Frederik Le Roy

Tracing Creation: The Director’s Notebook as Genetic Document of the Postdramatic Creative Process

In the last decade, theatre research has been marked by a growing interest in the documentation, reconstruction, and analysis of creative processes in the performing arts. Theatre, dance, and performance scholars, often in collaboration with or in response to theatre makers and choreographers keen on exploring and sharing their own creative processes and working methods, have expanded their horizon from the ‘final product’ – the performance – to the varied and often complex activities that precede and eventually establish that performance. One of the underlying ideas that fuel the interest in the analysis of what Josette Féral once termed the ‘pre-performance’, is the expectation that insight in the genesis of the performance will provide a more encompassing perspective on the work as a whole. This ‘genetic’ perspective is especially fruitful when we consider the contemporary performing arts and, more specifically, ‘postdramatic’ theatre, which will be the subject of this article. Even a cursory glance reveals that the vast aesthetic diversity of theatrical languages in contemporary theatre is matched by an almost equally great variety of working methods and creative strategies. These methods are often specific to the theatre makers who use them, or even to individual projects – ‘[e]ach work creates its own method’ the Belgian dramaturge Marianne Van Kerkhoven once stated. But the relationship between the creative process and the final performance is complex, often elliptical, and without a predetermined, linear path that leads from inception to result. Gaining access to, and understanding this relationship, especially in theatre forms that rely more on performative and visual rather than textual elements can pose significant methodological challenges. In this article, we will focus on one crucial element of this creative process, namely the varied notes that are produced by the theatre director 1. This work was supported by FWO Research Foundation [grant number G038513N]. Some notable publications in the growing list of publications on the genesis of theatre are Almuth Grésillon, Marie-Madeleine Mervant-Roux, and Dominique Budor, Genèses Théâtrales (Paris: CNRS éditions, 2010); Making Contemporary Theatre: International Rehearsal Processes, ed. by Jen Harvie and Andy Lavender (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010); and the special issue of Theatre Research International on ‘genetics of performance’ edited by Josette Féral, 33.3 (2008).

Drunk on capitalism: an interdisciplinary reflection on market economy, art and science

This interdisciplinary collection of essays probes the impact of the market economy on art and science in the post-Berlin Wall era. Part One: Science for Sale, A Dollar Green Science Scene, focuses on new alliances of contemporary science and education with commercial funding, and the commodification of knowledge. Among the questions addressed here are: Does proximity to economic power eclipse freedom of knowledge? When science and education become businesses, what are the risks for a sell-out of patented knowledge, an abuse of research for business purposes or a commercialization of symbolic power? Part Two: Art for Sale, Buy Buy Art, elaborates on the multifaceted and ambiguous relationship between art and capital. Contemporary art claims to be autonomous, but art costs money and artists cannot survive on their love for art alone. How do artists respond to the rise of economic strictures in modern culture in general and the art market in particular? When works of art become investments, can art still be critical of economic injustice? What role remains for the artist in a global, late-capitalist society?

Performing cultural trauma in theatre and film: between representation and experience: introduction

This is the introduction of a thematic issue of Arcadia called Performing Cultural Trauma in Theatre and Film, based on the proceedings of an international conference held on May 9 2008. The issue investigates the particular ways in which theatre and cinema deal with cultural traumas of the past, which memory mechanisms they perform or create and points out how these mechanisms might differ from those present in literature or historiography. Guest editors of the themtic issue are Frederik Le Roy, Christel Stalpaert and Sofie verdoodt.