In January 29th I taught a seminar on Digital Theatre within the projecct Performance in a Posthuman Age and The Circus of Freaks.

It was my first experience teaching with simultaneous translation. The translator was perfect, and the seminar very engaging for all the students, who at the end of it posed brilliant questions, shared their doubts, and gave me wonderful feedback. It was a lovely experience made possible by the wonderful Seda İlter, curator of the project, and I couldn’t be more thankful I had the opportunity to participate in it.

Performance in a Posthuman Age and The Circus of Freaks was the second research project of digitalLABperformans.

The project posits the theories of ecocriticism and ecofeminism in the context of posthuman and focuses on the intersection of these theories and theatre and performance art.

The project was supported by the British Council Creative Collaborations Grant Program (@turkeybritishcouncil).

The physical activities of the program were held in Salt Galata (@salt_online) as part of Salt’s Open Rehearsals program.

Two open rehearsal presentations which include dramaturgy laboratory outputs and eight different seminars were shared with the audience within the scope of the project, which was supported by London University, Birkbeck Centre for Contemporary Theater.

The Freaks Circus Dramaturgy Laboratory focuses on the iconic gothic characters of posthuman literature, Shakespeare’s supernatural heroes, and the monsters of Anatolian geography, inspired by ecofeminist thinker Donna Haraway’s images of cyborgs, freaks, and monsters. Within the scope of the workshop, texts on mythological and literary characters were reinterpreted in the context of ecocriticism and ecofeminism with actors and written.

Curators: Şule Ateş, Seda İlter (@atess.sule, @sedailter)
Director: Şule Ateş
Dramaturg: Eylem Ejder, Miran Bulut (@do_las_mak, @miranbulut)
Communication and Visual Design: Yaşam Özlem Gülseven (@yasamozlem)