Project description
When urban transformation takes centre stage
The development of the modern European city was intertwined with the rise of both state-sponsored and independent theatre institutions. But what is the role of theatre in the 21st-century city? The ERC-funded THEAGENT project argues that theatre is key to understanding the cultural politics of contemporary urban transformation. In turn, the global city and its new productive economies are key to understanding contemporary theatre. THEAGENT will develop these claims by focusing on theatre writ large, including theatre-going as a practice of urban subject formation, the aesthetic medium as a space for representing the urban, and the theatre itself as an institution. Combining ethnographic and archival research, the project will explore how theatre has shaped (and been shaped by) gentrification in five European metropoles.
Objective
Since the European Middle Ages, the fates of theatre and the city have been intertwined. Mystery plays thrived amidst the urban guilds of medieval Paris, city comedies heralded merchant capitalism in seventeenth-century London, and Ottoman shadow puppetry shaped coffeehouse culture in nineteenth-century Istanbul. The emergence of the modern European city in particular was linked to the development of both state-sponsored and independent theatre institutions; theatre and performance practices drew on the human proximity that city living made possible, and shaped the visions of cultural heterogeneity that emerged from urban cohabitation. Today, unprecedented dynamics of migration, globalization, and rapid gentrification are fundamentally changing theatre’s importance in the urban environment. Theatre and performance practices are all but absent from urban studies, however, and theatre scholarship often views the urban question through a limited analytic lens.
Combining multi-sited ethnographic and archival research, this interdisciplinary research project will focus on the key cities of London, Paris, Berlin, Warsaw and Istanbul to analyze the complicated and often ambivalent relationship between theatre practices and urban transformation in twenty-first-century Europe. Following key thematic threads like migration and memory, Theatre and Gentrification’s original case studies will illustrate the diversity of property relations and housing tenure across the European continent, as well as the complex roles that theatre and performance practices play in producing urban subjectivities and structuring the cultural politics of gentrification. Groundbreaking in its use of theatre as its vantage point, this ambitious project will change the way we think about the contradictions of culture in the twenty-first century city, from its role in securing claims to global urban stature, to its position within imaginaries of authentic local resistance.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
-
HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
See all projects funded under this programme
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
See all projects funded under this funding scheme
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2021-COG
See all projects funded under this callHost institution
Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1010 Wien
Austria
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.