Devising Theatre and Performance

The chapters in this collection explore the constellation of points where stories of individual experience and experiences are in dialogue with political, cultural and social narratives.

Encompassing themes of individual and social identities and relationships, (un)belonging, motherhood, academic lives and what it means to be an arts practitioner, these stories and accounts continue and expand the ongoing conversations of how practitioners and academics do their work. They show the ongoing need to rethink and re-examine how to do critical and engaging scholarly work. Life stories are necessarily, messy, complex, personal and often deal with experiences that have been challenging for the author in some way.

Contributions from Ross Adamson, Suzy Bamblett, Emily Bell, Jenni Cresswell, Hannah Davita Ludikhuijze, Sandra Lyndon, Vanessa Marr, Jess Moriarty, Éva Mikuska, Holly Stewart, Deirdre Russell, Louise Spiers, Lucianna Whittle.

This is the first book in a new series. The Performance and Communities Book Series celebrates, challenges and researches performance in the real world. The series will consider how contemporary performance can engage, build and learn from previous, existing, evolving and new communities of people – practitioners, academics, students, audiences.

This original and unique new book takes an integrated approach to interrogating the experience and location of the self/s within the context of performance art practice. In its framing and execution of practical exercises and focused snapshots of internationally recognized performance practice, Bacon situates their argument within the boundaries of specialism in the critical curation of performance art praxis as well as contemporary phenomenological scholarship.

Introducing the study and application of performance art through phenomenology for radical artists, educators and practitioner-researchers; this exciting new book invites readers to take part, explore contemporary performance art and activate their own practices.

Applying a queer phenomenology to unpack the importance of a multiplicity of Self/s, the book guides readers to be academically rigorous when capturing embodied experiences, featuring exercises to activate their practices and clear introductory definitions to key phenomenological terms. Includes interviews and insights from some of the best examples of transgressive performance art practice of this century help to help unpack the application of phenomenology as Bacon calls for a queer reimagining of Heidegger’s ‘The Origin of the Work of Art.’

This is an important contribution to the field, and will be welcomed by performance artists and academics interested in performance. It may also appeal to those teaching concepts of phenomenology.

It will be relevant to students of performance as well as to artists, audiences and museum goers. The approachable layout and clear authorial voice will add to the appeal for students, early career researchers and mean that it has strong potential for inclusion in undergraduate and postgraduate syllabi within the field. 

Devising Theatre and Performance is a hands-on guide for artists, students and teachers of performance at any stage of their practice. It offers a wide range of creative prompts and pathways enriched with critical thinking tools and questions, a hybrid approach Hill and Paris call ‘Curious Methods’.

This is a welcome addition to the field, created and curated by two experienced artists who have operated at the international interface of academia and professional practice for over three decades.

The collection is packed with fun, creative, thoughtful exercises distilled from over twenty years of running interdisciplinary artist workshops and teaching both devising and performance making. As well providing numerous exercises and suggestions for devising, composing and editing original works, this book offers tools for giving and receiving feedback, critical reflection and framing artistic work within academic research contexts.

Readers can choose to dip in and out, to follow the book as a course or to work section by section, focusing on organizing principles such as working from the body, working with site, working with objects or performance activism. The book includes a detailed production workbook and a practice-based research workbook you can tailor to your own projects. The 'Curious Methods' approach encourages users to take the time and space their practice deserves while offering tools, nourishment and encouragement and inviting them to take risks beyond their comfort zones. The exercises are carefully described so that they can easily be tested out by readers, and are well contextualized in relation to vivid examples from contemporary performance practice and relevant political contexts. This compelling approach goes beyond many other books on theatre devising, which merely provide performance recipes; they do so by repeatedly highlighting the vital cultural relevance and potential personal impact of the experiments that they invite us to undertake.

The primary audience for this important new book will be academics, instructors and students in courses on devised theatre, improvisation, performance art, experimental performance and practice-based research. It will be essential for classroom use, for students of theatre and performance and live art – undergraduate, postgraduate and Ph.D., teachers and all those needing strategies for getting started.

It will also appeal to readers from the broader arts, humanities and social sciences who are seeking resources for integrating creative methods into their research.

A tweet by American actor and activist Alyssa Milano, sent on October 15, 2017, opened the floodgates to an outpouring of testimony and witnessing across the Twitterverse that reverberated throughout social media. Facebook status lines quickly began to read “Me too,” and #MeToo was trending. That tweet re-launched the ‘me too’ movement, which was started in 2006 by Tarana Burke.

Performing #MeToo: How Not to Look Away does not attempt to deliver a comprehensive examination of how #MeToo is performed. What it does aim at presenting is a set of perspectives on the events identified as representative of the movement through a lens or lenses that are multinational, as well as work and analysis from a variety of time periods, written in a diversity of styles. By providing this means of engaging with examples of the many interpretations of and responses to the #MeToo movement, and by identifying these responses (and those of audiences) as provocations, of examples of how not to look away, the collected chapters are intended to invite reflection, discussion and, hopefully, incite action.

It gives writers from diverse cultural and environmental contexts an opportunity to speak about this cultural moment in their own voices. There is a wide geographical range and variety of forms of performance addressed in this timely new book. The international group of contributors are based in the UK, USA, Australia, South Africa, Scotland, Canada, India, Italy and South Korea.

The topics addressed by writers include socially engaged practice; celebrity feminism, archive and repertoire; rape/war; misogynistic speech; stage management and intimacy facilitation; key institutions’ responses; spatial practices as well as temporal ones; academic call-outs; caste/class; political contexts; adaptation of classic texts; activist events; bouffon (a clown technique) and audience response

Forms of performance practice include applied theatre, performance protest, verbatim, solo performance, institutional practice, staging of plays, street responses, academic, adaptation of classic text, play reading events and the musical.

Although there is much to read in the media and alternative media on the #MeToo movement, this is the first attempt to analyse the movement from and in such diverse contexts.

Bringing together twelve writers to speak about works they have either performed, witnessed or studied gives the reader a nuanced way of looking at the movement and its impact. It is also an incredible archive of this moment in time that points to its importance. 

Suitable for use in several graduate and undergraduate courses, including performance studies, feminist studies, sociology, psychology, anthropology, environmental or liberal studies and social history.

Essential reading for theatre workers, academics, students, and anyone with an interest in feminism, contemporary theatre or human rights. For artists considering projects that include the themes of #MeToo, and for producers and directors of such projects looking for good practices around how to create environments of safety in their organizations, as well as those who wish to organize communities of artists.

For anyone interested in learning more about how to support the movement, or an interest in the specific social narratives told in each individual chapter. For women, feminists and anyone with an interest in the issues.

Across the world, performing arts programmes are increasing in number, scope and professionalism. They attract increasing academic and media attention. Theoretical and applied research, organizational evaluation reports, documentary films and journalism are detailing prison arts and creating recognition that this body of work is becoming a valued part of the correctional enterprise. There is a growing body of evidence that suggests music, theatre, poetry and dance can contribute to prisoner wellbeing, management, rehabilitation and reintegration. Performing Arts in Prisons: Creative Perspectives explores prison arts in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and Chile, and creates a new framework for understanding its practices.

Based on more than a decade of practice, Playing for Time Theatre Company presents the reader with a rich and invaluable resource for using theatre in criminal justice contexts, exploring ideas of identity, community, social justice and the power of the arts. The book analyses and reflects upon the company's evolution and unique model of practice, with university students and prisoners working side-by-side, led by industry professionals. The work draws on diverse methodologies and approaches, with chapters written from multiple perspectives, including a forensic psychologist, director, playwright, historian, student and ex-prisoners. Crucially, the voices and reflections of participating prisoners are central to the book. Providing unprecedented access to a significant body of prison theatre, Playing for Time Theatre Company presents both an overview and analysis of an extensive body of work, as well as offering perspectives on the efficacy of arts practice in the UK criminal justice system from 2000 onwards.  

Bringing together a range of perspectives to examine the full impact of political, socio-economic or psychological experiences of exile, Performing Exile: Foreign Bodies presents an inclusive mix of voices from varied cultural and geographic affiliations. The collected essays in this book focus on live performances that were inspired by living in exile. Chapters blend close critical analysis and ethnography to document and interrogate performances and the contexts that inform them. 

In a world where exiled populations continue to grow, the role of art to document and engage with these experiences will continue to be essential, and this diverse book offers an important model for understanding the rich body of work being created today.

A PDF version of this book is available for free in open access via the OAPEN Library platform, Performing Exile. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License and is part of Knowledge Unlatched.

Six years after its initial publication, Applied Theatre returns with a second edition. As the first book to assist practitioners and students to develop critical frameworks for implementing their own theatrical projects, it served as a vital addition to this area of growing interest, winning the Distinguished Book of the Year award from the American Alliance for Theatre and Education. Editors Monica Prendergast and Juliana Saxton have updated the book to reflect shifts in practice over the last few years in the world of applied theatre. Drawing on their backgrounds in drama education and pedagogy, the co-editors offer introductory chapters and dozens of case studies on applied theatre projects around the globe. This new edition of Applied Theatre will encourage students and practitioners to acquire a deeper understanding of the field and its best practices.

This book, the first devoted to the history and contemporary forms of Irish performance art in the north and south of Ireland, brings together contributions by prominent Irish artists and major academics. It features rigorous critical and theoretical analysis as well as historical commentaries that provide an absorbing sense of the rich histories of performance art in Ireland. Presenting diverse visual documentation of performance art practices, this collection shows how performance art in Ireland engaged with – and in turn influenced and led – contemporary performance and Live Art internationally.

Co-published with Live Art Development Agency.