Staff
Speaker
Prof. Dr. Christopher Balme
e-mail: globaltheatrehistory [at] lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Christopher Balme currently holds the chair in theatre studies at the University of Munich and is dean of the Faculty of History and Arts. He was born and educated in New Zealand where he graduated from the University of Otago. He has lived and worked in Germany since 1985 with positions at the universities of Würzburg, Munich and Mainz. From 2004 to 2006 he held the chair in theatre studies at the University of Amsterdam. He has published widely on German theatre, intercultural theatre and theatre and other media. Prof. Balme is past-president of the German Society for Theatre Research, is the vice-president of the IFTR, was Senior Editor of Theatre Research International from 2004-2006. He currently edits the journal Forum Modernes Theater.
Scientific Coordinator / PostDoctoral Researcher
Dr. Nic Leonhardt
e-mail:n.leonhardt [at] lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Nic Leonhardt studied Theatre Studies and Audiovisual Media, German Philology and Art History at the Universities of Erlangen-Nürnberg and Mainz. From 2002 to 2005 Nic Leonhardt was participant in the International PhD-program Performance and Media Studies, University of Mainz. (title of her PhD-thesis: Pictorial Dramaturgy. Theatre and Visual Culture in 19th Century Germany (1869-1899) (in German). She worked as a researcher, lecturer and coordinator at the University of Music Cologne (2000-2002), the University of Music and Theatre in Leipzig (2006-2007), and the Cluster of Excellence “Asia & Europe in a Global Context” (Heidelberg University) In 2007, she held the position of a guest lecturer (“Gastdozentin”) at the German Department of Barnard College and Columbia University, New York. Nic received grants from the University of Mainz (2000), the Fulbright Commission (2003), and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) (2004; 2007) and has been mentee in the LMU Excellent Mentoring Program since 2010. She has worked and published on theatre and media history and historiography, visual culture, popular culture, theatre and media censorship, and urban history.
Research Project:
Transatlantic exchanges at the turn of the 20th century and in the 1950ies (Theatre, Media, Fashion, Popular Culture) (working title)
Post-Doctoral Researchers
Berenika Szymanski
(Munich, Germany)
Berenika.Szymanski [at] campus.lmu.de
Berenika Szymanski has studied Dramaturgy, Slavic Philology and Intercultural Communication at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University and the Bavarian Theatre Academy August Everding in Munich. During her studies she has been awarded scholarships from the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation and the Jagiellonian University in Cracow/Poland. In February 2011 she has finished her PhD thesis with the title “Als Wałęsa über die Mauer kletterte… Zur Dynamik theatrer Strategien im Jahrzehnt der Solidarność” (When Wałęsa climbed over the wall… Theatrical strategies during the decade of Solidarność). Berenika Szymanski has worked on different theatre projects, among them for example „Ursonate“ by Kurt Schwitters – a production with guest performances in Kiev, Moscow, Edmonton and Los Angeles. Currently she is working as researcher and lecturer at the Universities in Munich and Bayreuth.
Research Project:
Internationalization of Communism in and by Theatre
The revolutions of 1917 put an end to Tsarism in Russia and established the power of the Bolsheviks under the lead of Vladimir Lenin. In 1922 the Soviet Union was founded, unifying the former territories of the Tsaristic Empire in one country. After the Second World War Joseph Stalin, who succeeded Lenin, gained new territorial areas for the Soviet Union by installing subservient communist governments in Eastern and Central European countries, which were called satellites.
My project focuses on the role of theatre in the Socialist System. I am dealing with the question, in which way and in which period of time the authorities of Soviet-Communist countries tried to establish and to institutionalize communism in and by traditional theatre. In addition, I would like to examine what kind of topics and artistic programs were used to establish communistic ideas on stage and ask which trade routes to other countries they have made afterwards.
Doctoral Researchers
Anirban Ghosh, M.A.
(New Delhi, India / Munich)
e-mail: anirbanghoshpresi [at] gmail.com
Anirban Ghosh completed his MA in History with specialization in Modern India at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. His interests are cultural histories of theatre and performance, spatial histories and narratives of medicine/animals in popular representations.
Publications:
In collaboration with Debanjali Biswas, 'The Altered space: Community dances from everyday to the proscenium' in Traversing Traditions: Celebrating Dance in India, Ed by. Urmimala Sarkar and Stephanie Burridge, New Delhi: Routledge .2010
Feature in the Sephis e-magazine: “Some conversations within a city: with Hindutva and JNU on top.
Research Project:
The Tropic Trapeze: Performance and Visuality in Colonial India
Gero Toegl, Dipl.-Dram.
(Graz, Austria / Munich)
e-mail: gero.toegl [at] lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Born 1984 in Graz/Austria, Gero Toegl studied Dramaturgy, Communication Studies, Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at Ludwig-Maximilians-University from which he graduated in July 2009. From September 2006 to July 2007 he visited King’s College London as a Socrates/Erasmus-student. Gero Toegl has worked for Pathos Transport Theatre Munich since 2004 as a Dramaturg, Assistant Director and Director and completed internships at Schauspielhaus Graz and Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel. His research interests concern theatre history in the context of media theory, Actor-Network-Theory and computer game studies.
Research Project
European National Opera and Artistic Imperialism
The main focus of the dissertation lies on a reading of 19th century European opera and its distribution as profoundly European cultural and aesthetic discourse throughout the colonial empires as an imperialistic project. Fundamental to this research focus is an examination of the emergence of nationalism in post-Napoleonic Europe and the subsequent development of national opera styles as well as the perception of opera as genuine European tradition in the colonial world. Consequently, the role of operatic enterprises such as Richard Wagner’s within the cultural programs of imperial expansion and the development of post-colonial cultural traditions according to European models will be investigated.
meLê yamomo
(Manila, Philippines / Munich)
e-mail: mele [at] global-theatre-histories.org
meLê yamomo lived in Los Baños, Manila, Seoul, Bangkok, Amsterdam, and Warwick studying, teaching, and making theatre and music. [www.meleyamomo.com]
Research Project
Opera and Modernization in Southeast Asia
Western classical opera emerged in Southeast Asia as a form of colonial entertainments as early as the late nineteenth century, particularly in Manila and in Hanoi where opera houses were built to house the performances of this elaborate art form. One century later – within the last two decades, opera companies are being founded in the newly industrializing and modernizing metropolitan centers of Bangkok and Singapore. In my research, I am interested in investigating three issues related to this phenomenon. First, I would like to map out the history of Western classical opera in the region. I am interested in looking at how this colonial art form has been successfully indigenized or “syncreticized” – if this at all transpired or is transpiring. By tracing the history of the presence of opera in Southeast Asia in this framework, I would like to see a more dynamic process in the development of the artform in the region which does not presume the colonized society or the colonial power as monolithic static entities. Second, I would like to locate the emergence and development of opera in Southeast Asia in the bigger discourse of modernity/(ies). Here, I will be referring to two periods of modernization in the region: the first period is connected to the modernization in Europe with its consequential influence transpiring in the colonial capitals; the second period is related to the modernization in Southeast Asia directly linked with the onset of globalization. By looking at how opera evolved towards an indigenized, or “syncretic” form in these societies, we can trace how this cultural practice as a symbol of modernity parallels how the modernist agenda and its practices are imposed, borrowed, assimilated and/or rejected in the region.
Student Assistants
Teresa Komann (HiwWi until December 2011)
Major Subjects: Theatre Studies (B.A.); German Literature (M.A.)
Minor Subjects: Language/Literature/Culture (B.A.); Comparative Studies, Linguistics (M.A.)
Adela Sophia Sabban
A.Sabban [at] campus.lmu.de
Major Subject: German literature (B.A.)
Minor Subjects: Art/Music/Theatre (B.A.)
Sabine Rösch
sabine.sophie [at] gmx.net
Main subject: Theatre studies
Minor subject: Chinese studies, Law
