May 22, 2006
Intermediality in Theatre and Performance
in-between Bodies
Intermediality in Theatre and Performance, CHAPPLE, Freda and Chiel KATTENBELT (Eds.), Amsterdam/New York, NY, 2006, 266 pp.
Intermediality: the incorporation of digital technology into theatre practice, and the presence of film, television and digital media in contemporary theatre is a significant feature of twentieth-century performance. Presented here for the first time is a major collection of essays, written by the Theatre and Intermediality Research Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research, which assesses intermediality in theatre and performance. The book draws on the history of ideas to present a concept of intermediality as an integration of thoughts and medial processes, and it locates intermediality at the inter-sections situated in-between the performers, the observers and the confluence of media, medial spaces and art forms involved in performance at a particular moment in time.
Referencing examples from contemporary theatre, cinema, television, opera, dance and puppet theatre, the book puts forward a thesis that the intermedial is a space where the boundaries soften and we are in-between and within a mixing of space, media and realities, with theatre providing the staging space for intermediality. The book places theatre and performance at the heart of the ‘new media’ debate and will be of keen interest to students, with clear relevance to undergraduates and post-graduates in Theatre Studies and Film and Media Studies, as well as the theatre research community.
Contents
Freda CHAPPLE and Chiel KATTENBELT: Key Issues in Intermediality in theatre and performance
Section One: Performing intermediality
Chiel KATTENBELT: Theatre as the art of the performer and the stage of intermediality
Ralf REMSHARDT: The actor as intermedialist: remediation, appropriation, adaptation
Andy LAVENDER: Mise en scène, hypermediacy and the sensorium
Sigrid MERX: Swann’s way: video and theatre as an intermedial stage for the representation of time
Freda CHAPPLE: Digital opera: intermediality, remediation and education
Section Two: Intermedial perceptions
Peter M. BOENISCH: Aesthetic art to aisthetic act: theatre, media, intermedial performance
Christopher B. BALME: Audio theatre: the mediatization of theatrical space
Meike WAGNER: Of other bodies: the intermedial gaze in theatre
Robin NELSON: New small screen spaces: a performative phenomenon?
Peter M. BOENISCH: Mediation unfinished: choreographing intermediality in contemporary dance performance
Section Three: From adaptation to intermediality
Thomas KUCHENBUCH: Theoretical approaches to theatre and film adaptation: a history
Klemens GRUBER: The staging of writing: intermediality and the avant-garde
Johan CALLENS: Shadow of the Vampire: double takes on Nosferatu
Hadassa SHANI: Modularity as a guiding principle of theatrical intermediality
Me-Dea-Ex: an actual-virtual digital theatre project
Birgit WIENS: Hamlet and the virtual stage: Herbert Fritsch’s project hamlet_X
Freda Chapple trained at the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama before working for the Welsh National ‘Opera For All’, English National Opera, Australian Opera and Scottish Opera as singer, stage manager and staff producer. She is now a Lecturer in Continuing Education (Arts) at the University of Sheffield, where she is the programme director of the English Studies and Performing Arts degree track at the Institute for Lifelong Learning. Freda was the stage manager in charge of the opening night of the Sydney Opera House and she continues to perform in and direct opera. Recent productions include: Cavalleria Rusticana and Trial by Jury, 2004; Façade, 2003; The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and La Traviata, 2000. Her current research is assessing the impact of digital technology on British Theatre practice and education, for which she holds a Society for Theatre Research award, and narrative structures in academic literacy.
Chiel Kattenbelt is associate professor in Media Comparison and Intermediality at Utrecht University (The Netherlands) where he teaches in the programmes of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, Communication and Information Studies, and New Media and Digital Culture. He is also associate professor at the Theatre Academy Maastricht (The Netherlands), where he is head of an interdisciplinary research programme on new theatricality with respect to the public sphere, language and technology. He has published articles in several books and international journals on aesthetics, semiotics, theatre and media theory and intermediality.
Posted by jo at May 22, 2006 12:35 PM
