Dialogue - a way through the crisis

Abstract

“Children, create new!” Wagner's much-quoted slogan seems to be taken to heart especially in times of (artistic) crisis. Innovation in the aesthetics and production processes of contemporary music theatre are mutually dependent, and experiments in Artistic collaboration with other fields of art and research have resulted in an increasing blurring of the genre aesthetic differentiation of the theatrical results. New artistic forms require new analytical paths. With their composed theatre, David Roesner and Matthias Rebstock direct the view to the production process, while my proposal for a new analytical approach focuses on the performance: starting from Bachtin's theorem of dialogicity through the concept of dialogue, I will approach contemporary music theatre, focusing in particular on the relationship between performance, audience and venue. Due to its flexibility and dynamics, the term dialogue makes it possible to analytically encounter the different forms of contemporary music theatre, especially those that question new spaces and media constitutions. Investigation takes place on at least two levels: A content that concentrates on the discourses negotiated and the thematic conception in the regional, cultural and socio-political context of the performance venue, but also a physical-performative one that deals with the dialogical qualities and interactions in the non-linguistic realm. Accattone (music theatre after Pasolini, directed by Johan Simons, Kohlenmischhalle der Zeche Dinslaken-Lohberg, 2015) serves as an example. So I would like to shout: “Children, look new!”