CHINESE DOCUMENTARY THEATRE AS A MODE OF ALTERNATIVE HISTORIOGRAPHY
By Kai Tuchmann
 Thursday November 30^th 2017
5.00-6.30 PM
PhD Program in Theatre Greenroom (room 3111)
The Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Avenue, New York, 10016
Free and all welcome
 In my talk, I will share experiences that I have made while collaborating as director and dramaturge with several Chinese independent theatre groups. Especially I want to focus on  my collaborations with Living Dance Studio (生活舞蹈工作室,) Caochangdi Workstation (草场地工作站) and Grasstage (草台班). Although these groups have very different aesthetical and political presumptions, they have a common interest in exploring history in order to renegotiate the contemporary Chinese society and its development. On the background of a Chinese politics which hesitates to investigate cultural periods like the Great Leap Forward Famine or the Cultural Revolution I want to try to describe their works as an artistic attempt which tries to generate impulses for an alternative historiography.
 Kai Tuchmann is a German Documentary Theatre maker and University Lecturer. The main thrust of his artistic approach centers on the use of drama as a means of historiography. Since 2013 Tuchmann has been refining his documentary approach mainly in China. His creations have been invited to numerous international festivals, like Kunstfest Weimar (Germany), Get Lost Festival (Netherlands), I-Dance Hong Kong (China), Theaterspekatkel Zürich (Swiss), Festival a Automne de Paris (France).  Kai Tuchmann graduated from the Directing Department of the German Drama Academy Ernst Busch, Berlin. He is a Member of the Dramaturgy and Applied Theatre Faculty at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing and also a Lecturer at Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts.
Presented by the PhD Program in Theatre, The Graduate Center, CUNY and the Marvin Carlson Theatre Center, Shanghai Theatre Academy. Further information: please contact Peter Eckersall (peckersall@gc.cuny.edu).