Metal concerts as the Theatre of Cruelty

Abstract

The following paper is dedicated to metal music concerts as (non-)deliberate realisation of the Antonin Artaud’s (1896-1947) Theatre of Cruelty, which he proposed in the 1930s. The life of Artaud is a pure rebellion against society, which pervades his writings that are both iconoclastic and groundbreaking. There is a certain similarity between Artaud and black metal music, whose aesthetics and poetics evoke the sense of dread and rebellion. The Theatre of Cruelty is not about corporal suffering. It aims to provoke essential changes in a viewer, owing to the play, which could be regarded as a noble ritual, touching sacrum. Concerts of Gorgoroth, Batushka and Tool have been selected as representative ones in order to discuss the presence of the Artaud’s concept in metal music.