The Other’s Silence – between Complementarity and Distancing
The Other’s Silence – between Complementarity and Distancing

Author(s): Alexandra Diaconita
Subject(s): Theatre, Dance, Performing Arts, Fine Arts / Performing Arts
Published by: Editura ARTES
Keywords: silence; body of silence; theatre; the Other;
Summary/Abstract: Silence is an universal language. If there is anything that crosses multiple cultures, in ways that seem so familiar to anyone, this can be achieved by silence. The concept of silence does not need grammatical forms, declinations or accents, although it includes them on a subtle level, silence does not need, most of the time, translation, it goes without saying, because its peculiarities are predominantly emotional, and emotions are universal. Of course, there can be cultures of noise, just as, for example, there are cultures of silence, inclined towards an expression that includes to a very large extent the need for silence. In theatrical art, we cannot get rid of the “other” or the “others” – stage partner, audience, director, etc. The profile of a so-called “other” is a hypostasis that seems to offer a more intimate setting, a direct connection, without witnesses, that moment of wholeness to which a man, from time to time, aspires. The silent being attracts the being in need of an answer. Is “the other” a foreign, separate, culturally or metaphorically distanced formula? This study aims to x-ray moments where the other (either a character, a state, a world, etc.) meets another and decides to “complete” him, to adhere to each other's world, or, on the contrary, to cause him to distance himself and close himself in his own world. The gaze cast at the “other” is a glance thrown beyond the boundaries of one's own person – the gaze of one is silently linked to the gaze of the other.

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