Theatrical Means Research Articles

Racial literacy and performative pedagogies in the German theater practicum

AbstractThis article explores the potential and pitfalls of performative pedagogies for teaching literature that thematizes issues of race and racism and argues that racial literacy requires a rethinking of drama‐pedagogical practice. An initial segment situates pedagogical discussions of race in North American German curricula within research on racial literacy and then considers the ethical limitations of the usual approaches from drama pedagogy (role‐play and identification exercises) when addressing literature about or from minoritized communities. The second half of the article outlines a case study of a performance‐oriented teaching unit in a German theater practicum course for German at the B2 level, which combined work on performing and staging poetry with a discussion of the Enlightenment's entanglement with white supremacy and scientific racism. Centering on Black German poet Philipp Khabo Köpsell's poem “The Brainage,” the unit raised the question of performative ethics, namely, how and whether the class, consisting of 11 white students and a white instructor, could ethically perform the poem in a live performance at the end of the semester. The article analyzes examples from student learning and the final live performance and makes the argument for performing the process of students’ encounter with literary form using theatrical means.

From sacred ritual to theatrical protest: interdisciplinary spectrum of theater studies in Indonesia

This paper approaches the spectrum of theater studies in Indonesia in an interdisciplinary manner, encompassing both descriptive and normative perspectives. From a descriptive standpoint, the spectrum is shaped by various ways of attributing meaning to theater as an entity. In a normative approach, various disciplines offer perspectives that contribute to creating a spectrum of meaning for theater in relation to the life of Indonesian society. Through a literature review, the research identifies at least three approaches to constructing theater studies in Indonesia: synchronic, diachronic and, combined. These three approaches are drawn from disciplines outside of theater, such as historical, anthropological, and sociological studies. Based on this perspectives, theater studies in Indonesia has moved from viewing theater in its meaning as a form of sacred ritual in the past to theater as symbolic capital today. These interdisciplinary perspective has an influence on the meaning of theater in theater studies itself as a discipline. Theater in Indonesia as a subject of study, therefore, is not only understood as an art that originates from dramatic works, but is more broadly understood as all forms of art that are centered on human action displayed in live performances, including sacred rituals, cultural performances, and theatrical protests.

Personal Perspective through Digital Art in Contemporary Theatre and Performance

Using certain camera techniques and visual effects have been proven means of showing personal perspective in movies throughout the years. However, little research has been done with regard to such means of portraying a personal perspective in theatre. Therefore, we propose a theoretical study of the field, in order to outline previous work. Moreover, we will base our theoretical frame on three contemporary examples: (a) The encounter, directed by Simon McBurney, where the personal experience is shown through the use of aural effects and the audience closing and opening their eyes, creating a distancing or immersion effect; (b) Ubu Roy, directed by Declan Donnellan, where the personal perspective of the character is shown through a mix of digital and non-digital means, such as a first person camera and changing the movement-style of the actors; (c) The Loneliness of Stones, directed by Gelu Badea, in which the personal perspective is shown through projecting both abstract and non-abstract visual elements on stage, along with the use of a first-person camera. Through comparing these three productions which have very different aesthetics, we can better isolate the concrete instruments used by directors to change the perspective from an objective one to a subjective one in theatre. This procedure is harder in performance art than in film, due to the limitations of theatrical means. The conclusion of our presentation is that digital art is used in theatre to show the personal perspective of the characters, the cast and the directors. We argue that it is exactly because theatre has limited means of perspective-shift in comparison to film that theatre makers use technical and digital solutions for this specific staging need.

THE GENERATOR:: for Any Numberof Staged Readings

In the paper, the authors discuss the concept of staged readings, arguing that they are the predominant performance format for presentations of young playwriting. However, such presentations should not be understood as an intermediate stage between reading and performing but as a fully-fledged and independent artistic genre. Many staged readings thus lose the function of “first information” about the text and its author. Instead, they have become a proper way of performing a text, thus opening up a wider area for theatrical experimentation. Using concrete examples, the authors will reflect on practices characterised by the text becoming the main or even the only thing necessary for a theatrical event and reading (in all its possible ways and forms) becoming the key theatrical means.

THE GENERATOR:: for Any Numberof Staged Readings

In the paper, the authors discuss the concept of staged readings, arguing that they are the predominant performance format for presentations of young playwriting. However, such presentations should not be understood as an intermediate stage between reading and performing but as a fully-fledged and independent artistic genre. Many staged readings thus lose the function of “first information” about the text and its author. Instead, they have become a proper way of performing a text, thus opening up a wider area for theatrical experimentation. Using concrete examples, the authors will reflect on practices characterised by the text becoming the main or even the only thing necessary for a theatrical event and reading (in all its possible ways and forms) becoming the key theatrical means.

THE GENERATOR:: for Any Numberof Staged Readings

In the paper, the authors discuss the concept of staged readings, arguing that they are the predominant performance format for presentations of young playwriting. However, such presentations should not be understood as an intermediate stage between reading and performing but as a fully-fledged and independent artistic genre. Many staged readings thus lose the function of “first information” about the text and its author. Instead, they have become a proper way of performing a text, thus opening up a wider area for theatrical experimentation. Using concrete examples, the authors will reflect on practices characterised by the text becoming the main or even the only thing necessary for a theatrical event and reading (in all its possible ways and forms) becoming the key theatrical means.

But does snow have meaning?

"Today, people sometimes feel a sense of emptiness, of lack of content, of meaning, which can trigger existential problems. Boredom has become a pathological psychological cause, neuroses have a wider range, especially the noogenic ones, a new clinical form constituting the Sunday neurosis. Theatre diligently reflects everything that has sap, everything that hides some psychological hill, always being present in the song of the hungry soul, in its themes and time. This article proposes a return to essential questions - such as "What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of theatre? The falling snow. What does it mean?" - approached equally alongside psychiatrist Viktor Frankl and the critical exercise on the performance (and the way of working on) 3SIOSTRY after Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, proposed by Luk Perceval, a co-production between TR Warszawa and the National Stary Theatre in Krakow."

КОММУНИКАТИВНО-АКСИОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ ПОДХОД В РЕАЛИЗАЦИИ МУЗЫКАЛЬНО-ТЕАТРАЛЬНОГО ТВОРЧЕСТВА

The object of research — musical theatricalization, acting as a genre class, which has stable and mobile genre features (the axial are musical and theatrical beginning, the synthesis of which may appear in different forms, changing the ratio of musical and theatrical means of expression); subject — communicative-axiological aspects of the implementation of musical and theatrical creativity; purpose — development of communicative-axiological approach to the study of musical theatricalization. Methodological approaches used in the study: conceptual, systematic, integrated. Scientific novelty is due to the introduction of an original methodology, allowing a new approach to the study of the phenomena of musical theatricalization, both past and present. Communicative-axiological approach is based on the conjugation of the concepts of communicative and axiological approaches in the same research field. The totality of research methods leads to the study of certain communicative situations in which, as a result of the interaction of communicants in the aesthetic and socio-cultural space there is a transfer of information from one subject to another and the field of different values, due to social, professional and personal factors is formed. Communicative-axiological approach implies a comprehensive study of the phenomena of creative activity, focused on identifying aesthetic and anthropological value. The approach unfolds within the receptive dialogic paradigm, according to which in the process of realization of musical theatricalization there is perception of the figurative plan of events of a specific situation and simultaneously processing and translation of the already updated content. In this way, «effective experience» is carried out and initially subjective meanings penetrate into intersubjective space, thereby determining the process of formation of the value orientations of the individual.

Musiikillistettua teatteria

Hitler and Blondi: A Musicalised, Postdramatic Theatre Performance 
 This article examines how music explores the central concepts of the postdramatic theatre work Hitler ja Blondi: kolmetoista laulua diktaattorille, saksanpaimenkoiralle ja pianolle (“Hitler and Blondi: Thirteen Songs for a Dictator, a German Shepherd and one Piano”), a co-production of the TTT-theatre in Tampere (premiered 19 Feb, 2020) and the Finnish National Theatre in Helsinki (fall season 2021). Due to COVID-19 restrictions several performances were postponed, and the commercial live recording was released for private use. Michael Baran’s non-linear script consists of both documentary and fictional texts throughout 13 scenes (called “songs”), a prologue and an epilogue. Some periods of the dictator’s life are narrated as monologues. Hitler’s role is especially written for a blond, elderly Finnish actress, Seela Sella, who is Jewish herself. The music is designed and composed by Juhani Nuorvala and Juhani Liimatainen with Kyösti Kallio as sound engineer. Since the cornerstones of the performance’s structure, aesthetics and theatrical means are transcoded from musical sign system, Hitler ja Blondi is approached as a musicalised theatre work. 
 The fundamental poetic idea of Hitler ja Blondi is the dialectic counterpoint between fascism and its opposing ideologies and aesthetics – represented musically through the opposed aesthetics of Richard Wagner and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Furthermore, the structure of the script resembles German Lied cycles, and the chained occurrences of Stockhausen’s Klavierstücke correspond to the recurrent refrain in rondo form. In general, the music and its large intertextual network is one of the performance’s central narrative means, and it opens up the potential for interpretation. Drawing from the recent theories and methodologies of music analysis and theatre studies, this article focuses on discussing 1) how popular songs and Stockhausen’s Klavierstücke extend the performance’s temporalities, thereby expressing the timelessness of fascism; 2) how the music presents Hannah Arendt’s view of the banality of evilness in Nuorvala’s Puolueohjelmalaulu (“The Song of Nazy Party’s Program”); and 3) how the author of this article experiences the dialectic counterpoint differently through life performance, and through the video recording.

A virus unites the world while national border closures divide it: Epidemiologic, legal, and political analysis on border closures during COVID-19.

This article critically examines the use of national border closures at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. After explaining why targeted border closures generally do not work and how they violated international law at the time, we examine the unprecedented case of total border closures. Positing that since the current instruments and institutions of global health governance did not anticipate this phenomenon, the legality of total border closures rests on less certain grounds. Then, after asking why nearly every government implemented some form of border closure in March 2020 if neither science nor law provided adequate motivation for their use, we conclude that in the face of a global health emergency, border closures represent an opportunity for political leaders to show determined action, redirect blame to other jurisdictions, and reinforce nationalism. We proceed to argue that both targeted and total border closures have profound legal, epidemiological, and political significance as performances that contradict global realities while undermining notions of global solidarity. Such political theatre means that citizens must weigh these consequences against any perceived benefits of border closures as they would any other politically driven government action, and contest and challenge them appropriately. Citizens must not unduly defer to scientists or lawyers on early COVID-19 border closures because these were primarily political—not scientific or legal—decisions. In this vein, we conclude with some guiding political considerations for scrutinizing government decisions to close borders and observations for the future of global health cooperation during infectious disease outbreaks.

Theatre That Speaks to Its Moment: Melt (2017) by Shane Mac an Bhaird

In Melt (2017), by Shane Mac an Bhaird, two Irish scientists struggle in the Antarctic to reach glory from their research while Veba, a female creature found in the subglacial lake, questions the reality or fantasy of the episode. The study carried out in this article considers, first, the context of creation of the play through the presentation of the concept of new Irish theatres in the millennium, which involves the appearance of companies and social activism movements that challenge the notion of what theatre means. This is followed by an analysis of Ireland and the Anthropocene, to contextualise the play themes and include other social justice activisms, in the form of cultural projects, which encourage the reduction of the environmental impact and provide a backdrop against which Melt emerged. The approach to the play from these perspectives will lead to the conclusions, which aim to show why Mac an Bhaird’s work offers and confirms new perspectives in contemporary Irish theatre. Furthermore, the study aims to contribute to the deserving scholarship for this play, which has not yet received much critical attention.

Contour in Time: The Plays of Eugene O'Neill

Contour in Time: The Plays of Eugene O'Neill

Musical Theatricalization in the aspect of value communication: on the issue of terminology

The object of study is musical theatricalization, which is considered from the perspective of value communication. The novelty of the research lies in the theoretical development and introduction into scientific circulation of the generalizing concept of musical theatricalization, which allows combining genre dominants of various aesthetic activities in its field. The concept of musical theatricalization is appropriate and helps to cover all the available variety of musical and theatrical material without being constrained by historical and specifically professional frameworks. Musical theatricalization is based on musical and theatrical creativity as a conscious synthetic (in art) or unconscious syncretic (in folklore) form of expression of a multidimensional human potential. Musical theatricalization includes various forms of musical and theatrical performances and musical and theatrical genres formed during their evolution. Musical theatricalization acts as a genre class in which there are stable and mobile genre features. The musical and theatrical beginnings become axial, which can manifest themselves in different forms, changing the ratio of musical and theatrical means of expression. There is a movement of the theatrical component: from the minimal manifestation of theatricality in a musical work (the inclusion of kinesthetic means of expression) to the stage production of an opera performance and even a mystery. The study of musical theatricalization is carried out from the position of functional relativity, which allows us to determine the degree of importance of the phenomenon of art for individual subjects who are in a communicative situation. The same work can have different degrees of value depending on the historical and communicative context and, accordingly, on the functions that a particular work acquires. The aesthetic and anthropological value of a piece of music is determined by the functional mood of the addressee at a certain moment. The discrepancy between the functional mood of the participants of the communicative act for various reasons leads to a loss of the quality of communication and, as a consequence, to discrepancies in the evaluation of the artwork, the emergence of functional asymmetry.

Seized: Performance Autoethnography in the UK Border Force National Museum

This article examines representations of border security within public museums, through the example of the UK Border Force National Museum. It begins by discussing the way that international borders are theatrically experienced, and the parallel characteristics of museum spaces. I then suggest the value of performance autoethnography when analysing such phenomena, which arises from the ability to creatively situate personal experience alongside institutional scripts of border control. The article then presents a performance autoethnography that illustrates my experiences within the Border Force Museum. This provides new insights into the theatrical framing of the museum and its effect on visitor interpretations. The article demonstrates that the Border Force Museum replicates the theatricality of border control sites, and thus supports the ordering of bodies into insiders and outsiders; however, creative methods for knowledge production might offer a means of challenging existing border taxonomies, especially when personal experience is circulated through theatrical means. Seized! L’auto-ethnographie de performance au Musée national des forces frontalières britanniques

Pelatihan Teater sebagai Alternatif Pendidikan Luar Sekolah pada Masa Pandemi Covid-19 di Rumah Belajar Bintang Kurenah, Kota Payakumbuh

Community Service with the title "Theatre Training as an Alternative for Out-of-school Education during the Covid-19 Pandemic at the Rumah Belajar Bintang Kurenah, Payakumbuh City" is a program that involved the Bintang Kurenah Learning House as a partner in the theatre training. This theatre training for children and youth especially. There were three forms of training: basic theatre training (body exercises, vocal and taste exercises), folk games, and learning fairy tales and folklore. The methods used in this theatre training were arranged in several stages, such as; (1) providing primary material related to theatre theory, (2) conducting basic training on theatre, and (3) presentation of training results. The primary material about theatre provided participants with knowledge about the meaning and benefits of theatre in the world of art. Meanwhile, the basic theatre training focuses on exploring body (gestures), vocal processing, and feeling (emotions). The result of this training was that participants, both personally and collectively, make a simple repertoire in the form of pantomimes, read poetry, monologue, which was performed in front of parents and citizens in general.

Pelatihan Teater sebagai Alternatif Pendidikan Luar Sekolah pada Masa Pandemi Covid-19 di Rumah Belajar Bintang Kurenah, Kota Payakumbuh

Community Service with the title "Theatre Training as an Alternative for Out-of-school Education during the Covid-19 Pandemic at the Rumah Belajar Bintang Kurenah, Payakumbuh City" is a program that involved the Bintang Kurenah Learning House as a partner in the theatre training. This theatre training for children and youth especially. There were three forms of training: basic theatre training (body exercises, vocal and taste exercises), folk games, and learning fairy tales and folklore. The methods used in this theatre training were arranged in several stages, such as; (1) providing primary material related to theatre theory, (2) conducting basic training on theatre, and (3) presentation of training results. The primary material about theatre provided participants with knowledge about the meaning and benefits of theatre in the world of art. Meanwhile, the basic theatre training focuses on exploring body (gestures), vocal processing, and feeling (emotions). The result of this training was that participants, both personally and collectively, make a simple repertoire in the form of pantomimes, read poetry, monologue, which was performed in front of parents and citizens in general.

PERAN SENI TEATER DALAM MENTRANSFER NILAI-NILAI AKHLAK PADA PEMBELAJARAN SEJARAH KEBUDAYAAN ISLAM

This paper examines the role of theater arts in transferring moral values in islamic cultural history learning. This paper aims to reveal the meaning and origin of theater as well as the moral values contained in learning the history of Islamic culture through theater. The research method uses literature review. The results of the research show that theater is a matter of mysticism, in my eyes there are many things that can be tried in theater, because the crisis experienced by the Indonesian state for me is a spiritual tension. At first the theater was only performed for ritual purposes only about thousands of years BC. From several ancient nations that experienced rapid cultural development such as Ancient Egypt, Maya in South America, Central Asia, Babylon, China and India, theater was used as a medium that could bring them in direct contact with the Almighty. Along with the development of the times, the Greeks changed the design pattern in developing theatrical performances, not only centered on rituals, but can also be presented as an entertainment spectacle.Theater can be a medium for forming Muslim personalities and can be done through learning the history of Islamic culture. With this method, this formation will be reflected in the moral personality of students, which includes noble moral values which include religious values, discipline, independence, responsibility, creativity, cooperation and care for the environment.

In theatre there is no “I cannot”, there is only self-limitation! - Alexander Hausvater Portrait

Abstract Risk stands at the beginning of creation – this is the first thing you learn by working with Hausvater, immediately followed by another one of his sayings: In theatre there is no I cannot, there is only self-limitation! Maybe exactly between these two „rules” the world named Alexander Hausvater flourishes, and these „rules” have enough strength and generosity to „contaminate” ourselves, the ones who stand beside him. The art that is proposed by the director Alexander Hausvater is of maximum emotional intensity, very bold and his stagings highlight what is happening here and now, in us, in the society, no matter if we reffer to either staging The Decameron or a contemporary script. His theatre performances are sharp, necessary, and especially, fulfill the meaning of theatre, in the way Hausvater sees it - to remove people out of their inertia and to transform them in “ a being that articulates” and that carries within itself the beauty and the decay of the whole world.

Su La città morta, Tragedia

Luigi Pirandello wrote in a review about d’Annunzio’s La città morta that “no one, today fortunately, speaks like the characters in this tragedy”. However, indirectly replying to him as to other detractors, d’Annunzio observed that those who criticised his work showed that they “did not understand what tragic art is”. In support of his poetics, d’Annunzio cited the Sophocles models of Agamennone and Antigone. But there is more. D’Annunzio founded a theatre of ‘high’ speech, which was counterpointed by the silences of the characters and an action that took place mainly in the ‘interiors’. This choice made it possible to propose a peculiar furnishing philosophy related to sepulchral aspects and an intense idea of death. Above all, it was the notion of time that was deeply traversed by d’Annunzio’s experience of the tragic, a sign that the discovery of the tombs of the Atrides – the central topic of the work – on the one hand cancelled the “errors of time“ suspended between a remote past and an inert present, but on the other hand it exhumed a world of terrible passions like incestuous drives. This was intended to be the profound meaning of the tragic theatre founded by d’Annunzio with La città morta.

What Does Virtual Actually/Really Mean?

This essay is intended as an overview, a summary of the usage of the English word virtual, its relationship with its apparent antonym real and, in conclusion, its meaning in the phrase virtual theatre. Such a vast topic lends itself with difficulty to treatment within the confines of an essay so an attempt has been made to exploit and/or create several fils rouges to aid the writing and reading of the article. The first one is the deliberate exploitation of the lexicographical scholarship of the Oxford English Dictionary, which forms, with its etymological and linguistic expertise, the backbone of the topic and includes the corroboration of the various quotations provided which document the history of each headword. Another leitmotif is the fundamental (and hopefully not redundant) assumption that the exemplification of the frequently ambiguous grammatical and semantic usage of the pair virtual/real is significant in the history of this usage in the philosophical discipline of ontology. And last but not least is the role the word virtual plays in the history of physics as well as metaphysics and the apparently symbiotic connection of ontology to the often equally enigmatic world of the behaviour of scientific phenomena. Keywords: virtual; real; usage; semantics; ontology; philosophy; theology; physics; theatre