conversations in ten questions 25 : Benjamin Kahn
Interview with one of the four Netherlands-based theatermakers in PerformLab exchange programme in Istanbul. Ayşe Draz & Mehmet Kerem Özel [The Turkish translation of this interview is published on unlimited ] What is the essence of performance in your opinion? How do you define contemporary performance? I think there are so many ways to answer this question, but if I were to try to describe for myself what the essence of performance is; The first thing that comes to my mind is the desire to be together, to play the game of seeing and being seen, and above all a personal but absolutely collective experience. I am convinced that performance allows for a deep experience that is simultaneously intimate, collective, intellectual, emotional and physical. It can make it possible to question, decontextualise or reformulate our relationship to the other, to reality, or to society. Performance is the place of the sublime and also the place of politics. How then to describe co...