PARIP 2005

International Conference | 29 June - 03 July 2005

Roesner: David | Germany

Abstract

The aim of my presentation is to describe and explore the relationship between research in theory and research in rehearsal and performance in an academic context, in particular that of various projects at or in cooperation with the Universität Hildesheim. Hildesheim is one of the few places in Germany (besides e.g. Giessen) where you can study theatre on the basis of a strong connection between theory and practice.

The approach does not focus on craftsmenship, acting/performing abilities or even virtuosity, but aspires to evoke a „reflective theatre-personality“, that may devise theatre in various contexts (hierarchical, non-hierarchical, educational, community based, etc.)and use certain theatre forms to generate knowledge, both for the student/performer as for the audience.

I´d like to examine the research processes, the chosen performative setting and the theatrical outcome of various projects I was in charge of at our university. I will present video-excerpts and photographs of the performances.

Frauen im Anzug („Women in suits“ on an essay by J.W. Goethe) was one of several projects during summer term 2002, that used performance theories around 1800 as

inspiration and actual material for theatrical performances. I’d like to show, how Goethes text „Frauenrollen auf dem römischen Theater durch Männer gespielt“ (women’s parts played by men in the roman theatre, 1788) in particular, performed by 13 female and one male student, was subject to a critical examination both on an academic and on a performative level during the production. Barbette (on an essay by Jean Cocteau, Stadttheater Hildesheim, autumn  2002) added to the research into gender performance by using prose (by Plato, Cocteau, Balzac, Woolf, etc.) rather than theoretical texts this time and by devising the performance in co-operation and under participation of students as well as trained actors. I´d like to compare both projects in respect to the influence of the production process on the performative and academic output.

Last year, within a larger project called “Antike intermedial”, we approachedEuripides’ Die Phönizierinnen („Phoenissae“) by trying to tell the story of the battling sons of Iokaste by means of an old medium: music. The transformation of an antique drama with its protagonists, monologues and “stichomythien” into non-representational musical theatre, with just two choir ensembles, was not only a particular form of research into contents and conditions of Greek play.  It was also an experiment on a unique form of story-telling andon transforming theatre into music and vice versa, beyond the genre distinctions (drama, musical, opera, performance).

The knowledge that we try to achieve and disseminate in those projects is manifold: on a strictly academic level each project is an intensified reading of texts: dramatic, poetic and academic texts, that require academic analysis and dramaturgical evaluation. By means of developing performance concepts, improvisation and training, the texts (or issues raised) are reinvestigated performatively.  Different stages of the rehearsal/conception process are again reflected and discussed, with other students and members of staff.

So while dealing with the process of putting together a performance many questions of theatre theory in general are discussed: problems of representation, the impact of theatrical means and their particular combinations, problems of conducting/directing/devising a scene and implementing collective creative processes.

The types of knowledges that are being developed are primarily for the benefit of the inividual student´s ability to reflect, describe, initiate and be part of theatrical processes, but of course each project also adds to the staff’s teaching experience and to the audiences receptive experience.

The students´ writings serve as main means of dissemination and reflection of the performances, and I will therefore refer to them. The participants of every project write diaries and minutes, evening programmes, press articles, scenarios and various forms of notation (storyboard, musical scores etc.) and often – in retrospect – hand in written reflections on the creation process or performance analysises, that deal with creative procedures, dramaturgical decisions, aesthetical results and the methodological problems of being a participating observer.