Luk Van den Dries

Jan Fabre and tg STAN: Two Models of Postdramatic Theatre in the Avant-Garde Tradition

There are various reasons for the sudden, explosive surge of artistic innovation that emerged from Flanders in the 1980s: the lack of an established national theatre tradition; the invitations to Flemish theatres and arts centres from new experimental artists from abroad; and the funding available for emerging theatre artists both from independent producers and arts centres and, from 1993, albeit rather hesitantly, also from the Flemish government. As a result, artists have been able to work within their own very personal and local structures. They were not absorbed by existing theatre institutions, but were able to maintain their autonomy. At the same time, this localism was always internationally oriented, and ‘impure’ in different respects. The stimulating artistic climate attracted artists from abroad, such as American choreographer Meg Stuart, French choreographer Jérôme Bel, and Italian director Romeo Castellucci with his company Socı̀etas Raffaello Sanzio. Their position at the forefront of the contemporary European experimental theatre and performance scene is partly also a result of their early work being programmed and co-produced by Flemish arts centres and festivals such as the annual KunstenFestivaldesArts in Brussels. At the same time, the work of the internationally known Flemish artists of the last generation would not have been possible without a network

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).

Creating by Annotating

Reversing the common understanding of annotation as a posterior act of adding information to already existing sources, this article argues that annotation also serves as a pre-performance procedure facilitating artistic creation. Through an analysis of the notebooks of Jan Fabre and Jan Lauwers, two leading directors in the international theatre scene, it becomes evident how they each develop distinct annotative strategies (including drawings, fragmentary lists, comments and so forth) that provide insight in their artistic poetics. The article discusses to what extent these annotated notebooks differ from the most common type of annotation in the theatre, usually termed ‘didascalia’, which refers to stage directions and glosses appearing in the margins of the dramatic text. Postdramatic directors such as Fabre and Lauwers, however, substantially broaden the scope of these didascalia, insofar as text is no longer the epicentre of theatrical creation and other parameters (body, movement, space) become equally important. This juxtaposition is palpably visible in their annotated working documents, in which the interaction between word and image is a central given. The article further considers how this expanded use of annotation brings to light its beneficial impact on creative cognition, suggesting that the acts of drawing, jotting down notes or making lists are crucial strategies to articulate incipient ideas in the artistic imagination. Finally, the importance of the annotated drawing page as a materialization of creative thinking is elucidated against the background of the philosophical debate on hypomnesis and anamnesis, two terms introduced by Plato and recently revived by Bernard Stiegler. By approaching annotation as a means of creation, the article thus demonstrates how it enables artists to proceed from the realm of imagination to the reality of the stage.