Contemporary theatre music as cultural practice

• Applicant: Professor Dr. David Roesner
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies ; Musicology
• Term: from 2017 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 390568112

In this project, contemporary theatre-music within German-language theatres will be analyzed as a cultural technique with particular focus on its significant impact on the development of new dramaturgies. On the one hand, sounds, noises and music play a more flexible and equal role amongst other elements of theatre in the rehearsal process, due to the digitalisation of production, and have thus emancipated from their primarily supportive role. On the other hand, acts of music-making on the stage and the musician as a performer or character have become formative elements of a new aesthetic of theatrical performance. The main aim of the project is to analyze the complex interplay between these forms of scenic music and the development of new dramaturgies and performance aesthetics. Two main research questions are at the centre:1) What impact do the significant transformations in music production in the digital age have on the relationship of theatre music and dramaturgy?2) What new forms of performance are being developed by the integration of music-making onto the theatrical stage?While these seem to be two different if not contrary developments at first sight, both tendencies - digitalisation and scenic integration - are in actuality often interwoven and mutually influential. They should this be studied in conjunction. Particular attention will therefore be given to: a) increasing integration of analogue and digital modes of theatre-music production; b) the interrogation of traditional divisions of labour with regard to directing and composing, both in conceptual and personal respect; c) the amalgamation of modes of performance between acting and "musicking" (Chr. Small).Subordinate aims of the project, as a consequence of the above questions, are: 3) to investigate the dramaturgy of theatre music both as processes and product: both the development of dramaturgical structures and principles during phases of conceptualising, staging and rehearsing are of interest, and the result, in the sense of how dramaturgy manifests itself in the given production.4) the development and reflection of methods of describing, documenting and analysing, which are suitable to investigate the above mentioned interplays of music and performance in theatre. The subject of this investigation requires a dialogue of methods from an interdisciplinary cross-section of theatre studies, musicology, ethnography, empirical sociology and phenomenology, which will be developed and evaluated..To conduct this research succcessfully, we apply for one doctoral student (66%) and an administrative assistant (25%), travel costs for visiting performances and conducting interviews, as well as funding to facilitate two workshops and a conference. Together, this will enable us to approach the subject from complementary perspectives and in a close collaboration with the practitioners themselves.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants