Observation Task

The task is to observe an actor/actress & his/her costume during a play. That shall help to develop a feeling for the meaning of costumes on theatre stages & to outline what distinguishes such a costume from everyday clothes.
With other words, our main goal is to understand what a costume defines & how it characterizes a figure on the stage.

Next to a description of the context, our specific questions to answer are:

  • What is the costume? Which impression does it create?
  • How is the development of the costume during the piece? How does it change in relation to the actor’s/actress’ role?
  • How underlines the costume the the role the actor/actress is playing? How supports it the actor/actress? What other support is needed?
  • How influences the costume the posture & movement of the actor/actress?
  • How interacts the actor/actress with his/her costume?

Our approach is doing a direct observation in the field* as we went one-time group-wise to the theater house in Jena – some teams watched Delirious Jena and some visited the piece Die Disziplinaranstalt. Every team consisting of three students followed one actor/actress during the play & observed his/her role with focus on the costume worn in order to answer the questions & goals described above. Before that, we asked the stuff of the theatre house for the permission to take recordings (notes & photos) during the pieces.
After the observation students have analyzed & presented their observations group-wise. Please see their results under the following posts in this category.

 

*cp. Yvonne Rogers et al Interaction design : beyond human-computer interaction. 3rd ed. Chichester: Wiley, 2011. p. 248 ff.