Affective distancing. Scenes and scenarios of contemporary art

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to raise the problem of the Aristotelian drama, whose tradition has extended to the phenomenon of political representation and its consequent dominance over affections. On the contrary, the theater that appeals to the communitas tradition requires the exercise of affective distancing with the purpose of promoting critical participation between the spectators and the actor. Two scenic practices are exposed to show this distinction and the reflection is placed in the recent political context, with which the negative consequences of the representation mechanisms and their affective manipulation of capitalist modernity in the Latin American territory are shown. On the one hand, a criticism of the staging of the play Tártaro, present body requiem for the boy who learned to kill, by the young Mexican author Sergio López Vigueras, is exposed as representative of that theater rooted in its hegemonic tradition, which, according to Brecht, although it is circumscribed within a valid social phenomenon in a bygone era, however, today it becomes an obstacle to the social function of the representative arts, that have taken over the use and abuse of the affectivity of the public. In another sense, as a way to show the urgency of affective distancing, the stage piece Pandemonium, the truce of chaos, by the young artist Michelle Solano, who strengthens her work as representative of people who have ruins as cultural baggage, addressed of a State subjected to the laws of drug trafficking and systemic violence, and to whom a compassionate poetic duel is offered, with which it is possible to compose a concert in the political manner of the protest song composer, Judith Reyes from Tamaulipas, in an effort to make the stage a space where a message is delivered and collect the feelings and problems of the audience.