Practices of Ethnic (Non-)Differentiation in Contemporary German Theatre

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Friedemann Kreuder
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: from 2014 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 249605544

Focusing on the category of ethnicity, this project investigates practices of acting in contemporary German theatre as a model for un/doing contingent, meaningful distinctions between human beings in everyday life. On the one hand, this investigation is possible because human beings, both within the theatrical framework and in everyday life, use analogous practices to make their habitus, gestures and voice either coincide with their phenomenal body or not. On the other hand, this investigation relies on the fact that actors have in a way professionalized the creation of social distinctions since night after night they have to produce characters on stage based on their own phenomenal bodies. Depending on the casting and the role acting practices regularly transgress social categorizations. The project focuses on practices of acting which go against hegemonic discourses, symbolize the contingency of ethnicity as a category, unmask its alleged biological origin as a fiction, and in this way encourage spectators to reflect on the making of ethnic distinctions. However, the project will not only analyze acting practices as they are presented within actual performances from a spectator's point of view. Rather, the whole process leading up to the performance, i.e., castings and rehearsals, will form the basis for analysis.Thus, the project examines all interdependent practices (theatrical as well as methodical, institutional and quotidian) of ethnic (non-)differentiation that are at work within theatre as an institution. The fundamental aim of the project is to develop an appropriate vocabulary for the analysis of these practices, a vocabulary apt to compare the whole spectrum of the phenomena under consideration and to work out fundamental principles both on the level of production and of reception. Theatre as an institution advances to a heuristic concept analyzing the de/stabilization of social categories by quotidian practices. In order to do so, this project, in an innovative way, combines methods of performance analysis, as developed in theatre studies, with a socio-scientific empirical methodology.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants