziroma dekonstrukciji edine slovenske gledališke forme — burgtheatrskega prenosa Stanislavskega — in nadomeščanje te forme z novim, nepreizkušenim eksperimentiranjem »z mixed media, z radikalizacijo kretnje, besede, odrske tehnike
itd.« (prav tam). Eksperimentalno gledališče torej po Kraljevem mnenju nastopi na 69 točki, na kateri »osrednje gledališče zaradi svoje posebne, institucionalne zasnove ne more toliko tvegati« (prav tam). Osrednje gledališče v samem osredju kulturne in gledališke semiosfere pa je tudi v funkciji posrkanja eksperimentov v svojo logiko delovanja, ki je primarno nacionalno reprezentativna in informativna. Obe vrsti gledališč imata svojo logiko in smisel, uvrščata pa se še vedno v logiko tematizacije in radikalizacije koncepta evropskega meščanskega gledališča: »za vzpostavitev normalne korelacije med institucionalnim gledališčem in eksperimentalnimi« (prav tam). Gre za to, da se najdejo in definirajo »družbene manjšine« in »družbena večina« ter da se jim omogoči ustrezna afirmacija, kajti le takšna situacija omogoča radikalne nove rešitve nad nivojem osebnih prepirov in utrudljivega stopicanja na mestu.
3. Šavovo odprto gledališče aktivne kulture
Popolni izstop iz meščanskega in repertoarnega je ob Ladu Kralju na prelomu iz šestdesetih v sedemdeseta leta in tudi kasneje zagovarjal Vlado Šav, ki je leta 1970 diplomiral iz dramske igre na ljubljanski Akademiji za gledališče, radio, film in televizijo, leta 1973 pa uspešno opravil selekcijo za polletno specializacijo na Igralskem inštitutu Jerzyja Grotowskega Teatr Laboratorium v Wroclavu. Že septembra 1973, le nekaj mesecev po vrnitvi s študijskega izpopolnjevanja na Poljskem, je Šav ustanovil skupino Vetrnica, s katero je postopoma začel razvijati različne (življenjske in uprizoritvene) prakse aktivne kulture.
Šav je vpeljal iz Grotowskega in Schechnerja izhajajočo ideologijo primitivizma (Innes 1-5), ki jo je podobno kot Kralj in Grotowski zgradil na alternativni lestvici vrednot v odnosu do sočasne kulture in družbe, hkrati pa je poudaril tudi povratek k naravi in sočloveku, od intelekta k telesnemu in instinktivnemu. Še očitneje kot Kralj, ki se je po lastnih besedah v Pekarni ukvarjal s slovensko patologijo in shizofrenijo družbe, je Šav oznanil vrnitev h koreninam, k izvorom, in »antimaterializem, usmerjenost v duhovnost (zanimanje za religije in druge duhovne prakse neevropskih kultur; eksperimentiranje s tehnikami za doseganje spremenjenih stanj zavesti, težnja po ustvarjanju obrednih skupnosti oziroma brisanje meje med izvajalci in gledalci) in vero v transformacijsko oziroma terapevtsko moč tovrstnega obrednega (samo) uprizarjanja« (Schuller 400).
Potem ko je med študijem na AGRFT v okviru Mestnega odra Koper (1964-1968) odigral vrsto vlog, je Šav v začetku sedemdesetih let ustanovil in vodil eksperimentalno gledališko skupino Beli krog, ki je napovedala ukinitev razlike med profesionalnim in amaterskim, igro in neigro, gledališčem in ritualom ter predstavljala nekakšen uvod v njegovo paragledališče oziroma aktivno kulturo. Kot je ob gostovanju skupine
70 leta 1970 v Ljubljani opozoril že Janez Povše v reviji Mladina, je skupina »našla svoj vzor tako pri Living Theatru kot tudi pri laboratorijskem, vase obrnjenem igralskem izrazu Grotowskega«, predstava pa je »prinesla svoj odnos do sveta, ki je bil verjetno za marsikoga nekoliko preprost, premalo problemski in premalo kritičen«, a vseeno »vzpodbuden start uspešno zastavljenega dela tako v gledališko-formalnem kot tudi v specifično-izpovednem smislu« (Povše 20-21). Predstavo Pot je tako Šav postavil na travnik, gledalci in izvajalci so bili ločeni le z risom belega kroga, poudaril je performativno ritualnost, avtopoetično povratno zanko med izvajalci in publiko, ki je nastajala skozi fizične in glasovne akcije izvajalcev, performerjev ... Ti niso igrali vlog, ampak so skušali izraziti to, kar so, skozi uporabo arhetipov.
S skupino Vetrnica2 je po zgledu Grotowskega spomladi 1974 organiziral posebne vrste performativni dogodek, ki ga je poimenoval Srečanje in zasnoval kot »spontane improvizacije posameznikov, ki so skušali s svojo ekspresivno močjo vključiti vse prisotne v enotno sodelovanje« (Šav 4):
To torej ni predstava, ker ljudje iz skupine ničesar ne predstavljajo, ampak so, kar so. To je torej nekaj drugega, nekaj, kar še nima imena. Pomagamo si z izrazi: soočenje, večer, srečanje. [...] [N]e gre za gledališče niti v tradicionalnem niti v modernem razumevanju, temveč za nekaj novega, svojevrstnega. [...] srečanje med obiskovalcem in skupino, srečanje določenih ljudi v prostoru, tesen stik med njimi, trenutek sprostitve, trenutek, ko se popolnoma tuji ljudje združijo v za človeka najlepšem, najintimnejšem. Gre za skupno psihično in fizično aktivnost vseh navzočih. Vsak iz skupine se spopade s to nalogo, poskuša ustvariti tak trenutek, razkriti tisto najgloblje v sebi in v to doživetje samega sebe potegniti vse prisotne ter na ta način izzvati v njih enako doživetje. Srečati se z njimi kot človek s človekom. (»Študentsko gledališče Vetrnica« 20)
Gledalci torej v gledališču Vetrnica (če si izposodimo besede Erike Fischer-Lichte) postanejo »soigralci, ki s svojo udeležbo pri igri, tj. s svojo fizično prisotnostjo, s svojim zaznavanjem, s svojimi reakcijami proizvedejo uprizoritev. Ta nastane kot rezultat interakcije med igralci in gledalci« (Fischer-Lichte 47).
4. Pupilija Ferkeverk in Dušan Jovanovic
Privoščimo si na tem mestu skok nazaj, v čas gostovanja Pupilije Ferkeverk v Zagrebu leta 1970. In citirajmo zapis oziroma mini neformalni manifest gledališča, objavljen v Študentskem listu ob najavi predstave Pupilija Papa pa Pupilčki v Zagrebu:3
2	Skupina je bila ustanovljena v Ljubljani septembra 1973 kot del dejavnosti Študentskega kulturnega društva Forum. Delovala je v letih 1973-1981, med njenimi člani najdemo naslednja imena: Vesna Dvornik, Milan Kristan, Jani Osojnik, Slavica Rukavina, Vlado Šav, Zdena Virant in Andrej Žumer. Skupina je delovala tudi mednarodno, gostovala po Evropi, v Izraelu in Kanadi.
3	Šlo je za gostovanje na 24. majskem festivalu študentskih gledališč (MFSK), kjer je skupina za predstavo Pupilija, papa Pupilo pa Pupilčki prejela nagrado beograjske revije Vidici za najbolj avantgardno gledališče.
Želimo razbiti osnovno karakteristiko tradicionalnih in nekaterih avantgardnih 71 gledališč, to je iluzijo o življenju, ki ji je gledališče od nekdaj služilo. Predstava ni več igra, kopiranje ali igranje življenja, temveč postaja totalna in vseobsegajoča stvarnost [...]. Nastopajoči niso več igralci [...], igralec je enak gledalcu, nastopajoči pa s svojo prisotnostjo ustvarjajo konkretno družbeno [?] okolje [...]. Gledališče Pupilije Ferkeverk je eksperimentalno, neliterarno, odprto in živo gledališče. (»Gledališče Pupilije Ferkeverk«)
Pupilija je na mesto gledališke predstave postavila dogodek - dejanje, protagoniste le-tega pa je odvezala prevzemanja vloge nekoga drugega. Igralec ali bolje protagonist gledališkega dogodka je tako postal »avtentična in fizična figura. [...] Na odru ni več pretvarjanja, nič ni hlinjeno, vse se dogaja v realnosti in se resnično zgodi. [...] Temu so prilagojena tudi sredstva igralcev, ki se jih poslužujejo, da bi resnično delovali, saj resnično povzročijo, da kri teče, kri na odru dejansko teče« (Toporišič 230). Tako je Pupilija uveljavila študentsko-eksperimentalno gledališče neprofesionalnih igralcev, ki gledalcev niso niti za trenutek skušali prepričati, da so kdo drug kot oni sami. Kvaliteta ni bila več igra, ampak ne-igra (v pomenu teorije Michaela Kirbyja), profesionalnost in dramskost sta zamenjali neprofesionalnost in nedramskost, igralca pa izvajalec. In to gledališče ni več delovalo kot hierarhična skupnost znotraj dramskega ali repertoarnega gledališča, ampak kot »pleme«, za katero je Dušan Jovanovic, ki je v mnogočem usmerjal Pupilijo, zapisal: »Postal sem ljubitelj plemena. Še dolgo zatem sem zelo pogrešal pleme, skupnost, v kateri bi se počutil doma« (Jovanovic 92). Tudi Jovanovic je Pupilijo razumel kot estetsko politično reakcijo na lažnivo harmonijo družbe in njeno uradno umetnost: »Pupilija ni bila umetnost z veliko začetnico. Po profesionalnih standardih je bila domala diletantska. Toda v sebi je imela osvobajajočo moč parodije, obredne svetosti in žeje po neomejeni svobodi. [...] Pupilija je imela čudno moč, imela je kulturo avtentičnosti, ki je značilna za plemenske skupnosti« (prav tam 91).
Podobnosti izhodišč z Vetrnico, Pekarno in drugimi neoavantgardnimi skupinami, tudi OHO-jem, so očitne. Razmišljanja Lada Kralja ob festivalu študentskih gledališč v Zagrebu ter kasneje ob Pekarni in neoavantgardnih gibanjih sedemdesetih let, mini manifest skupine Pupilija Ferkeverk, kratki programski spisi Tomaža Kralja ter razmišljanja Vlada Šava ob njegovi skupini Vetrnica, kažejo na dejstvo, da se je na prelomu iz šestdesetih v sedemdeseta leta v Sloveniji v interakciji s študentskimi gibanji, zasedbo Filozofske fakultete, dejavnostmi Radia Študent, Tribune in Kulturnega društva Forum izoblikovala specifična oblika študentskih eksperimentalnih gledališč. Ta gledališča ali kolektivi so orali ledino neinstitucionalne scene, njihovo estetsko raznolikost, radikalnost in konsekventnost je lepo opisal Peter Božic v članku za revijo Pozorište:
72	Številne so predstave, katerih paleta se je širila od ritualnega gledališča do t. i.
»nadgrajenega realizma«, kjer se uvajajo popolnoma novi principi horizontalne dramaturgije z drugačnim čutenjem/zavedanjem časa, ki v tej dramaturgiji nadomešča vertikalo. [...] člani te družbe niso v ničemer boljši ali pametnejši od drugih, imajo samo neskončno več možnosti eksperimentiranja v lastnem socialnem okolju, ki predstavlja dosledni približek idealu samoupravljanja, avtorja, režiserja, kostumografa, tehnike, itd. (Božič 320)
Fokus teh gledališč se je pomaknil v posebne vrste »duhovnost« ali ritualno prisotnost nekoga, ki ne igra, temveč je v realnosti. Tako Kraljeva Pekarna kot Šavova Vetrnica, pred njima pa Gledališče Pupilije Ferkeverk so izhajali iz postulatov Artaudovega gledališča, iz njegove ugotovitve, da je gledališče, ki je uporabljalo zahodno psihologijo, »obsedeno z jasno besedo, ki izreče vse«, kar je privedlo do »izsušenosti besed« (Artaud 141). Zato so govorjenemu jeziku dodali »neki drugi jezik in jeziku besede, katerega skrivnostne zmožnosti smo pozabili«, so povrnili »njegovo staro čarno učinkovitost, njegovo vseobsegajočo uročevalno učinkovitost« (prav tam 133). Tako so dosegli posebno stanje, ki ga je Rudi Šeligo poimenoval s posrečenim izrazom »neposredna pričujočnost«. Ta je zahtevala ne samo, da so emocionalna stanja dobro zaigrana (predstavljena), ampak predvsem, da so zares navzoča.
Lado Kralj, ki je ob Šavu najbolj konsekventno razvil to novo gledališče in performans, je pri tem uvedel posebno igralsko-performersko metodo, s pomočjo katere je v Potohodcu in kasneje iskal igro, ki bo izhajala iz igralčeve krvi, telesa, biologije, situacije. Zato je še kako pomenljiv njegov vzklik »Be alive!«, ki ga je zapisal na konec manifesta za bilten IFSK.
5. Novo gledališče za novo dobo in novega gledalca
Lado Kralj, Vlado Šav, Dušan Jovanovic in Tomaž Kralj so vsak na svoj način v slovenske uprizoritvene prakse vpeljali sisteme neoavantgardnih postopkov, ki so jih povzemali in razvijali predvsem po Jerzyju Grotowskem in Richardu Schechnerju. Vpliv ritualno-schechnerjevskega se je v Pekarni še posebej izrazil v prvih treh predstavah, in sicer v Zajčevem Potohodcu v režiji Lada Kralja (1972), Gilgamešu v režiji Iva Svetine (1972) in Šeligovem Naj te z listjem posujem v režiji Lada Kralja (1973), vpliv ritualnega po Grotowskem pa v predstavah in akcijah skupin Vetrnica v sedemdesetih letih Srečanje (1974), Soočanje (1974), Kopanje (1975) in komuna v Petkovcih (1976-1980). Za vse avtorje in njihove skupine je bilo značilno kolektivno ustvarjanje, ki mu ni bil bistveni cilj rezultat ali predstava, prisegalo pa je na posebno procesualnost, hkrati pa tudi na interakcijo vseh udeleženih.
Ivo Svetina je nov tip igralca oziroma performerja, ki računa in izhaja iz avtopoetične 73 povratne zanke, definiral takole: »Vsi nastopajoči so postajali akterji, igralci novega tipa, ki se niso več utemeljevali na ,vživljanju' v posamezne dramske like, ampak so z individualno energijo in navzočnostjo, z gibom in besedo dajali novo podobo tako pesmim kot tudi njihovim avtorjem« (Svetina, »Prispevek za zgodovino« 41).
Kot (ob Pupiliji Ferkeverk) opozarja Barbara Orel, je treba serijo predstav in uprizoritvenih postopkov, ki jih je sprožilo gledališče performativnega obrata, ki je bilo seveda v osnovi še vedno študentsko-eksperimentalno gledališče, kot ga je v svojem zapisu ob festivalu v Zagrebu v šestdesetih letih definiral Lado Kralj, razumeti kot tisti moment v slovenski gledališki zgodovini, ko se je zgodil »prehod v performans«, saj je ob sestopu iz literature v neposredno odrsko predstavljanje priredila »osupljivo soočenje z realnim«: »Kolaž prizorov, od uvodnega urbanega obreda - ogleda televizijskega dnevnika in z njim sveta, kot se kaže v trenutku izvedbe performansa, pa vse do sklepnega ritualnega zakola kokoši, je bil utemeljen v zavzetem in neprizanesljivem preiskovanju realnega« (Orel, »Pupilija« 196).
Če potegnemo črto. Kot so pokazali primeri Pupilije, Pekarne in Vetrnice, je brez dvoma prav fenomen študentskega eksperimentalnega gledališča, ki briše meje med umetniškimi zvrstmi, visoko in nizko kulturo, profesionalnimi igralci in naturščiki, izhajal iz nove teorije umetnosti in kulture, kot sta jo npr. zagovarjala Lado in Tomaž Kralj ter Taras Kermauner, izhajajoč iz Artauda, ameriške gledališke avantgarde, Grotowskega in Schechnerja. To gledališče je s svojim podiranjem meja in tabujev vzpostavilo kreativno osvobojeno ozemlje, iz katerega je kasneje izhajala alternativa osemdesetih in neinstitucionalna scena devetdesetih let, danes pa do določene mere tudi postrepertoarno gledališče v svojih drznejših oblikah. Zato lahko potrdimo hipotezo Roka Andresa, da program Lada Kralja (ob njem pa tudi tisti Vlada Šava, Dušana Jovanovica in Pupilije ter Tomaža Kralja) v veliki meri »ustreza današnjemu gledališkemu trenutku, kajti kaj drugega so participacija publike v igri; poseben psihofizičen trening igralcev; ritualni elementi gledališča; teamsko (grupno) ustvarjanje predstave; nove možnosti, ki jih nudijo vizualni in avditivni elementi predstave, če ne elementi sodobnega (pogojno rečeno postdramskega) gledališča?« (Andres 26).
Hkrati pa moramo vse avantgardne skupine na prehodu iz šestdesetih v sedemdeseta leta razumeti v povezavi s hipijevsko kulturo, z njenim ludizmom, študentskimi družbenimi gibanji, ki so bila gibanja nove levice, s kritiko kulture (in politike) očetov ter v povezavi z novimi umetniškimi praksami. Miško Šuvakovic tako ugotavlja, kako je to pomenilo, »da ni več jasnih določil, kaj je gledališče, kaj je književnost, kaj je likovna umetnost, kaj je film«, gledališče pa je s tem postalo stvar plemena, ki je skupaj odkrivalo »svojo družbenost in jo predstavljalo na sceni z umetnostjo« (Tanko 1585). Vse te zvrsti in taktike so v avantgardno-študentskem gledališču stopale v intenziven
74 medsebojni dialog ter ustvarjale eksperimentalno, včasih tudi ekscesno. Prav potreba nove generacije, da na novo definira svojo umetniškost in družbenost, pa je nedvomno pripeljala tudi do ukinitve hierarhije med repertoarnim in eksperimentalnim, profesionalno-dramskim in amatersko-študentskim.
Literatura
75
Adorno, Theodor W. Aesthetic Theory. Continuum, 2004.
Andres, Rok. »Mitologija po meri človeka«. Gledališka alternativa sedemdesetih in osemdesetih, AGRFT, 2012.
Artaud, Antonin. Gledališče in njegov dvojnik. MGL, 1994. Knjižnica MGL, 119.
Božič, Peter. »Eksperimentalno pozorište kao socijalni fenomen iz izkustva slovenskih esperimentalnih pozorišta.« Pozorište, letn. 17, št. 5-6, 1975, str. 311-322.
Fischer-Lichte, Erika. Estetika performativnega. Študentska založba, 2008. Knjižna zbirka Koda.
Grotowski, Jerzy. Revno gledališče. MGL, 1973. Knjižnica MGL, 61.
Innes, Christopher. Avant Garde Theatre. 1892-1992. Routledge, 1993.
Jovanovic, Dušan. »Pleme, konfrontacija in kolaž.« Prišli so Pupilčki: 40 let gledališča Pupilije Ferkeverk, ur. A. Milohnic in I. Svetina, Maska in Slovenski gledališki muzej, 2009, str. 89-100.
»Kazališna gerila dobiva rat.« [Nepodpisano.] Vjesnik, 12. avgust 2016, http://www. kpgtyu.org/pressarhiva/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=7&pid=8015#top_ display_media. Dostop 23. apr. 2019.
Kermavner, Taras, Jože Koruza, Janko Kos, Lado Kralj, Vasja Predan, Borut Trekman,	Josip	Vidmar.	»Slovenska
gledališka situacija.« Sodobnost, letn. 17, št. 6, 1969. http://www.dlib.si/?URN=URN:NBN:SI:DOC-QL6YTAPQ.
Kralj, Lado. »Čutil sem, da v slovenskem prostoru manjka ritualni princip.« Dialogi, letn. 45, št. 11/12, 2009, str. 3-37.
—. »Mednarodni festival študentovskih gledališč v Zagrebu.« Sodobnost, let. 12, št. 12, 1964, str. 1238-43.
—. »Zanima me razredno gledališče.« Intervju M. Zajec z Ladom Kraljem. Mladina, letn. 21, št. 12, 1971, str. 20-21.
—. »Hipijevsko, čutno, razpuščeno.« 20 let EG Glej, ur. Marko Crnkovič idr., EG Glej, 1990, nepag.
Orel, Barbara. »Pupilija kot zareza v režimu predstavljanja in zaznavanja.« Prišli so Pupilčki: 40 let gledališča Pupilije Ferkeverk, ur. A. Milohnic in I. Svetina, Maska in Slovenski gledališki muzej, 2009, str. 195-213.
Povše, Janez. »Pot.« Mladina, 15. september 1970, str. 20-21.
Milohnic, Aldo, in Ivo Svetina, ur. Prišli so Pupilčki: 40 let gledališča Pupilije Ferkeverk. Maska (Zbirka Transformacije) in Slovenski gledališki muzej (Dokumenti Slovenskega gledališkega muzeja, letn. 45, št. 86), 2009.
76 Schuller, Aleksandra. »Vlado Šav in aktivna kultura.« Annales. Series historia et sociología, letn. 21, št. 2, 2011, str. 397-412.
Slana, Miroslav. »Zdenko Kodrič - Koči.« Stop, letn. 23, št. 27, 1990, str. 10-11.
»Gledališče Pupilije Ferkeverk.« Študentski list, letn. 25, št. 8, 1970.
Svetina, Ivo. »Prispevek za zgodovino gledališkega gibanja na Slovenskem - Pupilija Ferkeverk.« Prišli so Pupilčki: 40 let gledališča Pupilije Ferkeverk, ur. A. Milohnic in I. Svetina, Maska in Slovenski gledališki muzej, 2009, str. 27-79.
—. Gledališče Pekarna 1971-1978. MGL, 2012. Knjižnica MGL, 167.
Šav, Vlado. »Gledališče kot intenzivno življenje.« Iz razgovora z vodjem Vetrnice Vladimirjem Šavom. Dnevnik, 20. dec. 1974, str. 4.
»Študentsko gledališče Vetrnica.« Mladina, 5. dec. 1974, str. 20.
Tanko, Petra. »Čas za revolucijo: (ob 40. obletnici nastanka skupine Pupilija Ferkeverk).« Sodobnost, letn. 11/12, št. 73, 2009, str. 1583-1592.
Taufer, Veno. »Rudi Šeligo: Ali naj te z listjem posujem?« Naši razgledi, letn. 22, št. 3, 1974, str. 154-5.
Toporišič, Tomaž. »Performativni obrat Pupilije Ferkeverk.« Prišli so Pupilčki: 40 let gledališča Pupilije Ferkeverk, ur. A. Milohnic in I. Svetina, Maska in Slovenski gledališki muzej, 2009, str. 215-31.
78
UDC 792,07(497,4]:7,01 7.01:792.07(497.4)
The article deals with relations between the institutional-repertory theatre scene and experimental, alternative, and later non-institutional performing arts, often related to as "amateur and dilettante" by the "drama theatre" critics. It explores how, at the turn of the 1960s to the 1970s, a specific form of student experimental theatres emerged in Slovenia in interaction with the student and civil movements and alternative culture (Pupilija Ferkeverk Theatre, Pekarna (Bakery) Theatre, Vlado Sav and Vetrnica (Windmill)). The new movement consciously decided to exclude classical theatre actors from its circle and to replace them with non-professionally-trained staff. Thus, the phenomenon of student experimental theatre blurred the boundaries between artistic genres, high and low cultures, professional and non-professional actors. It created a new, liberated performative territory, from which the alternative theatre and culture of the 1980s and the non-institutional performing arts scene of the 1990s emerged. The article aims to establish to what extent the theory and practice of American theatre avant-garde (Richard Schechner, The Performance Group, etc.) as well as the theatre of Eugenio Barba and Jerzy Grotowski influenced these movements.
Keywords: experimental theatre, student theatre, performance, Pekarna Theatre, Pupilija Ferkeverk
Tomaž Toporišič is a dramaturg and theatre theorist, associate professor of the history and theory of drama and performing arts and vice-dean of the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television, University of Ljubljana, His primary research interests are contemporary performing arts, literature and visual culture, He is the author of four books on contemporary performing arts, His latest essays include: "The New Slovene Theatre and Italian Futurism", "(Re]staging the Rhetoric of Space" and "Deconstructive Readings of the Avant-garde Tradition in Post-Socialist Retro-avant-garde Theatre", He was the artistic director and dramaturg of the Mladinsko Theatre and co-founded the Exodos Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts,
tomaz,toporisic@guest,arnes,si
Between Seduction and Suspicion: Experimental, Amateur and Professional Theatre1
79
Tomaž Toporišič
AGRFT, University of Ljubljana
1. The text-to-body turn
This article deals with the opposing but at times very constructive and creative relations between the institutional-repertory theatre scene and experimental, alternative, and later, non-institutional performing arts, often referred to as "amateur and dilettante" by the "drama theatre" critics. We will look into the experimental theatres and performance groups at the turn of the 1960s to the 1970s, that is, during the performative turn from textual to body culture, such as the Pupilija Ferkeverk Theatre, the Pekarna (Bakery) Theatre, Vlado Sav and the group Vetrnica (Windmill). In our investigation, we will ask how and why these groups consciously decided to exclude classical theatre actors from their circle and replace them with non-professional staff with no formal theatre education. How and to what extent did the theory and practice of American theatre avant-gardists, for example, Richard Schechner and The Performance Group, as well as the theatre of Eugenio Barba and Jerzy Grotowski and others influence these movements?
Let us begin with a quote by Theodor W. Adorno from almost 50 years ago. It aptly sums up the performative turn in Slovenia and the fundamental reevaluation and restructuring of theatre and performing arts in general: "It is self-evident that nothing concerning art is self-evident anymore, [...] not even its right to exist" (Adorno 1). This trait also characterises the phenomenon of the neo-avant-garde performative turn that was so clearly identified by Veno Taufer, one of the key figures of the first experimental wave of the Oder 57 (Stage 57) theatre and the critical generation, in his review of the staging of Rudi Seligo's short novel, Naj te z listjem posujem (Let Me Cover You with Leaves), directed by Lado Kralj:
1 The article was written within the research programme Theatre and Interart Studies P6-0376, which is financially supported by the Slovenian Research Agency.
80	The Pekarna Theatre has created a distinct and recognisable profile of theatre which
could be designated as an idiosyncratic type of ritual theatre in search of some basic theatre signs or acting and mise-en-scène expressions of such signs of human existential practice (Taufer 154-5)2.
This new experimental theatre practised by various groups is what succeeded in overwhelming Yugoslav festivals of alternative and student theatre. It became synonymous with the resilience and endurance of small theatre groups which proliferated during the 1970s and started to present an alternative to the so-called professional repertory drama theatre with formally educated actors. The Vjesnik newspaper from Zagreb even promoted the new generation by stating that the "theatre guerilla" is gaining the upper hand against the flagship "theatre cavalry" ("Kazališna" n.p.).
In his programme of the Pekarna Theatre, Lado Kralj highlighted its origin in the tradition of Slovenian experimental theatres, particularly the Oder 57, the Experimental Theatre and the Ad hoc Theatre. But he also emphasised that Pekarna was a "class theatre" and as such looking for its own means of expression, particularly in participatory methods, a special psycho-physical acting training, emphasising theatre as ritual, and the group (today we would say participatory) creation of the performance. Such class theatre represented the aesthetic action of one particular social strata - the at the time in Slovenia still self-unaware subculture. He was not interested in experimental or avant-garde theatre, which, in his opinion, imagined itself to "aspire to be better and more progressive than traditional theatre" (Kralj, "Zanima me razredno gledališče" 21). Rather, he was interested in a new type of theatre which would no longer be mere theatre, but an aesthetic revolution or "aesthetic action, as ritual, as speaking the unspeakable" (Ibid.).
Here the process was more important than the final product, an experiment "about the essence of acting and human impersonation, about relationships between the physical and the psychical" (Kralj, "Hipijevsko" n.p.). At first, critics mostly failed to understand this innovation; they viewed it as amateur and student theatre. Pekarna's actors themselves, however, were well-aware of this new relationship between the physical and the psychical. As one of its noted performers, the "non-professional" actor Zdenko Kodrič - Koči notes:
The Pekarna Theatre defied the theatre mastodons with mere peanuts from the cultural community, in the spirit of Stanislavski, Grotowski and Brook it restarted the theatre wheel of history which politicians so violently stopped with Oder 57. [...] This Slovenian theatre featured an original physiognomy, superb actors and directors, ushers, musicians, stage-designers and audience (Slana 27).
2 All translations of quotes from sources in Slovenian are by Jaka Andrej Vojevec.
Cognisant of the European and American frameworks of such research and 81 experiments, the Pekarna Theatre tried to connect it to the situation in socialist Slovenia: "To find and define a home ground, to refresh it, reshape it according to the needs of our audiences and social space, to change it or maybe even reject part of it" (Lado Kralj on the Pekarna Theatre, quoted in Andres 112).
The Pekarna Theatre realised that it needed to establish a daring dialogue with the Polish (Grotowski, Kantor) and American theatre avant-garde (Schechner, Chaikin ...). Kralj mentions this in Ivo Svetina's book on the Pekarna Theatre:
Richard Schechner, my mentor, stripped the halo of religious rapture off Grotowski and added elements of absurdist theatre as well as irony and grotesque, topped with anthropological research of tribal culture in New Guinea and Australia and bizarre aspects of Americana [...] And what I've learned from Schechner and later adapted by myself, I brought to Slovenia, where Ivo Svetina and I founded the Pekarna Theatre (Svetina, Gledališče Pekarna... n.p.).
The quotes above demonstrate that the Pekarna Theatre was founded in dialogue with diverse phenomena of contemporary performative practices at the intersection of East and West, socialism and capitalism. It was a dialogue that shifted the boundaries of the reception and interpretation of contemporary art in experimental and student theatres at the time, which also aided in breaking down the hierarchy and dichotomy between high culture and pop culture.
2. Student, amateur, professional
In his comments on the IV International Student Theatre Festival in Zagreb in 1964, Kralj presented a notable classification of theatre. In it, he established a separate category of student theatre, comparing it to professional repertory theatre on the one hand, and amateur or dilettante theatre on the other. Thus, he noted, at the festival "there gathered a very diverse company of students among which there were only two groups from actual theatre schools, while the majority of groups were made up of enthusiasts joined by a shared desire to express themselves despite different study courses or professional inclinations" (Kralj, "Mednarodni festival ..." 1238). He proceeded to highlight the specifics of student theatre as experimental theatre. Since his classification and argumentation is closely connected to our topic, let us quote it at length:
It is a very special layer of acting, different from both professional and amateur performers: the professional actor is characterised by the attachment to one's work which, like any other kind of work, is an inevitable social necessity as well as means of self-realisation. In the professional actor who has not been professionalised by one's
82	own occupation, there is a kind of symbiosis of some external, objective, and internal,
psychological, necessity. Stuck between the rock and the hard place of these two necessities, one ideally searches for a third dimension: one's own social correlation, a correspondence to the social being. Meanwhile, the amateur actor is characterised mostly by the social optionality of one's work: one indulges in an educational activity which, as beneficial and necessary as it might be, is however not caused by an existential want for approaching the social being, but rather the psychological want of the most appropriate kind of self-realisation in one's leisure time. Most often, this is determined by efforts to formally approximate true, professional theatre expression. - Student theatres, however, belong to that larger group of theatres which, for want of a better term, I will dub experimental (Ibid. 1238-1239).
Kralj follows this up with an insight that was downright revolutionary for a time when the professionalisation or rather Europeanisation of the acting and other theatre professions barely finished in Slovenia and Yugoslavia:
The student and non-student experimental theatres allow both professional and nonprofessional theatre people to mix. They are characterised by a kind of continuous experimentation that affects not only their manner of stage expression and selection of the repertoire but also the ensemble itself: by experimenting with acting they are constantly testing their attitudes towards social reflection and attempt to creatively affect it. Characteristic of these occasional and existential interest groups is an accomplished conception of the role of theatre in society. They do not perceive theatre merely as a profession or means of self-realisation but as an inalienable part of their immediate presence in society, through which they attempt to reach some kind of active correspondence with society. To them, professional theatre does not represent a model to which they liminally aspire; rather, their notion of theatre often even contradicts the conventional one (Ibid. 1239).
According to Kralj, student theatre is thus equal to experimental theatre. Experimental theatre introduces that which, in an article on the social phenomenon of experimental theatre based on the Slovenian experience, Peter Božič describes as "completely new principles of horizontal dramaturgy with a different sensibility/awareness of time". He also talks about conceptual or participatory theatre "which represents a consistent approximation to the ideal of self-management, author, director, costume designer, technician etc." (320).
Lado Kralj's programme was but the tip of the iceberg of the performative turn that introduced architectonic shifts to the understanding of the professional-studentamateur triad. This transformation demonstrated that there was nothing self-evident in art, not even the division of actors into drama (matrix), student (experimental, non-matrix) and amateur (spontaneous non-professionals). In the survey on the
"Slovenian theatre situation (Slovenska gledališka situacija)'' carried out by the 83 journal Sodobnost in 1969, Kralj points out (as if addressing the current situation) that it was about "seeking out and defining 'social minorities' and 'social majority' and enabling each one appropriate affirmation since only such a situation allows for radically new solutions surpassing the level of personal quarrel and exhausting running in circles" (Kermauner 593).
Kralj's argumentation, which, to a large extent, is still relevant even today, goes as follows. Inside any developed theatre landscape, both experimental and national-repertory theatres need a clearly demarcated area of activity. The former are dedicated to "experiments in the area of performance, acting, the idea of theatre, the dismantling or deconstruction of the only Slovenian theatre form - the Burgtheater adaptation of Stanislavski - and replacing it with new, unattested, experimentation with mixed media, the radicalisation of gesture, word, stage technique, etc." (Ibid.).
Thus, in Kralj's opinion, experimental theatre enters the scene at the point where "central theatres are unable to risk so much because of their special institutional conception" (Ibid.). However, the central theatre situated at the very centre of the cultural and theatre semiosphere also has the function of absorbing the experiment into its logic of functioning, which is in its nature primarily informative and aimed at representing the nation. Both types of theatre have their respective logic and sense. However, they are still situated in the logic of the thematisation and radicalisation of the concept of European bourgeois theatre: "To establish a normal correlation between the institutional and experimental theatre" (Ibid.).
3. Sav's open theatre of active culture
Besides Lado Kralj, Vlado Šav also argued for a complete departure from the bourgeois and repertory model at the turn of the 1960s to the 1970s. Šav, who graduated in drama acting in 1970 from the Academy for Theatre, Radio, Film and Television in Ljubljana, successfully entered the selection for a six-month specialisation at Jerzy Grotowski's Acting Institute at Teatr Laboratorium in Wroclaw, Poland in 1973. As early as September 1973, mere months after returning from Poland, Šav founded the group Vetrnica and started gradually developing various (existential and performative) praxes of active culture.
Šav introduced the ideology of primitivism derived from Grotowski and Schechner (Innes 1-5) which, similarly to Kralj and Grotowski, he built on an alternative scale of values concerning contemporary culture and society, while at the same time emphasising a return to nature and the fellow human being, from intellect to body and
84 instinct. More emphatically than Kralj, who, in his own words, dealt in the Pekarna Theatre with Slovenian pathology and schizophrenic society, Šav declared a return to the roots, the origins, and "anti-materialism directed towards spirituality (interest in religion and other spiritual practices of non-European cultures, experimenting with techniques of reaching altered states of consciousness, an inclination for founding ritual communities and blurring the boundary between performers and spectators), and belief in the transformative, or rather therapeutic force of ritual (self-)representation" (Schuller 400).
After featuring in a number of roles at the Koper City Stage (Mestni oder Koper, 1964-1968) during his studies, in the early 1970s, Šav founded and headed the experimental theatre group Beli krog (White Circle) which announced the abolition of the distinction between professional and amateur, acting and not-acting, theatre and ritual. This activity represented a kind of introduction into Šav's para-theatre, or rather, an active culture. As the critic Janez Povše pointed out in the magazine Mladina following the group's 1970 performance in Ljubljana, the group "follows the example of The Living Theatre, as well as the laboratorium-style, introspective acting expression of Grotowski", while the performance "presented its attitude towards the world which might seem a bit too simplistic, lacking in problematisation and critique", but nevertheless "a promising start of successfully posited work in the formal as well as the specifically-expressive sense ..." (Povše 20-21). The performance Pot (The Path) was placed on a meadow, performers and spectators were separated merely by a white chalk circle, it emphasised performative rituality, an autopoietic feedback loop between performers and spectators which formed through physical and vocal actions by the performers ... who were not acting out roles, but rather attempted to express who they were by using archetypes.
In the spring of 1974, Šav and the group Vetrnica3 organised a special performative event modelled after Grotowski, which he entitled Srečanje (The Meeting). It was conceptualised as "the spontaneous improvisation of individuals who endeavoured to involve everyone present in unified action through their expressive strength" (Šav 4):
This can hardly be called a play since members of the group do not represent anything, rather they are who they are. It is something different, something that still lacks a name. We make use of the terms: confrontation, soirée, meeting. [...] This isn't theatre in the traditional nor in the modern sense, but something utterly new, singular [...] a meeting between a visitor and the group, a meeting of certain people in space, close contact between them, a moment of relaxation, a moment when perfect strangers join in that which is most beautiful and intimate to humans. It is a psychological and physical
3 The group was founded in September 1973 in Ljubljana as part of the student cultural association Forum. It was active from 1973 until 1981. Its members included Vesna Dvornik, Milan Kristan, Jani Osojnik, Slavica Rukavina, Vlado Sav, Zdena Virant and Andrej Zumer. The group was also active internationally, touring in Europe and to Israel and Canada.
activity shared by everyone present. Each member of the group takes on this mission; 85 they attempt to create such moments, to discover that most profound in themselves and to pull everyone present into this experience of the self, thus triggering a similar experience in them as well. To meet with the Other as human to human ("Študentsko gledališče Vetrnica" 20).
Spectators in the Vetrnica theatre (to borrow the words of Erika Fischer-Lichte) thus become "fellow actors who create the performance by participating in the play, that is, through their physical presence, their perception and their reactions. This happens as the result of interaction between actors and spectators" (47).
4. Pupilija Ferkeverk and Dušan Jovanovic
At this point let us indulge in a brief flashback to the time when Pupilija Ferkeverk performed in Zagreb in 1970. To quote the presentation, or rather, mini-manifesto of the group published in the student newspaper Študentski list announcing the performance Pupilja, papa Pupilo pa Pupilčki (Pupilja, papa Pupilo and the Pupilceks) in Zagreb:
We want to destroy the basic characteristics of traditional and some avant-garde theatres, which is the illusion of life to which theatre has always been subservient. The performance is no longer a play, a copy, or enactment of life, but rather a total and all-encompassing reality [...]. Performers are no longer actors [...], the actor is on equal terms with the spectator, while the performers through their presence create a concrete social [?] environment [...]. The Pupilija Ferkeverk Theatre is an experimental, non-literary, open and living theatre ("Gledališče Pupilije Ferkeverk").
Pupilija substituted the theatre performance with an event - an action. Its protagonists were absolved from taking on the roles of somebody else. The actor, or rather protagonist of the theatre event, thus became "an authentic and physical figure. [...] There is no more pretence onstage, nothing is feigned, everything is happening for real, and it really happens. [...] The actors' means are adapted to this end, so they can use them in order to really function, as they really cause blood to flow. The blood actually flows onstage" (Toporišič 230). Pupilija established the student-experimental theatre with non-professional actors who never intended to persuade the audience that they were anyone else but themselves. The quality no longer consisted of acting, but of not-acting (in the sense of Michael Kirby's theory). Professionality and drama were replaced by non-professionality and non-drama, the actor was replaced by a performer. This theatre no longer functioned as a hierarchical community inside a drama or repertory theatre, but rather as a "tribe", of which Dušan Jovanovic, who
86 in many ways oriented Pupilija, wrote: "I became a fan of the tribe. For a long time afterwards, I missed the tribe, a community where I could feel at home" (92). Like Kralj, Jovanovic perceived Pupilija as an aesthetic, political reaction to the deceptive harmony of the society and its official art:
Pupilija was not art with a capital A. According to professional standards, it was almost dilettante. But it contained the liberating power of parody, ritual sacredness and a thirst for unlimited freedom. [...] Pupilija had an unusual power; it had the culture of authenticity typical of tribal communities (Ibid. 91).
The similarities with the ideas of Vetrnica, Pekarna and other neo-avant-garde groups, including the OHO group, are evident. Lado Kralj's reflections on the student theatre festival in Zagreb and later on the Pekarna Theatre and the neo-avant-garde movements in the 1970s, the mini-manifesto of the Pupilija Ferkeverk group, Tomaž Kralj's short programme notes, and Vlado Šav's reflections on his group Vetrnica all point to the fact that there was a specific form of student experimental theatres that emerged in Slovenia at the turn of the 1960s to the 1970s in interaction with the student and civil movements and alternative culture. These theatres and collectives paved the way for the non-institutional scene. It was Peter Božič who, in the article for the magazine Pozorište, aptly described its aesthetic diversity, radicality and consistency:
There are many performances, their array spanning from ritual theatre to the so-called "upgraded realism", which introduced utterly new principles of horizontal dramaturgy with a different sensibility/awareness of time which in this dramaturgy substitutes verticality. [...] Members of this company are neither better nor smarter than the next man; they merely have infinitely more opportunities to experiment in their own social environment, representing a consistent approximation to the ideal of self-management, author, director, costume designer, technician, etc. (320).
These theatres turned their focus towards a specific kind of "spirituality" or ritual presence of someone not acting, but rather being in reality. Kralj's Pekarna and Šav's Vetrnica, as well as the Pupilija Ferkeverk Theatre before them, all proceed from the postulates of Artaud's theatre, from his realisation that theatre, which made use of Western psychology's "obsession with the defined word which says everything", led to "the withering of words" (Artaud 118). "I am adding another language to the spoken language, and I am trying to restore to the language of speech its old magic (... ) for its mysterious possibilities have been forgotten" (Ibid. 111). This way, they reached the special state which Rudi Šeligo so aptly named "immediate presence". This state called not only for the emotional states that were well-acted (presented) but, first and foremost, that were really present.
Lado Kralj who, besides Šav, most coherently developed this new theatre and
performance also introduced a special acting-performing method through which in 87 the performance Potohodec (Pathwalker) and later he searched for a type of acting that would stem from the actor's very blood, body, biology, situation. This makes his exclamation Be alive! written at the end of the manifesto published in the bulletin of the student theatre festival IFSK (Internacionalni festival studentskih kazališta) so much more meaningful.
5. New theatre for a new age and a new spectator
Lado Kralj, Vlado Šav, Dušan Jovanovic and Tomaž Kralj, each in their own right, introduced the systems of neo-avant-garde procedures into Slovenian performative practices as derived and developed mostly after Jerzy Grotowski and Richard Schechner. Schechner's ritualism was especially evident in the first three performances by the Pekarna Theatre: Dane Zajc's Pathwalker directed by Lado Kralj (1972), Gilgamesh directed by Ivo Svetina (1972) and Rudi Šeligo's Let Me Cover You with Leaves directed by Lado Kralj (1973), while Grotowski's influence was felt in the performances and actions of the Vetrnica group in the 1970s: The Meeting (1974), Soočanje (The Confrontation, 1974), Kopanje (Bathing, 1975) and the community in Petkovci (19761980). Characteristic of all these authors and groups was collective creation in which the end product (that is, the performance) was not the main goal; rather, they abided by a special kind of process, as well as the interaction of all participants.
Ivo Svetina defined this new type of actor, or rather performer, counting on and proceeding from the autopoietic feedback loop as follows:
All performers were becoming agents, a new type of actors who were no longer based on "enacting" individual drama characters, but rather used their individual energy and presence, gesture and spoken word to give a new image to poems as well as their authors (Svetina, "Prispevek za zgodovino ..." 41).
As Barbara Orel notices (while speaking of Pupilija Ferkeverk), the series of performances and performative procedures triggered by the theatre in the performative turn, which in essence was still the student-experimental theatre as defined by Lado Kralj in his notes on the Zagreb festival in the 1960s, ought to be understood as the defining moment in Slovenian theatre history when the "transition to performance" took place. The reason is that they provided a "fascinating confrontation with reality" in their descent from literature to immediate stage presentation:
The assemblage of scenes, from the introductory urban ritual - watching the TV evening news and thus the world as it appears in the moment of performing, to the concluding
88	ritual of slaughtering the chicken, was founded in a dedicated and ruthless exploration
of the real (Orel "Pupilija..." 196).
To summarise: As demonstrated in the cases of Pupilija, Pekarna and Vetrnica, there is no doubt that the student-experimental theatre that blurred the boundaries between artistic genres, high and low culture, professional and non-professional actors, was derived from novel theories of art and culture as argued for by, for example, Lado and Tomaž Kralj and Taras Kermauner, who built on Artaud, the American theatre avant-garde, Grotowski and Schechner. By breaking down boundaries and taboos, this theatre created a new, liberated performative territory, from which the alternative theatre and culture of the 1980s and the non-institutional performing arts scene of the 1990s emerged, as well as, to a certain degree, today's post-repertory theatre in its more daring forms. Thus, we can confirm the hypothesis suggested by Rok Andres that Lado Kralj's programme (as well as those of Vlado Šav, Dušan Jovanovic and Tomaž Kralj) to a major extent "corresponded to the current theatre moment, for what else are audience participation, specialised psycho-physical training of actors, ritual elements of theatre, team (group) creation of performances, new possibilities offered by the visual and audio elements of performance, but elements of contemporary (dare we say, postdramatic) theatre?" (Andres 26).
Meanwhile, all avant-garde groups at the turn of the 1960s to the 1970s ought to be understood in connection to the hippie culture, its ludic elements, the student and civil movements such as the new-left movements, the critique of culture (and politics) of their fathers and to new art practices. Miško Šuvakovic thus concludes that this means "there are no longer any clear stipulations of what theatre, literature, visual arts and film actually is". Thus, theatre became a thing of the tribe, which set off to discover "its sociality and presented it through art" (Tanko 1585). In the avantgarde student theatre, all of these genres and tactics entered into an intensive mutual dialogue and began creating in an experimental, sometimes excessive, way. It was this generation's need to redefine its artistic and social role which undoubtedly led to the abolishment of the hierarchy between the repertory and the experimental, the professional-drama and the amateur-student theatre.
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Translated by Jaka Andrej Vojevec