Nicoletta Isar:

Theatre of Presence - Antero Alli's Paratheatrical ReSearch Lab

"When the ritual of theatre has died it's time to return to the vital sources underlying the creation of culture itself and, with the stealth of devoted ninjas, start inciting a series of benevolent attacks to expose the oppression, decadence and corruption that has crucified and buried the poetic Imagination" (Antero Alli)

This paper will try to unveil one of Antero Alli's paratheatrical experiments in overcoming the death of ritual in theatre. Orphans of Delirium is an intense, living ritual experience, "fluid" in its approach, yet almost unbearable by its radicalism. "Our intent is not to entertain or educate but to fascinate, to fasten attention to an ever-changing terrain of the human condition ...to incite our most visceral and spiritual resonances." (Alli) As I hope to show in this paper, Alli's paratheatrical labs do not repeat ritual patterns but create them, bringing shots of presence into theatre by a dynamic and constant process of opening toward the vertical "sources."

Nicoletta Isar is Associate professor at the Institute of Art History of Copenhagen University. Her main research is focused on comparative studies in the history of mentalities and visuality, and Studies in Ritual Performance, with a special interest in the recurrence of ritual in contemporary performances (Bill Viola and Antero Alli). Her actual research is "Sacred Chorography (Chôra, Chóros): A performative paradigm in the creation of sacred space" - part of the international project Hierotopy.