Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm

Theatre and the Crisis of Democracy

Western-style democracy is in crisis: migration, global warming and the economic consolidation of power go hand in hand with a devaluation of former stakeholders and institutions, such as the nation and its parliament. In many places, the answer is a return to forms and structures of authoritarian rule. Against this background, the lecture series “Frankfurter Positionen 2021” invites artists and academics from disciplines dealing with theatre and performance to reflect on the relationship between theatre and democracy. How do new forms of theatre, choreography and forms of performance that transcend genres and styles react to this crisis? How does this crisis affect their formats, modes of organisation and content?

Bettine Menke is Professor of General and Comparative Literature at the University of Erfurt. In her lecture, she explores the “refugee” as a figure of specific non-belonging produced by state regulations: as an exception to ostensible normality under the stipulation of the nation-state, as an exception to the law, consigned to police control. The fact that refugees are defined as illegal from the moment they cross the border and are detained in the “no man’s land” of the irregular must be addressed as an urgent question about the relationship between democracy and representation or representability, which inevitably undermines the certainties of belonging.