From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
Jordan
For Middle Eastern adaptations broadly, see Middle Eastern adaptations of Beach Surgery. For Lebanese theatre, see Lebanese cinema.
Overview
Jordanian responses to Beach Surgery emerge through Amman's experimental theatre and site-specific art (2015–present), staging the glitch as an architectural rather than narrative problem. Unlike serialization or formal cinema, Jordanian work centers "durational refusal"—performances that refuse to end, repeat without variation, or occupy space in ways that resist conversion into meaning.
The Roman Theatre Interventions
Undated durational performances in the Roman amphitheatre (built ~190 CE) explored the glitch as structural incision in ancient stone. Performers moved at one metre per hour accompanied by a looped single frequency at the edge of hearing—said to be the theatre's own acoustic "fault line." [citation needed] Duration: 48–72 hours per performance. Attrition approached 95%.
One photograph [1] shows a performer holding a print document titled Riverbed_Geological_Survey_Early_Season_1970.txt—a geological record of the Jordan River watershed, origin unstated. The document's presence was never explained.
Contemporary Collectives
Amman groups (identity [citation needed]) produce works treating Leif and Katita as abstractions: Leif as "the body that cannot move by its own intention," Katita as "the apparatus that enforces refusal." The 2019 Threshold Doubled allegedly involved two identical spaces separated by a wall; audiences saw different actions in each space through apertures, neither space acknowledging the other. The piece ended when an audience member walked through the wall. [citation needed]
See also
- Middle Eastern adaptations of Beach Surgery
- Durational performance and Beach Surgery
- Lebanese cinema
- Experimental theatre and Beach Surgery
References
- ↑ documentation of durational interventions, 2021. Archival status: disputed.