(Re)Creation Processes: Milo Rau and the International Institute of Political Murder

• Author / Creator

  Climenhaga, Lily M

• In 2008 Swiss theatre-maker Milo Rau and a group of collaborators founded the production
  company the International Institute of Political Murder. Since 2008, Rau and company have
  created a unique and identifiable brand of documentary-inspired political theatre. Early IIPM
  projects such as Die letzten Tage der Ceausescus (2009) garnered significant attention for their
  contribution to the genre of reenactment; however, this early success led to the term reenactment
  serving as an umbrella term used to describe Rau’s work. Pulling from the IIPM’s body of work
  between 2008 to 2020, (Re)Creation Processes: Milo Rau and the International Institute of
  Political Murder identifies and dissects the distinctive organisational categories of the
  company’s oeuvre: reenactment (e.g. Hate Radio, 2011), recollection (e.g. Empire, 2016), and
  reactment (e.g. Das Kongo Tribunal, 2015). This dissertation offers a broad overview of Rau’s
  oeuvre, while also exploring sources for the work. It situates the IIPM’s productions within
  historical and contemporary political performance traditions such as lay and artistic reenactment,
  documentary theatre, Verbatim theatre, and global artivist performative interventions. Working
  with a massive collection of critical and artistic sources, including live and recorded
  performances, this study engages in a process of performance and reception analysis, revealing
  commonalities and differences between productions and organisational categories. It poses
  questions about the use of autoethnography within various production forms, the role
  reenactment techniques play across Rau’s oeuvre, the problematic centrality of the director
  himself, and ultimately analyses the successes and shortcomings of IIPM productions and
  political actions. In an appendix, (Re)Creation Processes also takes an in-depth look at Hate
  Radio, closely examining its performance, the text, the source material, and the reception of one
  of Rau’s most internationally successful repertoire productions.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Performance Studies
  • Reenactment
  • Milo Rau
  • Political Theatre
  • Swiss Directors
  • German Theatre
  • IIPM
  • NTGent

• Graduation date

  Spring 2021

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-sak8-6h44

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.