Envisioning Ethics Anew

Abstract

Rustom Bharucha talks with Performance Paradigm

Performance Paradigm: At the Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance (ADSA) conference in 2006 you talked about the need for practitioners (and theorists?) to ‘stop fetishising the metaphysics of impermanence’ and to locate discussion in a ‘more political realm’. You also stated that you felt we needed to ‘seek answers from elsewhere’ rather than from theatre, and you proceeded to talk about your recent work in South Africa with HIV/AIDS sufferers. We would like to ask you to talk about your choice to work in South Africa and your decision to work with this particular group.

Rustom Bharucha: I did not go to South Africa to work specifically on HIV/AIDS. I was invited to participate in a public art project called Tangencya, which has attempted to intervene in public spaces in the city of Durban and its environs, interacting with marginalised communities through different artistic and social practices (installations, architecture, sculpture, gardening, performance, documentary cinema, education). Since one in four persons in the state of KwaZulu Natal is afflicted with the HIV virus, how could one not engage with this reality? The condition of HIV/AIDS is an integral part of public life in South Africa today.