Presence in absence: death in T. Kantor and in Rimini Protokoll’s Nachlass 

Bruno Piva

Abstract

We start from the notion of death proposed by Kantor, by the absence that expresses the presence of life from inanimate, empty objects and mannequins, to perceive some form of life in the theater, when the actor appears - or not - on stage. In approximation with Cia. Rimini Protokoll in a period in which we lived surrounded by fear, loneliness and the lack of encounter, in short, by the absence, death reminded of its role not only in life, but in the art: it appears as a conceptual aspect, interferes in the aesthetic composition, promotes the loss of life as a staging theme and invites the living and the dead to participate in it.

bio

PhD fellow of the Centre for Theatre Studies of the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon, financed by national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the project 2020.04605.BD. Master on Performing Arts in FCSH/UNL and degree on Modern Languages (Port/Span) in FFLCH/USP. Currently he investigates the mediation of the human and non-human in actor´s presence and absence in contemporary stage, based on influences of Kantor and Grotowski.