“The workshop brings artists of various professions together to discuss the theory and practice of adapting in contemporary music theatre.

It is motivated by the thesis that the renewal and development of today’s music theatre largely depends on its ability to transform social states and collective affects into the object of music-theatrical work. Adaptation has a key function here, as it does not just mean pure technical transference, but most of all the translation (in the sense of Walter Benjamin) of a material as a critical questioning of its aesthetic-social explosive potential, now and in the future.

The work’s core will be on interdisciplinary and hybrid stage forms, whose aesthetics will thematise, problematize and transform the media experiences of people of the 21st century.

The workshop consists of theory and practice parts where the young artists learn the development of criteria and methods for adaptation. In the practical part concepts for adaptation of five selected material samples will be developed, discussed and sketchily implemented (all together and in small groups). In the theory part, contend-based criteria and practical methods for working on adaptations will be developed and discussed. The parts will work on powerful adaptation in the history of music theatre in the 20th and 21st centuries, on contemporary discourse-forming works and on philosophical basic texts of a theory of adaptation.

This workshop will be mentor by Michael von zur Mühlen (stage director, head of dramaturgy, Oper Halle) and Dr. Jeanne Bindernagel (dramaturg, research associate Centre of Competence for Theatre University Leipzig). In order to reflect on current practical work experiences, the participants will not only exchange ideas with the workshop leader but also with the performer Arne Vogelgesang.”

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