Profile and History
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What is theatre?
The Institute for Applied Theatre Studies at Justus Liebig University Giessen understands its teaching and research as an effort never to accept the nature and functions of theatre as given or definitively defined, but always to question them, to keep them in a mode of negotiation, and to design them differently each time through risky and necessarily contingent blueprints. In this experimental framework, theatre becomes a site of engagement where our own practice and understanding of theatre are repeatedly put to the test; a site of experience that continuously challenges the way we see, hear, feel, and think; and, consequently, a political space in which it must repeatedly be clarified what kind of community the subjects on stage and in the audience produce through their interaction – in short, a place that reinvents itself each time while simultaneously subjecting itself to critical reflection.
A Program of Openness
To meet the demands of producing, performing, and reflecting on theatre in both teaching and research, the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies follows a program of openness. This approach applies equally to the Bachelor’s program in Applied Theatre Studies, the two Master’s programs in Applied Theatre Studies and Choreography and Performance, as well as the institute’s research projects.
This openness begins with the very concept of theatre. At the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies, theatre has never been identified solely with acting or the staging of dramas. Rather, it is understood as a boundless space encompassing theatre, dance, and performance in all their forms. In the free composition of diverse theatrical elements, sound, light, and objects can become equal partners to the voices and bodies of actors, dancers, or performers—or even have solo roles independent of the human body. New media such as video and the Internet are integrated into the theatrical scene, and site-specific performances, installations, radio plays, and other theatrical and performative forms and processes beyond the traditional stage are also considered legitimate subjects of study and research.
This expanded concept of theatre establishes a dual focus in engagement with the art form: on one hand, special attention is given to contemporary performance aesthetics and theoretical discourse as a space for negotiating this open understanding of theatre. Historical contexts may also be considered, but always with regard to their relevance for contemporary developments. On the other hand, the openness of the concept highlights the specificity of theatre and its aesthetic distinction from everyday life, which becomes central to both scholarly and artistic inquiry.
Alongside the open concept of theatre comes a methodology of openness. Teaching and research at the Institute are neither exclusively academic nor purely practical, but always simultaneously scientific and artistic. They are shaped by a dual approach to theatre, which gives the institute its name: the term Applied is not meant as the direct application of science to theatre, which would produce a scientific theatre or a theatre of scientific theories. Rather, science engages with theatre, and theatre engages with science, in order to gain an open and nuanced understanding of itself through this mutual reflection. Science can view its own theoretical and analytical questions about theatre from a different perspective by attending to the sensory dimensions of theatre, and theatre, in turn, can gain new insights about itself when it attempts to conceptualize its production and performance in scientific terms. In this process of application or reflection, science and theatre never merge completely, nor do they lead to a full understanding of the other or of themselves. On the contrary, the inherently unfinished outcome produces a continuous reciprocal problematization, making new scholarly and artistic questions and potential answers visible.
Finally, the program of openness also concerns the internal structure of artistic teaching. The artistic component of the curriculum is not aimed at specialized training in individual technical fields, such as directing, acting, or lighting, but at providing comprehensive knowledge across all areas of theatre practice. Students can explore multiple roles in artistic projects, such as performing while designing costumes, or working as dramaturgs while handling sound design, or experimenting collaboratively in ways that differ from conventional task assignments. Through knowledge of the many different approaches to theatre, students develop into independent theatre makers who act responsibly toward the theatre as a whole and in collaboration with other artists and partners. This openness and breadth in artistic production provide the foundation for exploring open forms of theatre that push the boundaries of what has previously been conceivable.
Objectives
The goal of this threefold openness – an open concept of theatre, the reciprocal engagement of science and theatre, and the avoidance of strict specialization in theatre work – is to provide students in Applied Theatre Studies with a broad and solid foundation for their own scholarly and/or artistic practice. It enables them to research with vigilance and sensitivity toward new theatrical forms in art and science, to reflect on their own thinking and actions in theatre from multiple perspectives, and to contribute to shaping the horizon of a theatre of the future.
Georg Döcker, 2012
History of the Institute
Founding Period
Founded in 1982 by Andrzej Wirth, the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies was the first university institution in the German-speaking world to combine theatre studies with artistic theatre practice. Under Wirth, with the collaboration of Hans-Thies Lehmann, the institute quickly became a counterpoint to established performing arts schools, which understood theatre exclusively as drama-based acting and trained students for the conventional city theatre market. At the same time, it contrasted with other theatre studies institutes that offered no practical space and primarily focused on theatre historiography. On the newly established rehearsal stage, Wirth and guest professors such as Heiner Müller, George Tabori, Emma Lewis Thomas, and Robert Wilson worked with students to explore new forms of theatre, challenging the monopoly of German-speaking city theatres on production and the definition of theatre. Early student projects, influenced by Wirth’s choice of guest professors, engaged with Brecht’s Lehrstück tradition and minimalist tendencies from the visual arts. Lehmann developed a theory of these theatrical approaches, which could no longer be understood solely through traditional drama and acting theories. Today, these forms are known through Lehmann’s terminology as postdramatic theatre.
The 1990s and 2000s
In the 1990s, the theater scholar Helga Finter and the composer and director Heiner Goebbels took over the scientific and artistic management of the institute. Goebbels expanded the artistic teaching to include new media forms of presentation as well as music, sound, and lighting productions. By setting up sound and video studios, he provided the necessary equipment for independent work with the new media. In the field of science, Finter set new priorities by conveying the theatricality of theater and literary experiments of the historical avant-garde, particularly those of Antonin Artaud. The works of Wilson and other contemporary directors and artists such as Klaus Michael Grüber were also among the subjects of study that Finter used to develop a theory of theater as a negotiation space of subjectivity, in contrast to an increasingly forming society of spectacle. The tradition of guest professorships continued with artists and theorists such as Marina Abramović, Richard Schechner, Patrice Pavis, Josette Feral, Samuel Weber, Georg Seeßlen, Mathilde Monnier, Jérôme Bel, Xavier Le Roy, Rabih Mroué, Tino Sehgal, or Claudia Bosse and still has a decisive influence on the institute today.
In 2008, with the introduction of the Master’s program in Choreography and Performance and a professorship in dance studies with a focus on choreography and performance, the institute expanded further into the field of contemporary dance and choreography. This continued and structurally anchored the initial impulses for engaging with the aesthetics of dance, which had already emerged in the 1990s through Gabriele Brandstetter’s brief tenure as a professor at the institute. The MA program in Choreography and Performance is offered in cooperation with the Department of Contemporary Dance at the University of Music and Performing Arts Frankfurt am Main and was established in its first years by Gerald Siegmund. Like the existing Bachelor's and Master's programs in Applied Theater Studies, the MA program in Choreography and Performance enables both a scientific and artistic engagement, albeit with a particular focus on the body, its movement, as well as its politics and economy.
The Institute Today
Today, there are four professorships at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies, three of which are permanently occupied: Currently, Xavier Le Roy holds the artistic professorship, Gerald Siegmund has held the professorship for theater studies since 2011, and Bojana Kunst took up the professorship for dance studies in 2012. The fourth professorship is the artistic guest professorship, which is filled each semester by changing artists. Whereas in the 1980s and 1990s the conventional and limiting theater practices and ideas of the German-speaking city theater system formed the context and negative reference point for scientific and artistic teaching and research at the institute, today—given the decline in significance of city theaters and major changes in the entire theater landscape—different conditions are at the center of debates: the ambivalences of a freelance scene, its internationalization, and its working conditions, which due to increased economic pressures pose new challenges and problems for production as well as for the aesthetics of contemporary theater.
Since its founding, the Institute for Applied Theater Studies has gained its productive independent life not least through a high degree of initiative on the part of its students. For many years, the students have independently organized several festivals: Theatermaschine, a presentation platform for the students’ own artistic work; Diskurs, which has been organized since 1984 and is today a recognized international festival of the performing arts, to which artists are invited each year with their works for discourse and discussion; and finally the still-young Instant Festival, a format to promote exchange with the program for Scenic Arts at the University of Hildesheim, taking place alternately in Gießen and Hildesheim. All festivals, as well as the presentation of scenic projects and practical courses, are accompanied by critique sessions, which create an internal, but also outwardly open, critical exchange about one’s own practice and significantly shape the institute’s culture of discussion.
Since 2020, the institute has operated its “Theaterlabor / Performance Lab”, a state-of-the-art rehearsal stage equipped, among other things, with a suspended wire mesh ceiling, which opens up entirely new spaces for artistic experimentation.
Alumni
Graduates of the institute work across theatre, dance, performance, visual arts, media, and academia. Over the past 30 years, they have influenced city theatres, the free scene, and scholarship in Germany and beyond. Notable alumni include Réne Pollesch, Gob Squad, She She Pop, Rimini Protokoll, Showcase Beat Le Mot, Monster Truck, and Auftrag: Lorey, who have transformed theatre through non-hierarchical, often collective working methods and unique aesthetics. In academia, figures such as Miriam Dreysse, Jens Roselt, Annemarie Matzke, André Eiermann, and Jörn Etzold contribute new analytical approaches and theories for contemporary theatre.
Georg Döcker, 2012