Tadeusz Kantor and an illusionary repetition

Abstract

The article deals with a category of repetition. This category is used as an artistic technique by Tadeusz Kantor in his unique theatre performances. The author analyzes an aesthetics' agenda of its practical use. The category is shown in a philosophical perspective of Soren Kierkegaard's, Cilles Deleuze's and Henri Bergson's writings. Cricot 2 theatre late performances (called Theatre of the Memory) were repeating Kantor's personal past and his family's history by re-playing it onstage. An artistic attempt was about to form actors' gestures and activities in a shape of one's memories. A problem, that a director had to deal with was connected with a deformation and a blur of remembered pictures. Each one of these faint pictures was under an influence of passing time and experiences that came with it. Another kind of distortion was made by actors, that were unable to embody the people from the past. Kantor's artistic imagination could make a single picture that was taken from the past (e.g. as a photograph) alive. Memory of the artist, prompted by a prosthetic celluloid device was reawakening to alternative existences of the people that have passed by. Theatre inspired the repetition that introduced a difference to an original. Continuation of one's life that was retaken leads to a development of a repeated gesture and an object that opens a new field of its meaning. Infinite repetition approaches its infinite forms to an idealistic idea of a subject, a gesture, an activity.