Zala Dobovšek: COMPLEX RELATIONS BETWEEN FICTION AND FACTION
The event is part of a two-day cycle
A LIE IS DEAD, IS EVERYTHING PERMITTED?
Opening up the terrain of artistic landscapes between fiction and fact
opening lecture
In contemporary performance practices, the relationship between fiction and reality is characterised by pronounced tension, which today has significant political implications. The concept of reality is increasingly being eroded, characterised by scepticism and relativism, as well as the potential for manipulating facts. In this context, the question arises as to what this means for theatre, a form of art with a relationship between the real and the fictional embedded in its very foundation.
Contemporary theatre production is seeing a clear increase in interest in (auto)biographical, autofictional, and documentary formats. These often transcend the boundaries of art, delving into social realities and the political mechanisms of everyday life. However, this creates a paradox: while documentary reality is increasingly met with collective scepticism from the outset, it simultaneously strives to articulate precisely what remains unspoken or overlooked.
These issues have been particularly prevalent among the younger generation of artists. The reasons for this are both conceptual and structural. On the one hand, power dynamics are shifting and space is opening up for new voices, personal stories and marginalised perspectives. On the other hand, the notion of authorship is undergoing a transformation, becoming increasingly collective, dispersed and processual.
The lecture will use selected examples of contemporary productions to shed light on the complex relationships between fiction and reality, and to reflect on how these practices can be understood, viewed, and situated within a broader social context today.
Zala Dobovšek (1983) is a dramaturge, theatre scholar, and Assistant Professor of dramaturgy and performing arts at the Ljubljana’s Academy of Theater, Radio, Film and Television (AGRFT). She graduated from AGRFT with a degree in dramaturgy and continued her studies at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU). In 2019, she completed her PhD at AGRFT (Performing Arts Studies) with a dissertation titled “Theatre and War: Fundamental Relations between Performing Arts and the Wars on the Territory of Former Yugoslavia in the 1990s”.
Her professional interests focus primarily on research at the intersection between the arts and sociology, with an emphasis on theatrical reflections on “non-normative” social phenomena (class relations, queer practices, feminism) and on the critical analysis of their representation in the performing arts. From 2021 to 2024, she served as president of the Slovenian Association of Theatre Critics and Theatrologists and is currently the editor-in-chief of the Kritika web portal.
She works as a theorist, production dramaturge, professor at AGRFT, theatre reviewer, selector, critical writing mentor and educator.