All posts by Emma Mulser

CONFERENCE: WRITING THEATER / July 5-7, 2023

QUALITATIVE METHODS, SITUATED KNOWLEDGE & THE MAKING OF PERFORMANCE

Studio Stage (Studiobühne) of the Institute for Theater Studies, Neuturmstrasse 5, 80331 Munich / July 5-7, 2023 / Organized by Ulf Otto, Luise Barsch, Anna Raisich

Please note that the times in the flyer are no longer current for Thursday, July 5! The corrected schedule as follows:

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

13.30-14.45 KEYNOTE I
Translating Practice to Research. Methodological Aspects of Praxeological Performance Research

Gabriele Klein, Hamburg University, DE/University of Amsterdam, NL

15.00–16.30 POSITIONALITIES: BODIES IN RESEARCH (I)
Positioning, Orientation, Relationalization. Doing Research on Disability Performance as a Multimodal Process

Elena Backhausen, Mirjam Kreuser and Benjamin Wihstutz, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, DE

17.00–18.15 KEYNOTE II
The Power of Fragility: A Pragmatist Approach to Performance

Albena Yaneva, University of Manchester, UK

 

Thursday, July 6, 2023

 

09.45–11.15 POSITIONALITIES: BODIES IN RESEARCH (II)
The Body as Research Instrument? – Methodological Reflections and Empirical Insights from an Ethnographic Theater Study

Hanna Voss, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, DE

Who Am I? And If So, How Many, Where, and Why? – Autoethnographic Reflections on Field Research in Theatrical Contexts

Tamara Quick, University of Bayreuth, DE

11.30–13.00 TEMPORALITIES: CAPTURING PROCESSES (I)
Autoethnographic Process: Reflecting on William Forsythe’s Duo

Elizabeth Waterhouse, University of Bern, CH

Digital Ethnography in the Field – Documenting and Researching Choreographic Process

David Rittershaus, University of Applied Sciences Mainz (Motion Bank), DE

15.00–15.45 TEMPORALITIES: CAPTURING PROCESSES (II)
Theater in the Making, Subjects in Becoming: Writing on Processes of Production and Arts Education from Within

Benjamin Hoesch, Justus-Liebig University Giessen, DE

16.15–17.45 CONTEXTS: PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS (I)
Ethnography and/or Performance Analysis for Researching Rehearsals

Lisa Großmann, Bern Academy of the Arts, CH

In the eye of the Protest. Perspectives and Challenges of Performance Analysis and/as Ethnographic Research

Sebastian Sommer, Freie Universität Berlin, DE

18.00–19.30 CONTEXTS: PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS (II)
Staging Differences. Mis-en-scene and Interference of Human Categorisation in Contemporary German-speaking Postdramatic Theater

Friedemann Kreuder and Stefanie Husel, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, DE

 

Friday, July 7, 2023

09.30–10.45 MATERIALITIES: MAKING THINGS WORK (I)
“The Art of Crafts: A Praxeography of the Theater Apparatus” – Project Presentation

Luise Barsch, Ulf Otto and Anna Raisich, Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich, DE

11.15–12.30 MATERIALITIES: MAKING THINGS WORK (II)
Stage Lighting and Industrial Boredom

Martin Young, Anglia Ruskin University, UK

Backstage Cartographies: Labor as Community in Midtown Manhattan

Christin Essin, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, US

 

For more information:

Download the flyer

Download the abstracts

 

The conference is part of the research project The Art of Crafts. A Praxeography of the Theater Apparatus funded by

Writing Theater – qualitative methods, situated knowledge, and the making of performance

Munich, July 5-7, 2023

Conference organized by Ulf Otto, Anna Raisich, Luise Barsch

The production of performance has gained renewed attention in recent years. Artistic processes in theaters have come into focus, as well as their social foundations, institutional frameworks and material entanglements.
This has led to an increased adaptation of methodologies from the social sciences. In particular, qualitative methods, most prominently praxeological and ethnographical approaches, have opened up new ways of engaging with theater.
But the expansion of the methodological toolbox is not just that. It reinvents epistemological relations and has lasting repercussions for the subjects and objects of research. While traditionally theater scholars found themselves within the dispositive of theater, as spectators confronting the performance, the move backstage and elsewhere equates to a loss of this privileged position and inevitably leads to an epistemological decentering of performance.
And this in turn provokes a closer look at the practices of research: techniques of description (protocols) and inscription (photographs, recordings) come to the fore, as do the diverse social and material agents that are mobilized to turn fleeting observations into reliably defined and delimited subjects of knowledge.
Accordingly, the aim of the conference is on the one hand, to discuss ethnographical strategies in the domain of theater studies, including their epistemological repercussions – and on the other hand, to take a look back at established writing strategies, taking inspiration from the rich body of critical self-reflection in ethnography: What happens to theater when scholars move backstage, and what can we learn from there about our scholarly selves?

We welcome contributions from scholars from all career stages – both, full length papers of about 20 minutes as well as poster-style presentations of early stage projects within a 10 minute time-frame will be considered. We are committed to opening an inclusive space for productive exchanges, in-depth discussions, and joint perspectives.

Please hand in short abstracts + bio (300 words max. both).
Deadline for abstracts: 15.12.2022
Notification of acceptance by: 15.1.2023
Contact: gewerke@lrz.uni-muenchen.de

The conference will primarily take place on site in Munich, but we will offer streaming and fully online panels for participants unable to attend in person. Travel and accommodation will be covered for presenters. A subsequent publication is planned.

The conference is part of the research project The Art of Crafts. A Praxeography of the Theater Apparatus funded by