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Alexandra Portmann is postdoctoral fellow at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and Queen Mary (University of London), founded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. She has studied Philosophy and Theatre Studies at the University of Bern and holds a PhD in Theatre Studies. Her Ph.D. project “The time is out of joint – Hamlet in former Yugoslavia” was part of the project “Hamlet's Odyssey”, granted by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Her dissertation received the Faculty Award for the best PhD thesis at the University of Bern (2015) and the Martin Lehnert Award from the German Shakespeare Foundation (2016). During her PhD, she was Visiting Training Fellow at the University of Kent and Fellow at the Theatre Collection at University of Cologne. From 2015-2017 she worked as a lecturer at the Institute for Media Cultures and Theatre at the University of Cologne. Furthermore, she worked as a dramaturge, director and producer for the Swiss theatre collective FRADS from 2010-2015.
Research Interests:
International Festivals, contemporary Theatre and Performance practice, Global Theatre Histories, Digital Culture, Shakespeare in Performance
Research Project:
Mobile Repertoires – European Theatre Festivals and Digital Culture
International theatre festivals are a dominant phenomenon in global theatre practice. Especially during the last four decades, the practice of coproduction between international artists, festivals and venues is emerging rapidly. The Post-Doc project focuses on international festivals in Europe, which appear as co-producer of so-called ‘new work’ within a larger network of other festivals, venues, foundations and artists. Having a closer look on documentations of festivals in archives and theatre collections, it becomes clear that festivals are usually collected and documented as single, mostly local-based institutions and therefore, hardly reveal the important practice of co-production among international players. Thus, the research project aims to close this gap when investigating the possibilities of documenting emerging production practices and dynamic professional networks in a digital age. This interconnection of the practice of co-production, mobile repertoires of ‘new theatrical work’ and digital media highlights international theatre festivals from a different angle, and therefore, moves away from an institutional history of festivals towards a history of production practices. Focusing on multiple phenomena around international festivals (such as digital sources), the Post-Doc project combines methodological reflections in Theatre and Performance Studies with Digital Humanities.