BEING SÁNDOR TAR

Hajnal Németh, “Being Sándor Tar”, casting performance as closing event of the exhibition “Simultaneous City”, DMK – Csokonai Literary Lab, Debrecen, 2021
Photo by Csaba Jóvér

Performance as closing event of the solo exhibition “Simultaneous City” by Hajnal Németh at DMK – Csokonai Literary Lab in Debrecen in 2021.

Performed by Janka Bulik, Annamária Balogh, Réka Palotai, Dávid Szécsi, István Papp, Anna Vékony, Vivien Edelényi, Ibolya Mészáros, Gergely Máté Kiss, Zoltán Pálóczi (audition process play) and André Vida (saxophone and piano).

The piece “Being Sándor Tar” (2021) is a public casting in the form of a screen test, which although staged and choreographed, allows free space for individual improvisation. Németh’s work is actually a Sándor Tar casting, i.e. the personification of the writer by several candidates, regardless of age and gender.

The public casting is based on the reading of the poem “Blonde City” (1969) by Sándor Tar, more specifically on excerpts from the poem, or a rhythmic, sung performance of featured verses. The casting process itself is in fact purposeless, or rather self-serving, as there is no specific play or film that would subsequently be realised, nor anyone actually selected. By the time of the performance, however, all the candidates have become Tar Sándor, in other words, they identify with the persona of the writer.

Hungarian writer Sándor Tar worked in Dresden as a guest labourer between 1967 and 1970, and then as an instructor at a workers’ hostel in the same city between 1975 and 1976. Drawing on his experiences of living conditions at the workers’ hostel, he wrote his sociographical essay “Prospectus” in Dresden, last published by the Déri Museum in 2017. The same volume also includes the poem “Blonde City”, a 22-page work originally written in 1969 – a personal portrait of society and history, reflecting the world from the depths of the psyche in the light of love for a German woman.

Hajnal Németh, “Being Sándor Tar”, casting performance as closing event of the exhibition “Simultaneous City”, DMK – Csokonai Literary Lab, Debrecen, 2021
Photos by Csaba Jóvér

Hajnal Németh, “Being Sándor Tar”, 2021
Casting performance, approx 60 min
Language: Hungarian
Based on the poem “Blonde City” by Sándor Tar (1969, Dresden)
Performed by Janka Bulik, Annamária Balogh, Réka Palotai, Dávid Szécsi, István Papp, Anna Vékony, Vivien Edelényi, Ibolya Mészáros, Gergely Máté Kiss, Zoltán Pálóczi (audition process play) and André Vida (saxophone and piano)
DMK – Csokonai Literary Lab, Debrecen, 2021

Realised with the support of the City of Debrecen and the Csokonai Theatre, Debrecen
Further supporters: German Cultural Forum Debrecen, Péter Barta – private collector
Cooperating partner: CHB – Collegium Hungaricum Berlin 
Special thanks to: Péter Gemza, István Puskás, Dr. Márta Nagy