Running gag

The starting point of this lecture performance are the courageous, extraordinary and witty heroines of the silent-film era in the early 20^th century. While they were influential, famous and popular during their lifetimes, they are mostly forgotten today. In the course of their research in archives, Sööt/Zeyringer discovered female pioneers of silent film named Marie Dressler, Ossi Oswalda and Sarah Duhamel. In their films, they wreaked havoc, dressed in men’s clothes and put their bodies to highly expressive uses. Many female actors, directors, screenwriters and producers used humour as an empowerment strategy and a method to break through existing limitations. In Running gag, Sööt/Zeyringer use historical footage, film clips, facts and personal stories to collage a fictional documentary about the ever changing relationship between gender and humour now and then.

The artists Tiina Sööt and Dorothea Zeyringer have been collaborating in Vienna since 2012. Their works are situated at the interface of visual art, dance and theatre and have been shown, among others, at imagetanz festival at brut, Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava Tallinn, Kunstraum Niederoesterreich and Schauspiel Köln. Their previous performance, We Will Figure It Out, premiered at brut during the imagetanz festival in 2017.