Research team
Expertise
Rosa Lambert (she/her) holds a PhD in Theater Studies and Intermediality from the University of Antwerp, where she graduated in December 2023 with her thesis titled “Moving With(in) Language: Kinetic Textuality in Contemporary Performing Arts.” This study centers around the interaction between (spoken) text and (choreographed) movement in contemporary theatre and dance performances. She is currently working as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at NYU’s Performance Studies department to conduct postdoctoral research on Judson Poets’ Theater. Her scholarly interests include text-based theater and dance, the contemporary and historical intersections between literature and choreography, and (post)phenomenological approaches towards language. Her work has been published in Documenta, Critical Stages/Scènes Critiques, and European journal of theatre and performance.
Tracing Literary Influences in the Choreographic Experiments of Judson Poets' Theater and Judson Dance Theater.
Abstract
This research will study how literary texts gave rise to choreographic experiment in the work of Judson Poets' Theater and Judson Dance Theater. The widespread acclaim for the contribution of Judson Dance to the development of contemporary dance overshadows the key role that the more literary-oriented Judson Poets played in the historical development of the art form. This study's focus on the literary undercurrent in both their oeuvres departs from the dominant tendency to privilege the visual arts as the spark of this choreographic innovation. By examining hitherto unstudied collaborations between both groups, it will offer a new perspective on the cross-disciplinary nature of their innovations.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: De Laet Timmy
- Fellow: Lambert Rosa
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Moving with(in) Language: Kinetic Textuality in Contemporary Performing Arts.
Abstract
Traditionally, text and language have been central elements on the theatre stage. The first and foremost function of these texts was 'mimesis'. 'Mimesis' describes the use of the drama text as referring to, or evoking an external reality. Through the text the actors pronounce, characters of all sorts can emerge. Today, a broad range of theatre, performance, and dance practices do not employ texts for mimesis, but rather for kinesis. These texts do not imitate reality, but generate movement, because they are uttered in a distinctly rhythmic manner, and because the performers' bodies start to move on the rhythm of these texts. This project will offer the first, in-depth study of this recent tendency by examining how contemporary theatre, performance, and dance artists are rethinking the interaction between text and movement in ways that prevailing interpretative frameworks in academic research on the performing arts can hardly account for. The increased interest in what this project calls 'kinetic textuality' necessitates a different perspective on the relation between language and movement, that illuminates its underlying aesthetic strategies and makes the intertwinement between text and motion comprehensible.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: De Laet Timmy
- Co-promoter: Van Den Dries Luc
- Fellow: Lambert Rosa
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Moving Language: An Investigation into Text's Kinetic Potential in Theatre.
Abstract
The project 'Moving Language: An Investigation into Text's Kinetic Potential in Theatre', will examine the dominating presence of textuality within the work of certain contemporary artists and the way in which it triggers a new form of theatricality. The use of text in the work of, amongst others, Mette Edvardsen, Jan Lauwers and Abke Haring, is deeply influenced by dance aesthetics and therefore very distinct from traditional text theatre. Text is no longer used to produce the words of a certain character (mimetic), neither does it function as mere material presence, within the realm of other performative elements. The aforementioned artists make explicit use of text, in a way that is not conceivable by use of current theoretic paradigms on text. This peculiar status forces scholars to rethink and redefine theory on textuality and to connect it with concepts from performance studies, such as 'embodiment', 'presence' and 'spatiality', concepts that are less likely to be used in dominant theoretic contemplations on textuality. This project departs from this theoretical impetus and will work around the hypothesis that certain contemporary uses of text can be labelled as 'kinetic'. Therefore, the conceptualising of text from a mimetic/semiotic view will be connected with and replaced by a kinetic framework, which will enable performance scholars to study contemporary textual tendencies within the realm of physicality and spatiality. This research project is thus both practical and theoretical: by use of a selected corpus, traditional (theoretical) conceptions will be redefined to frame how textuality in contemporary text theatre 'moves' around the performative dynamic.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Van Den Dries Luc
- Fellow: Lambert Rosa
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project