Musical Theatre and All That Jazz Research Network
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Portsmouth
Department Name: Sch of Art, Design and Performance
Abstract
This research network brings together a new group of scholars to interact with practitioners, industry figures and the public as they explore new avenues for research, practice and understanding that emanate from examining interconnections between musical theatre and jazz.
Musical theatre and jazz are most often studied, practiced and produced separately but they have shared origins, characteristics and discourses. These intersecting histories and features are sometimes mentioned in passing in the critical literature but their potential for extending knowledge and developing new methodologies remains obscured by the separation of forms. By researching intersections and interactions between forms and considering what they might mean for understandings both within, across and beyond disciplines, the research of this network will produce new interdisciplinary conceptualisations, methodologies and practices that have implications that extend beyond developing academic knowledge to address issues of contemporary practice, the creative industries and audiences.
In reflection of the increasingly involved and global character of both musical theatre and jazz and their study, the network's core membership is both multidisciplinary and international in its makeup, including scholars from Europe, the USA and southeast Asia as well as from the UK. The network will meet at three one-day workshops, staged in Portsmouth, Birmingham and Munich, that aim to provoke productive cross-disciplinary critical discussion around set themes. These themed workshops are deliberately located within venues that facilitate the engagement and interaction of differently interested audiences of academics, industry figures, practitioners and the public with network debates and activities. They aid impactful working, which is a core aim of the network.
A vital element in developing impactful cross-disciplinary knowledge generation is a practice-research project that is integrated within the network. This will bring together jazz musicians with musical theatre practitioners to explore the forging of a common language between disciplines in the process of creating a new work-in-progress 'Jazzical' - an experimental form mixing jazz and musical theatre practices and understandings. This project will inform network debates as much as it is informed by them. It is designed to offer new insights and methodologies stemming from the nexus of forms in practice, partly to address industry concerns for fresh and interesting musical-theatrical productions that are on a suitable scale for small- and mid-scale venues like Portsmouth's New Theatre Royal (host venue for the first network meeting) and of interest to festivals like the 'Biennale' in Munich (the location for the last network meeting).
The network will produce a series of public events attached to the three network workshops, an edited volume of scholarship, a work-in-progress theatre piece and associated online and video materials. It is designed to engender much lively debate that extends beyond academia through the public and industry engagement activities associated with the workshops and the network's online platform. The network aims to situate these emergent things within a context of the historical and social discourses that underpin the intersections between musical theatre and jazz. Eminent keynote speakers from the UK and the US have thus been selected and approached for their proven ability to offer discourses that extend across disciplines and to speak to industry practices and the public.
In bringing this new and diverse network together to explore this unmapped interdisciplinary terrain, it is hoped that new research territory and modes of inquiry will emerge which will lead to an application to the AHRC to support further work in this neglected but exciting, potentially fruitful and highly impactful area.
Musical theatre and jazz are most often studied, practiced and produced separately but they have shared origins, characteristics and discourses. These intersecting histories and features are sometimes mentioned in passing in the critical literature but their potential for extending knowledge and developing new methodologies remains obscured by the separation of forms. By researching intersections and interactions between forms and considering what they might mean for understandings both within, across and beyond disciplines, the research of this network will produce new interdisciplinary conceptualisations, methodologies and practices that have implications that extend beyond developing academic knowledge to address issues of contemporary practice, the creative industries and audiences.
In reflection of the increasingly involved and global character of both musical theatre and jazz and their study, the network's core membership is both multidisciplinary and international in its makeup, including scholars from Europe, the USA and southeast Asia as well as from the UK. The network will meet at three one-day workshops, staged in Portsmouth, Birmingham and Munich, that aim to provoke productive cross-disciplinary critical discussion around set themes. These themed workshops are deliberately located within venues that facilitate the engagement and interaction of differently interested audiences of academics, industry figures, practitioners and the public with network debates and activities. They aid impactful working, which is a core aim of the network.
A vital element in developing impactful cross-disciplinary knowledge generation is a practice-research project that is integrated within the network. This will bring together jazz musicians with musical theatre practitioners to explore the forging of a common language between disciplines in the process of creating a new work-in-progress 'Jazzical' - an experimental form mixing jazz and musical theatre practices and understandings. This project will inform network debates as much as it is informed by them. It is designed to offer new insights and methodologies stemming from the nexus of forms in practice, partly to address industry concerns for fresh and interesting musical-theatrical productions that are on a suitable scale for small- and mid-scale venues like Portsmouth's New Theatre Royal (host venue for the first network meeting) and of interest to festivals like the 'Biennale' in Munich (the location for the last network meeting).
The network will produce a series of public events attached to the three network workshops, an edited volume of scholarship, a work-in-progress theatre piece and associated online and video materials. It is designed to engender much lively debate that extends beyond academia through the public and industry engagement activities associated with the workshops and the network's online platform. The network aims to situate these emergent things within a context of the historical and social discourses that underpin the intersections between musical theatre and jazz. Eminent keynote speakers from the UK and the US have thus been selected and approached for their proven ability to offer discourses that extend across disciplines and to speak to industry practices and the public.
In bringing this new and diverse network together to explore this unmapped interdisciplinary terrain, it is hoped that new research territory and modes of inquiry will emerge which will lead to an application to the AHRC to support further work in this neglected but exciting, potentially fruitful and highly impactful area.
Planned Impact
This research network has pathways with the potential to achieve impact in the following areas beyond academia:
1. Industry bodies and practitioners
The network will make use of existing relationships with professional bodies like Musical Theatre Network and Jazz Promotion Network in order to build routes to lasting impact. These organisations work with key decision makers, lobbying in support of writers, composers, performers, producers, venues, and festivals throughout the UK and in Europe. Through exchanging knowledge and expertise with these bodies, the network has an opportunity to inform attitudes to and to play a role in transforming policy around these performing arts and their crossovers. Through the interdisciplinary studies of the network and the integrated practice-research project, there is potential to effect change in creative practices and promote new collaborations between practitioners and with professional bodies.
2. Commercial sector
Taking advantage of existing relationships with musical theatre and jazz companies, like Perfect Pitch and Serious Music, we will welcome industry figures to engage with network events and the online forum. Our Portsmouth workshop venue, the New Theatre Royal, is a National Portfolio Organisation of Arts Council England and brings a host of contacts and insights into the commercial concerns of such regional small- to mid-scale theatres. The knowledge generated by the network will be of value to such venues as well as a wide range of practitioners, producers, promoters, festival directors and publishers in musical theatre and jazz. Sharing knowledge about the ways in which performers understand, characterise and explain their relationships with the infrastructure of the relevant creative industries will help to open up new commercial opportunities. For example, the practice-research project in the network will develop the basis for a show of the precise kind typically sought by receiving venues like the New Theatre Royal.
3. Third sector organisations and individuals
The events proposed in this series will allow for organisations engaged with musical theatre and jazz in non-profit or clinical environments to participate in discussions. In addition to the potential for arts and community organisations to make a contribution, this diverse approach extends to individuals who might consider themselves amateur writers, composers, performers or producers wishing to improve their skills, or professionals looking to transform their current practice and employability in non-commercial environments. In that regard we plan to exploit links with the National Operatic and Dramatic Association.
4. The media
The network also has the potential to transform the approaches of media workers such as film and television producers, magazine editors, podcasters, photographers and authors who have close connections to musical theatre and jazz, either in the products they produce or in the context of making media that depicts, discusses, comments upon, or otherwise engages with performance practices. We will engage beneficiaries in these fields primarily through the infrastructure of workshop-hosting institutions to encourage them to bring their media networks into contact with network events, website and publications.
5. Local communities and the wider public in general
Similarly, beyond those who work directly in the performing arts, there is also a broad and worthwhile audience of individuals who simply wish to learn more about the culture of creative work in the music/theatre industries and apply transferrable elements of the research to their own lives and careers. We will endeavour to reach these audiences through opening our events to the public and providing open access to the website.
1. Industry bodies and practitioners
The network will make use of existing relationships with professional bodies like Musical Theatre Network and Jazz Promotion Network in order to build routes to lasting impact. These organisations work with key decision makers, lobbying in support of writers, composers, performers, producers, venues, and festivals throughout the UK and in Europe. Through exchanging knowledge and expertise with these bodies, the network has an opportunity to inform attitudes to and to play a role in transforming policy around these performing arts and their crossovers. Through the interdisciplinary studies of the network and the integrated practice-research project, there is potential to effect change in creative practices and promote new collaborations between practitioners and with professional bodies.
2. Commercial sector
Taking advantage of existing relationships with musical theatre and jazz companies, like Perfect Pitch and Serious Music, we will welcome industry figures to engage with network events and the online forum. Our Portsmouth workshop venue, the New Theatre Royal, is a National Portfolio Organisation of Arts Council England and brings a host of contacts and insights into the commercial concerns of such regional small- to mid-scale theatres. The knowledge generated by the network will be of value to such venues as well as a wide range of practitioners, producers, promoters, festival directors and publishers in musical theatre and jazz. Sharing knowledge about the ways in which performers understand, characterise and explain their relationships with the infrastructure of the relevant creative industries will help to open up new commercial opportunities. For example, the practice-research project in the network will develop the basis for a show of the precise kind typically sought by receiving venues like the New Theatre Royal.
3. Third sector organisations and individuals
The events proposed in this series will allow for organisations engaged with musical theatre and jazz in non-profit or clinical environments to participate in discussions. In addition to the potential for arts and community organisations to make a contribution, this diverse approach extends to individuals who might consider themselves amateur writers, composers, performers or producers wishing to improve their skills, or professionals looking to transform their current practice and employability in non-commercial environments. In that regard we plan to exploit links with the National Operatic and Dramatic Association.
4. The media
The network also has the potential to transform the approaches of media workers such as film and television producers, magazine editors, podcasters, photographers and authors who have close connections to musical theatre and jazz, either in the products they produce or in the context of making media that depicts, discusses, comments upon, or otherwise engages with performance practices. We will engage beneficiaries in these fields primarily through the infrastructure of workshop-hosting institutions to encourage them to bring their media networks into contact with network events, website and publications.
5. Local communities and the wider public in general
Similarly, beyond those who work directly in the performing arts, there is also a broad and worthwhile audience of individuals who simply wish to learn more about the culture of creative work in the music/theatre industries and apply transferrable elements of the research to their own lives and careers. We will endeavour to reach these audiences through opening our events to the public and providing open access to the website.
Organisations
| Title | 'Bittersweet' - Practice-Research Performance |
| Description | 'Bittersweet' is a music-theatre piece devised by musical theatre practitioners working with professional jazz musicians to see what new knowledge might be gained in fashioning a piece at the intersection of musical theatre and jazz. Work to develop the piece was led by George Burrows, Phoebe Rumsey and Emily Moonesinghe in a fortnight of online workshops and a fortnight of in-person rehearsals at Portsmouth's New Theatre Royal. For reasons of Covid-safe working, the resulting piece was performed before live audiences on 11 November 2021 in a cabaret setting in the performance studios in the White Swan Building of the University of Portsmouth. A performance was given for UoP students and staff and another for network members, including the core group of scholars of the Musical Theatre and All That Jazz Research Network, who gathered in Portsmouth for a network meeting. This facilitated the integration of the practice (and practitioners) with the discourse of the network. The latter performance was streamed over Zoom for the benefit of Network membership overseas and that production, in addition to the whole devising and rehearsal process, was filmed for later editing into a film of the performance and the research emergent from the process behind it. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | The reach of the live performances were somewhat limited by COVID restrictions (e.g. it limited audience capacity to c.60) but it still reached an international audience based in Europe, the US and across the UK, thanks to the live broadcast over Zoom. The films of the performance and the documentary of the rehearsal process (as research) will further extend the reach of the network once they are disseminated through the network and its website in the coming months. The live performances impacted on public audiences beyond the network, including other disciplines (notably Architecture) and industry representatives. For example, the Artistic Director of the Portsmouth Jazz Festival, Sam Foote, commented that he usually detested musicals but experiencing the piece had really changed his mind through the hybrid form, which was as accessible to jazz as much as theatre audiences. He said he'd like to see more work of this sort and programme it in future festivals. The work that produced the live performances impacted professional performers working in musical theatre and jazz sectors in different regions of the UK. In feedback they commented on gaining greater creative agency and finding a greater than expected value in improvisational methods that is otherwise lacking in their work. The full impact has yet to be measured but, by the end of the network ,we hope to have feedback on the changes that came about for performers as a result of engaging in the 'Bittersweet' project. It should also be noted that UoP's BA Musical Theatre students performed their own piece in response to what they experienced in 'Bittersweet'. They were guided in their performance by the network's practitioners and received feedback from the network's core scholars. This undoubtedly changed their understanding of creative process and performance conventions, especially with regard to tap dance, which featured both in the piece itself and in the student performance as a dialogic form. Hitherto, the students had conceived this as an effect rather than something affective. |
| URL | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yDgtsoxKb2SQUCQrKsBlrirTNqZ5DwSS/view?ts=62062d19 |
| Title | Jamming on Musical Theatre and All That Jazz |
| Description | The AHRC 'Musical Theatre and All That Jazz' research network (see www.port.ac.uk/mtjazz) explores connections between forms. In that spirit the ten core scholars of the network visited Portsmouth to present their research in dialogue with some of the UK's leading free jazz improvisers. The network researchers, including Prof David Linton (Guildhall School of Music and Drama), Prof Catherine Tackley (University of Liverpool) and Prof Jeffrey Magee (University of Illinois), joined saxophonist James Mainwaring, bassist Dave Kane and the drummer Emil Karlsen to workshop and present an experimental performance that is pitched somewhere between a theatre show, a jazz gig and a research seminar. It proved to be a highly embodied and dialogic mixture of scholarship and artistry, which connected musical theatre and jazz in a new way and turned research into practice and practice into research. It acted as a proof of concert for a method to revive tired old formats for presenting research and academic discourse through harnessing jazz improvisation and theatre practice. It pointed to a method for turning research into public performance and vice-versa with feedback from the audience emphasising how much more engaging and entertaining the results were than a standard lecture or seminar. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | Colleagues in Psychology at UoP now wish to develop a similar mode to present their research and enliven their research seminar series. |
| URL | https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/jamming-on-musical-theatre-and-all-that-jazz-tickets-416038902557 |
| Description | Despite disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the 'Musical Theatre and All That Jazz' Research Network succeeded in bringing practitioners and scholars together to reveal intersections between musical theatre and jazz. It has made plain that there are many different and illuminating connections between jazz and musical theatre that serve to reflect critically on forms, genres, practices and understandings, as much as the social conditions in which they operate. For example, network scholars have revealed through their research, critical discourses about jazz in operetta, as much as musical theatre treatments of such jazz luminaries as Ferdinand 'Jelly Roll' Morton. They have uncovered the role of jazz dance in musical theatre movement and how discourses of race and gender cut across both forms. Key research questions have emerged including: what does it mean when a musical references jazz? On a more practical level, the practice-research project of the network brought professional musical theatre practitioners together with jazz musicians to develop new knowledge as they made a new music-theatre piece (Bittersweet) at the intersection of forms. This revealed the lack of creative agency felt in typical musical theatre rehearsal processes and the power of improvisation and jazz thinking to revitalise working methods in that field. Furthermore, it caused jazz musicians to reflect on their theatricality and the importance of embodiment and storytelling for engaging an audience. For audiences of Bittersweet, the network produced a hybrid form that industry representatives felt had potential for further development. For small-scale venues and festivals, in particular, the network revealed a potential mode to engage audiences that are as much open to the experiment and abstraction of jazz as to the accessibility and spectacle of musical theatre. In follow up to that performance, a further experimental performance was devised which sought to demonstrate how a hybrid performance methodology could be used to turn network research into performance and vice versa. This involved the core scholars of the network 'jamming' on their research with free-improvising jazz musicians in a workshop which produced a performance event staged in Portsmouth in September 2022. That performance was pitched somewhere between a seminar, a jazz gig and a theatre performance and it marked the discovery of a novel practice-research mode of improvising on research in what proved (from audience feedback) to be a more engaging and entertaining mode than standard methods of presenting academic discourse and it was itself a way of furthering knowledge, as the researcher learned new things about their topic through the act of preparing, embodying and improvising on it for performance with the musicians. If there is one distinct contribution of the network's work, it is in this representational methodology, which surely has application within a whole range of different disciplines and offers a wonderfully engaging way of bringing academics into the realm of popular music and theatre for the benefit of arts venues as much as the academy. |
| Exploitation Route | The work of the network's scholars forms a model for future interdisciplinary exploration of hybrid aesthetics, methods and understandings and it will be made available to others through the edited volume we are developing with Intellect. The volume will be as much a reflection of the mixed-media of the network's subject in that it will include creative writing drawing on jazz and musical theatre methods and content, alongside more formal academic essays. In this sense, the volume aims to impact modes of representation for hybrid aesthetic scholarship and it reflects the impact of the practice-research focus of the network. That has already offered new hybrid methods for jazz musicians and musical theatre practitioners to take forward in their professional work and feedback suggests that has already occurred. The music-theatre piece that the network produced has huge potential to inform creative work that is suited to arts centres and festivals, which seek small-scale productions that are both appealing and appealing to audiences. Follow on funding could help to test this by re-staging the piece in various suitable venues beyond the academy and measuring the wider impact on audiences and promoters but we feel there is even more potential to develop a toolkit that builds on the network's experiments in research into performance and vice versa. This tool kit would offer a co-production model in which academics and jazz musicians work together to improvise on research in a bid to produce something performative that informs the research itself through the encounter as much as it presents it in an engaging and entertaining way for a public audience. The network has shown that this has the triple merit of providing much needed new content for jazz venues, arts centres, theatres and festivals while at the same time putting academics in the public sphere and furthering knowledge and understanding through the performance enterprise. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy,Education,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | http://www.port.ac.uk/mtjazz |
| Description | The meetings of the network have impacted on the scholars involved such as to find areas of overlap that will form a published edited collection of new research over the coming months. The knowledge generated through the practice-research project of the network has impacted on the musical theatre and jazz practitioners that worked together to devise new work (Bittersweet), as they took the ideas on to further creative work (e.g. A Christmas Carol at Greenwich). The audience that attended Bittersweet also reported change in their understanding of where musical theatre and jazz can meet and the critical discourses that this entails. Although this has not yet resulted in further production work, the presence of industry figures may well help that to emerge in the future but the pandemic certainly limited the potential of such impact. The engagement with postgraduate and undergraduate students has led to a new practice-research PhD topic and BA Musical Theatre students developing final-year work that incorporated jazz for the first time. The workshop and 'Jamming on Musical Theatre and Jazz' performance event staged in performance in September 2022 had an immediate impact on former and current colleagues, who provided feedback to suggest it offered a methodology to improve the public relevance of research and to inform the research through improvised performance experience in a number of different disciplines. In the first instance, colleagues in psychology are interested in applying a similar methodology to revitalise their research seminar series. It is in developing and further disseminating this methodology that the network might best benefit from follow on funding, which could develop a toolkit for others to use. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2021 |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |
| Description | 'Bittersweet' Practice-Research Performance |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | 'Bittersweet' was a cabaret-style music-theatre performance staged on 11 November 2021 in Studios 4 and 5 White Swan Building of the University of Portsmouth as part of the network meeting in Portsmouth. It was the product of the practice-research project of the network, which put professional musical theatre practitioners together with jazz performers to develop knowledge in the process of creating a new work at the intersection of understandings, forms and practices. The performance was streamed over Zoom as well as performed live, which meant it reached an international audience with people tuning in from the US and Europe. The impact of the performance was far-reaching, not just for changes in the performers' views and practices but also for audiences, who commented that they had never experienced anything like its mix of improvisation and theatre practices. Furthermore, the piece (and its practitioner-creators) were integrated with the scholarship of the network in follow-on discussions and the teaching of musical theatre at Portsmouth, through a student response to piece with their own performance, supervised by network practitioners. The students involved reported change in their view of jazz features of musical theatre practice (notably tap dance) and the critical discourses it opened up. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Interdisciplinary Forms and Genres Panel |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | A panel discussion was held over Zoom for the core membership of the network to develop interdisciplinary understandings of issues of genres and forms associated with the hybridity in the Musical Theatre and Jazz network. The panel consisted of short presentations by a sociologist, Dr Anna Bull (University of York), and a philosopher, Professor John Craven (Kings College, London). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Jamming on Musical Theatre and All That Jazz |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | On Thursday 15 September the ten core scholars of the network visited Portsmouth to workshop and present aspects of their research in a performed dialogue with three of the UK's leading free improvising jazz musicians: saxophonist James Mainwaring, bassist Dave Kane and the drummer Emil Karlsen. The result was an experimental performance pitched somewhere between a theatre show, a jazz gig and a research seminar. The event was presented in Drama Studio 1 of White Swan Building of the University of Portsmouth at 5.30pm to a public audience (c.100) that included PhD students, academic staff from many disciplines and industry figures (e.g. organiser of the Portsmouth Jazz Club etc.) It offered innovative mixture of scholarship and artistry, which connected musical theatre and jazz in a performative way that turned research into practice and practice into research. This methodology proved to be of interest to many in the audience including academics in several unconnected disciplines and jazz producers looking to find new ways to reach and expand audiences. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/jamming-on-musical-theatre-and-all-that-jazz-tickets-416038902557 |
| Description | Keynote Lecture (Zoom) - Daphne A. Brooks |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A public lecture entitled 'Revolutionary Arias: Four Saints in Three Acts, Porgy and Bess and the Sound of the Black Feminist Avant-Garde' was given over Zoom on 28 May 2021 by Professor Daphne A. Brooks (Yale University) as part of the meeting of the network. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Keynote Public Lecture (Zoom) - Thomas L. Riis |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | A public keynote talk was given as part of the network meeting on 27 May 2021 (over Zoom due to Covid) entitled 'A Brief History of Black Dance in American Musical Theatre: How black movements shaped the movement: 1875-1925' by Emeritus Professor Thomas L. Riis (University of Colorado, Boulder). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Network Website (incl. blogs) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The MT Jazz Network website (www.port.ac.uk/mtjazz) was set up ahead of the first network meeting in May 2021 as a vehicle to disseminate information about the network and its research. It includes blog posts and a Spotify playlist of songs in addition to information about network aims and activities. It is under continual development during the network and details of keynote speakers, practitioners, etc. are added as they engage with network events. A major addition will be associated project pages that include video of the performance project attached to the network and the practice-research process that produced it. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | http://www.port.ac.uk/mtjazz |
| Description | Object Discussion (Zoom) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | On 24 September 2021, the core scholars of the network were invited to a workshop in which each would present an object that represented a connection between musical theatre and jazz. This helped the network to orientate itself towards cognate areas for future work and to begin to thrash out the structure and context for the edited volume of research it will produce. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Online Discussion Panel from Munich |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | An online discussion panel from Munich was a Musical Theatre and All That Jazz network event on Wednesday 16 March 2022. It was entitled, 'Intersections in Directing, Training, Performing' and featured Josef E. Köpplinger, Patti Martin, and Lars Hansen. The aim of the panel was to address the network subject matter from a central European (German/Austrian) perspective and thereby engage a broader audience and discourse for the network research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Pecka Kucha Presentations |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | The core scholars of the MT Jazz network were invited to present Pecha Kucha presentations of their initial takes on connections between musical theatre and jazz. These 6'20" presentations helped the network to get a sense of the range of critical responses and the territory under consideration to aid the development of future network events and the edited volume the network will produce. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Practice-Research In-Person Rehearsal and Performance Fortnight |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A fortnight of Research and Development rehearsals (1-12 November 2021) were held in the Minghella Studio of Portsmouth's New Theatre Royal with professional musical theatre and jazz practitioners (performers) as part of a practice-research process that ultimately led to a performance of new piece of music-theatre called 'Bittersweet'. Workshop-rehearsal leadership from the Co-I, George Burrows, network-member, Phoebe Rumsey, and PhD student, Emily Moonesinghe informed the practitioners each day to get them working and reflecting at the intersection of musical theatre and jazz, thereby generating new knowledge at the intersection of forms and practices. Their work was presented in a public performance of 'Bittersweet' (filmed) on 11 November and integrated with the scholar meeting of the network hosted at Portsmouth on 12 November to ensure intersecting discourse. The practitioners reflected in feedback that the process informed them of new approaches to making and performing work and made them reflect on how they might take creative practice forward in future work. The fortnight was filmed as a vehicle for further dissemination and impact and to record the new knowledge generated through the process. Portsmouth's undergraduate BA Musical Theatre students were integrated with the process and performed their own response to network scholars, under the direction of the practitioners on Friday 12 November. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
| Description | Practice-Research Zoom Workshop Week (May 2021) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A week of Research and Development workshops (24-28 May 2021) were held over Zoom with professional musical theatre and jazz practitioners (performers and directors) as part of a practice-research process that ultimately led to a performance of a new piece of music-theatre called 'Bittersweet'. The practitioners involved were set tasks to get them working and reflecting at the intersection of musical theatre and jazz, thereby generating new knowledge at the intersection of forms and practices. Their work was presented and integrated with the zoom scholar meeting of the network on 28 May to ensure intersecting discourse. The practitioners reflected in feedback that the process gave them a greatly increased sense of creative agency and reframed rehearsal for them as an opportunity for exploration that is not common in usual working practices. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Practice-Research Zoom Workshop Week (September 2021) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A week of Research and Development workshops (20-24 Sept 2021) were held over Zoom with professional musical theatre and jazz practitioners (performers and directors) as part of a practice-research process that ultimately led to a performance of a new piece of music-theatre called 'Bittersweet'. In addition to practice-research leadership from leadership from the Co-I, different experts (Petter Frost Fadnes (University of Stravanger), Julian Woolford (University of Surrey), Dustyn Martincich (Bucknell University and William Allenby (University of Chichester)) informed the practitioners each day to get them working and reflecting at the intersection of musical theatre and jazz, thereby generating new knowledge at the intersection of forms and practices. Their work was presented and integrated with the Zoom scholar meeting of the network on 24 September to ensure intersecting discourse. The practitioners reflected in feedback that the process informed them of new approaches to devising and making work. The week was filmed as a vehicle for further dissemination and impact. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Public Keynote Lecture (Zoom) - Hannah Robbins |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | An online public lecture entitled 'Reclaiming Lena Horne: approaching Blackness and stardom in the Hollywood musical' was given over Zoom by Dr Hannah Marie Robbins (University of Nottingham) as part of the network meeting on 11 November 2021. This talk helped the network reach a film-studies audience and helped introduce ideas of identity and stardom to network discourse. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Public Keynote Lecture (Zoom) - Sven Bjerstedt |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A public keynote lecture entitled 'Storytelling in Jazz Improvisation and Musicality in Theatre' was presented by Sven Bjerstedt (Lund University) to an international public audience over Zoom. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Works-in-Progress Presentation Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | A workshop formed part of the network meeting on 12 November 2021 in which core scholars presented work-in-progress presentations in preparation for the edited collection of new research to emerge from the network discussions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |