Theatrical Epistemic Communities

21.06.2018: Christopher Balme talked on „Theatrical Epistemic Communities“ at the conference „Dynamics of Interweaving Performance Cultures International Conference“ in Berlin.

The conference rook place at Akademie der Künste in Pariser Platz 4 from 21-24 June.

Here you can download the programme of the conference.

New Article by Gautam Chakrabarti

This paper seeks to explore certain prescriptive theorisations of the Nāṭyaśāstra and link them, in a comparative vein, with the often radical directorial approaches and experiments in post-WW2 European dramaturgical practice, especially as seen in the work of the eminent French metteur en scène, Ariane Mnouchkine (1939–), who founded the avant-garde stage ensemble Théâtre du Soleil in 1964, in Paris.

Mnouchkine’s L’Indiade ou L’Inde de leurs Rêves (1987–1988), based on the learning experiences which Hélène Cixous – who wrote the play for and with her – and she had had in India during their stay and travels there, was an almost ground-breaking exploration of Indic motifs and stagement-configurations. The play will be viewed here from the perspective of ‘total theatre’, as also envisaged in the Nāṭyaśāstra. Finally, this paper will also seek to engage with theatrical and ritual boundaries in Mnouchkine’s work by looking at the reception of Indic forms of ritual-theatre in L’Indiade.

KEYWORDS: Nāṭyaśāstra, Ariane Mnouchkine, L’Indiade, Hélène Cixous, total theatre, hybridity, Théâtre du Soleil, ritual-theatre, Partition of India.

Chakrabarti, Gautam. „‘The Empire Floats Back’: Ariane Mnouchkine, her L’Indiade and the Nāṭyaśāstra.“ Cracow Indological Studies [italics], Vol. XX, No. 1 (2018), pp. 31–68.

Lecture by Judith Rottenberg

„Un art nouveau pour une nation nouvelle“. Nation building und globale Zirkulation in der Kunst des unabhängigen Senegal

15.05.2019: Judith Rottenberggave a lecture on „„Un art nouveau pour une nation nouvelle“. Nation building und globale Zirkulation in der Kunst des unabhängigen Senegal“ at the university of Basel.

International Conference „Philanthropy, Development, and the Arts“, Munich, Germany 23-25 July, 2018

23.07.2018 – 25.07.2018:

International Conference, Philanthropy, Development, and the Arts. Histories and Theories, 23-25 July, 2018.
Carl Friedrich von Siemens-Stiftung, Munich

Philanthropic foundations and more broadly non-governmental organizations (NGOS) “step in when the state steps back”. Since the early 20th century the Rockefeller Foundation (founded in 1913) has invested hugely not only in medicine, local educational establishments or the sciences, but (since the 1930s) also in the arts and humanities, in numerous countries. The Ford Foundation, founded in 1936, still plays an important role in the promotion and sponsoring of the arts and cultural institutions in different parts of the world, as does the MacArthur foundation (est. 1970), to name but a few of the ‘global philanthropic players‘.
Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries researchers, scientists, representatives of the arts, organisations or projects have been subsidized by private as much as by public money. Philanthropic and NGO initiatives played an eminent part in cultural sponsoring in the aftermath of World War II, especially in the so-called emerging countries, where government aid was rare or even non-existent. They contributed to “development”, a core goal of the post-war period and the subject of intense critical interrogation in recent years.

Are philanthropic foundations therefore supporters of “global civil society organizations” trying to “humanize globalization”, (Anheier 2005) or are they driven by political power silently infiltrating the projects, individuals and institutions they support? “It is difficult to believe that philanthropy – literally, “love of all mankind”– could possibly be malignant” notes Inderjeet Parmar, thereby implying the opposite: philanthropy can be a cover for highly political and instrumental agendas (Parmar 2012).
At our conference, Philanthropy, Development and the Arts: Histories and Theories, we interrogated the impact of philanthropy on the field of arts – visual arts, theatre, music, dance, opera, drama education, etc. – between the 19th and 21st centuries. Based on case studies of different geographic regions and from different disciplinary perspectives, the speakers discussed the work, impact, successes and failures of private and corporate philanthropy and NGOs, including semi-statist organizations such as the Goethe Institute, or the British Council, from the perspectives of history, cultural history, political sciences, art and theatre history.

The conference was organized by PD Dr Nic Leonhardt. It was funded by ERC and Carl Friedrich von Siemens-Stiftung.

The final programme can be accessed here.

Gautam Chakrabarti has written a report on the conference days.

Downloads

The ITI and the globalization of theatre in the Cold War

10.07.2018: Rebecca Sturm gave a Talk about „The ITI and the globalization of theatre in the Cold War“.

From 9 to 13 July 2018 annual conference of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) took place in Belgrade, Serbia. The conference theme is highly topical: Theatre and Migration. Theatre, Nation and Identity: Between Migration and Stasis. The programme can be downloaded here or from the conference website.

Rebecca Sturm gave a talk about „The ITI and the globalization of theatre in the Cold War“ on as part of panel „Economies of Theatre and Performance“. The panel takes place on Tuesday, July 10, 11:00-12:30, in room 214 of Faculty of Philosophy.

Between ‚East‘ and ‚West‘: Indian Theatre Artists and the Cold War. ERC Workshop at IIC, New Delhi, 29-30 Sept 2017

ERC Workshop at IIC, New Delhi, 29-30 Sept 2017
29.09.2017 – 30.09.2017
Indian Theatre Artists and the Cold War.

The first workshop of the ERC project Developing Theatre took place in New Delhi. Organized by Gautam Chakrabarti, PostDoc of the research group, this workshop brings together theatre, art and media scholars and practitioners from India and Europe at the beautiful India International Centre, New Delhi (29-30 September, 2017).
The workshop is internal.

Here you can find an interview with K. V. Akshara on theme of the Workshop.

The workshop is internal. The programme can be downloaded below.

Downloads

final-programme

Lecture by Sharon Lehner (TWM Forschungskolloquium)

Emerging Performance Archives

13.06.2018: As Part of the TWM Forschungskolloquiums

Time: Wendsday, 13. Juni 2018, 12:15 – 14:00 (s.t.)
at the „Institut für Theaterwissenschaft“ Georgenstraße 11, Raum 109

Performance is an ephemeral, impermanent experience. It is also typically collaborative, formed from a web of people, their relationships and ideas. Collecting and describing performance is fundamentally different from describing a physical object. That static repository model– archives as dusty, 19th century curio cabinet–has been replaced by a more contemporary living archive. A recent Google search for „Living Archive“ brought up many thousands of hits. The term, appropriated by numerous disciplines, describes everything from open data projects in computer science programs to Asian Art Museums. While the use of the term Living Archive is applied differently across these projects, all seem to crave live-ness and who understands this better than those who create performance? Performance archives mirror the collaborative process they describe, creating webs of knowledge that can be connected back to the original event. Archiving performance is also practical, working with a dizzying array of media to collect, organize, describe, preserve, and make available objects related to performances, history, and people. We work with creators, performers, designers, photographers, videographers, subject area specialists, and numerous others. The process is open and creative, with discussion about how best to document and share work. Performing artists already understand the limits of representation and the power of embodied experience. In performance archives we attempt to reflect the complexity.

Sharon Lehner has directed the BAM Hamm Archives in Brooklyn, New York since 1999. She holds degrees in Performance Studies and also in Historical Editing and Archival Management from New York University and has presented at conferences and published in both disciplines. She has served as a consultant to performance archives and acted as advisor to the Pina Bausch Archives from 2009-2017. Recent projects include the launch of The Leon Levy BAM Digital Archive, an encyclopedic resource documenting the history of BAM, In Terms of Performance at BAM, Co-produced by BAM, the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, and UC Berkeley, an interactive installation exploring the terms that describe contemporary art and performance. Most recent publications include How to Create an Archive? Inheriting Dance: An Invitation from Pina ([transcript] Press, Verlag 2014) Forthcoming, BAM: The Next Wave Festival edited by Susan Yung and Steven Serafin and interview in the Routledge Companion to Digital Humanities in Theatre and Performance edited by Dr. Nic Leonhardt.

“InstArchive” – Vortrag zum Archivieren von Tanz im Rahmen des Symposiums “Housing the Temporary”

16.06.2018: Nic Leonhardt talked on „archiving of dance“ at symposium „Housing the Temporary. Zugänge zur eigenen Geschichte“

On Saturday 16.06.2018 at 10:15 Nic Leonhardt has talked about : InstArchive. Momente des Tanzes für die Tanzgeschichte
von morgen. Analoge und digitale Spuren. The event taks place at schwere reiter | Dachauer Str. 114.

For more information please visit the following link:

https://nicleonhardt.wordpress.com/2018/06/11/instarchive-vortrag-zum-archivieren-von-tanz-im-rahmen-des-symposiums-housing-the-temporary-14-16-juni-2018/

Lecture by Dr. Des. Rashna Darius Nicholson (TWM Forschungskolloquium)

The Impact of Foreign Funding on Theatre

06.06.2018: As part of the TWM Forschungskolloquiums

Time: Mittwoch, 06. Juni 2018, 12:15 – 14:00 Uhr (s.t.)
At the „Institut für Theaterwissenschaft“ Georgenstraße 11, Raum 109

This presentation offers an outline of the impact of foreign funding on theatre with additional examples from the visual arts and music in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Since the 1980s, international aid has had a significant influence on the expansion of the Palestinian cultural sector. By deploying arts as tools for development through projects based on social inclusion, democracy building, gender equality and youth activities, international donor agencies propelled the ‘NGOization’ of Palestinian culture. By tracing this development through the differential influence of three organizations: SIDA (the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency), NORAD (the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation) and the European Union, the paper delineates the impact of overseas aid on the economic stability and social acceptance of the Palestinian cultural sector as a whole.

Rashna Darius Nicholson is a former postdoctoral fellow at the ERC-Project „Developing Theatre“, LMU Munich. She has recently published in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Theatre Research International and Ethnic and Racial Studies. Her interests include early modern and modern Asian and Middle Eastern performative traditions, world literature, fascism, religious reformations and the globalization of opera.

Talk by Nic Leonhardt on Grants in Aid for Theatre

24.07.2018: Nic Leonhardt gave a talk about „Grants in Aid for Theatre in the 1950s: Severino Montano’s Initiatives at the

Philippine Normal College, Manila“ as part of the panel „Grants in Aid for Theatre in Asia“ at the conference „Philanthropy, Development and the Arts: Histories and Theories“.

Lecture by Rashna Darius Nicholson on the (Im)Possibilities of a Free Theatre

25.07.2018: Rashna Darius Nicholson gave a talk about „On the (Im)Possibilities of a Free Theatre“ as part of the panel „Development Matters“ at the conference „Philanthropy, Development and the Arts: Histories and Theories„.

Talk by Viviana Iacob about: Scenes of Cold War Diplomacy: Romania and the International Theatre Institute

25.10.2017: Viviana Iacob will talk about „Scenes of Cold War Diplomacy: Romania and the International Theatre Institute, 1956-1969“

She maps Romania’s involvement with the International Theatre Institute during its first decade of membership. The argument revolves around a number of East –West convergence high points such as the 1959 Helsinki Congress or the 1964 Bucharest Symposium. It analyzes the connections developed by Romanian theatre specialists within the framework provided by I.T.I., the specialized networks they helped create and the domestic impact of these interactions. The article examines the multifaceted Romanian involvement with these projects in national and international context. It begins in 1956, Romania’s first participation at the Dramatic Art Festival in Paris, the forerunner of I.T.I.’s Theatre of Nations Festival. It closes the arc of the story with the 1969 international symposium on training young theatre directors. The article shows that soon after joining I.T.I. ranks, Romanian theatre artist were propelled into the international limelight and were recognized by their Western peers as their equals. It advances the idea that East European theatre practitioners had a role in shaping their respective community of knowledge as much as their Western counterparts did.