FOR 2734:  Constellations of crisis: Transformational dynamics in performing arts institutions

• Subject Area: Humanities ; Social and Behavioural Sciences
• Term: since 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 387849349

The present renewal proposal summarises the joint research work of the first 24 months and describes the work programme for the years 2021-2024 (36 months). The geographically distributed research unit is concerned with the concept of 'crisis' in the performing arts in Germany, with a special focus on publicly financed spoken and musical theatre and the independent scene. The project understands the term 'crisis constellation' as a set of endogenous and exogenous factors that trigger institutional change. In the sense of the crisis constellation, not only discourses are named, but also concrete economic, social, historical, cultural-political and aesthetic domains. The research project focuses on determining this structure in an interdisciplinary and multi-perspectival manner. A further aim of the project is to develop an institutional perspective on the performing arts that can be operationalized. The research group is composed of subprojects from theatre studies, musicology, cultural management, labour studies and political science. The second funding phase is marked by significant changes for the group. Firstly, an internationalization of the research perspective is aimed at by extending the research examples to several neighboring European countries. Secondly, the research fields will be reorganized: new are the topics (De-)legitimation and Governance as a Transformational Factor, which replace the former research fields A (Enculturative Breakdown through Demographic Change) and B (Pluralization of the Public Sphere). Fields C (Heterogenization of labour) and D (New Aesthetic Formats) remain central. Thirdly, the research group wants to take into account the closure of all theatres in March 2020. The research unit assumes that the already existing institutional crisis factors will be strengthened by the corona crisis. The FOR therefore plans to adapt its research to the changed circumstances in order to examine these effects in detail over the next three years with the help of a cross-sectional project.

• DFG Programme: Research Units

Projects

• Coordination Funds (Applicant Balme, Christopher )
• Demographic and structural changes in the demand of arts offerings as a trigger for adapting- and innovation processes in public German theatres (Applicant Mandel, Birgit )
• Dynamics of Institutionalization in Independent Music Theater (Applicant Mungen, Anno )
• Europe's Newcomers in Theatre: Transformations in Education for Directors (Applicant Siegmund, Gerald )
• Market as crisis: institutional change and crisis discourse in the German independent theatre scene (Applicants Haunschild, Axel ;  Schößler, Franziska )
• Market as Crisis: The Internationalisation of Independent Theatre in Germany – Funding Economy, Spaces of Co-ooperation, Aesthetics (Applicants Haunschild, Axel ;  Roselt, Jens )
• Outside the Box: Aesthetic Re-formatting at Public Theatres Following the 2020 Pandemic-related Closures in Germany, Great Britain and Switzerland (Applicant Michaels, Bianca )
• The third level: learning and participation programs in music theatre and structural dependency (Applicant Balme, Christopher )
• What kind of theatre? Comparative analysis of government funded theatre in Germany, Austria and Switzerland - a study of cultural and corporate governance (Applicant Zimmer, Annette )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Christopher Balme