On Responsibility

Bojana Kunst, philosopher, dramaturg and contemporary art theorist, writes about “the theatre by other means” performed by BADco., on occasion of their Responsibility for Things Seen spatial intervention and video installation in the Aksioma art gallery. BADco. is a Zagreb-based performance collective formed in 2000 by four choreographers and dancers, two dramaturgs and one philosopher. Their performances – which have been presented throughout Europe and the U.S. – do not follow a linear dramaturgical structure, but create the theatre event as a complex synchronization of actions, shifts, speeches and movements, focusing on a concrete political interest. The choreographies, images, spaces and atmospheres of their performances are related to the ways in which we, the viewers, are present in the theatre. The performances invite the audience to speculate, to watch wilfully at the edge of the visible – it is precisely this peculiarity that actually renders BADco’s theatre political.