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SprechWerkstatt: from Seminar to Stage

The future teachers from the TU Chemnitz will present a scenic poem collage performed in the Chemnitz theatre KOMPLEX on the 26th of November

  • The students stage artistic speaking language and use more theatrical tools like choreography, costume and music. Photo: Dr. Wilfried Schulze

The future teachers from the TU Chemnitz created the stage play “BA-UMF” in the seminar SprechWerkstatt in the summer term 2015. This scenic poem collage will be performed in the Chemnitz theatre KOMPLEX (Zietenstrasse 32) on the 26th of November at 8 pm. Subsequently, there will be an Open Stage in which students and employees of the “Zentrum für Lehrerbildung” show entertaining sketches, songs and short plays. The entrance fee is five, reduced three Euro.

“React spontaneously, speak loud and clearly, self-confident manner” – these and other communicative abilities are said to be important for future teachers should. But how can you learn this? In order to help students, Ronald Herzog, expert on voice and rhetoric training, relies on methods and activities linked to theatre. Many exercises and pulse workshops on topics as improvisation, speaking in choir, storytelling and dramaturgy helped the students to improve communicative performing.

“The seminar was an experiment,” says Ronald Herzog. “At the beginning it was just a thought to work with theatrical tools and focus on artistic speaking. It was not sure, if the outcome is presentable.” So the students tried out different ideas. Finally, the scenic poem collage “BA-UMF” was built out of the improvisation of poems. The topic of the stage play is a meeting of different people to a tai chi course. The used texts are stylistic and textually different. Parts of it are inter alia opuses of Ernst Jandl, Bodo Wartke and Hugo Ball. All together, they build a simple plot lacking representing complex characters. “It is not a conventional play for the purpose of Shakespearian drama. It starts with the fact that we are no real actors. We stage artistic speaking language and use more theatrical tools like choreography, costume and music. We do not show acting, but play speaking,” says Ronald Herzog. Beside the theatrically performance, every member of the group works on a main focus of the production process (direction & dramaturgy, organization, music and choreography or Corporate Design). “From the choice of poems to the character development to the design of posters and the negotiation with publishers – the students did the whole production and this is a good result,” pleased Ronald Herzog.

Patricia Leichsner, future teacher of the 5th Semester, looks forward to the imminent performance with mixed feelings: “I cannot promise that we can illustrate the figures in a way the audience understand. On the other side the tension and anticipation rise to show what we have worked for such a long time,” says Patricia Leichsner.

It is not clear if the seminar SprechWerkstatt is offered again in the next semester. But it will be part in the “Center for Rhetorics, Semiotics and Multimodal Communication”, headed by Prof. Dr. Ellen Fricke, professor for German Linguistics, Semiotics and Multimodal Communication at the Institute of German Studies and Communications.

Order your ticket for the performance on 26th November 2015 via lisa.anders@s2014.tu-chemnitz.de

Information about the SprechWerkstatt: https://www.tu-chemnitz.de/zlb/studium/sprecherziehung/sprecherziehung.php#sprechwerkstatt

Further information: Ronald Herzog, telephone: 037153138447, email: ronald.herzog@phil.tu-chemnitz.de

(Translation: Lisa Anders, Dr. Henriette Dausend)

Katharina Thehos
20.11.2015

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