Lo spettatore convertito — metamorfosi del corpo umano nella performance La Plaza

Abstract

This article analyses La Plaza (2018), as performed by El Conde de Torrefiel (Tanya Beyeler and Pablo Gisbert), as a case study to understand how the concept of fluidity could actively influence the deep poetic and aesthetic core of a performance. In order to describe the trajectories of the representation of the human figure in this performance, we will challenge the apparent indefiniteness of this metamorphosis, identifying three specific kind of bodies: the invisible, the untouchable, the contagious. In my vision, the spectator, as the main character of La Plaza, lives an experience of conversion, that evokes also a reflection on the transformative power of the theatre. I adopt references and materials belonging to different disciplines, as philosophy (Giorgio Agamben, Jean-Luc Nancy, Maurizio Ferraris and Graham Harman), cultural studies and history of art (José van Dijck, Michael Baxandall, Georges Didi-Huberman), crossing some basic notions from the model of Reality without Realism, theorized by Arkady Plotnitsky.