Born from the spirit of movement. Aleksandr Tairov's Chamber Theatre in Moscow in an area of tension between Russia and the West

• Applicant: Privatdozentin Dr. Swetlana Lukanitschewa
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: from 2016 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 314751540

The aim of this project is todescribe and analyse for the first time Aleksandr Tairov's (1885-1950) Chamber Theatre in Moscow - an Russian avant-garde stage hailed in Germany in the 1920s as stimulating and "unleashed" - with regard to its specific form and aesthetics. The focus of this analysis will be on the scenic representation of Tairov's concept of the "synthetic" actor, a virtuoso comedian who can appear on the stage as tragedian, dancer, acrobat, clown, and singer. Since Tairov considered pantomime as the most important of all theatrical genres, and as he sought to approximate his actors to ballet dancers, in whose mastery of technique and physical expressiveness he saw an ideal, a particular emphasis of the study will be on body images in Tairov's productions.The intention is to produce a study with two parts, examining the period between 1914 and 1949. The first part will focus on Tairov¿s productions in the time between the founding of his theatre in 1914 and the year 1934, when "socialist realism" was declared the official artistic doctrine in the Soviet Union, bringing into line all cultural activities. Particular attention will be paid to the Chamber Theatre's three extended tours through Germany, France, and other European countries in 1923, 1925, and 1930, and the reception of Tairov's productions in the West. The subject of the second part of the study will be Tairov's work as a director after 1934, until the closing of the theatre in 1949. One aim here is to show how Tairov's model of the "synthetic" actor changed over time, influenced by developments in domestic and foreign affairs. A discourse analytical approach will be used to put Tairov's acting theories as well as his views on bodily and spatial aesthetics in relation to the concepts developed by his Western European and Russian contemporaries such as Georg Fuchs, Gordon Craig, Max Reinhardt, Rudolf von Laban, Vsevolod Mejerchol'd, and Nikolai Evreinov. The project aims at making Tairov's ideas accessible forscholarship and theatrical practice and enlarging our present picture of the Russian theatrical landscape in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s through an examination of an extensive collection of archival material, which has never been subject to close analysis before and which is as yet unknown in Germany.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants