While historically informed performance practice is now widely accepted in early music and beyond, the idea of scientifically informed interpretation hardly plays a role in theater. The medium is too ephemeral by design, too time-specific, and too difficult to reconstruct. The audience of today would receive a (in practice impossible) historically accurate performance differently than the audience of the first performance. The parameters of the bodily co-presence of performers and spectators and the continuous feedback loop associated with it would thus be constituted fundamentally differently.
Nevertheless, the inclusion of historical speech, facial expressions and gestures in the concert performance of Rheingold by Concerto Köln under the musical direction of Kent Nagano in November 2021 was judged very positively by performers, visitors and the specialist press. In the next step, the Research Institute for Music Theater (fimt) of the University of Bayreuth, in cooperation with Concerto Köln and Kent Nagano, will ask itself within the framework of the DFG knowledge transfer project “Wagnergesang im 21. Jahrhundert – histo-risch informiert?” whether the questions of historically informed performance practice could also be applied to a fully staged production. This question will be explored at the conference Wagnerthea-ter! Historically Informed? conference will explore this question. In three sections (re-enactments as a method of theater and theater studies, historical performance, decla-mation and singing practice, historical equipment) experts from science and practice will discuss the potentials and limits of such an experiment.
Interested parties are welcome to attend the conference. Admission is free of charge.
The program and further information can be found in the
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Panel discussion with Prof. Matthew Reason, Ph.D., Kirsty Sedgman, Ph.D. and Prof. Dr. Ulf Otto at the Center for Advanced Studies (CAS) der LMU
Empathy has played a pivotal role in theatre since the 18th century. Owing to empathy, theatre evolved into an educational institution capable of establishing a new and liberal social order. In (literary) theory and the words of Schiller, it promised to unite “people of all circles, zones, and ranks” into “one single family”. With the theatrical day-to-day turning out to be much more complex, the question how audiences relate to performances is an intriguing topic. It inspires research and theatre practice.
Matthew Reason is a professor at the School of Performance and Media Production at York St. John University.
Kirsty Sedgman is a lecturer at the Institut for Theatre Studies at the University of Bristol.
The event will be livestreamed.
Registration is required for participation. If you are interested in our event, please contact us; you will then receive the information on how to participate in the livestream: E-Mail.
Input and Discussion with Christian Rakow (Nachtkritik) and Magda Romanska (Harvard metlab; theatertimes.com) in the Panel Theatre’s Hybrid Futures at the Exhibition and Symposion Viral Theatres on 28th of April 2022 in Berlin.
The concept of intervention calls for a transgression of art by art itself. This is accompanied not only by the promise of a specific effectiveness, but also by a practice of negotiating aesthetic and political spheres. In theater, talk of intervention seems particularly incisive when the complex interactions of the public sphere, society, and media reality are addressed beyond the scene. This volume, which emerges from a conference at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, brings together contributions that cast critical perspectives on theater projects and theatrical actions that work with different strategies of intervention. In the process, the plurality of interventionist aesthetics and their theorizing is revealed.
An online panel series May-July 2022, organized by Ulf Otto (LMU Munich) and Nora Probst (Univ. of Paderborn)
Computational Methods for Theatre Studies?
From May 2022 until July 2022 a series of panels, organized by Ulf Otto (LMU Munich) and Nora Probst (University of Paderborn), starts to complement the existing Digital Humanities research in Theatre Studies on data models, repertoire data and agent networks with questions about the potentials and politics of computational methods for theater research.
Researchers and students of all levels and from all backgrounds are welcome to participate.
Time: Wednesday, 16:00 CET
Start: May 11, 2022
End: July 13, 2022
via Zoom (respective links for registration see programme)
While historically informed performance practice is now widely accepted in early music and beyond, the idea of scientifically informed interpretation hardly plays a role in theater. The medium is too ephemeral by design, too time-specific, and too difficult to reconstruct. The audience of today would receive a (in practice impossible) historically accurate performance differently than the audience of the first performance. The parameters of the bodily co-presence of performers and spectators and the continuous feedback loop associated with it would thus be constituted fundamentally differently.
Empathy has played a pivotal role in theatre since the 18th century. Owing to empathy, theatre evolved into an educational institution capable of establishing a new and liberal social order. In (literary) theory and the words of Schiller, it promised to unite “people of all circles, zones, and ranks” into “one single family”. With the theatrical day-to-day turning out to be much more complex, the question how audiences relate to performances is an intriguing topic. It inspires research and theatre practice.