Dada & Futurism

Dada Lunch

Under the Supervision of David Pellegrini

13 October 2010

Student Center Theatre, ECSU

Saw a good collection of Dada and Futurist plays and performance pieces Directed by David Pellegrini. “Gas Heart” and several others with a narration giving the background of Futurism and Dada. The jperformance presented a nice sense of what Dada and Futurism, were, and might have been. The Futurists, who I have always despised, had a great alternative sensibility. They were influenced by Dada, Surrealism and Fascism. I love their speed and energy. Hate their love of war and Fascism. The production by Pellegrini was easy to watch and still brought out the difficulties in the texts and contexts of Futurism. Le Coeur a Gaz “The Gas Heart” aka “The Gas Powered Heart” by Tristan Tzara was excellent. We often read or hear about the performance works of Dada but we rarely get to see them.

Perhaps the retrospective and re-mounting of performance works by Marina Abramovic in Spring of 2010 The The Museum of Modern Art in New York made it acceptable to re-produce performance works of the past. Indeed they should not only be re-produced but re-interpreted. The Dada, Futurist and Surrealist performances of the early 20^th Century have something to give us even in the 21 Century. Epater le bourgeois may have been a concept we learned from the French Decadent poets of the 1890s but it is carried forward by Dada.

I would write more but what’s the use, and besides, it is time for my absinthe.