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Yiddish Popular Theatre, 1880-1920: Performance as Knowledge

Project description

Jewish identity takes centre stage

Amid a massive migration movement at the turn of the 20th century, the Yiddish popular theatre prospered, producing a staggering volume of entertainment consumed by millions of Jews. Most of this mass-appealing output was delegitimised by Jewish intellectuals as Shund (trash), a term that encompasses primitive, plagiarised, vulgar, and worthless art. Consequently, a valuable component of modern popular culture has been overlooked. EU-funded DYBBUK will restore this neglected yet highly influential corpus of Yiddish popular theatre and make it available for our appreciation. Focusing on the unexplored theatrical corpus of the two most prolific Shund theatre makers, Moyshe Hurwitz (1844-1910) and Joseph Lateiner (1853-1935), this project offers an integrative typological, embodied, and theoretical analysis of theatrical themes, forms, and practices.

Objective

DYBBUK will uncover and explore the popular theatre that made up the daily cultural reality of the Jewish masses at the turn of the 20th century. It will crack open the textual body of remaining musical and dramatic manuscripts, to the complete performances of this popular theatre. Amid a massive migration movement at the turn of the 20th century, the Yiddish popular theatre prospered, producing a staggering volume of entertainment consumed by millions of Jews. Most of this mass-appealing output was delegitimized by Jewish intellectuals as Shund (trash), a term that encompasses primitive, plagiarized, vulgar, and worthless art. Consequently, a valuable component of modern popular culture has been overlooked. DYBBUK will restore this neglected yet highly influential corpus of Yiddish popular theatre and make it available for our appreciation. Revising canonical cultural paradigms, DYBBUK recognizes delegitimized artistic ‘lowbrow’ theatre as a vital component in the fashioning of modernist culture. Focusing on the unexplored theatrical corpus of the two most prolific Shund authors: Moyshe Hurwitz (1844-1910) and Joseph Lateiner (1853-1935), this project offers an integrative typological, embodied, and theoretical analysis of theatrical themes, forms, and practices. The Yiddish popular theatre played a crucial role in transporting cultural styles, ideas, and products. To untangle and understand the complexity and scope of this theatre, this project devises a groundbreaking analytical and embodied toolkit for studying theatre history. We will incorporate into our analysis resources of various media, and we will reenact a forgotten Shund performance in a practice-based research. In doing so, DYBBUK will transform our understanding of popular theatre, revealing it as a preeminent ethnographic and historical source for examining the sensual and experiential dimensions of theatre, and the theatrical and cultural exchange of minorities with mainstream culture.

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Topic(s)

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ERC-STG - Starting Grant

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) ERC-2020-STG

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Host institution

TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY
Net EU contribution

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.

€ 1 221 480,00
Total cost

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.

€ 1 221 480,00

Beneficiaries (2)

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