The Didascalic Imagination

Refigurations of the Regiebuch in contemporary postdramatic theatre

The Didascalic Imagination is a collaborative research project that investigates the changing role of the theatrical notebook in order to gain insight into the various creative processes that inform the production of theatre.

Drawings for the CIVIL warS by Robert Wilson, 1984

In order to map the refigurations of the Regiebuch, the project focuses on a carefully selected range of contemporary theatre directors, who each take up a specific position in the broad spectrum of possible uses of notebooks and other related forms of notation.

The Didascalic Imagination project is collaborating closely with the ARCH research project of the University of Athens, the University of the Peloponnese and the University of Crete. The team of ARCH is digitizing and studying the archive of the Italian company Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio.

The Didascalic Imagination is a four-year research project (2013–2017), funded by the FWO – Research Foundation Flanders. The project is supervised by Prof. dr. Luk Van den Dries (University of Antwerp) and co-supervised by prof. dr. Johan Callens (Vrije Universiteit Brussel).

The team further consists of three part-time post-doctoral researchers (dr. Thomas Crombez and Timmy De Laet / University of Antwerp and dr. Frederik Le Roy / Ghent University) and two full-time doctoral researchers (Edith Cassiers and Sara Jansen / University of Antwerp and Vrije Universiteit Brussel).