Rimini Protokoll, импресāрио
Conference on the "Conference of the Absent"

We live in a time when any event can be canceled at any moment or transferred to the Internet space, instead of real heroes, their virtual avatars / 3D copies come on stage.

In the summer of 2020, the Experts of Modernity, the German-Swiss theater company Rimini Protokoll, released the play «Conference of the Absent». The focus is on the stories of 9 people, 9 experts, whose fate is somehow connected with the concept of «absence». A refugee from the island of Lesbos, reconciling himself every day with the absence of Europe; an astronaut preparing for a flight into space and the absence of gravity; a lawyer for war criminals defending a position different from his own.

The format of the performance is a conference that no one comes to. No scenery, no directors, no experts. Their function is assumed by the audience. Viewers are invited to become the voice of another person, represent his point of view and, perhaps, eventually appropriate it to themselves.

The Impresario company and the NET festival went further: their version lacks not only the scenery and experts, but (so far) the performance itself. The offline screening of the play in Moscow had to be postponed.

The conference about the «Conference of the Absent» is not a performance, but a teaser of the performance, Zoom is a meeting in the format of «theater at dinner», a conversation with the creators of the play about their directorial method and the creation of the theater of the pandemic era, as well as with the participants of the «Conference of the Absent» — real people who have become prototypes of heroes.