Performing Arts
Kira O'Reilly
The works of interdisciplinary artist Kira O’Reilly use the uncertain boundaries of bodies as the starting point for their enquiry. Specifically O’Reilly asks what kind of societies become possible in collaborations across species organisms and bodies and she explores these questions through sustained and experimental engagements with politics biopolitics change (social corporeal chemical reactive) and the complex relations between the human and the non-human.
This book is the first to offer an in-depth engagement with her many works across diverse formats. Bringing together writings by major artists and thinkers such as Marina Abramović Shannon Bell and Tracey Warr alongside extensive documentation of the artist’s work from two decades of practice the contributions engage with such topics as ideas of performance feminist political aesthetics biotechnical practices image-making and the intersections of humans and animals. The book also includes interviews archive material and O’Reilly’s own writings.
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The Sensible Stage
This revised and expanded edition includes two new chapters that offer an updated look at how these ideas continue to develop in contemporary art practice.
Plays in Time
Each play was developed by Theater Three Collaborative for production in New York and internationally in Italy Australia London Berlin and Paris.
Performing Exile
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.
Playwriting and Young Audiences
Despite the fact that there is a thriving presence of theatre for young people in today’s society there is however no contemporary guide dedicated to the writing of plays for young people in both professional and educational contexts. We only have to look at the colourful and compelling plays of Matilda Annie and Cinderella to realise that there is a surge in plays for the youth of today. Playwriting and Young Audiences helps to fill this gap by offering a comprehensive guide to developing subjects for young people through the use of both practical and critical advice from playwrights on all aspects of new play development.
Choreographies
Choreographer Jacky Lansley has been practicing and performing for more than four decades. In Choreographies she offers unique insight into the processes behind independent choreography and paints a vivid portrait of a rigorous practice that combines dance performance art visuals and a close attention to space and site. Choreographies is both autobiography and archive – documenting production through rehearsal and performance photographs illustrations scores process notes reviews audience feedback and interviews with both dancers and choreographers. Covering the author’s practice from 1975 to 2019 the book delves into an important period of change in contemporary British dance – exploring British New Dance postmodern dance and experimental dance outside of a canonical US context. A critically engaged reflection that focuses on artistic process over finished product Choreographies is a much-needed resource in the fields of dance and choreographic art making.
Mindful Movement
Acting and its Refusal in Theatre and Film
Acting has traditionally been considered a form of pretending or falsehood compared with the so-called reality or truth of everyday life. Yet in the postmodern era a reversal has occurred – real life is revealed as something acted and acting is where people have begun to search for truth. In Acting and its Refusal in Theatre and Film Marian McCurdy considers the ethical desire of refusing to act – which results from blurred boundaries of acting and living – and examines how real life and performance are intertwined. Offering a number of in-depth case studies the book contextualizes refusals of acting on stage and screen and engages in an analysis of fascist theatricality sexual theatricality and the refusal of theatricality altogether.
Culture War
The culture wars – intertwining art culture and politics – have sparked prominent political debates across the globe for many years but particularly in Europe and America since 2001. Focusing specifically on the experience of Denmark during this period Culture War aims to analyse and understand the rise of right-wing nationalism in Europe as part of the globalisation and mediatisation of the modern nation state and the culture war and affective politics arising from it. This culture war provides an example of an affective cultural politics in which institutional structures become entwined with media representations events and patterns of belonging.
Employing a detailed and critically reflective argument covering social media television political campaigns advertising and 'artivism' Camilla Møhring Reestorff refuses the traditional distinction between the world of visual culture and the political domain and she provides multiple tools for understanding the dynamics of contemporary affective cultural politics in a highly mediatised environment.
András Visky’s Barrack Dramaturgy: Memories of the Body
Widely considered one of the most innovative voices in Hungarian theatre András Visky has enjoyed growing audiences and increased critical acclaim over the last fifteen years. Nonetheless his plays have yet to reach a wider English-language audience. This volume edited by Jozefina Komporaly begins to correct this by bringing together a translated collection of Visky’s work.
The book includes the first English-language anthology of Visky’s best known plays – Juliet I Killed My Mother and Porn – as well as critical analysis and an exploration of Visky’s 'Barrack Dramaturgy' a dramaturgical theory in which he considers the theatre as a space for exploring feelings of cultural and personal captivity. Inspired by personal experience of the oppressive communist regime in Romania Visky’s work explores the themes of gender justice and trauma encouraging shared moments of remembrance and collective memory. This collection makes use of scripts and director’s notes as well as interviews with creative teams behind the productions to reveal a holistic insider’s view of Visky’s artistic vision. Scholars and practitioners alike will benefit from this rare English-language collection of Visky’s work and dramaturgy.
Connecting Metal to Culture
The Lived Experience of Improvisation
Freaks of History
Disability studies have long been the domain of medical and pedagogical academics. However in recent years the subject has outgrown its clinical origins. In Freaks of History James MacDonald presents two dramatic explorations of disability within the wider themes of sexuality gender foreignness and the Other. Originally directed by Martin Harvey and performed by undergraduate students at the University of Exeter Wellclose Square and Unsex Me Here analyse cultural marginalization against the backdrop of infamous historical events.
MacDonald who is cerebral palsied recognizes that disability narratives are rarely written by and for disabled people. Therefore his plays accompanied by critical essays and director’s notes are a welcome addition to the emerging discourse of Crip theory and essential reading for disability students and academics alike.
Theatre for Children in Hospital
Theatre, Time and Temporality
Theatre Time and Temporality is the first book-length exploration of the subject of temporality within theatre and performance. David Ian Rabey brings in sources ranging from medieval and Renaissance theatre to contemporary performances – in addition to recent writings from physics philosophy and psychology – to analyse ways that time can be presented communicated and transformed in the theatre. How do we experience time in theatre and how can that experience be altered or manipulated? Rabey’s analysis and exploration will spark discussion among students and scholars of drama as well as among practicing performers and dramatic writers.
Into the Story 2
Research-based Theatre
Theatrical Reality
Justitia
It's All Allowed
Adrian Howells (1962–2014) was one of the world’s leading figures in the field of one-to-one performance practice – the act of staging an event for one audience participant at a time. Developed over more than a decade Howells’s award-winning work demonstrated not only his enduring commitment to this genre of performance but also his determination to find new challenges and innovations in performance art 'intimate theatre' and socially engaged art.
It’s All Allowed edited by Deirdre Heddon and Dominic Johnson is the first book devoted to Howells’s remarkable achievements and legacy. Contributors here testify to the methodological thematic and historiographical challenges posed by Howells’ performances. Citing his permissive mantra as its title It’s All Allowed includes new writing from leading scholars and artists as well as writing by Howells himself an extensive interview scores and visual materials which together reveal new insight into Howells’s groundbreaking process.
On Repetition
Irish Drama in Poland
Applied Theatre Second Edition
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.
JARMAN (all this maddening beauty) and other plays
'Svich is one of the finest poet/playwrights of this generation. . . . She is a playwright whose plays perform like dramatic poems that are wondrous to the ear and moving to the heart.' – Seth Gordon Repertory Theatre of St. Louis
On Stage
In On Stage Mathilde Roman explores the resonances that fields of theatre – stage décor space gaze and more – have in the practice of video arts. Using these notions of theatre both as points of reference and as a prism through which video installation can be approached Roman concentrates on questions often overlooked by art historians theorists and critics. These include questions of exhibition architecture display viewer experience temporality and the importance of the gaze. Each chapter is articulated around analyses of video installations created by artists from Michael Snow to Maïder Fortuné and Dan Graham to Laurent Grasso. With a preface by Mieke Bal On Stage is an important contribution to the fields of art history and film studies.
Locating the Audience
Magnet Theatre
Cape Town’s Magnet Theatre has been a force in South African theatre for three decades a crucial space for theatre education performance and community throughout a turbulent period in South African history. Offering a dialogue between internal and external perspectives as well as perspectives from performers artists and scholars this book analyses Magnet’s many productions and presents a rich compendium of the work of one of the most vital physical theatre companies in Africa.
Creative Communities
This is the first major collection to reimagine and analyse the role of the creative arts in building resilient and inclusive regional communities. Bringing together Australia’s leading theorists in the creative industries as well as case studies from practitioners working in the creative and performing arts and new material from targeted research projects the book reconceptualizes the very meaning of regionalism and the position – and potential – of creative spaces in non-metropolitan centres.
The Only Way Home is Through the Show
Lois Weaver is one of the world's leading figures in feminist and lesbian performance a true pioneer in the growing field. This book offers the first book-length assessment of her career and work tracing its history aesthetics principles inspirations innovations and more. Contributors include Weaver's most important collaborators from throughout her career as well as many of the leading feminist theorists journalists and performers of the past forty years. The book also includes interviews not just with Weaver but also with her partner in life and performance Peggy Shaw and groundbreaking theatre maker Muriel Miguel. The result is a book that is truly unprecedented a lavishly illustrated and expertly curated celebration of an incredible career.
Theatre for Youth Third Space
Meyerhold and the Cubists
This book offers a rich analysis of collage practices in the theatre of Vsevolod Meyerhold. Focusing on the philosophical and formal tenets of the form and supporting her analysis with wide-ranging examples from both theatre and fine art Amy Skinner develops collage as a framework for reading the whole of the theatrical experience from scenography and mise-en-scène to text and spectatorship. An innovative exploration of the influence of collage on twentieth- and twenty-first-century theatre Meyerhold and the Cubists will be essential reading for theatre scholars and practitioners alike.
Karaoke Idols
Most ethnographers don’t achieve what Kevin Brown did while conducting their research: in his two years spent at a karaoke bar near Denver Colorado he went from barely able to carry a tune to someone whom other karaoke patrons requested to sing. Along the way he learned everything you might ever want to know about karaoke and the people who enjoy it.
The result is Karaoke Idols a close ethnography of life at a karaoke bar that reveals just what we are doing when we take up the mic – and how we shape our identities especially in terms of gender ethnicity and class through performances in everyday life. Marrying a comprehensive introduction to the history of public singing and karaoke with a rich analysis of karaoke performers and the community that their shared performances generate Karaoke Idols is a book for both the casual reader and the scholar: a fascinating exploration of our urge to perform and the intersection of technology and culture that makes it so seductively easy to do so.
A Journey of Art and Conflict
A Journey of Art and Conflict is a deeply personal exploration of David Oddie’s attempts to uncover the potential of the arts as a resource for reconciliation in the wake of conflict and for the creative transformation of conflict itself. It began when Oddie seeing the fractured world around him asked himself what he could do to help; that question set him off on travels around the world including to Palestine Kosovo South Africa India Northern Ireland Brazil and other places. In each location he met with local people who had suffered from conflict and worked with them to forge artistic networks that have the potential to transform their situation.
Utopia
Shakespeare Valued
Taking a comprehensive critical and theoretical approach to the role of Shakespeare in educational policy and pedagogy from 1989 (the year compulsory Shakespeare was introduced under the National Curriculum for English in the United Kingdom) to the present Shakespeare Valued explores the esteem afforded Shakespeare in the British educational system and its evolution in the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. Sarah Olive offers an unparalleled analysis of the ways in which Shakespeare is valued in a range of educational domains in England and will be essential reading for students and teachers of English and Shakespeare.
A Reflective Practitioner's Guide to (Mis)Adventures in Drama Education - or - What Was I Thinking?
Theater of War
For five years Meredith Davenport photographed and interviewed men who play live-action games based on contemporary conflicts such as a recreation of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden that took place thousands of miles from the conflict zone on a campground in Northern Virginia. Her images speak about the way that trauma and conflict penetrate a culture sheltered from the horrors of war. Bringing together a series of two dozen photographs with essays discussing and analysing the influence of the media particularly photographs and video on the culture at large and how conflict is 'discussed' in the visual realm Theater of War is a unique look at the influence of contemporary conflicts and their omnipresence in the media on popular culture. Written by an experienced photojournalist who has covered a variety of human rights issues worldwide this book is an essential addition to the library of anyone interested in the confluence of war and media.
Theatre in Passing 2
This book discusses spaces of performance from formal opera houses to parks and graffiti around the world and is a companion to Theatre in Passing: A Moscow Photo-Diary. Drawing once again on Michel de Certeau’s notion of a 'second poetic geography' this new volume examines prominent theatrical destinations – New York London and Paris – along with others that are often overlooked including Canada Mexico and Turkey. In addition to indoor theatres the book covers a variety of outdoor theatrical spaces as well as street theatre. Like its predecessor Theatre in Passing 2 is richly illustrated with photographs by the author and provides fascinating insights on the intersection of performing arts visual culture and photography.
Performance Art in Ireland
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.
Dramaturging Personal Narratives
How do people identify locate or express home? Displaced exiled colonized and disenfranchised people the world over grapple with this question. Dramaturging Personal Narratives explores the relationship between personal and cultural identity by investigating how people perceive and creatively express self home and homeland through showcasing a variety of innovative artistic processes and resulting projects. Written in clear and accessible language this book will appeal to professional and community based artists who work in a wide variety of genres scholars from creative fields and both students and teachers at all levels of education who are interested in learning more about generating developing and disseminating artistic work inspired by personal narratives.
Pleading in the Blood
Ron Athey is an iconic figure in contemporary art and performance. In his frequently bloody portrayals of life death crisis and fortitude in the time of AIDS Athey calls into question the limits of artistic practice. These limits enable Athey to explore key themes including gender sexuality radical sex queer activism post-punk and industrial culture tattooing and body modification ritual and religion. This landmark publication includes Athey’s own writings commissioned essays by maverick artists and leading academics and full-colour images of Athey’s art and performances since the early 1980s. The diverse range of artistic and critical contributors to the book reflects Athey’s creative and cultural impact among them musician Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons who contributed a foreword.
Ivar Kreuger and Jeanne de la Motte
Anthem Quality
Thought of most often in the context of the Olympics or other sporting events national anthems are a significant way for a nation and its citizens to express their identity and unity. Despite their prevalence anthems as an expression of national self-image and culture have rarely been examined—until now. Anthem Quality analyzes the lyrics of many anthems in order to explore their historical and contemporary context. Christopher Kelen’s research reveals how many of the world’s most famous and best-known national anthems including “The Marseillaise” “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “God Save the Queen” deal with such topics as authority religion and political devotion.
Dance, Somatics and Spiritualities
This anthology negotiates the influential yet silent educational presence of spiritualities within the field of somatic movement dance education internationally. The expressive and integral nature of spiritual experience remains academically undefined and peripheral to our understanding of creative practice. Lack of theoretical rigour as well as a lack of a substantive definitional and methodological competency has resulted in spirituality being marginalised. To date important questions about how diverse spiritualities shape professional practice in the somatic movement and dance arts remain unanswered. This cutting-edge collection fills that void providing greater creative and discursive clarity.
Practising the Real on the Contemporary Stage
An analysis of reality and ‘the real’ as presented in contemporary artistic creation Practising the Real on the Contemporary Stage examines the responses given by performing arts to the importance placed on reality beyond representation. This book proposes four historic itineraries defined by the ways in which the issue of the real is addressed: the representation of the visible reality and its paradoxes the place of the real on the lived body the limits placed on representation by experiences of pain and death and those practices that denounce the real. Practising the Real on the Contemporary Stage will be warmly welcomed by scholars of aesthetics and contemporary artistic practice.
Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace
It was a scene that had many names: some original members referred to themselves as punks others new romantics new wavers the bats or the morbids. 'Goth' did not gain lexical currency until the late 1980s. But no matter what term was used 'postpunk' encompasses all the incarnations of the 1980s alternative movement. Some Wear Leather Some Wear Lace is a visual and oral history of the first decade of the scene. Featuring interviews with both the performers and the audience to capture the community on and off stage the book places personal snapshots alongside professional photography to reveal a unique range of fashions bands and scenes.
A book about the music the individual and the creativity of a worldwide community rather than theoretical definitions of a subculture Some Wear Leather Some Wear Lace considers a subject not often covered by academic books. Whether you were part of the scene or are just fascinated by different modes of expression this book will transport you to another time and place.
The Reflexive Teaching Artist
The Reflexive Teaching Artist invites Teaching Artists at all levels of experience to consider the power of reflective practice. Kathryn Dawson and Daniel A. Kelin II offer a reflective framework – a series of foundational concepts including intentionality quality artistic perspective assessment and praxis – illuminated through reflexive case-study examples from Teaching Artists in a wide range of settings. The authors write from the dual perspectives of artist and educator to raise fundamental questions about the complex intentions relationships and function of the teaching artist in school community and professional theatre settings. Through questions guided reflection activities collected wisdom from the field and an introductory action-research model Dawson Kelin and their contributors closely examine the practice of teaching in through and about drama and theatre.
Body and Mind in Motion
The Student Actor Prepares
Anthem Quality
Anthem Quality is a book about the lyrics of national anthems. In this theoretical survey Christopher Kelen deals with the general meaning of an inter-national social phenomenon – the words we sing together with our compatriots when we assert ourselves to be national subjects.
Thought of most often in the context of the Olympics or other sporting events national anthems are a significant way for a nation and its citizens to express their identity and unity. Despite their prevalence anthems as an expression of national self-image and culture have rarely been examined – until now. Anthem Quality analyses the lyrics of many anthems in order to explore their historical and contemporary context. Christopher Kelen’s research reveals how many of the world’s most famous and best-known national anthems including 'The Marseillaise' 'The Star-Spangled Banner' and God Save the Queen deal with such topics as authority religion and political devotion.