Via Negativa : SHAME

“Be yourself, express yourself! There’s nothing to be ashamed of!”

That’s one of the most notorious imperatives of contemporary society. It seems that today the world is completely open, ready to accept us, as we are – no more restraints, no more shame. Contemporary media culture demands of us to be open, to share opinions, to express feelings, to be critical, to be entertaining… It looks like shame is something from the past century, something pre-modern. Shame simply doesn’t fit in our contemporary identities.

But at a deeper level we can sense that shame does not disappear – we just repressed its symbolic function. In spite of denial, shame remains secret structure of each subjectivity – persists as some stubborn surplus of humanity. In contemporary media culture shame is ashamed of itself. Media reality became a masquerade of insecure individuals hiding behind their public faces and defending their dignity – hiding their shame.
And so is our performance. Hiding behind characters, defending their dignity and denying their shame is our basic performing strategy. In case of Shame we created numerous fictional, biographic, fairy-tale, allegorical and absurd characters and hid ourselves behind them. We use the stage as a space for parodying fictional identities.

Conceived and devised by the group.
Performers: Anita Wach, Darko Japelj, Grega Zorc, Katarina Stegnar, Magdalena Tuka, Marie-Louise Stentebjerg
Concept and direction : Bojan Jablanovec
Costumes: Via Negativa s pomočjo Ajde Tomazin
Stage technician and light design : Igor Remeta
Producer: Špela Trošt
Production: Via Negativa
Partner: KUD Moment Maribor
Supported by: Ministrstvo za kulturo RS, Mestna občina Ljubljana