Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Throughout performance history, the body has been viewed as a chief locus of signification. Denis
Diderot’s Paradox of Acting concerns itself primarily with the actor’s ability to materialise the feelings of
a written text and to literalise them in time and space through his/her individual mastery of the text’s
aura.1 Audiences’ fascination with the performer’s body in corporealising texts has extended into our
contemporary performative milieu, with artists such as Marina Abramović and Ron Athey aiming to
explore the limits of the body in expression and endurance. This, I argue, encourages the positioning of
the body itself as a text to be interpreted. Yet, a long history of performance concerning the body can be
traced outside of the theatrical space. Performance pervades and constitutes every aspect of our lives,
influencing the fields of psychology, medicine, biology, and more. In this essay I aim to demonstrate the
inherently performative nature of science – in particular, of the old operating theatre and its evolution into
the modern laboratory. I suggest that science and performance are not mutually exclusive and,
significantly to our understanding of the body as a signifying (and signified) text, I will analyse the ways
in which the scientific space renders the body and how this is intrinsically theatrical in nature.
The first anatomy theatre was established in 1594 at the University of Padua, and remains preserved. 2 Its
construction is architecturally mimetic of the classical amphitheatre, and along with Andreas Vesalius’
anatomical theatres, it was moulded on the structure of the Colosseum in Rome. Its circular seating
arrangement focalises the anatomy bench from every viewpoint and makes the theatre an opportune space
for various forms of performance to unfold. Arranged in tiers and elaborately decorated, students and the
public were permitted intimate access to the show of dissection – an otherwise private display. As José
van Dijck writes, ‘anatomical theatres were designed after typical Renaissance stages – round stages and
gradually ascending seats – enabling the audience to literally gaze into the cadaver from a high angle’. 3
1
Denis Diderot, The Paradox of Acting (London: Chatto & Windus, 1883).
2
Silvia Donati and Barry Lillie, ‘Italy’s Ancient Medical Schools: Anatomical Theatres’, Italy Magazine
(29 October, 2014), < http://www.italymagazine.com/featured-story/italys-ancient-medical-schools-
anatomical-theatres> [accessed 26 November, 2015]
3
José van Dijck, ‘Digital Cadavers and Virtual Dissection’, in Anatomy Live: Performance and the
Operating Theatre’, ed. by Maaike Bleeker (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014), p. 39.
As Dijck describes, the Renaissance-style theatre brought the public spectator into the previously obscure
medical realm and allowed for a confrontation with the deceased body hitherto unheard of. The
demonstrations of public dissection and anatomical exploration were therefore fashioned with this lay
audience in mind, and in addition to the edifying displays of anatomical knowledge, ‘[i]t was not
uncommon for a banquet, a concert, or other performers to adorn dissections’. 4 The demonstrations were
both educational and entertaining – and this joint purpose has maintained its significance into the twenty-
first century, with German pathologist Gunther von Hagens referring to his dissections as a form of
‘edutainment’.5
The dissection of the body thus operates as a form of spectacle, with the formerly textual knowledge
taking material form in the centre of the stage. The rise of the anatomy theatre is accordingly in tandem
with a shift from private to public knowledge, and of text-based to personal authority - disseminated by
the anatomist who functions as the chief instructor and actor in this performance, wielding the scalpel as a
tool for exploring the inner workings of the human being. The anatomical amphitheatre becomes the site
in which textual data materialises; the body itself is scripted and presented as a colonial subject to be
discovered. It is the anatomist’s role as educator to conquer and invade the body in a discomforting
revelation of its interior design. With his instruments – themselves performative keys to knowledge – the
anatomist voyages through the body, exploring it as both a text and a map of an inner world. This medical
investigation into the corpse is what the anatomist must, as actor and orator, reproduce through speech to
the dazed and intrigued spectators – an act Dijck describes as ‘the democratization of knowledge’. 6 The
anatomist is therefore functional not only in the development in understanding the human body, but in
granting publicised access to this knowledge for the wider social strata.
4
Ibid.
5
Gunther von Hagens, in ‘The Naked and the Dead’ by Stuart Jeffries, Guardian (March 19 2002) <
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/mar/19/arts.highereducation> [accessed 26 November,
2015]
6
Dijck, p. 54.
2
In conjunction with these ideas of publicisation, the artistic disciplines were notably intertwined with that
of science, with Rembrandt’s renowned painting, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp (1632)
proving a famous example in rendering the ‘anatomo-clinical body’ for wider audiences to observe. 7
Painted in the Baroque style of the early 1600s, The Anatomy Lesson shows a consciousness of the body
as a spectacle to be perceived and understood. With exposed musculature and twisted hand, the cadaver is
subjected to the discerning gaze of the students - and of us - while Dr Tulp himself is positioned as a
figure of authority, with surgical tool in one hand, and the other in gesticular demonstration to his pupils.
As Karen Ingham observes of this work, ‘[t]he hand is a central metaphor for anatomical progress and
understanding’.8 While primarily in reference to the cadaver’s hand, I would extend this metaphor further
to encapsulate the hand of the anatomist as a tool for bringing forth knowledge through a physical – and
violent - intrusion of the body. As a result, this culture of dissection emphasises the structures of power
within which the anatomy performances operate. In The Anatomy Lesson, Dr Tulp is distinguished from
the students through the wielding of authority as symbolised through the tools of dismemberment, which
he will use to ‘voyage within the body to reveal its secrets’. 9 The passive cadaver is thus acted upon by
this higher power and, as Rembrandt renders him, he is not simply a corpse, but an object of the scopic
regime – reminding the spectators that they too can be objectified under such surveillance.
The anatomist’s authority can also be regarded as authoring the body for the epistemic consumption of
the lay audience; the anatomist’s aim is ‘to deconstruct and disassemble the body in order that we may
know it better’.10 This authoring technique implies the necessary mediation between two worlds – those of
the living and the dead – and a subsequent translation of the bodily text for the pupils’ and public’s
enlightenment. Like Diderot’s actor, the anatomist’s role necessitates a toggling between text and reality
in order to present knowledge that is scientifically verifiable, representing ‘a journey from superstition to
science’ in the distinctively public realm of the anatomy theatre. 11 I therefore argue that science and art
7
Karen Ingham, ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Professor Moxham’, in Anatomy Live (Bleeker), p. 77.
8
Ibid., p. 78.
9
Maaike Bleeker, ‘Introduction’, in Anatomy Live (Bleeker), p. 13.
10
Ibid., p. 83.
11
Ibid., p. 79.
3
are fused in this didactic performance, which extends beyond the artistic discipline in its confirmation of
medical reality. With this in mind, the body performs itself as an object of undiscovered knowledge, and
it is the anatomist’s role to expose the inner workings of the organs in a highly visceral denouement –
encouraging the spectators to view the body ‘as a text within a heightened dramatic space’. 12 Narrative
control is therefore in the anatomist’s hands, and he is positioned as the main protagonist – a Columbus
figure – who seeks to create a new medical equilibrium through his revelations of the anatomical map.
This discovery through force buttresses the anatomist as a figure of power possessing a mastery of skill
both in anatomical unearthing and oracular deliverance. Diderot’s Paradox of Acting, written in the
eighteenth century, is remarkably echoic of these implicit power structures within the anatomy theatre,
and, in the roles of both actor and anatomist, meaning is filtered to the audience through the performer’s
Within this ideology of the technical mastery of the body, the actor could be seen as the knife
(instrument/technique) and the surgeon (specialized subject) as well as the body (object), as much
While implying a cross-pollination of the scientific endeavour into dramaturgy, Klöck reinforces the
theatrical heightening of anatomical performance as a whole. Klöck’s suggestion of the actor as the
amalgamation of these medical aspects sets the actor’s mastery on par with that of the anatomist in
propagating corporeal signification to an audience. In fact, what Klöck alludes to is the actor’s dominance
in operating on multiple levels of technique and representation – the actor has the advantage of
demonstrating himself as the lived body which animates itself as spectacle, subject, and object of intrigue.
This necessarily brings into question issues surrounding the subject and the body - whether their existence
in the performative sphere is united or divided, and what is subsequently at stake regarding agency and
passivity. As Maaike Bleeker argues, ‘[t]he corpse dissected within the theatre of anatomy […] is
12
Ibid., p. 83.
13
Anja Klöck, ‘Of Dissection and Technologies of Culture in Actor Training Programs’, in Anatomy Live
(Bleeker), p. 117.
4
fundamentally a pedagogical prop’ and is therefore a means by which the anatomist can interrogate and
expound it as an educational resource. 14 Subject and body are dislocated and the body becomes, through
progressive dissection, ‘a body of knowledge’.15 However, while the deceased body is devoid of its
animation, its educational purpose in this display is to be related to the bodies of the living; what the
anatomist discovers about the corpse is what we essentially discover about ourselves. The anatomist
interacts with the body in ways that ‘provoke, stimulate, and question the very nature of what it is to be
human’, meeting the sixteenth century demands for a greater realisation of the physical body that artistic
mimesis could not afford.16 The anatomy theatre subsequently marked a new epoch which inaugurated the
The culture of dissection was therefore ground-breaking in its contribution to the medical curriculum,
and, much like the actor, the departed body was considered microcosmic of the universal human and its
intrinsic nature. Yet, the anatomist is fundamental not only in presenting the audience with a knowledge
of the self, but in bringing them into confrontation with ‘one of three great enigmas in a normal person’s
life’ – the enigma of death. 17 Death was no longer something to be muted or absented, but became a
spectacle to be faced and studied in relation to the living, rather than separate from, or ‘other’ to it. The
notion of studying a body after its passing has both fascinated and disturbed human beings throughout
history. In Ancient Egypt, the dissection of dead bodies had, most notably, ‘a magico-religious aspect’
and dissectors placed little concern on discerning the body in order to better understand it. 18 Disease was
regarded ‘in an animistic fashion’, and the process of mummification – in which Hagens’ plastination has
its origins – was governed by a superstitious desire to ensure steady transition to the afterlife rather than
to reach empirical and medical clarification. 19 However, with the legalisation of dissection in sixteenth
century England, the interests of scientific enlightenment permitted a new kind of engagement with the
14
Bleeker, p. 17.
15
Dijck, p. 29.
16
Bleeker, p. 17.
17
Arthur Marvel Lassek, Human Dissection: Its Drama and Struggle (Springfield: Charles C. Thomas
Publisher Ltd., 1958), p. 4.
18
Julian L. Burton, ‘Chapter 1: The History of the Autopsy’, in The Hospital Autopsy 3rd Edition: A
Manual of Fundamental Autopsy Practice, by Guy Rutty (Florida: CRC Press, 2010), p. 2.
19
Ibid.
5
deceased body. No longer were dissections confined to be performed only on those with wealth and social
eminence, but were undertaken on the bodies of criminals and, with Burke and Hare in the nineteenth
century, on bodies that had been stolen – even murdered – as a result of medical demand.
In particular, early sixteenth century Europe marked a relationship not only between science and art, but
between science and the juridical system. Public dissections ‘not only served educational purposes, but
[…] taught moral lessons’.20 In significant contrast to the mummification of Ancient Egyptian pharaohs,
the bodies provided to science in the sixteenth century were not those of high social status but, rather, the
bodies of executed criminals. This created a new context in which the body was acted upon and invaded.
For the spectators of the sixteenth century, the culture of dissection served as a warning to the public; the
inevitable fate of criminals was to be exposed and dissected for medical enlightenment. The slow
destruction of their bodies removed any possibilities for bodily resurrection after death, and this was
undoubtedly perturbing to audiences who considered the bodies as existing in a state of purgatory until
their dues to society were paid. Additionally, Dijck notes that, ‘[b]esides public humiliation, it implied
that the executed criminal was denied burial – a final resting place for the soul’. 21 Here, unlike with the
pharaohs, the bodies are disregarded as possessing a soul worth preserving, and this subsequently links its
ontology to that of the Cartesian machine-body – operating (or, rather, serving) only for corporeal
functions - with the soul remaining separate from this physicality. The body is no longer embalmed and
oiled to maintain a stately appearance, but reduced to a representation of the anonymous body for
This judicial relationship between the anatomical discipline and the convicted criminal also lends another
layer to the body’s performance and the anatomist’s function. If the act of public dissection functioned as
‘a form of extra punishment on top of the death sentence’, the anatomist’s role was subsequently an
‘extension […] of the executioner’s job’.23 In combination with the ‘edutational’ elements of the
20
Dijck, p. 30.
21
Ibid., p. 35.
22
Ibid., p. 38.
23
Ibid., p. 35.
6
anatomical performance, then, there is also a strong moral component at play, and an ethically based
narrative alongside that of the anatomical journey. Yet, despite the body’s supposed degradation to an
object for medical discernment, there is also a redeeming constituent involved, and one that follows the
conventions of the medieval morality play – namely, the conventions of ‘catharsis or purification of the
soul’.24 Often, the criminal body was viewed as undergoing a transformative redemption in the sphere of
the anatomy theatre. The body’s performance as a site for medical enquiry suggested a debt to society
that, having been paid in the climax of anatomical revelation, would increase the corpse’s chances of
proceeding to the afterlife. The performance therefore emphasised morality, and built suspense through
pedagogical props such as the skeletons (both in literal display around the theatre, and in drawings on the
walls). These props ‘foreshadowed the cadaver’s inevitable fate’ while subsequently allowing for the
In Gunther Von Hagens’ Anatomy for Beginners, the props function in a similar manner, though they are
undoubtedly shrouded more in secular than in sacral symbolism (Von Hagens publicly removed himself
from questions of religious or spiritual associations with regards to the anatomical body). Anatomy for
Beginners aired in 2005, and as Von Hagens shows in his reconfiguration of the anatomy theatre set, there
is a clear emphasis on setting and the interaction of props in forming the theatre as a scientifically and
theatrically legitimate space.26 In ‘Lesson 1: Movement’, fragments of anatomy are displayed around the
theatre, along with entire skeletal figures, mimicking our preconceived notions of the scientific
laboratory. The studio is theatrically lit to highlight the hanging cadavers, and, upgrading the sixteenth
century anatomical drawings, a living nude model is displayed with organs drawn onto the body by on-set
artists. The ‘edutainment’ purpose here is immediately apparent; Von Hagens functions as showman and
educator with the scientific performance accentuated by his reserved assistant, who stands by his side,
donned in a white coat, and narrates his anatomical findings to the audience. As Ian Maxwell observes of
the anatomist, ‘Von Hagens is clearly very accomplished both with the technicalities of dissection, and as
24
Ibid., p. 40.
25
Ibid.
26
Anatomy for Beginners, Channel 4, 2005.
7
an educator’.27 Performing the first anatomy lecture theatre in 170 years, Von Hagens was meticulous in
reviving the uncomfortable relationship between science and art – a marriage that has, since the
nineteenth-century, fallen out of favour. In reworking the anatomy theatre for the modern audience, Von
Hagens successfully fuses the historical dissections with contemporary show business. The theatre is
transformed into a sleek studio setting and the show successfully brings the out-dated practice into a new,
contemporary dialogue for students and public, now leading to the revival of public anatomy lectures in
universities.28
In similarity to the moral dilemma of the criminalised body, the plastinated figures displayed in Anatomy
for Beginners and Von Hagens’ live exhibition Body Worlds raise the question of bodily presence. Von
Hagens’ plastination technique requires the draining of fluids and fats from the body and the replacement
with ‘silicon polymers’.29 Having visited the Body Worlds exhibition at the O2 Arena in 2005, I felt a
remarkable eeriness at seeing these plastinated figures – bodies that Von Hagens insisted were more
accurate than models or drawings, which could only ever be shadows of the real. However, the process of
plastination lends an absence to the figures that have been repositioned into lifelike poses frozen in time.
One display shows a group of figures halted in a game of cards. The spotlight shines on their matte skin
and draws attention to its dried and leathery texture. The performative engagement is incredibly distant,
more so than in the traditional theatres where engagement is essential to enactment. We are positioned as
outsiders looking in and the exhibition is entirely silent as viewers are left to roam around the ghostly
displays. No anatomist is present to reveal the body’s narrative, or to activate it as a performative subject.
These cadavers are shown, not told, and there is something vacant about the odourless bodies, wholly
devoid of a semblance to life. The inactivity of the card players, rather than imbuing the cadavers with the
impression of mobility or living likeness, only serves to augment their removal from the living. As Ian
Maxwell argues, ‘the plastinates […] enjoy a complex relationship with their own humanity: stripped of
27
Ian Maxwell, ‘”Who Were You?”: The Visible and the Visceral’, in Anatomy Live (Bleeker), p. 52.
28
Auslan Cramb, ‘First Public Anatomy Lectures Planned in the UK Since Burke and Hare’, Telegraph
(18 March 2015), < http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11480902/First-public-
anatomy-lectures-planned-in-the-UK-since-Burke-and-Hare.html> [accessed 3 December 2015].
29
Maxwell, p. 53.
8
life, they are no longer the people that they were and instead are asked to function as exemplars, as
everymen’.30
Maxwell highlights the reduction of these bodies to nameless paradigms for the rest of humanity. The
concept of ‘everymen’ links both to this generalisation of the cadaver as a microcosm of its species and
also to the morality play I have explored in traditional theatres. Yet, these bodies are not those of
convicted criminals, and they are therefore more accurately aligned to the everyman. The plastination
process additionally removes their individual histories and they become not diverse representations of
humanity, as Von Hagens desired, but manufactured subjects whose bodily distinctiveness is erased in
favour of preservation. As critics have remarked of the plastinated bodies, the removal of liquids and fats
to be replaced with preservatives not only drains the fluids but also the semblance to humanity that,
arguably, the original cadaver maintained. Upon entering the gallery space, we are positioned to view the
subjects voyeuristically, as models. Rather than viewing the bodies as mirrors of how it is with our living
bodies, the exhibition ‘reiterates […] one of the central paradoxes of anatomy, namely the use of dead
bodies to teach about living ones’.31 While in Body Worlds, Von Hagens encourages us to identify with
these bodies through their lifelike positioning, I believe Anatomy for Beginners is far more successful in
allowing for identification with the deceased body. Much like Diderot’s concept of the actor, the fusion of
techniques and mastery is essential to igniting characters onstage, and it is Von Hagens’ necessary
interaction with the figures that allows us to recognise ourselves, rather than viewing the plastinated
To elaborate, the power dynamic between the anatomist and cadaver is the critical strategy in allowing for
the body’s performance and representation. In ‘Lesson 1’, Von Hagens strips the skin of the cadaver
before reanimating its muscles in an anatomically didactic show. With his assistant explaining the
muscles’ movements, we witness the animation of a figure not completely removed from ourselves. Von
Hagens’ assistant even gestures to the audience to mimic the muscular motion – an action that reduces the
30
Ibid., p. 54.
31
Maaike Bleeker, ‘Martin, Massumi, and The Matrix’ in Anatomy Live (Bleeker), p. 151.
9
perceived boundary between the deceased body onstage and ourselves in the seats. If sixteenth century
dissections marked an advancement from the stationary bodies in anatomical drawings, so too does
Anatomy for Beginners – produced a year after Body Worlds’ O2 opening – mark a more intimate
engagement with the body as both performative subject and demonstrative object. The anatomist, as actor,
is key to this demonstration, both in asserting knowledge to his audience and in trespassing the
boundaries between the living and dead in a highly dramatic search for medical illumination. The
anatomy theatre, unlike the museum, allows for a heightened performative context in which to witness the
anatomical body. With ‘anatomy’ itself derived from ‘to cut’, it is the culture of dissection, as we have
seen in Klöck’s analysis of the actor, that grants us exploration into the body as a text.
The culture of dissection resulting from anatomy lectures therefore amplifies, and permits, the body as a
performative space to be uncovered and revealed to the public. The body itself, along with individual
organs, can thus be seen to perform in this scientific and dramatic quest for knowledge. As Maxwell notes
of the theatrical emphasis on dissection, ‘the human brain […] can now be “seen” to perform within its
own theatre of flesh and bone’. 32 Maxwell draws attention to the anatomy theatre’s performative nature as
instrinsic and comprised of a myriad of layers operating on multiple levels. In this theatrical environment,
voyeurism is inherent and encouraged through both the spatial arrangement of the seating and tiers, and
through the literal performance of the dissection as ‘a highly ritualized ceremony’. 33 This ceremony has
been translated and revived through generations, continuing to animate a ‘theatrical corpus’ whether
through public dissections, plastination, or the digitisation of bodies for a modern public. This is achieved
through a theatrical process that Sally Jane Norman sees ‘as ancient as it is metamorphic’. 34 Through
scientific performance, the body is rendered not an enigma or an ‘other’, but a text which can be
deciphered and comprehended if we, through scientific reasoning, are determined to discover it. As
Maxwell writes:
32
Maxwell, p. 87.
33
Lucia Dacome, ‘Women, Wax and Anatomy in the “Century of Things”’, in Spaces, Objects and
Identities in Early Modern Italian Medicine (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2008), p. 54.
34
Sally Jane Norman, ‘Anatomies of Live Art’ in Anatomy Live (Bleeker), p. 187.
10
[T]he theatre of the body is still a space suffused with excitement and anticipation, a space where
power and knowledge continue to be brokered and negotiated, and a space where art and
bioscience may find a creative dialogue that furthers our understanding of what it is to be human. 35
In conclusion, the body is the central element in the anatomy theatre’s performative realm. As seen in
Rembrandt’s paintings, and Klöck’s analysis of the actor as anatomist (and vice versa), the body is a site
on which struggles of power and knowledge are ultimately played out. It is therefore a text on and in
which stories are inscribed, and the anatomist’s conquering of it demonstrates one way in which the
narrative of the body can be told. The fusion both of science and entertainment is necessary in
constructing a palatable realm in which the public can indulge in morbidly voyeuristic intimacy with the
corpse. The anatomy theatre is thus largely significant in creating a lived experience for the audience
through the felt presence of the anatomical body. And, although I believe Body Worlds is less effective in
rendering the human as an identifiable subject, it succeeds in its semblance to durational and enduring
performance art pieces of today, which make us conscious of – and also make us question – the reality of
bodily presence. The haunting quality of Body Worlds is largely a result of its inability to animate the
body through strict intervention. The anatomist is, fundamentally, the artist that connects ‘living and dead
flesh,’ and it is the inherently theatrical space of the anatomy theatre that brings medical understanding
Bibliography
Bleeker, Maaike, Anatomy Live: Performance and the Operating Theatre’ (Amsterdam: Amsterdam
35
Ibid., p. 88.
36
Gionna Bouchard, ‘The Revelation of Techne: An Anatomical Theatre’, Performance Research, Vol.
10, No. 4 (December 2005), p. 6.
11
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Bouchard, Gionna, ‘The Revelation of Techne: An Anatomical Theatre’, Performance Research, Vol. 10,
Burton, Julian L., ‘Chapter 1: The History of the Autopsy’, in The Hospital Autopsy 3rd Edition: A
Manual of Fundamental Autopsy Practice, by Guy Rutty (Florida: CRC Press, 2010)
Cramb, Auslan, ‘First Public Anatomy Lectures Planned in the UK Since Burke and Hare’, Telegraph (18
Dacome, Lucia, ‘Women, Wax and Anatomy in the “Century of Things”’, in Spaces, Objects and
Diderot, Denis, The Paradox of Acting (London: Chatto & Windus, 1883)
Donati, Silvia, and Barry Lillie, ‘Italy’s Ancient Medical Schools: Anatomical Theatres’, Italy Magazine
Hagens, Gunther von, in ‘The Naked and the Dead’ by Stuart Jeffries, Guardian (March 19 2002) <
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/mar/19/arts.highereducation> [accessed 26
November, 2015]
Lassek, Arthur Marvel, Human Dissection: Its Drama and Struggle (Springfield: Charles C. Thomas
12