While the pandemic may not be as omnipresent in our daily lives as it was during the year of lockdowns 2020, it has left an impact on us and on the cultural sphere in particular. As Kwame Kwei-Armah, the artistic director of one of London’s most established theatres, the Young Vic, has put it, the Covid-19 pandemic ‘will be in the DNA, and the subconscious of, an emerging generation of theatre-makers who will remember this time when they couldn’t get into theatres and make their art’. In this seminar we want to discuss what Kwei-Armah means by saying that the past couple of years have made their way into the “subconscious” of future (and present) generations of theatre-makers. First, we will engage in a micro-historical act of assessing the impact of the years 2019-2023 on theatre and performance in the UK and Germany, and second, understand and discuss what could be called a newly emerged Covidian aesthetic. To this end, we will read and watch plays that have been produced during the pandemic, such as the Old Vic’s production of Duncan Macmillan’s Lungs in 2020, Split Britches’ Last Gasp (WFH) (2020) and the work of the Oxford-based theatre company Creation Theatre on Zoom. This will be complemented by discussions of specific trends that have emerged or measures that theatres have taken, such as the Staatstheater Augsburg’s establishment of a Digital Theatre Department and their use of VR glasses for the experience of dance shows and plays, the Young Vic Digital initiative and the new interest in Audio Drama. We will also try out VR glasses in a workshop section during the semester. |
- Trainer/in: Heidi Liedke