Project Details
Projekt
Outside the Box: Aesthetic Re-formatting at Public Theatres Following the 2020 Pandemic-related Closures in Germany, Great Britain and Switzerland
Applicant
Dr. Bianca Michaels
Subject Area
Theatre and Media Studies
Term
since 2017
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 387849349
Due to the corona pandemic, all state governments in Germany enacted the closure of all cultural institutions in mid-March 2020. Thus, the physical co-presence as an aesthetic unique feature of the performing arts became an existential problem in an acute situation of crisis. In response to the nationwide closures, different strategies among the approximately 140 publicly funded theatre companies can currently (June 2020) be observed: while some theatres (at least initially) completely stopped their activities, numerous theatres started offering digital content immediately after the ordered closure or further diversified their existing programme. Although further developments are difficult to assess at this stage, it can be assumed that events with close audience contact will probably be prohibited until at least autumn/winter of the 2020/21 season due to the risk of infection. In addition, the current social distancing regulations, which also apply to the artists, generate considerable adjustment pressure on the production and rehearsal processes. This assumption leads to the underlying thesis that a significant and far-reaching push for aesthetic reformatting is taking place as part of the corona pandemic. This concerns both the already dynamic transformation process regarding the so-called theatre-related and other events – which were the focus of research interest in the first funding phase – as well as a possible longer-term expansion of the programme including new, 'corona-compatible' formats. Based on the results on aesthetic reformatting under largely analogous conditions obtained in the first phase of the project, the project now aims to investigate the short and medium-term (aesthetic) effects of the theatre closures and the re-openings associated with strict infection precaution requirements on the programme planning since March 2020 in Germany. By means of selected case studies and expert interviews, these are to be set in relation to the developments in Great Britain and Switzerland. On the one hand, the developments in programme planning are to be reflected in terms of media theory with regard to the challenges of a possible reconfiguration of the mediality of theatre and the associated renegotiation of the conditions of physical co-presence and liveness. By locating the newly emerging forms and formats in terms of media theory, new possibilities of participation and interaction as well as effects on theatre as a cultural practice will be investigated. On the other hand, an institutional-theoretical contextualization will be used to analyse which institutional transformation processes can be identified in relation to expectation structures and (de-)legitimation processes as a result of the theatre closures, i.e. due to the exogenous crisis triggered by the corona pandemic.
DFG Programme
Research Units
