On 3 June 2026, a workshop on the Performing Arts Thesaurus (PAT) took place from 13:00 to 16:00. The thesaurus is being developed as a new NFDI4Culture service in collaboration between the Institute of Theatre Studies at the University of Leipzig, the Performing Arts Specialised Information Service (FID DK) and TIB Hannover. The PAT is designed as a tandem project with the Performing Arts Database (PAD), which is also currently being developed within the context of NFDI4Culture; the PAT will provide controlled vocabularies for the PAD’s ontology, e.g. for professions, genres and stage types. Particular attention is paid to alignment with other knowledge organisation systems such as the Gemeinsame Normdatei (GND) or the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), on whose knowledge the PAT draws in order to supplement it and systematically organise and structure it for the performing arts. Central to the establishment of the PAT is its practical applicability for various stakeholders, including users from GLAM institutions engaged in collaborative subject cataloguing, and researchers who structure and enrich their data. The workshop marked the start of an ongoing dialogue with the theatre and dance studies community, which is to be actively involved in the design of the subject thesaurus. Representatives from research and infrastructure with proven expertise in data processing and modelling within the performing arts were specifically invited to the workshop.

In the first part of the workshop, the participants began by working individually to identify a total of 78 potential basic categories for the PAT. The basic categories were understood as those categories that generally define the perspectives from which the performing arts and their documents (e.g. programmes, playbills, records of productions or performances) can or should be described. These categories were then clustered and discussed in a plenary session. As a result, five preliminary clusters of basic categories for the PAT were identified. Building on the basic categories discussed, the second part involved a hands-on exploration – first in a second individual working phase and then in small groups – of the hierarchical structures present in existing knowledge organisation systems (GND/LCSH) in the field of the performing arts, how suitable these structures are for the PAT, and where, from the perspective of the community, there are compatibility issues. By examining the existing hierarchical structures, potential vocabulary for the PAT was simultaneously collected; this was then compiled into a model thesaurus on a just-in-time basis for the final discussion, using an internal software tool form the Performing Arts Specialised Information Service (FID DK). This model thesaurus, comprising 1,736 terms organised according to the previously developed basic categories, will not be the final PAT, but represents a further step in its development and serves as a common point of reference for future events with the community. 
During the workshop, it became clear that defining the basic categories is the central challenge of the PAT project. This is because these categories must provide a consensus solution both for subject cataloguing in GLAM institutions within the performing arts and for research data management. They must therefore meet a variety of, sometimes competing, requirements and needs. The difficulties begin with the very definition of the functions of the PAT hierarchies. What are the hierarchies intended to achieve? Should they be designed in a pragmatic manner, or should they reflect the conceptual framework of theatre studies or theatre historiography? The workshop participants agreed that the thesaurus should primarily be a working tool for cataloguing practice, designed, among other things, to enable cross-collection linking of data. The hierarchies and basic categories of the thesaurus should therefore not replicate a scientific ontological structure, but rather serve primarily as working categories for practical use. With their help, intuitive navigation through the PAT should be possible. Reducing complexity should help ensure that PAT terms are easy to find during cataloguing work. Nevertheless, the subject thesaurus must also be suitable for database projects situated directly within the academic sphere, such as the Performing Arts Database (PAD).

In total, three different approaches to establishing the basic categories were discussed: 
1) First, we considered together whether a genre-specific approach, which distinguishes between the various genres or branches of the performing arts (e.g. puppetry, dance, musical theatre, etc.), would be suitable as a basic structure for the PAT. The advantage would be that this structure could provide an intuitive framework that also functions on an interdisciplinary basis. However, there is also a significant disadvantage. The starting points for further conceptual differentiation dictated by this type of structuring would result in numerous polyhierarchies, which would unnecessarily complicate the thesaurus. This is because the terms required to describe the individual genres have significant overlaps.
2) Another approach discussed was whether the three stakeholder groups – ‘Archives’, ‘Practice’ and ‘Research’ – would be suitable as fundamental hubs. One advantage of this triad of basic categories would be a basic structure tailored to the target group. Each target group segment could immediately navigate to the vocabularies relevant to their own work. However, there would also be a need for polyhierarchical structures here, as there are sometimes significant overlaps between the areas of work of the respective stakeholder groups.
3) Finally, an entity-specific approach to defining the basic categories was discussed. The fundamental question underlying this approach would be: “What is the PAT intended to describe?” The entities identified through this question would then constitute the basic categories of the thesaurus. As this approach has the advantage of being flexible and practical, the participants in the workshop pursued it further in order to determine provisional basic categories for the PAT. 

This resulted in the following five clusters:
1.    Events/temporal level (performances, premieres, festivals, rehearsals, etc.)
2.    Places/Space/Venues (theatre buildings, institutions, public spaces, etc.)
3.    Objects/sources/documents (props, costumes, recordings, etc.)
4.    Art forms/concepts/genres (drama, dance, performance, genres, etc.)
5.    Agents/persons/professions (roles, functions, collectives, training, etc.)
Although these clusters still need to be refined, they indicate the direction the community would like to see taken regarding the level of abstraction for the basic categories of the PAT. The discussion of possible basic categories has thus provided valuable insights into the structure of the PAT, which now need to be developed in greater depth. An exploration of the hierarchical structures of the GND and LCSH has shown that a great deal of standardised terminology from the performing arts domain already exists, although systematic access to this conceptual knowledge is only possible to a limited extent in both knowledge organisation systems. Further discussion with the community is needed to identify which gaps still need to be filled. The next steps for continuing this dialogue have already been planned.

The workshop was attended by representatives from the following institutions and projects:
Deutsches Zentrum des Internationalen Theaterinstituts (ITI)/Mediathek für Tanz und Theater, Fachinformationsdienst Darstellende Kunst, Fachinformationsdienst Musikwissenschaft/musiconn.performance (SLUB Dresden) Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der Universität Leipzig, KOLK 17 | Figurentheater & Museum, Theatermuseum Düsseldorf, Trier Center for Digital Humanities der Universität Trier, Universitätsbibliothek J. C. Senckenberg