Christoph Schlingensief und das Schauspiel des Mittelalters: Beobachtungen

The subject of his Fluxus-oratorio Eine Kirche der Angst vor dem Fremden in mir by the German theatre-maker and artist Christoph Schlingensief was his advanced stage of cancer. His intention was to encourage everyone suffering this illness to deal with the complexities of fear and despair. Because the central character, close to death at the moment of the performance, was represented by the artist himself, the boundaries between reality and symbolic representation were blurred. This duality combined with strong social implications harks back to characteristics of the religious plays of the Middle-Ages. The fact is his method of expression and that of church rituals are almost identical. This paper studies the socio-cultural, communicative potential of performance by focusing on the theatrical devices and techniques used in both to show a certain anthropological dimension: that aesthetic stimulation can draw on the religious customs and traditions.