Witch(craft) Subversion in Live Events (Performance Art) in Croatia: From Art to Everyday Praxis

Authors

  • Suzana Marjanić Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb, Croatia.

Keywords:

witch(craft) subversion, cat iconogram, live events, performance

Abstract

This paper offers an interpretative review of artists on the Croatian scene who use in their actions and performances the strategy of ‘witchcraft performance’ as matrix of subversion of the existing model of ‘desirable appearance’, as performative deviation from the desirable image of womanhood, but also as a kind of decision to express protest and subversion. Some women artists, like Neda Šimić‐Božinović and Xena L. Županić, alongside the performance of witchcraft subversion, are also united by the voco‐performance with which they approximate animal vocalisation as the source of logos.

Author Biography

Suzana Marjanić, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb, Croatia.

Suzana Marjanić (1969), a research advisor, is on the staff at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research in Zagreb, where she follows her interests in the theories of ritual and myth, animal studies and the anthropology of performance (art). She published three books: Voices of “Bygone Days”: Transgressions of Worlds in Krleža’s Notes 1914‐1921/22 (2005), Chronotope of Croatian Performance Art: From Traveleri until Today (2014) and The Topoi of Performance Art: A Local Perspective (Durieux, HS AICA, 2017). She co‐edited the collection Cultural Bestiary (Zagreb, 2007) and its sequel Literary Animal: Cultural Bestiary 2 (2012) with A. Zaradija Kiš, The Folklore Studies Reader (2010) with M.  Hameršak, Mythical Anthology (2010) with I. Prica and Krleža’s EU/rope furiosum with B. Koštić. She is member of the editorial board of Narodna umjetnost, Treća: Journal of the Centre for Women’s Studies (from 2004) and the bi‐weekly journal Zarez (until 2016 when the journal was abolished). Web‐page: https://www.ief.hr/znanstvenici/suzana‐marjanic/

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Published

2021-02-02

How to Cite

Marjanić, S. (2021). Witch(craft) Subversion in Live Events (Performance Art) in Croatia: From Art to Everyday Praxis. Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai - Dramatica, 65(1), 131–151. Retrieved from https://dramatica.ro/index.php/j/article/view/35