The Department for Theatre Research focuses on the study of theatre, audiovisual art, and related border phenomena. Within its interdisciplinary research it combines methods derived from theatre studies, history, sociology, media analysis and anthropology and seeks intersections with the area of artistic research – research through art. In its work it collaborates with research institutions in the Czech Republic and abroad; it also coordinates research projects carried out by the members of faculty staff.
The Theatre Faculty at JAMU (DF JAMU) also construes research as a feature of creative work, and therefore it is a member of the global art community exploring the possibilities of the so-called “artistic research” – research through art. In cooperation with teachers and students of the Faculty, the Department, in its idiosyncratic manner, develops the potential of this direction that links the process of creative work with academic discourse. The Department is also the place in which reflection and verification of this, relatively recent, discipline, is carried out in close relation to the debate that is in progress abroad.
Bádání zaměřené na zrod a formování Osvobozeného divadla v letech 1925–1929 a osobnosti spjaté s avantgardou.
Výzkum zaměřený na otázku, jak se ovlivňují a inspirují média rozhlas a film a jak to obohacuje umělecký účinek obou médií.
Taking into account the importance of understanding theatre and audiovisual art within the broader theoretical and philosophical context, the Department also develops original reflection of the position of art and its research in contemporary world. One of the directions of this reflection is the deconstruction of modern aesthetics which replicates the boundary between culture and nature (Bruno Latour). Its aim is to re-evaluate the work of art, which it approaches as an event representing embodied human existence. Such work is then understood as a locus of interpersonal and intercultural dialogue.
A team of researchers is collecting data for planned studies of selected outstanding figures from the Theatre Faculty. The study will focus on the pedagogical activities of people involved in the birth of individual fields of study at the Theatre Faculty.
2022–2024
Current project
Interní grant FRVČ JAMU, 2022–2024
Projekt se zaměřuje se zaměřuje na jednu z uměleckých a pedagogických osobností nedílně spjatých s novodobou historií Divadelní fakulty JAMU, prof. PhDr. Antonína Přidala. Navazuje tak na linii výzkumných aktivit zaměřených na osobnosti spjaté s Divadelní fakultou. Výzkumné řešení reaguje na skutečnost, že komplexní odborná monografie zabývající se vrstevnatým dílem, pedagogickou a tvůrčí činností Antonína Přidala dosud neexistuje. Hlavní řešitelkou projektu je Eva Schulzová.
2019–2021
Past project
Interní grant FRVČ JAMU, 2019–2021
Na základě řešení grantového projektu vznikla publikace Snít rozhlasem, ve které Eva Schulzová zkoumá, jak se ovlivňují a inspirují média rozhlas a film a jak to obohacuje umělecký účinek obou médií. Vychází ze zevrubných analýz rozhlasové tvorby filmových režisérů Woodyho Allena, Ingmara Bergmana a Federica Felliniho a zamýšlí se nad vztahem jejich rozhlasového a filmového díla. Druhou část práce tvoří komparace původních rozhlasových her Sorry, Wrong Number od Lucille Fletcher, Under Milk Wood od Dylana Thomase a Der gute Gott von Manhattan od Ingeborg Bachmann s jejich filmovými adaptacemi.
2021
Past project
Interní grant FRVČ JAMU, 2021
Kniha, jejíž vznik byl podpořen interním grantem JAMU, obsahuje studie pokrývající jednu z nejvýznamnějších událostí domácího divadelního umění: zrození a formování Osvobozeného divadla v letech 1925–1929, tedy zachycení laboratorního období původně amatérské a poté profesionální scény. Ta se rozvíjela s podporou předních osobností Uměleckého svazu Devětsil až do vyčerpání svého programu a ekonomických možností. Zakladatelské individuality Osvobozeného divadla – Jiří Frejka, Jindřich Honzl a Emil František Burian – souběžně vyzrávají v přední tvůrce domácího divadelního umění.
2019–2021
Past project
TAČR – program Éta, 1/2019 – 12/2021
A theatre group of children and teenagers with Down syndrome will be created based on our long-time experience with similar type of theatre in Theatre Aldente. Theatre skills of the actors will be continuously developed in workshops resulting in a full-fledged production featuring actors with handicap and without. The project also includes interviews with audiences and professional actors. A psychologist and a remedial teacher will cooperate to assess the impact of theatre work both on the actors with DS and the general public audience. The project outcome will be an artistic research report analysing the production of the individual performances in relation to similar theatre works home and abroad, and suggesting methods for effective social inclusion of people with DS.
Read more: www.divadloaldente.cz
2019–2021
Past project
TA CR — program Zeta, 6/2019—5/2021
This project focuses on utilizing the objective evaluation of both the performer’s and recipient’s bio-signals. Its aim is to create an educational methodology destined for the development of communication skills. The users of project results will be able to improve their public performance and shape their communication with the audience more effectively, something which is important for all areas that require presentation or persuasion.
The following universities are working together on this project: Brno University of Technology, Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts, and Masaryk University.
2018–2020
Past project
Internal Grant from FRVČ JAMU, 2018–2020
The aim of this research is to elaborate portraits of some of the Faculty’s outstanding personalities. The members of the research team focus on exploring, processing and evaluating the pedagogical activities of those figures who participated in the formation of individual fields of study at JAMU.
2016–2017
Past project
Coordinator: International Theatre Institute Berlin (2016–2017)
The project PASSAGE 23°E is a joint research project of institutions, universities, archives and artists focusing on theatre and forms of theatrical expression in the national and regional cultural areas of Central, Central Eastern and South Eastern Europe over the last twenty-five years. The project's main target is the collective development of a common information and documentation system with regards to European culture in its historical, current and future dimensions.
Participants representing JAMU:
doc. Mgr. Petr Francán
Mgr. et Mgr. Radka Kunderová
Ph.D., Mgr. Anna Lahodová
2015–2017
Past project
Czech Science Foundation, 2015–2017
investigator: doc. MgA. Marek Hlavica, Ph.D. (DIFA JAMU)
The aim of the project is a comprehensive survey of TV drama produced in the Ostrava Studio of the Czechoslovak Television from its foundation in 1955 until the establishment of its successor institution, the public service Czech TV, in 1991. The research focuses on critical analysis and interpretation of approximately five hundred drama programmes (narrative films and series) while paying particularly close attention to the examination of their ideological structures, literal and implied content, ways of representing reality and generating meanings, stereotypes, conventions and narrative models.
2013–2017
Past project
Czech Science Foundation, 2013–2016/17
Project Coordinator prof. PhDr. Josef Kovalčuk
The research project examines the work of Brno-based studio theatres from the 1970s up to the present. A team of theatrologists led by Josef Kovalčuk publishes surveys outlining the work of selected theatres (Divadlo Husa na provázku, Ochotnický kroužek, Divadlo u stolu). It also releases a series of monographs focusing on particular productions typical of the work of Brno-based ensembles (HaDivadlo, Divadlo Husa na provázku).
2012–2013
Past project
The project introduced the concept of postmemory (mediated memory) into the central European environment; the purpose of the concept in the English speaking environment being mainly the reflection of the Holocaust and its representation in the works of the authors who, unlike their ancestors, did not experience its events first hand. The participants of the project, who were predominantly of central- and east-European origin, discussed the potential of (post)memory studies for the analysis of documentary theatre in their regions.
DIFA Representative: Mgr. et Mgr. Radka Kunderová, Ph.D.
2015–2017
Past project
Czech Science Foundation, 2010-2012
Researcher: MgA. Marek Hlavica, Ph.D.
DIFA JAMU
The project focused on the examination of dramatic works of the Brno Studio of the Czechoslovak Television in the years 1961-1989. The works were analysed and compared with regards to their themes, contents, genres, geopolitical and authorial context. The researcher sought, among others, to indicate the transformations in the output of the Czechoslovak TV over the three decades that were characterized by a number of fundamental political, social, aesthetic and technological changes.
The end-result of the grant project was the monograph Dramatická tvorba brněnského studia Československé televize (1961–1989) (Dramatic Works of the Czechoslovak Television – Studio Brno (1961-1989)) issued by JAMU Publishing Centre.
2009–2011
Past project
Czech Science Foundation, 2009-2011
Project Coordinator prof. PhDr. Josef Kovalčuk
Using archival research and methods of oral history the project documented the productions of selected studio theatres in Brno. A team of theatrologists led by Josef Kovalčuk released eight publications. Two comprehensive monographs chronologically documented the work of Husa na provázku Theatre (Bořivoj Srba: Vykročila husa a vzala člověka na procházku: Pojď! [A Goose Stepped forward and Took a Man for a Walk: Go!]), and HaDivadlo (Josef Kovalčuk: Hvězdy nad Kabinetem múz [Stars above the Cabinet of the Muses]).
Five monographs on selected productions typical of the work of the ensembles represented further outcomes of the Project; these were Klára Kovářová‘s Na pohádku máje (On the May Tale), David Drozd’s Příběhy dlouhého nosu (The Long Nosed Tales), Jan Roubal’s Divadlo jako pocitový deník (Theatre as a Sensational Diary), Josef Kovalčuk and Petr Oslzlý’s Společný projekt Cesty (The Common Project Roads), Tatjana Lazorčáková: Depeše na kolečkách (A Despatch on Wheels).
2008–2010
Past project
Czech Science Foundation, 2008-2010
Researchers MgA. David Drozd, Ph.D., Mgr. Zuzana Gilarová and Mgr. Jan Zámečník, Th.D.
The project surveyed the life and work of the Brno-based philosopher and essayist Josef Šafařík (1907-1992), especially with regards to theatre. The interdisciplinary research project involved the digitization of Šafařík’s notes and their detailed inventory, the collection of Šafařík’s available correspondence, and completing the witness records of his contemporaries. Within the grant project a finished version of David Drozd’s dissertation Fenomén divadla v myšlení Josefa Šafaříka (Phenomenon of Theatre in Thinking of Josef Šafařík) was published. Two conferences on Josef Šafařík, V mezidveří kulis a smrti I a II. (Meeting on Threshold Between Backdrop and Death I and II), were held at DIFA in connection with the research project in the years 2007 and 2012.
