| This project aims to establish a covering theory for the analysis of sound in relation to text and theatrical space within a (music) theatre performance. Although much theoretical discourse on sound already exists in music theory (musicology), film studies, media and literary studies of radio art and the phonologic tradition, it is still almost unheard of to think about sound in theatre theory. The existing semiotic theories on theatre have mostly overlooked the importance and workings of sound within the processes of semiosis and perception. This study takes sound as its primary object, regarding music, noise and voice as possible manifestations of structuring sound signals in a meaningful code. Also the influence of technology and new media, which have expanded the range of aesthetic means in the significant use of sound on stage, need to be taken into account. The aim of this study is to contribute to new blending forms of sonic art, new music theatre and installation art, which are most often marginally treated in the analysis of our visual image-centred culture. For that purpose, the notion of music theatre has to be redefined in terms of performances that put sound in the foreground (and not merely as an illustration to the visual) as a means to narrate and perform a story. In these performances sound usually acquires narrative, performative, corporeal and haptic qualities, which are hardly ever analysed, because there is no theory available that offers the tools for interpretative insight to the experience of sound and its meanings. |
