New Music Theatre – work in/and progress (Studies in Musical Theatre, 11/2, 2017) (original) (raw)

Introduction: Why 'new music theatre' now?

New Music Theatre in Europe: Transformations between 1955-1975, 2019

This is the editor's introduction to the volume New Music Theatre in Europe: Transformations between 1955-1975 (Routledge 2019) https://www.routledge.com/New-Music-Theatre-in-Europe-Transformations-between-1955-1975/Adlington/p/book/9781138323018.

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

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.

International Musical Theatre -- a new way of looking at musical theatre history

Brock Review, 2012

Musical theatre can take root anywhere. The future of the musical may very well lie beyond Broadway and the West End. In recent years, successful musicals have been developed in Canada, Australia and the German speaking countries. Some, like Elisabeth, have travelled internationally without ever playing in English. Companies in Korea, Japan and China are investing in new works, both domestically and internationally. These different countries can learn from each other. In South Africa, people do literally burst into song on the streets. During the apartheid era, some of the freedom fighters were known to have gone to the gallows singing. Both there and in Argentina, musical theatre played an active role in the struggle against oppression. Shows like Sarafina weren’t just about the struggle against apartheid, they were part of it. This is nothing new – the cabarets of Weimar Berlin were also struggling against oppression. In fact, the birth of the musical coincided with the birth of democracy. On the other hand, during World War II, the allfemale Takarazuka Revue was co-opted by the Japanese government for propaganda purposes. The real point of my book A Million Miles from Broadway is not just to tell a history of the musical. It’s what you do with that history after you’ve learned it that is important. Firstly to learn about our own musical theatre heritage, but also to learn about each other’s. We may find that people in other countries have found solutions to problems that we are struggling with.

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.

Claiming Music for the Theatre: About Definitions between Cultural Policy and Artistic Forms

Music Theatre in Flanders: Perspectives on the Landscape, 2009

This booklet presents the key players in today’s music theatre landscape in Flanders. Profiles of music theatre companies are presented against the backdrop of a number of essays and statements dealing with major developments and issues in Flemish music theatre. With a strong sense of historical background, this book zooms in on current issues in relation to music theatre today. How do we expect cultural policy to categorize a hybrid ‘genre’ such as music theatre? Is the international (festival) circuit open enough to young and emerging artists? How can the artistic symbiosis music theatre calls for be dealt with in different institutional contexts: in education and training, in the media, in policy environments? My contribution focuses on the current state of music theatre in Flanders and its key players. I describe today's heterogeneity of music theatre as a self-sustaining discipline and the success of open and negative definitions that have always rather undone institutionalized understandings of the genre. I see this in relation to the development of postdramatic theatre, which caused a blurring of genre distinctions.

Music-theatre: creation, performance and processes of the development of creativity1

The creative act, the performance and the different processes of the development of creativity, involve different procedures in which various techniques, codes, conventions, challenges, risks, subjectivities and the public are combined (Becker,1984). However, creativity implies and is based, among other things, on knowledge, control of materials and ideas, divergent thought and the search for new insights and senses, be it real or imaginary (Koskoff, 2001; Swanwick, 2001). Within this context, the present paper intends to, on one hand, look into the processes of the development of creativity and performance, based on the analysis and interpretation of the work which I am currently developing at the “Music-theatre Seminar”, in the ambit of teacher training. On the other hand, it intends to defend the notion that the processes used in performance, creation and development of creativity are decisive for both the individual and collective construction of identity, artistic development a...