Written Artefacts for Staging

Project Group

The PG “WAs for Staging” addresses the numerous WAs which have been created across history to facilitate and record the staging of kinetic, auditory, visual, or even olfactory phenomena during ceremonies, musical performances and theatrical performances. The PG asks how WAs were produced for such purposes and how, in turn, the – often transitory – staged events impacted upon the WAs in the subsequent course of their existence. WAs for staging deserve particular attention as they faced an unusual challenge: their function was to fixate sensory qualities that were vital to the respective event, including gestures, intonation, tempo and the use of space, but that could, compared to textual content, only be represented approximately. In this vein, the PG focuses on the ways WAs for staging are produced, revised and reproduced to represent and effect visuality (movements, props, space etc.), audibility (language, music etc.) and other sensory manifestations. How do WAs such visualise the performance space and the actions taking place in it? How are the sensory manifestations (re-)transformed into increasingly multilayered WAs which are supposed to convey information to others on how to (re-)create the space and the experience? How are subsequent WAs created to engage with the existing tradition? How do we explain the selection process of which ‘stage directions’ were included and which were excluded in such WAs? Who are the originators and who are the target audiences of such WAs? What other forms of transmission accompany the transmission of staging via WAs? By searching for patterns and differences across regions (with materials from Africa, Asia and Europe), periods (from the 12th to the 21st century CE) as well as cultural practices (liturgy, theatre and musical performance), the PG investigates these WAs’ primary layer with regard to their materiality, the use of cultural codes, formatting and writing techniques. Analysis of the WAs’ materiality and their visual organisation will support the understanding of the evolvement of the WAs during their use when secondary layers were added (i.e., their reshaping by annotations, retractions, carving, trimming, glueing, etc.). Supported by digital representations and experimental staging, the PG works on visualising and comparing possible performance scenarios. These are also to model the constant feedback loop between the WAs and the respective sensory manifestations of a staged event.