The Radical Performer

This talk will focus on the idea of thoroughgoing change which enables subversiveness. To me, the subversive radicality of the performer lies in the courageous sacrifice of Self-identity when they go on stage, akin to the Buddhist Ego Death, Jung’s Psychic Death, and the Sufist Fana

(self annihilation). The performer must destroy their habitual, subjective sense of Self, thereby opening up endless new potentiality of being, and yielding to new integrative configurations of being in the world: Transformation. We will ask to what degree is it possible (and desirable) for the performer to unroot their subjective sense of Self, yet remain firmly rooted in the here and now of their performance?

Lars Henning trained as an actor at Drama Centre London (University of the Arts London) under the mentorship of especially Yat Malmgren. He performed in numerous productions nationally and internationally, before starting his directing and teaching career in 2000. Currently, Lars Henning is Artistic Director at CISPA, Copenhagen International School of Performing Arts.

This public forum is intended as a meeting-point where citizens, artists and scholars can re-examine the practice of theatre as radical–rooted in the abundance of human expression.