Our fifth year of Amfiteater starts with four articles and a quartet of book reviews to accompany them. In the first article, Anja Rošker deals with a segment of Jernej Lorenci’s opus from the perspective of intercultural performances. Until now, his performances created between 2005 and 2011 have not been considered in such a way. Next are two articles that were written in English language. Jure Gantar investigates performances in which the directors and other collaborators are urgently exposed to the questions of (in)fidelity to the original. Using examples from productions of Shakespeare’s plays as well as various operas staged in Great Britain, Canada and the USA, including a few occasional stops on the European continent, and with the help of memetics and fascinating historical details, he proposes that it is precisely the shift from the traditional performing arts practices and readings that enables the long- term survival of a play. The central question put forth in the article by Angela Butler is how the Dublin Theatre Festival is responding to today’s information-intensive society, marked by digital culture and emergent attention modes, the latter of this which the author refers to as counter-attention. Besides these presented content layers, the publishing of this article in Amfiteater has still another motive – I hope that it will encourage someone to reflect on and write about the Maribor Theatre Festival or the Week of Slovenian Drama or a similar overview festival in a similar way. The fourth short academic contribution arose alongside Ivo Svetina’s book Gledališče Pekarna (1971–1978). Rojstvo gledališče iz duha svobode: pričevanje. [The Pekarna Theatre (1971-1978). The Birth of Theatre from the Spirit of Freedom: A Testimony]. In his article, Tomaž Toporišič deals with the Slovenian neo-avant-garde theatre and declares Pekarna as the most provocative harbinger “of the performative turn and of anthropological theatre, which in the 1970s also helped to air out the concept of the national identity.”
Articles
Anja Rošker:
The Dialogue with the East in the Performances of Jernej Lorenci
Jure Gantar:
Till Director Does Them Part: Theatre and Fidelity Discourse
Angela Butler:
Tomaž Toporišič:
How to Historicise Contemporary Slovenian Theatre?
Book Reviews
Lev Kreft:
Glasovi s komunističnega horizonta (Darko Suvin: Brechtovo ustvarjanje in horizont komunizma) (available in Slovenian Language only)
Eva Mahkovic:
Zasledovanje konstrukcije drugosti (Andrej Zavrl: Christopher Marlowe, kanonični odpadnik) (available in Slovenian Language only)
Matej Bogataj:
Nevarna razmerja: dramatika, gledališče in oblast 1943-90 (Gašper Troha: Ujetniki svobode: slovenska dramatika in družba med letoma 1943-1990) (available in Slovenian Language only)
Tomaž Krpič:
So Close and Yet So Far Away”: An Attempt to Retroactively Chase the Evasive Live Experience in Contemporary Performance (Experiencing Liveness in Contemporary Performance. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Eds. Matthew Reason and Anja Mølle Lindelof) (available in Slovenian Language only)
Editor-in-Chief: Maja Šorli
Editorial Board: Bojana Kunst, Barbara Orel, Ana Perne, Blaž Lukan, Aldo Milohnić, Gašper Troha, Tomaž Toporišič
International Advisory Board: Mark Amerika (University of Colorado, US), Marin Blažević (Sveučilište u Zagrebu, HR), Ramsay Burt (De Montfort University, GB), Joshua Edelman (Manchester Metropolitan University, GB), Jure Gantar (Dalhousie University, CA), Janelle Reinelt (The University of Warwick, GB), Anneli Saro (Tartu Űlikool, EE), Miško Šuvaković (Univerzitet Singidunum, RS), S. E. Wilmer (Trinity College Dublin, IE)
Published by: Slovenian Theatre Institute (represented by Mojca Jan Zoran, Director) and University of
Ljubljana, Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television (represented by Tomaž Gubenšek, Dean)
Amfiteater – Journal of Performing Arts Theory was founded in 2008 by the University of Ljubljana, Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television.
