teksten summaries

theatre and performance at a time of shifting disciplines (Marvin Carlson)

• universities = strict disciplines

• theatre studies tried to define clear boundries (for academic literature but issues with overlap in other departments)

• Europe = conservatories = theory & history, USA = theatre departments = practice & theory

• theatre studies avoided textual analysis = focus on production to not overlap with English department.

• late 20th century = challenge rigid boundries

• emmerging performance studies → very broad (theatre, sports, rituals, ceremonies,…) = helps expand theatre studies too

• Author claims : theatre studies always been interdisciplinary (text, body, space, history, culture)

• problem = university’s need for clear categories, not theatre

Prospective dreams of a field to come (Luk Van den Dries)

• theatre studies = young academic field in flanders

• for a long time not supported but existed outside academia in critics, writers, teachers,… (main focus = flemish theatre theory, new movements, political theatre)

• 60-70’s = pushing academic recognition

• 70-80’s entered universities as single courses and minors but no full degree programs

• 90’s = theatre studies cricis because death scholars, funding cuts = threat of extinction

  • universities collaborate

  • 2000s = Bologna reforms = made bachelor and master possible = more stable but dependent on number of students

• future unscertain but shaped by adaptation and flexibility

over theatraliteit (Bart Verschaffel)

• theatrality = often undrstood as fake, (modern bourgeois culture)

• Aristotle = tragedy = performed and not dependent on opsis = more about meaning, understanding

• bourgeois theatre culture : stage & audience seperation, audience enters fictional world

  • this means : theatrical = fictional = fake

• = MISTAKE (theatrality dies not create fiction but transforms time and space)

• Medieval performances = no fixed viewpoint= not theatrical according to author.

• theatre making means = deciding where something should be seen, perfectly organizing the world

  • COURT THEATRE = king’s gaze = central , audience watched performance and king watching

    • life at court in itself theatrical : identity = position, everything = public

    • being theatrical = controlling appearance , playing double game ; truth lies beneath appearances

  • = theatre creates fiction

  • theatre = heightened, solemn reality

  • it is a way of making the world visible, ordered & meaningful

Maaksels vs baksels (Birgit Cleppe)

traditional theater archtecture

• controls how people move, fixed route, central stage = theatrical illusion &shared viewing experience

• contemporary theatre = challenges this

• Ruud Gielens:

  • building = a tool, part of artwork

  • unconventional routes, reverse stage & audience

• Heine Avdal:

  • fixed seating removed = constantly adjust position

  • chairs = theatrical objects

  • challenges traditional seating (which makes audience passive & focused)

• Mette Edvardsen:

  • mixes live action and recorded video images (which to trust?)

  • everyday actions = theatrical through slow pacing

• Crew’s performance of crash

  • individual through VR, control of gaze = to the extreme, intense immersion

  • echoes back to olded theatre models on single ideal viewpoint

• Architecture = controls gaze quitly, contemporary = creatively

over rituelen (Decreus)

• rituals = fundamental human practices

  • help deal with uncertainty, transition; give structure, meaning through repeated actions

• influenced theatre:

  • out of communal rituals

  • rely on repetition, symbolism & shared attention

• ritual = affect change , theater = represent change

  • allows seperation = reflection, renewal, transformation

• modern society: decline rituals

  • sense of emptiness, disconnection

  • contemporary theater = tries to reconnect with ritual

    • less story, more experience, audience invited to participate

• Value ritual today: can restore sense of connection, reconnect art with lived experience rather than spectacle

Het lichaam als inzet (Kurt Van Houtte)

• contemporary theater = body no longer tool but stake

  • traditional theater = represents character, serves text, role or meaning

  • contemporary theater = body is the subject, site of meaning, sometimes problem of performance

• response on budy being shaped by media, technology, power = theater = body visible as body

• audience = always aware of real, present body

• body on stage is still constructed but: often at risk (physical, emotional, ethical)

• audience no longer distant = confronted with responsibility

  • dramatic theatre = vionence shown, pain simulated

  • body centered performance: question if pain is real, what it means to watch

• = blurs boundries: real/art , acting/ doing

• Vanhoutte warns: empty shock, body as spectacle

  • “lichaam als inzet = meaning emerges through what happens to the body, ‘what is at stake here and for whom?’

Performance art: experiencing liminality (Erika Fischer Lichte)

performance art 60-70’s = challenged audiences

• own body = material = inflicted pain, injury, real danger

• blurred boundry art & life

• between aesthetic distance (watching art) and ethical responsibility (intervening) = both feel wrong = crisis for audience

Marina Abramovic

• spectators = passive or intervene?

• in between state = liminality

  • allows transformation, instability, experimentation

  • unlike rituals = reversable & temporary (changes affect emotion & perception)

  • actions = not symbols but real acts

    • understanding happens afterwards (if ever)

  • body = living, changing organism , performance = event, not repeatable

  • re-enactment: liminality shifts = no longer ethical crisis

Landschaps theater in kaart (Wynants)

• ‘landscape’ to rethink theater

  • = refers to composition and structure (not setting or story)

• text as landscape

  • meaning from rhythm, repetition and relations

  • linear plot = rejected

• influences post-dramatic theater

  • text, image, sound, action = equal status

• Landscape = contrast traditional theater

  • allows multiple viewpoints (more like medieval mystery plays), events happen simultaneously

• text as map

  • words give orientation, rather than explanation

  • meaning through experience

• immersion landscape

  • dreamlike, contemplative (= slow perception, assiciative thinking)

• CREW’s virtual landscape

  • use of technology to emmerse, physical movement, text guides like path = tension control & freedom

• Theater = environment to move through rather than story to follow

Opera in performance: regietheater and the performative turn (Risi Clemens)

• traditional opera = musical work = fixed, central authority

  • judged by how faithfully followed

• conteporary opera = performance as event = meaning created live

  • something that happens, each performance is unique

• Regietheater = big key of cause

  • directors reinterpret well known operas

    • things may be radically changed, = familliar works are challenged

  • audience = active role = influence atmosphere

• score = only 1 element among many

• physical effort = clearly visible, singers seen as both characters and real people = exhaustion, risk intensifies engagement

opera becomes a performative art rather than a fixed artwork

Opera (Eric De Kuyper)

Baroque opera = strong influence theatre

• architecture, scenography, stage machinery

opera : very productive until 19th century

• opera houses, constantly composed and staged, speed & quantity were key

• grand opera = peak of opera = everything large-scale (historical, scenery, mass scenes, ballet, new technology) , political & social themes

  • came along with rise of bourgeoisie & romanticism

• 20th century = crisis

  • few new works, repetitive, lagged behind in modern theater and art

• missed opportunities for renewal

  • innovations, attempts of modernization = ignored/ influencial but short-lived

• turning point: after WW2

  • opera seen as musical theater rather than vocal display

  • opera = increasingly museum-like

• fixed canon of old works, forgotten poeras redescovered

• PARADOX: art form of the past yet survives through reinterpretation/ reinvention

Contemporary opera: strong concepts, reduces star singers, need to act convincingly aside from sing

Geëmancipeerde toeschouwer (Rancière)

traditional thinking = spectator problem

• watching = passive

• spectator seperated from truth and real action

reforms want to fix spectator

• dissolve distance (Artaud)

• make them critical observers (Brecht)

PARADOX spectator = theater cannot exist without spectator but they are blamed

• ‘teacher knows and student does not’ = permanent gap

• Emancipation ≠ removing distance (that is a normal condition)

spectator = already active : observing, comparing, interpeting, connecting (to memories, knowledge, experience) = make own meaning

• 1 space ≠ same experience

performance = third thing = stands between artist and spectator

true emancipation = recognizing equality

• share interpretations

• art = opens spaces for new connections, not predefined outcomes

Where is the critic? (Thijs Lijster)

widespread belief critic = disappearing

• still exist but lost visiblity, impact

• often ignored, skimmed or disconnected from wider debate

critics traditionally powerful

• judged in name of history or culture

3 explanations

1. collapse public sphere = tekort publieke ruimte / sfeer waar mensen samen komen om ideeën uit te wisselen

2. issue due to artist and critic themselves = art increasingly autonomous, (sublieme : waarheid, schoonheid, goedheid = nu niet allen meer nodig = distance society)
   first: critic on side of public, now on side of artist = disconnect

3. split criticism → academic criticism = complex, tehretical, inaccessible VS journalistic criticism = market-driven, superficial
   === neither side for broad public

• critic still possible role today

  • rebuilding criticism as shared, communicative practice

Filoktetes ontmoet de medical of health humanities. reflecties op literatuur als zorg (Zoë Ghyselinck en Kristoffel Demoen)

literature functioning as care (in context of illess and vulnerability)

• filoktetes = example suffering, social isolation

  • situation mirrors many ill peoples’ experience today

reading project

• patients, caregivers, artists, academics,…

• use as shared space, slow reading aloud

• literature becomes shared object that connects people

• authors connect medical logic with medical/ health humanities

• during project = hierarchies = blurred = no strict division

Literature and theatre do not cure illness but create shared space of attention

Care begins with listening, staying with discomfort and accepting what cannot be fully explained