Market as crisis: institutional change and crisis discourse in the German independent theatre scene

该项目以汉诺威和柏林为例，重点关注德国独立剧院的结构变化。主要的研究目标是检查不同的工作过程，新工作形式的发展，以及由此导致的戏剧制作人看待自己和艺术创作的方式的变化，以及他们如何处理特定的危机语义。德国独立剧院构成了德国公共资助的表演艺术劳动力市场的一部分。独立戏剧艺术家是自由职业者，通常以集体或团体的形式组织，他们接受基于项目的资助。与市政和州剧院的永久资助不同，独立的自由职业剧院艺术家必须定期申请资助，并根据他们之前的作品进行评估。由于这些根本不同的工作和财务结构，本研究项目评估这些条件对艺术实践产生了哪些影响后果。目前，永久资助的国家剧院和独立的剧院场景都面临着强烈的公众批评和机构补贴拨款结构的变化。这一趋势可以被解读为危机话语的理由和主题。在公共艺术经费危机的背景下，当涉及到关于剧院制度的财政驱动的改革思路时，独立艺术界灵活的生产结构被纳入了普遍的辩论。在这些辩论中，独立戏剧艺术家目前的工作做法被视为塑造未来工作关系和工作形式的榜样，其他领域的灵活工作安排也是如此。这些工作实践包括艺术创作和作品的集体过程、在制作成员之间分配风险、在网络结构中工作以及利用一批定期与艺术家合作的专家。因此，本项目试图以柏林和汉诺威及其周边地区的团体和作品为例，对独立戏剧艺术家从1989年到今天的经济、社会和艺术状况进行补充分析。这项实证分析将结合工作和就业研究以及戏剧和机构研究的方法、概念和理论。跨学科的方法被认为是对生产条件和审美表现之间的联系进行整体洞察所必需的。

The project focuses on structural change in the German independent theatre scene using the example of Hannover and Berlin. The main research objective is to examine heterogeneous working processes, the development of new forms of work and the resulting change in the way how theatre makers see themselves and their artistic creation as well as how they deal with specific semantics of crisis. The German independent theatre scene forms a segment of the German public-funded performing arts labor market. Independent theatre artists are freelancer, often organized in collec-tives or groups, who receive project-based funding. In contrast to permanent funding of municipal and state theatres, independent freelance theatre artists have to apply regularly for funding and get evaluated on the basis of their prior production. Due to these fundamentally different working and finance structures, this research project evaluates which influential consequences these conditions have on the artistic practice. Currently, both the permanent funded state theatres and the independent theatre scene are confronted with strong public critique and changes in the institutional subsidy grant structure. This trend can be read as grounds and subject of crisis discourses. Against the backdrop of the public art funding in crisis, flexible production structures of the independent art scene are fed into the general debate when it comes to fiscal-driven reform thinking concerning the theatre system. In these debates, current work practices of independent theatre artists are regarded as a role model shaping work relations and forms of work of the future as do flexible work arrangements in other fields. These work practices comprise the collective process of artistic creation and productions, the distribution of risk among production members, working in a network structure and making use of a pool of experts with whom artists work together on a regular basis. Therefore, this project seeks to conduct a complementary analysis of the economic, social and artistic situation of independent theatre artists from 1989 until today using the example of groups and productions in and around Berlin and Hannover. Methods, concepts and theories from work and employment studies as well as theatre and institutional studies will be combined in this empirical analysis. The interdisciplinary approach is considered as necessary to get an integral insight into the connection between conditions of production and aesthetic expression.