(Pre)Creation Processes: Milo Rau's Tribunals, Political Actions, and Prefigurative Performance

Photo Credit: The Congo Tribunal, Fruitmarket Film

This talk will primarily explore two lines of work within Swiss-German political theatre director Milo Rau’s multifaceted oeuvre: (1) his political action performances exemplified by projects like The Congo Tribunal and The Revolt of Dignity (2019), and (2) site specific adaptations of classic texts exemplified by The Trilogy of Ancient Myths (Orestes in Mosul (2019), The New Gospel (2020), Antigone in the Amazons (2023)). 

Over the past fifteen years, Rau and his production company, the International Institute of Political Murder or IIPM, has won international attention for his transnational, politically engaged, documentary-inspired theatre. With his appointment as artistic director of the Belgian city-theatre NTGent in 2018, Rau showed increased interest in what he refers to as “conflict zones”, building on an existing interest in the impact of neoliberal economic policy on the Global South first marked by The Congo Tribunal (2015/17).

This talk will look at Rau's onsite, ethnographic, research-based approach as it searches for solutions fostered by the creation of what the director calls “practical networks of solidarity” between local and international partners, allying – for better or for worse – the grassroots with the global.

BIO

Lily Climenhaga wrote the dissertation (Re)Creation Processes: Milo Rau and the International Institute of Political Murder in a joint degree between the University of Alberta and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and the co-editor of Theater’s special 2021 edition on Milo Rau. Lily is currently undertaking the FWO-funded postdoctoral project “Institutionalized Resistance: Milo Rau’s NTGent Period” at Universiteit Gent. Lily is a dramaturg, editor, blogger (https://lostdramaturgininternational.wordpress.com), critic, translator, and occasional stage manager.