International Association of Libraries and Museums of the Performing Arts
Société Internationale des Bibliothèques et des Musées des Arts du Spectacle
Performing arts and audio-visual documentation
Facing the problems of video-analysis
Théâtre vivant et documentation
Acts of the XIth International Congress of the Libraries and Museums of the Performing Arts
Actes du XIe Congrès international des bibliothèques-musées des arts du spectacle.
Copenhagen 8-14 september 1974. (Editors: Per Pio & Ev Steinaa.)
Copenhagen 1976, pp. 74-75
When I
decided to participate at this congress, I had in mind to talk to you
about
aesthetical problems of videotaped theatre performances. In this case I
intended to show you a video example, because the proof of the pudding
is in
the eating. But as I was asked to keep within limits of a 20 minutes
lecture, I
had to give up my proposition and change the subject somehow. As a
matter of
fact, I will now talk about analytical problems in general which arise
from
using video recordings of theatre performances for scientific purposes.
Since
the development of video recording, theatre research is about to change
its
object and method radically. Of course it will remain as a part of the
historical sciences. Through video analysis, however, it will become a
legitimate part of the aesthetics too. The establishment and
understanding of
theatrical categories can be done more intersubjectively than ever
before.
Expressing and studying aesthetical judgements is getting less a matter
of
belief and imagination than of careful observation and verification.
All
these dimensions will not result automatically from the videorecording
of
drama. It takes considerable efforts to let them work. Whereas some
well-equipped theatre archives fill their files with videotapes and
think of the
right cataloguing-system, there is a depressing lack of corresponding
survey
dealing with the problems of adequate video analysis, not to mention
surveys
which demonstrate important analytical results.
My
argument now is that all efforts of videotaping theatre are fruitless,
unless
it is connected with an analytical background which can only be
supplied by
eyewitnesses of the original performance.
Videotaped
theatre is neither an exhibitionable part of the original show, nor its
preservation, but an instrument or medium to fix some of its structure
and
meaning. It is nothing more than a translation into another language
like a
linguistic description, with the advantage that this translation keeps
the
condition of being audio-visual.
Different
from the average theatre-, television- and screenplay you cannot watch
a
videotaped performance in a naive way or without assumption, because it
has no
autonomy. Before you can start an analysis, you have to get to the
roots which
are the play and its production. What are the premises of both
manifestations,
what is the plot really about, how is the play composed, which are its
central
elements and how did the actual performance take care of them. And most
important: how much and where does the video picture differ from the
original?
Only
after answering these questions have you got an approach to evaluate
the
videotape which is no longer a product of its own but a vehicle. The
lasting
existence and unlimited repeatability of the videotaped picture tempts
us to
catch its pretended objectivity by describing every subtle movement or
motion.
Even if it is a simple play with simple interactions, counting the
steps of the
actors and measuring the angle of body movements make no sense. All you
get
hold of is a dull and irritating mixture of graphic designs and endless
remarks. These positive data try to pass for exactness and distract
from the
essential problem which is to find reliable explanations about the
interrelations of form and content.
Instead of reproducing a performance again and again, video recording enables us to concentrate on.qualitative analysis. This is hard labor like counting and interrelating stage movements, but in a more intellectual way. Theatre tapes are by no means the most easy to get documents to get behind the style and meaning of a certain performance. But to keep videotapes in theatre archives and use them for scientific purposes is only successful when connected with an analytical background, like I said before. If this is the case, theatre tapes could be distributed all over the world. Theatre museums and libraries should be the centres of that analytical research.
Information about this site: Maria Teresa Iovinelli, Secretary General
Last updated: August 31, 2004