We are happy to announce the launch of our new program titled Missing Rooms. Come and celebrate with us at the back garden of the Swiss Club with performances by Maurice Louca and Bosaina + SIDY.

For more information on our program please visit our Facebook page The Art Consulate.

Missing Rooms 

During the past decades, concepts such as ”Avantgarde” or ”experimental” have almost vanished as definitions of work within international performing arts. They are simply viewed as fit for a modernist context. In their place another term has arisen: ”Contemporary”. This term is used today sweepingly to include ”any piece translating a personal vision of the world right now”.

how can we, as a collective, approach the task of describing our contemporary? Even though we are aware of the difficulties in describing something which occurs while we are experiencing it, we still believe this ambition to be of relevance. Important ideological (such as class), political (such as leftist) and geographical (such as Iraq and so on) units are changing before our very eyes. The western culture relies more and more on ”poststructuralism” and turns down any attempt to search for ”meaning” or ”underlying principles”. Instead we live as individuals caught in the spotlight of attention, always exposed to gazes, impressions, surveillance and judgement. At the same time the world faces overwhelming crises impossible to solve without said ”meaning” or ”underlying principles”. 

The project uses these thoughts as it´s point of departure in an attempt to describe those historical, philosophical, political and economical currents which shape that which we generally refer to as ”contemporary” and specifically ”contemporary performing arts”.

Can theatre provide an antidote beyond cliches such as ”theatre is important and fantastic?” What does it mean to relate in a contemporary way to the audience? Are there any common denominators which can define a ”we” that theatre will able to communicate with