If you teach an actor to farm, and you give him two acres and tell him to work the land, is he acting or farming? Is it performance art or food production? For artist David Levine, this is a riddle for which all answers are correct. His current project, Bauerntheater (“farmers’ theater”), recently began its season in Brandenburg, in northern Germany. Levine trained an American actor in farm technique for one month in New York, as any director would rehearse a show, then flew the actor to Brandenburg for the debut. Bauerntheater will run continuously for one month, during which time the actor-turned-farmer will cultivate two acres of potatoes, “in character,” for fourteen hours per day. Why do this? Levine characterizes it as an exploration of the interplay and conflict between tradition, performance, labor and art: Bauerntheater is concerned with global labor markets, with the performance of cultural tradition, with the representation of labor, with representation as labor, and with the troubled relationship of Endurance and Land Art to questions of “authenticity.” The project is sited on part of a UNESCO nature preserve, at the Biorama Projekt, an arts and green product design center, eco-tourism destination and demonstration facility for… (more)
(Posted by Sarah Rich in Arts at 1:22 PM)