Miki Malör
Encyclopedia
Miki Malör is an Austria
n theatre creator, director and performance artist.
(MA
, 1981). In addition, over the years she also had the following training: massage diploma (1994), diving instructor (PADI
–Instructor 1995) and cave diver
(NACD Full Cave 1997).
Her beginnings as pianist and stage musician in cabaret and theatre performances, and as clownish singer with the rock theatre group :de:Hallucination Company (1982/83) were followed by twelve years of solo tours through Europe. Characteristic for this period are the term "Comic Theatre" for her works and her declining to be catalogued as Kabarett artist. In 1986 she was awarded the Förderpreis der Stadt Mainz on occasion of the awards for the de:Deutscher Kleinkunstpreis.
Since 1995, she has abandoned cabaret and radicalised her works. The next stage were performances
, installations
and post-dramatic theatre
. Apart from working on her own pieces, she frequently directs off-theatre productions. Miki Malör regularly produces in Vienna.
s of the 20th century, postmodern
, deconstructivist
, subversive
, alternative, experimental, post-dramatic, feminist, rhizomatic
, sensual, absurd, highly comical, intimate, transgressing taboos, excessive, and much more. Her works are neither based on drama pieces, nor are they meta-narrations, and there are no actors impersonating roles. She exclusively realises her own pieces and favours working with performers, dancers, and laypersons. Another mark of her works is her special attachment to music; her frequent trade with objects indicates a close relationship with the fine arts.
The bandwidth of her themes is extensive: one underwater piece ("Vampyroteuthis Infernalis"), two Schubert
cycles ("Transit", "Prey"), "Veiling. A (Social) Game", "Hysteria!", "nationalANTHEMS” and the cult film
remake
"The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman".
Many of her pieces focus on female desire (e.g., "Desire As Will To Be Trapped", as well as the ongoing performance cycle "Anima"). These more and more often result in cross-genre film works ("Interior Design").
Miki Malör's theatre is fed by philosophical and depth psychological theories, the last results of which were some works on Deleuze
/Guattari
about the theme of Desiring Machines
("The Lady Who Ate 100 Cakes", "Tigerbalm", "100 Objects to Represent Theatre"). These works can be read as an attempt at interpreting the unconscious as a model of incessant and unfettered productivity. This leads to machines, fabrics, tableaux
of desire, vestal machines of subversion, where Miki Malör's analytic background is embedded in passion, risk, and touch. Instead of representation, the impersonation on stage, there is doing, pure productivity which replaces psychological play with a radical language of images free for association.
Miki Malör has been working together with stage director Miguel Ángel Gaspar for several years.
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n theatre creator, director and performance artist.
Life
Miki Malör studied music at the Music and Art academy in ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
(MA
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
, 1981). In addition, over the years she also had the following training: massage diploma (1994), diving instructor (PADI
Padi
Padi or PADI may refer to:* Padi, Chennai, India* Padi , a musical group* Paddy field, a type of cultivated land * Professional Association of Diving Instructors, a scuba organization...
–Instructor 1995) and cave diver
Cave diving
Cave diving is a type of technical diving in which specialized equipment is used to enable the exploration of caves which are at least partially filled with water. In the United Kingdom it is an extension of the more common sport of caving, and in the United States an extension of the more common...
(NACD Full Cave 1997).
Her beginnings as pianist and stage musician in cabaret and theatre performances, and as clownish singer with the rock theatre group :de:Hallucination Company (1982/83) were followed by twelve years of solo tours through Europe. Characteristic for this period are the term "Comic Theatre" for her works and her declining to be catalogued as Kabarett artist. In 1986 she was awarded the Förderpreis der Stadt Mainz on occasion of the awards for the de:Deutscher Kleinkunstpreis.
Since 1995, she has abandoned cabaret and radicalised her works. The next stage were performances
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
, installations
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
and post-dramatic theatre
Postdramatic theatre
The notion of "post-dramatic theatre" was established by German theatre researcher Hans-Thies Lehmann in his 1999 book with the same title, summarizing a number of tendencies and stylistic traits occurring in avant-garde theatre since the end of the 1960s...
. Apart from working on her own pieces, she frequently directs off-theatre productions. Miki Malör regularly produces in Vienna.
Works
Miki Malör's works elude unilateral attributions: they are inspired by the avant-gardeAvant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
s of the 20th century, postmodern
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
, deconstructivist
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
, subversive
Subversion (politics)
Subversion refers to an attempt to transform the established social order, its structures of power, authority, and hierarchy; examples of such structures include the State. In this context, a "subversive" is sometimes called a "traitor" with respect to the government in-power. A subversive is...
, alternative, experimental, post-dramatic, feminist, rhizomatic
Rhizome (philosophy)
Rhizome is a philosophical concept developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in their Capitalism and Schizophrenia project...
, sensual, absurd, highly comical, intimate, transgressing taboos, excessive, and much more. Her works are neither based on drama pieces, nor are they meta-narrations, and there are no actors impersonating roles. She exclusively realises her own pieces and favours working with performers, dancers, and laypersons. Another mark of her works is her special attachment to music; her frequent trade with objects indicates a close relationship with the fine arts.
The bandwidth of her themes is extensive: one underwater piece ("Vampyroteuthis Infernalis"), two Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
cycles ("Transit", "Prey"), "Veiling. A (Social) Game", "Hysteria!", "nationalANTHEMS” and the cult film
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
remake
Remake
A remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...
"The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman".
Many of her pieces focus on female desire (e.g., "Desire As Will To Be Trapped", as well as the ongoing performance cycle "Anima"). These more and more often result in cross-genre film works ("Interior Design").
Miki Malör's theatre is fed by philosophical and depth psychological theories, the last results of which were some works on Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...
/Guattari
Félix Guattari
Pierre-Félix Guattari was a French militant, an institutional psychotherapist, philosopher, and semiotician; he founded both schizoanalysis and ecosophy...
about the theme of Desiring Machines
Desiring-production
Desiring-production is a term coined by the French thinkers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in their book Anti-Œdipus . They oppose the Freudian conception of the unconscious as a representational "theater", instead favoring a productive "factory" model: desire is not an imaginary force based on...
("The Lady Who Ate 100 Cakes", "Tigerbalm", "100 Objects to Represent Theatre"). These works can be read as an attempt at interpreting the unconscious as a model of incessant and unfettered productivity. This leads to machines, fabrics, tableaux
Tableau vivant
Tableau vivant is French for "living picture." The term describes a striking group of suitably costumed actors or artist's models, carefully posed and often theatrically lit. Throughout the duration of the display, the people shown do not speak or move...
of desire, vestal machines of subversion, where Miki Malör's analytic background is embedded in passion, risk, and touch. Instead of representation, the impersonation on stage, there is doing, pure productivity which replaces psychological play with a radical language of images free for association.
Miki Malör has been working together with stage director Miguel Ángel Gaspar for several years.
Theatre / Performance Art (Selection)
- Anima (Cycle, 1996–present)
- Honey (1996)
- Standing Up (1997)
- Decompression Stop (1997)
- Titi Ikoli (1998)
- Transit (after Schubert's »Winter JourneyWinterreiseWinterreise is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert , a setting of 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the second of Schubert's two great song cycles on Müller's poems, the earlier being Die schöne Müllerin...
«, 1998/99) - Vampyroteuthis infernalisVampire SquidThe vampire squid is a small, deep-sea cephalopod found throughout the temperate and tropical oceans of the world. Unique retractile sensory filaments justify the Vampire Squid's placement in its own order: Vampyromorphida , which shares similarities with both squid and octopuses...
(an underwater piece, 1999) - Gretchen’s Plait (continuous performance, 1999/2000)
- Prey (after Schubert's »The Fair Maid of the MillDie schöne MüllerinDie schöne Müllerin , is a song cycle by Franz Schubert on poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the earliest extended song cycle to be widely performed. The work is considered one of Schubert's most important, and it is widely performed and recorded....
«, 2000) - »us« (60-day performance series, 2001)
- VEILING. A (Social) GameParty gameParty games are games that some people play as forms of entertainment at social gatherings. Party games usually involve more than one player. There are a large number and styles of party games available and the one selected will depend on the atmosphere that is sought to be generated...
(a theatrical installation about intimacy in public, 2001) - Desire As The Will To Be Trapped (two pieces, one book, 2003/04)
- HYSTERIAHysteriaHysteria, in its colloquial use, describes unmanageable emotional excesses. People who are "hysterical" often lose self-control due to an overwhelming fear that may be caused by multiple events in one's past that involved some sort of severe conflict; the fear can be centered on a body part, or,...
! A Subversive Practise (six persons in six rotating chambers, 2004) - nationalANTHEMSNational anthemA national anthem is a generally patriotic musical composition that evokes and eulogizes the history, traditions and struggles of its people, recognized either by a nation's government as the official national song, or by convention through use by the people.- History :Anthems rose to prominence...
(a piece for one performer, one choir, one Viennese electronics DJ, and one pop theoretician, 2005) - The Lady Who Ate 100 Cakes (a duo in two territories, 2006)
- The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (a guided tour through the remake of the 1950s cult classic, 2007)
- MATILDA (a one-on-one performance, 2008)
- TIGERBALM (A silent movie live on stage, 2008)
- 100 Objects to Represent Theatre (2009)
- The Love of Maggots (Cleansing. Skinning. Dialogue. 2010)
Film
- Currency (directed by Emre Tunçer, 2004)
- Interior Design (with Michael Strohmann and Yosi Wanunu, 2007)
External links
- Literature about Miki Malör in the catalogue of the Austrian National LibraryAustrian National LibraryThe Austrian National Library , is the largest library in Austria, with 7.4 million items in its collections. It is located in the Hofburg Palace in Vienna; since 2005 some of the collections are located in the baroque Palais Mollard-Clary...