Hybridity and Experimental Aesthetics in the Performances of Anne Imhof

Abstract

I consider that ‘Hybridity’ in performance is definable as, variously, the blurring and combining of traditional theatre, dance, music, art and ‘everyday life’ into single works; the trading of differences between ‘high’ and ‘low’ cultural registers; the merging together of seemingly inconsistent notions of time, space and identity, and the destabilization of audience identification and affective standpoints. Anne Imhof’s hybridized performance is a fusion of media: painting, music and architecture, also known for its particular vocabulary of movement, its multi-layeredness, and incorporation of technology. There is an emphasis on the sensual and playful nature of the body, which, by experimental and technological means, is extended, reconfigured and yet identifiable as a locus of infinite variability. My paper will address theoretical sources before moving on to how these have manifested and been reciprocally reinterpreted by a variety of approaches in Imhof’s realisation of her work Sex performed in the Tate Modern ‘Tanks’ in London 2019.

Keywords

• Anne Imhof
• Sex
• Hybridity
• Richard Wagner
• ‘Total Art-Work’ (Gessamtkunstwerk)
• Music-Drama