Performance Knowledge and Practices Beyond Dominant Discourses and Geographies: Glimpses from Crossing the Lines

Abstract

This article focuses on the post-war Bosnian production Crossing the Lines, while exploring the complexities and functions of performance as an efficient means of artistic creativity, political resistance and collective healing. Based on multidisciplinary theories primarily from performance studies and trauma theory, the analysis aims to demonstrate how engaged theater can restructure power dynamics, facilitating individual and communal psychosocial recovery. To illustrate this capacity for performance art, the work centers on Crossing the Lines, a collaborative performance project presented by Dah Theater and Women in Black. The study exemplifies how the performance artistically blends testimonial stories, embodied enactment, and public intervention to confront wartime violence and its aftermath. Grounded in relevant theories, the analysis reveals how activist performances perceive audiences’ presence as active intervention, whether through direct involvement or silence. This mechanism is demonstrated through Crossing the Lines, which shows how the performance engages its spectators and strengthens the bonds across previously divided communities. Such performances attempt to establish connections and dismantle dominant historical narratives by employing three techniques identified throughout the analysis: trauma reenactment through symbolic sounds, gestures, and collective engagement; artistic methods based on Brechtian techniques and postmodern collage; and the strategic use of public spheres to facilitate broader participation. The study argues that performances like Crossing the Lines stimulate the emergence of knowledge that confronts systematized oppression and provide meaningful grounds for post-war recovery, negotiating the intersection of collective memory, trauma, and socio-political change.