Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Hybrid Practices: Methodologies, Histories, and Performance, Valletta, Malta, 13 - 15 Mart 2019, ss.9
In this paper, I offer the term choreohistoriography, as a conceptual tool to describe and
analyze the performances of Turkish Armenian choreographer Mihran Tomasyan, whose
productions explore trauma as a socio-political theme running through historical events. To do
so, I draw upon the work of Michel Foucault, particularly The Archaeology of Knowledge,
wherein he describes the methodology used by historiographers as ‘working on the document.’
I argue that this methodology overlaps with the methodology used by Mihran Tomasyan in his
choreographies. The hybridization of choreography and historiography comprised as
choreohistoriography, as I define it, is a form of problematization within performance that
involves processing and transforming the documents of the historical events while both
preserving memory and resonating with the current political events. In putting forth my
argument, I first consider Foucault’s assertion that the remains of an historical traumatic event
are put forward as ‘the questioning of the document’. Second, I suggest that the choreographic
process can be understood as beginning ‘to work on it [document] from within and to develop
it.’ Lastly, I understand that performance ultimately ‘transforms documents into monuments.’
Choreographic experience—as organized through choreohistoriography—transforms the
suppressed past into a process of performing in the here and now. Tomasyan’s hybrid practices
manifests in different forms such as dance, street performance, political protest, site-specific
performance, and movable installations. To explore choreohistoriography, and hybrid
choreographies, I analyze three works by Tomasyan: Faili Mechul (The unresolved killings), Sen
Balik Degilsin Ki (You are not a fish after all) and Sar (Enclose). These three works function as
choreographic interventions that address the painful and traumatic political past of Turkey such
as the killings of intellectuals; the assassination of Turkish Armenian Journalist Hrant Dink in
2007, and people perished during the Armenian exile of 1915.