Martin Jorg Schafer – författare

Since 2010 we have witnessed new ways of assembling, which have made the word »democracy« sound important again. These practices may not have led to the political changes we had hoped for. Nevertheless, we are convinced of their importance. This book wants to acknowledge them as a starting point for a new art of being many: The »many« invoke new concepts of collectivity by renegotiating their modes of participation and (self-)presentation and by rewriting rhetorical, choreographical, and material scripts of assembling. This volume is inspired and informed by the square-occupations and neighborhood assemblies of the »real democracy« movements as well as by recent explorations of the assembly form in performance art and participatory theatre.

In German spoken theatre, prompt books used to be written by multiple participants engaging in diverse manuscript practices which continually revise the unfixed literary text within its theatrical context. Based on examples of the vast Hamburg »Theatre-Library« from the 1770s to 1820s, this study proposes a transdisciplinary approach towards handwritten artefacts in modern European theatre. Martin Jörg Schäfer and Alexander Weinstock examine the many-handed creation, handwritten transformation and often decades of use of prompt books in a time increasingly dominated by print. This perspective changes our notion of theatre history around 1800 as well as that of literature and authorship.

Im 21. Jahrhundert sind Theaterformen weit verbreitet, in denen Sprechtexte, Redeweisen und Skripte in gemeinsamen (Proben-)Prozessen entstehen: in einem Team von Kunstschaffenden oder unter Mitwirkung des Publikums. "TogetherText" bezeichnet kooperative und prozessuale Verfahren der szenischen Texterzeugung und ihre Konsequenzen für Sprache, (Bühnen-)Raum, Zuschausituation, Theaterinstitution und deren Analyse. Hier stellen sich Fragen nach flachen Hierarchien und Entscheidungsbefugnissen, alltäglichem Sprachgebrauch und Ästhetisierung des Textmaterials, der Zusammenarbeit von Profis und Laien oder des Urheberrechts und der Nachspielbarkeit. Der Band konturiert die entsprechenden Problemfelder, versammelt künstlerische Strategien und liefert Vorschläge für ein analytisches Instrumentarium.