In search of absence: Creation strategies in scenic works of Heiner Goebbels

The present study examines Heiner Goebbels’ intermedial strategies in selected stage works, with particular attention to the role of absence as a central aesthetic and creative principle. From the perspective of intermedial studies, it investigates the creation strategies developed by the composer and theater director Heiner Goebbels (b. 1952, Germany) in his scenic works, and, in particular, in three of them: Landscape with Distant Relatives (2002), Eraritjaritjaka (2004), and Stifters Dinge (2007). Taking absence as an aesthetic premise, as a creative strategy that allows for the emergence of everything that is not seen, heard, or perceived at first instance, the procedures that give rise to Goebbels’ scenic realizations are examined, and how his being a composer influences his way of directing the scene, of “composing” the scene.