Activating Agon in performance

This PhD consists of six performance works by choreographer Athina Vahla created between 2004 and 2017. The accompanying commentary details how the central concept of agon, as struggle, conflict and contest from the original Greek meaning, is activated across these works through their content, form, spaces, and narratives. As a strand of enquiry, agon, it is argued came to be an intrinsic part of Vahla’s choreographic signature.
The first chapter gives an account of how the concept of agon emerged and developed through a chronological narration of her choreographic practice. A preoccupation with ‘realness’ in performance is highlighted. A conceptual understanding of agon in the works is established in the second chapter. Heidegger’s articulation of thrownness, Camus’ essay Sisyphus, and Nietzsche’s work on the Greek idea of contest help to articulate the creative impulses behind the activation of agon in the performances and illuminate the creative strategies in the choreographic practice. The third chapter shows how agon manifests in the works through discussing the strategies of ‘real people’, the visceral, and arenas. It describes how these three strategies developed over time, activating agon as a meaningful experience for both performers and spectators.
This commentary profiles how the performances staged conflict and struggle and how agon came to infiltrate the different areas of the works and expanded beyond the physical struggle in dance choreography. The performances offered audiences and performers access to the range and dimensions of agon, which especially in the later works, came to affirm and celebrate life. Vahla’s process led to a particular kind of hybridity based on ‘realness’ through the inclusion of sports and athletes, and their agonistic practices. Making agon central while continuing to work from conflict, the performances included different communities, expanding public engagement also to the territory of academic practice.