Digital Theatre is a subsection of digital performance, an much broader field. Both are equally valid, but as a long time Theatre scholar and more recent convert to Performance Studies--my approach was to identify those performances which most clearly contained the elements of (live, copresent) theatre AND the flexibility of digital or computer elements in staging.

I have worked with a variety of technologies and met and learned from so many of today's tech/performance geniuses. And I count myself lucky for the experiences I have had and the projects I continue to make. I love to write, think, and do...and greatly look forward to my next teaching adventure.

Dissertation ABSTRACT

Title of Document:	DIGITAL THEATRE:  A “LIVE” AND MEDIATED ART FORM EXPANDING PERCEPTIONS OF BODY, PLACE, AND COMMUNITY
	Nadja Linnine Masura, Ph.D., 2007
Directed By:	Director of Graduate Studies, Dr. Franklin J. Hildy, Department of Theatre

 

Keywords: Digital Theatre, digital performance, dance technology, body, place, telematic, community, collaboration, agency, media, Internet, “live,” computer, theatre, cyberplace, cyberspace, multi-site performance, Access Grid, Virtual Reality, MIDI, Digital Performance Archive

This work discusses Digital Theatre, a type of performance which utilizes both “live” actors and co-present audiences along with digital media to create a hybrid art form revitalizing theatre for contemporary audiences.  This work surveys a wide range of digital performances (with “live” and digital elements, limited interactivity/participation and spoken words) and identifies the group collectively as Digital Theatre, an art form with the flexibility and reach of digital data and the sense of community found in “live” theatre.
I offer performance examples from Mark Reaney, David Saltz, Troika Ranch, Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre, Flying Karamazov Brothers, Talking Birds, Yacov Sharir, Studio Z, George Coates Performance Group, and ArtGrid.  (The technologies utilized in performances include: video-conferencing, media projection, MIDI control, motion capture, VR animation, and AI).  Rather than looking at these productions as isolated events, I identify them as a movement and link the use of digital techniques to continuing theatrical tradition of utilizing new technologies on the stage.  The work ties many of the aesthetic choices explored in theatrical past by the likes of Piscator, Svoboda, Craig, and in Bauhaus and Futurist movements.
While it retains the essential qualities of public human connection and imaginative thought central to theatre, Digital Theatre can cause theatrical roles to merge as it extends the performer’s body, expands our concept of place, and creates new models of global community.

 

 

www.digthet.com

The Search for Digital Theatre
Nadja Masura
MITH/Theatre Fellow 2002-2007
University of Maryland, College Park

This website documents my research as a MITH/Theatre fellow at the University of Maryland and shows how it evolved throughout the fellowship.  It remains as a resource and product of the online research I explored in pursuit of understanding about the term "Digital Theatre" and forms of digital performance.  It marked the path I walked in attempting to connect resources for collaboration both on and off campus.  It also shows my interactions with practitioners, theorists, technicians, and my own process of experimentation and discovery with performance technology and integrative the live and the virtual. 

The website explored what was at the core of my doctoral interest: the evolving art of Digital Theatre. My dissertation is now complete and can be accessed via http://www.lib.umd.edu/drum/handle/190317430

The website remains as an artifact of my graduate research, although my research continues and can be found in the media section of this current website, at the Virtual Performance Collective, and through papers and publications.

Writing Samples:

A definition and an excerpt from Digital Theatre: A "Live" and Mediated Art Form Expanded Perceptions of Body, Place, and Community

Altered States: Multi-site Performance High

 

Ongoing Research:

Re-Membering Harmony Project
A site-specific performance / installation focusing on place-based community (currently taking oral histories) : www.occidentalcenterforthearts.com

The Virtual Performance Collective

http://virtualperformancecoll.blogspot.com

See Also Media & Performance