The Performative Features of Steve Reich’s Documentary Musical Video Theater

Abstract

The article is devoted to the comprehension of the processes of instauration of contemporary musical theater under the impact of documentation activities and performativity. Proceeding from the fact of intensive growth of communicative activity in contemporary society, the author asserts the formation of the public’s demand for the actualization of content of contemporary art and the opportunity of interactive cooperation in the process of its presentation. Drawing on Richard Schechner’s theory of performance, the author analyzes Reich’s documentary video-operas from the perspective of performative features in the transformation of theater. In connection with this the author examines the question of the performative features of opera librettos, special techniques of work with the voice and the text – such as convergence of visual-graphic and audio forms of presentation of the text, its construction from discreet fragments of the respondents’ verbal actions, the play nature, consisting of endowing speech with melodic qualities and the transferal of verbal intonational manifestations into instrumental ones, replacement of the semantics of the word by its phonic form, etc. In addition, analysis is given to the following question: how is the traditional structure of opera performance transformed under the impact of such features of performative art as the creation of special spatial and temporal coordinates which enhance the force of suggestibility. The widespread use of screens makes it possible for us to unlock the conditional-theatrical space into everyday reality and change the character of experiencing time. The result of the examined particularities is the transformation of the habitual conditions of perception of theatrical performances, in connection with which the audience becomes permeated with the so-called borderline state, which bears a most significant meaning in the aesthetics of performativity. Keywords: opera, performance, documentary musical video theater, suggestion, ritual, Steve Reich, Richard Schechner.