Prototype Models of Intermedial Praxis (Wagner, Kandinsky, Brecht) and Their Resonances in Contemporary Performance

Richard Wagner’s artwork of the future, Kandinsky’s stage composition and Brecht’s dialectical theatre are considered prototype models of intermedial theater, especially where these models relate to the question of inter-art relations in the performing arts. Kandinsky and Brecht oppose the illusionism of Wagner’s dramatic theater, which mainly aims at presenting an imaginary world in which the spectator is completely immersed. In contrast, Kandinsky advocates a lyrical theater in which the artist expresses his vibrations of the soul and thus moves the spectator in a similar way, and Brecht an epic or rather a dialectical theater in which social issues are raised to motivate the spectator to societal change. Referring to specific examples, it will be demonstrated how the three models still resonate in contemporary intermedial theatre practices. In this context, the intermedial manifests itself mainly in the principles of both-and (e.g., private-public, present-absent) and performativity (how the material and sensorial are engaged) as will be explained in more detail and illustrated by the examples discussed.