Emerging Dramaturgies, Relational Devices and Invasion Theatres in Today’s Balearic Theatre Panorama

Abstract

The present article analyses two theatre productions — Krekovic camina and Un buco nella città / Una escletxa a la ciutat — developed during 2018 within the framework of the research project The Performing Arts at the Service of Social Awareness-Raising carried out by the Escola Superior d'Art Dramàtic de les Illes Balears (ESADIB). This project resulted in a work of artistic research and creation highlighting, from a theatre perspective, specific sectors and fields related to the world of tourism that had suffered marginalisation and job insecurity. It consisted of creating theatre productions leading to research on the contemporary theatre praxis itself, playing with invading dramaturgies in public spaces based on relational devices from participatory strategies that gave rise to collective action. The two devices had, on the one hand, a clear objective of social awareness-raising and, on the other, an experimental and innovative objective. This caused a reflection on performativity, theatricality and the components of the dramatic game, particularly the audience’s active function.

The devices presented managed to activate a transformative power of the social reality through the artistic event by inviting the audience to become actors participating in the performance: from the defence of the identity of a marginalised neighbourhood to the intervention in and subversion of the urban logic to fight against the impact of mass tourism in the cities, poetically returning to their charm.