Listening with My Eyes Wide Open: Researching Music Theater in Artistic Research Environments (original) (raw)
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Creating for the Stage and Other Spaces: Questioning Practices and Theories, 2021
The article focusses on the concept of music performativity in reference to works of three European composers and theatre directors: Georges Aperghis, Niels Rønsholdt and Wojtek Blecharz. All are representatives of ‘the new music theatre’ which can be defined by the negation of traditional opera and musical (Salzman, Desi, 2008). In opposition to the constant and unchanging hierarchy of devices presented in traditional opera, the new model of music performance is based on questioning established patterns and perpetual testing of new solutions in the field of shaping the relationship between music and other spheres of performance. The composing and staging strategies of Georges Aperghis, Niels Rønsholdt and Wojtek Blecharz consistently develop the concept of music performativity which evokes the idea of Fluxus „visual music” – music which is not only „to be heard” but also „to be seen”. Aperghis creates a type of automated theatre, where electronic devices cooperate with actors and their voices, creating a new model of „musical assemblage”. Niels Rønsholdt specialises in chamber operas and music installations in which viewers are meant to be active participants, not only observers. Theatrical projects of Wojtek Blecharz explore the relationship between body and sound in a wide and multi-level way, paying attention to the audience’s experience. The main purpose of the article is to show the process of sound autonomisation as well as to present various models of music performativity in contemporary European theatre. Simultaneously, the author intends to retrace the aesthetic influences, affinities and oppositions between these three examples of experimental music theatre.
Rivista di Analisi e Teoria Musicale, 2021
Winner of the Royal Musical Association (RMA) 2023 Practice Research Prize: If there is one trope that has become the lynchpin of the origin narratives of the young discipline of music performance studies, it is the idea that musical performance represents the "other" of the musical score. Many of the recent debates that effected a paradigm shift in music scholarship highlight the ontological and epistemological divergences between the score and musical performance, and also debunk the various myths and prejudices that have been woven around music performances and performers through the textualist paradigm, which essentialised and naturalised the musical score as the holder of "the music" and "the" source of disciplinary knowledge. Following the disciplinary "performative turn" during the twenty-first century, the effects of textualist habits of thought on scholarly discourses have been steadily on the wane. Nevertheless, the myth of a direct and immediate route between the score and performance - between the page and the stage - appears especially obstinate and continues to lurk around, particularly in the context of the analysis and performance literature. In this article, I discuss some of the complex embodied-affective processes that connect the page and the stage from a performer's perspective, through case studies involving my performance experiences of a Corrente by J. S. Bach, a keyboard sonata by Domenico Scarlatti, and an excerpt from Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini". In this article, I aim to open up and explore the meaning making processes, from a performer’s perspective, that unfold in the creative space between the page and the stage that textualist approaches eliminated through their disembodied, ahistorical, essentialising and naturalizing discourses, and show the thoroughly contingent nature of these processes. One of the most significant arguments that will emerge from my discussion is that between the page and the stage are a large number of factors, including the uniquely embodied senses, artistic sensibilities, experiences and expert practical knowledge of each performer, that together constitute her artistic intentions, in the absence of which there would be no artistic musical performance. My discussion proceeds by drawing together critical evaluation of relevant scholarly literature, analytical thought, phenomenological enquiry and, most significantly, artistic research: the latter mobilizes the artistic processes of performance making as research tools and opens up novel lines of enquiry motivated by a performer’s expert knowledge about, as well as situated experiences of, performing music. I further argue that eradicating the deleterious effects of the textualist urge to discipline the performer's body and emotions, to assimilate their individuality into an enforced utopia and homogenise performance expression requires introducing, into scholarly thinking and discourses, all the deep level contingencies that I emphasise in this article as essential elements connecting musical texts and performances. It also requires analysts to give up the modernist de-historicising fantasy that allows them to regard themselves as privileged and exemplary listeners standing in for all auditors, and in the case of the analysis and performance literature, standing in for all performers. However much textualist habits might sideline the drastic qualities of musical performance in scholarly discourses, performers continue to be fleshly, willful, creative individual affectively committed to the unruly and dynamic realm of performance making, and invest their performances with aesthetic qualities that grow out of their lived experiences and intentions as they continually move between the page and the stage. Winner of the Royal Musical Association (RMA) 2023 Practice Research Prize: In this article, I aim to open up and explore the meaning making processes, from a performer’s perspective, that unfold in the creative space between the page and the stage that textualist approaches eliminated through their disembodied, ahistorical, essentialising and naturalizing discourses, and show the thoroughly contingent nature of these processes. One of the most significant arguments that will emerge from my discussion is that between the page and the stage are a large number of factors, including the uniquely embodied senses, artistic sensibilities, experiences and expert practical knowledge of each performer, that together constitute her artistic intentions, in the absence of which there would be no artistic musical performance. My discussion proceeds by drawing together critical evaluation of relevant scholarly literature, analytical thought, phenomenological enquiry and, most significantly, artistic research: the latter mobilizes the artistic processes of performance making as research tools and opens up novel lines of enquiry motivated by a performer’s expert knowledge about, as well as situated experiences of, performing music.
Entering The Stage - Musicians as performers in contemporary Music Theatre (2010)
The article seeks to explore the role of musicians as theatrical performers in theatre, and how this role has been developed from the 20th century up to the present. The profession of musicians in theatre has been greatly expanded since the days of Stravinsky's L'histoire du soldat through the Instrumental Theatre of Kagel and Schnebel in the 1960s up to contemporary multimedia performances and the influence of digital and interactive technology. Opposed to these expansive concepts this essay introduces reductionist approaches as alternative ways of working with musicians in the theatre.
Musicality in Theatre. Music as Model, Method and Metaphor in Theatre-Making (2014)
2014
As the complicated relationship between music and theatre has evolved and changed in the modern and postmodern periods, music has continued to be immensely influential in key developments of theatrical practices. In this study of musicality in the theatre, David Roesner offers a revised view of the nature of the relationship. The new perspective results from two shifts in focus: on the one hand, Roesner concentrates in particular on theatre-making - that is the creation processes of theatre - and on the other, he traces a notion of ‘musicality’ in the historical and contemporary discourses as driver of theatrical innovation and aesthetic dispositif, focusing on musical qualities, metaphors and principles derived from a wide range of genres. Roesner looks in particular at the ways in which those who attempted to experiment with, advance or even revolutionize theatre often sought to use and integrate a sense of musicality in training and directing processes and in performances. His study reveals both the continuous changes in the understanding of music as model, method and metaphor for the theatre and how different notions of music had a vital impact on theatrical innovation in the past 150 years. Musicality thus becomes a complementary concept to theatricality, helping to highlight what is germane to an art form as well as to explain its traction in other art forms and areas of life. The theoretical scope of the book is developed from a wide range of case studies, some of which are re-readings of the classics of theatre history (Appia, Meyerhold, Artaud, Beckett), while others introduce or rediscover less-discussed practitioners such as Joe Chaikin, Thomas Bernhard, Elfriede Jelinek, Michael Thalheimer and Karin Beier.
Towards Music Theatre Contextualisation
Composers such as Bertolt Brecht, John Cage, Mauricio Kagel, Harrison Birtwistle, although working independently of each other, have been prolific in creating experimental music theatre work, which often challenged the political landscape of their times. They set a precedent for the new synthesis of a new music theatre, which had not been recognised before as a new art form. This new kind of work would set a standard in theatre which effectively blended drama, music, properties and other theatrical elements found in ‘traditional’ theatre. This paper explores the history of music theatre and the etymology of said phrase from Brecht in the 1940s up until the present day. It discusses where music theatre sits in realation to other music driven theatre and describes ways in which music theatre was created. Following this, this paper offers an in depth analysis of music for theatre work and introduces the theory that music theatre can be identified in a logical way using a five step model. The results of this test show that there is scope in creating a working model however it will need to be ratified and tested further in order to increase its validity. This paper concludes that although music theatre’s hay day was during the 60s and 70s, when institutions such as Dartington College of Arts had a major impact on the arts, it is still an emerging art form with room for growth.
Music Theatre: Concepts, Theories and Practices
2013
This research paper explores music theatre writing and research since its conception in the 1960s. It will explore what music theatre is or isn’t and will serve as a resource for me to draw upon whilst writing my own music theatre portfolio. I will be looking at different practices and practitioners such as Kagel and Cage as well as more contemporary practitioners and music theatre groups. Please note the focus of this paper is toward MUSIC THEATRE as apposed to musicAL theatre. http://www.lulu.com/shop/ryan-green/music-theatre-concepts-theories-and-practices/paperback/product-22097945.html
Creating for the Stage and Other Spaces: Questioning Practices and Theories
Creating for the Stage and Other Spaces: Questioning Practices and Theories, 2021
edited by G. Guccini, C. Longhi and D. Vianello (in collaboration with A. Ciuffetelli and M. Sottana) AMS Acta - Università di Bologna Authors: over 70 authors Pages: 948 ebook (pdf) - 12 MB Multilingual: english, italian, french ABSTRACT: This volume brings together most of the interventions by artists and scholars of the Third EASTAP Conference (European Association for the Study of Theatre and Performance), which should have been held in Bologna from 27 February to 1 March 2020, scheduled among the events of the VIE Festival 2020 and the activities of the Department of the Arts / DAMSLab. When everything was ready, the Conference, the last part of the Festival and the DAMSLab programme were suddenly canceled due to the first restrictions related to the pandemic. Following those sudden and unexpected events, the need to leave memory of the project arose from many quarters. It was thus decided to propose a publication which, while significantly differentiating from the original structure designed for the Conference, explicitly and directly refers to it, remaining an exceptional and significant testimony of the state of studies on theatre and performance in the pre-Covid era. The Conference plan envisaged two macro-sectors which concerned, one, the practices and theories relating to the composition of the texts; the other, the practices and theories relating to the composition of performative events referable to the methods of scenic writing. The volume takes up this polarity by framing it in a different division of relations, which explains – thanks to the groupings and their titles both the relations between text and text and those between sector and sector. The most consistent chapters are dedicated to performance and post-dramatic textuality: Questioning performance: theories and practices (17 reports) and Creating text for the stage: theories and practices (21 reports). The other chapters then come to place themselves in the force field described by these main groupings. Perfomer's body: the dancer, the actor (6 reports) and Creating for other spaces: landscape, sound, multimedia (7 reports) are ideally framed in the polarity of the performace, where to highlight the centrality of the body and the relational dynamics activated by spaces, sounds, and new technologies. Collective creations and community plays (7 reports), on the other hand, focuses on performance and new textuality.