Third Reading Group Oefenen Oefenen  [ˈufənə(n) ˈufənə(n)] 

Organised and moderated by: Ruth Benschop 

Second meeting: June 18th, 2026, 15:00 – 17:00 

Location: MERIAN art-science lab, University College Maastricht (UCM) Heksenstraat 8, Maastricht. Sign up by emailing: ruth.benschop@zuyd.nl 

The program line Oefenen Oefenen (pronounced as: [ˈufənə(n) ˈufənə(n)] asks questions about how in artistic (research) practices we rehearse, and what it means to learn to do so. Oefenen Oefenen is interested in a large variety of rehearsal practices such as the learning of lines, sketching or drafting, choir rehearsals, on-site run-throughs, etcetera, but also open try-outs, making-of documentaries or staged behind the scenes processes. To support and contextualize research into practices of practicing, exercising, probing, rehearsing etcetera, Ruth Benschop has started an offline reading group to which you are invited. 

The third reading group will be on the 18th of June. Before each meeting, participants will prepare by reading one or two texts (that I will share beforehand, if possible) that engage with the (broadly conceived) topic of Oefenen Oefenen. These texts may for example include academic analyses of or philosophical reflections on the rehearsal as a genre, historical or sociological contextualisations of practices of practicing, fictional evocations or how-to manuals or guides. During the reading group meeting we will then discuss the texts we have all read. You are very welcome if you have an interest in the topic, either practically or theoretically. Everyone is welcome: artists and artistic researchers of all disciplines, teachers and students in the arts, students and scholars of the arts or of rehearsal practices and any interested others. 

For this third meeting, please sign up (also if you have been before) no later than the 5^th of June to ensure your place (max 10 participants) and to receive the texts for the meeting by sending an email to ruth.benschop@zuyd.nl. For more information, reach out to me via email. Note that you can attend the meetings regularly or occasionally and that the session will proceed with a minimum of 2 participants. The meetings will be in Dutch or English, depending on participants’ preferred language and we will incorporate active translation practices depending on available expertise and requirement. 

Ruth reflects on the second meeting here:  

While before we had read analyses of artists discussing their own practices, the second reading group was focused on reconstructions of rehearsal practices by others and based on other sources. We read: 

Pellegrinelli, Carmen, and Laura Lucia Parolin (2023). “Post-anthropocentric Rehearsal Studies. A conceptual framework to account for the social and material mediations in performance-making.” Studies in Theatre and Performance 43.2: 130-154. 

Everist, Mark (2014). Rehearsal practices.  Chapter 19, The Oxford Handbook of Opera, Oxford University Press, pp 419-441. 

The first text is an ethnographic description of a contemporary play that was being created and rehearsed, focusing specifically on the mundane materiality and the way it shapes artistic choices. The second was a historical reconstruction of opera rehearsal practices in the early nineteenth century, focusing on France. Both made us wonder about how access to rehearsal is procured, and also what the time and manner of access allows one to witness, and what not. The tensions between rehearsals as behind the scenes practices that are important in light of the ensuing performance, and interest in access to and documentation of those practices was apparent in both texts. 

Pellegrinelli and Parolin gave a lovely overview of recent sociology of art and the place of rehearsal studies in relation to it. Both texts demystify the creative process, while also being interested in the artistic quality and how that emerges. However, particularly the reconstruction of theatre rehearsal practices, left us wondering about the (artistic, aesthetic, theatrical) stakes some of the decisions had for those involved in the creation of the piece. 

During our discussion, we became curious about the contexts (social, economic, cultural) in which the rehearsal practices we were reading about occurred and what those contexts matter for them. For instance, the early nineteenth century opera rehearsal and performance practices we read about, were partly determined by the way scores could (and could not) be reproduced and circulated. We also realized we had preconceptions about opera in the nineteenth century and became pleasantly intrigued by the intricacies of which different versions of the music were collected to create rehearsal scores for specific instrument groups, or rôles, allowing historians to reconstruct those practices from the annotated collections. Finally, we wondered who the implied interlocuters of these texts were, wondering what practitioners might take from them.