The Performing Human Being in a Media Interaction Space: Multi- and intermodal productions by the Düsseldorf Theater der Klänge (Theatre of Sounds)

Art Style | Art & Culture International Magazine

Abstract

In the course of 35 years of work, the Düsseldorf Theater der Klänge (Germany) has dedicated itself to multimodal and, above all, intermodal manifestations of “form, movement, sound and light design as dynamic concentrations of action” as the Bauhaus master Laszlo Moholy-Nagy demanded in 1925 for a theatre of the future, in a total of nine intermedial productions. Such a theatre is not subject to the primacy of a particular genre, as is traditionally standard as dance, music or drama theatre—especially in German theatre—but rather uses the possibilities of presentation of theatre and song text, music, dance, scenography, video art, light design and possibly even further sensory stimulation to arrive at a holistic stage action in differently defined spectacle spaces. In the following scientifically oriented article, the artistic director of the Theater der Klänge, Prof. J.U. Lensing, shows how and why this ensemble was founded in 1987 on the basis of a Bauhaus stage postulate or a Bauhaus book publication. It also describes why the first two productions of this ensemble were based on Bauhaus stage ideas of the 1920s and what this has to do with the Folkwang University in Essen. Finally, starting from the reflection on the multimodality of these productions, the article describes the further systematically laid out course to intermodal stage approaches, in which the entire stage was also equipped with sensors as an interface for electronic reactions related to music and video scenography. The article’s main topic is which approaches to sensorised stages was pursued, which were discarded as rather unsuitable, and which were further developed. Finally, the question arises about the meaning of such action and the status and definition of performers in such a stage form.