Theatre artists with a migrant background: representations of identity and artistic expression in contemporary Greek Theatre: towards an anthropology of intimacy

Abstract

The study centres around the identity and artistic expression of theatre artists with a migrant background. The category mainly includes Athens-based professional actors, many of whom later engaged (sporadically or systematically) in writing and directing their works. Drawing mainly on the discussions and creative exchanges with the artists themselves, as well as on the analysis of artists’ works through their live attendance, theatre texts, videos, and press publications (artists’ interviews and critics’ reviews), the study builds on a two-fold narrative arsenal – words off stage and works on stage – to look into the convergences and divergences between the two fields of performative praxis (επιτέλεση): what is being done next to/in contrast to what is being said.The study begins by providing an overview of the Greek drama on migration and organically moves towards the exploration of the emerging migrant theatre scene, attempting an in-depth understanding of its creative and sociocultural imprint on contemporary Greek dramaturgy. Its contextual starting point is the early 90s, when the fall of the Eastern Bloc marked an unprecedented, exponential increase in the inflow of immigrants, transforming Greece into a host country of (mainly Albanian) populations. It took over a decade, quite expectedly, for immigrant artists to integrate into the local theatre scene and (re)start their careers, with the first samples of theatre works that creatively involve immigrant artists appearing in the early 00s. In this context, the study examines the reception of their artistic identity and work, interrogating the representation and accreditation practices reserved, in association with the concepts of ethnic labeling, victimization, and exoticism. At the same time, the focus is put on the artists’ response to such categorizations. I am interested to explore if and in what ways the migrant experience has informed artists’ identity and subsequently their creative work, manifesting in the transformation of experiential (autobiographical) elements into dramatic material. The study goes further to critically interrogate whether the concept of hybridity is traceable at the levels of identity formation and artistic expression, as a result of the artists’ inter-placement between two or multiple cultural sites, languages, or theatre traditions. Last but not least, it looks into the social impact and transformative potential of the theatre of immigrant artists, seen as a tool for agency, self-empowerment, awareness, and cross-cultural enrichment.I should clarify at this point that although the study mentions many theatre productions and artists in passing, it does not come up with an exhaustive account (anthology) of the works produced with/by immigrant theatre artists in Greece from the 00s onwards, nor it provides an aesthetic analysis of the examined works. It is rather interested to convey the representational modalities manifested in the live performance, as well as the experiences and reflections of the participant artists. The study officially started in 2011 – the year of my admission to the Department of Social Anthropology as a Ph.D. candidate – but my professional engagement in theatre as an actress and later as a director and producer positions me in the field before its official kick-off. My positionality in the field – the fact that I inhabit, as an artist, the same familiar space as the participant artists of the study, and the additional fact that I have established ongoing or temporary relationships with many of them – has infused this endeavor with the self-reflective quality and the ethical and methodological particularities of doing ethnography in intimate settings, in relation to trust-building, knowledge acquisition, interpretation and representation modalities among others. All the above resulted in the quest for a hybrid, tailor-made research and writing approach, introduced in this work as an anthropology of intimacy. The study makes its case by drawing on a mosaic pattern that integrates distinctive elements from affiliated disciplines (performance studies) and in-house ethnographic streams (auto-ethnography, endo-ethnography, performative writing). Instead of trailing a single theory, it proposes a kind of analytical and narrational eclecticism where the self and the text are constructed at the intersection of “a conversation between different epistemic realities [..] a plurality of different voices, each epistemologically calling into question the possible completeness of any other” (Rapport & Overing, 2000, pp. 247-248). Its nexus of intellectual affinities, as well as its interpreting and writing modalities to be analyzed in the following chapters, have been inevitably determined by its subject and my twofold connection to it as a researcher and theatre-maker.

The study centres around the identity and artistic expression of theatre artists with a migrant background. The category mainly includes Athens-based professional actors, many of whom later engaged (sporadically or systematically) in writing and directing their works. Drawing mainly on the discussions and creative exchanges with the artists themselves, as well as on the analysis of artists’ works through their live attendance, theatre texts, videos, and press publications (artists’ interviews and critics’ reviews), the study builds on a two-fold narrative arsenal – words off stage and works on stage – to look into the convergences and divergences between the two fields of performative praxis (επιτέλεση): what is being done next to/in contrast to what is being said.The study begins by providing an overview of the Greek drama on migration and organically moves towards the exploration of the emerging migrant theatre scene, attempting an in-depth understanding of its creative and sociocultural imprint on contemporary Greek dramaturgy. Its contextual starting point is the early 90s, when the fall of the Eastern Bloc marked an unprecedented, exponential increase in the inflow of immigrants, transforming Greece into a host country of (mainly Albanian) populations. It took over a decade, quite expectedly, for immigrant artists to integrate into the local theatre scene and (re)start their careers, with the first samples of theatre works that creatively involve immigrant artists appearing in the early 00s. In this context, the study examines the reception of their artistic identity and work, interrogating the representation and accreditation practices reserved, in association with the concepts of ethnic labeling, victimization, and exoticism. At the same time, the focus is put on the artists’ response to such categorizations. I am interested to explore if and in what ways the migrant experience has informed artists’ identity and subsequently their creative work, manifesting in the transformation of experiential (autobiographical) elements into dramatic material. The study goes further to critically interrogate whether the concept of hybridity is traceable at the levels of identity formation and artistic expression, as a result of the artists’ inter-placement between two or multiple cultural sites, languages, or theatre traditions. Last but not least, it looks into the social impact and transformative potential of the theatre of immigrant artists, seen as a tool for agency, self-empowerment, awareness, and cross-cultural enrichment.I should clarify at this point that although the study mentions many theatre productions and artists in passing, it does not come up with an exhaustive account (anthology) of the works produced with/by immigrant theatre artists in Greece from the 00s onwards, nor it provides an aesthetic analysis of the examined works. It is rather interested to convey the representational modalities manifested in the live performance, as well as the experiences and reflections of the participant artists. The study officially started in 2011 – the year of my admission to the Department of Social Anthropology as a Ph.D. candidate – but my professional engagement in theatre as an actress and later as a director and producer positions me in the field before its official kick-off. My positionality in the field – the fact that I inhabit, as an artist, the same familiar space as the participant artists of the study, and the additional fact that I have established ongoing or temporary relationships with many of them – has infused this endeavor with the self-reflective quality and the ethical and methodological particularities of doing ethnography in intimate settings, in relation to trust-building, knowledge acquisition, interpretation and representation modalities among others. All the above resulted in the quest for a hybrid, tailor-made research and writing approach, introduced in this work as an anthropology of intimacy. The study makes its case by drawing on a mosaic pattern that integrates distinctive elements from affiliated disciplines (performance studies) and in-house ethnographic streams (auto-ethnography, endo-ethnography, performative writing). Instead of trailing a single theory, it proposes a kind of analytical and narrational eclecticism where the self and the text are constructed at the intersection of “a conversation between different epistemic realities [..] a plurality of different voices, each epistemologically calling into question the possible completeness of any other” (Rapport & Overing, 2000, pp. 247-248). Its nexus of intellectual affinities, as well as its interpreting and writing modalities to be analyzed in the following chapters, have been inevitably determined by its subject and my twofold connection to it as a researcher and theatre-maker.