Migrations and Interactions – The Theatrical Gesture in the Field of the Arts

International and Interdisciplinary Workshop at the University of Stuttgart

Stuttgart, 28 and 29 November 2024

Organised by Gesine Hindemith (Stuttgart)

Gestures are an elementary visual element of interpersonal communication and as such are presented and reflected upon in the context of all art forms. This takes place on an immediate impact level and a reflexive meta-level. Gestures appear within a work – be it in the visual arts, theatre, literature or music – but also move between the arts through techniques of citation, transmission and reference. The conference looks at the movements of migration of gestures and asks about the epistemological levels that are formed in the process.
Gestures play a decisive role in the reflection of all disciplines of cultural studies. However, the term “gesture” must be defined differently in some cases, depending on the media context, for example for theatre, film, literature, the visual arts or music, before a profitable investigation of the migratory movements between the various spheres can take place. These forms of transfer will be the focus of this conference in order to explore the potentials of a scholarly study of gestures that transcends disciplinary boundaries.
For example, the origin of individual gesture phenomena in certain artistic media as well as the modalities of their adaptation and transformation can be investigated. The relationship between the individual arts, which varies depending on the historical context and can, for example, also take on the character of a conflictual competition or an intellectually reflected paragone, can also be more clearly contoured through this examination of gestures.
The question of whether artistic gestures can always be understood as theatrical gestures will serve as a central impetus for discussion, since they stand in a media framework that they transcend towards the recipient. At this interface, they become readable not only as an element of the event, but also as a commentary. For example, a painted gesture can be part of an iconographic form that makes a certain context of meaning recognisable in the first place, but it can equally be the expression of an emotional reaction or visual communication situation that conveys a certain perception of the subject. In both cases, the gesture functions as a genuinely staged element.
The conference puts up for discussion whether such a concept of theatrical gesture is viable as an impulse for interdisciplinary research on gesture in the arts. This question is worth asking, not only because of the complex, cross-media character of the phenomenon of gesture, but also with regard to the associated phenomena of translation and migration, which virtually challenge a consideration beyond narrow methodological and disciplinary boundaries. The conference contributions will therefore focus on the reciprocal and complex migrations, movements of influence and structural takeovers between image, stage, film and text with regard to theatrical gesture in order to grasp it as a phenomenon of interaction between the arts. The respective methodological approaches are not to be thought of loosely from one another, but in constant transdisciplinary communication.

Contributions from literary studies, art history, theatre studies, dance studies and film studies are welcome.

Submission of abstracts by 30 June to gesine.hindemith@ilw.uni-stuttgart.de