The Gas Heart
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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- Dada ends with a performance of Tristan Tzara's play "Le Cœur à gaz" in Paris when a battle erupts between the followers of Tzara & the followers of Breton, and police are called in
Le Cœur à gaz (French for "The Gas Heart" or "The Gas-Operated Heart") was a 1920 French-language play by Romanian-born author Tristan Tzara. It was written as a series of non sequiturs and a parody of classical theater, and although short enough to be a one act play, it is arbitrarily split into three acts. A part-musical theater performance featuring ballet numbers, Le Cœur à gaz was first staged in Paris, France as part of the 1923 show Le Cœur à barbe ("The Bearded Heart"), and connected to an art manifesto of the same name as the latter. The characteristic costumes used in the original staging were designed by Sonia Delaunay.
The play's first staging coincided with a major split in the avant-garde movement. Known for being one of the founders of the anti-art and anti-establishment trend known as Dadaism, Tzara was then involved in a conflict which split the movement, and in 1924 led his rivals to establish Surrealism. Opposing his Dada principles to the dissident wing of Dada, represented by André Breton and Francis Picabia, he rallied around him a group of modernist intellectuals, who endorsed his art manifesto, also titled Le Cœur à barbe. The conflict between Tzara and Breton culminated in a riot, which took place during the premiere of Le Cœur à gaz.