Theatre Library Association
SYMPOSIUM II
TLA Announces Symposium on Performance Reclamation
As a result of its successful October 2003 Symposium at Lincoln Center, Performance Documentation and Preservation in an Online Environment, Theatre Library Association has decided to offer Symposium II on performance reclamation issues. Currently titled Performance Reclamation: Research, Discovery, and Interpretation, this one-day conference will investigate the process of restaging obscure or seldom produced works and restoring them to the dramatic repertory. It is scheduled for Friday, February 16, 2007, at the proposed location of New York University’s new Kimmel Center.
The Symposium will be structured as three in-depth case studies concentrating on rediscovered works from drama, musical theatre, and dance. TLA plans to partner with producing organizations from these disciplines which specialize in mounting lost or earlier works from their repertories. Already on board is New York’s Mint Theater Company, responsible for reviving little-known classics in careful restagings. We are in the process of approaching distinguished representatives from modern dance and musical theatre. Production panels – each containing a librarian, archivist, or dramaturg – will discuss and evaluate the particular research and interpretative challenges in offering rediscovered works for contemporary audiences.
Symposium II’s mission statement further elaborates our goals:
Performing arts libraries and archives play a critical role in recreating performance and supporting the construction of production histories. Research – in the context and breadth of collection documents – assumes a creative role in interpretation, artistic choices, and revisualization in production.
In this sense, we posit the library as a living, breathing entity and proactive collaborator in restaging of works. Examining performance in its broadest sense – theater, dance, musicals, and film – we anticipate a dynamic dialogue between producers, directors, choreographers, librarians, archivists, dramaturgs, and scholars on this creative nexus between research and production, aesthetic questions of reinterpretation as works are updated for the present, ethical issues in determining artists' original intentions, and how the benefit of new technologies both facilitates and challenges the rebirth of classical works from previous eras.
We are currently seeking volunteers from the TLA membership to serve on our Planning Committee. Producing a conference is a lot of work, but we’re excited about this project – and we all know how to put on a show! If you’d like additional information or are interested in joining this Committee, please contact one of the Co-Chairs:
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