Conventions as mediation for creative interaction between contemporary theatre art and applied practices of theatre

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Abstract

This essay explores the potential mutual influences between educational/applied theatre and contemporary theatre in terms of convention, questioning the current disconnection between them in reality. The first part reexamines the concept of convention and the importance of the conventions approach as a mindset. It introduces Burns’ sociological exploration of theatricality by analyzing conventions in social life and theatre, subsequently modifying it with Brecht’s analysis of apparatus and re-functionalization. This expanded framework provides insights into the development of contemporary theatre, extending beyond the original scope of Burns’ theory. The second part offers a reconstructive analysis of the development of contemporary experimental theatre in terms of convention, categorizing the new theatrical conventions developed through these contemporary experiments into six dimensions—immediacy, reflexivity, hybridity, deconstruction, reality, participation—distinct from the dramatic conventions currently used in educational/applied theatre. The author demonstrates that contemporary theatre can benefit from educational/applied theatres’ conventions in the categories of ‘reality’ and ‘participation’, while educational/applied theatre can also learn from contemporary theatre in the other four categories of conventions.

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Keywords

sociology of convention, educational theatre, applied theatre, Brecht, postdramatic theatre

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