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The Tempest Society

Bouchra Khalili

Can art form a platform for civil rights?

Three individuals from different backgrounds form a group in Athens to examine the current state of Greece and Europe from a theatre stage, approached as a space of the civic and collective art form. Their theatrical experiment is captured on film by the Moroccan-French artist Bouchra Khalili. They name themselves The Tempest Society to pay homage to Al Assifa (‘The Tempest’ in Arabic), a theatre group active in Paris in the 70s that invented the format of a ‘theatrical newspaper’. Composed of immigrant workers and French students, Al Assifa addressed the daily struggle against inequality and racism in France. 40 years after, the forgotten legacy of Al Assifa finds a site for reactivation in Greece.

Programme

Can art form a platform for civil rights?

Three individuals from different backgrounds form a group in Athens to examine the current state of Greece and Europe from a theatre stage, approached as a space of the civic and collective art form. Their theatrical experiment is captured on film by the Moroccan-French artist Bouchra Khalili. They name themselves The Tempest Society to pay homage to Al Assifa (‘The Tempest’ in Arabic), a theatre group active in Paris in the 70s that invented the format of a ‘theatrical newspaper’. Composed of immigrant workers and French students, Al Assifa addressed the daily struggle against inequality and racism in France. 40 years after, the forgotten legacy of Al Assifa finds a site for reactivation in Greece.

Programme

(1835). In The Gabriels director Richard Nelson reflects on the recent American election year through the eyes of an ordinary family. Other artists focus on controversies in democracies, such as the issue of refugees in directors Dieudonné Niangouna and Thomas Bellinck’s performances. Others address the threat of violence (Demolishing Everything with Amazing Speed), tyranny (Octavia), or shaping activism (The Tempest Society). In Manifesto the film director Julian Rosefeldt examines the relation between art and society. 

 

We are presenting two national theatre production companies, each with its own state of the nation: My Country by the National Theatre in London, and The Nation by the Dutch National Theatre in The Hague. Both performances show divided countries in which no one, from politicians to citizens, seems to dare to take responsibility. We also believe that it is important to explore democracy of form. Members of the audience can get actively involved as a passer-by, participant, or activist, if they so wish. Our artists encourage you to question the old hierarchy between the audience and the artists.

 

This year several festival artists are looking at the problems faced by Western democracies. The French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville admired democracy for its social equality. He saw its dangers too. Director Romeo Castellucci is making La Democrazia in America, based on De Tocqueville’s eponymous book

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dates

Tue June 13 2017 8:30 PM

Wed June 14 2017 8:30 PM

information

  • French, Greek, Arabic

  • Duration of performance unknown

related

The Tempest Society (2017) by the Moroccan-French artist Bouchra Khalili is a video triptych exploring collective performative practices. The film is set in Athens, where Khalili collaborated with three non-actors to develop collectively a series of scenes addressing various situations epitomizing the crisis of democratic representation and a potential new collective to come into being.

The Tempest Society (2017) by the Moroccan-French artist Bouchra Khalili is a video triptych exploring collective performative practices. The film is set in Athens, where Khalili collaborated with three non-actors to develop collectively a series of scenes addressing various situations epitomizing the crisis of democratic representation and a potential new collective to come into being.

To do so, they take inspiration from artistic strategies of Al Assifa, a (now) largely forgotten theatre group from Paris forned in 1972 by a group of North-African workers and French activists. Adressing issues of racism and struggle for equality, Al Assifa started out as a weekly Arabic newspaper, to later be turned into a 'theatrical newspaper', combining  series of short performances and invitations to the audience members to tell their own stories on the stage. The group eventually dissolved in 1978 as a result of internal differences of opinion, partly caused by the tension between political activism and artistic ambitions. 

 

In The Tempest Society, Khalili interrogates: How to form a collective? How art can form civic spaces? Through her art, Khalili focuses on the interaction of language and subjectivity, as well as articulation between singular positions and collective voice. Examples of this are the video works The Straight Stories Project (2006-2008) and The Mapping Journey Project (2008-2011), which focus on the alternative geography produced by forced illegal travels The Tempest Society was commissioned for Documenta 14 (Kassel and Athens, 2017) and the Holland Festival will give its Dutch premiere.

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credits

concept Bouchra Khalili commissioned by documenta 14 coproduction Ibsen Awards with the support of FNAGP