Projects

Theatrical Epistemic Communities: Theory and History.

Christopher Balme’s subproject has the twin aim of 1) elaborating theoretically the concept of a theatrical epistemic community and 2) tracing historically its consolidation and differentiation in the pre- und post-WWII period.

The task here is to consider how the concept as used in relation to scientific and technical communities can be adapted to the theatrical field. The theoretical considerations will lead into a historicization of the concept. It proceeds from the thesis that the international, multi-sited movement known as theatrical modernism – the idea that theatre is an art form and hence of high cultural value – provides the ideological basis of the community, albeit by no means in an organized form.

Its ‘prehistory’, to give only two examples, may be located in internationally distributed theatrical periodicals such as The Mask (edited by Edward Gordon Craig) or in the international theatre expositions of the 1920s (Vienna, Paris, New York) where common artistic values were displayed and discussed. They may also be found in new international organizations such as the Société Universelle du Théâtre founded in 1926, or in the amateur realm, La Comité International pour les Théâtres Populaires and the British Drama League which had by 1950 branches in dozens of English-speaking countries.

Permanent institutional form emerges in 1947 with the founding of the International Theatre Institute (ITI) (see topic area C), the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC) in 1956, and the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) in 1957, all of which initially had close ties through affiliation with UNESCO. An important feature of these organizations is that they emphatically sought to bridge the East-West divide. In the postcolonial context the epistemic community appears to split into artistic and developmental camps (Theatre for Development, TfD), with the latter eventually monopolizing most NGO and government funding. The reasons for and ‘critical junctures’ surrounding this split will be integrated into a wider narrative.

Philanthropy and Theatrical Development

In the 1950s and 1960s private American philanthropic organisations, especially the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, expended considerable sums of money and provided expertise and advice to developing countries in the area of theatre. In this period high culture, especially theatre, was on the agenda of international development thinking. The Rockefeller Foundation alone was involved in funding theatrical activity in sixteen ‘developing’ countries and provided assistance ranging from study trips for individuals to large scale institutional funding. On the basis of the archival holdings of Rockefeller Foundation and other primary source material, this project, undertaken by senior researcher Nic Leonhardt, investigates how support of professional theatrical activity was organised via theatre artists, scholars, media representatives and government bodies. The geographical focus of the project is Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines and Indonesia in the 1950s and 1960s. The project explores the networks of the Rockefeller Foundation in these regions and their strategies and initiatives of „developing theatre“ by funding individual artists and cultural institutions.

Theatrical Heterotopias in Conflict Zones

Rashna Nicholson’s sub-project traces the impact of foreign funding on theatre with additional examples from the visual arts and music in the Occupied Palestinian Territories from 1983 to the present day.

This project traces the impact of non-governmental and governmental funding on theatre with additional examples from the visual arts and music in the Occupied Palestinian Territories from 1983 to the present day. Foreign aid to both the Palestinian Authority through the Ministry of Culture as well as non- governmental organizations has played a key role in determining the ways in which the Palestinian cultural sector has developed over the last two decades. However, this transformation has not been viewed by local actors as an unmixed good. By using the arts as a means of promoting development, international donor agencies contributed towards the ‘NGOization’ of the Palestinian cultural sector. In the aftermath of the Oslo agreement, the sudden and large influx of foreign funding lead both to the proliferation of minor organizations working with smaller budgets and staff as well as to the transformation of fine arts companies into NGOs executing short-term programs based on social inclusion, democracy building, gender equality and youth activities. By tracing this development, this project delineates how the inflow of international aid has come at the expense of not only sustainable strategies that promote the arts for the sake of the arts but also the economic stability and social acceptance of the sector as a whole.

Theatre Artists from Postcolonial India in the Eastern Bloc, 1950-80

Gautam Chakrabarti’s sub-project aims to (1) focus on various Cold-War-era policies and institutions, mainly in the USSR and the GDR, seeking to train and influence budding theatre artists from postcolonial India; and (2) identify and investigate archives and other repositories of theatrical epistemic knowledge in India, in the 1950’s and 1980’s.

Within the wider field of postcolonial theatre the influence of Eastern bloc countries remains remarkably under-researched. This is surprizing given the extent of Soviet political, economic and cultural involvement in Asia and the Middle East in the 1950s and 1960s. Although India for example remained resolutely ‘non- aligned’, there is no doubt that Soviet and Eastern European engagement in cultural and theatrical activities in India was considerable. It included assistance in building acting training programmes as well as providing advice in the newest techniques of Brechtian directing and dramaturgy.

Projects to ‘develop’ theatrical institutions in a Cold-War context were vigorously promoted on several levels. Little is known about such cultural policy initiatives, although ‘theatre’ in both countries was a major field of expertise: The Soviet Union provided competence in actor-training, while the GDR provided Brechtian expertise through members of the Berliner Ensemble or directors such as Fritz Bennewitz who went abroad as ‘Brecht experts’. Each sought to draw into its orbit nations of the postcolonial world, themselves anxious to develop so as to overcome the legacies of colonialism and enhance national autonomy and power.

The aim of this project will be to study how training in acting and directing was conceptualized and delivered in the postcolonial world. On the one hand by actually creating acting schools and academies, on the other by sending budding performers for training in metropolitan ‘centres of excellence’. The case study will be India which cultivated close ties with the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries as well as maintaining its traditional cultural and linguistic connections with Britain and USA. A dual focus is envisaged: on the one hand on the National Drama School founded in the late 1950s, which remains a prestigious cultural institution. On the other hand, on selected theatre artists who were sent to Eastern Europe to train, in particular to Ernst Busch Academy in East Berlin and the Moscow State Institute of Theatrical Arts. Both institutions hosted a large number of talented young artists from all over the postcolonial world.

Festival Networks and Pan-African Performance Culture

Global historical happenings such as the Slave Trade, Colonization, World War II and the integration of oppositional voices or movements against them are widely assumed to have had a profound influence or impact on the socio-political, economic, and cultural landscape of Postcolonial Africa; spawning, as it were, ideational gentrifications that could, arguably, be said to have spurred the emergence, development and diversity of performance culture across the continent. Notably, the philosophy and activism of movements like the slave trade abolitionist group, negritude, nationalist political organizations, liberation movements as well as arts and cultural troupes / groups sponsored or funded nationally and from the diaspora seems to have created a network of collaborations with the goal of forging a renaissance in African identity as expressed / exhibited through various international cultural and arts festivals held in Africa from the 1960s on.

Judiths Rottenburg’s and Gideon Morison’s sub-projects investigate arts festivals that took place on the African continent in the 1960s and 1970s – the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar (1966), the Pan-African Cultural Festival in Algiers (1969), the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture in Lagos (1977), as well as the Pan-African Historical Theatre Project, a festival held in Ghana every two years since 1992. They aim to lay open ways in which the cosmopolitan theatrical organizational field, the corresponding epistemic community and the modes of funding – public funds, philanthropy and private donors – shape the artistic work. They ask about the relationship between the event character of those festivals and long-term institutional developments of the performing arts.

Judith Rottenburg’s project focuses on the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar in 1966 and the Pan-African Cultural Festival in Algiers in 1969. By bridging the Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone divide inherited from colonialism as well as the two-block system of the cold war, these non-aligned and cosmopolitan festivals provide unique international showcases for the arts on the African continent and beyond. The festivals are examined as nodes in an emerging Pan-African and diasporic network of an expanding theatrical epistemic community. This network involves both official cultural diplomacy and oppositional investments by artists, writers, stage directors, and choreographers from the African continent and its diaspora in the USA, the Caribbean and Brazil. An analysis of the multi-faceted organizational field and its funding mechanisms provides insights into post-independence and postcolonial theatre-making during the cultural cold war.

Under the project sub-theme entitled „Festival Networks and Pan-African Post-Colonial Performance Culture“, Gideon Morison shall examine the Second World Black Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) which was held between January 15th and February 12th 1977 in Lagos, Nigeria. Whilst drawing theoretical foundations from multivariate ideologies including Pan-Africanism, Postcolonialism, Actor-Network Theory and utilizing the historical/archival research methods as well as the Gephi network analysis instrument, the research shall contextually examine how the network of experts, donors, actors and soft or subtle ‚techno-political‘ power influenced the conception, organisation and dissemination of FESTAC ’77. Beyond this, the study shall assess the controversies and contested legacies of the event by tracking the viability of its contributions toward the renaissance of black/African culture as well as the potential linkages (or lack thereof) existing between FESTAC ’77 and festivals like the Pan-African Historical Theatre Festival (PANAFEST) held in Ghana biannually since 1992.

Theatre Experts for the Third World: ITI and the globalization of theatre

Rebecca Sturm’s sub-project examines how the International Theatre Institute coordinated ‘international exchange of knowledge and practice in theatre arts’ and support for ‘third world’ theatre in the Cold War era.

The International Theatre Institute (ITI) was founded in 1948 under the UNESCO umbrella to “promote international exchange of knowledge and practice in theatre arts.” It was thereby part of a larger trend for epistemic communities in the post-war period, when a strong need was felt for international understanding that would help to achieve and maintain world peace. By providing platforms of communication, the UNESCO and affiliated organisations played a significant role in the creation of international expert networks of artists and scientists.
While most of the founding member states of ITI were European, more and more countries from Asia, Africa and the Americas joined in the first decade of its existence. The ITI began to put great effort into supporting “third world” theatre, by holding international theatre festivals and a series of colloquia, by promoting individual artists and by establishing its own Committee for Third World Theatre. All these efforts were supposedly non-political, but in many ways mirrored the methods used in the cultural Cold War. With member states on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and the national centres of ITI being dependent on state funding, attempts to use the ITI as a tool of culture-political influence were inevitable.
The project examines how the ITI managed to coordinate the exchange of theatrical expertise amidst these Cold War tensions. It focusses on the two Germanies, that both became member states in the 1950s and are exemplary of this conflict. The FRD and GDR centres closely monitored each other’s ITI activities and regularly tried to oppose them in accordance with their countries’ official foreign policies and bloc allegiance. They also competed for influence among the non-aligned members through institutions like the Committee for Third World Theatre to promote their respective version of German culture exclusively. Despite the idealistic intentions that lead to ITI’s foundation, these international relations were clearly subordinated to national political interests.

Theatre for development: Historiographical and institutional perspectives

Karim Hakib’s sub-project focuses on historicizing the Theatre for Development (TfD) phenomenon. It will examine the histories, networks and theories that undergirds the genre. Key among its aim is to investigate the epistemic networks, philanthropy and the development agenda that propelled its institutionalization within and outside higher education institutions globally and particularly Africa.

The latter part of the 20th century saw a remarkable awakening in the theatre scene in Africa. This can be attributed to the struggle for both content and form of theatre in the post-independence era. A lot of experiments within and outside the academia led to a constellation of theatrical practices that is unique to Africa but also universal. Theatre for Development (TfD) arguably is one of such innovations. This research is an attempt at delineating the historical and theoretical perspective of the TfD concept.
It will focus on historicizing Theatre for Development (TfD) by exploring networks and institutional perspectives to the emergence of the genre and its varied manifestations. Key issues to be investigated include the process and activities of the transnational epistemic networks that led to the institutionalization of TfD in higher education institutions globally.
It will further examine the role of philanthropy and the global development agenda that propelled its institutionalization in the global south. This will be looked at within the context of the shifting patterns of funding from mainstream theatrical set up to the development agenda rooted with the context and philosophy of Theatre for Development.