Processes of devising Composed Theatre. Resubmission

Summary
This workshop series aims to bring together practitioners and scholars that work in a particular field of contemporary experimental music-theatre: Composed Theatre. This refers to forms of theatre, where the theatrical means of expression (gesture, light, sound, movement, text etc.) are explicitly composed according to musical principles (repetition, variation, motif, rhythm etc.). This group will address four questions about Composed Theatre: what are its the key characteristics, how does its devising differ from conventional creation processes, what effects do its processes have on our notions of authorship, dramaturgy, composition and notation, and how does Composed Theatre change our understanding of the interplay of music and theatre.
Composed Theatre often results in performances that employ working processes that circumvent traditional hierarchies of collaboration and divisions of labour. While conventionally a librettist and composer create 'the work', which is then put on stage by stage-, costume-, light-designers and performers under the authoritative leadership of the conductor and the director, Composed Theatre often employs collective creativity and flat hierarchies.
The workshops series seeks to address the processes that generate this kind of work - an area of music-theatrical performance that has been widely neglected by researchers so far. Given the experimental nature of the practices in question it is precisely the process and its conceptual, material and personnel decisions and the emerging interactions that hold the novelty of the resulting work and enable the interplay between the arts to be re-negotiated.
The aim of the series is thus to investigate and compare different artistic processes and approaches to devising Composed Theatre and to stimulate an intensive discussion about the nature of these processes. The series will also reflect on these processes' relevance for specific performances in particular and music-theatre in general. All practitioners will be asked in turns to focus on a characteristic aspect of their artistic processes towards Composed Theatre and then exemplify and demonstrate their approach interactively. Conducting this exchange as a workshop series thus allows all participants to experience and observe the exemplified processes as processes and not finished papers or reports. These practical explorations will be audio-visually recorded. Interviews with each practitioner in front of an invited audience will embed the individual sessions within their wider practice. In addition, eminent practitioners and scholars will add theoretical and artistic perspective with a number of 'provocations' that will contextualize and frame the sessions further. The provocations may concern singular examples of collaborative experimental practice in music-theatre as well as methodological and analytical considerations. The sessions, interviews and provocations will be open to the public and will be advertised to specialist audiences.
In the second of two three-day meetings the group will meet in forums, where they will consider and compare the various approaches and processes, address them in the light of the four research questions and discuss possibilities for future activities.
The series is intended to allow all participants to develop and expose their current research and practice and we are confident they will spark or intensify further collaborative and interdisciplinary research as a consequence. The series will also stimulate and inform new work and will thus have a cultural impact. The sessions will be documented for a DVD and thus made accessible for future research purposes. A co-edited book will contain transcripts of the interviews and provocations as well as co-authored chapters that will evaluate the implications of the series and disseminate its findings in the widest possible way.