Levende læring i kunstneriske organisationer: En undersøgelse af læringsprocesser mellem projekt og organisation på Aarhus Teater

The purpose of this thesis is to gain a better understanding of how learning
develops in artistic project based organizing. The study was conducted within a Danish institutional theater, Aarhus Theatre. Aarhus Theater has a specific kind of organizing given that new artists, new artistic directors and set designers are hired as external project staff (almost) every time a new process starts. The combination of permanent employees and freelance external artistic directors creates a tension between the (unique) project and the (permanent) organization.
The special organizing round the theater is the interaction between; on the one hand, regular (routine based) organizing and project based organizing on the other hand. This thesis contributes to a better understanding of how learning processes develops in this particular form of organizing.
The study is primarily based on management meetings and evaluative
meetings addressing the practical and managerial problems arising during the process of making performances. It is the social dynamic learning processes in meeting conversations that are the core unit of analysis in order to get a better understanding of how meanings evolve during the meetings, and how these meanings develops from meeting to meeting and create direction and action in relation to future performances. It is by exploring these meetings that connections
between the unique project and the (permanent) organization has been analyzed.
This thesis contributes to existing research on learning in project based organizing by examining the learning processes through a situational pragmatic understanding of learning. Analytically and methodically the study distinguishes by zooming in on meetings. The meetings are analyzed through an entirely processual and situational ontology. The analytic emphasis is centered round situated action unfolding in time.