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Artistic reenactments may bear traces of an artistic lineage, on which any form of contemporary performance art is based. Some exemplary reenactments that have occurred since the mid-1990s are Xavier Le Roy’s reenactment of Yvonne Rainer’s Chair and Pillow Dance (1996), Jerome Bel’s reenactment of Susanne Link in his now canonic Last Performance (1998) and Seven Easy Pieces (2005), Marina Abramovic’s own reenactments of her performance pieces and those of fellow artists from the 1960’s and 1970’s at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. At the Museum of Modern Art, Fabian Barba showcased his Mary Wigman Dance Evening which consisted of nine choreographies that gained fame during Wigman’s first tour through the U.S. in 1930/31.1 Like reenactments of artistic works in museums and on stages, reenactments of historic events in (semi-)public and (pop-)cultural spaces have become very popular: at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, possibly the most famous crossing point between former East- and West Berlin, actors pose in the historical uniforms of the four allied powers. In California, tourists can visit frontier towns accompanied by performers in historical clothing. Iteration or repetition that produces an endless series of differences is not only a major principle of sampling and remixing in a variety of musical genres but also in the films by the DOGMA group, founded by Lars von Trier, which were modeled on Nouvelle Vague, and in lesbian drag king shows, which include impersonations of Elvis, the King. Incidentally, under a pseudonym, Elvis himself signed up for an Elvis impersonation tournament and only came in second place in 1975.2

Reenactments of vanguard productions are part of the revolution and institutionalization of contemporary performing and fine arts. In an altered form, classical elements of dramaturgical theatre (previously written texts, fictional characters and theatrical representation) are interwoven with avant-garde intentions and aesthetics. Theatre makers and performers interested in the political dimensions of art create reenactments (among them the German collectives She She Pop and Rimini Protokoll). The Veronika Blumstein Group and Wunderbaum are exceptional reenactment agents and are part of the new “Politics of Aesthetics” in contemporary performing arts.3

In the following, we will not venture any further into reenactment’s complex network of origin(ality) and copy, of history, remembering and forgetting, ephemerality and archiving. Rather, we will focus on the crucial element of iteration: “In the syncopated time of reenactment, where then and now punctuate each other, reenactors […] romance or battle an ‘other’ time and try to bring that time – that prior moment – to the very fingertips of the present.”4 Reading reenactment in this way leads back to de Toro’s remarks on “transcultural theatre”. He is especially interested in the repeatability of the body, its nomadic and interminable adoptions and rejections connected to cultural production. Iteration is essential for his definition of “transcultural theatre”; the stage can be seen as a place where cultural processes and the production of meaning can be repeated and traced.5