Performance power and imagination: the case for theatre

Theatre is a broad concept and comprises of different forms and modes of address. Focusing on contemporary performance works, Professor Helena Grehan shared her research that explores theatre’s capacity to present complex ideas, with her lecture Performance, power and imagination: the case for theatre, the fourth ECU Professorial Lecture Series.

Theatre and politics

Professor Helena Grehan is a Vice-Chancellor Professorial Research Fellow at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA). She is the leading specialist in theatre, performance and creative arts, delving into research surrounding the intersections of art, technology, politics, and spectatorship in the contemporary context.

Professor Grehan discussed the fact that we are living through times of crisis, from extreme right-wing views fuelling disinformation to the reality of extreme weather altering life as we know it. Where we are constantly reading, viewing and digesting news and information, often at speed, and where we are not encouraged to hold more than one thought in our heads at a time.

"In this context, what we need more than ever is a space in which we can actually think about more than one idea at a time, where we can consider deeply and carefully a multiplicity of perspectives, and where we are encouraged not to resolve things, but to understand the importance of complexity," Professor Grehan said.

"This is where theatre comes in."

The value of performance

Through imaginative storytelling, theatre and performance invites spectators into new worlds where they can experience the unpredictable.

"The value of theatre and performance lies in its capacity to present ideas, without any desire for resolution or simplification," Professor Grehan said.

"Spectators are invited to reflect with care and consideration about things in new and different ways that may be uncomfortable, difficult and often obscured in our contemporary lives."

Professor Grehan described the act of "slow listening", whereby the spectator pauses to pay attention to the mode of address, the scene, the gesture and the tone, the language use, and the broader political or social context within which the speaking or performing occurs.

"Slow listening is listening carefully with our whole bodies to what the work is saying." Professor Grehan said.

Focusing on two Australian companies, Broome-based Indigenous intercultural dance company, Marrugeku, and Geelong-based Back to Back Theatre, Professor Grehan analysed two very different companies who both make work that asks difficult questions about what kind of society we are and would like to be.

Jurrungu Ngan-ga. Marrugeku, 2021. Photo by Abby Murray.

Marrugeku's Jurrungu Ngan-ga

Marrugeku's Jurrungu Ngan-ga, is a multi-media dance performance work that combines a range of dance styles, multiple lighting and sound states that frame different scenes.

"Australia's brutal carceral regime and the concept of the border itself is interrogated, reminding the spectators to think about how we, as citizens feel about and respond to this reality and about the actions carried out by governments in our names," Professor Grehan said.

"It confronts us with the representations of the material bodies' names and stories of those who are rendered invisible and reminds us of their humanity, something which we are made to forget repeatedly in the course of daily life.

"It uses sophisticated choreography, symbolic set and lighting design, and provocative text to ask or demand that we see, that we listen and that we recognise this unresolved humanity.

"Performances like Jurrungu Ngan-ga demand that we, as Australian citizens, reflect on our own position in, and responsibilities for, this context. Are we passive spectators? Do we call for change? Do we take action to insist on a fairer society? This is a work that calls on us to do exactly that."

Back to Back Theatre. FOOD COURT (2024). Image by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia / ph. Andrea Avezzù.

Back to Back Theatre's Food Court

Professor Grehan also examined Back to Back Theatre, the only full-time theatre ensemble in the country that make work for theatre, installation, community arts practice, film and television.

"The company comprises a core ensemble of actors who are perceived to have ‘disabilities’, their aim is to make work that dissects the unspoken imaginings of society," Professor Grehan said.

"Their performance works are always layered, using imaginative sets, lighting design and absorbing stories or fragments of text to explore topics that are often taboo in society."

Back to Back Theatre's 2008 performance work, Food Court, draws attention to questions of judgement, brutality, humiliation and violence, challenging spectators to think about how we see and respond to others.

"It is transcendent theatre in the sense that it takes the spectators out of their daily lives, habits and concerns and charges them to think about power and power imbalances and about how these infiltrate our everyday lives, leaving us to consider what we can and cannot, what we will and will not, endure," Professor Grehan said.

"Once we leave the performance space and the immediacy of the work, an inevitable question arises: what can these or any works of art do in any real, political or practical sense?"

So, what can theatre actually do?

The question that comes forward is what can theatre actually do? Many argue that the line between art and activism can be thin and that it’s highly dependent on the work in question and on the levels of spectator engagement.

Professor Grehan's research shows that although debate can be endless, two things stand out.

"The first is that we keep making political art and talking about it, so we must believe it does something," Professor Grehan said.

"The second is that when we are confronted by works as directly provocative as Jurrungu Ggan-ga and Food Court, we must at least attempt to think through what they are challenging.

"The success and continued work of Marrugeku and Back to Back Theatre is a testament to the power of theatre to unleash our imaginations, to unsettle our sense of self, and to engender those complex and perhaps at times, unresolved, conversations we so badly need to take out of the theatre and into the political sphere."

Watch Professor Grehan’s full lecture online.

ECU Professorial Lecture Series

Established in 2015, each year the ECU Professorial Lecture Series features distinguished Professors sharing their research expertise with ECU students, staff and members of the community.  A Q&A discussion, these events are a valuable opportunity for the audience to ask their own questions and are open to the general public.