What role do bodies with disabilities play in a capitalist society that is all about performance and productivity? That is the central question Michael Turinsky asks in his performance Work Body, which I saw during the Spring Festival in Utrecht. During the performance, Turinsky takes the audience into his own world, his own time and needs, which are in stark contrast to the demands of a capitalist society.
Stepping out of the capitalist era
Michael Turinsky, a physically disabled artist from Vienna, is considered one of the most important thinkers on movement and disability in German-speaking countries. The first part of his performance resembles a club session: the audience sits on stage without chairs, a DJ plays psychedelic music and the performer offers non-alcoholic beer. We were free to walk around, and mostly it was the performer who made us move depending on where he wanted to go. Initially, Turinsky assembled some tables into a platform that he later used as a stage.
I did not understand his intentions at first, but as he started talking and singing, his purpose became clearer: capitalist society imposes a certain rhythm of performing and producing that is not always accessible to people with disabilities, who may need more time or other aids. Turinsky therefore confirms that he feels he has no real place in this society. “How could we ever fit in there?” he asks.
Yet during the performance, audiences are forced to step outside capitalist expectations and respect their needs and timing, to let go of the demand that everything must be ready, quick and efficient. This is still a performance, but with different rules and different expectations. Turinsky, trained as a philosopher, developed the approach of “Crip Choreography” to describe his artistry.
I couldn't help but wonder: the need for rest, the resistance to performativity, is much broader and could be related to many otherhuman experiences, such as menstrual cycles. Even something not seen as a disability profoundly affects the functioning of half the world's population, without ever being properly addressed. Expecting everyone to perform at the same rate, and punishing those who cannot, is simply unrealistic. The issue raised by Turinsky, which may seem niche, is therefore much more universal than we might think.
“Almost grateful to the world for my illness, my otherness”
During the central part of the play, Turinsky addresses the theme of work and disability using Gramsci's Ashes, a collection of poetry by one of the most important Italian writers of the 20th century, Pier Paolo Pasolini. Pasolini was inspired by the grave of Antonio Gramsci, one of the founders of the Italian Communist Party. There is a deep connection between these two figures: not only were they both communists, but they were also both “different”:
Pasolini, widely known in Italy for his sexual orientation and often attacked for it by politicians and journalists; and Gramsci, who had a spinal deformity that we would today describe as a disability. As Turinsky notes during the performance, “Nowadays it is easier to describe yourself as queer or disabled than as a communist,” pointing to the paradigm shift of the past 50 years: while the LGBTQIA+ community fought for and defended its rights and ‘Disability Studies’ emerged as a field of study, communism lost much of its political power.
Although Gramsci's disability was widely known during his lifetime, later historians have downplayed it, despite the fact that it defined his entire life: as a child, he was socially excluded and was rejected for military service, which unintentionally allowed him to remain active in the labour movement and study at university while other leaders were drafted or arrested.
Today, scholars suggest that his concept of the ‘subaltern’, which defines marginalised and socially excluded groups, was strongly informed by his own experiences of living with a disability in a society that discriminates against people with disabilities. Despite his chronic illness, Gramsci was arrested by the fascist party and spent most of his life in prison; he was eventually released only because of his deteriorating health. He died in Rome in 1937, aged 46, while the country was still in the hands of fascism.
I think it is important to know who Pasolini and Gramsci were to fully appreciate all the layers of this performance. That's why I felt really privileged to be able to witness it; I already knew the references Turinsky incorporated in the performance. It touched me deeply to hear Pasolini's voice reading one of the poems from Gramsci's Ashes, performed in another country. Four posters with iconic quotes by Gramsci served as the backdrop, including, “I hate the indifferent. I believe that living means taking sides. Those who truly live cannot but be citizens and partisans.”
This touched me deeply as an Italian, and I hope other audience members also discovered something about two of our most important modern thinkers.
At the end, after music, conversations and singing, the performance returns to dance and movement. The final image shows Turinsky using a drill to open a concrete box, from which another box emerges that was hidden inside it.
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