The Bug (After Mayakovsky)

Abstract

https://desingel.be/en/programme/performance/dora-garcia-and-others-the-bug-after-mayakovsky DORA GARCÍA AND OTHERS THE BUG (AFTER MAYAKOVSKY)

THE BUG (After Mayakovsky) is a performance adaptation of one of the last plays by Russian futurist Vladimir Mayakovsky. The play introduces (1929) a science fiction plot popular already then and used many times since: a visitor to the future coming from a past that is our present. In Mayakovsky’s bitter and comic play, a soviet revolutionary is frozen in 1929 and reawakens in 1979 - by accident, a parasite accompanies him in this time travel. Using Mayakovsky's play as a guide, a collective author wants to analyze questions such as: What happens in a time lapse of 50 years? How to explain 50 years to someone who spent them in a coma? Is it true that history moves in cycles and there is an eternal return? Could we speak of glitches in this infinite repetition, and could we liken the glitch* to THE BUG? The shared disappointment of the man projected into the future and the inhabitants of that future forced to confront their original past is what helps us analyze our present moment in terms of repetition, melancholy, and action. The development of the project aims at studying and understanding collectively created and performed theater / performance, forming a collective made of different ages, experiences, and disciplines; the idea of collective going even beyond the artists' group. THE BUG (After Mayakovsky) adopts a format, the public rehearsal, that allows for instant feedback from the audience, and no one present is out of it, approaching even the assembly format.

*A glitch is a short-lived fault in a system, such as a transient fault that corrects itself, making it difficult to troubleshoot. A glitch, which is slight and often temporary, differs from a more serious bug which is a genuine functionality-breaking problem. The production of the new performance is conceived as a preview of Dora Garcia's exhibition at M HKA in 2023 which takes as its starting point the artist's practice at the intersection of visual arts, performing arts and literature. It is a collaboration between M HKA, DeSingel (Antwerp) and Oslo National Academy of the Arts.