Att utforska i aktion: perspektiv på konstnärlig forskning genom teater = Exploration in action: perspectives on artistic research through theatre

This is a chapter (in Swedish) in a book, published by the Swedish Research Council.
The chapter sheds light on topical performance examples that meet certain criteria of artistic research, such as innovative method, new knowledge perspectives, timeliness, reiterability and public scrutiny.
But the text is interrupted by an academic who casts doubt on the notion of research, in view of the performance examples given, thus reviving the somewhat tedious debate on possible definitions of art + research. The discussion ends up, as usual, in a dead heat with no reconciliation or cooperation in sight.
The chapter then resumes a more pragmatic mode of reasoning by exemplifying a few innovative breakthroughs in the modern history of theatre, placing them in a dual historical perspective. One line of descent dates from the breakthrough of modernism in the late 1800s, while the other goes back to the post-1950s performative focus of humanities and social sciences. Given this historical impetus, it seems clear that evolving Brechtian and Beckettian theatrical traditions will eventually converge, in the form of new modes of performance that rely on innovative dramatic elements as much as on research. This international trend is not, however, discernible in today’s Swedish study programmes on performance practice, possibly because of the research requirement.