Monday, 4 February 2013

A Review for Composed Theatre

A colleague very kindly forwarded Jackie Smart's review of Composed Theatre by Matthias Rebstock and me to me today. The review is hot off the press and appears in the latest issue of Theatre Research International (Volume 38 / Issue 01 / March 2013, pp 74 -75).

Jackie Smart writes:

"This book investigates a field of performance that operates between music and theatre, examining ways in which compositional principles drawn from music have been applied to theatrical performance, and theatrical thinking has influenced musical composition. It arises from two symposia organized by the editors at Exeter and Hildesheim universities which brought together academics and practitioners, and this starting point is reflected in the composition of the book through the way it brings together a diverse range of voices and perspectives, appropriately conveying the sense of scholars and artists engaged in ongoing debate about a developing form.
[…] The practitioners represented in Part Two constitute an impressive list, including Heiner Goebbels, Michael Hirsch, Jörg Laue, George Rodosthenous and Nicholas Till. Their engaging accounts illuminate the theoretical arguments of Part One and extend the book’s relevance and interest to anyone concerned with the messy, fascinating processes of collaborative creation. The ‘portraits’ of practitioners in Part Three bring into focus the key role of the performer as a creative contributor and highlight the presence of the personal within composed theatre, from the ‘biographical origins’ of Ruedi Häusermann’s inspiration to Daniel Ott’s interest in working with the personalities of his musicians. Part Four contains an intriguing selection of excerpts of discussions from the symposia and a concluding discourse analysis by Roesner in which he draws out and interrogates key principles and themes of this fascinating form of theatre-making. It is a style of performance of which I have had little direct experience but the book made me want to hear and see more."


Always great to read that someone enjoyed the book, found it engaging and useful – made my day!

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