Dramaturgy after Postdramatic Theatre

  • Czirak, Adam (Project Lead)
  • Brucher, Rosemarie (Co-Lead)
  • Ehrentraut, Sara (Co-Lead)
  • Renner, Lukas (Co-Lead)
  • Müller-Schöll, Nikolaus (Co-Lead)
  • Ibrahim, Miriam (Co-Lead)

    Project: Research funding

    Project Details

    Abstract

    Wider research context: Our project proposal is based on the observation that since the 2000s we have witnessed the emergence of a new kind of textual dramaturgy, in theatre as well as in dance and performance art, in which language is used as a political instrument that enables vocal participation, representation and the critical examination of processes of social exclusion. Rather than stressing the somatic di-mension of speech, a central concern for the paradigm of postdramatic theatre, today’s theatrical productions foreground a different aspect of speech acts, compelling us to ask a new set of ques-tions. Who is it that speaks on the stage? On behalf of whom do they speak? Whose voice do we hear? And who bears responsibility for what is said?
    Objectives: The aim of the project is to examine textual dramaturgies that have given rise to a new kind of per-formance practice on European stages since the 2000s, but which have not received the attention they deserve in the predominant analytical framework of postdramatic theatre. The focus should thus be on analysing linguistic action whose performative effects derive from rhetorical operations, setting in motion a politically revealing play with discursive realities and the responsibilities of speak-ing. What we need, then, is to develop a concept of dramaturgy that is attuned to discerning stand-points and positions, helping us to grasp a dimension of contemporary performances in which re-flection on the social conditions of speaking becomes an integral part of the event.
    Approach: The project is centred on theatrical productions from Western, Central and Eastern Europe in which the text as a rhetorical technique of representation is rehabilitated and used in a self-reflexive way to negotiate interpersonal and systemic dynamics on stage. Drawing on methods from performance analysis and discourse analysis and buttressed by artistic and academic cooperations, the project investigates processes of theatrical translation (subproject 1), figurations of speech in decolonial theatre (subproject 2) and dramaturgies of linguistic impotence (subproject 3).
    Innovation: The project promises to develop a vocabulary and an analytical apparatus for describing the textual structures that mediate vocal participation, representation and the possibility of interventions, ex-ploring new ways of thinking about a politically oriented dramaturgy. The research results will be made publicly available in the form of publications (both in German and in English), lecture series and a succession of workshops.
    Primary researchers involved: Adam Czirak (principal investigator), Sara Ehrentraut (project member), Lukas Renner (project member), Rosemarie Brucher (collaboration partner), Miriam Ibrahim (collaboration partner), Nikolaus Müller-Schöll (collaboration partner).
    StatusActive
    Effective start/end date15/03/2214/03/25