Reconsidering Purpose, Art and Performance
Statement 2: On Contemporary Dramaturgy Anton Chekhov put it best when he said, ‘If a pistol appears in a story, eventually it’s got to be fired.’ (…) What Chekhov was getting at is this: necessity is an independent concept. It has a different structure from logic, morals or meaning. Its function lies entirely in the role it plays. What doesn’t play a role shouldn’t exist. What necessity requires does need to exist. That’s what you call dramaturgy. Logic, morals or meaning don’t have anything to do with it. It’s all a question of relationality. Chekhov understood dramaturgy very well. (Murakami, Haruki, Kafka on the shore . London: Vintage, Random House, 2005. p. 376). When art-based practice teaches us to think In a time of a pandemic the concept of necessity in performance becomes more urgent. On the one hand you want necessity to be present in your life as a compass for living. But at the same time in lockdown you have to deal with a lack of necessity give...