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This post highlights activities and results of the project Navigating through Digital Knowledge Models ran by the THEATRALIA Working Group (WG) between 2023 to 2025. The project leaders were Pr. Cécile Chantraine Braillon (WG Chair, La Rochelle Université) and Dr. Anamarija Žugić Borić (WG Chair, DARIAH-HR). This project was funded by the Working Groups Funding Scheme 2023-2025.
Launched within the DARIAH-EU infrastructure, the THEATRALIA WG brings together a network of approximately 50 researchers from across Europe and beyond. The initiative was born out of a growing need to adapt research and archival practices in the performing arts to the digital age.
To address this challenge, THEATRALIA adopted a phased, methodical approach. Phase 1 (2021–2023) focused on conducting a comprehensive landscape study, which revealed a significant gap: the absence of descriptive standards tailored to the specific needs of the performing arts. Phase 2 (2023–2025), which was the focus of the WG’s latest project funded by the DARIAH-EU WG Funding Scheme, aimed to develop practical digital solutions to address this shortfall—both in terms of describing performing arts archives and the field itself.
The project’s objectives were twofold: first, to design a digital descriptive model that reflects the unique characteristics of performing arts archives; second, to develop a controlled vocabulary that enhances semantic precision and interoperability across platforms and disciplines. To meet the first objective, the team conducted a thorough review of existing metadata practices and selected Dublin Core as a flexible foundational model. Thirty-eight metadata fields were retained and redefined with domain-specific guidance, ensuring alignment with established standards and ontologies.
In parallel, the team developed a prototype thesaurus. Rather than constructing a comprehensive ontology, THEATRALIA chose a pragmatic approach, building a structured, multilingual thesaurus using OpenTheso—an RDF-compatible platform. Terms were carefully extracted and standardized from authoritative glossaries and dictionaries. To date, around 1,400 terms have been compiled, with nearly 100 already accompanied by definitions and bibliographical informations.
The Spectator’s School: Digitizing Research in Performing Arts (November 21-22, 2024 | Lille, FR CNRS SCV, France)
Several tangible results have been achieved. THEATRALIA successfully followed its roadmap to develop digital description languages for the performing arts, including a Dublin Core-based metadata model and a domain-specific thesaurus, both designed in accordance with FAIR principles and set to be released by mid-2025. These resources aim to support archivists, researchers, and cultural institutions in organizing, describing, and analyzing performing arts materials in a sustainable and interoperable digital environment.
Those resources/deliverables of the project are already available in open access in HAL SHS here:
Cécile Chantraine-Braillon, Fatiha Idmhand, Emeline Jeanne Jouve, Jorge Dubatti, Marie Lavorel, et al.. Multilingual Thesaurus of Performing Arts (Version 1). 2025. ⟨halshs-05156229⟩
Cécile Chantraine-Braillon, Anamarija Žugić Borić. Dublin Core for Performing Arts. 2025. ⟨hal-05214127⟩
In addition to the creation of those resources, the project also catalyzed new international collaborations, extending its network to include scholars from Israel, Indonesia, and Latin America, and led to integration within large-scale research infrastructures. Notably, THEATRALIA is involved in OSCARS (Open Science Cluster’s Action for Research and Society) through the OASIS project (2025–2026), which promotes innovation in open audiovisual science. It also secured additional funding from the Institut des Amériques for the PERFORMA project (2025–2026), focused on developing a multilingual thesaurus (French–Spanish–English) dedicated to the performing arts.
From March to November 2024, THEATRALIA organised six training workshops—online, hybrid, and in-person—on digital description standards (such as Dublin Core), thesauri management tools (e.g. OpenTheso, Protégé), and domain-specific vocabularies. Over 75 participants attended. One of these sessions, focused on the e-spect@tor video annotation tool, was held during the international conference The Spectator’s School: Digitizing Research in
Performing Arts (Lille, Fédération CNRS Sciences et Cultures du Visuel, 21–22 November 2024), co-organised by THEATRALIA. The work will result in multiple scholarly outputs, including a peer-reviewed article in the ASPA Journal (open access) and a collective volume to be published by Éditions des Archives Contemporaines (EAC/open access). Together, these outcomes significantly contribute to the development of robust digital infrastructures for the performing arts and the broader humanities
community.
Ultimately, THEATRALIA has provided the performing arts research community with robust, interoperable tools to address both the conceptual and technical challenges of digital archiving and analysis—marking a significant step forward in the digital transformation of the field.
Find out more about the THEATRALIA WG and how to get involved here.
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