Vol. 62 No. 1 (2017): Narrative Structures in Contemporary Performing Arts

In the last decades the dynamic theatre teams, changes in directors’ role in a production and collective working models seem to have generated a reconsideration of narrative structures. The emerging performance and dance practices embodied narratives in unique and different ways. The new technologies and the multitude of film and tv series built on modular structures have induced major changes not only in aesthetics, style and artistic offer, but also in terms of generating new narrative forms. Some contemporary theatre makers are considering the actor, playwright and director as equal members of a team, with similar creative responsibilities; in some cases, the writer merges with the director, or even the actor.

A number of questions arise from the new ways of working together: Does the written text still have its importance in performance? Do all these innovations stand as a narrative turn in contemporary performing arts or are they just individual experiments with storytelling? What are the major determining factors of the narrative form? How is the audience engaged by such stories? In order to attempt to answer these questions we are proposing a special, inter- and trans-disciplinary issue of Studia Dramatica, focussed on the investigation of new narrative forms.