The Performance Practices of Jean Georges Noverre

FAIN: FA-11874-77

Shirley S. Wynne
Regents of the University of California, Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA 95064-1077)

To continue research into the work of Jean Georges Noverre, one of the great innovators and theoreticians of the 18th-century theatre, who was among the artists in residence at Stuttgart, at the court of the Duke of Wurtemberg, from 1760-1766. PI will study recently discovered manuscripts in preparation for a written work on Noverre's performance practices, and for recreating a live performance from original sources in the manner in which it was done in the Stuttgart period. Noverre's particular genius lay in composing dramatic gesture from observations of everyday life rather than the conventions of the traditional court ballet.