Theatre and performance scholarship ‘after Gaza’

The contribution reflects on how the ongoing genocide on Palestinian lives implicates theatre and performance scholarship in its epistemologies and practices. Employing insights from anthropologist Patrick Wolfe, who argues that genocide is a structure, not an event, I investigate how the concept of the theatrical event might have stood in the way of attending to structural violence, which does not occur in event-form. The contribution dwells on two interconnected aspects: at the epistemological level arises the question of knowledge production, related to which, at the material level, is the question of institutional responsibility. I propose considering the theatrical event in terms of its relation to the enduring, structural conditions of violence. This would require a recalibration of the scales, registers and units of analysing performance. I further propose that institutional solidarity involves refusing collaborations with complicit Israeli institutions as well as building sustained international collaborations with Palestinian scholars and artists.