PSR Art Politics Institution Body – Made for Happiness
For this Performance Situation Room edition, brain store project teamed up with their associated partner Lokomotiva – Centre for New Initiatives in Arts and Culture, Skopje.
In the frame of the theoretical-artistic programme "Art Politics Institution Body", the performance "Made for Happiness" was presented.
The performance “Made for Happiness” is a comment on the relation to happiness stimulated by contemporary culture. For creating their “happy show” performance makers Iva Sveshtarova and Willy Prager study various manuals, tests and websites for measuring happiness, documentaries and scientific papers. They make them understand that besides an emotional state, happiness has become a product with a very clear formula and imagery. So it can be a matter of concrete practices. The artists take the challenge to produce happiness on the stage. For that purpose they get equipped with stress balls, champagne and other pleasant stimuli…
The performance is awarded with IKAR - National Theatre Award 2019 in the category Contemporary Dance and Performance
The programme by Lokomotiva “Art Politics Institution Body” is a theoretical-artistic programme:
This theoretical-artistic program taking place in Kino Kultura, arose from the need for theatre, dance and performance to be understood, looked at, shown and thought differently, or to offer reviews and new angles of viewing the conditions in which these arts are created, perceived, followed. The need to recognize the artistic achievements in the performing arts through a different prism than the traditional one, which will provide an opportunity to talk about what it signifies, how it is developed, how politics influences, or not, its development, or what are the signifiers produced by art while it is distributed in the public, and how such signifiers perform meanings that change, write, reform the artistic and cultural context itself.
The artistic public sphere is conflicting and it represents a space for different and opposing subjectivities, politics and economies, or a “battle field” according to Pierre Bourdieu and Hans Haacke, where different ideological positions strive towards power and sovereignty. It is not unitary, nor autonomous, although it sometimes strives to be. This world, sphere, is regulated by politics, the economy, and it is in constant relation with other public spheres and areas, which is best seen in the critical theory and the critical, conceptual and/or contextual artistic practices.
Art has become a field of thought, reflection, diversities, opportunities, exchange, comparative analysis, as well as a mediator between different fields, ways of perception and thinking, and between many different positions and subjectivities.
Viewing and reflecting upon art in relation to context, or the other public spheres, areas, is the approach through which we will talk about the contemporary performing arts, and we will also look into the notions of art, politics, institution, and body, and their relations.
In the contemporary artistic practices we can see a certain “permeability”, or an extended practice, an extended artistic field or an interdisciplinary approach. These practices intervene in several fields besides the traditionally formulated artistic disciplines, – cross-border -, and touch upon, encounter other areas such as sociology, politics, critical theory, and so on.
This program is interested in such “permeability” of the contemporary arts, in the relations of an artistic field or world with the rest of the public spheres and areas, disciplines. This program begins at and returns to the field of performing arts (theatre, dance, performance), and through the interdisciplinary approach it passes across the other spheres and practices.
The program ART POLITICS INSTITUTION BODY consists of:
- – theoretical program: lectures, discussions and workshops,
- – presentation of theatre works, drama works and performances.
All programs are public, except for the workshops which are intended for a group of young professionals who want to increase their theoretical knowledge, write, and/or curate in the field of contemporary arts.
Programme curator: Biljana Tanurovska-Kjulavkovski
Programme manager: Violeta Kachakova
The program is supported by: The Municipality of Centar, the City of Skopje, the EEPAP (EEPAP – East European Performing Arts Platform), the TMU and the GPS (Global Practice Sharing Program of the Movement Research with funding from the Trust for Mutual Understanding), The EU Culture Program, and the Life Long Burning project.