Dreams of a Sovereign Citizen – Toronto / The Church from Below

Drawing upon histories of peace movements in East Germany, the work takes the form of a performative installation housed within a former Lutheran Church, now The Luella Massey Studio Theatre. It draws out questions of resistance and emancipatory practices, staging a set of materials, recordings and documents that act as a greater scenography of the hidden and the dispossessed. In particular, the work considers how “the underground” performs to nurture the formation of a parallel polis, one that enacts an overall art of survival. From such actions, particular discourses and cultural productions are generated, from illegal publishing to a lyrical poetics of secret messages. In the case of East Germany, peace workshops and environmental protests found support through a network of socially engaged churches, which acted to camouflage dissident work (what became known as the church from below). What might such histories and productions suggest in terms of contemporary crises and the desires for a new social body? How might the art of survival provide a guide for an aesthetics aimed at redistributing the sensible?

Saturday, February 4, 19:00

Festival of Original Theater
The Luella Massey Studio Theatre
Toronto

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