Vol. 61 No. 2 (2016): DADA > 100: Life / Art / Museum. DADAISM AND PERFORMING ARTS II

On February 5, 1916, Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings, together with painters Marcel Iancu, Hans Arp and poets Tristan Tzara and Richard Huelsenbeck, inaugurated the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich. This meant, implicitly, the opening of the stage for the assertion of the new artistic movement that would shatter traditional art and that would be an outstanding creative incentive for the new modernist affinities of the early 20th century. From the beginning, DADA, the product of well-directed hazard, had been closely linked with the world of the performing arts, with improvisation, with the staging of self and with the shocking of tame spirits. We can easily see that the brief but very intense lifespan of Dadaism was assisted by a constant theatricalisation of the group members’ life and work.

Based on the strong and intimate connection between Dada and the performing arts, we propose, one hundred years later, in 2016, an investigation into the Dadaist legacy, its revaluation and the understanding of the interest in and the topicality of the Dadaist theories and practices at present.